A Fistful of Summer Anticipation 2013! (Matt’s Picks)

    Each year, Brad and I put together our list of most anticipated films for the much lauded Summer season.  Last year was something of a trial.  My number 3 (G.I. Joe) got postponed until the beginning of this year.  And considering last year, might have actually improved my opinion of Summer 2012.  My number 2 (Brave), while not being a bad film, turned out to be one of the most bland and lackluster Pixar movies to date, squandering what could have been a truly inspiring character for young girls with a story that makes her little more than an observer.  My number 1 most anticipated film (Prometheus) turned out to be one of the three most painfully disappointing films I’ve seen in theaters (2000’s Planet of the Apes and Hellboy 2 rounding out that list).  Now, the other two choices ended up being fine.  The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t amazing, but it was good and didn’t suffer from the problems I had with The Dark Knight.  And Moonrise Kingdom turned out to be my favorite film of last year.  I haven’t been getting out to see too many movies this year, but what I have seen hasn’t been impressive.  I haven’t seen anything I really disliked, but I just saw the first film I really liked a few hours before writing this post (Oblivion).  And while there are a lot of movies with potential on their way, I don’t know that I have a great deal of actual anticipation.  Last year was (until near the end) such a bloody bad stretch, especially after 2011’s absolute awesomeness, that I still feel a bit down.

Wait...Why am I doing this?

    I want to be excited about some of the upcoming Summer fare, but can’t quite work up to it.  Star Trek: Into Darkness appears to be taking the new franchise in exactly the direction I was hoping they’d avoid (darker, darker, darker…plus fistfights and lots’a ‘splosions).  I want to look forward to it, and I’m guessing it’ll be a solid film.  But I don’t think it’s what I want.  At all.  At first Epic looked like it might be a fun CG adventure movie until the jive-talking slug showed up.  When a filmmaker feels the need to add comic relief it’s a red flag.  When that comic relief talks jive…I’m out.  The trailer for The Colony looked pretty cool, until the zombie/cannibals showed up (it went from Time of the Great Freeze to Time of the Great Snooze).  Sigh.  I really liked Kick-Ass, but part 2 does not get the blood pumping, especially after trying to read the crap-salad Hit-Girl spin-off comic.  It feels like the joke was told, and now they’re gonna Jay Leno it until you forget that time you found it funny.  After Earth intrigued me in spite of my general dislike for Will Smith and his clan.  Then I found out it was a Shyamalan movie.  Interest gone.  Man of Steel looks impressive, and I desperately want Snyder to redeem himself for the Lovecraftian horror he birthed with Sucker Punch.  But I couldn’t possibly care less about Superman.  I only mildly enjoyed some of the movies and don’t like the comics, so blah.  I think Saoirse Ronan is one of the real rising stars of this new generation and Gemma Arterton needs a new good movie under her belt, but Byzantium sounds lame.  The Lone Ranger could do for Westerns what Pirates of the Caribbean did for Pirate films…Oh wait, that was nothing at all.  Pacific Rim?  Guillermo has a LOT of work to do in the winning me back department (I came to the startling discovery/realization that I only really like a couple of his movies and actively dislike several, in spite of thinking I was a big fan), and in spite of my Godzilla love, I just can’t get my heart into the build up to Pacific Rim.  The trailers haven’t wet my appetite at all.  Though if it lives up to a fraction of what it could be, I’ll be happily wrong.  Don’t get me started on Wolverine.  Just don’t.  I’m sure Iron Man 3 will be perfectly watchable, but I’m very lukewarm on the first two and don’t expect that to change.  300: Rise of an Empire looks dumb as all get-out, but I’m a sucker for its particular brand of trash.  Still, I’m not all that worked up to see it.

    Don’t let this previous bit of sad-sackness bum you out, though.  I’m going into all the above movies with hope they’ll surprise me, be mildly enjoyable, and maybe kick me out of my 2012 funk.  In fact, all those I mentioned are movies I look forward to giving a chance, just not movies I’m too awful hopeful about…if that makes sense.  Except After Earth.  I’m 99.999% sure that’ll be on my ‘worst of 2013’ list.  (I mean, Shyamalan has made two good movies [three if you count the Village], the most recent of which was thirteen years ago…and his last two movies have both made my Year’s Worst lists).  So, what follows are the five films I’m most looking forward to.

5.  Red 2:  OK, I’m quite sure this movie will not be one of the best movies of the year.  But I enjoyed the heck out of Red, and I’m glad to see the cast back together for another round of has-beens kicking ass.  If it’s half as goofy and charming as the first one, I’ll leave the theater with a smile on my face.  Others seem to be getting sick of old man Willis, but I’m still having all kinds of fun with him.

4.  The World’s End:  I feel like I should be more excited about this than I am, especially as Brad keeps on about it.  I’ve liked this group’s previous films, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  There are hints at some super-wacky stuff, and I’m jazzed to take the ride.  I know virtually nothing about the movie beyond the folk who are involved.  But the names attached are enough to make me expect something good.  This is, in a way, this year’s Moonrise Kingdom.  A director and cast I like which I know nothing about.  Cool.

3: Fast & Furious 6:  I think you have to have known me for quite some time to understand just how crazy this movie being on this list is.  One- I don’t care about cars.  Two- I care even less about street racing.  Three- I saw the last ten minutes of the first film and thought it was one of the worst things I’d ever seen.  Four- I really don’t care about cars.  But then Fast Five happened.  I don’t quite know why I love The Rock as much as I do (‘cause he’s awesome! -Matt’s Subconscious), but somehow adding him to any franchise makes it better.  I went in to Fast Five totally expecting to hate it…but I LOVED it.  It’s so flippin’ big, dumb, and fun.  The Rock and Vin staring at each other all the time.  Vin loves Jesus; The Rock loves sweating.  It’s easily as much homoerotic staring as Alexander, but somehow it’s magic here.  Maybe it’s Dwayne Johnson’s years of experience in softcore gay entertainment (professional wrestling).  But Fast Five was one of the most entertainingly dumb movies I’ve ever seen.  Where the Transformers movies left me bored and confused, Avatar left me bored and angry, and Spiderman left me bored and…well, even more bored, Fast Five had me laughing and giggling and riding a muscle-bound, turbo-charged wave of stupid glee that I don’t think ever quite crested.  Thus, in spite of the fact that I doubt lightning will strike twice, I’m putting my eggs in Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel’s meaty basket (even I’m grossing myself out with this description…but I’m not cutting it!).  How are they bringing back a character I’m told was shot in the head a couple movies ago?  I don’t know.  Does it really matter?  If people explained things to me right, one of the guys in Fast Five died in the third film, too.  So obviously the Fast/Furious universe is like Marvel and DC comics.

