New Release Tuesday!!! - Better Late Than Never Edition (6/4/13)

I know I'm late on this one, but I didn't want to let this week slip by since it's packed with so many wonderful films to consume.  You've got another so-so Die Hard as well as another zom rom com (who would have ever thought of another one of those sub, sub-genres coming around after Shaun of the Dead?), but the real treats of the week extend from that glorious decade of the 1970s.  And they're not the typical classics most film freaks have seen.  Let's start with the...

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Electra Glide in Blue:  One of the best beat cop movies out there.  Robert Blake (let's ignore his murderous personal life) is a teeny tiny highway patrolman navigating the mundane crimes of the Arizona interstate.  His dreams of Homicide Detection are teased when he discovers the corpse of an anonymous hermit.  It's a mean little film with just as much disillusionment as Dirty Harry, but not as widely regarded as that Hollywood endeavor.  Electra Glide in Blue is a slower film; it takes its time to rip your heart out, but when it gets there you'll feel a chunk of your soul missing.  Sound like a good time out at the movies?  Maybe not, but it's a fantastic experience.

BUY!

A Good Day To Die Hard:  Not the return to Hard R glory I wanted, but what do you expect for the fifth film in a franchise?  Um, how 'bout Fast Five!  Bruce Willis travels to Mother Russia to retrieve his son from a whole heap of Cold War trouble.  Jai Courtney is actually pretty fantastic as the McClane offspring, and his relationship with Willis is far more entertaining than expected.  My real problem with the film are the lackluster action set pieces.  Other than an impossibly long car chase, there is very little to remember about this example of diminishing return.  And is John McClane really John McClane when he's sporting a chrome dome?  Not to me he isn't.

Warm Bodies:  Much better than it has any right to be, the film pretty much looses me as it crawls towards its climax.  But where can this sub-genre go once you've explored every horrific aspect?  It was bound to get the Twilight treatment and it succeeds thanks to the presence of "real" actors (you know, people than can emote) and a recognizable sense of loneliness.  Rob Corddry steals the show as Holt's zombie buddy and the film certainly could have benefitted with more of his zombie banter.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome:  The whole trilogy hit blu ray this week, but since I already have the first two the only one I'm really interested in acquiring is this flawed, but ambitious conclusion.  It's been at least a decade since I've seen this movie, and the plot details have pretty much faded.  I certainly remember Tina Turner and the revolting Master Blaster.  I remember that tribe of children from the poster.  And I remember the disappointment that Mad Max is just not as hardcore as he was in The Road Warrior.  But it's time for a revisit.

The Shadow:  Speaking of disappointments...The Shadow came out amongst a flurry of pulp hero adaptations (Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Rocketeer) and it was easily the weakest of the bunch.  Alec Baldwin cuts a pretty fine Lamont Cranston, but his masked avenger could use a little work and definitely a better nose job.  PG doesn't work for the film either.  I'm not looking for an R Rated bloodbath, but The Shadow is a killer and he should act as such.  Think Batman filtered through gangster morality.   However, the real exciting thing about this blu ray release is the widescreen.  Every few years a new DVD would come out, but it would always be truncated into Full Screen.  Now we can see every inch of this mediocre adventure, and I'm genuinely excited.  Even a poor adaptation is worthy of some enthusiasm.

Earthquake:  My absolute favorite Disaster Film.  Growing up in San Diego, California I was always terrified the Earth would open up and swallow my home.  I only lived through a few minor quakes but they were enough to permanently scar my child brain.  Charlton Heston leads a cast of time-gone-by actors as well as a few bright, up & comers.  George Kennedy is the bee's knees as the tough guy cop brought to an emotional breakdown by mother nature.  Richard Roundtree is a meastro of the dirt bike, coming to the rescue of helpless kiddies everywhere.  But the real stars are the matte paintings and the crumbling Universal sets.  Brutal, heartbreaking devastation and only in a way that 70s Hollywood could do.  Roland Emmerich only wishes he could match this horror.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry/Race With The Devil:  Shout Factory put out this brilliant double in standard def a few years back, but now we can take in all the 70s sleazy grime in beautiful 1080p.  Mary & Larry is fun enough, however, the real draw is the satanic road rage of Race With The Devil.  Starring Peter Fonda & Warren Oates as a couple of dirt bike champions (such a popular profession in the 70s), the two cool cats & their wives stumble upon a human sacrifice while dragging their winnebago across America.  RG Armstrong guest stars as a sheriff with a touch of the goat.  Directed by Jack Starrett after he ruled the exploitation world with Jim Brown's Slaughter, but before he co-starred in First Blood as the asshole cop Rambo rocked out of the helicopter.  Race With The Devil will mark an excellent addition to your Rosemary's Baby, Devil's Rain, Ninth Gate dvd shelf.

