Tag Archives: reviews

“Looper”: Five-Film Sci-Fi Mash-Up is Terrifying, Tear-Jerking, Terrific

October 4, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Looper"The short, spoiler-free version of my impression of Looper: the film is a knotty but ingenious cat-and-mouse thriller that moves from urban squalor to rural tranquility with an enviable dexterity while contemplating the effects of poor choices on our lives (our own as well as others’), the things we’ll sacrifice to stay true to our selfish nature, and what we’re willing to sacrifice if we think harder about what’s most important in the grand scheme. Other reviews have already noted the effectiveness of the makeup, the subtlety of the near-future visual designs, and the fun of watching Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing different versions of the same character. Consider those thoughts seconded here, since I can’t think of a good reason to retype them in my own redundant words.

However, I wouldn’t go so far as to grade it A+++++. I recognized more than a few moving parts from other films, albeit parts that are shuffled together skillfully, retooled for improved functionality, and kept as far removed from the trailers as possible.

Before proceeding, I brake here for COURTESY SPOILER ALERT for those who plan to see it but have been too busy or who avoid theaters. Now is your moment to escape for the sake of your future moviegoing experience, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

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“Revolution” 10/1/2012 (spoilers): Educating Charlie, the Secret of Miles, and 10,000 Sniper Bullets

October 2, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Charlie and Nora, "Revolution"

Action heroine class is now in session.

Week Three of NBC’s Revolution, entitled “No Quarter”, took major strides toward turning Charlie into the main character at last. She found a personal mentor in Nora; she completed her third kill (random crossbow takedown); she took out an entire bridge with archery and explosives, and — most shocking of all — she learned Miles’ deep, dark, horrible secret that makes her morally superior to him.

Miles’ shady past may never have come to light if Nora hadn’t introduced us to her friends in the Rebel Alliance, including their leader, Nicholas (Derek Webster from Damages and Harry’s Law), labeled a Catholic priest but struggling to walk the walk in a world turned topsy-turvy. More credit for the rebels’ survival may be owed to their nameless sniper who has the pleasure of mercilessly wielding the precious M40A rifle that Our Heroes acquired last week. (If they distinguished which of the three kinds of M40As it was, then I missed the last digit.) While everyone else hides in the basement of a former restaurant called Harrigan’s that resembled a Bennigan’s except of course totally different, the noble sniper mowed down the onslaught of evil cannon fodder as quickly as they could be ushered out of hiding by their leader, Jeremy (Mark Pellegrino from Supernatural, playing quite the remarkable villain here). Fortunately for the sniper, either Nora also lifted a gigantic box of M40Ax rounds along the way back to Harrigan’s, or the rebels stole the bullets previously and kept lugging the dead weight around until they could locate a weapon to match with them.

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Driveway Tunnelers Fail to Find Hoffa, But Recover My Lost “Cabin in the Woods” Review

September 28, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

My daily MCC followers may recall a recent entry in which I eulogized one of my oldest entries, a review of The Cabin in the Woods that somehow vanished from this blog without malice aforethought or explanation forthcoming. Originally posted on May 6th, I tried to return to it months later to double-check something I’d written (I don’t even recall exactly what), only to discover a large hole in my history where once it had existed. The software left a trail of another post that I intentionally deleted a few weeks later, but not the Cabin piece.

Wanna hear a funny story about a forgetful old man?

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My 2012 Staycation Movie Marathon Midweek Report

September 27, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I’m blessed to have spent the past twelve years working for a company that firmly believes in allowing its employees too much vacation time. Each year I take one week off to spend with my family in the summer (cf. the ongoing “Road Trip” series) and one week in the fall to spend at home alone. While my son is in school and my wife is at work, during the daytime I have the house all to myself, as long as I don’t mind sharing the territory with our dog.

I’m also ridiculously blessed with a wife who doesn’t view my annual one-man one-week staycation as an opportunity to hit me with a dreaded “Honey-Do List” of five hundred different odd jobs that remain undone around the house. A friend at work complains that whenever he takes a staycation, his wife schedules enough activities for him that he spends all his so-called “time off” alternating between playing handyman and Mr. Mom. This is not a problem for me because my wife wants me to rest, in hopes that she’ll get to keep me around and alive for as many decades as possible. I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic, but I do have my frequent moments of appearing burnt out and frazzled. I’m told that relaxation makes a difference in my condition.

In most years, when I haven’t violated the premise and written myself a lengthy to-do list, my staycation usually takes the form of a week-long movie marathon. Like many American families, we suffer the first-world problem of buying more DVDs than we can possibly watch in a reasonable number of sittings. In an average week, when I’m burning the candle at both ends between my full-time day job (plus overtime) and my part-time non-paying night job (i.e., the blog), to say nothing of other activities and requirements of adult life, I’m lucky if I have time to sit still for three TV shows and a single movie. The high ratio of purchasing-to-watching means I have a never-ending stockpile of works on hand to ensure that I’ll never be bored inside my own home for the rest of my life.

The portion of the stockpile with the densest accumulation is comprised of things that no one in the house except me is interested in watching — movies and shows that have little chance of making the cut for Family Quality Time, a few of which I arguably shouldn’t be watching. Lately I’ve been actively curtailing my purchases in that subsection — partly for spiritual reasons, partly due to volume, and partly because watching things alone is a lot less enjoyable than viewing experiences that I can share with others around me. Anything in that subsection has to wait on the shelf and collect dust until I have extended time to myself and an inclination for solitude.

That’s where my annual one-man one-week staycation comes in handy. It’s one of my best opportunities to chip away at that particular viewing pile. Much of this week has been spent running errands around town, sleeping too much, and busying myself with the Internet and my part-time non-paying night job, which cruelly offers no paid vacation time. In between all of that, so far I’ve found time to watch six movies that I’d never seen before. I’m saving the DVD extras for another time, to fill small time slots between activities in future work weeks wherever possible.

Ranked below from best to worst, this week’s staycation feature presentations have been:

1. Broadcast News. Writer/director/producer James L. Brooks’ lamentation of the ever-growing superficiality of network TV news, and its increasingly money-minded fixation on entertainment value, is a tragic reminder of how little has improved since 1987. Amidst the anti-sheen commentary is a complicated love triangle between William Hurt’s shallow but skillful anchor-hunk, Albert Brooks’ sharp-minded but blindered nebbish, and Holly Hunter’s professional but bamboozled producer. I picked this up for the satire, but was surprised to discover that it cloaked a relationship film that I wished had been longer. Fortunately my copy is a Criterion Collection edition that includes additional scenes and an alternate ending among the extras, so eventually my wish for more will technically be granted.

