Brad's Week in Dork! (8/10/14-8/16/14)

Why hello there.  Miss me?  This has been one of the busiest summers of my life.  Traveling to France with my 93 year old grandfather so he could be showcased on Brian Williams' Journey To Normandy, road tripping to Memphis with The Wife, devouring my fourth San Diego Comic Con, and having just experienced my first ever Business Trip...to the glorious state of Ohio.  I've been ignoring you guys.  If you've been following my Twitter & Instagram accounts then you know that I haven't ceased on the cinema consumption.  But I have abandoned ITMOD.  Matt's been keeping the fire burning, but it's time for me to get back on board.  No more lazing about.

Yeah, that's right, I met Andy Serkis.  Just one of the many cool moments from this year's Comic Con.  That photo was taken around 1:00 AM in the Hall H Saturday Line.  Spent nearly 20 hours on the grass & concrete and was granted various strange encounters during the wait.  I wish I had slapped a post together about this year's Mega Dork Event, but I figure I'll just sprinkle in the relevant photos as we move through the rest of the year.  For right now, you'll just have to settle for a typical Week in Dork.  Of course, being stuck in Ohio away from friends and family meant that there really wasn't much to do other than go to the movies.  Every night I was in the West Chester AMC.  Not the widest selection of movies, so forgive me if I had to settle on a couple of stinkers.

Lucy:  The set up is dumb.  The execution is dumb.  The performances are often silly.  But I can't help but think the movie was one or two kickass sequences away from being a great film.  Scarlet Johansson is snatched off the streets of Taiwan by Korean gangster Min-sik Choi (Oldboy himself!), and for about fifteen minutes there is some genuinely uncomfortable terror at play as they pack her belly with bright blue super drugs & prepare to ship her across continents.  When rape turns to a beating, and the drugs burst inside her, Johansson is gifted with enough brainpower to join The Uncanny X-Men.  The Black Widow has a couple moments to Matrix it up, but before you know it her cranium needn't bother with roundhouse kicks or gun kata.  The film races to its climax as Lucy taps into the universe, and the film attempts to pass beyond Stanley Kubrick's infinite.  I dig the ambition.  However, the film is too quick, too slight, and too obvious to actually be good.  A solid attempt, but a swing and a miss.

The Purge - Anarchy:  Man, I rally want to love these Purge films.  The idea of a government sanctioned night of violence & debauchery is both ridiculous and rather terrifying.  Yet, these Purge films are just stupid bullshit (Ha! Put that on the poster, "Stupid Bullshit!" - In The Mouth of Dorkness), and worst of all they are boring.  The first film took the Kill Crazy Rampage plot & dulled it into a snoozer of a home invasion story.  The sequel thankfully expands on the universe by taking its characters to the streets, and introducing us to Frank Grillo's Punisher.  If the film had committed to a solo film for Grillo then just maybe we would have had an entertaining horror/actioner.  Instead we've got the usual stupid cliches bumping into each other and falling prey to the spooky masked folk.  Can they possibly get it right for the third outing?  I'll be there to judge.

On Wednesday night I went wandering the back roads of West Chester, Ohio.  Not much to see.  Found the hole in the wall shop Queen Comics & Card Company, and then stumbled upon a White Castle.  In my thirty four years on this planet, I had never had the pleasure of consuming Harold & Kumar's most desired slippery treat.  Now was the time.  I ordered the number 1 Slider combo with cheese and few extra packets of Dusseldorf Mustard.  The bun was greasy, the meat was gray, and the flavor was rank.  I guess I can see the appeal of these tiny burgers, but don't dare rank this drunk food alongside In-N-Out or Sonic Burger.

The Hundred Foot Journey:  After choking down the White Castle and drowning it down with a bucket of soda, The Wife & I synchronized our texts so that we both sat down for The Hundred Foot Journey at the exact same time.  No new ground here, but it was fun to watch this cute little film knowing my better half was enjoying it several states away.  The basic premise of two opposing cultures finding kinship via culinary perfection is scientifically proven to warm the heart.  With the added bonus of Helen Mirren there is no way you can come away hating this movie.  It's sweet.  That's enough.

