Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - Outstanding stuff from the boys...their previous album was excellent, and this isn't far from the same territory, but it's a little more aggressive at times, and it's excellent from tip to tail...I especially enjoy a line like "Someday you will die and somehow something's gonna steal your carbon"...it just speaks to me...great recommendation from Katydid (even if she didn't overtly recommend it)...two online reviews for ya if you don't believe me...
Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable - It's still the only series in the X-Universe that I can consistently pick up and read...well, as consistently as Wheedon and crew have managed to put issues out leading to my library picking up the trades...and this one capped off Wheedon's run in outstanding style...great story arc (continuing the previous arc and bringing together everything that had been building in the entire run and did so in an amazingly action-packed - jam packed - final couple of issues...great job tying everything together with action and action and action without sacrificing character development (the relationships between Emma and Scott, Peter and Kitty, surprisingly Hank and Brand)...this isn't one to jump directly into without reading the previous arcs, but that's okay because it's been a great run - one well worth starting at the beginning...and a great finish...
All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder - the reviews I've found have been resoundingly awful...Batman's a misogynist, Batman's a thug, Batman seems to be having a little too much joy in shattering the arms/legs/faces/whatevers of the bad guys, Black Canary's a cigar-smoking tramp who does the horizontal mambo with Batman with their masks on because "it's better that way"...sure, it's trash...actually, it's trashier than trash...it's trashity-trash...it's horrific...it's a reimagining of the concept that takes the visuals (stunningly done by Jim Lee) and throws out everything else that's important about the character...it's awful...horrific...bothersome...and I just couldn't take my eyes off of it...
it's got cursing...it's got violence...it's got Batman and Robin painting themselves fully yellow, stealing Hal Jordan's power ring like two-bit pick pockets, and then popping him in the throat and crushing his larynx then tracheing him to save his life...it's got awful dialogue like saying a half dozen times that Black Canary is from County Monaghan, Ireland just so Batman can recognize her accent later and think to himself "County Monaghan...just a touch of a lilt"...it's got him sticking his tongue in Canary's mouth and feeling sandpaper meaning she's a smoker, something he hasn't kissed since Selina a couple of weeks ago...it's got Dick Grayson catching and eating raw rats because Batman has locked him in the Batcave a day after his circus parents were murdered, because he's the g-d Batman...It's horrible and is one of the worst things that Frank Miller has ever done, but it's like watching a trainwreck...I couldn't put it down because I wanted to see what awfulness would come around the corner next...it's like watching Gymkata...the pain isn't quite boring enough to make me want it to stop...
From Hell from the master madman himself, Alan Moore...it is, of course, odd...Alan Moore hasn't written a straight-forward comic story in a number of years (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Swamp Thing probably being the closest), and From Hell doesn't disappoint...it's the tale of Jack the Ripper which only barely involves a guy named Jack, and it's loosely based on some of the supposed theories of who Jack really was, but it's way more than that...it's another weaving together of history (real and speculative) and mysticism (the Masons, Dionysian religion from centuries before) that occasionally step across the line into full mysticism (the chapter in which Gull, our main character, tours London explaining how major cathedrals and landmarks form one giant pentagram at the centre of which he'll be doing his killing)...but Moore steers back to the action soon enough and wraps the whole up into a masterful finale...it's probably short of his greatest work but that just mean's it's something in an eight out of ten rather than a perfect ten...very good stuff
American Way - don't quite know what to think about this one...feels too much like a poor man's Astro City to me, a similar idea of a world that struggles to deal with the presence of 'superheroes'...here the government (the Kennedy brothers and their Camelot crew) has recruited the heroes and stages public 'fights' in which the American heroes almost lose but end up triumphing in the end - all to keep American apirits up in light of the Cold War...but things start going wrong as the new guy in the agency has to deal with a sudden heart attack, bringing in a black hero, and a released villian gone awol...morality play ensues with the Southern heroes resisting the inclusion of a black hero and the northern trying to come to grips with being lied to about it...it all feels a little forced and the wrap up much too convenient...it's worth flipping through, but don't go looking for genius...nice artwork, however...neat NPR interview with the author, though...
In Bruges...I'll start with the trailer...give it a try...
So, it's a light-hearted comedy with some foul language and probably a badder bad guy coming after our main characters to comic results, right?
yeah, that's what The Girl and I were expecting...but the movie turns out to have a whole lot more going on for it than just that...it's also a pretty impressively done morality piece exploring the guilt and results of a hit man's accidental shooting while doing his first job...the city of Bruges is gorgeous, and the emotion played very close to the surface for all involved...well worth seeing...especially for Colin Farrel's wonderful Irish brogue...well acted, beautifully shot...plus it's got a midget...so it's funnier...
info all around...metacritic...imdb...wikipedia...I went to Criticker to rank the film, planning to give it an 80...Criticker correctly predicted exactly that rating...I'm more and more impressed with the site...
And, if you hadn't heard, Watchmen has another convert...who's next?
4 comments:
I am too just haven't made time to blog on it...I sent you the emails!
haha!
Watchmen has also claimed four of my peers. It is just one of those things that transcends its medium and has a massive appeal because it's so damn good.
In Bruges looked interesting, if for no other reason than the fact that they used a Pixies song in the trailer :)
ill be honest.... hearing a-weezy was reading it is what finally motivated me to get it
im a lemming... i know
Lakes...the word is spreading...
Katydid...thank you for prostheletizing...
Joey...ok, I'm stumped...Lake is now A-Weezy?
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