I know this is old, but maybe you haven't come across it yet - It's the "official ninja webpage", and it's cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.



http://realultimatepower.net/



Facts:

1. Ninjas are mammals.

2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.



Have fun,

Dok.



I got so pumped I almost kicked my mom right in the face!

Related posts:

1. Ask a Ninja!
2. Ninja facts
3. 3 Reasons to Own a Wii: Ninja Pirate Dodgeball

Daredevil #74-75

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Alex Maleev



The Decalogue arc finishes here with these last two issues, and it's bittersweet as hell. Hell's Kitchen. Whatever.



Murdoch has been in the room the whole damn time, gettin' ninja without being ninja, as he's quick to clarify, and he calls our mystery man on his bullshit right quick. The confrontation s fluid and heavy, so intense you can't believe you're reading it. And as Murdoch, finally truly just outing himself out of necessity and just being HONEST with the people he's been protecting, explains to the support group members what this man really is, I'm once again delighted at how Bendis not only pulls it all together in the end, which I think he generally does quite well... he does it with a third tier villain to boot. Seems our guy IS ninja... but not Hand, the throwaway mob martial arts foils in the Marvel Universe whom Wolvie kills in scores... he doesn't even get that privelage, because he was kicked out of Hand Training School. Fuck me, it's brilliant. So he conjured up this little fucker out of inexperience, bad judgment, and desparation. We finally see Murdoch hand this guy's ass to him, and then, after chasing him across the 'hood, he arrives too late to help this poor sucker, as he takes the final solution to spare himself the torture of containing the little demon thingie in his throat. The way Maleev captures the dual-death of both the dude in question, and the beastie trying to climb out of his throat. FInal scene, Murdoch appearing to toss his red knickers off a ledge, and closig a chapter, at least with this fine creative team, on the Daredevil saga.



What's next? I don't know, but I'm very curious, and concerned. That was the way to end a book. So what does the next creative team do? And is that black clad guy in all those New Avengers covers really Shiang Chi, or Murdoch, or what? When will we know? Curses!



I'm going to sorely miss these guys on this title. It's been one of the most satisfying runs I've ever read.



10/10 Clicks!

Related posts:

1. Daredevil #57
2. Daredevil #77
3. Daredevil #71

Intimates #8-9

Writer: Joe Casey

Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli/ Scott Iwahashi



Issues #8 and #9 are polar opposites of each other. Both occur during the summer break between school years at the super-powered training school the kids attend, and both touch on adolescent issues typical of what most of us experienced during our own summer breaks, I'd hazard. Not the Inner Space dimensional hopping or redneck humiliating, but the teen lust combined with dangerous amounts of free time thing. Of course, I worked every summer, putting me in the difficult position of lusting after coworkers. But here, we see series protagonist Punchy struggle with women, one from his past and the other his present. Sadly, in a move we've all seen and lambasted, he blows off the good thing and pines for the hopeless crush. However, there's another difference here: one issue has a decent script with some nuanced characterization and new territory explored, excellently rendered as the series has been throughout... and the other offers a hackneyed script with far less successful art.



First, we see Punchy's return to his hick home town, where his parents don't get it, he's bored stupid, the bully rednecks give him a hard time, and his clothing, which fit in at school, makes him stick out like a sore thumb in suburban america. We also meet a childhood sweetheart, also a super-powered teen, but this one didn't make the cut to get into the school, and got left behind. To make matters worse, she introduced him to the program in the first place. And he's blown her off. This entire issue, taking away the costumes and powers, is archtypal teen experience, and captures the struggle with identity and place that young students must address when coming home from the freedom of an away school. I experienced this alienation from a hated environment and isolation from former peers, when I returned home for a single summer after freshman year at college. It sucked ass royally. Beautifully drawn issue, very touching story, if echoing Heathers a bit, but overall, well done.



Issue #9, however, fails like heat shield tile. The new artist (fill-in, permanent, I don't know) Scott Iwahashi, isn't a slouch by any means, and offers a loose, dynamic style reminding me a little bit of Humberto Ramos without the giant feet. But chasing Giuseppe Camuncoli, it looks amateurish and awkward. It's a tough nut, following an artist with a distinct style that helped craft the look of a book like this, especially when the script is a dog, too. Tired formula, weak concepts and throwaway dialog between Punchy and Destra pushed me right out of the comfort zone in reading this issue, and I didn't need any help there, with my pre-existing allergy to the tripe-filled ticker footer that constitutes the biggest missed opportunity in the series.



