Review and Giveaway: BASS REEVES (Tales of the Talented Tenth #1) by Joel Christian Gill

Obligatory disclaimer: I was provided with a complimentary copy of Tales of the Talented Tenth: Bass Reeves for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.

In this graphic novel, Joel Christian Gill tells the story of Bass Reeves, the first black US Marshal west of the Mississippi and, some believe, the inspiration for the Lone Ranger.

I'd heard of Bass Reeves before, on Drunk History, and probably elsewhere. I'm all for books about awesome historical peeps, and for the most part I enjoyed reading Gill's graphic biography of Reeves. The story was fast-paced, with a lot of tension, and I thought the artwork served the story well. I particularly liked how Gill represented the language of the Seminole Indians before Reeves learned how to speak it, and I thought the use of Jim Crow as a character was effective, if a little confusing at first.

That said, I did have a few niggling areas of concern:

• First of all, I was a bit disappointed by the lack of humor. Reeves was known to be sharp-witted and funny. You'd never get that from this book, where he came across as either bummed out or angry, because racism. The character really had no personality, and it constantly seemed like things were happening to him rather than vice versa. Granted, I don't know much about Reeves, but from what I do know I'd think he'd be more of a force of nature than that.
• Secondly, the "language," if one might call it that, deserves a mild trigger warning. The characters use the n-word (a lot), but instead of using the n-word Gill represents it with a picture of a black man's face. I can just imagine being a parent and having to explain what that's supposed to mean.
• Somewhat related: Gill also uses a face with a feathered warbonnet to represent the word Indian. With the n-word, I can get why he'd want to represent the word pictographically; but Indian is NOT a racial slur, and it bothered me that Gill drew that parallel. Most American Indians prefer the term Indian.

I think for a younger audience, this will be a good intro to the story of Bass Reeves, and I'm definitely looking forward to more stories in this series. But this book is certainly not without a few issues.

To find out more about Tales of the Talented Tenth: Bass Reeves, visit its Indiebound and publisher pages, and check out Gill's website and Twitter account.

Thanks to Fulcrum Publishing, I have one copy of Tales of the Talented Tenth: Bass Reeves to give away. To enter, simply provide your name and an email address where you can be reached in this form. I will select one winner using random.org on March 5th, 2016. If applicable, international entries will be shipped at my own expense.





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Movie Review: COWBOYS & ALIENS

First released: 2011
Starring: Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Based on: The graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg

Jake Lonergan wakes up in the middle of the desert. He has no idea who he is, where he is, how he got there, or why he has a metal thing strapped to his wrist. After finding some tight-fitting clothes, he makes his way to the nearest town, where he quickly deduces some very pertinent information: one, he has an absolute gift for punching people in the face. Two, he's an outlaw who stole from the cattle baron, Mr. Dolarhyde, who also happens to run the town Jake is in. And three, the thingy on his wrist blows up alien spaceships.


'What the...?!'

This movie is pretty dumb, which is fine. Believe it or not, I have a pretty high tolerance for dumb movies (or so I like to think). But what really bothered me was that it was surprisingly one-note. As I overheard a little kid telling his dad as they left the theater, "That was kinda boring."

No movie with as many explosions and special effects as this one should be boring. That's, like, a rule.

Part of the problem is that it's super-derivative. As the preacher, who for some reason acts as the doctor even though there's another character named Doc (?), said, "I've seen bad men do good things and good men do bad things." Uh, isn't that line straight out of No Country for Old Men? Like literally a direct quote? And isn't that scene where the alien breathes in the little kid's face and drool drips from its pointy teeth an almost EXACT COPY of that scene in Alien where the alien breathes in Sigourney Weaver's face and drool drips from its pointy teeth? Come on, guys.

Daniel Craig was also a huge disappointment. Item the first: he only took his shirt off once. Item the second, he did nothing in this movie except scowl and point his wrist thingy at aliens. Honestly, the monoexpression of scowl was enough to make me suspect he has really bad teeth and not lifting his upper lip is part of his standard contract. And item the third, his American accent was suuhuhuper sketchy. Why didn't he just speak normally if he had that much trouble with it? It's the American West, for god's sake, there are people with different accents.



