Looky at what I seen

the holiday break began with a viewing of I am Legend, the third attempt at adapting Richard Matheson's novella to the screen. I've seen a few clips of the Charlton Heston Omega Man version, and let me start by saying that Will Smith does a much stronger adaptation.

Admittedly, in talking to a friend who's read the source material, it appears that the screenwriters have taken a few significant liberties with the new script, leaving Will Smith a longer time alone to carry the film, but I was okay with that because - unlike Joey - I thought Smith managed to carry the film pretty successfully.

For those of you not aware, Smith plays the last man alive in Manhattan after a man-made plague runs rampant through the population, killing - as the film quotes - 90%; turning 9% into light-sensitive, flesh-eating beasts; and leaving 1% to attempt to survive. Smith manages to set himself up fairly well, carving a life with his canine companion and locking himself up drum tight when the darkseekers come out at night, working his ways through the alphabet of DVDs in the local store, and setting up mannequins to whom he carries on conversations.

Smith does a masterful job of showing the various emotions that a man in his state would likely have. His specific routines of a military man, designed for survival and to keep himself sane, are well shown from mornings on the treadmill and middays on Pier 13 and evening alarms set in time to get himself back home safe and sound before sundown. Smith also shows his science side as he continues to fight the good fight in attempting to cure the disease that man had created. And Smith shows the side of a man left alone, talking to inanimate objects, snapping at little noises, and missing his family horribly.

Smith's performance holds the film together, drawing the viewer in and allowing us to believe that he could be the kind of man who - if lucky enough to be flukishly immune - just might survive and continue to fight the good fight for a fair while.

The lone issue I had with the film was that the ending was a bit sudden. We get a solid bit of rising action, heading into the film's climax - which was pretty solid and dramatic. But the entirety of the falling action and dénouement took about two minutes - just a little too quick for my tastes.

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I'd already checked out the first two volumes of Justice by Alex Ross, so when I saw the third sitting unwrapped on the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I thought I'd take a look through, see how Ross wrapped things up.

Quizk recap...

• first volume - good, neat idea, old-school SuperFriends vs Legion of Doom kinda thing
• second volume - kinda slow, dragged a bit

The third volume, then, redeemed the storyline as Ross tied things up well, turning the entire story into a pretty standard Brainiac controls Luthor to kill the world wrap-up. The artwork is impressive - as Ross's work always is, and the storytelling is good enough - not Ross's strongest suit, admittedly, but good enough. In the end, the storyline suffers from being derivative of the old Super Friends and newer Justice League Unlimited series.

It's a series worth flipping through - partially because it's purdy - but it's not one that I'd be likely to reread.

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I'm all about the Fables series, and this spin-off is a nice change of pace from the ongoing thread of the main series. Instead of the lumbering of the battle between Fabletown and the Adversary, we get Jack being Jack.

In Jack of Hearts, the second collection of the series, we get Jack's trip to Vegas and subsequent smack down by the powers that be in Sin City. Of course, this being a Fables tale, those powers that be are a bit more magical that mafia in nature.

Admittedly, this tale lacks the gravity of the main narrative, but it is a fun read. And one review that I read does bring up a good point: Jack isn't a likeable rogue. He acts entirely on impulse, screwing over any mundy in his path. He doesn't treat the Fables in his way any better, and eventually a character to whom we can't relate at all is going to be hard to follow. Eventually we're going to need some sort of emotional connection if the series is going to have a character to follow for long.

In skimming through some info about Fables, I've gotten hints that the two series cross back together after a bit longer, so that might help. If Jack actually has to do something noble, we just might end up with a character that we can care about. If not, the tales will probably stay interesting for a while longer, but I doubt they'll stay that way forever.

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To close out the holiday movie season, The Girl and I went for a bit of the gruesome and took in Sweeney Todd, the sixth Johnny Depp-Tim Burton joint.

I was a bit leery as the film began, it being an adaptation of Sondheim's musical, which meant I was looking at a whole lot of singing. Generally I'm okay with a musical in which there's normal acting interspersed with musicals. If, however, what would normally be the spoken words are instead sung - as are many of the lines in this film - I have been known to drift a bit. This film began the same way, with my eyes drifting shut a few times in the first few minutes.

Then the gore began.

And the gore built and continued. It's a gruesome film with blood pooring and pooling, spurting and spraying all over the place in a number of scenes. Blood pours from the throats of several of Todd's victims like a waterfall and spurts like a fountain from others. The film's gruesomeness doesn't stop with the killings, either, as the bodies are then dropped through a chute, typically landing with a sickly thud as their heads meet the stone basement three floors down before being chopped up and fed into the grinder and made into meat pies.

This film isn't one for the faint of heart or for the kids as the gore begins early and continues right through the even gorrier conclusion in which the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern truism holds and the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily.

A couple of reviews that I've read criticized the twin leads of Depp and Bonham Carter for having thin voices. Admittedly they probably wouldn't be the match of the finest voices of Broadway, but their performances held strong to the ears of the unlearned like me. They performed admirably and carried the film strongly, imbueing the film with Burton's requisite off-kilter relationship, summed up briliantly in Bonham Barter's daydream of the perfect life for the couple and their surrogate son. (Sadly no clip available on YouTube - though the scene is marvelously weird enough that this scene alone is well worth the price of admission.)