2:  Only God Forgives:  Right up until I started writing this entry, I thought this would be my number one most anticipated film.  Drive was my favorite movie of 2011, and in spite of my not being able to get on the Ryan Gosling train with nearly everyone else (my reptile brain still wants to exclude him from the tribe because his eyes are too close together and I don’t trust him), I’m pretty excited to see this re-team with its director.  I’m expecting plenty of long quiet bits, peppered with shocking and gory violence.  And hopefully another good soundtrack.

1:  Elysium:  I think this just jumped to the top of my list because I’m so hungry for cool, big science fiction.  District 9 was pretty much just a remake of Alien Nation with a South African bent.  But it was a very good one.  And this too looks like it draws heavily on previous sources, and is going to end up being fairly heavy-handed social commentary.  OK.  I can deal with that.  Matt Damon looks pretty cool, and it looks like we could see some very interesting action.  There is a lot of science fiction coming in the next year or so (some already here), and sad as it is, I am actually at the point now where I’d rather it be successful financially than be good.  How sick is that?  But if a bunch of this new science fiction is actually successful, instead of going largely unnoticed like so many (Tron: Legacy, John Carter, Titan A.E., Solaris, Moon, even Serenity), then maybe we’ll get more, and just by virtue of the odds, get more good stuff.  So while I’m looking forward to Elysium, I’m really anticipating its success at the box office.  I need these movies to do well so that they’re not the rare jewel they’ve become.

-Matt

Brad's Two Weeks in Dork! (3/17/13-3/30/13)

Hey ITMOD readers, long time no see.  Glad Matt's been keeping this place tidy & organized, but I've just come off a long streak of work and even though I managed to watch a crap ton of movies & tv I really haven't had the time to shove it into the void of the internet.  Saw 6 2013 new releases, but with the exception of Room 237, each theatrical outing proved to be a disappointment.  It's April now.  Side Effects is still my favorite film of the year.  This cannot continue.  I need quality filmmaking stat.

The film that's really grabbed my noggin these past couple of weeks was Holy Motors.  I'm still trying to process all the crazy contained in that surreal headtrip, but what is certain is that Denis Lavant is a beautiful monster.  Just look at that mug up top in the header.  That's a dude who's lived a life.  A strange, wild, absurd life but one I want to see played out in a franchise of Holy Motor limo rides.  And while we're at it, why don't we pair his gorgeous mug with Nicole Kidman's red eyed rage face from Park Chan Wook's Stoker.  That film may not have been what I was looking for, but the climactic closeup of Nicole Kidman's contempt for her offspring sent chills down my spine.  Make it your wallpaper and you'll become entranced by her Lovecraftian nothingness.  But before we get to Stoker, we must suffer through banality...

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone:  Steve Carell, he's funny right?  I've enjoyed him in movies.  Brick in Anchorman, love that guy.  Crazy Stupid Love, there's a dad you root for.  The 40 Year Old Virgin, that's me...or was me until I tricked a lady into coming back to my toy filled apartment.  But Burt Wonderstone...he's an unfunny ass.  I certainly enjoy the world he inhabits.  I've been fascinated with stage magic since I saw my first Penn & Teller show.  And the debate between old school vs new school (Chris Angel, give me a break) is ripe for comedic exploration.  But this film is chuckles at best, yawns at worst.  Steve Buscemi is in Adam Sandler mode here.  I love you Steve, you're doing your finest work on Boardwalk Empire right now, but this stuff is way beneath you - come on, you're beyond funny face yucks.  Jim Carrey is violently disgusting as the Brain Rapist street magician, and if you've been missing the days of Fire Marshall Bill than you'll probably enjoy his assault.  Olivia Wilde, do better movies!  Alan Arkin is the only guy who gets away with it.  The man's a working actor.  You win some, you loose some, you certainly move on to the next paycheck.

Blacksad - A Silent Hell:  Private dick John Blacksad and Weekly the reporter travel to the Mardi Gras hell of New Orleans to investigate the disappearance of Blues musician, Sebastian "Little Finger" Fletcher.  Another solid Blacksad mystery.  Guarnido's art is lighter & brighter down south, but as the dope fiend conspiracy spreads into medical malpractice manslaughter, the shades get sour and the gin joint panels go pitch black.  All Blacksad tales feel more style over substance, but they can survive on the beauty of mood.  How much you love these stories probably depends on how much you love noir, and how open you are to furry interpretation.  I will say that A Silent Hell is too brief to contain its Dark Horse Hardcover and the sketchbook back half is not profound enough to warrant the 20 dollar price tag.

Stoker:  Park Chan Wook makes beautifully upsetting movies.  I still hold Oldboy as cinema's greatest revenge film.  And Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is pure sadness on screen.  Thankfully, for his first English language feature, the director brought his steadfast cinematographer Chung Chung-Hoon with him across the pond and they've crafted another pretty picture.  Unfortunately, a pretty picture does not make a good movie.  Stoker is utterly forgettable in terms of plot.  After her father dies in a mysterious car crash, Mia Wasikowska must suffer the flirtations between her emotionally empty mother and her sexual predator uncle.  Not to mention her own violent tendencies bubbling to the surface.  I think what I wanted was Oldboy USA.  Instead what I got was Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer.  Is that the film's fault?  No.  But Stoker is as emotionally empty as its players.  Nicole Kidman might give an epic speech of Greek Tragedy child hate, and Matthew Goode might have the perfectly quiet eyes of the devil, but what does it all amount to?  A girl with a gun.  Blood splattered flowers.  A pretty picture.