RENT!

Scum:  Starring an impossibly young Ray Winstone, Scum is a flick I've always wanted to see but have just never gotten around to.  Time to change that.  Director Alan Clarke originally crafted this story as a BBC play but it was banned before it ever aired.  When the regime changed they reshot the story with Ray Winstone in the lead and brutalized British society.  Apparently.  I can't tell you if it's great or not.  But I love Winstone.  And I love angry films.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (3/3/13-3/9/13)

The March to Summer has begun.  Can't you taste the buttered blockbuster blitzkrieg?  With the Friday release of Sam Raimi's CG Candyland, the 2013 spectacle movie is upon us and I'm rather appalled by these early offerings.  Don't get me wrong.  I can't wait for Summer.  Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim.  These are popcorn films I'm seriously craving.  But first we have to wade through the wannabes like Oz and Jack The Giant Slayer?  No.  It's bad enough I had to suffer through the Icon disappointments of The Last Stand, Bullet To The Head, & A Good Day To Die Hard.  Not to mention the castoff dreck like Texas Chainsaw 3D & Gangster Squad.  I get it.  We need time to digest the year end Best Of films.  Sure.  January.  Suck it up Hollywood.  But once February rolls around and March hits, I want to be seeing good quality filmmaking.  Or at least one or two solid entries.  Now, I know what you're saying (and what Matt is happy to echo), "Brad, you don't have to suffer through all this subpar cinema."  Well, yer right.  I don't have to.  But I love to anyway.  The movie house is my church.  I want to be nowhere else.  And now that I'm the happy owner of a Movie Pass, I've got my ankles in it and I'm chowing down on the New Year muck.

So....saw four flicks theatrically this week.  That's the most I've done since the New Year began.  Dead Man Down, Jack The Giant Slayer, and Oz all disappointed.  None quite terrible, but sometimes the middle-of-the-road pictures are the most painful.  The happy news is that the first film I saw on the big screen this week also turned out to be my favorite film of 2013 so far.  It didn't quite hit me like The Grey did early in 2012, but it was thrilling enough and when facing Lovecraftian blackness, a sliver of light can feel like the sun.  Steven Soderbergh might be claiming retirement from the movie making business, but I sure hope he realizes the error of his ways sooner rather than later.  His last three films (Magic Mike, Contagion, & Haywire) were heaps of funky HD joy and his latest, Side Effects, is even better.  It's slick, twisty, and well acted.  Plus, another cool score from Thomas Newman.

So if 2013 isn't going to bother giving us the proper fresh entertainment we all deserve on the big screen than I guess we gotta look to the small.  Took the plunge into the Neflix timesuck known as House of Cards, whipped through the second season of HBO's Game of Thrones, and rediscovered some serious enthusiasm for a John Carpenter classic.  Managed a few comics, but outside forces kept getting in the way of a proper sit down with the funny books.  I have a feeling that the four color form is going to rule next week - so many good books to get through and I haven't even started this month book group selection yet.

House of Cards:  Not sure this show is right for me.  Politicians behaving like assholes and committing diabolical acts of scumbaggery?  What's so new about that?  Granted, Kevin Spacey is devilishly fantastic as Congressman Underwood, especially when he's plotting to camera and Michael Kelly as his right hand goon is properly menacing.  However, I really hate the female characters.  Kate Mara's descent into journalistic prostitution was wasn't just disappointing it was downright predictable and boring.  Robin Wright Penn's narrative collapse is little more than hateful window dressing and Constance Zimmer's bitchy coworker turned bitchy partner in crime is just icing on this gender garbage dump.  I enjoy watching villainous protagonists as much as the next person, but I'm not seeing anything new or original in House of Cards.  Still, look at Spacey's glare to camera.  There is a little joy in his monologuing.

Thunderbolts #5:  Ok.  First off.  I really hate that cover above.  What the hell is The Leader doing?  Is he about to 8 Mile his way outta the Thunderbolts posse?  It just looks ridiculous.  That being said, I'm still loving the silly heck outta this book.  Daniel Way is having a lot of fun with these morally corrupt loners.  Sure, I don't really buy how Red Hulk got them all together in the first place but now that they're here and we've got The Punisher & Elektra making out in the blood splattered woods of Kata Jaya - I am happy.  And I'm seriously loving the Preacher stares Steve Dillon is putting on Frank Castle's face.  Some of you out there in Internetland don't seem to appreciate him on this book, but I'll be sad to see him go after this first arc.  The man can put hate on a brow like nobody else in this business.  I hope he finds more weird work over at Marvel.

