You're the Best.....Around!!! #3

By dumbbunnynz@hotmail.com

I remember when the person who made this zine offered to send me some copies. I was wary to say the least: a zine about kids in sports films? That sounds kind of horrible. I mean, I'd watched my share of them as a child, and while I think I enjoyed them at the time, I have no interest in watching them again as they are probably all terrible.

But style can be everything, and it turns out that I actually really enjoy this zine! The author accepts that these films are predictable, formulaic, and not very good in general, but they still enjoy them. By writing about what is problematic in these films in an amusing and sarcastic manner the author makes reading about the film actually enjoyable!

Combine with interviews with incredibly obscure actors who appear in the films, the most in depth looks at these films probably ever written, recipes (this one has fudge!), and generally humorous asides, and you have a zine that I now actively look forward to reading!

You're the Best.....Around!!! #2

By dumbbunnynz@hotmail.com

When I was first sent issues of Kids in Sport Films I was incredibly wary, I mean, it's not exactly a genre that has produced a lot of masterpieces.

However the author of the zine was able to allay my fears, first by writing an apology for being late in the introduction, not because the zine was actually late, or that anyone even wanted or expected a second issue, but because it's traditional that second issues of zines include introductions that apologise for their lateness.

(It reminded me of a Copy Scams song.)

The rest of the zine is written in similar style, making snarky and sarcastic references while theoretically discussing the movie. I laughed out loud in a few places, and read found some sentences funny enough to read to my partner who was sitting next to me on the couch playing Chrono Cross.

The zine describes the ideal way to watch Kids in Sports Films. First you drink too much, then you come home and sleep until the following afternoon, then you go and collapse on the couch and watch terrible movies on TV. Perfect!

Amusingly the author of this zine doesn't even seem to like this genre of films that much, he constantly indicates that the film featured in this issue, Rookie of the Year, isn't that good even by the standards of Kids in Sports Films, and it seems that whenever he references another film he insults it for being sexist or somehow terrible. Rookie of the Year reaches the mighty heights of "adequate", and I'm not sure if it even deserves that (despite my enjoyment of it as a child).

Then the zine breaks down the film into plot, how it does and doesn't work, and how it could be improved. Then it goes into each character individually, describing their role in the film, and how successful they were at this.

The strangest thing about this zine is the discovery that someone went and made a fan-sequel film, and blogs as the main character as this film. How strange! The zine includes an interview stolen from a website with the comedian behind the fanfilm, and it's so strange that this thing exists at all.

I found this zine to be well written, funny, and enjoyable, and much to my surprise I'm actually looking forward to reading the next issue.

You're the Best.....Around!!! #1

By dumbbunnynz@hotmail.com

Honestly, when someone emailed me asking if I wanted to review their "kids in sports films" zine I was a bit wary. I mean, what the hell type of topic is that? But ultimately that's one of the things I love about zines: they can be about anything. And by having people send or trade me their zines I end up reading some weird stuff that I would never seek out.

So this zine pleasantly surprised me. It begins with a discussion of the ideas behind "kids in sports films" and how they generally follow identical plot maps, feature the same type of characters, have the same messages, and are pretty damn predictable. Now after reading this you might wonder why someone would even bother watching them, but I think if you know anything about any type of genre fiction you know that they have the same tropes that they follow pretty frequently. I mean, I watch terrible science fiction action films and read a lot of super hero comics, and you can describe those in such a way that they sound incredibly awful (and to many people they are!). Yet I enjoy them anyway, even if they are bad a lot of the time.

Next there's a description of all the different character types that appear in these films (from "The Coach" to "The Ethnic Minority"), which was informative but probably could have used a few more examples from films. Then we have an indepth discussion of the Will Ferrell film "Kicking and Screaming". In fact, I think this might be the most ever written about this film as it doesn't sound very good, even by the conventions of the genre.

The plot is discussed, the actors are discussed, the director is discussed, hell, even the uniforms are discussed! It's kind of insane really. But it's all written in a fairly informative and entertaining style, by someone who seems to love this genre, but hates this film in particular. It sort of reminded me of something like the Zero Punctuation video game reviews, which find every flaw and problem in a game and scream "why why why was this decision made?". (Well, it's not as good as Zero Punctuation, but this is only the first issue.)

