New Ernor comic explores unique world of fantasy and magic

“Welcome to the world of Ernor!”

So says the opening line on page two of the new four-month-old independently published comic book.

The comic is a unique world of magic and cultures. It is the story of two different creatures; one of them is the Fenrae (pronounced Fen-ray) who exhibit wolflike qualities but aren’t necessarily wolves, and the Chic’tr (pronounced Chick-tear), a pack of six-legged insect-like creatures who look a lot like ants and have two sharp claws at the front of their mouths that extend outward.

“Ernor” (pronounced Air-Nor) is a story of survival. The publication is a six-issue bimonthly mini-series created by Patrick and Vicky Morgan-Keith, a couple in McKinney, Texas who have been artists all their lives.

“We always wanted to do a comic book,” Patrick said. “Both Vicky and I had been doing some of our own stuff for several years.”

“We eventually found out that both of us had had this similar interest since childhood,” Vicky added. “We both had been drawing since we were kids.”

Vicky, who received her degree in art from Lamar University in Beaumont, Tx., said animation from Disney movies, Don Bluth and such Japanese animation series like “Marine Boy”, inspired her to become an artist.

Patrick’s interest in animation happened when he first saw the cartoon “Speed Racer”.

The first issue of “Ernor” debuted in most comic bookstores across the country in July. The second issue arrived in September and the third is expected to hit stores sometime in November.

The Keiths originally planned on publishing the title as a series of novels.

“We were working on the first book of that and had done twenty-some-odd chapters through the conclusion,” Patrick said. “We only had a few more chapters to go and we thought about the hassle that was involved in sending it to publishers and dealing with someone else looking at our stuff.”

After receiving a number of positive responses from friends who had seen their work, the Keiths decided to self-publish the title as a comic book and formed their own company, Mprints Publishing, which the two operate out of their own home.

The title is currently distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors, which previews upcoming issues from a number of well-known publishers that include Marvel, DC and Dark Horse as well as a number of titles from independent companies like the Keiths.

“We have total creative control over our title,” Patrick said. “They are our characters. We have the rights to the comic book. Diamond does not have any say on the subject matter.”

Diamond does, however, ask that all publishers list what age group their titles are geared for since some of the stories today fall under adult categories equivalent to R and even NC-17 movies. But “Ernor”, the Keiths say is for most everyone including young kids. It is not geared to just one group of people.

Both share the publishing duties which include the drawing of the characters, typing out the dialogue and storylines and getting the issues scanned into QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop. Between the two of them, the couple can only come out with an issue every other month.

“There are only two of us doing the comic,” Patrick said. “It takes Vicky two weeks to a month to pencil 22 pages and then it takes us ten days to a week to do the inking if we can both get involved with that. Putting it on the computer and doing the lettering takes about two days.”

The idea for “Ernor” struck about four years ago after the Keiths played a Dungeons and Dragons type game with a few friends.

“Basically, I used the D & D rules for the game that we played,” Patrick said. “I created the characters and the setting, which is now Ernor, and named mountain ranges and forests for my characters to run around in.”

The rules for Dungeons & Dragons require that the player have a list of abilities for each of the characters he or she creates, Patrick added. “We used the D & D rules as sort of a framework to tell the story so if another person was wanting to attack an opponent or hunt down an animal, they would use the game stats I gave them to see what the outcome would be.”

“You have guidelines for these characters but as far as their personality goes, that is something each player makes up,” he said.

Both Keiths agree that doing the role playing allowed other people to come up with different situations neither might have come up with on their own.

“You get a lot of ideas other than just brainstorming yourself. True, I can have that character run off and do this or I can have them react a certain way. But...if you turn that character over to somebody else, you are going to be surprised by how they react in a certain situation,” Patrick said.

Dungeons and Dragons was not the only basis for the Ernor story.

“I have read about and watched shows and videos on all different kinds of animals on the Discovery Channel but in particular, wolves, and what I wanted to do was come up with an anthropomorphic story that hasn’t been done before,” Patrick said.

In other words, the animals aren’t necessarily human beings with emotional human qualities.

“I didn’t want to do that,” Vicki said.

Patrick said the main character and hero in “Ernor”, Whitepaw, is a wolf-like creature but he and the pack are not actual wolves.

“Whitepaw is a character I created a long, long time ago and compared to some early drawings that I have done of him, he has grown up some since then,” Vicky said. “Hask is a character Patrick came up with.”

The six issue series is going to be all about Whitepaw’s pack.

“Their territory has been invaded by these antlike creatures and so Whitepaw kind of goes off on his own to get help and that’s pretty much what the story is about, the adventures that he has along the way and the other creatures of Ernor that he runs into,” Patrick said. “He is pretty much a little puppy when he starts out, so he does not really know about the world around him. He just knows about his pack.”

“Throughout the series, Whitepaw will have to deal with not just his own prejudices that he has been brought up to learn but deal with the prejudices of the other creatures and cultures in order to reach some sort of agreement so they can all work together to defend themselves against this invasion. The ant creatures aren’t evil,” Patrick warned.

And this is only the beginning.