Sex Tape:  This film pretty much exists to showcase Cameron Diaz's side boob.  It certainly doesn't succeed on the laughs.  Jason Segel better be careful or these slumming it paychecks will result in a career of barely passable comedies.  A bored married couple attempts to rekindle their spark by adapting the Joy of Sex via their plethora of product placement iPads.  Rob Lowe pops up to snort cocaine & bizarrely reference Disney movies.  Sure, I chuckled once or twice, but I mostly sunk deeper into my seat at the thought of Diaz's inevitable future blunders.

Let's Be Cops:  Well it doesn't get much better here.  At least with Let's Be Cops you have two leads with genuine chemistry.  Jake Johnson and Marlon Wayanes Jr are a couple of failing thirty somethings (don't know what that's like???) desperate to recapture their dreams of youth by playing dressup.  What starts off as a quick pickup line swiftly transforms into hardcore vigilantism.  This not-so-high-concept lets its plot get in the way of the funny as villainous gangsters cockblock the jokes, and Johnson & Wayans have their improv stifled by a who-gives-a-shit narrative.  If you laughed at the trailer then you got the gist.

A Most Wanted Man:  This one crept up on me.  On the surface, it's a rather routine bit of espionage in this post 9/11 world.  But as the script ekes out its plot, the futility of the situation reveals itself and the dread ratchets from disgust to outrage.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is exceptionally quiet in the film.  "Subtle performance" is a term that gets bandied about quite a bit, but I can't describe Hoffman in a better manner.  His stillness, his tiny control over his physicality allows for a final scene that I found absolutely devastating.  The man was one of the greats.  It irritates and bums me out that we'll never get to see an Old Man Hoffman character.  He could have done a Touch of Evil to melt our faces.  Of all the films I watched in Ohio, this was my favorite.

The Infinity Revelation by Jim Starlin & Andy Smith:  A few weeks ago Marvel published a one-shot Thanos Annual from Starlin & artist Ron Lim as a means of previewing this Original Graphic Novel.  That single issue was a trippy mindbender in which an Infinity Gauntlet era Thanos traveled back in time to save his past self from the clutches of Mephisto, all done within the context of Thanos' current failings during Jonathan Hickman's Infinity event.  I LOVED THAT ISSUE.  It was wild, weird, and plunging in batshit Marvel continuity.  It had me totally pumped for this book.  Yet...The Infinity Revelation is not bad, but it is nowhere near as good as that floppy comic.  This story centers around Thanos attempting to reconnect with Death by recreating the universe in his image.  The trouble is that his arch rival Adam Warlock has to tagalong and pester him with mumbo jumbo philosophy.  After the joy of this summer's Guardians of the Galaxy, I have been all about Marvel's Cosmic Comics.  Some are good, some are great, and some are ok.  The Infinity Revelation falls somewhere in the top of the OK category.

First Blood:  "It can be confusing sometimes."  For Saturday night's Late Show, The Alamo Drafthouse had Stallone's first Rambo adventure on the big screen.  Not the silly killfest that the franchise would eventually become, First Blood is probably more relevant today then it was in 1982.  A traumatized Vietnam vet hitchhikes across America in an effort to reconnect with the men he served with during the war.  Brian Dennehy's Korean War veteran turned proud local sherif sees a longhaired vagrant and attempts to run him out of town.  PTSD flashbacks send Rambo into a frenzy and the damaged soldier makes a run for it after humiliating the chucklehead cops.  Dennehy can't take a hint so he escalates the situation into a small town apocalypse.  First Blood is another cinematic bandaid on the festering wound that was Vietnam War, but Stallone's John Rambo could easily be roaming the country today, attempting to bury the trauma of Mission Accomplished.  It's a tough movie.  A sad movie.  A great movie.  Do not dismiss it because of the later films' taglines.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/29/12-8/4/12)

    A lot of TV this week, especially from the 70s.  There’s an odd quality to the women in film and TV of the 70s, a certain fresh-faced look that you don’t tend to see in other decades as much.  Each decade has a type that tends to be more popular, but there’s something about the 70s I’ve been really digging lately.  I was also thinking about the fashion, and how I think we need to have something of a return to dressing up.  What I mean is, we’ve become, I think, too casual as a society.  Now, I’m not against casual.  But I think, for going out, for going to special places, we should take more time in how we dress.  We probably shouldn’t be going to the museum or a nice restraint wearing shorts, for example.  Anyway, off my soapbox and on with the Dork…

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season 1:  This show is awesomely 70s-tastic, from the opening to the fashion to the music.  It’s great.  I’m not as big a fan of the Hardy Boys episodes.  The two leads, especially the (confusingly) teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy, are pretty darned wooden.  But the Nancy Drew stories are much better, with good supporting cast and solid mysteries.  Plus, Pamela Sue Martin’s outfits are amazing.  She should have been one of Charlie’s Angels.