2. The Town. The second film from writer/director Ben Affleck, making the most of the second phase of his career as he’s successfully moved beyond the grasp of super-stardom that placed him in several awful films in a row before he stepped back and took stock of his life. Affleck directs himself and an explosive Jeremy Renner as Charlestown bank robbers with a lifelong hometown-boy camaraderie, but slowly diverging opinions as to what they should be doing with their lives. Renner is perfectly happy to stay the course, but Affleck discovers new motivations to find a new direction for living. In that sense it’s practically a parable of Affleck’s own film career before segueing to directing. (If one reached too far, one could even insert an unfair observation about Renner standing in for Matt Damon in yet another context…)

3. Miller’s Crossing. The third big-screen collaboration between young Joel and Ethan Coen, this 1990 production about a 1920s gang war is mostly two hours of Albert Finney, Jon Polito, Marcia Gay Harden, and various other actors taking turns punching Gabriel Byrne in the face and stomach. In between the body blows, Byrne’s convoluted plan to establish long-term peace by escalating the war into a bloody free-for-all reminded me of Kid Loki’s recent efforts in Marvel’s Journey into Mystery series. The ambiguity of some characters’ actions was occasionally dissatisfying, but would evolve into a polished motif in later Coen Bros. films.

4. Last of the Wild Horses. This was actually a sixth-season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the celebrated TV show that mocked a different bad film in every episode. The original feature was a so-so Western about…something. I’m not even sure now. All I remember is a cranky wheelchair-bound father being shot to death on his front porch in poorly conceived indignity. Mike Nelson and the ‘Bots defend themselves against the movie’s mediocrity with verbal slings and arrows. As a parody of the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror”, the host segments center around a transporter calamity that causes Mike Nelson and Tom Servo to swap places with their evil counterparts from another dimension. We know they’re evil because Evil Mike has a mustache and goatee, and Evil Servo wears a yellow sash. Meanwhile in the MST3K mirror universe, the good versions of Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank are forced to watch the first twenty minutes of the film, marking the only time those two entered the theater in the show’s history.

5. Sucker Punch. On the plus side, Zack Snyder’s girl-power action yarn is much less exploitative than I’d feared, even as reconfigured into a 127-minute Extended Edition. This alleviated some anticipated guilt, but didn’t make it a success. Emily Browning (Violet Baudelaire in A Series of Unfortunate Events) is a victimized teen consigned by her wicked stepfather to a mental asylum, which she reimagines to herself as a stylized brothel in which she’s trained to dance alongside fellow inmates Jamie Chung (Premium Rush), Disney’s Vanessa Hudgins, Abbie Cornish (the Robocop remake), and Jena Malone (Johanna in the upcoming Catching Fire). Rather than hire a choreographer to design a memorable Bunheads-style routine for Browning to master, Snyder instead has her delve one level deeper into her subconscious and symbolically represent each dance as a vapid, meaningless, expensive video game sequence. A rotating onslaught of giant artillery-wielding samurai, undead WWI German trench-dwellers, Lord of the Rings orcs, and sci-fi security robots each take turns destroying everything and meaning nothing. Some might find comfort in the movie’s message of The Power Is In You, but I was occasionally bored and ultimately bothered by the passing structural similarity to Pan’s Labyrinth, a more poetic and far superior film about a young girl escaping an oppressive environment through a secret entrance into a fantastical world.

6. Blow Out. Writer/director Brian DePalma’s 1981 take on the Hitchcockian wrong-place/wrong-time thriller sees post-Kotter John Travolta as a sound technician for grade-Z film productions caught in a conspiracy web when he records a fateful car accident with a high-profile victim and a telltale sound effect meant to go unheard. Robocop‘s Nancy Allen is surprising as a ditzy call girl with even worse timing that Travolta’s. Dennis Franz is suitable as a sleazy paparazzo who makes things even worse. John Lithgow cuts his teeth in what would be the first of many irredeemable psychos he would play throughout his career. I enjoyed the old-time scenes of Travolta editing and cutting recordings the old-fashioned way on reel-to-reel tapes, with all the constant rewinding and forwarding. Undercutting the suspense and making this difficult to recommend are the satirical pandering of the first five intentionally exploitative minutes, and the final thirty seconds of the film, in which an ostensibly tragic ending instead came off as out-of-character and revolting.

That’s what has passed for “relaxation” for me so far this week. I’ve exhausted my errands list, but I’ve no shortage of movies on deck. Assuming I don’t oversleep any more, I’ll see how the moods and options guide the rest of my staycation.

To Be Continued!

“Revolution” 9/24/2012 (spoilers): Mitigating Morality and Fussing Over Flags

September 25, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

The Rebel Alliance goes up to 11Last week’s premiere of the new JJ Abrams series Revolution achieved encouraging Nielsen ratings. Then again, so did the pilots for The Event and FlashForward. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday morning to discover how episode two fared. I’m sticking with it for now with some form of curiosity, but I can’t say the show is firing on all cylinders yet.

The interesting sword-fighting scenes in this week’s episode, “Chained Heat”, are mostly between Miles and special guest C. Thomas Howell as a generic bounty hunter. Unfortunately for Miles, all his other party members lack key adventuring skills. If they were Dungeons & Dragons characters, their class would be Hostage. Worse still in Miles’ mind, head hostage Charlie still adheres to old-fashioned, inconvenient, old-world beliefs such as Killing Is Wrong and Slavery Must Be Stopped. Through the course of the hour, Uncle Miles has to teach his niece that (1) life in the new world is basically a constant state of war, so killing is mandatory until someone reinvents the American legal and penal systems; and (2) they have better things to do than become a traveling abolition squad. The validity of either lesson remains open to debate.

At first Miles abandons his dead-weight companions and tries to carry the series solo, but Charlie refuses to let him because she believes she’s the main character, and also she wants to fight by his side with her crossbow that she’ll willingly use to wound animals or shield herself from swinging swords. Despite her inexperience and naivete, despite Miles’ considerable head start, and despite a scene where she plods around a playground for a while and has an intense childhood flashback, somehow she catches up with him anyway. One has to wonder if perhaps she possesses innate tracking skills not yet mentioned, if Miles somehow got lost, or if he was just testing her to see if she would follow him, and had been hiding in the bushes all this time.

Miles wouldn’t be alone in using shrubbery as camouflage. That’s exactly where “Nate” spent this episode, keeping himself, his conflicting motives, and his general brooding hidden but never far from the action. Basically he’s set up as a season 1 Angel to Charlie’s Buffy. Those are some big shoes to fill, “Nate”.

Of course, in order to follow Miles in the name of “only trying to help”, Charlie had to let Aaron and Maggie stay abandoned and fending for themselves. The duo reacts to this by not staying put, instead venturing forth armed only with the late Ben Matheson’s potentially world-saving flash-drive MacGuffin amulet, a dead iPhone that hopefully doesn’t experience memory degradation issues, and Aaron’s magic glasses that have survived fifteen years or more without collecting scratches all over the lenses. Maybe I shop at all the wrong optometrists, but after two or three years with the same pair of glasses, I’m usually half-blind and having to learn how to focus through the few clear spots.

