Category: 2014
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Dingess and Roberts start the next arc–somewhat unannounced–with the survivors of the settlement aboard the ship. There’s very little not having to do with them–poor Pocahontas is reduced to two or three lines and background–but Dingess does take the time to detail some of the crew’s backgrounds. It’s nearly a calm river travel story, then…
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It’s hard to say when being self indulgent is the right movie. Even with a good writer–and Williamson is a good writer–it can go wrong. It goes wrong this issue of Nailbiter. Williamson spends way too much time on the interview with the famous serial killer and lets this guy overshadow the protagonist. The best…
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Given its ninety minute length and having Jane Fonda perform the comically explicit narration, it might be easy to dismiss–or just describe–Better Living Through Chemistry as a genial amusement. Certainly lead Sam Rockwell can do this role in his sleep. He's a small town pharmacist in a bad marriage (Michelle Monaghan is great as the…
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There's a fair amount of mess in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it’s often good mess. It’s also intentional mess because it’s a time travel picture. If you remember any of the previous X-Men movies, lots doesn't make any sense. But it also doesn't matter–director Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg rely heavily on a…
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Maybe half the issue is really good background stuff with Velvet’s training after World War II and her mentor. Brubaker’s hostile to the new reader–and even to the regular reader with the bad memory–he doesn’t establish the story in context, he just starts out with his alternating flashbacks. The training and the mentor is the…
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There's some charm to The Radiator Springs 500½, but nowhere near enough. There are hints of good ideas–like a Western showdown motif at the beginning–and some of the failed gags should have worked–a car who comes along to do the cymbals after a pun. Oh, right, it's a Cars spin-off cartoon short. Forget to mention…
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Ghost of Goodnight Lane is nearly okay. It's definitely amusing throughout–director and co-writer Bijan inexplicably throws on a terrible epilogue thing–and the constant joking really helps it. Most of the scenes play like a horror movie spoof, only one where the movie doesn't take the time to laugh at itself. There's a joke, there's a…
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Aguirre-Sacasa and Francavilla take their impossible series and finish the first arc and it’s glorious. Aguirre-Sacasa tells it from the butler’s point of view, which gives the issue a very proper, classical adventure narration. He’s journaling. It’s good to have journaling butlers. Some of the issue is spent covering what the supporting cast is doing–how…
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Instead of focusing on the giant monsters fighting, Gareth Edwards tells his Godzilla from the human perspective. It's too bad because Edwards occasionally will set up an action shot well–he's inept at following through with these setups and actually doing a good action scene, but he's always terrible with the actors. The most interesting question…
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What a splendid comic. I’m not sure of any other word for it. Between the two parts of the feature story, involving Rocky and Bullwinkle having to go to the moon to stop Pottsylvania from claiming it (and taxing anyone looking at it or talking about it or saying it–oops, looks like I owe), and…
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It's been a while since I've seen something to remind me how much I hate a fractured narrative in film. There are the handful of good examples and then the multitude of terrible ones (usually aping one of the good ones). Honour is one of the bad ones. Writer and director Khan wraps the film…
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The parts of Nailbiter work better, for the first issue anyway, than the whole. Writer Joshua Williamson introduces the very silly idea of an epicenter of serial killers; while the Pacific Northwest does (or did) produce the most serial killers, Williamson localizes it to one very strange town. He's able to make it work thanks…
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Rucka shows all the subplots coming together at the end of the issue for the soft cliffhanger. It’s not particularly dramatic stuff; the connection is contrived, which is okay because Lazarus is kind of a big soap opera. The kids hating their rich father is enough to make it a soap opera. Through in an…
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Evan Dorkin’s sense of humor on The Eltingville Club is nowhere near as peculiar as his plotting on the comic. There’s some peculiarities to it since Dorkin mocks every single character to some degree or another and his protagonist is one of the more reprehensible characters in there comic. The constant comedic assault both kills…
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Something is amiss in Frostbite Falls. Evanier keeps his structure from the first issue–first part of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, then the second part of Rocky. Only this time, the first part of the feature is weak. It feels tired, down to all the references to post-smartphone soullessness. Rocky and Bullwinkle come across a…
