Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For

BOOK TITLE: Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For

AUTHOR: Frank Miller

YEAR: 1993

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Neo-Noir

GRADE: A

 

We’ve seen the femme fatale trope play out across multiple stories, most notably in neo-Noir. When Frank Miller takes hold of the reigns for Sin City 2, it doesn’t feel stale. Ava, the femme fatale in question, comes off like a powerful character who could manipulate her way into any authoritative position. Every man she comes in contact with is wrapped around her finger, not just because of her physical appearance, but also her psychological prowess. Even if you think the femme fatale trope is problematic or overdone, there’s still something to be said for how manipulative humans can be, if not sexually, then in another way that plays into their targets’ sympathies. Femme fatales may be a male gaze character archetype, but narcissists and gaslighters are very real in our world and that’s how Ava comes off in this book. The protagonist of this story, a down-on-his-luck P.I. named Dwight McCarthy, has a history with her and knows her ins and outs. He’s still susceptible to her whims every now and then. That’s what he wrestles with throughout the story and that alone is a struggle worth reading about.

 

If you’re familiar with the gritty underworld of neo-Noir storytelling, then you’ll find everything you’re looking for in this graphic novel. I’ve already mentioned the femme fatale elements, but there’s also smooth-flowing dialogue, morally gray criminals, and fight scenes that raise the stakes through the ceiling. At first, I thought Dwight was just shrugging off his pain after getting beaten so many times in the first half of the story. Even after crashing through a window and falling onto the pavement, he walks away like it’s nothing. He had me for a minute there. But how long could he keep up his macho posturing? How long could he just suck it up and carry on before all this violence nearly does him in? You’ll get your answer in due time after reading enough of this book. I was worried that this was going to be like a WWE storyline where Triple H gets trapped in a car and dropped fifteen feet, only to come out on TV the next night with only “contusions”. Nope! It’s much worse for Dwight. There are a few times where you as a reader will doubt if he’ll be alive by the end of the story. I’m not spoiling a thing for you. If this sounds intriguing, then buy the book and read it yourself.

 

Because this is a graphic novel, all I needed was an hour and twenty minutes to read it from cover to cover. But even with this breakneck speed, it didn’t feel like I was missing out on important details or emotional moments. It was fast, but not excessively fast. It was just right for the kind of story that needed to be told. Dwight tangles with his own emotions and that plays brilliantly into the action sequences that follow his thought processes. When he takes a beating, you feel his beating. When his pain comes from within, you want to sympathize with him even though he has his rotten moments too. I questioned whether I should continue rooting for him after he shoved Ava to the ground during one of their rendezvouses. I urge you to keep reading and not give up on him so easily. With a quick reading speed, you’ll get your answers in the time you want them. Your guilt as a reader can only last so long before you see the truth about Ava.

 

Frank Miller has an edge to him and that shows in pretty much everything he writes. This brand of edginess won’t drive away his audience. In fact, it’ll be a selling point. It’s the neo-Noir grittiness that will keep you coming back for more. It can’t be a hardboiled story without a little edge every now and then. Regardless of how you feel about Frank Miller as a person, there’s no denying that he penned one heck of a story in Sin City 2. Do I want to read the first installment just out of morbid curiosity? Sure, why not? This book gets five stars out of five. No glaring flaws that I can find aside from Dwight refusing to acknowledge his extreme pain.

A History of Violence

MOVIE TITLE: A History of Violence

DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg

YEAR: 2005

GENRE: Thriller

RATING: R for violence, language, and sex

GRADE: A

A story about a diner-owner saving his establishment from a robbery would have been thrilling enough on his own. But where exactly did Tom Stall get his fighting skills from? It wasn’t just blind luck. He didn’t take martial arts courses. Maybe he was ex-military, but why would an ex-military guy suddenly have mafia goons calling him Joey when his name is clearly Tom? He’s hiding something, not only from the town that praises his actions, but also his own family. The growing tension between Tom and his family is a focal point of the story’s drama. The more that comes out about him, the more isolated he becomes from the one he loves. I was going to dock this movie a point for a sometimes slow pace, but that slow pace actually helps intensify the drama. Tension needs time to build. In the case of the audience, they’re going to feel all the hate and anger that Tom and his family feels towards the ones who wronged them…right before they implode on each other. If you have a history of violence, the cycle will eventually repeat itself. Building tension and sending anxiety through the audience are this movie’s strong suits.