Anywho. The film wasn't completely bad. The biggest plus was Harrison Ford, who played Colonel Dolarhyde. I gotta say, the guy's still got it. Heck yeah. While Craig was phoning it in, Ford was bringing it to the table. Almost as if he believed he was in a good movie! To be fair, Ford's character had most of the good lines and the only discernible story arc in the entire narrative, but still.

The other thing I liked was the Indians. When the movie started, I naturally thought--because of the title--that the aliens were a metaphor for Indians. And about twenty minutes in, I quite frankly was really missing the Indians. But! I was wrong. The aliens are actually a metaphor for European colonialism and the western settlers band together with the Apaches to defeat them. I was so happy to see Indians in the picture my brain didn't explode with annoyance when they used peyote and there was a lame vision sequence straight out of a 1960s B-movie. Yes, let's just ignore that.

Overall, this movie is worth a Saturday afternoon viewing at home, but paying to see it in the theater? Meh. I expected everyone on this project to have a lot more fun with it, considering it's about cowboys and freaking aliens, but it felt like a chore and the ending was anti-climatic. All I have to say is, thank god for Harrison Ford.

3:10 To Yuma Olde Timey Movie Review

The original 3:10 to Yuma, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, was made fifty years before the version most of us are familiar with. The basic premise is almost exactly the same (so much so that Halsted Welles, the original screenwriter, got credit in the 2007 edition, too): struggling "sod-buster" Dan Evans needs two hundred dollars to buy water rights so his farm doesn't go under. Coincidentally, charming criminal Ben Wade has just been arrested and needs to be transported to prison on the 3:10 train to Yuma. Dan is offered two hundred dollars to get him on that train.

Is the 1957 3:10 as good as the James Mangold-directed 3:10? I don't think so, although I have a strong suspicion those who grew up with westerns in '50s would disagree with me. This isn't the 1950s, however, and 3:10 hasn't held up impassively to the passage of time (although it's not as bizarre as some westerns seem now, like Shane). The cinematography is great (and obviously inspired by John Ford) and the narrative is pretty engaging, even though there are still some cheesy parts that made me laugh. One example is the gratuitous theme song that winds its way through the film. Want a clip? Of course you do:



Take that traiiiiiin! What I really missed from this version, though, are the riveting performances from Mangold's 3:10. I am not a Van Heflin fan at all, what is up with that guy? Why does he always play farmers? And Glenn Ford was okay--he showed occasional signs of charm--but for the most part it felt like he was phoning it in. Compare that to three great performances by Russel Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster in the 2007 3:10, that are so compelling you can't take your eyes off the actors, and one definitely feels the absence.

One thing I did like about this movie more than its remake was the treatment of women. Shocking, no? The female characters in the 1957 3:10 are surprisingly fleshed-out and much more empowered than the women from 2007. While the Bisbee bartender in both films is definitely a sexual object, in the 1957 film she gets much more screen time and has more of a personality. The same thing holds true for Alice Evans. In the earlier film, she even goes chasing after her husband to help him at the end. They don't have major roles in the plot, but they do have roles, which is more than one can say for the women in the contemporary version, who are little more than pretty faces.

Is the 1957 3:10 to Yuma worth seeking out? Not really. It's not a bad movie, but it's not terribly impressive, either. If it comes on TV I wouldn't turn it off, but making an effort to rent it probably won't pay out.

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3:10 to Yuma by Elmore Leonard

Musical Notes: "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train" (more than a little literal, but it works)



Review:

This short story is what the movies 3:10 to Yuma (one in 1957 starring Glenn Ford, the other from 2007 starring Russell Crowe) were based on, although the only character the movies retained was the awesomesauce Charlie Prince.

Marshall Paul Scallen is bringing in the outlaw, Jim Kidd, to meet the 3:10 train to Yuma and a 5-year prison sentence. As they sit in a Contention hotel room, a certain understanding develops between the two men (if Jim can really be called a man--he's described as looking like a teenager). Yet despite the fact that Scallen doesn't have anything against Kidd--his words--and Kidd is offering him money to let him go, and Charlie Prince and six other men are waiting outside the hotel to gun him down, Scallen still delivers Kidd to the Yuma train.

Why? Because that's his job. And real men do their jobs, yo.

This story is written in a very straight-forward, journalistic style, similar to Earnest Hemingway. That's probably why I got a post-war feeling from it right away. Supposedly the story is set in Ye Olde West, but honestly it could just easily be set in the 1950s, especially with the characters acting like characters from a 1950s movie. I couldn't help but picture Kidd as James Dean in a leather jacket, and Scallen as a so-sober-he's-sarcastic Humphrey Bogart.

