31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-Day 3: DOCTOR WHO "THE DÆMONS" (1971)

Sometimes a genre is not as cut-and-dried as it is commonly perceived to be. A case in point would be horror stories set within what is ostensibly a science-fiction context, such as IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1958), PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965), and, perhaps the ultimate example, ALIEN (1979), which some astute observer (whose name I forget at the moment; possibly Stephen King?) rightly described as "Lovecraft in Space." And one of the favorite tropes of the sci-fi/horror mashup is the explaining away of our myths and legends as being based on ancient contact with or interference from extra-terrestrial life forms, some of which bear forms only tangentially related to what primitive man could comprehend, thus their translation into myth and legend as animal hybrids or demons/devils and suchlike. Though primarily defined as a science-fiction series, Britain's venerable DOCTOR WHO television franchise — fifty-one years and going stronger than ever — has gone to the well of explaining mythic and legendary creatures and figures with scientific logic on numerous occasions, as well as veering such science-fictional myth-busting straight into the realm of outright horror, an aspect for the which the show became a cultural institution in the U.K. back in the days. Many are the tales of Britons of a certain age watching DOCTOR WHO "from behind the settee," and with installments like "The Dæmons," it's easy to understand why.

The Master, having exhausted damned near every other kind of evil shenanigans, inevitably goes straight to the source.

When a mildly-psychic neo-pagan witch in the ominously-named village of Devil's End predicts that an archaeological dig at the town's Devil's Hump area will unleash great evil and set free a gigantic horned creature — read "the Devil" — her warnings are of course ignored by the media that's covering the event for the BBC. The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) — an extra-terrestrial, quasi-immortal time/space-traveling genius who at the time worked as scientific advisor to a United Nations-related military task force — sees the broadcast and finds truth in the dismissed witch's claims, so he and his assistant, Jo Grant (Katey Manning), head out to investigate. Upon arriving at Devil's End, the pair encounters a community steeped in "the old ways" and swiftly discovers that the new local vicar is none other than the Doctor's opposite number, the Master (Roger Delgado), who is conducting what are basically Satanic rituals in a cavern conveniently located beneath the town's church. 

"Pleased to meet you...Hope you guess my name!"

Said robed and pentagram-motifed ceremonies seek to summon up Azal, an all-powerful entity from the planet Dæmos that entered our collective consciousness as, well, the Devil, and the Master covets the power over humanity that this baleful presence can grant him. Supported by gullible community members who are convinced they will benefit from his rise to dominance via the occult, along with the lethal Bok, a stone gargoyle brought to life by Azal and gifted with dis-integrator powers, the Master seems to hold the winning hand and things look quite bleak for the Doctor and the fate of our world...

The Doctor encounters Bok.

Though once-notorious for its low-budget and rather shonky special effects, DOCTOR WHO of the series' classic era often more than not compensated for its deficiencies with solid acting and scripts rife with ideas and rampant creep-factor. The atmosphere generated by its stories wove a tapestry that read like THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY gene-spliced with THE MONSTER MANUAL, or in this case a copy of Russell Hope Robbins's THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY, and that serial dipping into the bestiary of the imagination would seem to have prepared the TV audience of 1971 for a teatime kids' show taking a hard left into the diabolical. By the time DOCTOR WHO had reached its eighth year, the youngsters for whom the series was originally created had grown up with the show, reaching adolescence and beyond, and the program's material and ideas matured along with  them, so a story like "The Dæmons" is perhaps not as much of a stretch for perceived children's entertainment in Britain as one might think. Though not outright scary to grownup eyes, "The Dæmons" solidly works on a adult level when one takes the time to mull over its concepts. Extra-terrestrial demons approaching mankind as an experiment to be influenced, modern rural society only slightly removed from its pagan traditions (some of which are not at all genteel), an animated gargoyle that disintegrates people without a second thought (if it is even capable of what we consider to be actual thought processes), Azal's variable scale depending on where he is during the cycle of his three summonings (the image of his gigantic hoof prints on the countryside as seen from a helicopter is memorably foreboding), the seamless overlap of "magick" and science, all a lot heavier than the expected mere kiddie fare. 