Uncanny Avengers #4:  A bit better than last issue.  Rick Remender's caption writing still needs some readjusting, but I dig the plotting.  Opening the issue on the infamous Summers plane crash gives an extra bit of oomph to Havoc as Avengers leader, and the Days of Future Past-like flash forwards are perfectly comic booky.  The Red Skull logos on the Sentinels' faces brought a great grin to this long time comic book fanboy.  And the final 90s throwback splash page?  Damn.  That's goofy.  Cool.  And I want it on a poster.  This issue also marks the end of John Cassaday's run.  It's a real shame.  I was hoping for a massive hardcover volume of his work here, but now I'm going to have to settle for a puny four issues.  The loss of him on art takes a good chunk of the books epicness, and I'm curious to see if replacement killer Daniel Acuna can deliver the goods.  Uncanny Avengers started out as the flagship book of Marvel Now and has slowly become little more than a blip on the landscape.

The Walking Dead - Season 3 "Clear":  From the beginning, this show has suffered from serious acts of narrative decompression.  Padding.  We're nearly at the end of the third season.  Rick's crew should be gearing up, if not already embroiled, in a full on WAR with The Governor and the rest of Woodbury's henchman.  Instead the audience is given yet another distraction from the overall story.  Granted, this was a pretty good distraction.  Rick, Carl, & Michone return home in search of weapons.  There they encounter Morgan, whom we haven't seen since the first episode of the first season.  His son is dead.  He's lost his mind.  He's a mirror for Rick's possible future.  The man is batshit crazy.  You know, like Rick is on occasion.  He craves death.  Of course, Rick & his moral high ground can't grant him his death wish.  Meanwhile, Michone & Carl go hunting for memories of a world before walkers.  It's solid stuff.  Something I might have enjoyed 3 or 4 episodes into the season and not 12.  Let's get on with The Governor dammit!  Time to kill Andrea already!  But I'm tired of bitching & moaning about The Walking Dead.  I'm going to keep on watching (at least until the third season is finished), but I'm no longer going to unleash my complaints on this blog.  I'm sick of it.  I sound like an asshole when writing about this show.  It just frustrates me too damn much.  So no more episode reviews.  The next time I write about this show it will be a Season 3 recap, and hopefully I loved it.

They Live:  You know the drill - Rowdy Roddy Piper has come here to kick ass and chew bubble gum.  By this point in my life, I must have seen this flick thirty times.  The first time I watched it, I liked it okay - nowhere near as good as The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China, but infinitely superior to later Carpenter flicks like Ghosts of Mars and Vampires. Over the years it's become a background kinda movie. As I do dishes, laundry, or clean the apartment. And that's how I started my week. They Live in the background. But once Piper got the glasses and the bubble gum chewing started, and the epic Keith David bum fight erupted, They Live just couldn't continue in the background - it had my full attention. It's a lark. A goof. But it has painful truth too. And it will probably hold truth forever - these problems are not going away. Get your own pair of sunglasses and choose kicking ass over chewing bubblegum.

The Sweeney:  "We're The Sweeney shit, and you've been knicked." The film has a little bit of the original show's cockney charm, but as much as I love Ray Winstone (especially, savage, fat, beastly Ray Winstone), this theatrical remake lacks any kind of originality and bears closer resemblance to Training Day than its source material.  I want to see The Sweeney cracking the heads of hoods and not fending their freedom from Internal Affairs. I want doors bashed down. Bare knuckle brawls.  And sweet 70s suits. This is just another cop program in a field of cop programs.  Basically, a waste.

Justified - Season 4 "The Hatchet Tour":  Possibly the best episode of the season so far.  Raylan finagles his way into the car transporting Hunter to the pen.  After a little detour to Wynn Duffy's trailer and a team-up with Sheriff Shelby, the three find themselves speeding to the residence of Lee Paxton where Patton Oswalt's Deputy Bob commences to siege the house with the contents of his go-bag and a hefty machine gun.  Plenty of comedy peppers an episode that is otherwise steeped in painful family history.  With his father now dead, a couple of old timers offer the son a new light on Papa Arlo's past acts of violence.  Wars aren't necessarily ignited over dogshit.  But will Raylan ever be able to see Arlo as anything other than a criminal?  Doubtful.  And oh yeah, the mystery of Drew Thompson is revealed!  So happy to see it not held back until the final episode.  Now this season is going to barrel towards its climax, and it might not be as bloody as last season's "Slaughterhouse" but I bet you it's going to be ten times more soul crushing.