The story itself is as straight-forward as the language used to tell it. There is a sense of amorality or existential nihilism in the characters: Scallen is delivering Kidd to the train, not because he believes Kidd deserves to be punished, but basically because that's his job and he needs to be paid. When they talk, he refers to Kidd's "profession" and asks him how much he makes from it, as if Kidd's career as an outlaw is on the same status as Scallen's career as a Marshall. Kidd is almost a more sympathetic character, seeing as how his goal is motivated by more than money (self-preservation, but still) and he evinces more emotion during the course of the narrative.

Now that I've read this short story, I'm even more impressed with the 2007 film (I've yet to see the '57 version). Mangold took this ho-hum tale about Mr. Doesn't Talk Much Marshall fighting a quick gun battle in order to get a pointless job done, and turned it into an epic story of death and Manifest Destiny and really the entire Westward movement. So you can imagine that I was a bit taken aback when I read on Leonard's website that he doesn't like the 2007 film. The short story and the movie really have very little to do with each other, aside from Charlie Prince and a few lines of dialog, but honestly if I was Leonard I would write Mangold a thank you note for taking my work and turning into something freaking brilliant.

So basically, the story's okay, but nothing to hunt down, and certainly nothing compared to the film.

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Movie Reviews: Easy A & The Searchers

Easy A

After lying to her best friend about losing her V-card, Olive becomes the enemy of her high school's Christian faith group, led by Marianne (who totally ripped her hair style off of Sarah Newlin in True Blood).  Olive then discovers how easy it is to gain a bad rep without doing anything.

This movie is based off The Scarlet Letter, although it references the film versions more than the actual book.  In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits adultery, thus being forced wear an A on her chest.  Olive also wears an A, usually on a boob, even though she's not married (or even dating), and really just pretends to be a slut.  This makes no sense.  Why not wear an S?  Or a W for whore?  Or a WW for a wanna-be whore?  Also, adultery is morally wrong, whereas having sex with consenting partners isn't, and pretending to have sex with the social dreck of the school's male population is just stupid, so that kind of takes all the moral ambiguity out of it.

Bad adaptations aside, this movie was actually enjoyable.  It was funny and the romance, once it got going, was very sweet.  Although the portrayal of gays was very stereotypical (the decorating line again, really?), and the Christian faith group suggested more of an attack on religion than fanaticism.



The Searchers

A much more subtle attack on fanaticism can be found in John Ford's The Searchers, starring John Wayne.  Wayne's character, Ethan, becomes obsessed with seeking vengeance for the murder of his brother's family by Comanche Indians--to the point where he decides to kill his niece after finding her married to a Comanche chief and integrated into Indian society.

Ethan is definitely a fanatic, and it's hard to tell exactly how far he will go.  One doesn't want to think he will go so far as to kill the innocent in his total disgust for the Indians, because he shows occasional signs of awesomeness (and he's John Wayne), but evidence suggests otherwise.  Screams it, actually.  For Ethan, his niece, Debbie, represents both something he loves--his brother and most particularly his brother's wife--and something hates--the "Comanch."  Which side will win out for him in the end, love or hate?

The strength of this movie really lies in the fact that Ford doesn't spell out the whole story.  He gives us hints and then lets us fill in the blanks, particularly when it comes to Ethan.  He remains an ambiguous figure until the end of the film, and we're left with questions that we have to answer by reconstructing the movie in our minds.  Where did Ethan get the money he gave to his brother? What did Ethan see when he went into the canyon on his own?  Is Martin Ethan's son?

The movie is also very racist--women stolen by the Comanche as children behave as if they're mad or have been raised by wolves; Martin's Indian wife, Look, gets shoved down a cliff and the camera doesn't even follow her; and Martin himself faces plenty of taunts and outright racism because of his one-eighth Indian ancestry.  Yet this is supposed to be a "revisionist" film where the Indians are treated more sympathetically than they had been in the past!  I think that all hinges are Martin, who is obviously the hero.  Some might call Ethan the hero, but I don't think the story is told through Ethan's eyes--we see Martin's perspective, the spectrum of good and evil, racism, opportunity, fellowship, love, hate, white, Indian, Mexican, danger, and home that makes up the tapestry of the West.  If the film had been told from Ethan's perspective, it would have been in black and white.