"The Dæmons" can lazily be summed up as THE WICKER MAN for kids, with heavy lashings of

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (with the Doctor in the Christopher Lee role) and QUATERMASS AND THE PIT thrown in for good measure, but it all somehow manages to coalesce into the unique flavor that was classic-era DOCTOR WHO in such a way that it's easy to completely overlook the other, better-known works with which it shares similarities. Leisurely-paced at five half-hour chapters, "The Dæmons" is very much recommended, especially for those who only know DOCTOR WHO as of its wildly popular 2005 reboot. The differences in approach between old and new WHO are numerous, and this story serves as a strong and offbeat example of just how much TV storytelling has evolved — or de-evolved, if you ask me — when it comes to this specific franchise.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-DAY 2: THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1959)

Yeah, it pretty much sucks when your family is on the ongoing receiving end of a righteously pissed-off witch doctor's curse. You see, nearly two-hundred years before the start of the story, a Drake family ancestor wiped out every male in an Amazon Indian tribe of head-shrinkers, all save the tribe's witch doctor, who curses his male descendants to die at age 60, with their heads inexplicably removed, yet somehow  the victims' skulls end up in the family tomb. With his elder brother recently deceased under the previously described curse, Jonathan Drake (Eduard Franz), himself a hair away from sixty, has spent considerable time studying the occult in an effort to figure out what the hell is going on and how to thwart the inevitable, but exactly what hope does have have when the curse is enforced by Zutai (Paul Wexler), the terrifying immortal assistant of the curse's initiator?

Though I somehow missed this flick during my formative immersion into the genre, I rate this as a perfect film with which to get kids hooked on old school, E.C. Comics-style shudders. The operative word here is "spooky," with the film's look and atmosphere exuding a humid creepiness that really draws the viewer into the proceedings. And the comic book analogy is quite apropos as the movie has the feel of a well-thumbed cheap funny book obtained from a highway rest station during an over-long family car trip. I can't speak for you but comics of that nature saved my young sanity a good number of times during my childhood, and a tad later the same came to be said about the old shockers that used to populate horror movie showcases on local TV channels in the pre-cable days of yore. Films like this were emblematic of the kind of dark comfort one obtained from tuning in to CREATURE FEATURES, FRIGHT NIGHT, CHILLER THEATRE, and other such indoor, at-home cathode ray campfires, and the memories engendered by those stories, even the ones that kinda sucked, made eager kids into horror fans for life. Try this one out on your own spawn and see for yourself what happens. Anyway, I heartily recommend checking out THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE. It's not a life-changer but it is certainly a hell of a lot of fun.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014-DAY 1: EDEN LAKE (2008)

An appealing young couple's weekend getaway to the idyllic British countryside turns into a one-way ticket to the abyss when they run afoul of a band of out-of-control teens and their vicious dog. Trapped in the middle of nowhere by savage, sociopathic hostiles who are locals and therefore have the home advantage, only a miracle can save the young lovers, but in these days such divine intervention is in gravely short supply...

This will be a brief review because the film's plot is every bit as simple as described and American viewers are advised to think of it as a UK answer to DELIVERANCE (1972), only several degrees more severe, intense, and downright nasty. It's the old "city slickers versus evil country bumpkins" trope writ in large, mean-spirited strokes, only done with stark realism and a growing sense that  there is absolutely no way out for the protagonists. It's especially harrowing when taking into account Britain's recent social woes involving the proliferation of " Chavs," with this film utilizing that vulgar, ignorant, and loutish sub-group to maximum terrifying effect. In a society as class-based as England's, such a perceivedly-trashy and earthily tribalistic rabble is about as perfect a threat to its image and stiff upper lip propriety as an audience could hope for, and as a result EDEN LAKE is a claustrophobic and scorching masterpiece of all-too-human terror. Not for the weak, this one's recommended only for those who can take strong meat and handle frustrating acts of cruelty that'll make you want to tear your hair out and leap into the screen to kill the Chav kids with a fully-loaded nail gun. And if any of you out there have seen EDEN LAKE, please write in with your honest assessment of it. I'm curious to see what you have to say on the subject.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2014 — INTRODUCTION

Hey, dear and loyal Cine-Miscreants! October, the month that culminates in the most excellent day that is Halloween, is about to kick off, so you regulars know that means it's time once again for my annual month-long journey through the dark annals of horror cinema (and occasionally television).