Doctor Who: Frontios:  I love how 80s this episode is.  The music, the costumes, the hair, the whole vibe of it is very, very 80s.  Stuffed shirt military folks rule over a half-dead colony of a near gone, far distant human race.  As usual, there is some kind of hidden secret, lurking beneath the surface (literally in this case).  It’s One of the better Peter Davison stories.  I just keep thinking about how important good companions are, and how Davison is really weighted down with bad ones.  And he has pretty much the same people through his run.  Alas.

Batman The Animated Series: Season 1:  In the afterglow of 1989’s crazy hit Batman, this groundbreaking animated series somehow rose above the extended toy commercials and neutered silliness that was American animation at that time.  Taking elements from across the spectrum of Batman’s rich history, and filtering it through a retro-futurist art deco style, not unlike Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons of old.  The subjects are taken seriously, the writing is generally good and sometimes excellent, and the art design is awesome.  Until Batman begins, this was my favorite handling of the character and his crime-ridden city.  As a side note, in the episode ‘See no Evil,’ that cop has to have the best animated expression for a guy who just needs to use the rest room…real bad.

The Hunter:  Willem Dafoe plays a professional hunter hired to go into the wilds of Tasmania to find evidence of a thought to be extinct, semi-mythological animal.  But there are many dangers to face, only some of them in the natural world.  Local loggers don’t take kindly to science-types.  Environmentalists don’t like hunters.  And someone might have already killed to protect some secret.  Defoe is excellent as always, and knows how to do a lot without saying a lot.  And the man loves a good bath.  I also really like Frances O’Connor.  She’s always been a charmer, and it’s especially nice to hear her natural accent.  But as she’s getting older, I’m loving the lines of her face even more.

The Ritual:  Shot on extremely low quality video, this movie looks like a student made film.  I’m assuming it’s extremely, and I mean extremely low budget.  It delves into some weirdass Irish mythology and some stuff about the Celts being the ‘original  master race.’  Whatever.  It feels like the director and equipment weren’t up to the subject and actors.  If that makes sense.  I think I queued this because after the failure of The Wicker Tree to live up, I was still in the mood for some pagan myth based modern horror/fantasy.  But, while the subject is still interesting, this movie isn’t very good.

Wonder Woman: Season 1: “In her satin tights, fighting for her rights.”  Oh, man.  I totally need to wash up on Paradise Island.  Seriously.  That may be the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone in the whole history of everything.  The queen may be bats%$& crazy, but it’s pretty amazing, none the less.  Whoever greenlit this show should be made Sheriff of America.  This seems like it would make a good companion to Adam West’s Batman series.  It’s not quite as camp, but it’s on the same track.  The more I watch, the more I think it’s intentionally bad.  The awkward pauses when Wonder Woman is…thinking(?) are awesomely weird.  Not to mention those crazy intense smiles she gives just before the credits.  I can totally see why Lynda Carter was one of my first childhood crushes, but looking at her with an adult eye, I don’t think she’s really much of a role model.  The show’s pro-women stance has more than a little condescension lurking just below the surface.

The Most Dangerous Game:  “Kill!  Then love.  When you have known that, you have known ecstasy.”  The world was still a mysterious place, filled with shadowed jungles, forbidding islands, and dark secrets when The Most Dangerous Game came along.  A shipwreck could still place a man on an uncharted island with a madman for a host.  The ethics of hunting are explored in a remote and deadly land.  Count Zaroff really is right.  The only way you can call hunting a sport is if you’re on even ground with your prey, so for a human, it would have to be a human.  Which is why I refuse to call it a sport.  Fay Wray sure was a cutie, though her character was sort of typical for movies of this type, screaming a lot.  Many of the people involved in this film, in front of and behind the camera, would go on to make King Kong next, and the two films are kindred spirits.  Zaroff’s island certainly seems to be in the same part of the world as Skull Island.  I can’t help but want the final moments to the chase to look like the end of 28 Days Later, with the hero baptized in his foe’s blood.  Alas, as brutal as this movie is, there were still some grounds left unexplored in the 30s.  But I’ll tell you, fistfights were a heck of a lot more brutal back then, when they’d keep the action at a distance so you could actually see it, unlike today’s super close-up, shaky cam stuff.