Side Effects:  Best not talk too much about this one. It's one of those flicks where the less you know the better. The film opens on streaks of blood smeared across an apartment floor, red foot tracks passing near beautifully wrapped presents - up front you know it's not going to end well. Now what leads these characters to this bloody mess is a Hitchcockian thriller filtered through a Law & Order procedural. Rooney Mara will get all the press from this flick, and she is excellent as the mentally cracked bride, but I was ecstatic to see Jude Law blasting his way through his character's downfall. Law might have drifted out of favor post-Sky Captain, but he's an actor worthy of an epic return to the big screen. And Stephen Soderbergh need not retire.  As stated earlier, his last round of entertainments have been exceptionally small bits of character work, and I dig his digital eye.  The man just shoots classy.

Hellboy in Hell #4:  Mike Mignola's first mini-arc in this epic ongoing series comes to a close and like the previous three issues, it is exceptional.  So glad to type those words.  After the insane revelations of The Storm & The Fury, I had some serious doubts as to whether Mignola had anything left in his trick bag.  Plus, sending Hellboy to Hell felt a little gimicky.  Curse my eyes for ever having any doubts.  Hellboy is still reeling after his encounter with his brothers and his possible attack on Lucifer, but most of this issue revolves around ex-Witchfinder, Sir Edward Grey explaining big red's current role in the royal hierarchy.  Yes, Mike Mignola found a way to complete the Beast of the Apocalypse narrative.  The Right Hand of Doom melancholy has been with this comic since the beginning; the idea that it could all be over seems somewhat preposterous.  And I'm pretty darn sure someone is going to come looking for Hellboy's hand sooner or later.  Sir Grey pretty much alludes to such, so yeah, this really isn't a conclusion to The Beast as much as it is a pause in programming.  And if all that wonderful bizarro denouement wasn't enough, Hellboy in Hell #4 also offers some pretty badass revelations involving the Witchfinder.  Here we see Edward Grey's final moments on Earth and his passage into the underworld.  Damn cool.  I say this all the time, but if you are not reading Hellboy than what the hell is wrong with you?

Game of Thrones Season 2:  So I didn't love this season as much as the first.  Why?  Well, no Sean Bean.  Obviously, the House of Stark is just not going to be as interesting with these kids spread out all over the five kingdoms.  I'm not saying their stories suck - they're just not as complicated as Papa Stark's struggling foothold on the North.  His son Rob is barely around in this season.  He's got some boring dopey Florence Nightingale love story for his arc.  The legless kid is mostly scrambling in the dark.  Sansa Stark definitely has the most tortured plot with her horrifying engagement to the epically evil King Joffery (and seriously, Jack Gleeson is an amazing monster - he just has to say three words and I want to cave his skull in).  I'm guessing Arya Stark is eventually going to transform into the show's badass, but she's mostly wandering this season.  And don't even get me started on bastard John Snow, he's a drab bore.  Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen, is off in the desert getting chapped for the majority of the drama.  She deserves better.  So, Season 2 really lives & dies with Peter Dinklage.  As the hand of the king, Tyrion Lannister excels in this backstabbing political thunderdome, but there is no way it can last.  Rise, Fall, sword to the face.  I also appreciated the little bit of magic we got this season.  This is a Fantasy after all.  Dragons.  Witchcraft.  White Walkers.  Smoke monsters.  More of that in Season 3 please.

Age of Ultron #1:  2013's first big Marvel event is here.  Brian Michael Bendis has bee teasing Ultron's great triumph for years, and now it's finally a chromium foiled reality.  And I don't know what the hell is going on.  The first issue drops you into another crazy ass post-apocalyptic world - this one involving Ultron's sweeping takeover of planet Earth.  The heroes have fallen.  Of course, not all of them.  The first issue sees Hawkeye popping arrows into the throats and sockets of Hammerhead goons, crashing into a Super Villain safe house and rescuing a tortured Spider-Man.  But is this the Peter Parker Spidey, or the Superior Doc Ock Spidey?  Since Bryan Hitch had to start drawing this book eons ago, who the hell knows, but that question just reminds me how much I detest Dan Slott's current run on Spider-Man.  It's too early to tell if this book is going to kick ass or disappoint (like nearly every Big Event of the last five years), but I can certainly tell you that Hitch's art is amazing and I could look at his devastation splash pages all day long.  And I love Ultron.  He's a mad doctor robot bent on world domination.  What's not to love?  So I'm in for this badboy.  Till the artist switch halfway through anyway.

