Brad's Week in Dork! (1/27/13-2/2/13)

This was a fun if somewhat confusing Week in Dork.  After a couple years of nervous anticipation, Jason Statham finally hit the big screen as Richard Stark's Parker.  If you've been reading this blog for even the last few weeks, let alone the last two years, then you know I am a Parker super freak and that from the very first glimpse of the Taylor Hackford adaptation I was rather jittery.  I wish that I could report that the new Parker film (and the only one granted the usage of the actual "Parker" name) is a rip-roaringly good time out at the movies...but, sadly, it's a tragic mess of a movie barely worth the energy it takes to properly deride it.  This will not be the final Parker film.  Although, I'd be shocked if they ever let Jason Statham near the property again - and that would definitely be the right decision.  I think at this point, the producers should just grab Darwyn Cooke's graphic novelization of The Score, cast Michael Shannon as Parker and bask in the glory of "Mad Men With More Murder" (a term coined by my clever friend Kevin).  There's a hit film there - I just know it.  At the very least, this latest cine-tragedy has got me aching to finish off Stark's series of books.

The second momentous release of the week was Robert Kirkman's Invincible #100.  Last year I blitzed through 97 issues in just over a week and I came to the realization that Mark Grayson is the greatest Super Hero character in comicdom.  Issues 98-100, titled "The Death of Everyone," certainly put the young Grayson through the wringer as he went mano y mano with the hulk smashing mad genius of the environmental overlord Dinosaurus........but, I also have to admit that I was not overjoyed by the seminal event.  Solid.  But not the painful, consequence porn that Invincible usually proves time and time again.  But, similar to Parker, maybe the anticipation for the event was too great for genuine adoration.

The real joys of this week came during the back half.  After some solid Oscar Nomination viewing, on Friday, Matt & I returned to the beautiful AFI Silver for Count Gore De Vol's 40 Anniversary of Creature Feature.  I moved to the DC area a little too late to be considered a proper follower of the Count, but he's always been a staple of the horror convention circuit and I dig his brand of late-night, pre-dawn TV goofery.  And for February I've decided to crank out another Blaxploitation Movie Marathon - this is a theme I did a few years ago and I remember having as much fun with Shaft & the Gang as I generally do for my annual October Horror-A-Thons.  I've been meandering about with films of late, and I'm craving a theme.  Richard Roundtree certainly delivers on the promise of the genre.

Parker:  "He was an angel from heaven sent to test us." Cut to black. "In Memory of Donald Westlake" You hear that sound? That spinning, screaming wail? That's Donald Westlake (aka The Dark Half, Richard Stark) infuriatingly spinning in his grave. AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN!!! GAAAAAWWWWW!!!! That's the very last line of the movie. It's done for a laugh, but it also gets to the very essence of what is so bloody horrible about this most heinous adaptation. Parker is not a good guy. He's a criminal.  A murderer.  He's a professional thief with a set of rules that keeps him well employed and out of prison. He won't hurt you unless he has to...but he will hurt you. I'm not sure who director Taylor Hackford & screenwriter John McLaughlin had in mind when crafting this pap, but it most certainly was not Westlake's creation - my guess is that they were trying for Lee Marvin's Point Blank, but even then they failed miserably. Jason Statham might not be the right choice, but he's also not a terrible one. The opening heist has a little bit of that Stark flavor, and I couldn't help but enjoy it's Prime Cut midwest freakshow. Statham also has a fairly kick ass hotel brawl with knives pushed through hands and toilet bowls cracked over skulls. But the needless and seemingly endless flashbacks, the shoddy CGI bloodwork, and Jennifer Lopez's "What Am I Doing Here!?!?" performance send this flick directly into the black bowels of Wal-Mart's 5 dollar bin. Not the most boring Parker adaptation (that would be Jim Brown's The Split), but since this is the first one to actually have the privilege of the Parker name, it is easily the most offensive.

Rome - Season One:  Here's another HBO series they weren't wrong about.  Finally succumbing to the pressures of friends & neighbors, I devoured the first season of Rome in just two days.  The main arc details the the slow fall of Julius Caesar (the exceptionally cast Cirian Hinds) at the hands of the treacherous Roman senate.  But as much fun as the diabolical politics can be, the real hook of this series lies with Lucius Vorenus & Titus Pullo, two bickering Centurions fated to sway the history of the iconic city.  As Pullo, Ray Stevenson is a Tyrannosaurus of rage and brutality.  He goes from faceless soldier to gladiatorial celebrity and his friendship with Kevin McKidd's Lucius represents one of the best fictional bromances.  Too bad (for them, not us) their historymaking is tied to a flood of blood.  I'm not sure where this show can go once its hit The Ides of March, but I can't wait to find out.  It certainly isn't going to be sunshine and flowers.