My Amityville Horror:  Ghosts.  I'm not a believer.  I don't want to get into it too much, but I've certainly never experienced anything in my life to hint at the existence of Caspers.  Every time I see a spook story "Based On Actual Events" I role my eyes and try to enjoy the fiction.  In this documentary, Daniel Lutz attempts to explain the phenomena that's haunted his life ever since the release of the "classic" ghost story The Amityville Horror.  He talks about the ghosts, the flies, and the blood he witnessed when he was 10 years old.  He talks about his mother, his stepfather George Lutz, and the fame they sought after they became minor 70s celebrities.  It reeks of bullshit.  But it's sad bullshit.  How much does he believe?  How much reality was implanted by the film and its endless sequels?  How much of it is his own grab for acceptance?  The film certainly doesn't leave me with a belief in the supernatural.  Daniel Lutz was defined by an event that occurred when he was ten.  That's a depressing thought, a sad curse for sure.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Push The Sky Away" @ The Strathmore:  A few years ago during the Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! tour, The Wife & I were lucky enough to see The Bad Seeds at the 930 Club.  We got right up to the stage, and Nick Cave screamed his songs above us - the shepherd leading his flock.  It was an epic dork experience.  The finest concert I've ever been a part of.  Now they're back.  But The Strathmore is not the 930 Club.  It's a concert hall.  Big, spacious...BIG.  And The Wife & I had seats way up in the balcony.  Looking down on The Bad Seeds as they quietly pushed the sky away was like watching a concert on MTV (you know, when MTV actually televised concerts).  It was a good time.  But it certainly wasn't epic.  Their latest album is a soft spoken poem.  Cave whispers his words.  It's hypnotic in its own way, but it's not the punch to the gut I often look for in The Bad Seeds.  For the first half of their performance they stuck to the new album.  The best tune from that part of the show was "Jubilee Street" The Bad Seeds couldn't help but ramp up the song, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear them transform the ballad into a rock opera - beating and bashing a crescendo.  The second half of the show were the classics.   Red Right Hand.  Deanna.  Stagger Lee.  Even way up high, it was easy to thump to those beasties.  A good night out, but not a religious experience.

Lawless:  After the high of the Nick Cave concert, I needed more of his lyrical grit.  I could have snapped up the nightmare landscapes of The Proposition or The Road, but chose Lawless cuz I've also been craving Tom Hardy's mumble mash dialog.  I want to love this movie.  I love the period.  I love the look.  I love the cast.  Even Shia.  But it's lacking in the narrative.  And it never gets as brutal as I desire.  I want the whole film to be Tom Hardy & Jason Clarke covered in mobster blood.  You get a brief glimpse, but it never descends into proper moonshine hell.  John Hillcoat & Nick Cave made a masterpiece in The Proposition.  They may never equal that beast again.  I'm okay with that.  But hopefully they'll scrape the surface of the sun again.

Justified - Season 4 "Decoy":  Raylan Givens, Deputy Bob, & Rachel attempt to flee Drew Thompson from Harlan County.  Theo Tonin's goons patrol the skies in their helicopter, and Boyd Crowder unleashes sniper Colt upon a decoy of Marshall SUVs.  This is the most intense chase we've seen from this show yet.  And even though we get some machine gun fire and a molotov cocktail, the greatest action of the show occurs without a bullet being fired.  Timothy Olyphant shows off his badass side once more with a grin, and some harsh words directed at the Detroit Mafia.  Seriously, just when you think this man can't get any cooler he pulls another trick out of his bag.

Rust and Bone:  This film is curious.  Marion Cotillard is a whale trainer who drinks too much when she goes clubbing.  Mathias Schoenaerts is a street fighter bouncer with a bratty kid and an unstoppable sex drive.  After a horrible killer whale accident severs the legs of Cotillard the two find friendship (if not love) in the sex act.  Not to mention some serious dough in the art of bum fighting.  What the hell?  I don't get it.  Both characters feel like manipulations to poke my heartstrings, but Rust and Bone fails to capture my emotions.  Cotillard & Schoenaerts are sooooo not good for each other and as the film marched towards its climax I did not care if they found comfort in each other or not.  Then the ice breaks.  More sadness.  Shoulder shrug.  French, man.

Holy Motors:  "I Have A Plan To Go Mad." I man wakes up in his apartment, he opens a secret door in the wall, and steps into a cinema. Denis Lavant enters his Tardis-like limousine, he travels the passageways of Paris. When he exits the limo he's someone else. A female beggar. A flower gnashing maniac with a hard-on...I mean, an appreciation for cemeteries and fashion models. With the help of his chauffeur and vanity mirror he takes on various appointments; wild trips into cinematic genre where he might encounter Kylie Minogue one moment and battle off track suit gangsters the next. What does it all mean? I have no idea right now. But I already have a strong desire to rewatch the film. The interlude in which Lavant leads an Accordion Gang down a corridor while rocking the Doctor L cover of RL Burnside's Let My Baby Ride is hypnotizing. A youtube classic at the very least.

Prometheus:  A trip to Toys R Us yielded a Michael Fassbender David toy into my collection.  Why do I bother to collect action figures for a film I find so frustratingly mediocre?  Cuz I have hope in my heart, and that maybe my next viewing of Prometheus will reveal a genuine masterpiece.  There is so much to love about this film.  Fassbender.  David.  This should have been his story, and in turn the story of man's continuing evolution.  Instead Noomi Rapace bungles about the spaceship hiding from her tentacled fetus, swinging an axe at whatever Frankenstein storms out of the shadows.  Lame.  And Guy Pearce, stay outta this picture!  You and your makeup have no place here.  Ridley Scott certainly knows how to film sci-fi, and I really don't need to dump on screenwriter Damon Lindelof any further.  The man has taken his lumps.  And I'm sure he's not the sole credit to this film failure.

Olympus Has Fallen:  How much do you love the sight of the American Flag being burned, torn, tossed, and riddled with bullets? How much do you love seeing skulls popped with gun fire? How much do you love seeing emotionally crippled secret serviceman jab knives into the brains of evil grinning Koreans? If your answer ranges from a lot to a fuck ton than you will absolutely adore Olympus Has Fallen. Gerard Butler is the only man strong enough to survive an onslaught of tourist butchering North Koreans, and he manages to blast his way into the fallen White House where platoons of GIs and Navy Seals could not. This is a ridiculous film. To call it jingoistic doesn't even scratch the surface. Melissa Leo, face-punched, screaming, crying, and hailing the pledge of allegiance as she's dragged off to her execution is fascinating in its humorlessness - this is bonkers, absurdist entertainment. And if you're hipster enough than you'll find joy to be had in the Mars Attacks! toppling of the Washington Monument and Gerard Butler's "This Is Sparta" terrorist bashing.