Scary stories have been around as long as there have been storytellers, and a sizable segment of this planet's sentients eat up spine-chilling tales like a rapacious werewolf devours the tender flesh of an unlucky woodland wanderer, so it comes as no surprise that the horror genre has been a staple of global entertainment and has grown and thrived as the means to enthrall audiences with narratives that evolved along with us. Horror as a motion picture genre goes back to the dawn of the movies and it's been over a century since the first moving images silently flickered across the screen in the darkness as the public absorbed the wondrous diversions that unspooled. While comedies, dramas, romances, and adventure narratives held moviegoers riveted, darker, more sinister material also lurked in the indoor twilight and filmmakers were quick to realize that such chillers were a rich lode to be mined. From there the genre grew like Topsy and filled the silver screen with hordes of shambling revenants, thirsting nosferatu, eldritch demoniacal entities conjured through the wielding of forbidden rites, unrestful spectres, blasphemous man-made creatures, other-worldly wigglies that the mere sight of which drives the most stalwart of men to states of gibbering madness, medical nightmares in which our own bodies become our enemies or the healers who are supposed to grant us their aid turn their skills to dire pursuits, seemingly indestructible wielders of kitchen implements and power tools who stalk remote back-woods to prey upon randy youths, primordial throwbacks that defied extinction to terrorize swimwear-clad nubile young maidens, and even that most seemingly-mundane of threats, the unhinged murderer who walks among us and blends in while committing atrocities that would make veteran homicide detectives blanch and fall to their hands and knees while voiding the contents of their stomachs. All of those and more can be found in a richly-fetid cornucopia that often slyly reflects the needs and climate of the given era of production and examines areas of the human condition that may otherwise be un-broachable if not cloaked in shadow.

But enough of all that flowery film school yakkety-blah-blah-blah. If you've bothered to read this far, it's plain that you care about scary movies and are here to see what baleful chronicles of fright Yer Bunche will dredge up from the celluloid depths for the year of two-thousand and fourteen. For this year's selections, there is no real rhyme or reason behind my choices, though there will be the occasional thematic overlap and comparison/contrast of certain sub-groups within the genre. I will also take pains to point out that stories that are ostensibly viewed as examples of other flavors — comedy, science-fiction, "thrillers," and non-supernatural drama — can quite easily be revealed as horror to the very core, and that horror can function equally well as art or junk food for the imagination.

So sharpen your axe, dust off the Necronomicon, apply fresh rouge to grandma's mummified corpse, and make sure your homemade shroud of supple human skin is properly secured to your febrile pate. 'Tis once again the month of All Hallows' Eve and we are nothing if not prepared...

COMING SOON! 31 DAYS OF HORROR — 2014 EDITION!!!

Yes, dear Cine-Miscreants, it's that time of year again, so get ready for another round of 31 DAYS OF HORROR! This year's entries will feature another eclectic mix of classics, obscurities, oddities, and downright wastes of celluloid, all brought to you in the inimitable Cine-Miscreant manner, so see you on Wednesday!

EARLY SHORTS OF JOHN WATERS: HAG IN A BLACK LEATHER JACKET (1964), ROMAN CANDLES (1966) and EAT YOUR MAKEUP (1968) at Lincoln Center

Young John Waters, circa 1972.

Manhattan's Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center has been home to many terrific retrospectives that I've had the distinct pleasure to attend over the years, and last night was the opening evening of the first complete retrospective of the films of John Waters (which, I might add, saw several nights of its program completely sold out online in a matter of moments after tickets went on sale). I've been a slave to Waters's films since I saw the infamous (and fucking hilarious) PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) while still in high school. The film's warped and offensive sense of humor, incredibly twisted content, and in-your-face celebration of its outsider protagonists had a seismic effect on my development as a person and I unequivocally consider seeing that movie to be a life-changing experience. It also instantly rendered Waters my favorite living director and I subsequently went on to see every one of his movies, so I naturally had an interest in experiencing his rare, seldom-seen short film works. Never released on any home video format and only periodically screened when Waters had the whim to do so for friends or as a limited  part of a film series or art show, these early efforts have been the source of great curiosity among the Waters faithful, so their inclusion in the Lincoln Center retrospective is a joyous occasion indeed. The films are apparently no longer extant in their original 16mm prints but they have been preserved in digital form (presumably transferred from archival videotapes), allowing for them to be shown on the huge flatscreen TV in Lincoln Center's amphitheater.

I arrived early and picked up my pre-ordered ticket for the sold-out 6:30pm screening of FEMALE TROUBLE and then made my way across the street from the Walter Reade Theater to the amphitheater. The screening of the shorts was at 4pm and free to the public, and every seat was filled by the time the lights dimmed. Here's what transpired, and I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by what I got.