X-O Manowar #9:  I am so glad Ninjak is outta this book.  And I don't want him to get his own title.  That cat is just too silly.  The Vine invasion force is knocking on Earth's atmosphere,  but Aric's XO armor has found a way to patch into their hoodoo communication seminars.  Taunt him all you want, but the man has the heart of Conan The Barbarian and the technology of Iron Man - you do not want to mess with him.  Next issue, marks the beginning of the Planet Death storyline and I feel like mankind is pretty much screwed since Aric seems not to give one cuss for this modern society.  Someone better hurry up and appeal to his savage ways before he lets it all go tits up.

Uncanny Avengers #3:  I really loved the first issue.  And I thought the second issue was decent.  But this...?  I like the general concept of this Red Skull clone mucking about with Charles Xavier's brain, but Rick Remender's narrative rambling is getting in the way of the kooky crazy plot.  Lots of eye rolling from this reader.  And despite the delay, John Cassaday's art looks rushed and simple in places - the man is one of my favorite artists but I can see why he's leaving this book.  Marvel Now's rushed production schedule is not doing anyone favors.

Stumptown #5:  Hey!  I thought this book ended with last issue, but it just keeps on going!  Well, apparently this is the conclusion but my thoughts on the series are still the same.  A bit of a bore.  Drugs.  Neo Nazis.  Rock & Roll fanboys.  Another yawn.  Greg Rucka never grabbed me with this lukewarm mystery and P.I. Dex is like any dozen other wannabe hardboiled detectives, only with lady parts.  If you're a fan of this book let me know, cuz I want to understand the appeal.

Deadpool #4:  I need to drop this book.  Four issues into this Zombie President one trick pony and I find the humor to be utterly tiresome.  We get it!  Taft's Fat!  Kennedy Loves Ladies!  No One Cares About Zachary Taylor!  Hilarious?  No.  It's sophomoric at best, and Deadpool himself remains a lamebrain attempt at meta storytelling - you want to know how to break the Fourth Wall in style then watch Boston Legal.   My infatuation with Marvel Now is fading, and I'd be surprised (and a little disgusted) if I continued on with this series.

Winter Soldier #14:  Ed Brubaker's Captain America/Winter Soldier run comes to an end, and it's less than a whimper - it's a full on fart of disappointment.   Bucky finally gets face to face with his Commie Mirror Self and frees Natasha from his evil mental clutches.  'Course she doesn't escape unharmed and her relationship with Bucky is left in ruin.  Black Widow Hunt has been the most yawning of middle-of-the-road plot lines and it's rather depressing to think that Brubaker's final statement on his (re)creation ends with such a thud.

Avengers #3:  Jonathan Hickman seems to be building something big with this Avengers book, but I'm not sure I really want to hang on for the ride.  Jerome Opena's art is stunning, but he's already off the book so enjoy the pretty pictures while they last.  Frankly, I just can't get a hold on these characters.  Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Spider-Woman, Cannonball, Manifold...you can traipse out the entire Marvel Universe but it don't mean a damn if you don't give them enough time to interact with each other let alone the reader.  It's all vague universal catastrophe jargon slapped atop smackdown artwork.  And then suddenly it's over.  Cap basically chastises the Martian troublemakers and everyone goes home happy.  Whatever.

FF #3:  Look!  A comic book that I actually enjoyed this week!  Wee!  A one-eyed, white haired John Storm pops out of the time tunnel with tales of a mad future in which Kang The Conqueror, Doctor Doom, and Annihilus have transformed into one giant puddle of super villainy.  This dark future is just the excuse that revenge seeker Scott Lang has been waiting for, and he charges the FF with a mission to bring down Doom.  FF is easily one of my favorite books to come out of Marvel Now, and its a joy to read...something rare in these straining days of dark edgy storytelling.

Superfuzz:  Sometimes you can take great pleasure in a bad movie (see Enter The Ninja), and sometimes no joy can be had. Super Fuzz most definitely falls into the unjoyous category. As much as I love Sergio Corbucci & his vast grim landscape of Spaghetti Westerns, I was appalled by this grossly dumb cop comedy - it really does make the Police Academy films seem like the highest form of comic entertainment. But this is not the first time I've experienced the pain of Italian Comedy. There's just something that doesn't connect between our two continents. Slide Whistles are not actually funny - in fact, let's just avoid goofy sound effects all together. Sped Up Frame Rate is also not comic gold. And Ernest Borgnine dancing on a balloon is not funny...ok, that might have been genius.

The Master:  Similar to There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master is a powerhouse performance piece photographed with the eye of a painter as well as a craftsman.  But also similar to There Will Be Blood, I never quite connected with the emotional turmoil of its three leads.  Joaquin Phoenix is a shaking tyrant of psychosis who stumbles into the equally mental clutches of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's L Ron Hubbard substitute.  But The Master is not an all out assault on Scientology.  Whatever your opinions on the pseudo-ideology (can you guess my viewpoint?) The Master will not change your mind.  It will pick your scabs, but there is fun in that emotional mutilation. The film is a battle for the soul of Phoenix whether it's worth saving or not, and the two lead actors give spine-twistingly painful performances, bending & breaking under the weight of their psychological warfare.  Witnessing The Master is a lot like an ant accepting his place under the magnifying glass; what looked like a pleasant spot to sunbathe transformed into an excruciating glimpse at life's end.