Thus do Aaron and Maggie throw caution to the wind and advance in the direction of Grant Park, the hometown of Grace, the mysterious lady from last week that Danny met by pure happenstance, who then threw him to the wolves, and who for some reason has a working computer with a 56K modem with the old dial-up squawks and everything. We know little else about her so far except she had/has an asthmatic son whose inhaler had no expiration date; she’s not afraid to throw innocents to the wolves for the sake of saving her own skin or cause (too early to tell which of those means more to her); and her subplot ends in a cliffhanger involving a rude home invader named Randall. I like to think that a character with that name just has to be awesome, so I’m sure there was a perfectly courteous reason for him to smash her door down.

Funny thing about Grant Park, though: it’s fifty miles south of Chicago. That wouldn’t be a cakewalk for the Fellowship of the Ring, let alone for casual pedestrians. I can’t wait to see how that goes for Maggie and Aaron, who’s not exactly built like a cross-country runner. I also look forward to finding out how Charlie’s brother Danny, who was taken captive many miles west of Chicago in the pilot, somehow beat them to Grant Park by a full episode — accidentally and with asthma, at that. They do have one thing in their favor: Miles told everyone to meet in two weeks in Lowell, Indiana, which lies a measly fifteen miles east of Grant Park. That leg of their trip should be a breeze compared to the Chicago-to-Grant-Park marathon.

Miles’ side quest, as it turns out, is to recruit the last cast member, Nora (Daniella Alonso), who can hold her own in a fight, can allegedly blow stuff up, is willing to steal herself better weapons, and has a Rebel Alliance tattoo on her back, in the form of an eleven-star American flag. Apparently the rebels are so hardcore, they think North Carolina and Rhode Island don’t count as Original Colonies because they were too slow to get ratified. 11-OC in full effect, y’all.

Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito’s Neville, the most interesting evildoer in the show, saw reduced screen time, but taught us two key lessons: he’s some kind of religious (for me, the most eye-rolling revelation this week), and the original fifty-star American flag has been renamed the “rebel flag”. With the series taking place in northeast Illinois, it may be years before the characters walk far enough south for us to learn what a Confederate flag is now called. His superior, Sebastian Monroe, presidential monarch of the Monroe Republic, had even less screen time with only two scenes to call his own: one demonstrating that he’s against torture but not murder; and one revealing that Charlie’s mom is alive and captive.

Hopefully the future doesn’t see Charlie following her mom’s lead in every other episode. I’d like to see her grow as a character, preferably sooner rather than later. It was sad to see her innocence die a little when she experienced her first kill (and, seconds later, her second kill) while helping Nora steal the cool sniper rifle from the copter-hoarding Imperial forces. She doubtlessly has more trials ahead of her, so she’ll need to keep working on her backbone development, stop letting strong men back her into helpless positions, and start owning the fact that this entire journey was her idea.

If she keeps insisting on retreating to the background, I would recommend the show change focus ASAP so that Miles really is the one true main character. Along those lines, they’d do well to change the name of the show as well. My suggestions for a new name would include Miles to Go; Miles Down the Road; Crossing Miles; Miles and Nora’s Infinite Hit List; or We’re Walking, We’re Walking, We’re Walking.

“The Bourne Legacy”: 2½ Hours of Jeremy Renner Having the Time of His Life

September 19, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Tonight’s entertainment was a discount showing of The Bourne Legacy, in which Academy Award Nominee Jeremy Renner enjoys the perks of action heroism without looking like a plasticine sellout. That’s all I wanted, and I’m happy that my expectations were cheerfully met. I was willing to let most of the deficiencies slide.

To understand my mindset, head directly the $5 DVD bin at your nearest Wal*Mart and pick up a copy of 2003’s S.W.A.T., which was chiefly a loud mash-up of the incongruous stylings of Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell. When I watched it years ago, I couldn’t help noticing the showy bad-cop with all the best lines, played by a confident young guy who seemed to be enjoying himself a lot more than the marquee names were. Not long after, I caught him during my Angel DVD marathon in a season-one role as a gleefully evil vampire — once again, cockier and smiling a lot more than his opponent. After back-to-back favorable experience,s I made a mental note to keep an eye out for young Renner in the future.

Fast-forward years later: now his resumé includes The Avengers, The Hurt Locker, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol — all grade-A films in my book, all this close to making Renner a household name. Also of interest: last November Entertainment Weekly published a lengthy article about him that detailed his lean years as a struggling actor living a life far from luxury while chasing his dreams. That struck a chord with me, and only served to upgrade my mental note into a full-fledged set of index cards. In the filing cabinet that is my mind, that’s a kind of praise.

Renner finally worked his way up to carrying a big-budget action film on his own (instead of as a sidekick or teammate) with The Bourne Legacy, in which his character is torn between a government that needs him dead and a skeptical audience that’s 95% certain he’s not Matt Damon. I liked the original trilogy, but not nearly enough to consider it sacrosanct. The same screenwriter, Tony Gilroy, is now in the director’s chair adapting his own words for the screen, and he even allows cameos from previous players David Strathairn, Joan Allen, and Scott Glenn. We still have the specter of the evil government programs named Treadstone and Blackbriar, begging to be joined by other new evil programs with ten-letter compound names like “Thumbscrew” or “Riverdance”. It’s in the same timeline as the trilogy, no reboot or disregard for what came before. (Granted, I have no idea how hardcore Robert Ludlum fans feel about what amounts to an apocryphal spinoff…)

I wasn’t really concerned with whether or not it lived up to its predecessors. I harbored no delusion that it would be groundbreaking. I entered in hopes of seeing a guy who used to live on ramen noodles and unpaid light bills enjoy the fruits of a turnaround of fate. As the last survivor of a black-ops Super-Soldier Program made possible by the sinister forces of Big Pharmaceutical, Renner finds plenty of quiet moments for emotion and sincerity in between the running, chasing, punching, kicking, parkour, motorcycle stunts, and smash-cam closeups. His earnestness and lack of Hollywood sheen go a long way toward redeeming a role that, in the shallow end of the ’80s, would have been relegated to any number of direct-to-video martial-arts “stars”.

Also worth noting is Rachel Weisz as the requisite damsel in distress, trying on an American accent for a change, carefully modulating her fearfulness instead of aiming for full-tilt histrionics like others might in her place, and standing her ground as needed with her fully accredited science skills. Edward Norton stands out a tad as the evil overseer with the best-written lines (particularly his discomfiting description of the evil Program as “morally indefensible and absolutely necessary”). I spent the entire movie thinking Stacy Keach was Albert Finney as Evil Overseer #2, so I guess that’s a job well done. And after having coincidentally watched *batteries not included the other night, I was shocked to see that Dennis Boutsikaris, as the constantly upset Evil Overseer #3, has indeed aged a full twenty-five years over the last twenty-five years. Shocking but true.