Deadwood - Season 2:  It might be hard to believe, but season two is even better than the first.  As the stage carrying Mrs. Bullock and her son William arrives to Deadwood, Sheriff Bullock & Al Swearengen bash on each other in the thoroughfare after a casual exchange of insults.  The brawl leaves Bullock with a couple lumps, but pretty much puts Swearengen out of commission for the first round of episodes.  Al's absence allows for an agent of George Hearst to sink his talons into the business of camp.  New villains appear, and Bullock is too busy not putting the screws to The Widow Garrett to notice the evil descending.  Garrett Dillahunt returns, but not as the killer of Wild Bill, but a new character far more sinister, the geologist Francis Wolcott.  He steals nearly every scene he's in, and I love how uncomfortable Powers Boothe is in his presence - if you make Powers Boothe squirm than you are a genuine devil.  Season 2 puts each Deadwood player through the meat grinder.  This is not the kind of show where people get knocked down and dust themselves off.  They get knocked down, wallow in the mud, and dig themselves straight to hell.

Law Abiding Citizen:  This film comes oh so very close to being the great contemporary update of Michael Winner's Death Wish.  A home invasion takes the life of Gerard Butler's wife and daughter.  He survives the attack, but his eye witness testimony is deemed circumstantial and Jaime Foxx's huckster D.A. pleads the killers into a short jail term.  Butler begins plotting.  Law Abiding Citizen is not concerned with simple revenge.  In fact, Butler dispatches the scumbags who took his family pretty early in the proceedings.  Mr. Butler's anger is larger than an execution.  He sets his sights on the justice system.  Judges.  Lawyers.  Mayors.  These are the real criminals.  And the film does an excellent job putting them on the bad guy side of the screenplay.  As the heads of fat cat judges pop and sleazy defense attorneys smother, Gerard Butler's Death Wishing finds great satisfaction with the audience.  The problem is Jamie Foxx.  Apparently he's the real good guy.  Not the way I see it.  The screenplay should let Butler slaughter his way to victory - screw Foxx's sense of "good."  I want Butler to break authority.  I want him to be Charles Bronson on top.  Law Abiding Citizen pretends to have a morality.  And that's where it fails.  This just isn't the type of story where good beats evil.  Still, the first 2/3rds of this flick are so close to 70s pessimism that it's worth a watch or two.

Gamer:  Now here's a film that revels in its amorality.  Set in one of those "Not Too Distant Futures," Gamer introduces a world in which players live the bodies of Slayers, controlling their movements on a kill crazy field of combat.  Gerard Butler is Kable, a Slayer with just three kills to freedom.  But, of course, there's no way master blaster Michael C Hall will allow such a victory.  Directors Neveldine & Taylor treat extras like chum, and they make violent exploitation pictures rarely seen in this day and age.  Having just days before whimpered at the CG blood spatter of Olympus Has Fallen, it's a treat to see a flick like Gamer gush with splashes of stringy Karo syrup.  Real squib work equals flinchy revulsion.  But it's not all blood & guts.  Gamer actually has some biting truth or commentary to it.  If this technology was made available to us, I am 100% positive we'd have large chunks of the population signing up for the Sim City wannabe, Society.  In relishing the grotesque, Gamer succeeds in properly mocking our whackjob internet culture.  A culture I'm firmly and terrifyingly a part.

Spring Breakers:  Here's another flick I'm still processing.  Is there something more to this than sexploitation?  Is there something more to it than just seeing Selena Gomez & Vanessa Hudgins in bikinis?  My first reaction is, no.  No matter how much Terrance Malick dialog overlaying occurs or how much James Franco K-Feds the scenery, Spring Breakers is little more than a navel gazer.  What's the deal with Spring Break sexuality?  I have no idea.  It's a cesspool of free will.  Add machine guns and wannabe gangstas and you've got dumb people killing dumb people.  Girl empowerment?  Don't think so.  Just an excuse for these actresses to shed their goodie goodie personas.  But they leave the real dirty work for Rachel Korine and the nameless jigglers on the fringes.  The perverts who show up for the Disney princesses will be sorely disappointed.

Justified - Season 4 "Peace of Mind":  Drew Thompson might be safely in custody (well, that's what we're left to believe), but poor Ellie May is still floating out there in the Holler.  She quickly becomes the season's final grab, with Boyd & Ava desperate to plant her in the ground and Raylan's crew doing their Law & Order routine.  But this episode's highlight really belongs to Tim & Colt.  Ron Edlard's junkie goon has struggled all season to find his place in Boyd's gang.  Does he find redemption here?  Or doom at the end of Tim's barrel?  Either way it's a proper button for his role in the season.  Now all we have to worry about is Nicky Augustine, the long arm of Theo Tonin.  He's got to die.

Fatale #13:  Another peak into the past of the Fatale universe.  Black Bonnie is a bandit of the wild west.  Possibly a descendent of Josephine, or at the very least a female gifted the curse of power over men, Bonnie falls in with a snakeoil salesman and a redskin warrior.  Naturally they can't stay free from the clutches of the cult and we get a pretty brutal showdown.  I was really looking forward to this Western tale, and even though it was solid stuff, issue 13 doesn't add much to the mythology.  It certainly wasn't as Earth shattering as the previous issue - I want more Lovecraftian terror at the point.  Still, Fatale is the best book on the stands and even a weak entry in the series is still better than 90% of the other books out there.

Batman Incorporated #9:  John Layman, Peter Tomasi, and Scott Snyder might have all had the first cracks at depicting Batman post-Damian's slaughter but the only voice that matters on the subject is Grant Morrison.  No matter what anyone tells you, those guys are working in a different reality.  Damian Wayne didn't die in The New 52 - he got gutted in the Morrison arc, & that's where the emotion of his absence is really going to be felt.  Issue 9 jumps back and forth in time.  In once scene Bruce, Tim, Dick, & Alfred are burying the boy's body in the backyard.  In the other Bats is going toe-to-toe with the Damian clone, jabbing fingers into eyes, stomping swords bare footed.  Both transactions are brutal and painful.  Morrison's epic run is winding down.  As stated before, it's had its peaks and valleys, but for the most part this saga has been stellar.  Batman might have already died and come back in his tenure, but nothing has hit the solar plexus quite like Damian's execution.  And Batman is going to destroy Talia Al Ghul.  Bitch got to die.  And then he's gonna salt the Earth with the hot toasty ashes of the Damian Clone.  F that thing.  But first he has to tell Bat-Cow that young Damian is dead.  And, damn, that's one sad moo.