HAG IN A BLACK LEATHER JACKET (1964)   17 minutes

Sporting one of the best titles ever, this seventeen-minute experiment was shot by the eighteen-year-old director on a budget of thirty bucks — the actual figure according to Waters and, judging from what's onscreen, he's not lying — utilizing stolen film stock and starring a number of Waters's cronies, including Mary Vivian Pearce, who would later become a recurring featured player in his first five full-length films. The quasi-narrative depicts the marriage of black man to a white ballerina on the roof of John Waters's parents' house, with the ceremony witnessed by assorted weirdoes and presided over by a cross-wielding Klansman. Employing the same kind of ADD-riddled unlicensed soundtrack collage technique as later found in MONDO TRASHO (1969), the film is rough around the edges — very rough, an aspect not at all helped by the dodgy video transfer — but briskly-paced and amusing. It also definitely already has the signature feel and trashy aesthetic of Waters's later work. Oh, and it should also be noted that there is neither a hag nor a black leather jacket to be found anywhere in this film.

ROMAN CANDLES (1966)   40 minutes

Freshly kicked out of NYU film school and influenced by Andy Warhol's CHELSEA GIRLS (1966), Waters aped Warhol's split-screen technique, only going it one better by intending its three free-form non-narratives to be projected onto a trio of individual screens. The result as seen on video at Lincoln Center was a screen composed of two upper tiers of imagery atop a third, with each running a series of unconnected clips and stock footage, including snippets from EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (1958) and THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US (1956). It's dizzying and somewhat headache-inducing if one tries to follow each tier at once, but it's impressively well-constructed and never boring (which, frankly, I expected it to be), unlike many short films that bear the mark of film school influences.

EAT YOUR MAKEUP (1968)  45 minutes

The short opens with an anguished young woman crawling across sand dunes toward a shirtless young man while she repeatedly screams, "Makeup! Makeup!!! Makeup!!!"— an hilariously overwrought performance that elicited gales of laughter from the theater audience — until the mysterious man throws her a plate full of beauty products that she greedily devours. Following the credits, the short shifts location to a Baltimore park where a crazed-looking black-clad woman (Maelcum Soul) has her underlings kidnap young women off the street and take them into the woods, where they are forced to wear ridiculous outfits and repeatedly stalk a bargain basement outdoor catwalk until they model themselves to death for the amusement of a drugged-up and violent throng of spectators. The crazed modeling is periodically interrupted by the models being force-fed makeup, and diversions into fantasy and other odd attractions in what is revealed to be a boardwalk-like setup. The fantasy comes in when a wigless drag queen, played by a seventeen-year-old Divine, arrives to chat with the black-clad mistress of ceremonies and imagines herself as Jackie Kennedy riding and waving in the ill-fated motorcade as canned laughter brainlessly guffaws on the soundtrack. The sheer balls/bad taste of doing such a sequence even five years after the real-life event that shocked the nation and the world screamed Waters, and it was amazing to see something so intentionally transgressive and offensive so early in his catalog.

Dangerous filmmaking: a parodic reenactment of the Kennedy assassination — with a laugh track, no less — some five years after the dire real-life event and featuring an obese teenage Divine in drag as the First Lady. I'm amazed Waters and company were not tracked down and stoned to death for this at the time.

The boardwalk element includes a Horror House ride (whose signage proudly proclaims "It'll make you sick") that drives a patron to terrified, shrieking apoplexy and apparent death with its depictions of mundane and wholesome suburban life and American values, and would be harkened back to and inverted for the "Cavalcade of Perversion" in MULTIPLE MANIACS (1970). It all wraps up with a "happy" ending cribbed from a mashup of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty's stories, and is once again accented from start to finish with music Waters didn't bother to get the rights to use. Of the three shorts, I would name EAT YOUR MAKEUP as the most accessible of the lot and the one where Waters's later tropes first begin to coalesce. 