I had to focus on the performances because the rest of the movie was a mixed bag. The “plot” is Our Heroes enduring one long chase scene while all the best villains hide in a faraway room. All armed henchmen working outside the main control room are one-note, including one Super-Duper-Soldier with no lines and no demonstrable evidence as to why his even-eviler Evil Program was superior to Our Hero’s. The climactic auto-wrecking dance is shot with such a claustrophobic eye that I lost all sense of setting and placement, and thought I was trapped on a merry-go-round. And the movie pauses all that chasing instead of actually ending, as if everyone involved simply stopped and called a truce so they could move on to their next projects.

But for my money’s worth, I achieved my goal of watching Renner hang out with interesting people in exotic locales while stunts are performed and entertainment is adequately concocted for my discounted dollar. Hopefully we won’t have to watch the sad sight of Renner selling out altogether in future years and demanding ten times his salary for an extra-bloated sequel called The Bourne Travesty.

Three final notes, in keeping with past movie entries:

1. The Bourne Legacy has no scene after the end credits. Once again for the true fans, the credits do roll to a reprise of the official Bourne theme, Moby’s “Extreme Ways”.

2. In terms of content, mostly it’s about the smashing and exploding, with very few curse words added so we know it’s still a Hollywood film. For those with the sensibilities of a great-great-grandmother, the end credits include a warning label about the scenes of smoking (*gasp!*) being “an artistic choice” rather than paid product placement. If that makes or breaks the deal for you, consider yourself warned.

3. I counted one veteran of The Wire onscreen: blink and you’ll miss Christopher Mann — a.k.a. one-time mayoral candidate Tony Gray — as a panicky guard desperately failing to smash his way through a locked door. Poor Tony just can’t catch a break.

“Revolution” Pilot: From Slow Burn to Swashbuckling

September 18, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Billy Burke, NBC, "Revolution"Tonight was the broadcast premiere of NBC’s newest genre series Revolution, from executive producer JJ Abrams and creator Eric Kripke, best known as the original mind behind Supernatural. In a world where electricity has gone the way of the dinosaur and the physics of combustion engines have magically suspended operation, factions have arisen to make the most of a scary new world without advanced technology, lifesaving devices, or Angry Birds.

After a cursory intro peppered by distant, low-key plane crashes, the show’s setting begins fifteen years later after mankind has regressed to villages and an entire generation has grown up with only vague memories of ice cream and the Internet. Our heroine, Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos), is a more optimistic, less assured Katniss Everdeen who eschews regular bows in favor of a crossbow, which serves her poorly when she learns the hard way that reloading takes longer. At least, I hope she realizes her error. If she sticks with the crossbow simply to avoid trademark confusion, I’ve no doubt that future fight scenes will sadly gloss over this issue. Don’t be fooled by how easy the Huntress makes it look, kids.

After a tragic death and the passing of a family MacGuffin, Charlie reluctantly inspires a ragtag team of misfits to quest with her to Chicago. There’s her dad’s Australian girlfriend Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips), a doctor with sly methods for maiming a foe; Aaron (Zak Orth), a former Google exec who tags along because of comic relief; and Nate (JD Pardo), an archer with multiple weapon proficiencies and shifty priorities. They vow to walk dozens of miles together for justice, revenge, safety, and premise.

The reason for this quest? Charlie’s asthmatic brother Danny (Graham Rogers) has been taken captive by the most immediate Big Bad, Giancarlo Esposito (now departed from Breaking Bad and incarcerated on Once Upon a Time), a sinister militia captain named Neville who’s not thrilled with the orders he has to follow, but has no qualms about putting his crack-shot skills to use for his overlord, Sebastian Monroe, ringleader of the militia that rules the immediate surroundings within the landmass formerly known as the USA. Esposito firmly takes charge of every scene and won’t let go, particularly in a sequence in which he nimbly and unflinchingly mows down a row of uppity villagers, exactly one split-second bullet per villager.

Our Heroes’ not-quite-epic journey to save David — even though he’s a prisoner waaaay back home — trots them through O’Hare International Airport, fifteen miles east to Wrigley Field, a few miles south to the Magnificent Mile, then into the heart of the Loop, where an old hotel sets the stage to introduce Charlie’s long-lost uncle Miles (Twilight dad Billy Burke), who may be the lynchpin of their cause if only he can put down the bottle, stop hiding, and assume his role as the One True Main Character…who’s apparently expected to drop all his plans, trek with them back across twenty-odd miles of I-90 North, and save the day without an audition or an incentive beyond “Because family is important!”

When Evil Esposito isn’t onscreen, the first ¾ of the pilot skims through a lot of character meetings without many chances to get to know anyone at length. The energy level cranks up at the 45-minute mark (including network ads) when Miles, previously described in an offhand manner as a “killing machine” as if it weren’t nothin’, engages in the sort of well-choreographed, high-speed, one-man-army swordplay demonstration that was once the hallmark of bygone shows such as TV’s Angel. For a few minutes, I was on Action TV Cloud Nine.

If you’re patient enough to endure the setup and introductions, lying in wait after all that happy Errol Flynn-ing are two special surprises in the final five minutes: a revelation that threatens to undercut the show’s entire premise; and a better look at one of the show’s secret weapons barely noted in the preview materials — David Lyons, once known as TV’s The Cape! Somewhere out there, Abed Nadir is deliriously happy.

The pilot was released online early at NBC’s official site, but that’s not helpful to people like me who prefer larger TV screens, or to people also like me who somehow didn’t find out about the early release until after the fact. (For shame, Internet — you’re supposed to tell me these things!) Revolution isn’t quite A-plus material yet, but the pilot, as directed by Iron Man‘s Jon Favreau, climaxes with enough pizzazz and tantalizes with enough promise that I plan to check back next week for more, though I’m making no long-term commitment yet. After the sweat and tears normally poured into a pilot on big-budget double overtime, it’s usually the second episode that doesn’t try as hard to impress, and is a better indicator of the real quality control levels to be expected in the weeks ahead. Also, I’d like to see if Charlie wises up and ditches that awkward crossbow.

Internet Commenters Demand Legislation Against Complex Sentences

September 15, 2012 By in Meta, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hello, readers. How are you? I am hunky-dory.

Today was a good day. I got to rest. I ate good food. I watched some DVD extras. One was a documentary. It was about A Night to Remember. That movie was about the Titanic. The documentary was not fun. The photos were okay. The narrators were all very old men. They talked a lot. Sometimes they talked for many minutes. They talked very slowly. Sometimes there were very long pauses. Then they talked some more. They were nice men. I felt like a great-grandchild. I did not see the last fifteen minutes. I stopped the DVD early. I was sleepy.

Then I got on the Internet. It has interesting pages. I wanted to read a movie review. It was about The Master. I have mentioned that movie before. Joaquin Phoenix is angry and confused. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is charming and maybe evil. Amy Adams is happy and unhappy. I may go see it. I have not decided. My city is not showing it yet. Maybe they will show it in October.