G.I. Joe - Rise of Cobra:  This movie sucks.  Marlon Wayans.  Cobra Commander Rex.  The mindwarped Baroness.  The Mech Suit hippity hop.  Snake Eyes has lips.  I hope Stephen Sommers has been properly banned from Hollywood.  You know, tarred, feathered, stoned, drawn & quartered.  Each body part shipped off to the far corners of the Earth.  Buried and consumed by graboids.  I'm not saying that the GI Joe cartoon or its toy line deserves great amounts of our respect, but there was potential for a really silly & fun action film here.  A wide array of weirdo characters battling it out with green and red lasers.  I can take stupid.  Hell, I love stupid.  But I've got no place for lame.  And GI Joe - Rise of Cobra is lame.

G.I. Joe - Retaliation:  "Does Brenda get a vote?"  This is going to sound weird, but I was hoping that director Jon Chu would bring some of that Step Up 3D flow to the action of Retaliation.  There are some moments (Flint's parkour charge, the cliff top ninja assault) but for the most part GI Joe Part 2 is depressing in its banality.  Yes, The Rock was unable to save this franchise cuz it's certainly not Fast Five.  Sure, the toys get more play here.  Cobra Commander looks like Cobra Commander.  The Rock gets a badass tonka truck to tread.  And Jonathan Pryce was obviously having loads of fun on set - he hasn't hammed this hard since his Tomorrow Never Die days.  But Bruce Willis only pops up for his one day of filming.  The Rock never gets a beatdown brawl to battle despite a quick tussle with Ray Stevenson's Firefly (seriously!?!? Titus Pullo vs. The Tooth Fairy oh hell yeah!!!), and Snake Eyes saga goes way awkward with the inclusion of The Rza's latexed Blind Master.  Retaliation is a little fun, but I was hoping for some gonzo entertainment.

Homicide: Life on the Street - Season 1 & 2:  I've been craving to revisit The Wire but before I re-explore that depressing ass world I thought I'd give this ahead-of-its-time drama another spin.  Easily the best procedural to come out of the 90s, Homicide excels cuz it doesn't wrap each story at episode conclusion.  One of the early proponents of season long arcs, the Adena Watson murder never quite has  a solid resolution and what little it does have takes nearly 9 episodes to reach.  Meanwhile the players involved are left tortured and psychologically beaten.  I absolutely adore how cruel or ambivalent the show can be.  It's pure character work.  You don't watch to see who winds up behind bars.  You watch because you want the bickering of Munch & Bollander, or to witness the pride behind Pembleton's excellence.  I cranked through these two short seasons in a matter of days.  I'm already well into season 3.  Just great television.

LOST - Season 1:  Looking back it's easy to pick at the flaws of LOST.  Rewatching Season 1 with The Wife (our nighttime tv successor to DS9) it's stunning to ponder all the balls dropped from the narrative.  Walt's psychic "specialness."  Claire's baby.  And nearly all the various flashback stories.  Who cares about the countless reexaminations of Jin & Sun's marital problems.  At the same time, all that flashback mumbo jumbo is a lot of fun.  This is where our love for these characters begins (or disdain, cuz Michael was a punk from the very first episode).  The rewatch also reveals John Locke to be possibly the saddest creation in television history.  What a chump.  Easily my favorite character throughout the series, but damn, he's proven to be the fool.  Yet, LOST is Dharma.  I need to get into the hatch.  I need my Desmond.  I need the sci-fi crazy.  Cuz that's the best thing about the original watch of the series.  You knew something kooky was going on (polar bears, roaring woods, French women), but you had no idea how batshit sci-fi it would all become.

Room 237:  Absolutely fascinating.  And bonkers.  Director Rodney Ascher details nearly a dozen weirdo theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's psycho saga.  One individual claims The Shining to be Kubrick's confession for having filmed the moon landing.  Another guy is adamant that The Shining is a violent condemnation of America's genocide of the Native American people.  And another chap sees Minotaurs along the outskirts.  Whatever.  Room 237 doesn't promote such madness.  But it is a celebration of cinema, or more to the point, our passion for cinema.  I love the frenzy The Shining has sparked in the film conversation.  I love how one man can see rocket ships in the number 42 and another can see mass murder in a can of Calumet coffee.  This is craziness.  But hypnotizing.  And you'll immediately want to watch the flick (in HD!) upon completion.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (10/14/12-10/20/12)

First, a word on the new format...

I'm going to try something new with the Week In Dork.  If you don't like it, please let me know.  Rather than separate this post out with TV OF THE WEEK, MOVIES OF THE WEEK, COMICS OF THE WEEK, etc I'm just going to jump right into the programming from Sunday to Saturday.  If I started the week off with a comic, the column will start off with a comic.  If I started with an episode of TV, the column will start off with that episode.  Basically, I'm just trying to recreate my Dorky Ass life for you the reader as best as possible.

And, man, this has been one of my absolute favorite Weeks In Dork that I've ever had...that is, one that does not contain a San Diego Comic Con or a Stephen King book signing.

Last week, I started ploughing through my Hellboy Library editions in preparation for the 5th Meeting of my wife's Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club.  Since we would be discussing one of my all time favorite trades, The Chained Coffin & Others, I wanted to go into it fully prepared.  And that resulted in me reading nearly 20 years of comics in just over a week.  And it was seriously thrilling as well as (maybe-not-so-shocking) emotional...but more on that later.

The Week really started with some itunes catchup on the current season of...