There's also an interview with the band My Dad Is Dead (about "kids in sports films" of course), and a recipe for a baked chocolate banana thing. So all in all this zine was a pleasant surprise, and now I'm actually kind of looking forward to reading the next issue.

Godzilla the Film Critic

By Ben Clark
www.magicbeanscomics.co.uk

Okay, so it's a tiny minicomic, and the joke is pretty much told on the cover, but still, somehow, I was expecting a bit more from this. Mainly I guess because the "plot" (such that it was) mostly involves two monsters arguing about whether Cloverfield is any good or not. Their discussion reaches about the heights of your average Youtube comment (ie. it sucks! It rocks! I'll fight you!).

Meanwhile, several other monsters chime in on what they think of various TV shows and movies. These bits are fairly funny ("It's Britney's kids Gamera feel sorry for."), and I wouldn't have minded an entire comic just filled with their brief "reviews". I guess I set my heights too high, but really, this could have been the Citizen Kane (or insert good movie here) of tiny, humourous Godzilla comics. Or at least Clark could have spent a little bit longer on the art.

The Pictures Issue 3

Underground Film Zine
By a bunch of people
picturesundergroundfilm.blogspot.com
£2

This is the second of the zines I found after the end of the London Zine Symposium. Was it yours? I'll send it to you.

It's 11:53 in my time zone, and it's so tempting to not do a review today. But I did finish reading this earlier with the express intention of reviewing it earlier. Then I fell asleep.

So I don't think I'm going to get it done "today" (at least in this time zone), but let's see! (If it does get done, this will possibly be the most rushed review ever).

Most of this zine is made up of interviews with, and articles about, various indie/underground filmmakers. I'd never heard of any of them, and for the most part their films (weird art shorts and the like) really don't seem like things I have any interest in seeing. This is not to say that the zine is bad, just that it is aimed at someone with different interests than me, if you like underground film you will probably find some interesting stuff in here.

The whole thing is actually fairly nicely put together. There's lots of images: a colour cover, a colour insert with movie stills, pieces of art (?), and movie stills in black and white. There's also some thought put into the layout, and ads (what?!!!).

It's just too bad the quality of writing isn't that great. There's an editor credited, but I think it needed someone who was willing to rewrite some of the articles. I'm willing to overlook the spelling mistakes, text being repeated, and stuff like that, but there are instances were the question being asked is both longer than the answer given by the film maker, and sort of incomprensible. Not that it's all bad or anything, it's just the bad stuff jumped out at me.

And then there's the "Movie Stars Who Won't Sleep With Me" column, that features Lindsay Lohan. What is this? I can't even bring myself to reread it because I feel I'll be losing braincells. If it's some sort of satire on the vapidness of celebrity, then whatever. I don't care. If it's serious, what the hell is it doing in a supposed "underground" film zine? Isn't "LiLo" some sort of big star? Blah.

It's technically tomorrow as I finish this off, and if I've learnt anything from this it is the danger of reading and reviewing a zine that I found. They could be about anything!

Picofarad #16

Picofarad: The Zine of Little Capacity #16
Edited by Petréa Mitchell
www.bidalaka.com/picofarad

This is a real live science fiction fanzine! I didn’t know these were still made. Considering that to many people the word “zine” still conjures up “fanzine,” the relative rarity of them today is kind of interesting.

Anyway, there’s a lot of what you’d expect a scifi fanzine to contain: reviews. The zine starts with a whole lot of incredibly short reviews of manga, movies, books, comics, and anime, of which my favourite is “For god’s sake would everyone just pick a set of genitalia and stay with it already so the plot can get moving again.” (There’s slightly more to the review than that, but that seems to be all you need to know.)

There are some longer reviews, an account of a trip to Disneyland (which I don’t really see the appeal of), and fairly amusing account of the New Carissa running aground on the coast of Oregon, but what this zine is really about is cons.

That is science fiction conventions, not ways in which to con people (though that would be a neat zine).