Justified - Season 4 "The Bird Has Flown": Ah, poor Raylan.  His bartender bedroom partner turned out to be quite the devious minx.  With a little help from his Marshal friends, he tracks her & her doofy looking beau across various Kentucky Backyard Brawls and finally retrieves the contents of his looted sock drawer.  But does a van full of chickens stand in the way of true happiness?  Or is it just a sign that Raylan doesn't deserve it?

The Sessions:  You pretty much get everything from this film that you get from reading the logline or watching the trailer.  John Hawkes is a poet trapped inside his body that's in turn trapped inside an iron lung.  He's a virgin looking for love he deems impossible to grasp.  After consulting the most cinematic of Catholic priests (the ever charming William H Macy), he seeks the consult of Helen Hunt's sexual surrogate.  Solid performances.  Hearts will be warmed.  Sex will be had.  But it is very much that quirky indie film that excelled so well at Sundance twenty years back, and it's an era of cinema that holds little interest for me these days.

The Impossible:  This movie destroyed me.  And I mean that as the highest of compliments.  Ewan McGregor & Naomi Watts are Mom & Dad.  They take their three boys to Thailand for a relaxing beachside vacation.  Ten minutes into the movie the 2004 Tsunami hits and the world around them is engulfed in horror.  The family is cast apart - Mom and eldest son, flesh ripped from branches & trash, drag their ravaged bodies across the swampy wasteland while Dad & the two youngest drift from hospital to hospital in search & rescue.  This is a survival saga.  It's not a downer.  It's thrilling.  But exhausting.  I pretty much cried through the entire runtime.  Is it emotional torture porn?  Maybe.  And it does irk me that the real life Spanish family is painted over with white actors.  That being said, McGregor & Watts are phenomenal actors.  And Tom Holland as the eldest son is even better.  They sell the pain, but they also sell the love and the joy.  Grab your hankies and mentally prepare yourself, but when you're ready The Impossible is a powerful celebration of life.

Hansel & Gretel - Witch Hunters:  There is a fun shitty movie to be had here.  But the filmmakers can't seem to find the sculpture in this block of fecal stone.  Gemma Arterton & Jeremy Renner are lifeless as the infamous hag bait children all grown up.  Famke Janssen is even more wooden as the lead Witch plotting to free her sisters from the pain of fire.  And the only thing more inanimate than the players is the script.  I couldn't help but think of Terry Gilliam's unfairly maligned & far superior Brothers Grimm while this dud played out.   I scratch my head - for a film featuring gattling gun massacres & speed racer broom chases there is not an ounce of fun to be had in this plodding B Movie.

The ABCs of Death:  I love anthology films.  But they're never perfect.  Their mostly fair to midland by nature.  The ABCs of Death is no different.  26 Directors are given a letter of the alphabet and three minutes to tell a story of destruction.  You've got guys like Jason Eisner (Hobo With A Shotgun), Lee Hardcastle (Pingu), Angela Bettis (Roman), Ti West (House of the Devil), and Ben Wheatley (Kill List) with titles like "B is for Bigfoot" & "T is for Toilet".  Some stories are fun.  Some are gross.  Some surreal.  And some are downright terrible.  But it's a great experiment and I was glued to the screen as each letter turned to the next.  My favorite letter had to be "H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion" featuring a World War II bulldog ace and a feline Nazi stripper cat.  Absolutely bonkers.

The House of Frankenstein:  Here you've got all your favorite Universal Monsters clambering to win your attention for a brief 80 minutes  John Carradine makes the briefest of appearances as the dimmest of Draculas and the film really doesn't become enjoyable until his carriage crashes through the sunny skyline.  Boris Karloff kicks ass as the Mad Doctor determined to resurrect Frankenstein's Monster but when does Karloff not kick ass?  Lon Chaney maintains his mopey moon man problems while J Carrol Naish's Hunchback rages over his good looks.  This is not a classic.  But it's of a time & place that's essential for genre lovers.

Shaft:  Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song might have been the birth of the Blaxploitation era, but it was MGM's Shaft that cemented the pseudo-genre as a gateway to bucket loads of cash.  It's a decent crime story.  Nowhere near as good as its inevitable legacy, but Richard Roundtree (along with Issac Hayes' brilliant theme song) is why this private dick will forever be remembered as an icon of cool.  He's got the smile, the wit, the bravado, the mustache, and the jacket.  It's basically Yojimbo all over again as Shaft navigates between Harlem hoods & the Italian Mob.  There's a kidnapping plot and a shattering pistol whipped window that brings a great smile to my face.  But for me it's the sequels where Shaft really scores.