Fringe Season 5 - Episode 3 "The Recordist":  It was just a few weeks ago that I was ranting and raving about how freaking amazing I found season 4 to be, but now we're just a few eps into this Days of Future Past business (I just can't get that X-Men reference out of my head) and I'm still a little nervous about this final arc.  Right now, I'm just not feeling it.  Walter & Astrid?  They're spot on and I love them dearly.  But Peter & Olivia & Henrietta?  Something feels wrong about how they're behaving.  Maybe it's just me throwing a tantrum of where these writers plopped this family, but it also feels like a bit of a manipulative cheat to drive a wedge between them so soon after the uproarious victory of last year.  Anyway, I'm still waiting for my love of Fringe to return - I have faith that these guys are going to pull something special outta their rabbit hat.  This episode specifically deals with a group of outcasts hiding in the woods, free from the eyes of the observers.  They see themselves as recorders of history and there is a nice bit involving a boy and his Fringe comic book.  But I don't really see this playing into the grande scheme of things either.

Prometheus:  Watched my new blu.  And yeah.  Third viewing and I almost immediately felt myself drifting as Noomi Rapace's scientist drones on about faith and the evolution of man.  This is a really beautiful looking movie and the blu ray is just stunning.  But dammit!  Why isn't the film about Michael Fassbender!?!?!  His character is sossss much more interesting and if the narrative had only switched to his side half way through then there could have been something incredibly thoughtful here - David is the evolution of man.  He should be the focus.  Unfortunately, it's a horror film climax with the Frankenstein Engineer stomping and smashing his way through the ship.  Human Bad!  Me Kill!  Whatever.  By the time the medical tests are performed and the Big Giant Head starts popping, I found myself reaching for a couple of graphic novels, and I read them as the film played in the background.  Not a glowing review, that's for sure.

Powers - The 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes Of All Time:  I've been away from Brian Michael Bendis' Powers for what seems like a very long time.  My problem with this comic is that once it reached the mindbendingly awesome Forever storyarc - where the mythology was expanded into centuries past and the stakes seemed to increase into the territory of Earth Shattering - the very next arc brought the characters back to the precinct and stayed there.  Another crime, another investigation...it was just a routine Law & Order when it should have transformed into an epic.  And with the sporadic shipping my interest faded.  Still, I really do love Walker & Pilgrim.  Hell, I own original art from Forever - so I want to stay in love.  With a new trade paperback released, I thought it was time to dive back in.

Picking up where I left off, Deena Pilgrim is still an outlaw.  Infected with the Powers virus, she's Prime Suspect Numero Uno for a string of murders spreading through the city's nightlife.  Imagine Al Pacino's Crusing with capes & cowls and you'll get some idea.  But like most of the murder cases, the character stuff is much more interesting than the plotting.  I dig the intro of Walker's new partner, Sunrise.  I dig that Walker's hiding Powers too.  I dig that Deena is loosing her freaking mind.  But I don't dig the impending return (i.e. doom) of the status quo.

Powers - Z:  I certainly appreciate this arc's attempt to investigate the dark past of Detective Walker.  Some time ago, Walker was a member of a Las Vegas Rat Pack - Post World War II heroes throwing their weight around and making a boat load of scratch in the process.  When one of these Rat Packers turns up a corpse it's up to Detectives Walker & Sunrise to get to the bottom of a sordid love affair.  The Vegas stuff is fun, but is never fully explored - the Powers mythology is always a taste, not a full meal. And again, the murder investigation is not all that thrilling but at least Bendis is clever enough to solve The Who quickly and make The Why the focus.

Powers - Gods:  Well, I hated this.  The latest trade focuses on the death of an actual God...or is it just another cape pretending to be a god.  Frankly, I scratch my head at this notion.  Loosely connected to the Olympia case from the start of the series, it seems a little late in the game to bring religion into the context and all this godspeak nonsense does is muddy the water.  And it sends a signal to this reader that Bendis is scraping the barrel for new homicides to investigate.  However, there is potential in the climax.  There comes an Ultimatum moment...or a BPRD Hell On Earth kinda event...and I don't think you can go back to just investigating SVUs in the next arc...but I've thought that before and I'm afraid the next volume of Powers (Bureau) will be more of the same.

Blow Out:  After last week's wonderful screening of Phantom of the Paradise, I was craving more whacky Brian De Palma and this quenched that particular thirst perfectly.  Blow Out is Brian De Palma at his most pure fanboy; clinically aping Hitchcock & Argento, De Palma delivers a gorgeous, dark-hearted thriller with John Travolta's best performance battling John Lithgow's greatest psychopath.  And Nancy Allen is brilliantly sad as the child-like prostitute in distress, climaxing the film with a beautiful blanket of sad.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3:  The Chained Coffin introduced me to the wonderfully mad world of Hellboy, but the Conqueror Worm sealed the deal.  This is the ultimate Nazi Smasher book.  Raiders of the Lost Ark & Conqueror Worm - it don't get better than that.  Big Red & Roger the Homunculus travel to Hunte Castle in an effort to prevent some long dead nazi scientists from returning a Lovecraftian space seed to earth.  But to succeed they're gonna need some serious spectral help from pulp adventurer Lobster Johnson.  Conqueror Worm is also where Mignola's art solidifies into the supreme masterwork we know and love today.  Then you have Strange Places, the book that nearly broke Hellboy...or Mike Mignola anyway.  "The Third Wish", the first half, is a creepy fun tale pitting Hellboy against the fishy Bog Roosh in a battle over his Crown of the Apocalypse destiny.  It's a solid action tale that reminds the reader of the doom & gloom behind the punch 'em up.  But for me, this volume is all about "The Island" back half.  Here, we finally get the origin of The Dragon, Ogdru Jahad.  Sure, it's a whole mess load of exposition but Hellboy fanboys will eat it up.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 4:  The Crooked Man & The Troll Witch.  There are several really fun short stories in this collection but none of them match the power of the tales found in the previous three Library Editions.  Artist Richard Corben joins the Hellboy family and he's a welcome addition.  "The Crooked Man" is a fun Satan tale set in the icky Appalachian backwoods, but I really love love love love his Makoma story.  It's a fun African folktale that takes on a beautiful dreamlike quality, but again...there's a nice undercurrent of Hellboy brooding.  And that's really what this volume is about - the dread that is Hellboy's existence.  Mignola draws six short-shorts and each one a grim reminder of his Beast of the Apocalypse job title.

