BEFORE: OK, no more relationship-related stuff. Not for a few weeks, anyway. I've drawn up my April playlist, and I found my connection to the start of the Alfred Hitchcock chain. I knew I was going to through Goldie Hawn, Mel Gibson and crime films, but then things got a little hazy. I made some co-starring connections, worked in a little nod to religion (and cults) for Easter, and linked up with an Anthony Hopkins 5-play, which neatly gets me on topic by April 29, if I stick to the plan.
However, knowing that something like "crime films" is coming up as a topic, this sometimes causes me to add films that I might otherwise pass over - and that's what happened, I sort of overbooked that topic. I was forced to jettison two crime films (moving them down into the unscheduled lower limbo of the list) along with most of the Bette Davis chain. Sorry, Ms. Davis - I will get to you, it just won't be in April. But as a result of this trimming, April now looks like a very solid line-up.
Linking from "The Tao of Steve", Donal Logue carries over.
THE PLOT: A rivalry between two comic book shop owners, which comes to a head when a collector discovers a large collection of perfectly-preserved classic comics.
AFTER: This both is and isn't about comic books, if you think about it. With several people chasing the same valuable items, it doesn't really matter what the items are. If anything, this reminded me of an updated version of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", since it's about the type of greedy animals that people turn into when they all want the same thing. (I had another reference that came to mind, but it slipped my mind - why? Because after I watched this film I read some comic books, which relaxed me and made me fall asleep.)
Yes, I am a comic book collector - though I have been neglecting my collection these past years, in order to have more time to watch movies. I've got several hundred that need bagging, and several hundred more that need to be alphabetized, and then I've got to choose a couple of longboxes to add to those that are in storage. I designated a small room for comic book storage when we bought the house in 2004, depriving my wife of a walk-in closet, and now the shelves in that room are overfull and need to be culled. DC Comics' decision to reboot their universe 2 years ago helped me decide which comics would be stored off-site - since those Batman stories now never happened, out they go. The Supermans should be joining them shortly.
So I understand the collector mentality - you don't throw things away, and you don't sell them (unless you've got doubles). You keep buying, a few every week, and you put them in a room and you try to forget about them. Repeat this process for 30 or 40 years, and you could be sitting on a nice collection. That's assuming you keep them stored properly, keep them safe from fire, floods and sunlight, and you don't keep taking them out and reading them (God forbid) getting your own dirty fingerprints all over them. (same goes for toys - but I was a silly kid, I played with all of my toys, and therefore ruined their collectable value)
The problem is, even if you've got the collector mentality, it could all be for naught. The reason that the classic comics from the 1930's and 1940's are so valuable is because of the WWII paper drives - so many copies of the older books got recycled, or weren't stored properly, and that's why some issues from back then are worth so much. Almost everything I have was mass-produced by Marvel or DC, so really, what are the chances of my collection going up in value in a very profitable way? It's best not to even think about the value, because that's all so speculative, so if I enjoy reading them, great, then the collecting is worth it. It's really someone else's problem, anyway - after I die, that is.
And that brings me back to the film - someone who collected comics since the 1950's passes away, and two rival comic book shop owners want to get their (washed & gloved) hands on his collection. But the man's mother refuses to sell, so they set out to win her over, and when that fails, they set out to do her in. Ah, that was the other film this reminded me of - "The Ladykillers".
Rivalries are exposed, alliances are formed, evil deeds are planned - and as you might hope, people with evil intent get what they deserve. This sets out to be sort of a moralistic tale, I suppose. Don't want what you can't have, or at least be more gracious about it. You have to wonder how close this hems to real life, with publishing being a dying industry and comic book stores (and book stores too) slowly going the way of the record stores, into oblivion.
I suppose at some point I'm going to have to learn how to get my comic books digitally, though I feel it won't be the same. I still prefer buying books and CDs over eBooks and music downloads. I guess I like holding a THING after I pay money, to feel like I bought something that wasn't just a load of pixels. Storage problems be damned - again, what happens to my CD and book libraries someday is somebody else's problem.
Also starring Michael Rapaport (last seen in "Hitch"), DJ Qualls, Cary Elwes (last seen in "No Strings Attached"), Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "Everybody Says I Love You"), Eileen Brennan (last seen in "Divorce American Style"), Danny Masterson.
RATING: 3 out of 10 longboxes
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