The review was written by a movie critic. Her name is Lisa Schwarzbaum. Her boss is named Entertainment Weekly. She has worked there for decades. She likes itty-bitty foreign films. She also likes movies about sexiness. Sometimes I do not agree with her. Sometimes I do. She uses big words and long sentences. I can usually understand her. Sometimes I also use big words and long sentences. Sometimes she mentions really weird movies. That does not bother me. Sometimes I also talk about weird things.

Ms. Schwarzbaum liked The Master very much. She gave it an A. Her review had big words and long sentences. This was the last sentence of her review:

The cubism of the concluding third of the picture allows a disoriented viewer to consider this singular movie not only as a character portrait, but also as a photographic travel diary, from the days before Instagram, by an important artist following the itinerary of Americans seeking salvation and prosperity when an exterior world war was over but interior psychological battles raged.

The word “cubism” threw me for a moment. I looked it up on the Internet. It has dictionaries and WikiPedia in it. I found Cubism in there. Now I understand the whole sentence. “Cubism” is a good word for a Paul Thomas Anderson film.

Some readers did not like her review. They really did not like her last sentence. A few readers said mean things about her. One reader said this direct quote:

…it is exhausting – why does she have to create super complex sentences with thesaurus worthy big words – it doesn’t impress me, it belittles me. and that last sentence, WTF? I’d hate to be stuck next to a cooler with her, attempting to carry on a conversation about the latest small town drama. Know your audience.

Her audience does not like long sentences or big words. “Entertainment” is a big word. Lisa’s words are mostly shorter than “entertainment”. They should rename the magazine Things Weekly. The audience would like them better.

Another unhappy reader said this direct quote:

“the cubism of the final third……….” this sentence is not only THE most pretentious piece of critical crap I’ve ever read, it also convinced me not see the probable load of “important” blarney that inspired it.

The Internet has many pretentious pieces of critical crap. I have read some of them. I usually do not rank them. Some reviews can be pretentious and not crap. Sometimes I like pretentiousness. That word is even bigger than “entertainment”. It does not scare me. I used to be an English major. Other English majors scared me. One time our class talked about “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. That is an old story about gross murders. One victim was stuffed inside a chimney. One classmate had a theory about the scene’s meaning. He used the phrase “return-to-the-womb motif”. I was very scared. I wanted to leave class immediately. Now I am older. I have conquered that fear.

Ms. Schwarzbaum probably writes how she wants. Maybe she even thinks that way. Her writing made other people sad. She should rewrite her last sentence. It should be many sentences. The sad people might like the new sentences. They could look like this:

The movie shows you things about each character. Some of those things are very different from each other. It takes place in the past. The old places tell one long story. It is better than random photos. The story comes after a war. People were not happy yet. They had a lot to think about. They tried to make money and be saved. The movie is very good. The director is neat.

Shorter sentences can be happier sentences. The biggest word in those sentences is “different”. That word should not be scary. I think Liza Schwarzbaum is a different writer. Maybe I am a very different reader.

Well, got to go. Have a nice day. I will see you all tomorrow. My next entry may have commas and more clauses in it because of pretentiousness. I hope you will not hate my important blarney. I promise I will not read it aloud to you with extra long pauses. That might make it worse.

All “Dark Knight Rises” Reviews Must Assign at Least an A-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus OR ELSE.

July 19, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Internet flame wars are no rare occurrence, but I was surprised to see them in the headlines again, not just in a headline’s poorly moderated Comments section. Entertainment Weekly reported Wednesday on the decision of the colossal movie-review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to revoke discussion privileges for any and all reviews of The Dark Knight Rises, opening nationwide this weekend. The drastic measure, whether temporary or not, was invoked after a few early negative reviews spurred a combined thousand-plus responses from diehard fans of either Batman or director Christopher Nolan behaving in a manner allegedly on the scale somewhere between junior-high-snotty and creepy-terrorist-threat.

The official statement of RT editor-in-chief Matt Atchity seems well-reasoned, polite, diplomatic, and firm about the situation. Clearly this man has no place on the Internets and should not be taken seriously unless he calls out his opponents using misspelled epithets from all the worst R-rated comedies.

The release of the final film in Nolan’s Bat-trilogy is doubtlessly a sensitive time for our nation. Batman Begins stood above all else as a remarkable turnaround from its Bat-predecessors. The Dark Knight was, regardless of its flaws, the apex of Heath Ledger’s film legacy. Between the two, they’re prime examples of what happens when a super-hero movie attempts to transcend such singular classification without necessarily failing at it. Geek America would love to see lightning strike a third time and herald the very first successful super-hero trilogy. Fantasy fans had Lord of the Rings. Animation fans had Toy Story. Horror fans had Evil Dead, and maybe George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels (I only saw part of the original). Adventure fans had Indiana Jones. Spy fans had Jason Bourne, any three favorite Bond films of their choice, and Mission Impossible if you skip the second and include the fourth instead. Comic book fans have, at best, several records with two-hits-and-a-miss. Just once, a successful hat trick in our genre would be a wonder to behold.

I read through some of the preserved responses to the reviews by Christy Lemire and Marshall Fine, two of the most heinous criminals targeted in the War on Negative Bat-Reviews. I’m not convinced that assailing naysayers with playground tactics will somehow result in a better movie. I’m sure more than one fan wishes they could have the power of li’l Billy Mumy from that famous Twilight Zone episode and force everyone to agree with them on everything. Alas, God’s gift of free will and the nonexistence of super-villain cornfields permit otherwise.

I won’t have time to see DKR for myself until at least Sunday afternoon, but I plan to keep an open mind in every sense. Nolan has an impeccable track record with me thus far. Then again, once upon a time, so did Pixar. DKR may the Greatest Film of All Times. It may be Nolan’s weakest film to date. I may go home afterward and rethink my life. I may spend all three hours comparing Tom Hardy’s performance unfavorably to Gail Simone’s superlative version of Bane from DC’s Secret Six. I may or may not reevaluate my lifelong indifference to every version of Catwoman ever (yes, including even the great Julie Newmar’s rendition). I may hang on its every word and quote portions of it for days afterward, or I may have to suppress the internal MST3K track that clicks on in my head when a film begins to crash and burn before my eyes.

I truly have no idea what reaction to expect, and refuse to form my opinion until after I’ve seen the movie for myself. Whatever my personal results, I don’t plan to spend my free time heaping scorn upon others for their own reactions, questioning their credentials, besmirching their integrity, or scrutinizing their kinder reviews of other, lesser films for signs of hypocrisy. Not even those notorious critics that I consider to be the anti-Me.

I’d like to think I can be honest in my response without fear of being bullied in return. I would hope the Internet can sustain isolated safe zones where the notion of civil discourse isn’t more radical than any concepts DKR has to offer.