The film has been bounced around in a number of circles as one of the best of the year, and I think that's probably deserved. It's an excellent film with impressive performances, though it's not quite my cup of tea.

You certainly won't leave the theater happy and bouncy. Instead of a chipper, chattering crowd leaving the theater, our showing saw people stepping out in near silence. No "hey, how'd ya like it" or "man, I really liked that" - just silent wandering from the theater.

If you're looking for a happy ending, this isn't it.

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Christmas night was spent in the Baxter Theaters in Louisville checking out an opening night-showing of Juno, another flick getting pretty strong reviews here at the end of the year.

The film's been mentioned in the same breath as Little Miss Sunshine, but the only similarities there are that both films are quirky and might be considered independent film, even though both have been distributed through pretty big movie houses. I couldn't stand Little Miss Sunshine and absolutely dug this flick, so I, of course, think the comparisons are pretty specious in my mind.

Juno is a beautiful, little film, and I don't mean that in an insulting way in the least. The film focuses on small things - no grand themes, no sweeping vistas - just a well-written tale of the relationships among a handful of people, one of whom finds herself dealing with - to paraphrase - things that should be way beyond her maturity level.

Ellen Page deserves all the kudos she's been receiving for her lead performance as the wise-cracking but wise-beyond-her-years lead character, handling the situation she finds herself in with aplomb (yeah, I'm working on raising my blog's reading level, shut up.) Her take on Juno holds the film together and lets it be okay that her parents, friends, adoptive parents-to-be, and friend/baby-daddy handle things in a way that's much more understanding than most anybody I can imagine in that situation.

From outstanding opening credit sequence through the note-perfect finale, the film never attempts to rise above the level of small, marvelous tale. It's impressively well-written, finely acted, and simply shot. It doesn't have the granduer and weight of an epic like There Will be Blood (high on my list to see when it shows in Cincy), or the gorgeous scenery of No Country for Old Men, but it's marvelous.

I do feel the need to mention the one issue that I had with the film, and it's the same one that I've had with the Gilmore Girls from time to time: the dialogue is a little too snappy, just a scosch too quick. I enjoy the snappy comebacks and fast pace of the patter between the characters, but I just might be a bit intimidated by people who could think this quickly and come up with turns of a phrase this impressive. It makes for an excellent movie, but some folks might think it a bit unlikely that real folks could be this witty.

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Okay, quick hits through a bunch of stuff...

• Batman-Deathblow - hard to follow, artwork that doesn't distinguish the characters from each other, plot that bounces back and forth between past and present without nearly a clear enough distinction...overall grade: poor
• Catwoman: It's Only a Movie - good enough continuation of the series with the previously introduced Film Freak badguy...interesting enough, quick pacing...good but not special
• Daredevil: Hell to Pay - Daredevil's secret identity is compromised, his enemy knows his powers and uses them against him, the badguy plots to get to Daredevil through his family & friends...oh, the shock, the novelty...I've found the previous half dozen collections in this run to be a strong, solid, impressive run, but this one treads too much familiar, overdone ground for my tastes...here's to hoping that the new authors can find something new to say
• Y the Last Man: Unmanned - first volume in a series that many claim is the best running today...I didn't see that strength in the first volume which is pretty much all set-up...I'll give the subsequent volumes a try since PLCH has them, but I'm not convinced yet
• DMZ: Body of a Journalist and Public Works - impressive series following a journalist in a Manhattan that has withdrawn from the United States and finds itself as the neutral zone between the United States and the secessionist Free States...excellent tales of life in a war zone with the difficulties inherent...great commentary on our loss of freedoms as well as - in the third volume - the government's use of private contractors to rebuild within that war zone...comic book series as political commentary, but one willing to admit that the answers aren't entirely cut and dry...a series you should be reading
• Batman: Snow - surprsingly affecting tale going back to the early days of Batman retelling the origins of Mr. Freeze...neat, pretty artwork with a big use of pastels...neat, more interesting story is Batman's forming of a support team, trying to use civilians to help him on the job, behind the scenes...neat idea of the Bat trying a different way to get some help...I hope it stays as part of the canon because it's an interesting take on what he's done later with the various incarnations of the family
• Batman: Death and the City - the first collection of Paul Dini's Detective series left me unimpressed...this one's redemptive as Dini finds his form telling a few two-part tales, including a team-up with Zatana that works surprisingly well...hopefully it'll be the story that lets the various Batman writers move on from the scar of Identity Crisis and the mindwipe...the two-parters seem to give the stories enough room to develop (something I thought the first volume could have used) while still avoiding the massiveness of the six- and ten- and whatever-issue story arcs that have become so prevelent in DC-world of late
• Ex Machina: Power Down - sixth volume in this quality series feels too short...it starts the story but doesn't come even close to wrapping it up with any satisfaction...with only four issues in the trade, it also feels a bit like cheating to put out as a full-priced collection...we do get twenty-two pages of behind the scenes sketches and artwork, but I'd rather have a plot that moved along and maybe gave a bit of a revelation...weak collection from a strong series
• Batman Begins - The Girl hadn't seen this one, and we got the preview for The Dark Knight...it holds up well on second viewing, in case you were curious

Oh, tomorrow's entry's gonna be shorter since I've been working on this one for the better part of a week off and on...