The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2002
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Attack of the Clones is bad. The beginning almost seems all right, with Ewan McGregor and new addition (and astoundingly terrible actor) Hayden Christensen on a mission. It plays like a thirty minute TV pilot slapped on the front of an otherwise tedious Star Wars entry. This time around, director Lucas is so lazy, he…
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How does noir work when the villain is a Clayface rip-off. I say rip-off because Catwoman is a Batman spin-off and Clayface is a Batman villain. Brubaker knew the similarity. It also gives Cooke something fantastic to draw. Selina in this gross pink muck–the leftover transformative flesh of the villain? Great stuff. Lots of movement…
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Halloween: Resurrection is an exercise in desperation. The film throws reality TV in to ape the found footage zeitgeist without actually committing to the narrative conceit. It’s also chasing some kind of post-American Pie familiarity with the Internet and webcams, only without any actual understanding. It’s exceptionally incompetent. The film opens with Jamie Lee Curtis,…
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Gangs of New York is a really big, really bad epic. Director Scorsese pays so much attention to the scale of the film, with sweeping crane shots and intense (and terrible) action sequences, he doesn’t pay much attention to the other elements of the film. Like the acting. And the script. First, the acting. It’s…
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XX/XY would be easier to talk about if it were a little bit better or a little bit worse. Director Chick’s structure for the film–a lengthy flashback opening the film, a flash forward with its own three act structure–seems like an enthusiastic mistake and conversation fodder. Only its not. It’s a calculation on Chick’s part.…
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Forza Bastia chronicles a day in Bastia (France). A Corsican island. It’s an important day because it’s April 26, 1978, when Bastia (the soccer team) played PSV Eindhoven. Bastia was an obscure team and the first leg (I had to learn soccer terms) was a tie at zero. Jacques Tati shot Bastia at the time,…
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As the dangerous mind in the title (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), Sam Rockwell should be entirely unsympathetic. The film spends its first act mocking Rockwell and inviting the viewer to participate. With the exception of his chemistry with Drew Barrymore’s saintly character, there’s nothing redeeming about Rockwell’s character. Yet he’s tragically endearing. The film…
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Oliver Parker takes an interesting approach when it comes to adapting The Importance of Being Earnest from play to screen. He doesn’t worry much about opening up the film; at the beginning of the film, he showcases late nineteenth century London and later does quite a bit with Colin Firth’s country estate… but during the…
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How does Lapham resolve a story he didn’t have any reason to do? Poorly. He fractures Beth’s search for Virginia, cutting in scenes in their past, scenes of Beth’s investigation, lots of little cameos from other cast members. And then he turns it into an action movie. The entire issue has a frantic pace, so…
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Even for a movie about a giant man-made robot fighting a giant monster, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla is pretty stupid. The robot was this amazing weapon, capable of destroying Godzilla, yet its pilot always waits to use it. Obviously, there wouldn’t be a movie if she used it right away… but Against never explains why everyone’s…
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Maybe halfway through The Flying Car, I noticed one of the retakes of Jeff Anderson. The short takes place while Anderson and Brian O’Halloran are stuck in a traffic jam. Smith is setting up the viewer for a joke while Anderson sets up O’Halloran for the same one. Great dialogue, excellent performance from Anderson. It’s…
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D-Tox is a messy film with way too high a concept. Sylvester Stallone–who’s good when he’s actually in the film, which isn’t much–is a FBI agent who becomes a drunk following a bad result in a big case. He ends up in a rehab for cops. It’s in an old missile silo (or something along…
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Besides being bewildered at how low Barbet Schroeder’s fortunes have sunk for him to be involved with this film and seeing Ryan Gosling in an early role, all Murder by Numbers offers is a look at Sandra Bullock’s seemingly limitless egomania. Bullock’s police detective isn’t just so beautiful even high schooler Gosling can’t resist her,…
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It’s a fast finish—maybe too fast—but Rucka’s pacing the series more and more like a TV show. The entire issue is the last few minutes of a longer episode, which probably frustrated when reading the series split over three months but not much in a shorter period. Unfortunately, from the first page, it’s clear Kordey…
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Rucka continues with less of a procedural, though that element is still present, and more of a… well, not character study but something close. Pale Little Spider is, for the majority of this issue, all about Yelena and her psychological problems. She’s not crazy or anything, but she’s disturbed and she discovers things about herself…