Although this was a good movie, I didn't enjoy it a lot.  It just went on and on and on, and I can't believe they spent THAT LONG looking for that girl.  Honestly, I expected Ethan to just fall over dead at the very end.  It was also a very dark film.  But I would definitely say that it's worth seeing, especially if you like Westerns--or Star Wars, for that matter.

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3:10 To Yuma

Proposed alternate title: Everybody Loves Wade



As usual with movies (among other things), I'm late to the party.  3:10 To Yuma came out, like, YEARS ago, and I only saw it last night on TV.  But I enjoyed it so much I just had to write a review of it.

I typically don't read and watch the same types of things.  For example, I only very rarely read Westerns; but I do really enjoy watching them.  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Thunderheart are two of my most favorite movies; and 3:10 To Yuma is definitely right up there with them. 

In my opinion, for a Western to be great, it has to have three things: at least one completely awesome character, landscape, and mythology.  3:10 To Yuma combines all three in a way that feels original, yet satisfies all the requirements of the genre.

Russell Crowe is Ben Wade, an outlaw who robs trains with his gang.  When he's run down by the Pinkerton detective agency and the Southern-Pacific, circumstances conspire to have struggling rancher Dan Evans (played by Christian Bale, who looks way too good, even if he is scruffed up) accompanying the party escorting Wade to trial in Yuma.

Ben Foster as Charlie Prince

Everything in the movie centers around Wade, even though he doesn't do much other than observe and talk during the course of the movie (oh, and he kills a bunch of people).  Crowe is incredibly charismatic, and you definitely understand the obsession both his friends and enemies seem to hold for him.  Speaking of--Wade's second in command, Charlie Prince, is FREAKING AWESOME!!!  Not only is his jacket gorgeous, but he is insane.  When he's on screen, you can't take your eyes off him.  He is intelligent and fiercely loyal to Wade, which is something I couldn't help but admire.

The movie definitely has a mythic quality to the story.  For most of it I kept trying to figure out what Wade represented--is he nature, an unstoppable force that every man has to negotiate with?  Or the Devil, tempting the party escorting him to the train to give in to the worst of themselves, and claiming their souls when they do?  His gang definitely has the mindless tenacity of the Hounds of Hell.  For a while I was convinced he was Death, but that is obviously the train to Yuma--and the majority of the people in this movie get on it.

As for the landscape, I'm of two minds with it.  On one hand, nearly every single scene in the film looks like it takes place either in or on the edge of a national park.  Seriously!  That is one of my big pet peeves.  But the cinematography is so beautiful I found it difficult to be too annoyed by it.  The final scene where the train pulls away, and sunlight spills like melted butter over Dan Evans and his son, is classic cinematography, and an absolutely unforgettable shot. 



Basically, I really, really liked this movie.  It's not just a typical Western--it's a character study with eye candy (and I'm not just talking about Christian Bale, although I did spend a good portion of the movie completely distracted by the fact that he looks yummy and gross at the same time).  The climax of the film is a totally ridiculous shoot-out that's incredibly enjoyable to watch, and it ends on a mythic note.  Definitely a movie I would recommend!

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Cibolero by Kermit Lopez

Cibolero by Kermit Lopez

Summary:

For years, Antonio Baca lived the wandering and restless life of a Cibolero, or buffalo hunter, following the great herds that roamed the endless Llano Estacado-the high plains of a region that would one day be New Mexico. After marrying and settling down, Baca has finally found a modicum of peace in the home he built for his growing family.

But Baca witnesses the transformation of Nuevo Mexico from an isolated colonial outpost of the Spanish empire to a province of the newly independent nation of Mexico and, finally, to a land conquered by the avaricious americanos. Following the United States's seizure of New Mexico, Antonio and his countrymen find themselves treated as foreigners and second-class citizens in their own land.

When his daughter, Elena, is kidnapped by a band of invading Texas Rangers after the American Civil War, Baca desperately tracks them across the llano of New Mexico and into Texas using his skills as a Cibolero. Terrified for his daughter's safety, he plunges into the world of the gringos, and discovers just how much the americanos have changed his homeland. But as the days pass without any sign of Elena, Baca fears for her life-and his own.