The couple are already planning a second “Ernor” mini-series next summer.

“There is another series I would like to do but that is some time down the road,” Vicky said. “We will see how “Ernor” goes. I do have a one shot (individual story) idea I want to do. If we get far enough ahead on Ernor that I have some time to kind of slip it in, I will do that.”

The couple, who have been to two comic book conventions this year to promote their series, have also discussed doing an anthology where other authors and comic book artists will submit their own stories to be published.

“The anthology we had in mind was another anthropomorphic comic which would rely solely on contributions from other people. You would have in the same issue two to three stories; however, many would fit that are six or seven pages long,” Patrick said. “We’re not really set up at this point to start taking submissions but hopefully soon.”

The couple have already received encouraging letters from readers as far as Hawaii who commented how much they enjoyed the first issue.

Someone from Germany even sent Patrick an email to their website (http://www.ernor.com/).

The “Comic Buyer’s Guide” recently gave their seal of approval to Ernor with an A-.

The Keiths said they are confident the title will be successful.

“We’re hoping by the second storyline (second mini-series), we’ll be able to publish in color,” Vicky said. “But again, our readership may not want that. They may want us to stick with the black and white format. So far, the feedback has been really positive so we feel pretty good about it.”

Vicky said she doesn’t think there are any characters in comic books like the ones she and her husband are doing right now so to her, it seems like they are pretty original.

©11/3/99

Mental illness cited as reason for shooter’s rage

A couple days after Larry Gene Ashbrook walked into the Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas wounding several people and killing seven others before turning the gun on himself, a friend asked me if I was going to write a column about the latest in a tragic series of mass shootings.

My response to his question was what would my column be about and what would I call it? Columbine Part II? That’s what some of the Dallas area news anchors who covered the Fort Worth tragedy live the night of Sept. 15 made brief references to.

When gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado last April, one of the shooters reportedly asked a young woman if she believed in God. When she said yes, for no reason other than having no respect for human life, shot her.

I have heard and read all the reasons why mass murderers have taken their rage out on society in such places as the bell tower at the University of Texas in Austin, in restaurants like the McDonald’s in California and Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, in post offices and in day trading companies. The reasons stemmed from unemployment, family and financial problems, work related issues to relationships with women.

One possible reason for the Fort Worth shootings was that Ashbrook couldn’t hold down a job and was in danger of losing the home which his father, who died in July, was paying for.

But then I read a front-page article in the Sept. 19, 1999 edition of The Dallas Morning News that boasted the headline, “Mental illness called the root of killer’s rage.”

The article quoted medical experts who said Ashbrook suffered from “apparent mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated.” According to the story, Dr. Saundra Gilfillan, medical director of psychiatric emergency services at Parkland Memorial Hospital, said Ashbrook “fit the profile of someone at grave risk of turning to murder-suicide: paranoid, delusional, angry and isolated.”

This is not the first time mental illness has been cited as a reason for gun violence.

The Nov. 28, 1994 issue of Time stated when Joseph Wesbecker, an out-of-work pressman walked into his former place of employment in Louisville, Kentucky Sept. 14, 1989, and opened fire, he was suffering from depression at the time and was taking Prozac. Eric Harris was also reportedly taking prescribed medications.

It makes me sick when innocent lives are senselessly cut short by someone else. But what turns my stomach even more is when society and legislators play the blame game every time a mass shooting happens. When ex-Beatle John Lennon was assassinated at the hands of a deranged fan 19 years ago, Congress began passing a number of gun control laws involving the sale and use of handguns and automatic weapons, according to a December 1980 issue of Time. Not one of those laws it seems has done an ounce of good.

Someone should explain to congress that outlawing automatic weapons isn’t going to stop the mentally ill or distraught individuals from getting their hands on other types of guns.

Society fingered law enforcement agencies and high school administrators for overlooking the ominous warning signs Harris and Klebold displayed in public. It took people less than 48 hours after the Columbine shootings to phone complaints to area video stores asking they pull such films as “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from their shelves because the movies influence kids to go on shooting sprees. Society senselessly, I might add, blamed rock groups like Marilyn Manson and the Internet for the student’s actions.

It’s not law enforcement, Hollywood, high school administrators, the Internet, people who sell guns or the gun manufacturers. Not even the guns themselves.

The blame rests in the hands of the person(s) who pulled the trigger. But it’s not only limited to them. The blame also rests on the families of the individuals who did little or nothing to get the person any medical attention or failed to see the warning signs.

By all accounts it seems, the Ashbrook family certainly didn’t. According to the same Sept. 19, 1999, column in The Dallas Morning News, a spokesman for the family said they were not aware if the gunman had ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Until families of possible mentally ill people start caring about what their loved ones are going through, until parents start giving a damn about what their kids are doing under their roofs and stop worrying about their careers and material things, mass shootings like the ones at Columbine and Wedgwood Baptist Church will continue to happen.

If you notice a friend, family member, or coworker is going through some serious problems, then for God’s sake don’t ignore it and don’t make fun of them.

Get them help and if you can’t afford the medical expenses or have the time, find someone who can.

