Teens in Peril!Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

I checked out the special screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation at Anthology Film Archives over the weekend. I was turned away from Friday's show because I only showed up an hour and a half in advance, and apparently that wasn't enough to combat the Village Voice-reading hipster hordes. Saturday worked out much better for me, because my "all or nothing" girlfriend dragged me down there SIX hours before the show started. Dizzy dame.

If you don't know, The Adaptation is a shot-for-shot remake of Spielberg's first Indy flick started by 12-year olds Eric Zala (director), Chris Strompolos (producer/star) and Jayson Lamb (special effects) in 1982 and wrapped up seven years later when they were nineteen. It's painstakingly complete, with the only omission being the runway fight that ends in a gruesome propeller chopping. Everything else is there, from the rolling boulder to the Wrath of God. More words and pics after the jump.

With dark features and a soft midsection, Strompolos doesn't look much like Harrison Ford at first glance, but his performance (impression?) is pitch perfect. Ford uses his face to great comic effect in the original Raiders, and Strompolos has every eye roll, every chin rub, every grimace down perfectly. It's clear this kid spent hours in front of the mirror practicing these bits, and it reeks of awesome geeky obsession goodness.

The film is incredibly exciting, and one of the main reasons for that is the fact that the kids playing all the parts are in nearly constant danger. Not shiny, make believe, Hollywood danger, but the tangible, terrifying, seriously life-threatening kind. You'll witness gasoline-doused kids catching on fire, startled snakes snapping at adolescent faces, kids falling out of and being dragged under moving trucks... The Adaptation has every peril of Spielberg's original, except without the safety nets inherent in an adult production. There's a persistent feeling throughout this movie that you won't feel watching a Hollywood film, the feeling that at any moment the on screen action could turn into real life tragedy. Seriously, if you love seeing kids in mortal danger, skip Hostel 2 this Summer and track down The Adaptation.

Experiencing the filmmakers' insane accomplishments in extreme closeup is what lends the movie its charm. Their enthusiasm for pulling off particularly harrowing scenes is overtly visible in their performances, making it impossible to keep a smile off your own face. You never forget, no matter what's happening on screen, that you're watching kids grow up in front of your eyes. You'll remember the feeling of young love when Strompolos plants one on his Marion (Angela Rodriguez) and can't hold back an excited grin for the rest of the scene, and it's impossible to not recall your own adolescent awkwardness when Rodriguez nervously undresses in front of her male peers to recreate Marion's imprisonment by Belloq (played here by director Eric Zala). This vicarious experience persists throughout the movie, and it's a big part of what makes it such a unique moviegoing experience.

Track down a screening if you can, and stay tuned for the Daniel Clowes-penned biopic.

Weekanerd: Fake Indiana Jones, Death Note, and Zombies!

FRIDAY, JULY 6

GEEKANERD'S EVENT OF THE WEEK:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
• 8pm & Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue

A shot-for-shot remake of the classic movie, shot and starring three kids from Mississippi. Produced between 1982 and 1989, the film has only recently come to the attention of the geek elite; Eli Roth screened it in 2003 at the Alamo Drafthouse cinema, and Daniel Clowes is currently turning the story of the seven-year production into a screenplay. Don't miss this extremely rare public screening, with director Eric Zala in attendance! Tickets are $8, or $5 with student ID.

• Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey Signing
• 5-7pm @ Midtown Comics, 200 W 40th Street

Jimmy and Justin will be promoting their "The Hill Have Eyes" graphic novel, the second book out of Fox Atomic Comics. Palmiotti is also the writer of Jonah Hex, Painkiller Jane, and of course the book that's currently driving me crazy, Countdown.

SATURDAY, JULY 7

• Monster Draw-A-Thon
• 3pm-3am @ The Luna Lounge, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn

The second awesome sketch event in as many weeks! Models will be made up like ZOMBIES, so all you fans of Marvel Zombies and Walking Dead will definitely want to get in on the fun. The website promises booze and live rock music to sketch by, making the $25 dollar ticket price seem more reasonable. 21 and over.

SUNDAY, JULY 8

• Death Note: New York Premiere
• 3:30 @ The Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street.
  

Based on the super popular manga series, director Shusuke Kaneko will be on hand to introduce the film. There's also a screening on Friday the 6th at 8:30, with Kaneko doing a Q & A afterwards. Click the link for ticket info, and check out the trailer here.

Trade Secrets: Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Because I just can't bring myself to review Teen Titans #47, here's a look at one of my favorite books, Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. People I've met who've read this book seem to either love it or write it off as pretentious bullshit. And it is pretentious and it is bullshitty, but read on to discover why I have so much fun reading my copy over and over again that the pages are falling out.




I should make clear before I start talking about the plot that Velvet Glove is very much a dream narrative. Or maybe more precisely, a nightmare. Much like Sam Keith's The Maxx, the book requires a loosening of one's concept of plot progression and an embrace of dream logic. Meaning that what might at first appear to be lazy storytelling or a gross leap of logic may actually be an attempt to recreate the way a subconscious mind sometimes twists and distorts idle thoughts into a grotesque experience that only superficially resembles a story. Granted, the use of dream logic was much more user friendly in Keith's work. In The Maxx Sam Keith usually told you when he was applying a little dream logic. Velvet Glove doesn't afford you that courtesy.

The story begins with our hero, Clay, sitting down in a porno theater to watch a dirty movie. We don't know how he got here, and he seems out of place in the seedy surroundings. Something Clowes establishes in this first scene is the role of strangers in the world of his story. Almost everyone Clay meets accosts him, demanding something from him that he can't provide. He is continually emasculated and made to feel insufficient as he passes through his dark dreamy world.


As Clay sits in the theater, a new film starts and it is so hypnotic, so bizarre, so perverse that he becomes obsessed with tracking down the creators. Oh, and he may or may not recognize one of the actresses as a past love--identity and memory are hard to pin down in dreams. Things move pretty quickly from here: He gets answers from The Oracle in the Men's Room, borrows a car from a friend who's having his eye sockets cleaned out by Asiatic sea crustaceans and doesn't get far on the open road before he's picked up by a couple of hyper-masculine cops who rape a three-eyed woman (or is it the woman from the film/his lost love?) in the front seat of the squad car while Clay sits cuffed and helpless (re: impotent) in the back.

His quest turns into something of an epic, and every page of it is dense with conspiracy, paranoia, perversion, men who ridicule Clay, women who want him but look like potatoes, and apocalyptic dread. Each turn the story takes heightens the feeling of hopeless inevitability, and each character Clay encounters exploits his inadequacies. And there is often the familiar sense of a great, life-changing Answer right around the corner if only you/Clay could just reach it. But the corner has more twists than you thought it would, and somehow you've taken the wrong turn and attempts at backtracking lead you somewhere else entirely, without a clue as to what you were just doing. Were you looking for something?

NOW who's reading pretentious bullshit?

Yeah, it may be ridiculous. And it may ultimately be pointless. But it sure is fun while it lasts. In that unsettling, apocalyptic dread kind of way.