Matt’s Week in Dork! (4/14/13-4/20/13)

    Sunday morning, Paul, Ben, Brad, and myself went out to see Trance, and more importantly, to eat at Denny’s Baconalia.  Oh, man.  Bacon, maple syrup, and ice cream.  Great combination.  I think it has become a new tradition.  If they do it every year, and I’m not dead, I think we’ll be back.  Otherwise, it was a kind of normal week.  Not much new or different.

    The comic reading spree that started Saturday kept going on Sunday with issue 8 of X-O Manowar.  That’s a thing.  The primary reason I was interested in this series was Cary Nord’s art, and he left the line after like three issues.  The introduction of the character Ninjak pretty much killed it.  Too 90s.

    I don’t fully understand how the Dark Horse Star Wars comics are done.  So when I picked up issue 1 of the five part Fire Carrier miniseries, I didn’t realize it was issue 23 of the Dark Times series.  So there was a bunch of stuff that happened before I didn’t know about, or that it mentions in passing.  Still, the first two issues of this mini are pretty good.  The stuff with young Vader is kind of blah, but I guess they have to bounce back to him occasionally to keep the overall thread of the series.  The stuff with the young Jedi kids and their master at a sinister refugee camp is good though.  Timely.  It has a touch of Nazi Germany, but also of the refugee camps in various warzones of today.

    Having The Avengers come out last year was a trip.  Look, I’m not much of a Marvel fan.  I don’t think very highly of The Avengers.  The few comics I’ve read about them have been ultra-lame.  Still, it was an amazing thing to have such an extremely geeky property get a major, big budget release that didn’t substantially dilute the comic-crazy, and draw tons of box office bank.  As crazy as that was, it absolutely did not prepare me for the announcement that one of the next big Marvel movies was going to be…Guardians of the Galaxy.  What?  That’s crazy.  First, they’re fairly obscure.  Second, they’re the Guardians of the Galaxy.  Rocket Raccoon, man.  Rocket Raccoon.  Anyway, they’ve re-launched a comic and I figured I might as well give it a go.  Issue 0.1 (what is it with comics and their cute numbering systems?) and issue 1.  It’s nothing special so far, but it doesn’t suck.  I prefer my comics cosmic, so I’m more inclined to go for something like this than say X-Men.  I don’t get why Tony Stark is in it.  I haven’t been reading Iron Man (‘cause it sucks), so I don’t know what’s going on there that would make him want to go into space.  Seems odd.  But I’ll keep reading if it doesn’t turn to crap.  Of course, the fact that the last page of issue 1 has them heading back to Earth doesn’t fill me with confidence.  The last place I want cosmic characters (Green Lantern Corps, Silver Surfer, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.) is on Earth.  That’s sort of like a ninja drinking coffee or a dog trainer watching bowling; odd for a moment, but not something to build a comic series on.

Trance:  “Strawberries.”  I can’t say I really liked this movie, but I was mostly entertained by it.  The last ten minutes or so, I checked out.  I look at it as too many ‘shocking’ reveals, but those I saw it with think it’s one long reveal.  Either way, once it started unraveling, I tuned out.  At least it wasn’t a) all a dream or b) that the two male leads were the same person.  Had it been either of those, I think I’d have screamed.  I like the cast, and it was sooooo nice to see Rosario Dawson in something that didn’t totally suck.  It’s been far, far too long.  She’s an actress I want to like, but she keeps doing the worst films (now, if only Olivia Wilde would make some good choices…).  In a week, I’ll probably only remember how cute (and naked) Dawson was, the film itself being of little consequence.  In fact, only hours later, most of my memories of the film are of her, not the plot or the action.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:  “Buried aliiiiiiiiive!” Like The Motion Picture, there really isn’t much in the way of story here.  They find Khan, he’s angry, they fight, the end.  What elevates it is the design, the performances, and the music.  If you took out any one of those elements, the film would likely have failed.  There are some problems, especially in the light of continuity.  Why are all Khan’s people blonde now?  Why do Khan and Chekov know each other?  Why does nobody think about the whole Ceti Alpha 5 thing before they land?  Still, it’s a fun, action packed film with some great visual elements.  Unfortunately, it’s more action heavy focus would become basis for most subsequent Trek movies, with exploration and problem solving taking a distant back seat.  As it is kind of a re-start, it is also the first in a continuous story that creates a trilogy within the series.