Don’t wait until a major tragedy strikes because by then, it will be too late.

When it happens again, the people I am going to blame other than the person or persons who carried out the atrocious acts will be their families who either did little to help or simply ignored them.

©11/17/99

My Personal Worst Films: Double Jeopardy (1999)

Double Jeopardy «½
R, 105m. 1999

Cast & Credits: Ashley Judd (Libby Parsons), Tommy Lee Jones (Lehman), Bruce Greenwood), Roma Maffia (Margaret), Annabeth Gish (Angie), Davenia McFadden (Evelyn), Jay Brazeau (Bobby). Screenplay by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook. Directed by Bruce Beresford.

The trailer for "Double Jeopardy" provided me with enough information to tell what the film was about without actually seeing it.

Here now is that summary for you in two sentences. A happily married woman and mother named Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) is framed by her husband (Bruce Greenwood) for his murder and sent to prison. When she gets out, Libby plots to make him pay for what he did to her despite the fact a parole officer (Tommy Lee Jones) is hot on her tail.

I had no desire to see "Double Jeopardy" until hearing the film was on its way to gross over $100 million at the box office. I have been pleasantly surprised by unexpected box office hits like this before. "The Sixth Sense" (1999) is one example and so was "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" (1995), the Steven Seagal film that critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave thumbs up to.

"Double Jeopardy" was number one on the list of top ten box office hits for three weeks in a row when it opened in theaters Sept. 24. The film, however, hasn’t received any good reviews and is critic proof, in as much as "Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999) and Adam Sandler’s "The Waterboy" (1998) were before it. Most critics didn’t give those movies glowing recommendations. The public turned a deaf ear. So, what was it about "Double Jeopardy" that made people want to see it?

Tom Borys of the box office tracking firm, ACNielsen EDI, Inc. said in the Oct. 22, 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly that “the empowered heroine (Judd) drew women.”

According to the EW column, women made up sixty percent of the movie’s $66 million box office take.

Too bad "Double Jeopardy" is nothing more than a predictable mystery that could easily pass as a forgettable movie-of-the-week were it not for the casting of stars, Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones.

As a result of the trailer, (my heartfelt thanks going out to the movie’s distributor, Paramount Pictures, for revealing everything), absolutely nothing surprised me as I watched "Double Jeopardy." I knew the minute Libby got out of prison that she would search for her husband and son. I knew that when she found them, she’d likely kill her husband and reclaim her son. I knew the Jones character would eventually believe Libby’s story that she was really framed for murder and help find her husband.

The film has two memorable scenes though which occur when Libby is in prison. An inmate (Roma Maffia) explains the “double jeopardy” law to her. She tells Libby of a loophole in the law books that says after one has been convicted of a crime one didn’t commit and have served their time in prison, that former inmate can go out and kill the person who framed them for murder and the law cannot touch them. (I would never take anything I see and hear in movies seriously but I’d be interested to know if such an actual loophole exists).

The other great scene happens soon after where Libby takes that advice, stops trying to find out where her son is, and does her six years in prison. At this point, she becomes what Sigourney Weaver has been called in the Alien movies (1979-1997), “Rambolina.” Libby makes the most of her time working out with weights and running laps around the prison yard, even in the snow.

Instead of creating odd twists and turns, director Bruce Beresford ("Driving Miss Daisy" – 1989) borrows sequences done in countless other mystery thrillers. Libby, for example, makes the mistake of picking up the bloody knife she supposedly used to kill her husband. Why is it every time someone is framed for murder in a movie, the main character picks up the murder weapon thus making he or she an automatic suspect? My guess is Hollywood scriptwriters think people like Libby do exist and are apparently that stupid. Personally, if I woke up with blood all over myself not remembering a thing that happened the night before and saw a bloody knife on the floor, the last thing I’d do is pick it up but that’s me.

Let’s not forget about the old find-the-needle-in-a-haystack routine, which is once again put to great use here. Libby carries a red umbrella and loses herself in a crowd of people who also carry umbrellas. The Jones character can’t find her because there are too many of them to chase down. This technique was done in "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1999) remake. The difference between that film and this one is I thought the scenes in Thomas Crown were executed cleverly with humorous results.

A thought came to mind watching "Double Jeopardy." I thought about the character Tommy Lee Jones played as Deputy Sam Gerard in "The Fugitive" (1993) and its unnecessary sequel, "U.S. Marshals" (1998). Gerard displayed an uncooperative, know-it-all, no-nonsense attitude in both those pictures. He assumed the characters Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes played were guilty of their crimes. Before the movies ended, Gerard believed he was chasing the wrong guy.

The only difference between the character Jones plays in "Double Jeopardy" and Sam Gerard in "The Fugitive" are they have two different names. Both characters hold the same beliefs, exhibit the same personality traits and work in law enforcement.

The filmmakers should have just made this into a third follow-up to "The Fugitive." If nothing else, I would have found it funny to learn that Sam Gerard was demoted from being a deputy to running a halfway house full of women on parole.