Totally worth paying to watch yet kindly screened by Lincoln Center at no cost to the audience, the three early Waters films are a must-see for Waters fans, provided you're lucky enough to have the opportunity to catch them. Waters has stated that they will never be made available on home video because obtaining the music rights would be prohibitive, and also, reportedly, because they are simply too embryonic and relatively crude when compared what came later. I get where he's coming from when it comes to their stylistic/aesthetic primitiveness, as he is a filmmaker whose growth in assuredness and skill is visibly trackable on a film-by-film basis, but it would still be nice to have the shorts readily available for scholarly perusal and also to make Waters completists happy. Too bad about the damned music rights, though.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

A disparate group of five very unlikely heroes — consisting of an outlaw with delusions of grandeur, a biologically-modified woman who was designed and trained to be a living weapon, a vengeance-obsessed berserker, and a bounty hunter team of a sentient tree creature and an anthropomorphized raccoon — find themselves thrown together in a deep space penal facility, from which they escape and set off in pursuit of a mysterious and incredibly valuable orb that fell into the hands of a cosmically-empowered fanatic. Said fanatic is a minion of an even more cosmically-powerful entity who wants the orb for purposes most sinister, so our hopelessly over-matched band of ragtag protagonists have a hell of a lot stacked against them, with the fate of a heavily-populated planet hanging in the balance.

With a plot that is very much the stuff of Saturday matinee space opera, this latest entry in the ever-growing tapestry of Marvel Studios' cinematic universe, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY surprised the living hell out of me by being a briskly-paced outer space actioner loaded with humor and heart to spare. Like many when this project was announced in the wake of box office juggernauts like the IRON MAN trilogy and MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, I thought bringing the distinctly C-list Guardians to the screen was a harbinger that Marvel Studios, flush with the greenbacks brought in by hit after hit after hit, must have been out of its collective mind, with this project possibly being green-lit by corporate money men who were high on fjords of high-grade cocaine. I mean, really. A big-budget movie showcasing Star-Lord — a rather nondescript and bland space hero from Marvel Comics' sometimes dodgy mid-1970's output — Drax the Destroyer (a character who really only ever served a purpose in the "cosmic" story arc that introduced him some forty years ago, yet he kept popping up over the years to ever-diminishing returns), Gamora (also introduced during a 1970's "cosmic" saga and likewise perpetually brought back to little real purpose), Groot (a reboot of one of the monster/space alien characters common to Marvel before the superhero renaissance kicked off by the success of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 back in 1961) and Rocket Raccoon (more or less self-explanatory) — seemed like box office suicide. But, as has been proven with the inter-connected Marvel narratives that have dominated the screen over the past decade, the studio knew what it was doing when it rolled the dice, and that gamble has paid off, resulting in what I am shocked to say is my favorite Marvel movie (along with the two Captain America films).

The film is certainly fun enough as a simple "gathering of the team" narrative and there's not a slow or dull moment in it, but it's especially enjoyable for us long-time Marvel fans because it glosses over the earthbound, NYC-centric setting and instead drops us into the deep end of the Marvel Universe pool that is the cosmic side of things. Anyone who grew up with stories concentrating on the A-list Marvel superheroes kicking ass all over their four-color Earth (but mostly in Marvel's signature take on New York City) can tell you what an intriguing change of pace and flavor occurred when Marvel increased its scope to depict other dimensions and intergalactic conflicts that sometimes rendered even the most impressive and powerful heroes relatively small in comparison. In the hands of creators like Jim Starlin, the "universe" part of "Marvel Universe" became explicit as opposed to implicit and with an increased scale the floodgates of imagination where opened yet further. In the case of the cinematic iteration, there have been hints at what lies beyond the confines of the Earth, and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY positively teems with far-flung technology and numerous alien sentients, all of which feels like what I get when I read such stories in the comics, and I found it delightful.

The film, while serving as another link in the mounting epic confrontation with arc-villain Thanos that will reportedly be the focus of the third Avengers movie, stands on its own as a franchise launching point — GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 has already been announced — would be quite satisfying if it ended up being a stand-alone entry. I'll let you discover its many pleasures for yourself but here are some of the elements that stood out for me:

• None of the five protagonists is particularly heroic when we first meet them and most are flat-out amoral, but they grow into straight-up and believable heroes over the course of the story.
• There's not a dull moment in the film's 121-minute running time.
• Getting me to give even half a damn about Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, was something of a minor miracle, but the film certainly did it and Chris Pratt is quite engaging in the role. Displaying a distinctly post-Han Solo quality, Quill really grows on the viewer and his Earth-style humanity grounds the film.
• The reimagined take on Drax the Destroyer really worked for me, much better than the character ever did in the comics, and pro wrestler Dave Bautista brings considerable rage along with his muscular, powerful physicality. Seemingly allergic to shirts, Drax is the kind of heavy-hitter whose every blow is so percussive that you'll swear you'd just been on the receiving end of his fury.

Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), making friends wherever he goes.

• Everybody loves anthropomorphic animals and the genetically-engineered Rocket — the "Raccoon" part of his name is never used here — is sure to be the favorite of many. Voiced by Bradley Cooper, Rocket could easily have been a nauseating attempt at cute and funny along the lines of the loathsome Jar-Jar Binks, but thanks to wholly-convincing CGI and un-forced voice acting, Rocket brings attitude and formidable tech-savvy to the crew. And when paired with the lovable Groot, Rocket pretty much steals the movie.
• Speaking of Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), the tree-man with the three-word vocabulary manages to speak volumes with Rocket serving as the linguistic bridge between Groot and the other characters (and, by association, the audience). The Rocket/Groot dynamic is (perhaps intentionally) reminiscent of the Han Solo/Chewbacca relationship, and it is quite affecting.
• Never in my wildest dreams didI expect to see Gamora "the deadliest woman in the galaxy,'" make the translation to live-action, but it has indeed happened and I am quite happy with the results. Her supporting role in Jim Starlin's classic run on WARLOCK made her a favorite during my formative years as a comics fan, and Zoe Saldana makes the character her own, imbuing her with attitude and an impressive physicality. I look forward to seeing the character explored further in upcoming films, especially her history as the adopted daughter of arch-fiend Thanos. (Minor quibble: I really wish they'd kept the signature markings around Gamora's eyes, as seen in her original comics iteration. They gave her a certain exotic reptilian quality.)

Zoe Saldana as Gamora.

• Another favorite character I never expected to see make it to the big screen is Ronan the Accuser, one of the most powerful representatives of the Kree Empire and an antagonist who over the years has morphed from outright villainous fanatic to an intriguing and noble presence. As played by Lee Pace, Ronan wields considerable gravitas and, unlike some of the other "big bads" in Marvel movies that I can name — I'm looking right at you, Malekith! — he does the polar opposite of disappoint. Introduced here as a minion of Thanos but swiftly becoming much more, Ronan is the first of the big screen iterations of a Marvel villain who truly exudes the level of raw, imposing power that makes Marvel's cosmic threats so appealing and memorable.

Already powerful as hell, Ronan's Infinity Stone upgrade could spell the end for planet Xandar...

• We get to see planet Xandar and the Nova Corps, with Glenn Close (!!!) as Nova Prime.
• An Infinity Stone figures into the plot and during the recounted history of the Stones, we get to see a Celestial. I repeat: WE GET TO SEE A FUCKING CELESTIAL. (Note: If you're a longtime comics reader, you know what Infinity Stones and Celestials are and you get why both are a very big deal within the Marvel Universe. Both require too much explanation to go into here, so I recommend consulting the internet for further information. Let it suffice to say that seeing a Celestial made those of us who knew what it was let out a collective "OH, SHIT!!!" in the theater.)
• As we discover via a running character thread, Peter Quill's late mother had pretty good musical tastes.

So, yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and I strongly expect you to dig it as well. It's suitable for kids, though there is minor profanity, and the 3D does not really add anything to the enjoyment of the film, so bear that in mind when weighing whether or not you're willing to shell out the extra cash for that technical gewgaw.

One of the aspects of the Marvel films that has come to be greatly anticipated by both dyed-in-the-wool comics fans and civilian moviegoers alike is the "Easter egg" found during the end credits of Marvel flicks since the first Iron Man installment, so the curiosity over what we'd get with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY was palpable as those in attendance at the packed Marvel screening at the Ziegfeld sat in the darkness while the credits slowly rolled. However, as this was a preview print, there was no Easter egg at the end and the entire audience let out a disappointed "Awww..." when we got bubkes. That said, as the audience filed out, I spoke with two high-ranking Marvel execs whom I've known since my days as a Bullpenner, and both of them stated that there will be a "stinger" at the end when the film is released wide to theaters this weekend.

I have a fully loaded weekend coming up, so I won't be able to see the film again as soon as I would like to, but you can bet your sweet ass that I'll be there for the first matinee next Monday! GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is a solid winner from start to finish and it gives me hope that someday I'll see the likes of Captain Mar-Vell and Adam Warlock on the big screen. (The Invaders would also be nice as a WWII period piece. Do you hear me, Marvel Studios???)

It's not every day when you see a team of mismatched Marvel space heroes strut to the musical accompaniment of the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" and it doesn't make you want to put your own fist through your skull.