I had some misgivings about reviewing this book. The last time I'd read a Western was... oh, that's right. NEVER. So why did I read it, you are undoubtedly asking yourself. Well, what attracted me to Cibolero was that it takes place in an area not far from where I live. I was intrigued by someone setting a story in a place and time period of which most people remain totally ignorant. Happily, I did end up enjoying the book, and really loved the main character, Antonio.

The summary for Cibolero makes it sound like one of those epic novels that spans generations; actually, it's a very focused story. Although we do get glimpses of Antonio's life as a cibolero, or buffalo hunter, through flashbacks, the actual plot of the book takes place over a relatively short time period.

Antonio Baca is a subsistence farmer living, I'm guessing, in the mountains north of Santa Fe (I'm a little confused by this, as I'll talk about later). Although his life isn't easy by any means, it is happy. One day, Antonio needs to go to Las Vegas to pick up supplies. When he returns, he finds his farm has been set upon by Texas Rangers who have stolen his oldest daughter, Elena. Using the mad skillz he learned as a cibolero in his youth, Antonio decides to track his daughter and the tejanos and get her back.

Cibolero didn't exactly start off with a bang, and the first few pages seemed fairly pedantic; but the novel improved quickly as it focused more on the characters. As I mentioned before, I quickly fell in love with Antonio, and as long as the story was focusing on him it was very interesting. The Texas Rangers, however, on a whole seemed dumber than a box of rocks. There was one decent guy among them--Captain Russel--and he couldn't control them to save his life. The others were almost cartoonishly greedy and amoral. I do wish the character of Elena had been developed more and that we would have seen the Rangers' actions through her eyes instead of Russel's (who, quite frankly, is completely uninteresting).

Also, another weird thing that drove me absolutely crazy was figuring out where the action in the story was taking place. I assumed before I opened the book that Antonio lived north of Taos, just based the photograph on the cover--maybe in the San Luis Valley. But if he's a day ride from Las Vegas, he must live quite a bit farther south. And where and how big exactly is the Llano Estacado?? And what path are the Rangers taking as they're trying to get back to Texas? I think it would have vastly helped me to understand and visualize the story if there was a map in the book showing me these things, and I'm actually pretty disappointed with the publisher for not including one.

Other than that, though, I think this book is worth buying just for the glimpse it offers into a fairly insular society. Lopez shows very well in the novel how and why the nuevomexicanos are so reluctant when it comes to giving an inch to American ways--and still are. Not that I know anything from personal observation, but one hears things. Such as the fact that the Spanish Inquisition is still alive and well in the form of Penitentes, a secret society (mentioned in the book, btw) that still survives in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. No one knows exactly what they do, but that's part of what makes them so powerful--the threat of their actions, fed by rumors of what they've done to people in the past, is likely a better deterrent against bad behavior than the actual men themselves. Most of the ranchers there still don't use electricty--but then that's true of ranchers on the Eastern plains of Colorado and New Mexico, too. I've also heard that the majority of people in the area still only speak Spanish (or rather, their dialect of it), although I doubt that's true any more. But then it could be--who knows! Only the people who are from there. My point is, it was isolated and strange to outsiders at the time Cibolero takes place, and it's still that way; but the book does a good job of transporting you to that time and place. And really, how awesome is that?

Cibolero isn't my typical read, that's for certain; and I wouldn't say it's the next Bless Me Ultima. But I am really happy I got a chance to read it. I learned quite a bit about an area and time period that I was already interested in, and I hope Lopez writes another book so I can learn more.


Want to win a copy of Cibolero for yourself??? Yes, of course you do. Just leave a comment and I will draw a random winner on Tuesday night. The winner will be notified by e-mail, so make sure you use a valid e-mail addy when you enter your comment.

And check out these other stops on Lopez's book tour:

Mon Jan 25th: Sandra's Book Club
Tues Jan 26th: Musings
Wed Jan 27th: Latino Book Examiner
Thurs Jan 28th: Mama XXI
Frid Jan 29th: Latino Musings on Literature & More
Mon Feb 1st: Heidenkind's Hideaway (that's me!)
Tues Feb 2nd: Efrain's Corner
Wed Feb 3rd: BronzeWord Latino Authors
Thurs Feb 4th: TBA
Fri Feb 5th: Regular Rumination

Thank you to BronzeWord Latino Book Tours for sending me this book to review!