©10/25/99

Appreciation: The General Cinema Northpark I & II movie theater (1965-1998)

In the months since the first televised two-minute trailer of “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (1999) aired on news and entertainment shows last November, everyone I know had been asking if I, along with probably the rest of the country, was going to stand outside in line opening day May 19 this year to see the most anticipated film of probably the whole decade.

I would have said yes at the time if the Northpark General Cinemas I & II located in North Dallas was still open. If there was any theater in Dallas I would have gone to and if there was any justification to my making that day an official personal holiday to see Phantom Menace at, it would have been that one.

Hard to believe that inside the unattractive, rectangular, shaped building were two auditoriums that sat up to 1,200 people in Cinema 1 and 500 more patrons in Cinema 2, according to an Oct. 21, 1998, article in The Dallas Morning News.

I fell in love with the place in the summer of 1991 when a friend of mine and I went to see a restored print of director Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960). From that moment on my opinion changed when it came to seeing movies on the big screen.

Auditorium I at Northpark.

Northpark I & II was nothing like the movie houses I went to in the Mesquite area, all of which are now closed except for AMC 30 located off I-635 and I-80. I cannot count how many bad experiences I had going to some of those roach-infested joints where the seats were either broken or smelled of someone’s sweat or body odor from the previous person who sat in it or there were problems with the picture or sound quality. The movie screens were not exceptionally large and unlike the ones at Northpark, half of them did not cover the entire front wall.

If it wasn’t those issues I was having to put up with, it was the sounds of incredibly annoying, irritating, inconsiderate patrons, most of them kids, who constantly talked, ate popcorn, and got up in the middle of the movie headed to the bathroom.

No one ever talked as the pictures played at Northpark. If any sounds emanated from the audiences, it came from the ones who blew their noses weeping silently as they learned about the thousands of Jews who were executed by the Germans during World War II, and from the people who applauded when Ralph Fiennes’ sadistic Nazi commander died at the end of “Schindler’s List” (1993).

That was one of the few rare moments where I remember audience participation being that high other than when a few over excited fans sang 20th Century Fox’s opening prelude to “Star Wars: The Special Edition” in January 1997.

There were never any technical difficulties with the picture quality or the THX Dolby Digital Surround Sound system. What I especially loved was how there were usually only about ten or twenty people there during an afternoon matinee. You could still sit anywhere in the place without having your view obstructed, though the chairs were nothing like those found in today’s futuristic megaplexes that feature comfortable, stadium seating that go up two stories.

People from all over the Dallas area came to see movies there. But the crowds Northpark most attracted, though very few in numbers, were those hardcore film aficionados like me and senior citizens who enjoyed watching old classics on the big screen. It was a completely different atmosphere.

In summer’s past, the place would offer special midnight weekend only showings of “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982), and even “Dune” (1984). My only problem with that was I could not go because I worked 12-hour shifts Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and did not get off until 5 a.m.

There were times when management would do little promotions of the features they were showing. When “The Crucible” played there in December 1996, a rave review from The New York Times was posted on a large white cardboard display outside the entrance. When I bought advance tickets for “Star Wars: The Special Edition”, composer John Williams’ musical soundtrack was playing on the speakers outside.

Since its opening in September 1965, the cineplex was home to such critical favorites as “The Graduate” (1967), “Airport” (1970), “Network” (1976), the Star Wars trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), and “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” (1982). The most talked about incident was when the 1982 sneak preview of “Blade Runner” was shown. Sitting among the audience trying to gauge people’s reactions, unbeknownst to anyone there at the time, was actor Harrison Ford. The science fiction film was a box office flop back then but has since gained a cult following.

Since 1991, a handful of the movies I saw at Northpark was a combination of first run films, exclusives, and anniversary re-releases that included “Dr. Zhivago” (1965), “Fearless” (1993), “Giant” (1965), “The Godfather” (1972), “JFK” (1991), “Quiz Show” (1994), “Titanic” (1997), “Twister” (1996), “Vertigo” (1965), and “Waterworld” (1995). There were only three movies I saw there that did not get my seal of approval all from 1996: “The Nutty Professor”, “Sleepers” and “Up Close and Personal”.

But in the words of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill who winced at having to bid goodbye to the gangster life at the end of Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1990), “Now it’s all over.”

The General Cinema Northpark I & II closed its doors forever on Oct. 22, 1998; a victim not just to the huge twenty plus multiplex theaters movie lovers flock to now but a victim to construction and mall expansion.

In a year or so, a store or two will be built where the theater once stood.

Today, the cineplex, which sits across the street from one of the mausoleums at Hillcrest Memorial Cemetery where baseball legend Mickey Mantle is buried, is like a cold, dark, quiet, empty tomb.

All that is left to remind anyone there was a movie theater there are the rusted, black Roman numerals I and II emblazoned on the outside walls and above the lobby entrance.

The glass casing near the box office that once posted the features and show times is gone now. The farewell note management left inside the day the place closed, however, is still fresh in my mind.

The message said in bold, white letters, “Thanks for the memories. 33 years. Goodbye.”