But of course, you can’t call the movie A History of Violence and not have a good deal of violence in it. Tom Stall’s punches, kicks, and limb breaks are so brutal that they’re satisfying to watch as they happen to everyone who messes with his family. But the cherry on top of the blood-covered sundae came from Jack Stall, Tom’s son, who had been bullied all year at school by a redneck named Bobby and his friends. Jack just absolutely wrecked Bobby and it was so delicious to watch. As a former bullying victim myself, I love watching these kinds of scenes. Of course, Tom isn’t happy with how Jack handled it, because that’s not how his family solves problems…but Tom totally does as he slaps his son for smart-mouthing him. Pot, meet kettle. But that just widens the divide between Tom and his family, so blatant hypocrisy adds to the building tension that the movie does so well.

I won’t spoil the ending for everyone, so I’ll speak as vaguely as possible. By the time all is said and done, we don’t know if the main problem is solved. We don’t know if Jack will face repercussions other than suspension for the pounding he gave Bobby. We don’t know if Edie (Tom’s wife) can carry on with her marriage. We don’t know if Sarah (Tom’s daughter) will stop seeing monsters at night. But most importantly, we don’t know if this cycle of violence will continue or if everything falls apart. Normally, this kind of open-ended storytelling is ideal for producing a sequel, which I wouldn’t be against. But even without a sequel, this is effective storytelling because it leaves the audience with anxiety-inducing questions long after it’s over. They’re free to exercise their imaginations. It’s not even confusion they feel. It’s a genuine interest in seeing the story beyond its ninety-six minutes. By renting space in the audience’s head long after it’s over, A History of Violence truly did its job of telling an effective story.

Everybody played their roles to perfection. The violence was satisfying whenever it happened to the bad guys (Bobby included). The drama was never in a cool state even after those bad guys get their comeuppance. It started off slow, yes, but that’s something I’m willing to forgive since the rest of the movie kicked it into high gear with the action and drama. If you feel like your patience is being tested, keep watching it all the way through, because you’ll get everything you want and more…even if the ending leaves you with more questions than answers. A History of Violence gets five out of five stars.

Help Me, Walter Hollywood

 He lights a cigarette, compromises his health

Fresh lungs don’t matter in this neo-noir hell

Every day someone is murdered and forgotten

Until the corpse makes the streets smell rotten

“Help me, Walter Hollywood,” says the dame

Every transaction starts to all sound the same

An envelope of cash, smoke the last of the ash

Hope to god her lover isn’t thrown out like trash

But before he slings the questions around town

Obligatory sex scene with hushed moaning sounds

Almost makes the lover a complete afterthought

But there are bills to be paid, killers to be caught

Every fedora-wearing wise guy takes a swing

Until Walter’s eyes water, nose bleeds, ears ring

Anymore snooping and he’ll be full of bullets

Take his scalp until he’s only left with a mullet

Walter taps the dame up for a little more money

She laughs like his misery and bruises are funny

Admission of failure is just another part of the job

She winks one more time and turns the doorknob

Another body just washed up on the riverbank

Bricks around his ankles ensured that he sank

His face was so familiar despite the taped mouth

And the two black eyes and his nose cut out

Finding the lover was as easy as reading the paper

Nothing about this mystery made Walter feel safer

The money he was paid made him look like a hit man

Police would arrest him, lock him up with a big man

Capitalism made people do the weirdest things

Wait tables, scrub floors, stand on the streets and sing

Taking unclean money seemed like the way out

Why isn’t the dame’s freedom in any kind of doubt?