Invincible #100:  After so much build up, I'm pretty sure the final confrontation between Mark Grayson and Dinosaurus was bound to be a disappointment.  And Kirkman's decision to play the most dramatic element of their battle off panel is a clever, if somewhat frustrating manner to supersede our expectations.  The final punch of issue 100 lands like a reset button with Invincible finding himself back in the safe arms of the government.  This is epic stuff...but The Death of Everyone????  This definitely did not live up to the solicitation expectation.  Of course, how much brutality can one book take?  I say, MORE!

Batman Incorporated #7:  Grant Morrison's run in The New 52 has been peeks & valleys.  It certainly doesn't feel like it belongs with the rest of the continuity, but I really don't care if it jives with Justice League or not.  He's still writing Damien Wayne better than anybody else, and the young Robin's return to spandex shown here is sooooo freaking badass.  And his love of animals?  One panel depicting a snuggling pile of Bat Cow, Ace the Bat Hound, and Alfred the Butler Cat?  That's just two tons of comic book fun.  Go save your Dad, Robin.  And bash some teeth in while you're at it.

Shaft's Big Score:  When the brother of the woman he's currently banging explodes all over the neighborhood,  P.I. John Shaft continues his Yojimbo war between Harlem's top goon Bumpy & the white faced Mob.  A lot more gunplay than the original film, Shaft's Big Score is the violent crime drama you're looking for with tumbling car chases and shotgun helicopter battles.  Richard Roundtree supplies even better one-liners, and even bigger badass swagger.  This is the king of cool.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (1/13/13-1/19/13)

Now this was a proper badass Week In Dork.  Sure, no geeky excursions into some fabulous realm of dorkery, but I did my Vacation up proper with lots of comic book, tv, and movie R & R.  In the wake of my Django Unchained love, I spent most of my time blitzing through Shout Factory's recent Django knockoff releases.  They're fun enough, but nowhere near as good as Sergio Corbucci's original or Tarantino's homage.  The neatest thing about them is there very existence on DVD.  And I saw five flicks at the movie house, my church where I'm happiest - no more than five rows back from the silver screen.

Smackdab in the middle of my week I completed the first of my New Year's Cinematic Resolutions, Birth of a Nation.  Don't know if I could have handled the nearly four hours of racial hate alone, but thanks to my stalwart Dork companion, I was able to finish this lesson in history.  Painful viewing, but necessary, I think.  The real thrill of the week was my Macaroni Western Night.  First movie party of 2013, an event where I subject various friends to films I love whether they like it or not.  For the most part, I think I was successful.

Gangster Squad:  "King Kong Ain't Got Nothing On Me!!!!!" Wait, that's a line from a different movie. But it feels like it should be spitting forth from Sean Penn's cartoonish hammerheaded Mickey Cohen, and he's the only fun thing about this wandering gangster picture. The film doesn't know if it wants to be Sin City, The Rocketeer, or The Untouchables. It meanders through its narrative and I can practically see director Ruben Fleischer's confused expression. Josh Brolin & Ryan Gosling head up the squad but their characters are a brittle summation of the blank women they choose for themselves. Emma Stone feels like she's stumbled from a speeding Delorean, wrong place, wrong decade. As Brolin's wife, Mireille Enos exists solely to be pregnant and disapproving - she's excruciatingly boring. Making up the rest of the squad, Robert Patrick, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena, and Giovanni Ribisi are some of my favorite contemporary character actors, but they do very little than hold cgi muzzle flashing Thompson guns. The HD photography is abysmal. Just when folks like David Fincher & Michael Mann are proving the painterly style of the new technology, Fleischer is muddying the argument with some of the worst blurring I've encountered outside of Once Upon A Time In Mexico. But Sean Penn? He's chewing the scenery. He knows to have fun, and work that beautifully hideous Dick Tracy skull.

Django Kills Silently:  "In front of a senora, you take off your sombrero."  Much better than I was expecting.  George Eastman's Django is a terrible bore.  He lifelessly walks through the balsa wood sets, waiting for the energy of horrendous dubbing to light a spark of enthusiasm to his stillborn performance.  But thankfully there are a couple of demented Spaghetti Western moments to excite the audience.  Federico Boido has a bit role as "The Nervous One," a twitchy henchman itching to gun down Django.  His High Noon gunfight at the center of the film is a highlight for its pathetic execution and perfectly cruel triggerfinger assassination.  Eastman may be a dud, but Django's still a bastard.

Django's Cut Price Corpses:  This is more like the crap I was expecting.  Other than a rather amazing title, Django's Cut Price Corpses offers very little for the Spaghetti Western aficionado.  If George Eastman's Django was a bore than Jeff Cameron's Django is pretty much Dead On Arrival.  There's something going on about a kidnap fiance and an evil Mexican gang, but you'll be fighting so hard for consciousness that you'll find it nearly impossible to follow the plot.  That is until Django rapes a woman.  Yes, apparently "No, No, I'm A Widow" means "Yes, Yes, Yes" to Django DOA and the vicious morals of the genre cork my entertainment here - I can only speculate that the complete lack of craftsmanship, or character do not allow for pleasure here, where other more creatively deplorable films grant vision through nightmarish landscapes.