Jack The Giant Slayer:  Can't say I hated it. Can't say I liked it. This is just one of those films that exists. Maybe some five year old will see this one day and loose their tiny excitable mind, but I doubt any kid past the age of reason will give two shits about Bryan Singer's remake. And it got me thinking. Other than The Usual Suspects, has Singer ever directed a film that truly engages my emotions? There are moments in Superman Returns that bring a lump in my throat. His two X-Men films have a glimmer of pure comic book joy. And I kinda dig Tom Cruise's historic snooze, Valkyrie but it's rather dull in its a-b-c narrative. I think Singer is nothing more than a journeyman - not the type of artist to illicit passions. But whatever his intentions were for Jack The Giant Slayer the resulting movie is a lumbering mass of misguided adventure. Nicholas Holt is struggles as its hero. Ewan McGregor is cashing a paycheck. Ian McShane pops up as a reminder of the Deadwood myth. If there ever was an audience for this movie it was decades ago, and if there was a way to harken back to those Ray Harryhausen glory days, this bloated but feeble fairy tale most certainly is not it.

Dead Man Down:  I kinda love the Hitchcock set-up. Noomi Rapace witnesses neighbor Colin Farrell choking the life outta an angry bald man. She records the murder. Blackmails him into committing another murder. Strangers on a Train from the hateful morality behind the original Girl With A Dragon Tattoo.  Unfortunately, Dead Man Down is all bark no bite. Nearly every moment in which the threat of violence occurs is quickly stalled by lamebrain character interference.  Noomi's scarred beautician is more mope than femme fatale, and Colin Farrell's vengeance seeker never quite reaches the proper rage levels, and his final assault on Terrance Howard is missing the sick killing glee the plot deserves. Dead Man Down should be a rough watch, but in actuality it's a tame puppy. 

Oz - The Great & Powerful:  Sam Raimi. Twenty years ago, the man could do no wrong in my eyes. Evil Dead. Evil Dead 2. Army of Darkness. Darkman. Those four films have earned him permanent residence in my heart. But since then, it's all peaks and valleys; his Hollywood grab films have never quite connected with me. The Quick & The Dead. A Simple Plan. The Gift. Drag Me To Hell. Those films have their moments. But the Spider-Man trilogy. That's a cartoon world I have little enthusiasm for anymore. His ram-o-cam theatrics seem hamfisted in the blockbuster, and even if its cute to see POV fenceposts and deadite witches barreling through this Disney behemoth, the man just doesn't seem like the right fit for these cinematic gobstoppers. And James Franco...your wrinkly smiles are emotionless and distracting. Where is your wonder. You're in OZ dammit. I want awe from you. Instead, Franco delivers vacant pothead gawks. Michelle Williams at least seems to be at home in the flashback performance, and Rachel Weisz knows how to ham. But at the end of the day, Oz The Great and Powerful is a pre-summer dud.

--Brad

"We Do Things Our Way!" The Sweeney Trailer Grabs You By The Throat!

I much prefer this second trailer for The Sweeney than the international one we saw last year.  It still doesn't quite show off the retro cool that I'd expect from the BBC adaptation, but I'm seriously down for Ray Winstone choking out IA tools.  And there's a lot less of Ben Drew, and a little more of Damian Lewis.  That is most certainly a good thing.



--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/13/12-5/19/12)

     Got an unusual amount of comic reading in this week.  Not a lot of movie, and those mostly at the end of the week.

Pippi Longstocking:  Dubbing.  Bad dubbing.  I imagine this would be a charming children’s film if it weren’t for the absolutely awful dubbing.  It sounds like all the children and all the women are voiced by the same woman.  And I think the men may all be by the same guy.  It has pretty good production design and the story is fun.  But I just couldn’t get past the terrible voice work.  A young kid might still enjoy it, if he/she is too young to notice how bad the audio is.  It eventually becomes somewhat interminable.

