Category: 1998
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There are a lot of interesting things about what the Coens do with The Big Lebowski. The foremost thing has to be how, even though the film is incredibly thoughtful and complex in its homages, the Coens aren’t exclusionary about it. If you don’t know it’s Raymond Chandler, it’s okay. If you don’t know zero…
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Vampires is a mess. I mean, there’s some good stuff in it, but it feels like the least interesting parts of the characters’ stories. There’s a little bit of sequel setup–and the never happened sequel seems a lot better–but so does a prequel to the film’s events. It takes place over a couple days and…
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Legalese’s cast order is a tad deceptive. First, James Garner headlines it. While he does have a large role, he’s not the protagonist—and he’s not even the regular likable Garner character. Legalese plays on that assumption, however. Then there’s Gina Gershon, who has a small part (though the film opens with her). Then it’s Mary-Louise…
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Shanower sets up Age of Bronze somewhat traditionally in the heroic sense. The protagonist, Paris, is secretly—or so it’s implied—of higher birth than his farmer parents. He’s bored of life as a cattle farmer and when the king’s men come to take away a prized bull, he sees the situation as wrong. So he sets…
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I must have gotten used to Truman’s art because there’s nothing here I found particularly objectionable. It’s too bad he hurries on some faces and takes his time on others, but it’s generally fine. His dialect for Bat Lash is a little distracting though. I can’t believe he started it in the third issue, so…
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Truman’s art remains frustrating–especially this issue when he’s got this great comic strip-like sequence, but there’s just not enough detail to the work. Other panels are fine, like he hurried some, took a minute more with the rest. Still, Guns of the Dragon retains its significant charm. It opens with a double homage, first to…
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It would be nice if Truman could draw better figures. The first three pages of this issue are excellent, with Truman establishing the 1920s China setting. He even gets through one page with figures on it and then it all comes apart. He gets looser and looser with faces and anatomy. It’s particularly unfortunate because…
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Wow, the first Terminator story in Presents. I thought they’d gone through all the licenses, but no. It’s not terrible. Grant’s writing is adequate and Teran’s art has an energy to it. He’s a little confusing in action scenes (Grant’s plotting hurts there too) but he’s got some great designs. Martin and Rude’s The Moth…
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So Nazis versus Predator and the best Marz can come up with is a story set in South America? Castellini’s art makes up for some of it—even though he can’t draw the Predator, the rest of it looks good. But Marz’s writing is pretty dumb. Seagle and Gaudiano have another My Vagabond Days, this time…
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Another endless installment of The Ark. Verheiden’s writing gets really padded here, especially with the conversations. With the long page count–sixteen pages an installment–I wonder if it was intended to be a limited series then someone at Dark Horse realized no one in his or her right mind would buy it. So instead they stuck…
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Macan and Doherty finish Carson of Venus poorly. Doherty’s artwork this installment is particularly bad and, though Macan seems to be trying, the characters are all weak. Macan’s attempts at humor are a woman getting slapped around by her husband. So it kind of goes well with Brubaker and Lutes’s finish to The Fall, all…
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The annual opens with Mignola doing a retelling of Hellboy‘s origin. I guess it’s all right. Kind of pointless, but fine. Weissman finally gets a two page Phineas Page and shows why he should have stuck to a page. Van Meter and Ross team for the first comic book appearance of Buffy. The writing is…
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Warren finishes up Dirty Pair and I guess it’s good. I mean, it’s a lot of well-drawn action and the jabbering is starting to grow on me. There really isn’t a story though, just scantily clad girls in action scenes. But Warren’s art carries it. Macan’s writing is sort of better on Carson of Venus…
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Starting with The Fall, Brubaker introduces some complications and revelations here. I’ve read it before, but I can’t remember how it ends. This installment implies there might be some very bad things about to happen. Brubaker handles the change in tone well and Lutes’s art is great. He does fantastic night scenes. Macan and Doherty’s…
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Cooper brings Dan & Larry to a very disturbing conclusion. I mean, he really goes for it here–after backing down from going too far a few issues ago–but here, Cooper sort of leaps off the cliff and makes the installment just plain disgusting on a dozen levels. It’s great. As for Warren’s Dirty Pair story,…