The Man Who Knew Too Much:  After getting a little too chummy with the target of an assassination, the daughter of Leslie Banks & Edna Best is kidnapped by the wonderfully scummy Peter Lorre.  It's another wrong time, wrong place kinda thriller from Alfred Hitchock that's elevated by the presence of Lorre, and his beautifully icky forehead scar.  Frankly, I cared very little whether the daughter lived or died (and we all know she's gonna live), but I was riveted every moment the sickly smirk of Lorre got a closeup.  Plus there are a couple of fantastic set pieces sprinkled throughout - the dentist chair deception, the crushing chair fight crossfire, and the final ricochet shootout.  Hitchcock is still building to mastery here, but there is still plenty of fantastic cinema to be found.

Zero Dark Thirty:  "I'm The Mother Fucker Who Found This Place."  Jessica Chastain spearheads the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin in this hypnotic torture procedural.  I enjoyed the film, but I was kind of left scratching my head over the amount of praise being lauded upon this glorified HBO movie.  The film is not about character.  We're given very little to hang our emotions onto...other than our own history with 9/11.  Jason Clarke is a bearded tough guy, ready to physically devastate his captives in the neverending quest for intel.  Jessica Chastain cusses with the big boys and only sheds tears when the final credits give the queue.  Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the quest play out, and the final storm on the compound is riveting storytelling, but I never felt a connection with the players.  And I felt the strain behind the performances.  Chastain is an actress I generally praise, but her tough girl routine felt like show - in particularly, her pushy screaming towards Kyle Chandler's Joseph Bradley - I didn't buy the bite behind the bark.  And my real question is this, will Zero Dark Thirty hold any significance five years from now?  Ten?  Twenty?  Fifty?  I have my doubts.

Les Miserables:  Good golly.  What a train wreck.  This goes down without a doubt as the worst direction of 2012.  Tom Hooper foolishly films every single sequence with oppressive Sergio Leone closeups.  We get it!!!!!  You recorded the musical numbers live on set!  That doesn't mean you have to concoct the most claustrophobic musical ever conceived, nor does it mean you have to fill it with the lamest ducks in Hollywood.  I get it.  Sure, Hugh Jackman's a song and dance man.  But he falls flat on his numbers.  He's better than this performance.  And Russell Crowe, what were the producers smoking when they recorded his vocals?  He's laughably bad.  And so soon after The Man With The Iron Fists?  If he's not careful, he'll be entering his Nicolas Cage era of parody (and I'm speaking as a Cage fan here).  Sure, the extreme closeups work for Anne Hathaway's main number.  Her "I Dreamed A Dream" is stunning and her performance through the song will punch you square in the gut.  That is, if you haven't already checked out in the first twenty minutes.

A Man Called Django:  "You're condemned to defend yourself."  This shares a couple plot elements with Django Unchained.  After his wife is shot down while defending herself from a pack of rapists, Anthony Steffen's Django goes on a bounty hunt for her killers.  He partners up with Stelio Candelli, a bandit with knowledge of the villains.  The rest of the film plays out like a video game; Steffen & Candelli working their way through the level bosses.  Some good, grimy dialog matched with harsh violent staring contests.  Not brilliant, but passable.

Batman #16:  I'm really curious to see how Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo's Death of the Family arc is going to read in trade, cuz in singles I'm just not feeling the excitement that the rest of the internet seems to be experiencing.  Batman storms the gates of Arkham Asylum, charging his way through one nightmarish ambush after the other, and all leading to the Joker's demented Sword in the Stone torture climax.  Things are most certainly heating up, but I just don't see how this is going to resolve itself in a satisfying manner with just one issue to go.  And the last page had me asking, "WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!?"  As much as I don't want it to be Alfred's head, anything less will feel like a cheat.

Archer & Armstrong #6:  There's very little here dealing with Archer, Armstrong, or The Eternal Warrior.  Instead, most of this issue involves the succession of the new Geomancer, Kay McHenry.  But ya know what?  Despite the lack of our favorite bickering Valiant heroes, the latest issue is still excellent and delightfully irreverent.  Kay attempts to block out the thoughts of plants as she discovers her destiny as the guardian of Mother Earth - represented here as a Roman robed orangoutang.  And what's it all got to do with Blackbeard the Pirate?  Not sure, but I can't wait to find out.

Indestructible Hulk #3:  I'm still waiting to fall in love with the comic.  Mark Waid has been having some serious fun with Daredevil & The Rocketeer but I'm just not feeling it with Hulk - Agent of Shield.  Maybe the problem is Leinel Yu.  His art is just too dang serious for the amount of fun I should be having.  Nobody can draw 'roid rage quite like him, but I think what this book needs is a Mark Allred type.  He's taken, but there has got to be a cartoon guy for this book.