Reviews Mocking “Battleship” Drive Product Placement for Other Board Games Up 4000%

May 21, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This month’s most popular Internet pastime has been writers jabbing the latest Transformers sequel by asking the rhetorical question, “What’s next, ________?” and filling in the blank with the one game they were most frequently beaten at as a kid. Unable to settle on just one punchline, the May 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly even provides a full page of Photoshop humor that name-checks five different classic games. Naturally this list includes the commonest punchline of the day, Hungry Hungry Hippos, which in the past month has skyrocketed to 192,000 Google results, up from a pre-Battleship all-time high of twenty-three Google results, twenty of which were disturbing fetish sites.

I expect most of the true classics have already been snatched up by large studios with massive budgets. Fortunately, if I were a Hollywood executive in need of more properties to license, I have memories from childhood and adulthood to plumb for potential licenses I could plunder that few of my arch-rivals would be equipped to translate to the silver screen.

My hypothetical release slate for summer 2015 would include:

Dungeon! — Someone brilliant at TSR boiled Dungeons & Dragons down to its essential elements: dungeon-crawling, simple hack-‘n’-slash, and treasure-hoarding. When my friends tired of the RPG aspect of Advanced D&D (i.e., whatever TSR module connected their AD&D battles into a story), we’d put away their character sheets and most of the dice, break Dungeon! out of the box, and go mindless.

In the movie version, the dragons, trolls, and other monsters would be replaced by giant alien robots. The titular dungeon would exist beneath a large European city that spectacularly collapses throughout the film from all the explosions undermining it.

Dark Tower — Another fantasy board game, this one dominated by a large electronic tower (batteries not included) that stood at the center of the board and determined the course of events on each player’s turn via LED numbers, flashing pictures, and annoying sound effects. The day mine broke down for good was a sad day indeed, except to adult family members who spent the evening sighing with joy.

In the movie version, the Tower itself is like an undertall Unicron ordering hordes of giant alien robots to overrun the lands of Ripoff Middle Earth. The original sound effects are cranked up to 11, distorted through several filters at ILM, and earn an Academy Award nomination. The movie’s release will be accompanied by vigorous lawsuits against any Stephen King adaptations that attempt to use the same name.

Run for Your Life, Candyman! — I was introduced to Smirk and Dagger Games at their 2009 GenCon booth. Not long after, I made a point of ordering a copy of this early release, a Candyland spoof that adds the single most crucial element the original game always lacked: a violent combat system. Each player is an armed and dangerous gingerbread man, opening fire on opponents while absconding through nightmarish candy-themed badlands. It’s a black-humor hoot that’s much more challenging and disturbing than its predecessor.

In the movie version, all those candy building blocks are the MacGuffin sought by a race of giant alien robots who need sugar for fuel. Firing nuclear weapons point-blank in each other’s faces over the centuries has resulted in a species-wide genetic deformity that prevents them from metabolizing raw cane sugar, so the processed sugar of faux-Candyland is their only hope. This would merely be an adaptation of the original Candyland if it weren’t for the gingerbread men’s extremely loud machine guns.

Bargain Hunter — This shopping game taught kids how to search store ads patiently for the lowest prices on furniture, appliances, and pets, as well as how to buy them with either cash or credit card. It came with a plastic credit card machine and several pretend credit cards that you inserted into the machine. You ran the cards through like a real machine, and prayed for purchase approval just like a real shopper. The rules for credit card interest accrual were sketchy and failed to reflect the realities of APRs, annual fees, and predatory lending, but you learned pretty quickly what a fair price was for an exotic lizard.

In the movie version, every department store in the Big City is taken over by a race of giant alien robots calling themselves The Bargain, who aim to dominate Earth’s economic infrastructures from within. Humanity’s last hope against this one-percenter allegory is a single man with a whip-smart attitude and no credit cards to max out. This hero will be played by Dave Ramsey.

Clue: the Great Museum Caper — I’m not sure this sequel ever became a household name, but it’s still a favorite in our family. One player is a thief sneaking through an art museum to steal paintings, recording their movements on a secret notepad in lieu of a physical playing piece on the board itself. The other players are detectives hoping to land blindly on the thief’s space as the disappearing paintings and disabled security devices give away his position. C:tGMC offered more variation in its gameplay and used none of the original characters, not even that cursed Miss Scarlet who was guilty in nine out of every ten times I played.

In the movie version, we pick up where the first Clue movie left off, wherever that was. I never saw it or its three different endings. Clue 2: Dark of the Monet will replace the art museum with the first game’s mansion setting and have twelve different endings. In each ending, the culprit is a different giant alien robot who retaliates against arrest attempts by blasting apart the study, the ballroom, and the conservatory.

File 13 — An integral part of my D&D experience was a subscription to Dragon Magazine, which occasionally came with free cut-out board games designed by a cartoonist named Tom Wham. My favorite was File 13, in which players were game designers attempting to shepherd their silly-named creations through a game-design flowchart. If one of your games reached the end of the chart, your game was published and you won. The board was a pull-out double-page spread; the pieces were tiny colored squares you had to cut out yourself. I still have my copy of the game tucked away in a Ziploc bag somewhere ’round here.

In the movie version, we replace all the games with giant alien robots, the flowchart with a giant alien robot factory, and the name File 13 with the title Transformers 5: Real Steel 2. Otherwise it’s an utterly faithful adaptation.

Tomorrow’s Publishers Mine Yesterday’s Concepts for Today’s Freebies (FCBD, Part 3 of 3)

May 11, 2012 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Thus the trilogy concludes:

Donald Duck Family Comics (Fantagraphics) — After previous stints with Gladstone, Hamilton, and BOOM!, Disney relocates their American reprint license once more. Fortunately Fantagraphics knows a thing or two about quality reprints. The FCBD trial offer is a satisfying dose of Carl Barks’ classic Duck stories for the next generation. Funnier than Archie, more inventive than Harvey Comics, frequently smarter than the super-heroes of their time — Barks’ works deserve perpetual reintroduction to every incoming class of freshman comics fans.

Green Lantern/Young Justice Super Sampler/Superman Family Adventures Flipbook (DC Comics) — Art Baltazar and Franco, the minds behind Tiny Titans, open Side A with a done-in-one Hal Jordan tale that’s a basic fight scene with an oooooold foe name Myrwhydden, who’s like Mr Mxyzptlk minus pranks. At least it’s a complete story, unlike the other two shorts: a five-page Young Justice excerpt pitting them against burglars who can’t hit a target point-blank with a semiautomatic; and a five-page excerpt from a Baltazar/Franco Clark/Lois/Jimmy story for kids. The Young Justice show is in a bad time slot for me, and I’ve no interest in the new GL cartoon (viewed superficially from outside, it seems to turn the Lantern factions into squabbling space gangs), but I appreciate what they’re doing in the comics versions for wee would-be readers.