So, I'm of a mixed mind on the title at the moment. If Giuseppe Camuncoli returns, I'll be interested to see where Punchy and Destra's Mystery of the Mysterious Foodstuffs adventure takes them, and especially intrigued by Duke's failure as a super-in-training. But if Iwahashi remains on the title, and Casey can't adapt the script to his strengths, he will constinue to be judged in the former artist's shadow, and it won't sustain my interest.



9/10 Clicks / 4/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Intimates #7
2. Cla$$War #6
3. Runaways #1

This is a placeholder for the forthcoming review of this eagerly-anticipated documentary. It's here in town for a few more days, and we just found out, courtesy of Monkeybites (hiding in the attic, just like Arrested Development) that it's actually in town. In short: my favorite musician built a documentary around his thang, including my other favorite musicians, 16 Horsepower... all it needs is a Radiohead Kid A background track and Grant Lee Phillips juggling in the corner, and I'd pop an O-ring.



In the meantime, here's my original write up from our Monmky+Robot Reviews blog, cicra a year ago:











Jim White's Documentary: 'The Search For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus' Reviewed

3/23/2004





The guys over at Thank You For Clapping, the European 16 Horsepower site, have published a review of Jim White's documentary, which, you know, has kept me up nights sweating about. It is being shown in a few festivals in Europe, and is supposed to be released on DVD later this year domestically. Why we couldn't just have it at our local Indie Filmhouse, I don't know. We Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby. But I would pay my way in blood to see the film that gives me both Jim White AND 16 Horsepower, let alone the Handsome Family and others. Anyway, read on and enjoy the spoilers:







Review of Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus



When photographer and filmmaker Andrew Douglas got the Jim White album 'Wrong-eyed Jesus', or to give it its full title, 'The Mysterious Tale Of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus!' he was both impressed and intrigued by it. And that's why, when he decided to make a film about the American South, he asked Jim White to be his tour guide.



In one of the first scenes, after White has decided that a battered 1970 Chevy is the most appropriate car for a road trip through the South, White is about to buy a statue of Jesus. The seller must have thought "hey, if this guy shows up here with a camera crew he must have a lot of cash to spend", because his asking price is $600. "60" White replies instantly, in deadpan fashion. "OK, 65", the seller agrees, after another nano-second. A great piece of haggling, that's for sure. But what was the point of this acquisition? Well, riding around in a car with a statue sticking out of the trunk is quite photogenic. And Douglas, with a background in music videos and TV commercials, sure does have an eye for a good frame.



One of the first people White meets, on a dirt road in the woods, is Georgia-born writer Harry Crews who has a very amusing tale about the Sears Roebuck mail-order catalogue. He couldn't relate to the people in the catalogue at all, because they all had perfect, or should we say intact, bodies. He didn't know anybody who still had all of his fingers or hadn't lost an eye. At home they started making up stories about the people in the catalogue until everybody was related to each other and arguing. Like in their world. Storytelling is a returning theme in the movie. Every Southerner seems to have the gift of gab and can tell you the most beautiful or the saddest story you have ever heard in your life. So we are told. And most of these stories naturally deal with death; family members seem to cross the Styx continually. Other favourite, and sometimes related, topics are drugs and crime. A not so favourite topic is keeping house. Nobody can be bothered to tidy his or her room, so it appears



Much of the movie takes place in Louisiana, perhaps because the swamps look great, and in Florida, White's home state. And also home to the truck stop for Jesus (where Crews turns up later quoting Goethe). Not only is Jesus moved around in the trunk, though in some shots it seems as if the statue is no longer in the trunk (damn that continuity . He is omnipresent. Not only in the Pentecostal churches, where in White's words you have to leave your mind at the door as you enter and walk in with your heart, with people whirling like dervishes (non-Muslim dervishes naturally or speaking in tongues, all inspired by the holy spirit. But nearly everybody seems to work for a gospel radio station or is "jamming for Jesus" in one way or another. Even in the juke joints, Jesus is only one day away. On Saturday night you do everything God has forbidden and on Sunday morning you go to church, repent, ask God to forgive you and everything is all right again. They almost sound like Catholics



Musicians pop up on various, sometimes unlikely, locations. The most surreal setting is that of the Handsome Family playing on the porch of a house that is completely surrounded by water, with the water almost flooding the porch. Yet they stand there playing with mikes and amps.