©10/28/98

My Personal Worst Films: Random Hearts (1999)

Random Hearts «½
R, 133m. 1999

Cast & Credits: Harrison Ford (Dutch Van Den Broeck), Kristin Scott Thomas (Kay Chandler), Charles S. Dutton (Alcee), Bonnie Hunt (Wendy Judd), Dennis Haysbert (Detective Beaufort), Sydney Pollack (Carl Broman), Richard Jenkins (Truman). Screenplay by Kurt Luedtke based on Warren Adler’s novel. Directed by Sydney Pollack.

"Random Hearts" offers two of the most boring perspectives in how the two main characters deal with their grief after learning their significant others were having an affair prior to dying in a plane crash.

The movie was made to be a tearjerker but by the time it ended, I had no reason to feel pity or compassion for either of the two leads played by Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. Both play characters who don’t know one another but whose lives are drawn together unexpectedly by tragedy.

I am sure the idea looked great on paper. The film asks a number of intriguing questions on the subject of adultery. What would you do if your wife ran off on an unexpected trip you didn’t know about only to die in a plane crash? What would you do if you found out she was on the passenger list under an assumed name? What would you do if you found out after all this time, she was cheating on you? What can you do? You can’t file for divorce. Your wife is already dead.

Such are the questions Ford’s internal affairs Detective Dutch Van Den Broeck pursues. The answer for him is to question the wife, a Republican congresswoman named Kay Chandler (Thomas) whose husband (Peter Coyote) also died on the flight and whom Van Den Brock’s wife was sitting next to.

I have always assumed when it comes to people having affairs that the persons most hurt by their spouse’s actions would be the woman. What’s interesting here is it turns out to be the man.

Ford’s Van Den Broeck treats his loss as an obsession that almost ruins his career in law enforcement as he endlessly tries to find out why his wife was cheating on him for months. At one point, he meets Kay in Miami at the very hotel their spouses were reportedly going to stay in that weekend and the two walk the party streets at night like happy zombies just going through the motions. It is only a matter of time before the couple reluctantly make love in Kay’s car at the airport shortly after they have a good cry.

In Chandler’s case, she wants to put the issue behind her. To her, it is all in the past. She is like First Lady Hillary Clinton, who after learning about her husband’s latest infidelities over a year and a half ago, refused to shed any emotion in public. Chandler repeatedly tells Van Den Broeck to “Let it go” almost every time they meet and forget about what’s happened.

What was astounding as I sat there watching Random Hearts was how neither one asked themselves much less thought about why their spouses had an affair but to me, the answer was obvious. Kay was simply too busy with her reelection campaign in Washington to notice there was something going on. When Kay learns her husband died on the plane, she insists he wasn’t going to Miami. He was headed to New York. While Van Den Broeck was too busy investigating corrupt cops to consider what was going on at home.

The two leads have some memorable moments though.

Ford stares for hours at their family photo the two took together years back while waiting for the dreaded phone call to come from airline authorities. He is a towering, brooding, troubled presence who wants answers but the most he ever gets is the message his wife leaves on Coyote’s answering machine that asks, “What are we doing?”

The best scene Thomas has is where her daughter asks if her father, whom she idolizes, was having an affair with Van Den Broeck’s wife. Chandler doesn’t know how to explain it to her. It brought to mind in this post Clinton/Monica Lewinsky era how the president’s daughter, Chelsea, might have felt when the real truth came out about her father’s infidelities.

The movie unfortunately falls apart in the last 45 minutes as it throws one unexpected and needless subplot after another. Ford’s character, for example, is trying to bring a corrupt officer to justice while Chandler’s friend (Bonnie Hunt) tells Kay how she knew about her husband’s affairs but never said a word.

More annoying is composer Dave Grusin’s upbeat musical score on piano. A movie like this would have benefited from John Barry’s sad, melodramatic slow-moving tones he did for "Dances With Wolves" (1990) and "Chaplin" (1992). If nothing else, Barry’s music probably would have made the film more emotionally effective.

If 1999 is remembered for anything when it comes to motion pictures, it will probably be the year a new Star Wars movie came out that reviled most critics and disappointed fans of the original trilogy, that people blamed excessive violence in movies like "The Matrix" (1999) to influence two misguided souls to go on a killing spree in Littleton, Colorado, and that adultery was a hot subject in movies.

"Random Hearts" marks the fifth film and probably not the last to address the subject. "Pushing Tin", "Summer of Sam" and "American Beauty" incorporated the idea in subplots. While Stanley Kubrick’s "Eyes Wide Shut" presented another perspective that a woman dreaming about cheating on her husband with another man is just as bad as committing the actual act itself.

Director Sydney Pollack ("Tootsie" - 1982) makes it clear in Random Hearts he wanted the audience to feel sorry for Dutch Van Den Broeck and Kay Chandler. Both characters go through a lot of emotional turmoil throughout the film, but I saw nothing at the center.

I only saw emptiness.

©10/14/99

Gone too soon: John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (1960-1999), Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (1966-1999) and Lauren Bessette (1964-1999)

To those who were old enough and watched President Kennedy’s funeral in November 1963 to those who weren’t alive yet or too young to remember but have seen the historic yet heart breaking photo, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. will forever be known as the little three-year-old son of the late president who saluted his father’s coffin as it rolled by that Thanksgiving weekend almost 36 years ago.