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Something tells me Marvel won’t be trading Pale Little Spider if Disney ever makes a Black Widow movie. Jaded as I am, I never thought it’d be an S&M-themed Black Widow comic, regardless of it released via MAX. What’s immediately striking about it is Greg Rucka’s writing. He’s doing a police procedural (in Russia). It…
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Are there any real surprises? Nope. Moench doesn’t even resolve the questions he raised last issue. It’s not a particularly good issue of the series—though far from the worst in terms of Moench’s expository dialogue. He’s got a bunch of it here too, but since it’s the last issue, he gets some leeway. There’s a…
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Now, how’s Moench going to get himself—and the cast—out of the not insubstantial hole he dug for them? Creatively. I mean, it’s sort of simple—kiss, kiss, bang, bang simple—but it works. Gulacy and Palmiotti eventually have a lot to do this issue, but even at the open… they do well making the unbelievable seem somewhat…
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Coming off the highpoint of last issue, it shouldn’t be a surprise this one has problems. Moench spends the first half of it unveiling the “true” ground situation. Loads of expository dialogue, but some really nice flashback summary art from Gulacy and Palmiotti. Not sure what’s up with the weightlifting fetishizing, but whatever…. Then Moench…
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Interesting. Moench pulls out some surprises this issue—not simple ones either. The issue opens with something like a Raiders of the Lost Ark homage and it works. The dialogue’s still kind of weak, leftovers from last issue, but Gulacy and Palmiotti make the action pretty. Then we get romance and humor. Moench comes up with…
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This issue initially brings out more of the espionage angle. The protagonists—Starchild and Nile—team up (forced into the situation by their boss) and head off into what sounds like a spy mission. They have to impersonate terrorists and discover what’s going on with these robotic monsters eating the good planets piece by piece. Two things…
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Sci-Spy is kind of confusing. Moench and Gulacy have done sci-fi before, but here they’re sort of suffocating the reader with all the ground situation information. The protagonist has two sidekicks. One is his supervisor, a computer named Motherbank. In addition to being his boss, the computer is also his mother as it found him…
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I’m usually pretty reserved in any Bagley praise—Bagley hands are one of the more frightening things in comics—but he does give Jonah a great expression here. There’s no dialogue and he and Bendis take most of a page to do it and they make this great moment where the reader can tell what Jonah’s thinking…
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Okay, so the Rhino is a Spider-Man villain. I thought he was, but couldn’t remember for sure. Bendis turns the issue into something of a joke. He introduces Ultimate Rhino, all right, but it’s got very little to do with Spider-Man. In fact, Peter’s inability to escape his daily life to fight Rhino is the…
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Something’s off with the eyes this issue. It never looks like people are looking where they’re supposed to be looking. Otherwise, McManus and Pepoy do a fine job. This issue—and the last one—are narration free as Willingham turns Thessaly into the main character (she was the subject in the first issue and shared the spotlight…
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Willingham does a good twist and cliffhanger this issue. It’s especially funny since he sort of mocks any reader—like me—who fell for it in the dialogue. It’s nice how he can work on both layers. I sort of remember this one—when Barry Allen guest stars in a great panel. But definitely not the end. Pepoy’s…
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Willingham is still writing a little fast. This issue’s better, but it’s really just four conversations—three of them involving the same two people (protagonists Thessaly and Fetch). The conversations are good and amusing but they only sort of move the story along. Willingham has this idea of a question, with guardians. Moving past a guardian…
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I do so enjoy Shawn McManus art. His work on this issue of Thessaliad is nice and finished. The way he mixes styles, inviting, almost comic strip-ready art with grotesque (hell hounds losing their flesh but still eating people) is just lovely. I think as a kid I didn’t appreciate him. I was a dumb…
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Bendis finishes the arc putting a gulf between Peter and Mary. They end the issue with them sitting with this big space between them, Peter too upset to talk to her. Ultimate Nick Fury just told him he had until eighteen before Fury would control him. Oh, and Peter might be upset over Harry losing…
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Whew, Mary Jane recovered immediately. What drama. Whose idea was it to turn the Green Goblin into an evil Hulk? Anyway, I suppose this issue is all right. It seems like Bendis has good intentions, with Peter trying to showdown with the Goblin (a couple times) only to discover anger might not be enough to…
The Stop Button 