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Where to even start. Beto’s got a good girl future story with Girl Crazy. It’s about a lovesick robot. He takes his time establishing it (then has to hurry towards the end) and finishes the story on a good joke. It’s a very cute story, sort of not what I expected from him. Then there’s…
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Wow, so Presents dropped Shane Oakley’s Stiltskin, one of the best things it’d published, before it finished? Swell. For a replacement, we get the endless Wanted Man, from McEown. McEown is a good cartoonist, though his writing is self-indulgent and seems only to serve putting topless little cartoon girls in his story. It’s a waste…
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Wow, Kelley Jones likes the phallic symbols doesn’t he? The character’s called The Hammer, but it doesn’t look like a hammer on his head… Anyway, it’s fine. Nice artwork, some decent scenes. The ending flops though. Stilkskin continues, this issue turning its dwarf protagonist into a porn star. It’s a change from Oakley, who didn’t…
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Wow. Dave Cooper’s Dan & Larry might be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read. Cooper is creating this psychotic, awful version of the standard cartoon buddies. One’s a duck, the other’s a… something or other. And he does awful, awful things. Great art, amazing ideas… it’s awful and strange and wonderful. Metalfer is a…
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For a Presents annual (or oversized special), this one has a lot of solid work. Pearson’s Body Bags is a fun diversion. The art’s great and the story moves. It gets a little visually confusing, but it’s good. And Verheiden (with Marrinan) finally produces a decent installment of The American. It’s a thoughtful story, very…
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Sour Grapes has its moments, unfortunately all the funny ones belong to Orlando Jones. Jones is one of the peripheral characters, maybe the only successful peripheral character in the film actually. As a precursor to David’s far more successful “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Grapes shows how necessary a proper delivery method is for David’s humor. Here,…
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The last time I saw Zorro (which would have also been the first time), it didn’t impress me much. I don’t remember hating it, but I do remember disliking it. This time through, however, I find myself mellowed. It’s an enjoyable adventure picture, the kind Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. The amount of Zorro swashbuckling alone…
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Byrne’s approach to retelling the first “year” of Amazing Spider-Man issues is pretty simple, at least from what’s going on here. Gut the teenage Peter Parker drama and put in all Spider-Man and supervillains. Given how much of the originals Lee spent on the teenage drama, I imagine it had something to do with their…
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It takes Byrne twice as long to tell the Spider-Man origin this issue. Retell, sorry. I’m trying to think if there’s a single thing he does in the comic worth mentioning. He adds black people, he makes Peter’s classmates really vicious, Liz Allen in particular. Otherwise, it’s not much different than a padded retelling of…
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Near as I can recall, outside film noir, there isn’t a film like Buffalo ’66. The protagonist, played by writer/director/composer Gallo, isn’t just unlikable, he’s comically unlikable. I can very easily see the film remade with Will Ferrell in the lead. It’s like a Will Ferrell comedic tragedy, only it’s not so tragic. I don’t…
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People read this crap? Deadpool‘s the stupidest comic book character I’ve ever read and this might be one of the worst comics I’ve ever read. A gaggle of drunken rhesus monkeys would write a better comic book. Seriously, Marvel prints this crap–and people who want to be taken seriously still work for them? But let’s…
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I actually kind of like The Wedding Singer; it’s blandly inoffensive, has a solid 1980s soundtrack and kind of plays like how “Everybody Hates Chris” would have played if it had sucked instead of being the best sitcom since “Arrested Development.” On that subject, the problem with The Wedding Singer is it makes easy eighties…
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I don’t know how to start talking about The Last Days of Disco. I was going to start with saying I first saw it ten years ago (I first saw it on video), but then I realized I probably first saw it eleven years ago and eleven doesn’t have the same ring. People do like…
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The best moment in Rushmore, the one it all comes together, is at the end, when Jason Schwartzmann dedicates his play to his mother. There’s a brief cut to Seymour Cassel and his reaction. It’s a beautiful little moment and quieter than the subsequent (and also incredibly quiet) moment with Vietnam vet Bill Murray tearing…
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I’m not sure if anything actually goes wrong with Dark City. There’s the significant music problem (Trevor Jones’s score seems more appropriate for a car commercial; it’s missing any subtext or delicacy), but there’s nothing else wrong. The acting is all fantastic–Richard O’Brien gives the best performance, making his evil alien human–and Alex Proyas composes…
The Stop Button 