The Fury:  Psychics and spies, man.  You can’t trust ‘em.  After all the psychedelic drugs, government betrayals, and scientific advancements of the mid 20th Century, pseudoscience and hucksterism became pretty commonplace.  And science fiction, especially movies, took it up with a passion.  Along with the rise of religious based horror movies like The Exorcist there was a rise of this sort of pseudoscience horror films like Firestarter, Scanners, Spontaneous Combustion, and this, among many others.  I think there was a genuine feeling that we as humans were changing dramatically, awakening psychically.  Of course, it’s all bunk, but it made for some pretty cool movies.  I do love a good conspiracy story, and psychic powers give it a little something extra.  Kirk Douglass is pretty cool in this one, too.  Honestly, the movie goes on a bit too long.  But it’s not bad.

Alien:  A slow-burn, classic monster movie with post-Star Wars, lived-in future setting, Alien stands as not just a great science fiction film or a great horror film.  It’s a great film.  Exceptionally well crafted, it balances scares and gore with a fantastic cast of believable, likable characters.  When bad things happen, you care.  You want these people to do OK, because they’re just like you.  The effects still look good 30 years on.  The creature design is one of the most iconic in film.  The music, the direction, the acting are all top notch.  This is a classic.

Aliens:  Totally different in tone, scope, and style, this James Cameron follow-up to Alien is a grand, balls-out action movie with lots of quotable lines, colorful if not especially well developed characters, cool tech, and lots of thrills.  Roving hoards of alien soldiers rampage through dark, cluttered hallways as humans try desperately to stay alive and escape.  For a long time, I said I love both Alien and Aliens, for different reasons.  In recent years, I’ve realized that for me, though lots of fun and very cool, Aliens is not as good a film.  It’s solid.  It more than gets the job done.  But in the grand scheme of cinema history, I don’t think it stands the test as well.  That said, still a totally awesome flick, and an interesting sequel.  A must see for action sci-fi fans.

Tracker:  After loosing everything during the Boer War, a weary South African (Ray Winstone) travels to New Zealand looking for…something.  Returning home, a Maori (Temuera Morrison) whaler seeks something as well.  A pursuit through the wilderness ensues, with each man learning of the other, and themselves.  This is one of those classic ‘men’ movies like they made in the 60s and 70s, about loss, honor, shame, redemption, dignity, and respect.  Shot like a classic Western, it feels a bit out of time, but not at all in a bad way.

London Boulevard:  Bad guy Colin Farrell is fresh out of the pen and looking to change his life’s direction.  But you know, they keep pulling you back in, criminals do.  He tries to go straight, working for a reclusive actress, but beastly criminal overlord Ray Winstone is having none of that.  Like a lot of British films, much of the actual violence is off screen or less explicit/graphic, but there is an intense dread (perhaps caused by this very thing) that permeates the film.  A solid UK crime film, stylish without being style driven, which can be a problem in British movies these days.  Great soundtrack.  If you have a problem with accents, especially the London lower class types, you might need subtitles.

Night Call Nurses:  What the crap, man?  The 70s were weird.  The tone is all over the place.  The encounter group strip sequence is all kinds of sketchy.  Creepy stalkers.  Bad ADR.  Prowling Dick Miller.  And so much strange social semi-consciousness.  Touchy feely (literally) psychology is downright icky.  And that wacky flasher.  He’s so sweet.  Thank goodness there’s also a transvestite psycho killer.  And for the record, a pill-poppin,’ motor-mouthed redneck might not be the best choice to drive a get-away vehicle.  I do miss those natural women of the 70s, though.

Candy Stripe Nurses:  “Even the streakers move better than that!”  Young women get into the sex-charged world of candy striping.  It’s pretty much just wall to wall sex, with dashes of violence, drugs, and rock n’ roll to spice things up.  And then they go to the sex clinic and things really get out of hand.  What’s weird is that in spite of my hatred of the so called pixie cut, the girl who has one in this movie is adorable.  She has an charm that shines through in pretty much every scene.  The Frank Zappa looking rocker is a trip.  And the whole search for a witness subplot takes things in some weird directions.  Dick Miller heckling some basketball players is a highlight.

    Waking up Sunday morning, after the madness of Shat Attack V, Brad, John, and I kept things going with a few episodes of the Star Trek animated series.  The show has some real problems.  The animation isn’t good.  The voice work is spotty.  And some episodes are crap.  But, being animated, they’re able to carry ideas further, and generally do grander concepts.

    Keeping the Shatner/Trek thing going, Brad, Ben, and I watched Balance of Terror, the first episode to feature the Romulans.  I like the Romulans more in the original series, where they’re dignified and dangerous, not the shifty back-stabbers of Next Gen.  Then Ben and I watched a childhood favorite of mine, Devil in the Dark, with the very alien Horta.