New Avengers #2:  The plot thickens and I like the hint of cosmic terror where this book could be going...but, I'm not loving Hickman's writing.  Both this and the regular Avengers book are chock full of exposition, and I couldn't help but feel bogged down in the weight of the book rather than rushing to see the outcome.  And I just don't like the team dynamics of this book.  Everyone seems to just hate each other, and it's not in that fun Marvel versus kinda way - just painful, self-loathing.  Black Panther & Namor need to get it out of their system quick.

All New X-Men #6:  The high concept promise of this book is starting to get delivered.  It looks like Hank McCoy's time travel scheme will result in some serious shifting in character for the original members of Charles Xavier's X-Men.  Teenaged Jean Grey is naturally traumatized by the knowledge of her future, and I love how this knowledge could potentially turn her against the budding romance with Scott Summers if not her teammates all together. Young Cyclops, obviously, can't deal with her potential absence and goes running & screaming from the school resulting in a classic confrontation with teacher Wolverine.  The roster is shaken here, time for Bendis to have some fun.  Hopefully he really veers these characters into new directions - don't let them be Status Quo Part II.

Captain America #3:  Three issues of Dimension Z, three issues of disappointment.  I just don't understand where Rick Remender is taking this character.  I get the desire and need to branch off and do your own thing separate from Ed Brubaker's Cold War soldier but this is just painfully lame.  And the final page reveal?  WHAT.  THE.  HELL.  Does that explain the seemingly crazy continuity at play in the world of Marvel Now or is this a seriously lame incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles interdimensional villain, Krang?  Either outcome is stupid.

BPRD 1948 #4:  Anders is loosing his mind.  The desert might be full of radiated monsters, but the real threat in this era of the BPRD is this shellshocked soldier with a few too many bats in the belfry.  But my favorite bits of this story still revolve around cute little Hellboy.  He's been hanging around the fringes of this book so far, but I've got ideas that the kid is going to play big by the final issue...if not the following Vampire story arc.

Django Unchained:  I just can't stay away.  Fourth viewing.  Love it more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.  Took Mom to see it this go around.  Was curious to see if she would respond as positively as I did.  After all, it's cuz of her that I'm the film maniac I am today.  She was the one who introduced me to Alien.  She allowed me to see Predator 2.  And we both sat in a dark theater reveling in all the pleasures and horrors of Species.   But I know she can sometimes respond poorly to onscreen violence, and I was none too sure how she'd handle the depictions of slavery.  Well, I knew fairly early into the film that she was enjoying herself.  She responded enthusiastically to Christophe Waltz's bounty hunter confidence, and to the moment where Jaime Foxx finally unleashed his vengeance upon the despicable Brittle Brothers.  But when I looked over at her during one of the squib explodey gunplays near the climax, and she was giddy with laughter, that's when I knew the film had truly won her over.  Django Unchained is a thrilling film.  Jaime Foxx is dragged through the most heinous of muck, but he charges through the hellfire like the purest of heroes of King Schultz's german legend.  His triumph over evil is not just exhilarating, it's uplifting.  Mom's final review of the film as the credits rolled, "Bloody Good Show."  That pretty much sums it up.

Birth of a Nation:  Going into the film, you know you're in for some heinous racism.  But whatever depictions of hate I was expecting to find were nowhere near as vile as the actual film itself.  This is not just one or two moments where The Klan rides to the rescue, protecting poor helpless damsels from the horror of black faces.  That's there.  And it's ugly.  But the whole film is deplorable.  There are not just one or two moments of awkward shuck and jive - it's constant, it's fearful, it's fear mongering, and it's consciously evil.  And nearly every second of it is painful to watch.  But I am so glad that I did.  And I think you should too.  It's important to not hide from our shame.  We should stare it down.  Recognize it, and dare not let ourselves repeat it.  But maybe, just maybe, you should start with Birth of a Nation and follow it up with Django Unchained.  You might sleep better.

Slaughter:  After Coffy, Jim Brown's Slaughter is my absolute favorite Blaxploitation hero.  "It's his name, and his business."  They killed his mom and dad.  Big mistake.  Slaughter invades South America in a hunt for Rip Torn's shaggy, joker faced hitman (and to bag his kept lady, the amazingly curvaceous Stella Stevens).  The film is jam packed with gruesome goons, violent shoot outs, the terrifyingly ugly Don Mario, and the beautifully sideburned sidekick Don Gordon.  Jim Brown is the very definition of badass, and the manner in which he terminates his climactic opponent is the ultimate in Mad Max vengeance.  People ask me where to start in this genre, I point them to Slaughter.