Today, that is still how I see him.

The sad, tragic weekend that began the night of July 16 was like a macabre, nightmarish sense of déjà vu that recalled the night Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in France in August 1997.

The way Princess Diana in 1997 and now JFK Jr, his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister, Lauren, died are so similar, it is almost eerie. Both occurred in the summer and on weekends. I was at work when it was announced on the radio that Princess Diana, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, died in a car accident. I did not learn about the latest tragedy to strike the Kennedy family until Saturday afternoon when I turned on the TV and saw live coverage of naval ships and helicopters at sea off Martha’s Vineyard searching for something.

I had no idea what. For about ten minutes or so, the news coverage seemed like a cruel joke in light that July 17 was the day TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic three years ago killing 230 passengers and crew. I immediately figured the worst that maybe another jetliner had gone down. But then below the television screen came the words “JFK Jr’s Plane Missing” and to Americans, to myself, and to the world, it was as if more than 200 souls were lost again that day.

It did not take long for the country to react to the news. New Yorkers laid flowers, memorial cards, and tributes down outside JFK Jr’s and his wife’s Tribeca apartment where the two lived in much the way people did outside Buckingham Palace when Diana died. Hundreds more visitors poured in at the graves of the late president and his wife, Jackie, at Arlington National Cemetery and at the Sixth Floor Museum, formerly known as the Texas School Book Depository in Downtown Dallas. Some wrote condolences in guest books. Others wept.

Like Diana who was dubbed in the press as “The People’s Princess”, flags were flown at half-staff for “The People’s Prince.” Outside the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Ma., mourners left flowers while the press sat and waited to see which family members would come out next. Not even Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, now the last surviving and most private heir to Camelot, could escape the media glare as she and her family awaited news at their own home on Long Island and began to make what has become an all-too-familiar scene for America’s most prominent first family, funeral arrangements. When she and her husband came out of seclusion a few days after the crash, the couple took a bike ride followed by the press. It was the couple’s 13th wedding anniversary.

It all seems a little silly yet poignant. Like Diana, why did Americans grieve over someone they never met but felt they knew through past press coverage and photographs? Perhaps they grieved over how tragic it was for such well-liked celebrities to lose their lives so unexpectedly at such an early age. Their life stories were biographies only half finished.

It seems by all news accounts, JFK Jr. lived life to the fullest dating various models and well-known Hollywood icons like Daryl Hannah before marrying Carolyn Bessette in 1996, playing sports, and trying different things that included flying. But it seemed the man, who People magazine called “The Sexiest Man Alive” years ago, was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life whether it should be in politics or continue working as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan while involving himself in various charities.

Then in October 1995, he created and became editor-in-chief of George, a struggling magazine that parodied and treated politics as entertainment and featured several female celebrities on the front covers from Cindy Crawford and Madonna to Drew Barrymore and most recently, Salma Hayek. But there was a serious side to the publication as well. Over the course of the magazine’s three and half years, JFK Jr. interviewed such figureheads that included Gerald Ford, Colin Powell, George Wallace, and Louis Farrakhan.

Now the magazine is a collector’s item. The current issue out at bookstores immediately sold out the week of the tragedy and it is also being reported that the publication, whose profits have been down for some time, will likely fold. I will not be surprised if back issues of George are sold at used bookstores for $20 behind the counter inside plastic see-thru bags next to the July 1997 $20 issue of Vanity Fair that featured Diana on the front cover posing in a dress later auctioned off at Sotheby’s.

Now we are left asking ourselves, what would the future have held for the trio had they lived? Perhaps JFK Jr. would have pursued politics and run for public office like his father and uncles before him. Perhaps Carolyn would have involved herself in various note worthy causes. While Lauren would have lived her own life staying out of the media spotlight.

As the coast guard, navy ships and divers continued their “search and retrieval” efforts off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, there was a certain sense of false hope in the back of my mind. I kept thinking the three were alive on some remote island awaiting rescue.

I knew the inevitable result as did everyone else. The search though, which ended July 21, finally brought a sense of closure for the Kennedy and Bessette families and for Americans. Days after the crash, we were told by the press what might have happened in those last moments as the private plane made its deadly descent. Questions have arisen over whether JFK Jr., who just received his pilot’s license last year, was experienced enough to fly at night.

It would be easy to say the fates of JFK Jr.; his wife and her sister could have been avoided. Some think it is a “Kennedy curse.”

©7/21/99

How the entertainment industry reacted in the wake of Columbine

The carnage that played before the nation’s eyes on network news stations across the country April 20 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado did not just bring back a grim reminder of so many other school shootings in year’s past.

The tragedy brought back the one question society, the press and the nation had asked one too many times before. Who is responsible?

The press did not take long to start pointing fingers at who shared the blame for the frightening, senseless carnage seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left in their wake leaving 12 students and one teacher dead and wounding 23 others before taking their own troubled lives.

When “Good Morning America” cohost Diane Sawyer read emails the morning after the rampage, one message stood out most among all the others.