There’s a review of Orycon 30 (discussing some of the panels and a play about multiple continuums, robotic masters, and filk), a letter talking about cons, some news about cons, and nine (9!) pages listing cons going on around the world from March to June of last year. Holy crap that’s a lot of cons, and it doesn’t even include the two fairly large ones (Emerald City Comicon in Seattle and Anime Evolution in Vancouver) I went to!

All in all it’s an interesting look into a subculture that I don’t really experience much, despite being a massive nerd. Who knew that people still used usenet?

How Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Changed My Life

Hot Milk Presents: How Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Changed My Life, Or, 13 Lessons I learned from the Best TV Show Ever
By Tyler Hauck
www.hotmilk.org

Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K) was a TV show that featured a guy (“not too different from you or me”) and some robots stuck on a satellite and forced to watch really bad movies. To keep his sanity he, and the robots, made fun of the movies. It was basically just B-movies with commentary, and, if you’ve never seen it before and think the concept is insane, it really did exist.

It wasn’t shown on TV where I lived as a kid (in fact, I don’t know if it’s ever been shown on TV anywhere outside of America), so I found out about the show in a kind of ridiculous manner: fan fiction. Not fan fiction about the show, but rather bad X-Men fan fiction that other people made fun of by writing in the MST3K characters making fun of the story. The first time I ever saw a picture of what the robots looked like (in an issue of Mad magazine of all places) I was actually kind of upset, because I thought they looked so crummy.

Eventually I managed to track down some episodes of the show, but even today I’ve only seen maybe half a dozen of them. I still think it’s a pretty awesome idea, and I’m sure someday I’ll actually manage to watch more of them, or of the various spin offs that have been produced.

Hauck’s seen a lot more of the show than me. In fact he may have seen every episode, and if not, he’s seen most of them. The fact that he made this zine ten years after the show stopped being produced shows that MST3K had a major impact on his (and other people’s) lives. At the least MST3K helped create a market for all the terrible retro and genre films of the past. Would Mexican wrestler El Santo be as well known without this show? Would people purposefully seek out watching bad films just to make fun of them without MST3K making you think it was fun to do that? Okay, well probably. But this show totally helped that movement along.

However, Hauck has taken away more than just the pleasure of laughing at old crummy movies from MST3K; he’s learned thirteen lessons that changed his life.

In between lists of the best songs, skits, inventions, and best and worst films, Hauck presents the things he has learned. And what things! The idea of using old films as primary source documents of the past to learn about how people used to live, discovering that lots of people who have made good stuff have also made a lot of crap, that your heroes are imperfect, that poorly dubbed foreign films still show you how people live in other countries, that being amateur isn’t the same as being bad, and more.

Even if you already love MST3K and know these things, you can still learn stuff from this zine. Did you know that in the early seasons a lot of the props and materials they used for the show were dumpstered? (Awesome!) Did you know that the films of Aleksandr Ptushko (The Sword and the Dragon, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad) are actually good? I’ve never even seen any of the episodes that feature his films, but based on the descriptions of them here I’m going to have to go and track them down, along with some more episodes of MST3K.

Let’s hope someone still keeps circulating the tapes.

I Dream of Killers #1

I Dream of Killers #1
By grilled tuna

In short snippets that are cut and paste around a page in a manner such that the lines never line up, the writer reminiscences about watching horror movies as a child.

I’ve never really enjoyed horror movies, so can’t really connect to the writer’s experiences of staying up all late watching them, trying to get parents to buy horror movie posters, or wanting to be scared. Why would you want to be scared?

The writer also says they never paid attention to children’s movies, and while I don’t really remember what I watched as a kid, I do know that a few months ago some friends went to see Tarantino’s movie Inglourious Basterds, while I went to see Ponyo, the new film by Miyazaki, by myself. I was (and still am) perfectly happy with that decision.

However, there is one point on which the writer of this zine and I agree on, and that’s how awesome abandoned hospitals are. The writer thinks they’re the scariest place they can imagine being in, while my love of them is down to an awesome time I had at a fancy (or as fancy as my friends and I got) cocktail party we once had in one. Plus abandoned buildings are just awesome. Now I want to read zines about urban exploration again!