Black Dynamite:  "I threw that shit before I walked in the room!"  What's so dang impressive to me about this spoof is how Michael Jai White can act like an utter buffoon, and still be so utterly badass.  How'd he do that?  Well, cuz he's Dynamite.  The film walks the fine line of a Blaxploitation send up and an actual entry within the genre.  And for the most part it succeeds.  Of course, I wish the film climaxed with the kung fu treachery of the fiendish Dr. Wu, but I guess there are a couple chuckles with Tricky Dick and the destruction of the White House fine china.  Black Dynamite is the kind of film that you can enjoy in Youtube clips as much as the whole, and sometimes its the perfect medicine for a bad day.  May I suggest the Chicago Wind bar fight.

Justified Season 4 "Where's Waldo?":  The mystery that looks to be at the center of the fourth season begins to unravel, but the real joys of these first two couple of episodes come from Walton Goggins' snake charmer problem.  We all know that this religious fool is gonna have to die, but will it be soon enough for Goggins to claim a portion of Wynn Duffy's Detroit Empire?  Boyd's gonna come out on top, and poor Ellie May is doomed - I see her death coming from the hands of Ava Crowder, the new Mags Bennet.

Broken City:  Have you seen the trailer to this movie?  If the answer is yes than you've practically seen every twist and turn of Broken City.  Corrupt cops & corrupt politicians.  Is there anything new to be said on the subject at this point?  I'm starting to think not.  Mark Wahlberg does his tough guy act, and I think he might be on my "Don't Bother" list at this point...well, when he finds himself in comedies (The Other Guys, Ted, and hopefully Pain & Gain) I find him to be quite charming, but his brute acting style seen here feels phony baloney.  As for Russell Crowe?  At least he's not singing.  And I like it when he hams it up for villainy.  He's fun here & in The Man With The Iron Fists, but as stated above, it does feel like he's venturing into Nic Cage lunacy.  I have no problem with that as long as he owns it the way Cage totally owns his Mega Acting.

Macaroni Western Night:  Our first Movie Party of the year was a Sergio Corbucci quadruple feature, and I made sure people had fun whether they liked the flicks or not.  Obviously, Matt seemed to appreciate the films.  And The Wife really enjoyed both The Mercenary & The Great Silence.  But the other half dozen folks seemed to enjoy the camaraderie and the food more than the movies themselves.  And that's totally cool.  You can't force a batch of 60s era Spaghetti Westerns on a modern audience and expect them all to fall in love.  I just wanted to show folks a bit of the flavor Tarantino was tasting when crafting Django Unchained.

The Mercenary (aka A Professional Gun, aka Revenge of a Gunfighter):  "Shoot him! No, not him, the one who wanted justice."  Franco Nero is The Pollack, a gun for hire who falls bassackwards into the Mexican Revolution after agreeing to escort a parcel of silver across the border.  Jack Palance, in full-on rage face mode, is the murderous Curly, who takes perverse pleasure in turning peasants against each other.  The film is goofy, violent, surreal, and wickedly jovial.  Not only does it contain one of cinema's greatest fistfights involving weaponized chickens (see also Emperor of the North), but it also has the most memorable Mexican standoff outside of The Good The Bad And The Ugly - two words: rodeo clowns.  Franco Nero takes great delight in playing the scalawag, and he's impossible not to root for even when he's screwing over numerous poor people.  Maybe not the serious genre picture some people crave, but The Mercenary is one of its most entertaining entries.

The Great Silence:  "I keep eating and eating and still I'm miserable."  There's nothing fun about The Great Silence.  It's a bleak western filled with mountains of snow and buckets of unstoppable dread.  Jean-Louis Trintignant (see him in the Oscar nominated Amour!) is Silence, a mute gunfighter who wanders into a desolate Nevada town looking for the men who took his voice as well as the lives of his parents.  Klaus Kinski, looking like one of the kids from The Village of the Damned all grown up, circles the town endlessly while picking off various innocent bystanders.  Both characters march towards each other, but the miracle of The Great Silence is that it does not offer the heroic deeds we come to expect.  This is probably one of the most brutal and uncaring films that Italy has to offer, and it most certainly does not provide the high entertainment required for a joyous movie party.  I probably should have started or ended with this beast; it definitely felt out of place as the night's second movie.  Oh well, it's still one of Corbucci's badass best.

Django:  "Just keep undressing, and don't pay any attention to anything I do."  Here it is, the film that sparked fifty knockoffs.  And you can totally see why.  Franco Nero's wandering stranger is all confidence and devious wit.  He's quick on the draw, but he also knows when to whip out the gatling gun.  The first half of the film is easily the most entertaining with Django setting up shop in the West's muddiest whorehouse, and similar to A Fistful of Dollars, playing one rival fraction against the other.  Once Django butchers thirty or forty baghead badmen, the film gets a little bogged down in the politics of the Mexican Revolution.  But there are plenty of bursts of orange blood violence to keep your attention as it marches to the typical showdown resolution.  As fun as Django is, I do find myself gravitating to the absurdity of Corbucci's The Mercenary & Companeros more than this somewhat routine international sensation.