Rock of Ages:  Well, I can't really say that this is a good flick but I certainly had a lot of fun watching this goofball movie.  We all know what a crazed Tom Cruise fan I am and the more people seem to hate him the more I seem to love him.  And he's bonkers terrible here as the drunk, monkey loving rocker Stacee Jaxx, but you can also sense he's having a blast in the part.  Especially when he's belting out "I Want To Know What Love Is" into Malin Akerman's vagina.  Sure, Catherine Zeta-Jones is cringe-inducing with her scream singing, and Paul Giamatti is just cashing another paycheck.  And, yeah, Juliane Hough & Diego Boneta are a couple of drones.  But it gave me 90 minutes worth of a good time.  Sue me.

Dark Shadows:  Another nail in the coffin of Tim Burton's career...buried atop a suffocating Johnny Depp.  And seriously, who thought a comedic adaptation of the wonky 60s gothic soap opera was a good idea?  No one was screaming for more Barnabas Collins.  And if there were some Dark Shadows nerd crawling out from under a rock than they would be fairly pissed at this offensive offering.  Even if there is a ridiculously silly WTF Alice Cooper cameo.

The Walking Dead Season 3 - Episode 1 "Seed":  Off to a good start.  Rick & his crew finally reach the prison with Hershel's Farm thankfully behind them.  Lots of zombie slaughter and a couple of human surprises.  We also get a couple of glimpses of Andrea & the Samurai Michonne but not enough to get geeky excited.  And you know what?  Even though I want to love this show, each episode is just another reminder at how superior the comic book actually is and no amount of Greg Nicotero gore can mask that fact.

BPRD - 1946:  More Hellboy crack.  Exploring the vampire subplot from Wake The Devil, 1946 sees Trevor Bruttenholm in post-war Berlin partnering up with supernatural commies and battling it out with one of Hellboy's greatest bottled bad guy.  With this trade, the Mignolaverse is greatly expanded making fanboys like myself giddy with geeky glee.  And Joshua Dysart lends everything some dirty, crumbly bombed-out gloom.

BPRD - 1947:  With the horrors of the Nazi vampire program seemingly laid to rest (uh, again, see Wake The Devil) the newly formed BPRD continues their investigation of the blood sucker menace.  1947 is another fine example of Mignola connecting mythology by mixing the vampire lore with the black goddess Hecate.  Essential reading for Hellboy fans, this latest dip into the past also introduces a couple of fascinating G.I.s that will no doubt play a larger role in upcoming story arcs.  Plus, we get Ota the Exorcist and a young Hellboy discovering the pleasures of catch.

BPRD - 1948 #1:  Hmmmm...too early to tell just yet where this latest chapter in the BPRD backstory will take both characters and readers alike, but it appears we're gonna see more of Russia's demon doll and some good ol' fashioned atomic fear...with the added bonus of space born beasties.  1948 continues to follow the vampire plagued GI as he teaches Hellboy the joys of smoking while ignoring the presence trapped in his haunted noggin.

Marvel Now Point One:  I kinda hate these Event Anthologies.  This 6 dollar comic gives you a glimpse at a couple of upcoming Marvel Now! relaunches framed around a Nick Fury Jr. interrogation that confused more than intrigued.  I could not care less about the Cable book.  Not gonna buy it.  Guardians of the Galaxy will probably be enjoyable given the writing team, but there's not much here to excite.  Young Avengers...Loki brings some super teens together.  Nova fights some diamond headed monstrosity in the desert.  If there was one short that actually peeked my interest it was the Matt Fraction/Mike Allred FF short showing off Scott Lang's abilities as Ant Man.  Fun.  But with a serious bit of anger motivating the small fry.  But one solid short for 6 bucks?  Yeah, not really worth it.  Another notch in the hype machine.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #16:  This is probably my least favorite issue since the Miles Morales era began.  Spidey continues to try and prove himself to Captain America by battling it out with Hydra soldiers.  Other than that, not much happens.  Get him on The Ultimates already.  And I want to see more Jessica Drew interaction.

Hawkeye #3:  Ok.  So I enjoyed the first two issues.  But this?  I friggin' loved this.  Matt Fraction centers the issue around Hawkeye's ridiculous trick arrows as he & Kate Bishop work their way through his satchel while taking on the tracksuit Bro army.  Laugh out loud funny with the singe greatest use of Clint's costume ever.  If, for whatever hater reason, you are not reading this series than you really need to give it a try.  You will be shocked at how much fun this book truly is.  And Aja's art is freaking perfect.

Godzilla - Half Century War #3:  Coming in at a close second as my favorite single issue of the week, The Half Century War goes full on Kaiju crazy this month.  Ghana, 1975.  Not only is Godzilla on a rampage, but we also get some monster clashes with Megalon, Mothra, Ebirah, Battra, Rodan, and the big puddle smog monster Hedorah.  Even if you're not a Godzilla fanatic, you'll find plenty to enjoy with Stokoe's beautiful rampaging art.

The Sixth Gun #26:  Drake tells Becky the story of his first encounter with the Wendigo while hiding out in a shack.  Solid horror stuff, but I'm starting to feel that this Winter Wolves story will read much better in trade...or at least that's what I'm hoping.  There are some great grisly images here (the stag with its severed head antlers) but I'm losing the plot reading this month to month.

Billy The Kid's Old Timey Oddities and the Orm of Loch Ness #1:  I love The Goon as much as the next person and I really want to love Eric Powell's other oddball creation but I don't think I'm going to continue on beyond the first issue.  Billy The Kid is alive and well; hanging out with some puddle jumping circus freaks.  Looks like we're going to get some Loch Ness mythology mixing with some Universal Monster horror but Kyle Hotz's art is just a bit too much Kelley Jones for me to get excited.

X-O Manowar #6:  So, yeah.  I think it was a mistake to introduce Ninjak in the first six issues.  A) Ninjak is purple, 90s, and lame.  B)  The presence of a purple suited ninja assassin distracts from the already insane world of insect alien conspiracies and religious iron man armor.  It's funny, but I never would have guessed that X-O Manowar would quickly turn into my least favorite Valiant book - seriously, Bloodshot is better.  Crazy world we live in.

