REVIEWS

 

BOOK REVIEW: WHO WAS EDGAR ALLAN POE? By Jim Gigliotti

Review By Levi L. Leland

Morell and Murders In The Rue Morgue Cover

American writer and editor Rufus Griswold wrote a not-so-nice obituary in the New York Tribune. He had never forgotten about a negative review Edgar gave one of his books several years earlier. “Edgar Allan Poe is dead,” the obituary began. “He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.” Among other things, Griswold insisted that Edgar had few or no friends, and that he was an angry person who was jealous of other people’s success. In a collection of Edgar’s works and in other publications, Griswold made up stories that damaged Edgar’s reputation even further. He said Edgar roamed the streets talking to himself. Readers of Edgar’s stories knew that he often wrote shocking descriptions of death or violence, and that he sometimes wrote from the point of view of a crazy person.

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BOOK REVIEW: Richard Corben’s “Morella” and “Murders in the Rue Morgue”/ Dark Horse Comics

By Lee David

Morell and Murders In The Rue Morgue Cover

Richard Corben has had a long and varied career as an artist and illustrator, having done stellar work for most major comics publishers, but being known primarily in weird fiction reading circles for illustrating and adapting stories for some of the most popular black and white comic magazines, Vampirella,  Creepy and Eerie, Warren publications popular primarily in the 1970s. His work for Heavy Metal Magazine has garnered him legions of fans. Richard Corben is a 2012 Eisner Hall of Fame Inductee.

Dark Horse has published a one-shot book giving Corben a platform to adapt two of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and, aided by Beth Corben Reed (coloring) and Nate Piekos (lettering), Corben is at the top of his game.

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THEATER REVIEW: ‘The Hours of Life’ at Seattle’s Theatre 22

By Lee David

The Hours Of Life

THE HOURS OF LIFE is the new musical about Poe that had its world premiere in Seattle at the Cornish Studio Theatre on December 5, 2014. The Theatre 22 production was rotten by Paul Lewis and directed by Corey D. McDaniel.

The show opens with cast members filling the stage in song, all dressed in beautifully tailored period costumes. The intimate feel of the 100-seat theater was immediately felt with the characters literally standing at your side.  After the rousing finale of the first of 17 songs, the ensemble disperses and the play gently unfolds.

There are two main story lines in this production that intertwine flawlessly.  The character of Edgar Allan Poe was portrayed by Brian Pucheu who, although he starts off the play rather meekly, thankfully progresses into the type of Poe character that I had expected; strong and charismatic.

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NEVERMORE: AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE

By Robert J. Rei

Nevermore Boston Poster

Preternatural Pathos & Loving a Ghost

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

-Edgar Allan Poe

 

Crash, smash, bang, boom! Suddenly there he was sprawled on the floor less than eight feet away between the left hand side of the stage and me. The well dressed lovely blonde-haired woman who sat in the seat next to me at my left hand was clearly startled with surprise and concern, as was I also, reacted and began to instinctively rise from her seat to assist Edgar Allan Poe who had just taken a dramatic startling sudden drunken fall off the stage onto the floor right in front of us. Halfway up off her seat she just as quickly sat back down watching intently and carefully the man on floor in front of us drunkenly picking himself up the spotlight now shining fully gently upon him, for she, like me, remembered that we were at a one man play in a theater and that the seemingly violent uncontrolled fall from the stage to the floor was a planned part of the show, maybe, probably, hopefully, for we the audience had clearly fallen under the spell of the sublime and supreme performance of the actor Jeffery Combs, as he brought Edgar Allan Poe to life, for all of us present that Halloween night in the Somerville Theater.

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Book: POE LAND by J.W. Ocker

By Paul Day Clemens

The Raven 2012

Having read as much as I have in the last 40 years both by and about Edgar Allan Poe, it is rare indeed that I encounter a book about EAP that can truly qualify as original. So imagine my surprise and delight upon reading J.W. Ocker's 'Poe-Land' to discover that Mr. O has managed to pull that most impressive rabbit called "Originality" out of his magician's topper first time up to bat, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor. Hell, even the book's cover is delightfully unique, featuring a typically brooding Poe in a deliberately incongruous Coney Island style setting that frames Ocker's narrative to a proverbial T, inviting one and all, young and old, literary and non, to enter Poe-Land -- IF they dare! -- and experience the wonders therein.

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Film: THE RAVEN (2012)

By Tomahawk Man

The Raven 2012

Lead players: John Cusack (Edgar Allan Poe), Luke Evans (Detective Fields), Alice Eve (Emily Hamilton), Brendan Gleason (Captain Hamilton), The Killer (Sam Hazeldine—

Directed by James McTeigue, Produced by Marc D Evans, Trevor Macy , Aaron Ryder, Written by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare, Music by Lucas Vidal. Distributed by Relativity Media 2012. Rated “R”.  111 mintes. Released in the UK: March 9, 2012. Released in the US: April 27, 2012. Released on DVD in US: October 9, 2012.

LORD, HELP MY POOR SOUL

Let’s get two things out of the way before we can begin.

Spoilers. You’ve come this far, whether you’ve seen the movie or not, so take it. How can I discuss a film without discussing all of the film? So grow up. “Spoilers” don’t spoil anything. Surprise is shallow. Suspense is deep. You want a surprise? Open your cell phone bill. (Spoiler alert! It’s not what you thought it was going to be!)

The second thing: spinning in one’s grave. I’ve sometimes wondered if, when one spins in one’s grave,  is it really fast and counter-clockwise like a flicked Twister spinner arrow, or is it like a series of spinning revolutions at 90 miles-per-hour, like a chicken on a rotisserie spit?

As for The Raven starring John Cusack, I’ll bet Edgar Poe is spinning giddily in his grave, like a tilt-a-whirl at the State Fair. And that would be the happy-prankster Poe. The famous hoaxter.

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