Fraggle Rock Season 2:  “Come on everybody.  Let’s push this greased up monster outta here.”  The stories continue to be just as good through the second season.  This is some of the best youth-aimed entertainment I’ve seen, managing to be profoundly thoughtful and moral, without being preachy or condescending.  If I were ever to have kids, and could let them watch only one show, this would be it.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock:  “He’s fruity as a nutcake.”  Like The Motion Picture, Star Trek III gets a lot of guff.  The second film in the trilogy within the series, this is about both loss and rebirth.  One could argue that though enraged, Kirk doesn’t get nearly as upset about the loss he suffers in this film as he did with Spock.  But then, how much of a connection did he really have with the person who dies?  And part of me wishes they’d waited, either until the very end of this film, or the next film, to actually find Spock.  There’s really not much of a ‘search’ for him.  It’s more like the opening credits end and ‘oh, hey, there’s Spock.’  I guess ‘Star Trek III: The Stumbling Upon of Spock’ isn’t as catchy a title.  But the movie has a bunch of good character moments, and the emotions in the post climax feel genuine.  The Christopher Lloyd Klingon story is the weakest element of the film, and I think distracts.  They could have had the whole tale be nothing but the investigation into the problems on the Genesis Planet, what was  going on with hyper-aging Spock, and what David had to do with it.  I think the Klingons are a distraction, and sadly kind of cement the Kirk VS. X thing that, with the exception of IV becomes the formula for the rest of the films (replace Kirk with Picard for the Next Gen movies).

Kiss Them for Me:  “I sleep in the raw.”  I love Cary Grant, and this is a funny movie.  But Jayne Mansfield is dreadful.  Grant’s reactions to her…uh, wit(?)…hysterical.  The movie itself is pretty good, it’s tone light, yet dropping in some serious business along the way.  Three buddies (and another kinda friend) go to San Francisco for a four day leave.  Each man has something on his mind.  One is cracking up a bit, one has his sights on political position back home in New England, and one is bitter about it all.  They find romance and fun, drinking and drinking and drinking their way through night and day.  There is a lot of awkward dialog looping, especially from the women which occasionally becomes distracting.  But all in all, it’s a genuinely interesting look back at life near the end of the War (from a decade later), with bits about women workers, injured (physically and psychologically) soldiers, and the like.  You can learn a lot about a time from its entertainment.  Oh, sure, it may not be 100% accurate, but you get a taste of cultural shifts, concerns, attitudes, etc.

Star Wars:  The Clone Wars Season 4:  “I’m not much of a talker.”  The fourth season is not as impressive as the first two, but it’s still got several good episodes.  Again, the show’s major failings are all related the movies, and trying to maintain connections to them.  The lamest characters, the dumbest storylines, the inevitability of stupid plot twists that viewers of Revenge of the Sith already know will largely void various aspects of the series.  The last several episodes of the season do reach some of the highs of the first couple, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the reintroduction of a character that should never, ever have come back.  They also did a lot to make the bald villainous chick into a much more interesting character than when she was originally around, working for the Separatists.  Several of the final episodes of the season follow villains about their business, which becomes far more interesting than watching Skywalker be a snotty jackass.