Companeros!:  "How would you like some fresh Swedish meat?"  Franco Nero & Tomas Millan (two Djangos for the price of one!) team up to capture Fernando Rey's revolution crazed professor while fending off the one-handed, marijuana crazed, friend of falcons everywhere - Jack Palance.  The film is every bit as zany as Corbucci's The Mercenary, but thanks to an even hammier Palance (is such thing possible?  YES!), Companeros! explodes with humor and absurdist cowboy violence.  As good as everyone is in their cooky roles, it's Franco Nero's show and it's his performance as The Penguin that completely sold me on The Cult of Nero.  He's all blue eyes, smilies, and mustache.  He holds an infinite charm that's impossible to ignore, and he's got the swagger and the cutthroat bravado essential for the very best of exploitation magic.  Granted, at two hours, Companeros! is far too long but when everyone is having this much fun it's hard to complain.  Most of the guests had left before this film started, but for those that stayed, I think Companeros! was a highlight of the evening.

FF #2:  It's probably mostly due to Mike Allred's art, but I'm enjoying FF much more than the main Fantastic Four book.  I really love all these kids (which were perfectly set up by Jonathan Hickman's previous run on the book), but I'm intrigued by how Scott Lang's loser Ant-Man is going to handle the job now that it's obvious that Reed Richards & Co are not coming back anytime soon.  Plus, the longer narrative thread introduced in the last few pages is potentially fascinating with its Days of Future Past possibilities.  Two issues is too soon to call it, but I'm really looking forward to the next chapter (which I think is next Wednesday!).

The Black Beetle #0 & #1:  Favorite Dork Artist, Francesco Francavilla writes and draws a pulp adventure detailing the heroic exploits of The Black Beetle.  Set on the homeland during World War II, The Black Beetle navigates the seedy world of the occult as Nazi Agents invade the museums of the fictional Colt City.  Fun, moody stuff.  Francavilla is obviously a dork after my own heart, and he's achieving true pulp sensibilities here where folks like Garth Ennis seem incapable of capturing in Dynamite Entertainment's Shadow reboot.  And of course, the art is amazing.  Eagerly awaiting the next issue.

Bloodshot #7:  Valiant begins setting up its first crossover mini series with this flashback issue.  It's all well and good as the Bloodshot of yesteryear invades some undisclosed military base detaining the mindbending children known as Harbingers.  Can't really say I'm eager for the crossover, but I dig Bloodshot - especially during this timeframe where he's such a sad sack puppet.  But let's get back to the main story, and keep Bloodshot on his vengeance path.

Savage Wolverine #1:  It's so good to have Frank Cho drawing Shanna The She Devil again...even if it has to happen in yet another Wolverine book.  There's a mystery here with Logan being plopped down into The Savage Land and S.H.I.E.L.D sneaking around in the jungle, but this book is all about the crazy cartoony T & A and I LOVE IT!  Don't care if it's simply appealing to my thirteen year old brain or not, Shanna the She Devil is super sexy and she kills dinosaurs for a living.  That's just awesome.  More please.

Saga #9:  The Will gets some much needed screentime as we learn more about his twisted relationship with The Stalk as well as Marko's asskicking ex, Gwendolyn.  I love their pairing even more than Marko & Alana (there, I said it) and I have great hope for further adventures surrounding their devious deeds.  At the very least they need to take down Prince Robot and do it quick.  I'm still not madly in love with Saga, but I'm enjoying it more than most monthlies.

Fantastic Four #3:  This was ok.  Reed & Family are finally out there exploring dimensional space and for their first mission they encounter a planet eater....or an eating planet.  Fun.  But not terribly engrossing.  The Thing still calls people dummies and Mr. Fantastic is still keeping mum about the degenerative disease.  I'm not really sure where this book is going yet, and that keeps my enthusiasm to a minimum.

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine Season 6:  The Wife & I completed another round of DS9.  She is madly in love with this show, so much so that she actually exclaimed Benjamin Sisko as her favorite Star Trek captain.  Blasphemy, I say!  We all know that Kirk is The One True Federation Captain.  But if she wants The Emissary to lead her blindly to the celestial temple than I'll let her enjoy her delusion.  All kidding aside, the last two seasons of Deep Space Nine are amazing television and definitely some of the best Star Trek out there.  But man, this season really leaves you on a downer.  The Dominion War is in full affect.  Casualties are occurring - something not too common in the House of Roddenberry.  And by the final episode, Ben Sisko is left devastated by multiple catastrophic events.  The moment the last shot of the sixth season occurred, The Wife demanded that we pushed on to the seventh season.  To think that once upon a time we had to wait nearly six months between seasons 6 & 7...that was real torture.  But thanks to the miracle of Netflix Instant we can go from one depressing episode to the next.

--Brad