“We celebrate Rambo and Schwarzenegger movies, then we’re surprised to see something like this.”

The entertainment industry was ranked highest on the nation’s list of culprits. The person who ranked number one was controversial film director Oliver Stone whose 1994 film, “Natural Born Killers”, was the picture both Columbine students had reportedly watched more than a dozen times. The movie was about a serial murdering couple who embark on a cross-country killing spree.

Investigative programs like “Dateline”, “20/20” and tabloid television shows like “Inside Edition” also took note of 1999’s first $100 million box office hit, “The Matrix”, in which Keanu Reeves’ character, dressed in a black trench coat and dark sunglasses, blows away cyber villains with a cache of automatic weapons.

Angry, concerned customers called video retailers asking them to pull “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from shelves because of a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character guns down a schoolteacher and a few classmates in a dream sequence.



In some cases, the industry acted righteously in wake of the massacre. CBS pulled an episode of “Promised Land” as did Fox for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to be shown later. Both episodes featured high school shootings. A Marilyn Manson concert was canceled in Colorado, the heavy metal rock group the shooters listened to whose musical lyrics spoke of suicide, murder, and mass destruction. A week later, the band postponed the last five dates of their tour in consideration of what happened and spoke out against the press according to April 29 Wire reports.

Marilyn Manson

“The media has unfairly scapegoated the music industry and so-called Goth kids and has speculated-with no basis in truth-that artists like me are in some way to blame,” Manson said. “This tragedy was a product of ignorance, hatred and access to guns.”

Not even the Internet could escape the controversy. The world-wide web is after all the place where thousands of informative documents can be obtained with just the push of a button thanks to the First Amendment. The Internet was where the killers got directions to build pipe bombs. Where Timothy McVeigh learned how to build the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 men, women, and children four years ago.

Blood drenched video games like “Doom” took a hit as well. All this came up because it was what the murderers watched on their VCRs, looked up and played on their home computers and listened to on their compact disc players.

Trouble is we have become so immune to graphic violence in TV shows, movies, rock music, video games and even the network news that it no longer offends us.

The entertainment industry is a business, and it is their job to give society what they want to see.

And what do audiences crave? They pay to “root for the bad guy” Mel Gibson in the revenge thriller, “Payback” (1999), and see depressing sadomasochistic trash like “8mm” (1999) that gross $20 million opening weekend while inspirational dramas like “October Sky” (1999) are lucky to stay out a month. I do not know what disgusted me more when I saw “8mm” in February; the film’s sleazy adult content or my noticing some parents took their five-and six-year-old kids to see it.

Shows filled with rough language, violence and nudity like “NYPD Blue” continue to rank in the top 20 Nielsen’s. And just about every new episode of NBC’s “Law & Order” is a crime story “ripped from the headlines” while family dramas like “7th Heaven” are promoted as “the show you aren’t watching.”

“Space Invaders” are outdated. Blood and gore reign heavy in games like “Doom” but there are hundreds of computer games kids play that are just as violent as some of the Star Wars games. Yes, Star Wars!!! In “Dark Forces”, the player can set their skills to a hard level, allowing them to shoot at Imperial officers multiple times turning the entire base into a shooting gallery. While in “Rebel Assault II”, players can opt to use a target and aim their laser gun at any part of a Stormtrooper’s body, be it below the waist, chest, and head to blow them away. But no blood is ever spilled.

“Forrest Gump” producer Steve Tisch was quoted in the May 3, 1999, issue of Time saying the blame should not be just on what Hollywood produces.

“Lots of other wires have to short before a kid goes out and does something like this,” Tisch said. “It’s a piece of a much bigger, more complex puzzle.”

Instead of society asking who’s responsible when tragedies like the one at Columbine happen, they should ask themselves who is not.

Millions of kids in America watch violent movies and TV shows, play violent video games, bring up adult content on the Internet, and listen to Marilyn Manson. Not one of them goes out on a shooting spree. If such were the case, there would be mass shootings in schools, restaurants, and malls every day.

I have always blamed the individuals who pulled the trigger and not the issues that could have brought about the act. That was long before police came across Harris’ suicide note which said “Do not blame others for our actions. This is the way we wanted to go out.”

When another tragedy of this magnitude happens again, the nation will go through the same sad, vicious cycle the country’s done so many times before in Pearl, Mississippi, West Paducah, Kentucky, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Springfield, Oregon.

They will play the blame game again and finger the entertainment industry and the Internet as the cause. They will again examine gun control; an issue the politicians have been debating to no end since ex-Beatle John Lennon’s assassination outside his New York apartment in December 1980.

Perhaps they should point fingers at the shooter’s parents who apparently had no idea their garage was a pipe bomb factory, knew nothing about the hate filled website Harris designed with plans to kill most everyone in their quiet suburb, or the diary outlining hopes to hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, and had no idea their sons had a fetish for war, guns and Adolf Hitler.

Most of all, society should blame the press who often develop a holier-than-thou, in-your-face attitude with their excessive, unnecessary coverage. A couple of days after the Colorado shootings, worried parents took their kids out of various area schools in Texas and across the country after students made both bomb and death threats against their campuses.