    My second viewing of The Dark Knight Rises cements it as an excellent finish to the trilogy.  What is started in Batman Begins ends here.  Bane is handled well.  There are a couple good twists and surprising appearances of iconic characters.  It is interesting that two polar opposite iconic comic movies came out this summer.  The Avengers is the silly insanity of comics allowed to run wild and The Dark Knight Rises is an attempt to make the over-the-top as ‘real world’ as possible.  Both films are shockingly successful in the attempt.

    Finally, after a very, very, very long wait, I got the first two disks of Game of Thrones in.  Nice production value.  Good cast.  Peter Dinklage is straight-up awesome.  Not that he seems to be hurting for work, but that man needs to be in more stuff.  Can’t wait to see where his story goes.  Watching this show really makes me wish someone with some guts would get down to business and make a serious attempt at adapting Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories.  It could be done.

    Just before going out to see The Dark Knight Rises for a second time, with Ben, Paul, and Sarah, I read the New 52 Batman annual #1 about Mr. Freeze (part of the ‘Night of the Owls’ event.  It was pretty good.  A nice twist on one of the more interesting villains in Batman’s rogues gallery.  Mr. Freeze is up there with Harvey Dent and Catwoman for this reader.  Plenty to make the character potentially interesting, even if it doesn’t always come through.  I really like the coloring in this, by Peter Steigerwald.  The art is nice, but the coloring gives it a particular vibe, kind of like the European comics I tend to like more.  This wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of Heavy Metal.

    X-O Manowar’s third issue has our hero fully embraced by the armor, killing green aliens left and right.  The issue feels extremely short, though it has what I guess is a big reveal at the end.  I never read the original, so this was something of a surprise (I guess).  But I gather it’s in keeping with the earlier comic series.  It also has a brief preview for Archer & Armstrong, which is probably the Valiant title I’m most interested in.  If I understand right, these titles are all supposed to tie in to each other in some way.  Not sure how I feel about that, but we’ll see.

    The second issue of Minutemen, from the Before Watchman comics was pretty good.  I like Darwin Cooke’s work, and I think he’s good for this sort of thing.  Captures enough of the vibe of the original work and has enough of its own thing going on to make it worth reading.  Watchmen creates an interesting setting that has the potential for good stories.  I still don’t know that this whole Before Watchmen thing was a good idea, but at least Minutemen is pretty good.

    I tried reading Rocket Raccoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant, with super early art from Mike Mignola.  But it was really, really not good.  Just bad 70s/80s Marvel Comics writing.  Silly and ultimately boring.  With the insanity of the announcement this past San Diego Comic-Con of a Guardians of the Galaxy film leading into Avengers 2, I figured I should check it out.  But nah.  It’s not good.

    After a bit of delay, I sat down and finished Christa Faust’s Choke Hold.  Dang.  Read my review here.  I also read the second collection of Invincible.  Read my review here.  And I started re-reading Habibi for the next meeting of Lisa’s graphic novel book club.

    A good week, but fairly quiet.  I have been trying to do more home cooking again, to some success.  It’s healthier and cheaper, and I actually love doing it.  But sometimes, I’m just on the run so much it doesn’t happen, and I get out of the habit.

-Matt

Poster: International John Carter

--Brad

Sam Raimi's Green Goblin Make-Up

In 2001 I was a sophomore in college and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man ruled my summer.  I saw it 11 times over the course of the summer and that sorta boggles my mind. How did that happen?  Not sure.  But I loved, loved, loved that movie at that point in my life.  Now, I can barely watch those films.  I guess they have their moments (well, part 3's got nothing good going for it), but I just can't muster up the energy anymore for that style of superhero film.

What I can tell you is that I hated Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin costume from the second I saw it.  What was the thinking behind this mangafied nonsense?  Well, if you watch the video below you'll see & hear what Sam Raimi might have done with a full make-up concept.  It's not amazing, but it could have been given a little more love.  It definitely would have looked better than what we got.

--Brad