    A bunch of us went out to see The Avengers.  It was my second time seeing it, the other three’s first.  Enjoyed by all.  On my second go, I found a few new fun bits.  Excellent popcorn entertainment.  It may be a bit over done with Scarlett Johansson in a catsuit.  But worse things could happen.

    Knocked out a couple more episodes of Charlie’s Angels, which is sadly not keeping me as excited.  Season one was so much fun, but season two doesn’t have the magic.  It’s OK.  Just not as good.

    I read the first issue of Boom! Studio’s new series Higher Earth by Sam Humphries.  Not too much happens (a lot of action with little story), but it does introduce a potentially interesting setting involving multiple Earths.  The art by Francesco Biagini isn’t bad and the final image in the issue makes me want to see what happens next.

    I followed that up with the Free Comic Book Day double of Serenity and Star Wars.  Both stories were written by Zack Whedon.  They’re fine, very brief, self contained tales.  The Star Wars art by Davide Fabbri is pretty good.  But I really, really didn’t like the Fabio Moon work on Serenity.  I would love to see Serenity continue as an ongoing comic or something.  But I sure as heck wouldn’t want to see it drawn by Moon.  There are a couple other little tidbits in the issue; glimpses of other Dark Horse projects.  Alabaster, by Caitlin R. Kiernan interests me not at all.  But Brian Wood’s The Massive seems like it has potential.  I’ll be curious to see what it looks like when it actually comes out.

    “What hath mad science wrought?!”  Atomic Robo is one of those comics that I just know I should be reading, but for whatever reason, I’m not.  It’s kind of like a more light hearted Hellboy, with lots of retro-science fiction stuff.  Reading the Free Comic Book Day issue reminded me I should really grab the first trade.  Also included were short teasers for NeoZoic, which seems like it could be a cool idea, but didn’t really pique my interest, and Bonnie Lass, which wasn’t even a little bit interesting to me and has dreadful art.

    While I was on a kick of reading stapled together comics, I dipped back into some of the New 52 first issues I hadn’t read.  Green Lantern: New Guardians was up, and it was OK.  It’s a Kyle Rayner centered series I guess, so…well, meh.  I am curious what the deal is with what happens in the issue.  I don’t know if it’s enough to pick up the trade or not, but maybe.  Tyler Kirkham’s art isn’t especially memorable, but it gets the job done.

    Following that, I read Teen Titans, a totally forgettable bunch of ho-hum.  The great thing about the Teen Titans is that it takes characters I don’t care about, and makes young versions of them.  Because EVERYONE likes to see younger versions of characters.  Like with the Star Wars prequel movies.  I always wanted to see a child version of Darth Vader and Boba Fett.  Didn’t you?  Kid Flash?  Wonder Girl?  F this comic.  How do you make me like the Justice League even less?  Make them all teenagers.

    And I read Batman, which was pretty much the same-old same-old for the Bat.  Dark, dark, dark.   Brood, brood, brood.  The artwork is OK.  But like so much Batman, it feels like they’re just going over all the same stuff yet again.  I want to like Batman more than I do.  I think he can be a genuinely interesting character (see: Batman Begins).  But it seems there’s some unwillingness to really DO anything with him that hasn’t been done a dozen or more times before.  I’ll be skipping the trades of this one.  But I imagine if you’re normally into reading Batman, there’s plenty to like, since it appears to be the same thing you’ve been enjoying for years.

    All Star Western’s first issue was up next.  I dig the idea of Jonah Hex, but I never really read any of his comics.  I’ve liked when he’s shown up in the various cartoons.  And I didn’t totally hate the movie (though it is pretty awful).  Plus, with my getting hooked on Red Dead Redemption a couple years ago (during my awesome Western month), I’ve just got a general hankering for some grim Western action.  Bringing a classic DC Western character into early Gotham is an interesting choice.  I don’t know if it’s a good one.  The plot of this comic feels pretty much like From Hell, if Eastwood’s Man With No Name were the central character.  There’s a Mason-like secret society, murdered whores, bumbling cops, and all the usual.  The team-up with Dr. Arkham (obviously, the guy the asylum is named for) could be really cool, but I have a strong feeling it’s going to get botched.  Plus, the fact that he’s drawn to look like a raving maniac in most panels makes me think it’s going to be one of those “what a twist!!!” endings where he’s the real killer or something like that.  It’s intriguing enough that I might consider reading it in trade.  We’ll see.