The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel (Yen Press) — Manga about a stupid girl who follows the orders of complete strangers and can’t believe it when they bring her a world of hurt. She finds surprise accompaniment in a fellow captive who’s fortunately a homicide detective. Also, she can shape-shift into another girl. Walking into this blindly, I lost out on any nuance and was disappointed in the naive protagonist. If you know the names Cassandra Clare or The Mortal Instruments, some or all of this may mean much more to you.

Worlds of Aspen 2012 (Aspen) — The lead feature, Homecoming, is about a teenage boy whose life changes when a naked space blonde appears in his shower, aliens smash up his school, and his best friends receive super-powers that leave them deformed but happy. He’s the perfect Mary Sue for the book’s intended audience. Also enclosed are promo pinups of breasts and characters from other series, as well as a preview of a genuinely promising new series called Idolized with surprising emotional heft to its superhero-reality-show premise. Despite the decompressed storytelling, it may be worth monitoring.

The New 52 #1 (DC Comics) — A vivid sampler of appealing, professional artwork from several upcoming titles. Then I went back and read all the word balloons, and now I’m bewildered, lost, and not the least bit curious about what happens in any of them except China Mieville’s Dial H, the first issue of which I already picked up last Wednesday. The thrust of the book seems to be heroes pounding on heroes, not terribly dissimilar from Marvel’s own Avengers vs. X-Men crossover event of 2012, which I’m equally not reading. If you like Justice League pinups in which they attack each other instead of any bad guys, here some are. Personally, I lament a comic universe where every hero’s Rogues Gallery is simply a list of all the other heroes.

Intrinsic #1 (Arcana Comics) — Chapter one of the company’s major summer crossover event that will feature prominently in over two dozen different Arcana series, costar potentially hundreds of Arcana characters past and present, and change many an Arcana life forever. And I don’t recognize a single one of them, except possibly one series called Scrooge and Santa that may or may not be what its name implies. This reminds me of the comics I created in junior high that starred lots of my own super-creations, who had adventures cloned from my favorite comics. Each of my many characters meant something to me, but it’s hard to imagine anyone outside my own head appreciating them, their crude artwork, or their derivative nature.

Zombie Kid (Antarctic Press) — A send-up of Diary of A Wimpy Kid whose title tells you everything else you need to know. All the jokes should write themselves. Alas, if only they had, perhaps I might have finished reading this.

Select highlights from the companies whose offerings I failed to pick up:

Marvel’s selections. I procrastinated them at our first two stops, then forgot all about them at the third stop, which was nearly out of everything and put on their game face by restocking their freebie table with leftovers from previous FCBDs. If anyone needs a copy of 2010’s Shrek FCBD comic, I know a place that will hook you up.

The Valiant relaunch. I assumed (wrongly? No idea) that the contents were identical to the Valiant 2012 Sampler that I previously picked up from their C2E2 booth. X-O Manowar writer Robert Venditti cheerfully autographed my copy before I could figure out who he was.

The free Mouse Guard hardcover. How was I supposed to know that all those stacks of 48-page hardcovers were free? Seriously, though? Who gives away hardcovers? They can’t possibly be generous and shrewd, so I can only assume they’re mad.

Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley. I’d normally brake for Crockett Johnson (better known to normal folks as creator of the original, delightful Harold and the Purple Crayon books), especially under the Fantagraphics name, but I shamed myself by somehow not grabbing this at my first stop. Sure enough, the other two stores hadn’t bothered to order it. My loss.

Barry Sonnenfeld’s Dinosaurs vs. Aliens Written by Grant Morrison. Um. Er. I see. For now, pass.

Hey, Kids! Free Comics! Ask Your Parents What Those Are! (FCBD Results, Part 2 of 3)

May 8, 2012 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Continuing my look at comics publishers’ attempts to lure new readers into their white vans on Free Comic Book Day 2012. For historical purposes, my previous years’ FCBD reviews can be found online for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The fun part is seeing which past participants are no longer in business.

Onward with more entries from this year:

Yo Gabba Gabba! (Oni Press) — Never seen the show. I haven’t kept up on today’s kid-TV because my son’s era ended right before Steve Burns exited Blue’s Clues and caused the show to jump the shark. From the cover alone, I expected this to be a two-minute shot of toddler-fodder that I’d later pawn off on one of my nephews’ Christmas stockings. Then I opened the cover and was ambushed by names I recognize and respect such as Michael Allred (Madman), Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese), and Sarah Dyer (Mrs. Dorkin). Three of the stories teach lessons to tiny children in cute, Dadaist ways that I’d happily share with my tykes if I ever planned to have any more. The fourth story, by Dorkin and Dyer, stars one Super-Martian-Robot-Girl, with whom this is my first encounter. It’s exactly the kind of quality irreverent hijinks I’ve come to expect from the two of them. Google tells me this is not an isolated incident. Now I want more more more more MORE because it will fill the void in my heart left by missing issues of Dorkin’s Pirate Corp$ that I was never able to track down. My nephews will have to go buy their own copies on eBay.

The Hypernaturals (BOOM! Studios) — Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, writers of several of Marvel’s cosmic-themed titles from recent years, set out to create their own mythos. In a future where the remnants of humanity are ruled by an unseen all-powerful AI, former members of their premier super-hero team look askance at their successors, embarking on their inaugural mission and at first glance not faring well. The whys and wherefores of this new future are left unexplained from the start, but the tantalizing glimmers of imagination and tragedy hint at grander sights ahead. This one might bear watching when it launches in July.

Image Twenty (Image Comics) — The proud independent celebrates two decades of success with samplers of six new series. Quickly run down: G-Man is normally fun all-ages fare, less appealing when it takes itself seriously; Guarding the Globe is a super-hero spinoff from a series I stopped reading years ago (though I do dig Todd Nauck’s art here); Crime and Terror, from the creator of 30 Days of Night, is essentially a one-page EC tale ballooned out to fill four; Revival seems promisingly spooky, about a resurgence of various undead species; It-Girl and the Atomics is a continuation of Michael Allred’s quirky super-hero team by other talented hands (so far, so good); and Near Death, whose series I’m already following, is not-bad crime drama about a former L.A. hitman trying to save lives as atonement for all his past victims. Overall, the batting average is favorable, as has been the case for much of Image’s output of late.

Transformers: Regeneration One #80.5 (IDW Publishing) — A lengthy text piece inside the front cover helpfully explains the odd title and numbering. The creative team of Marvel’s original Transformers series have now reunited to pick up where they left off 21 years ago. Several flashbacks succinctly sum up What Has Gone Before — i.e., there were these alien warrior robots who were supposed to be friends, but then they fought and fought and fought, but then the good robots won, but now some leftover evil robots want a piece of them. This sounds dismal, but it’s rather efficient and less vertiginous than the recent films. The new settings and characters are up and running in short order along with some old familiar faces, and the vague cliffhanger ending may entice the average robot-loving boys to want more. Glory days might be theirs once more if the team can recapture the 70,000 fans who were still aboard when the original series ended due to what was considered “low sales” in the 1980s. By today’s standards, 70K would place them squarely in Diamond’s Top 10 charts and easily merit half a dozen redundant spinoffs.