It’s a system that abuses everyone who struggles

Locks up the failures with big men who snuggle

Gangsters and politicians sip from a glass of wine

And every femme fatale continues to look so fine

"100 Bullets: Samurai" by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso

I once made a journal post on DeviantART about how the prison system in America is a fucking joke since criminals leave in a worse state of mind than when they entered. After reading “100 Bullets: Samurai”, I don’t feel any better about the prison system being fixed anytime soon. In this graphic novel, you’ve got prisoners beating on each other like war drums, prison guards beating them with even more sickening violence, “fresh fish” being treated like animals, and that’s just the first half of the book. The second half deals with the back story of a cop killer named Jack who was introduced to a “zoo” where wild tigers are butchered for meat and trophies. From beginning to end, this graphic novel is a violent assault that takes over your senses and makes you feel like there’s not one ounce of hope left in this world. If nothing else, it’s a wakeup call to the reader to stay out of prison and stay even further away from the life of a degenerate criminal. Once you enter the criminal underworld, there’s very little chance that you will escape with your bones intact or your sanity preserved. But let’s not forget that this story is called “100 Bullets”, which means of course that there are, hello, 100 bullets somewhere in this long narrative. The title of this series refers to a special kind of bullet that isn’t traceable by any crime lab or medical examiner. No matter who gets shot or who’s doing the shooting, the user of these bullets will get off Scott free if there aren’t any other witnesses who can corroborate his murderous actions. While these bullets won’t do any good to a guy behind bars (where surprise searches with latex gloves are quite frequent), it’ll do that same guy wonders when trying to foil the tiger slaughtering business funded by a corrupt cop. But here’s where the story gets interesting. If the bullets are untraceable, how did Jack end up behind bars? Take note that this particular graphic novel is part of a larger series and takes place in the lower 40 issues. If you want to know the whole story, you’ve got a lot of comic books to collect, buddy. If you’re ready for a violent thrill ride with sex, drugs, and murder written all over it, you’d better get started on that collection. It may cost you a shit ton of money since there are a lot of graphic novels in the “100 Bullets” series, but I guarantee it’ll be worth it. You don’t even have to read them in order, this one is almost standalone in nature. Almost. Do yourself a favor and grab this graphic novel from your local bookstore or library. You may be sick to your stomach or paranoid out of your mind afterwards, but such is the way of a novel that packs a stiff punch.

　

***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Homeland security is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic and crazy as saying military intelligence or the US Department of Justice.”

-Mumia Abu Jamal-

"Joker" by Brian Azzarello

You don’t really need any confirmation as to how creepy The Joker can be. Just buy a copy of this graphic novel and look at the cover. That is not a mouth anybody would want to kiss, unless of course they were bulimic and needed a reason to throw up. Looking at the cover by itself, do you think that The Joker is someone you want to hang around with? Jonny Frost seems to think so, but even he has his pants-pissing moments when trying to figure him out. The Joker will step on graves, slash throats, pump people full of lead, and any other form of hideous torture that will earn him the control of Gotham City he once had. These underworld kingpins made the mistake of taking over the criminal activity while Joker was locked up in Arkham Asylum. Not very smart! Dead bodies are piling up everywhere and it all happens under the naïve Jonny Frost’s watch, who once said himself that The Joker is like a disease spread around Gotham City to which there is no cure. Sure, Batman can come in at the most inopportune time and save the day, but you know what? His nemesis will keep coming back for as long as he needs to. That’s how on edge the citizens of Gotham need to be, as well as Jonny Frost. It’s that level of creepiness that brings out the gruesome nature this graphic novel has to offer. You never know when The Joker is going to strike or why he does it in the first place, but you know it will happen eventually. Combine this frightening aura with a neo-noir backdrop and you’ve got a formula for a successful graphic novel. Noir is supposed to be a dark genre to begin with. Shadows cover the characters in order to retain their element of surprise for when they eventually come back into the light and scare the living crap out of whoever’s in front of them. If you need a reference, think of “Batman: The Animated Series” and turn the rating up to somewhere between TV-14 and TV-MA. If you’re not shitting your pants just from reading this graphic novel, you need to eat more vegetables.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“On your own admission, you raised up the knife. And you brought it down ending another man’s life. When it was done, you just threw down the blade while the red blood spread wider like the anger you made. I don’t want this anger burning in me. It’s something from which it’s so hard to be free. And none of the tears that we cried in sorrow or rage can make any difference or turn back the page.”

-David Gilmour singing “Murder”-