Solaris:  “She’s a bit tricky, but I guess she’s worth while.” This movie takes a lot of flack, because it’s too slow for many viewers and not slow enough for fans of the original Russian version (nor does it feature enough excruciatingly slow zooms into a guy’s ear).  But I really like this meditation on loss, the hunger for connection, and the hope for second chances.  This is Quiet Clooney, so there’s a lot of him sitting, walking, and looking, and not a lot of him talking (see also: The American).  When he is called to a research outpost floating above the planet Solaris, he finds a lot of questions, not many answers, and way, way more than he went there to find.  And then his wife shows up…his dead wife.  Well, that ain’t right.  The film is beautiful, the music hypnotic, and the story thoughtful.  The unfolding of these fractured people’s past is painful, but relatable.  Clooney plays a guy haunted by his past.  Natascha McElhone is that past, a mysterious and challenging woman with a darkness and sadness that consumes.  Don’t go in looking for an action movie.  But if you like drama or quiet science fiction, this is worth checking out.  And no mater what the Criterion cultists say, I still like it better than the Russian version.

Yeelen:  Years ago, I went on something of a quest to find African fantasy films or books (not going into the story behind that right now).  I found little to nothing, and certainly nothing to match what I was looking for.  Well I finally have.  It is an odd tale about a young man on the run from his evil father.  Both are wizards of a sort and do some crazy magic.  The young man has several adventures where his magic helps him win the day.  I know, straight up, that there were large sections of the movie I didn’t get.  But, this is an interesting experience.  And it is a fantasy film based on African magic, which can’t be a common thing.  Did I like it?  It was OK.

    Friday night was the latest graphic novel club meeting hosted by Lisa and Brad.  We had a somewhat spirited discussion of Hawkeye’s first volume.  I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t all fired up about it.  But opinions varied, from those who really enjoyed it to those who hated it.  I’m on the slightly likeier side of middling.  It’s better than a lot of the Marvel stuff on the newsstands right now, but it wouldn’t even be on my radar if not for Brad’s constant evangelism.

Gappa:  “Stupid bird-lizard!”  An expedition to the South Pacific takes a band of scientists to a volcanic island that appears to be the remnant of an ancient civilization.  Yeah, the same one Easter Island was a part of…when all the islands in the Pacific were one…millions of years ago.  You know.  Science.  Those darned primitive descendants of old civilizations sure do love to dance, play drums, and worship volcanoes.  It seems to have been all the rage on lost islands.  There’s not much new here, and it’s obviously not on a technical par with Toho.  The models are kind of cheap and the action clunky.  Still, it’s a perfectly watchable bit of Kaiju fun with plenty of great bad dubbing.  Why do these giant monsters always get along with kids?  I guess kids were the primary target audience, but still.  It’s weird.  I guess this was supposed to spoof the genre, but a spoof of a genera that is already super weird is difficult to pull off.  Maybe I’d get the spoofiness more if I understood the language.

Marquis de Sade’s Justine:  “I spend my days painting.”  My fascination with trash cinema and the enjoyment I’ve recently had of the madman Klaus Kinsky, plus the film’s early production date, prompted me to ignore my Jess Franco Alarm and rent this anyway.  Franco’s early work still has a freshness and enough production value to make watchable, if not good.  And this does appear to have been shot on quality film by a cinematographer who understood how to work the machine (not always true of the director’s work).  It’s not awful.  Frankly, it’s pretty tame considering the topic.  The thing that makes it almost worth the effort of seeking out is Jack Palance.  He’s treating the scenery like a pack of Hubba-Bubba.  It’s kind of amazing, even for Palance.

    On Saturday morning, I finished up Book Four of Saga of the Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore’s run is uneven, but this volume was really good.  It’s a character I think could hold a lot for this reader, if handled by the right writer.  Moore certainly fits the bill, taking the old green monster into some interesting places.

    “Now imagine them with rockets.”  I also read The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom, which was all kinds of fun.  I love the Rocketeer, and was always bummed Dave Stevens hadn’t done more with the character.  I’m glad to see that people are paying his memory proper respect with a great adventure tale like this one.

    I got a chance to hear the new How to Destroy Angels album this week.  It’s pretty good.  Just on first listen, I like two or three songs right away.  And I don’t think there was anything I didn’t like.  Give me some time with it and we’ll see.  I’ll be curious to see how long this project/band goes on.

-Matt

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