The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2000
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So this series is a continuation of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” I guess I’m glad I don’t care about the ending of the series being spoiled for me. I decided to read it because of Jeter, who’s a science fiction novelist of good repute, and because I didn’t realize–on seeing it in his bibliography–N-Vector…
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The pacing on the second issue is completely different from the first, which is both good and bad. On the good side, there’s almost none of the Hell stuff in this issue. There’s some, but it’s so visual, I can forgive it to get to see Mike Huddleston draw some demonic sphinx. But on the…
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A lot of the issue is spent in Hell. Well, at least a third of it. There’s a lot of visuals of Hell and those are cool because it’s Mike Huddleston and I love Mike Huddleston. Unfortunately, the stuff in Hell is totally unimportant. Even when it seems like it’s reaching a point of being…
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I have an affection for Mark Bagley, based on Ultimate Spider-Man, but apparently it’s an overall thing. I mean, when I think of teenage Peter and Mary Jane, I think of Bagley’s rendition of them. However, his art is far from flawless, as this issue frequently shows. His faces are often way too rough and…
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What Bendis does, right from the start–which Lee didn’t do–is make Peter Parker the hero; sure, Bendis is dealing with more pages so he has more time, but it took Lee issues to form Peter Parker. Bendis does it right away here. Maybe he does it a little easily–I mean, the scene in the mall…
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Will Lex Luthor create Skynet? Will Lois Lane’s husband get jealous of her ogling Superman? Will Alan Grant get credit (and residuals) for coming up with the name Terminatrix? No to all three, I believe, unless Dark Horse and DC start doing these crossovers again. It’s strange the epilogue cliffhanger for the series–Lex Luthor is…
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Oh, no, will Superman be able to save the world from the Terminators? Crossovers like this one must be incredibly frustrating to plot because there’s no chance things aren’t going to be returning to the status quo at the end (I mean, did Dark Horse even have a regular Terminator series starring Sarah and John…
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Well, it’s not just Superman Pugh’s drawing funny–he’s inking himself here too–it’s a lot of people. Supergirl is who I’m thinking about in particular, Pugh gives her an expression like she’s just eaten a barrel of beans and is racing to the john. Actually, most of the art’s bland. Pugh’s probably racing through this assignment…
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Battle Royale has to be seen to be believed. It shouldn’t work–a film about teenagers killing each other (under a government mandated law) played as a sweeping melodrama, but it does. It’s somehow brilliant, all thanks to director Fukasaku. The action takes place on this tropical island and Fukasaku fills it with beautiful shots and…
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A story, based on its text and then the reader’s reading of that text, evolves. The reading is required to make the story complete. A film has a similar relationship with the viewer, but has the added complication of conflicting influences–there’s a director, actors, a composer, a gaffer… and a screenwriter. A script is the…
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Amores perros could be a public service announcement about canine cruelty in Mexico City. Mexico City has a population of around nine million and takes up about six hundred square miles. For such a big city, it’s kind of odd the cast keeps running into each other, since their only connection is being the subject…
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In graduate school, one of my classmates (or is it colleagues in graduate school?) was having trouble figuring out how to convey the fantastic, but not do magical realism. Another of my classmates (colleagues) recommended she watch Field of Dreams. Everyone was a little thrown by the comment, including me, but then I realized it…
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My wife wanted me to mention the only reason we watched X-Men was because she wanted to see Hugh Jackman with his shirt off… I watched it to insure she didn’t have a cardiac arrest. Back in the old days, before IMDb edited their trivia section, the X-Men trivia featured defenses of some of the…
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Taxi 2 is a sequel in the least artistic, but possibly most admirable way. It picks up an indeterminate time after the first movie, doesn’t deal with the first movie’s conclusion (Samy Naceri becoming a race car driver), and doesn’t really have a story. Instead, it opens with a car chase, then some humor, then…
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Bong’s first film is unique, not just of Korean cinema, but of most. It’s a mostly lyrical piece–lyrical in the storytelling sense, not the filmmaking (there are only a couple of stylized moments in the film)–juxtaposing Lee Sung-jae and Bae Du-na. Lee’s a grad student trying to become a professor, Bae’s an office assistant in…
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Supposedly, Magicians came out on DVD (pan and scanned), then disappeared as the releasing company went under. Merendino shot it Panavision, so there was some painful cropping. It’s still possible to see some of what Merendino was doing, but sometimes I just had to imagine how much more effective it would be. Merendino’s a filmmaker…
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I’m worried I’m tired. The last time I watched Versus, I gave it one. This time I give it three. There’s a slight difference in the version I watched–this time I watched the “Ultimate Version,” which has about the same running time, but ten minutes of reshot scenes. I guess there were some music changes,…
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The Foul King is supposed to be a comedy, but I only laughed once, about an hour in. It’s not about South Korea’s leading stand-up comedian (which I thought it was). It’s about a wrestler who cheats (and gets fouls for that cheating). The film’s structured not around a traditional sports movie, instead it’s about…
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Spectacular comedic, romantic drama about Korean Lee Jung-jae falling for a Japanese webcam girl (Tachibana Misato) and because it’s the movies (and the year 2000), he’s not a creep and she likes him. Great script from director Lee, phenomenal performances from the leads. Tachibana probably wins if its a contest but actor Lee is great…
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Pretty good car chase action movie with cops vs. car thieves in fast cars. Great cast (save Christopher Eccleston and Angelina Jolie). At least she’s more mediocre than bad. Lead Nicolas Cage never visibly counts the paycheck; Giovanni Ribisi’s great. Ostensible director’s cut adds little–certainly not where it needs help; instead, there’s some padding and…
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Ineptly executed decent idea–soldiers on either side of the Korean border becoming pals and how wrong things go. Director Park sentimentalizes more than directs. Some of the acting makes it bearable, though far from all of it. DVD.Continue reading →
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Technically magnificent action/horror picture has Sakaguchi Tak fighting zombies with a samurai sword while wearing an ultra cool black leather trench coat. The writing is always iffy, but Kitamura’s direction tends to compensate enough. DVD, Streaming.Continue reading →
The Stop Button 