    Now, here’s a random one.  I read a ‘Marvel One-Shot’ called Thor: Man of War, written by comic golden boy Matt Fraction.  I’ve never been much of a Thor fan, though I enjoyed the new movie.  I feel like this is supposed to be a sort of origin story.  Mostly it’s just Thor being combative and Odin wanting to slap him down.  The art is pretty good, plenty dramatic.  I don’t know enough about the overall Thor comic mythology to catch any references, so I don’t know if it has anything extra for fans.  But it was a decent story, and it might make me want to read more, depending one who was involved and where the story might go.

    Heck, why not follow that up with another Thor comic?   So I did.  Once again, Matt Fraction is on the scene with Thor: Ages of Thunder.  This is a far more grand and mythological story with titanic battles between gods and frost giants.  Thor feels kinda like Conan here, or like, well Thor of mythology.  The art is fittingly wide screen, with panels sometimes stretching across both pages, and lots of almost painterly images.  Considering the last page has a ‘to be continued in…,’ I don’t’ think the folks at Marvel quite get what a ‘one-shot’ is.  Or, I don’t get what they’re doing.  Still, it works fairly well on its own.  Am I gonna have to find a Thor trade to read?  Probably not.  But maybe.

    One more Thor issue.  This time, Thor: The Truth of History written and drawn by Alan Davis.  The book looks and feels more “comic booky” than the other two I read.  Less mythological.  Still, it’s a fun kind of goofy tale that reaches back to ancient Egypt.  Thor is a pretty crazy character to have in the Marvel universe.  Actually, really crazy.

    For a change of pace, I read the first issue of IDW’s post 2009 movie Star Trek comic.  I guess there’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s fairly well written and the art isn’t bad.  But shoehorning the plot from my personal favorite original series episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before into the new universe feels all kinds of wrong.  This timeline is too different to revisit stories, or at least to revisit them in much the same way they were originally done.  I wouldn’t mind them working in Gary Mitchell and Lee Kelso, or Elizabeth Dehner for that matter.  But the way it’s done doesn’t sit right with me.  And as it looks like it’ll be sticking pretty slavishly to the plot points of the episode, I don’t feel any particular desire to read on.

    Another of DC’s New 52 first issues down with Men of War #1.  The updating of Sergeant Rock doesn’t do anything for me.  Rock, like Jonah Hex, is too connected to his era.  When I think Sgt. Rock, I think the Second World War, not modern combat.  And nothing in the first issue captured my interest.  The art is fine and the writing seems OK.  Just not my cup of tea.

    Then on to another New 52, Blackhawks.  The art in this is just too anime for my taste, and very little actually happens in the issue.  No interesting characters or plotlines appear in the first issue.  And while I always dug the old comic (what very little of it I ever read), this one doesn’t appeal to me at all.  Frankly, the dialog feels kind of like something out of Claremont’s X-Men…and that ain’t good.  Not as bad, by any means.  But along those lines.

    And, why not.  #1 of The Flash.  Now, here’s a character I’ve just never cared for.  I watched the TV show that came out in the post Tim Burton Batman days, but mostly because I had a crush on Amanda Payes from her time on Max Headroom.  But in comics, meh.  And I never much cared for his various appearances in the cartoons, either.  This issue seems like a good jumping off point if the character interests you at all.  It leaves you with a good ‘huh?’ moment, and a potentially good mystery.  But I still don’t care about The Flash.  The art is a little uneven, sometimes quite nice, others not.

    Finally, the last of the New 52 first issues Brad and/or I picked up, Wonder Woman.  The art is OK and the writing pretty good.  There could be a pretty good story being set up.  But, it could easily become hackneyed if the writer isn’t careful.  Wonder Woman is one of those characters I’ve always wanted to like, but have been given very little reason to do so, and much more not to.  So, I hope Brian Azzarello is going to bring the goods.

    All this comic reading got me rummaging through some boxes, where I came up with a bunch of Free Comic Book Day issues from last year that I didn’t read.  Not to mention my haul from SPX, which I picked at, but didn’t read a great deal of.  First off the pile was Green Lantern: Special Edition.  It was a piece of some larger ‘Secret Origin’ story, which basically just told the Lantern’s origin story, with an added detail about Abin Sur’s final flight.  Then there’s some teaser for their ‘Flashpoint’ story, which I gather was designed to set the stage for the New 52.  Not much of anything interesting in this issue, at least, not for John Q. Public (read: me).

-Matt