And on April 28th, a 14-year-old student shot two 17-year-old classmates, killing one at a school in Taber, Alberta.

Not one of the newspaper articles I read said it was because of a movie, video game, rock group, or the worldwide web. The students’ ideas may have come from what they heard on the radio and read in the newspapers the day after the massacre.

Those avenues of information only travel so far. Today’s electronic medium is vast. It is a good bet their inspiration to copy what Harris and Klebold did came courtesy of the reporters who covered the tragedy on the morning and nightly news live from Littleton, Colorado.

©5/10/99

Appreciation: Gene Siskel (1946-1999)

Having lived in Chicago for over ten years until I relocated to Dallas in July 1984, I can honestly say that for much of the late 70s and early 80s, I grew up reading film critics Gene Siskel’s and Roger Ebert’s columns almost every Friday in their perspective newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

I cannot say I agreed with every movie they recommended. I walked out of “The English Patient” (1996) twice and will not be seeing one of their ten best movies of 1998, “Babe: Pig in the City”, anytime soon. But the one thing I enjoyed most about their columns was getting two varying opinions.

 What I remember most about Siskel’s written reviews in the 80s was how he seemed to produce a phrase that captured his overall opinion of what he thought of a film. Those one-sentence phrases, usually in small boldface letters, were always above the credits. I remember the phrase he gave to “Superman III” in 1983, “Where is all the love?” The question fit the tone of what was missing from the third installment that to Siskel, was most present in the first two movies.

I did not start watching their weekly television show called “Sneak Previews” until it went into syndication in 1978 on PBS. Back then the two recapped the movies they just reviewed with either a yes or no vote to each one. After I moved to Dallas, however, I did not catch the program as much. I always took it for granted thinking the two hosts would always be around until the show was canceled. Or they would continue to write reviews in both metropolitan papers until they retired.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune from Feb. 20, 1999, the duo signed on with Tribune Entertainment in 1982, which expanded the number of stations that carried the show and changed the title to “At the Movies.” When Buena Vista Television took over the program in 1986, the title was changed again to “Siskel & Ebert & the Movies.” By that time, television audiences had already familiarized themselves with the Chicago critic’s thumbs up/thumbs down style to film recommendations.

Their popularity increased with occasional guest appearances on talk shows like “The Late Show with David Letterman”, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, “Regis & Kathy Lee”, and “Oprah Winfrey” and were even parodied in Mad magazine and movies like “Summer School” (1987) and “Godzilla” (1998). 

Just as I enjoyed getting two different perspectives in print, the best moments on television were when the duo disagreed. There was Siskel last fall praising the Sandra Bullock/Nicole Kidman comedy, “Practical Magic” (1998), saying how the film gave some unique insight about witchcraft. Ebert retorted back saying the picture had nothing to say about witchcraft. To him, it was simply a dumb comedy.

When Siskel gave thumbs up to “Star Trek: Insurrection” (1998) last December, he told Ebert the movie’s thought-provoking discussions about interfering with alien life were “more profound than anything Yoda ever said” in the Star Wars trilogy.

The duo’s yearly tradition was to list their personal best and worst movies. I remember in 1993 when the competitive rivals listed a title the other one liked calling it his number one worst. Ebert’s worst pick was Siskel’s favorite, “Carnosaur”, a cheap sci-fi/horror film that starred Diane Ladd as a scientist who creates a dinosaur. Siskel, on the other hand, who throughout his writing career did not like a lot of actor Burt Reynolds’ movies and with good reason listed Ebert’s favorite, “Cop and a Half”, as his personal worst. As the end credits rolled, the two were still arguing about how one could possibly like the other.

And as the series of shows evolved, the subject was not just on movies. Over the course of 24 years together (they started critiquing films on PBS in 1975 according to several articles), the pair hosted specials on the Oscar nominations and the early film careers of rising stars like Jim Carrey and even discussing Digital Video Disc (DVD) players.

What was especially apparent on television was how enthusiastic Siskel was when he talked about a film. I could tell he spoke from the heart. He was so dedicated to his profession that I could not believe it when last May, shortly after his operation to remove a cancerous growth from his brain, he was back. Sort of that is, reviewing movies from his hospital bed phoning in his comments on a segment while Ebert spoke live from the balcony.

Before the program ended, Gene asked Roger jokingly if anyone sat in his seat in his absence. In the months after his surgery, it was noticeable he was not the same. Siskel’s speech was a little slower, but I expected that after an operation and the passion was still there. I thought for sure he was recovering and did not even know he had taken a leave of absence from the program in early February to recuperate until I read his obituary in the Tribune.

When Siskel died Feb. 20, 1999, at 53, Ebert was quoted in the Tribune saying he thinks the show will continue but it “will never be the same without him.”

If such is the case, it will take some getting used to not seeing “the tall, skinny one” sitting across from Ebert in the balcony every week.

As the saying in Hollywood goes, “The show must go on” but the lingering feeling will always remain.

It will never be the same.

Today, as I bring up both Chicago newspapers on the computer, it feels like I am reading only one.

©2/22/99