Finding Gossamyr/The Stuff of Legend Flipbook (Th3rd World Studios) — Side A is another entry in the burgeoning young subgenre of malfunctioning-child-math-savant sci-fi. A young woman forced to care for her “special” little brother signs him over to an evil boarding school who enlist him to solve an evil equation that will open a doorway to evil aliens from beyond. That sounded silly while typing it, but the brother and sister are introduced with heart, depth, and digital art that pops nicely in a faux-animated way. Side B is another FCBD alumnus best described as “Toy Story Goes to Narnia”. The short sample is an argument between two characters about their past failures that might be better appreciated if you’ve read the full tales of said calamities instead of just a summary. I’m guessing, anyway.

Bad Medicine (Oni Press) — Fringe minus familiar characters and alternate settings. Mostly harmless.

My Favorite Martian (Hermes Press) — A new publisher plans to reprint Gold Key Comics from the ’50s and ’60s such as Dark Shadows, The Phantom, and this one based on Ray Walston’s “classic” TV show about a one-alien sleeper cell conducting secret experiments and failing at exfiltration. Fans my age might appreciate seeing long-lost art from the underrated Dan Spiegle, but I get the impression their target audience is fans twice my age. I’ve never endured a full episode, but my wife promises it’s no My Mother, the Car. To its credit, unlike much of the FCBD competition, this is a complete done-in-one story, benign if poorly aged.

To be concluded!

New Readers: Threat or Menace? (FCBD Results, Part 1 of 3)

May 7, 2012 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Free Comic Book Day 2012 was hectic yet rewarding. My wife and I enjoyed our annual routine, purchasing items at three different stores and assembling a review pile to see if today’s publishers, old or upstart, like new readers. The second half of the day was Marvel’s The Avengers and subsequent family discussion group over dinner. And Sunday went as our Sundays go.

This means I’m only through one-third of the pile. The results so far:

Atomic Robo/Neozoic/Bonnie Lass (Red 5 Comics) — Atomic Robo is no stranger to FCBD, and here outdoes himself in a team-up with his arch-nemesis, the intelligent and stupid Dr. Dinosaur, in a tale of impossible biomechanical evolution, the Hadron Collider, and saving the day with spreadsheets. Full disclosure: any and all Atomic Robo comics are fun science adventure worth the admission fee.

Of the other two stories, I faintly recall Neozoic as another FCBD vet, but I don’t remember their previous installment(s). The sample resembles Terra Nova with a sword, some ESP, and unexplained backstory that kept the plot in the dark. I have no idea, for instance, why one character wallops another with a triceratops head. Bonnie Lass explains its pirate-based plot, but not its characters or an explanation for the inclusion of elevators and interrogation rooms in its settings. Extra points lost for misspelling “breach” as “breech” at a crucial moment, to considerable amusement on my part.

Bongo Comics Free-for-All 2012/Spongebob Squarepants Flipbook (Bongo Comics/United Plankton Pictures Comics) — Select reprints from Simpsons Comics are a FCBD staple, but this is their first time sharing their space with squatters. The just-okay lead story is Homer, Lenny, and Carl forming a bear patrol; its backup is a great non-Simpsons autobiographical Sergio Aragonés tale about his first earnings as an artist in third grade. On the other side of the flipbook, the inimitable Mr. SquarePants ably multitasks, reading an adventure of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (not the same without the voices of Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway) while annoying Squidward at the same time. Indie comics fans might also dig the single page of gags by the unique James Kochalka. In all, SpongeBob fans will be more content with this flipbook than Simpsons fans, but Aragonés fans are the true winners.

Top Shelf Kids Club (Top Shelf Publishing) — Six original black-‘n’-white done-in-one tales for kids by unusual talents. Best of show are Andy Runton’s whimsical Owly (whose volumes are a staple of the 741.5 kids’ section at my local library), James Kochalka (him again!), and Savage Dragon letter Chris Eliopolous, whose “Okie Dokie Donuts” finally gives kids the ultimate role model — a strong-willed woman who owns and defends a donut shop. Kids who like comics and don’t require super-heroes would do well to have a copy of this sampler in their li’l mitts, provided they don’t freak out at the lack of color. Invite them to add their own.

Star Wars/Serenity Flipbook (Dark Horse Comics) — Joss Whedon’s brother Zack writes one short story for each galaxy about spacefaring scalawags having deals go wrong on them — Han and Chewie in one, Mal and River in the other. Quick and simple enough for casual readers, and agreeable fluff for longtime fans of either, though the Serenity voices didn’t sound twangy enough to me.

Buffy/The Guild Flipbook (Dark Horse Comics) — The Buffy tale is set during Season 9 and will make no sense to any Buffy TV fans who’ve never picked up a Season 8 or 9 comic before now. (Why are they in space? Why is Spike commanding bugs? What’s a zompire? How the heck did that surprise guest-starring movie creature happen?) My dedication to Season 9 has been wavering of late, so I found this inessential. The Guild, on the other hand, was in top form as usual, failing hilariously at spending quality time together at the beach. I can totally relate to such anti-outdoors awkwardness. Again, though, if you’re not a preexisting fan, I’m not sure their reactions will mean much to you. (Tinkerballa is never even named in the story.)

As a reward to FCBD completists, picking up both Dark Horse FCBD offerings gave you a “complete” four-page story starring Caitlin Kiernan and Steve Lieber’s Alabaster. It’s complete in the sense that it has a beginning, middle, and end. After four pages of small talk with a bridge troll, I still know nothing about the main character except her name and skin tone.

Adventure Time/Peanuts Flipbook (KaBOOM!) — The Peanuts material was released months ago as a standalone one-dollar Peanuts #0 sampler, which I already tried and found to be dumbed-down recycling of Charles Schulz’ original strips by new hands, not unlike the latter-day cartoons. I’m not sure if the same is the case for the Adventure Time shorts. They read like the kind of cutesy, disturbing surrealism that usually finds a home at Fantagraphics. I’ve avoided the Cartoon Network series, but I confess I laughed at this more than once. It’s a rare comic that finds a context for concepts such as bacon-based microorganism housing and fart fairies.

Burt Ward, Boy Wonder/Wrath of the Titans Classic Flipbook (Bluewater Comics) — Side A stars the erstwhile TV Robin, living in peace with his wife and several dogs until he’s sucked into a zany black-and-white future world where Robin fashions are all the rage, newspapers still exist, and Ward’s dialogue keeps avoiding contractions like a formal book report. Side B is an excerpt from a comic-shaped illustrated kiddie prose novel starring Harry Hamlin’s Perseus and our old friend Bubo the chirpy robot owl. Eight-year-olds whose nostalgic parents forced them to watch the original Clash of the Titans will be most pleased to have a sequel to call their own. I don’t imagine that to be a large demographic.

To be continued.