Besides The Handsome Family, David Johansen (formerly of the New York Dolls) and David Eugene Edwards make appearances. All not Southerners if we're not mistaken. 16 Horsepower is one of the three acts mentioned on the film poster, in The Netherlands anyway, but the band actually didn't make the cut. David Eugene Edwards did. First we hear him singing a snippet of Wayfaring Stranger as he takes his banjo for a walk in the backwoods. In another scene he's sitting on a tree trunk when a fresh young kid with a brand new bike (are the woods an ideal place to cycle? asks him if many people still play this music. Yes, it is still played in some places, Edwards answers. Then the kid asks what the symbols on the banjo are. A horseshoe and a cross. The latter because the music is played for God, says Edwards. When he is asked if he can play another tune, Edwards looks meditative for a while and then starts playing Phyllis Ann/Ruth (or Cottonmouth according to the credits). There's a fade-out after about a minute.



A Southern musician who emerges several times is Johnny Dowd. And boy, his singing is so out of tune continually it becomes hysterical. And he doesn't manage to pick up the female bartender he's trying to chat up. It certainly isn't his movie Local musicians show their skills too. Three sisters singing Knoxville Girl, an old banjo player singing Rye Whiskey ("If the ocean was full of whiskey and if I was a duck", a great way to start a verse). Two songs also covered by Nick Cave, but that must be a coincidence.



We travel as far north as Kentucky and Virginia. And generally speaking the people along the way are treated with respect. But there is one scene where a woman with a seriously disfigured face is shown in close-up for seemingly no other reason then that it makes for a nice picture. If feels like she is being displayed in a freak show. David Lynch treated the elephant man with great respect in the movie with that title. Here Douglas shows the elephant woman no respect, but exploits her, which we found rather tasteless.



We learn a lot from White. For instance that the tape (the one favoured by roadies) on Alabama cars to cover rust holes is called Alabama Chrome. And sometimes he dispenses pearls of wisdom in his own laid-back way. For instance that sometimes you have to look away to see how things really are. "If you look directly at something it is inapprehensible." Or why his cat wants to attack a chicken on TV when it has never ever seen a chicken in its life. Because it is in its blood. Like certain things are in the blood of Southerners. "The blood rules them, they don't rule the blood". At the end of the movie, when White is supposed to return the car he loaned he leaves the statue on the side of the road and drives off. And he picked the right time to return home, because the movie threatened to start repeating itsself. And that danger was avoided by leaving Jesus there like an abondonded hithchiker.



'Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus' is an entertaining movie. The director manages to bring across his point of view. But the movie at times indulges in over-romanticising the South, making it an even more Mythical place. And it's a very selective view of the South. For instance, the statue-seller was, to use the political correct term, an African American. And he is the only one, or one of a very small number of African Americans we get to see in this movie. Douglas' South is segregated and white. Even in prison. All the inmates are Caucasian. What are the chances of that, statistically speaking? Or are we being politically incorrect now?



The movie is a bit one-dimensional. Which isn't meant as a value judgement but as a neutral observation. The movie is an outsider's view by an outsider who only wants to see his romantic notion confirmed and who doesn't look beyond that. Notwithstanding that, for the most time the film makes you feel like driving an old Chevy across the former Confederate States yourself. But without that statue sticking out of the trunk :->



by TYFC





16 Horsepower.com's TSFTWEJ Documentary Review:

http://www.16horsepower.com/searchingftwejesus.html



:::



And just a little something to whet the whistle: Jim White's a-recordin' again! This from http://www.mountanalog.com:



"Also spent a week in Pensacola, Florida at the home and studio of Jim White. Turpentine he calls it . We started a record of some of Jim's stranger songs(is that possible?!) as produced by he and I and as sung by his long time friend Linda Delgado. His garage is a satisfying entanglement of yard sale suitcase amplifiers, dictaphones, bells, intermittent organs, 25 cent microphones, dusty guitars and banjos...and much more. Keep an eye on the reveries page for a photo or 2 from that excursion. Speaking of Mr. White, check out this new film called Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus". It's documentary style film which goes in search of the underbelly of the American South with Jim White as the South's ambassador. A collage of stories and testimonies, almost invariably of sudden death, sin or redemption...Heaven or Hell, with no middle ground. The Handsome Family, Trailor Bride, Johnny Dowd and 16 Horsepower are also in there."



-Tucker Martine is a producer, writer and artist who has his own band, Mount Analog. If you love Jim White, I think you'll like them as well. I surely do. A new album is in the works, with the first album available on the site.

Mount Analog:

http://www.mountanalog.com/

Related posts:

1. Sniper Jesus
2. Pirates for Jesus
3. "paper heart" review