More than just a revenge flick

The movie "Rolling Thunder" is one of those gems that you just don't hear about. At least I hadn't heard of it until my good buddy J.R. brought it over for us to watch.

William Devane was perfect as the man who survived being a POW in Vietnam and is trying his god-damnedest to make it back in "the world". His wife has moved on and he doesn't really know how to relate to her anymore anyway. Tommy Lee Jones' character came back from captivity with him and he also has no idea how to lead a normal life. His wife and family are trying really hard to be loving and happy and are also trying to pretend that nothing is wrong. They are both completely numb, but go through the motions without complaint.

It takes murder, torture, and mutilation to push these men into action, but once the action is needed, they both slide so easily into combat mode that you can actually see the relief on their faces that they are going into life-threatening battle rather than having to face another day of forced normality.

Q. Tarantino called it "the best revenge movie", but it is so much more. My favorite moment in the whole damn thing is when Devane tells Jones that he's about to take on a whole bunch of baddies across the border and Jones replies simply, "I'll get my gear."

That's all he has to say and it speaks volumes. Young TLJ was amazingly skilled from early on. Compare him in this to his charming character in Eyes of Laura Mars. Both great but completely different multi-layered performances of complex characters. He's one of the few actors that can emulate pure visceral anger without changing his expression. Not one clench or furrow.

The violence is hard and is neither 80's fun, 90's slick, nor 00's stylish. It hurts to watch. There's no way to watch it and feel that it glorifies violence. The men don't treat the women very well at all and you know it's because the war and the torture stole their ability to relate to anyone except for someone who's been through the same thing.

I highly recommend this movie to fans of movies.

Trivia: The opening theme, "San Antone" was also used in my favorite movie of all time, "The Ninth Configuration" AKA "Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane".

Karate Kid, IF "Similar" and SCBWI Tokyo Art Show

The Karate Kid changed my life. The movie, of course. Not the Legion of Superheroes comic character. I'm watching it right now as I type this blog and I was thinking about how many of my perceptions about karate were shaped by Mr. Miyagi. I was never big on "sports" movies, I never saw Rocky. But I knew what it was like to be the little guy. The new kid on the block. And I knew what it was like going up against an institutionalized system of separating the "winners" from the "losers". Luckily, I had friends in and out of school that liked me for who I was and not for who I desperately thought I wanted to be. It took me a little while and Karate Kid 2 to realize what I did want. The summer that KK2 was the summer where I decided to take control of my life and stopped worrying about what the @$$holes thought. It wasn't even a gradual thing. Once I had made that decision, suddenly things started changing around me. I had confidence and that made it ea

Starry-eyed heroes of Akira 'Leiji' Matsumoto

Hello, friends and manga-philes. You probably know that my interest in Japan was originally fueled by a combined interest in Japanese animation and martial arts. My interests expanded somewhat over the years, but one big change happened about the age of 15 when I bought my first Japanese collected comic. From that moment on, I became more interested in comics than animation and eventually after moving to Japan, I started to collect the comics of Mr. Leiji Matsumoto . At first, I was put off by the heavy-lined art and blocky characters, but the more I got into the stories, the less I cared about the style. Eventually, though, I started to appreciate the artistry much in the same way it took me a while to warm to Jack Kirby's art. Like most Leiji fans, I was heavy into Space Cruiser Yamato , Captain Harlock , Queen Emeraldas , and finally, Galaxy Express 999 . These comics were created in the 70's and are representative of Matsumoto's style of that time. After

DSC Danny Trejo, Coolest Badass Ever

Watching Dead in Tombstone starring Danny Trejo, I was inspired to focus on this drawing more than the movie. Still, I'm glad Señor Trejo gets to be the star these days.

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