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It’s a decent issue with some great art sequences from Roberts–the explorers are fighting plant zombie wildlife after all–but it moves too fast. Dingess seems too concerned with keeping things moving and keeping to his narration structure to really relax and enjoy. This issue, for example, once again has Sacajawea kicking butt. Only Dingess is…
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a bunch of great, thoughtful scenes and many excellent–and some just better than normal–performances but it doesn’t add up to much. Those fine scenes don’t have enough separation from the very hurried plot to resonate on their own. What should be subplots turn out to be nothing but texture…
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Just fair warning, I’m going to be really mean to Dead Letters. I want to clarify right off Chris Visions doesn’t deserve any of it for his art. His art’s packed, frantic, detailed. It’s good art, if a little too much. But it’s too much of itself, which isn’t a bad thing. No, I’m going…
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I can’t decide if Rocky & Bullwinkle should or shouldn’t work as a comic book. Conceptually, I mean. I suppose I should mention it does work–and very well. Writer Mark Evanier and artist Roger Langridge adapt the source material’s sensibilities for the comics medium, which is exactly the way to go about adapting a property…
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Even though there’s a rather emotional turn of events this issue–Rucka and Lark pace the sequence perfectly–there’s almost a genial quality to this issue of Lazarus. As genial as a comic where the opening scene is a flashback to Forever getting caned as a child. But that genial quality, along with an odd sense of…
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It's too bad All Hail the King wasn't the epilogue to Iron Man 3. It's a continuation of Ben Kingsley's story from that film and it's the best thing out of Marvel. At fourteen minutes. Writer-director Drew Pearce only has three scenes in the film–he uses a montage opening to establish, so maybe three and…
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It's a decent enough issue but the opening scene resolving the previous cliffhanger goes on way too long. There's also no science–though there's the hint of it–and the science stuff in Manifest Destiny is always cool. Instead, Dingess very awkwardly paces the issue. There's no time spent getting the explorers through the forest full of…
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Good grief, what a depressing issue. Aguirre-Sacasa definitely knows how to construct an effective story. He even mini-apes the dog issue of Hawkeye, only he does it here to greater success. Archie might be where he can have zombie attacks and make very adult observations about Archie Comics, but it’s also got an air of…
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Rob Thomas loves the "Veronica Mars" television show fans. He must. He pretty much wastes the first act of the feature film (also titled Veronica Mars) thanking them for funding the film's production through Kickstarter. It's worse for star Kristen Bell than the film–both recover, but the film first–as the script's moving her around like…
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Strange thing about this issue… I think Brubaker’s started worrying about whether or not Velvet is likable. He makes her sympathetic right off with her recap of the aftermath of the previous issue’s soft cliffhanger. She recounts having sympathy herself for the abused Russian wife. More than that detail, her narration is very explanatory. There’s…
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With its white on black title card announcing the setting–not to mention the music from Noir Deco–Batman versus The Terminator felt very Escape from New York. There’s even some wireframe graphics in it. Sadly, that vibe doesn’t last. What replaces it isn’t particularly good either. Mitchell Hammond is really good at mimicking James Cameron’s Terminator…
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There’s a lot of action but also a lot of character stuff. Bad Dog’s strength has always been Kelly’s character stuff. This issue there’s also a lot of nice art from Greco. He’s got it down… in what appears to be the final issue. It’s a double-size issue too, with Kelly doing the huge action…
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Okay, Dinges knows he’s got his hooked readers by issue four and so he can punish with really good hard cliffhangers. Really frustrating good ones. Case in point, his cliffhanger here is only so good because of the way he layers in expectations about it in the journal entries of Lewis. Maybe the cliffhanger is…
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I guess it’s been a while since I’ve read a new Marvel comic. I didn’t realize they’ve done everything possible to make the Avengers as much like the movie Avengers… down to this young hot Loki. Writer Al Ewing makes references back to old Marvel comics and events and so on, but he’s really going…
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Reading this issue of Lazarus, I was having a hard time reconciling it with the way the comic used to read. It’s become one I look forward to reading (not just seeing the Lark art) and I think I figured out what Rucka’s doing differently. First, he’s turned Forever into a somewhat unreliable protagonist. The…
The Stop Button 