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine Season 3:  After several weeks of catching episodes here and there, The Wife and I finally completed the first truly kick ass season of the show.  Odo finds his people.  The Dominion War is nearly upon us.  William Riker guest stars...or does he?  Dick Miller is an A-Hole 21st Century rent-a-cop.  And Ben Sisko gets his goatee.  If you mildly enjoyed the first two seasons of DS9 than you'll start to love it by the third season.  But the Gamma Quadrant conflict trickles where it should rush and things won't really go to pot until the Klingons reappear next season.

The Devil's Rejects:  Much, much better than House of 1000 Corpses.  Rob Zombie is still chucking everything & the kitchen sink at the screen but it's focused through a singular obsession with 70s exploitation cinema.  Frankly this feels less like a horror film and more of a Badlands/Natural Born Killers terror picture.  Bill Mosley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Sid Haig are deplorable monsters murdering their way through hapless country musicians and hillbilly sluts.  They may be charismatic, but don't fool yourself - these are big bad scumbags.  But maybe not as scary as William Forsythe's unhinged psychopath sherif and yep, he totally steals the show.  The actor has never been better and the climactic staple gun showdown is as thrilling as it is cringing.  Bad people doing bad stuff to each other.  Not entertainment for everyone, but the sicko pervert in me enjoys it enough.  Especially when performed by vintage genre stars.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 5:  Duncan Fegredo has taken over the art duties (and that does take some getting used to), but Mike Mignola's saga has never been better.  Years upon years of storytelling have all been building to this epic trilogy of stories (to be concluded in Library Edition Volume 6 presumably but for now you can settle on the TPB below).  Darkness Calls is The Wrath of Khan of Hellboy stories.  Not only do you have the sad pig fairy Gruagach seeking retribution against Big Red for his humiliation in "The Corpse" (see The Chained Coffin), but you've also got the big bad Baba Yaga looking to cash in an eye for an eye.  The instruments of destruction are a couple of nifty villains from both history and mythology:  Witchfinder General Henry Hood and Koschei the Deathless.  Like all good Hellboy villains, they're just as sad & pathetic as they are deadly.  Part 1 is mostly beast on beast bashing, but it opens the mythos to the fairy tale crazy of The Wild Hunt.  In Part II, Hellboy joins the Osiris Club on their hunt for rampaging Giants but is quickly betrayed for his increasingly bloodthirsty punch 'em ups.  The Wild Hunt ties Hellboy's lineage to England itself, and we get the best understanding of his origin yet.  

Hellboy - The Storm and the Fury:  Hellboy gets both an ending and a bold new beginning.  The Fate of the World (not just England) hangs in the balance as Hellboy goes up against Nimue, the Queen of Blood.  The pig Gruagach finally sees the fairy folk of yore rise above man and the river of blood that results damns his soul.  This is some seriously heavy stuff, and if you've been reading Hellboy from the beginning than you'll be shocked at the emotions it creates within.  Hellboy has always been a fun bit genre mashing, but it's also always been wrapped in a blanket of gloom - if not all out sadness.  As the impending doom gets closer with every turn of the page, I found myself dreading its conclusion.  There's a moment where Hellboy sits in a ghost pub; he remembers a childhood conversation with Professor Bruttenholm in which he fears a personal connection to Frankenstein's Monster or possibly pulp hero Lobster Johnson.  The memory leaves Hellboy crestfallen, but he must move forward.  Hellboy can no longer bury his head in the sand, he must face who & what he is...or does not want to be.  The Storm & The Fury concludes one of my all time favorite arcs in comics.

Hellboy & Hellboy II - The Golden Army:  After finishing the latest chapter in Hellboy comics I wanted to give the films another shake.  I love, love, love Guillermo Del Toro.  The man is every fanboy's dream.  A geek done good.  The Devil's Backbone is one of my all time favorite films, Blade 2 is one of my favorite action films of the last fifteen years, and I'm beyond excited to see next year's Pacific Rim, his Kaiju Smackdown film.  But the Hellboy films have always bugged me.  Del Toro's films seem more interested in the workmanlike attitude that Hellboy brings to monster bashing and less interested in the brooding sense of doom that The Beast of the Apocalypse title lends to all Hellboy comics.  The first film gets more right than wrong.  The opening WWII sequence makes the whole proceedings worth it frankly, and John Hurt's Professor Broom brings more weight to that character than ever before.  But the romance between Liz & HB distracts.  And the introduction of Myers is such an annoying Hollywood convention.  The Golden Army though is straight up infuriating.  It's soooooo jokey.  And the relationship between Liz & HB has devolved into a bickering sitcom couple.  It's a beautiful flick, and it contains some of the most impressive practical & CG effects blending I've ever encountered.  But when Barry Manilow gets involved, I check out.

Hellboy - The Bride of Hell:  Probably the weakest collection of short stories we've had so far, The Bride of Hell still has a couple of gems.  Richard Corben's Hellboy en Mexico is a real delight, partnering a drunk Hellboy with a couple of vampire hunting luchadores.  There's a demon turkey that's absolutely terrifying.  And I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed Kevin Nowlan's Buster Oakley Gets His Wish - UFOs just don't seem like they belong in the Mignolaverse but they make it work.  The Cowboy!  Still, this just feels like filler until we get Hellboy in Hell at the end of the year.

The Girl:  The Wife & I completed the week with a trip down to Williamsburg.  While staying in a hotel I caught the premiere of HBO's competing Hitchcock docudrama.  Smartly focusing on Hitch's apparent obsession with Tippi Hedren during the filming of both The Birds & Marnie, The Girl paints the master director as a psychopathic rapist-in-the-making.  Toby Jones's whackjob is genuinely scary despite the mimicry performance.  The Girl makes the fanboy in me rather uncomfortable, I don't like looking at Hitch in this pervo light.  It might be true, but I think I'll prefer the goofier undoubtedly less pathetic and more fantastical interpretation of Anthony Hopkins' Psycho-maker come this November.

Bram Stoker's Dracula Original Comics Adaptation #1 & #4:  Down in Williamsburg I scored a couple of issues from Mike Mignola's Dracula adaptation.  This is very much a straight panel for panel adaptation of the Francis Ford Coppola film, but Mignola's art is a perfect fit for the film's theatrical style.  And the best thing about reading this comic is not suffering Keanu Reeve's horrendous English accent.  Now if I can only track down the two middle issues I'll be set.

--Brad