Category: 2008
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And the second issue is… well, it’s… rough. Not rough as in unfinished, but rough in… Ennis is lucky to have Burrows on this one. Burrows has a very clean, very accessible art style. The guy must love blood and guts because otherwise he’d be at Marvel as a house artist, since he can draw,…
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Well, I’ve had my first taste of Crossed in, what seems to be its more full extent (i.e. what Avatar can get away with publishing and selling to the movie people). Ennis introducing torture and rape into the zombie mix (and apparently armed zombies) is definitely disturbing, but it’s also kind of brilliant. Zombies can…
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Ennis has done zombies before–anyone else remember the Thor: Vikings series–but it’s not clear from this preview issue whether or not they’re zombies. He establishes his narrator (presumably, it’d be funny if he eighty-sixed him for the rest of the series) and shows the reader some really horrific stuff, to get them ready, and then…
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Am I supposed to think Tom Strong when I read the term science-villains? Brubaker’s take on a “realistic” superhuman villain is nice–well, he does have to do the whole history of this universe thing, which gets tiresome since every new superhero book has to get it established–because it’s not a metaphor for anything. His protagonist…
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Mignola, Dysart and Azaceta pull it off. They don’t exactly pull it off the way I expected (I’d forgotten the conclusion) but they still come through. Instead of doing something collected, they go all out with a Nazi space rocket and vampires fighting robot gorillas. Let’s not forget the cybernetic Nazi monkey, he was kind…
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I’m going to have a hard time on this response. There are monster gorillas at the end. Monster, cybernetic, Nazi gorillas. It must have been murder waiting for the final issue. The thing I like most about this issue is when the soldier, the regular soldier, finally loses it on the Professor. He gets knocked…
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And, after the glorious response to the previous issue, this one…. It’s a very confusing, all action issue. The writers now expect the reader to remember all the disposal army guys, but additionally some Russian ones too. There’s still a lot of content for Azaceta to make fit. But he has to sacrifice establishing panels,…
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The cartography of this issue is simple. It opens in this secret Nazi asylum, then they go to a bar, then they go to a house, then they go back to the asylum. However, a whole lot happens at the bar, even though it’s all in conversation (the army guys come to respect the Professor),…
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I’ve read this series before and mostly remember it (no, I don’t), but I’m shocked how little reaction there is from the Professor over his Russian counterpart, Varvara (who’s apparently a little girl). It’s a strange scene, the most striking before the last one and the last one is a lead-in to a cliffhanger. Seeing…
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When an action movie franchise hits the third one (X-Men, Lethal Weapon), they generally know what they’re doing and who they’re making the movie for and instead of producing some wonted exercise, members of this illustrious group of sequels are assured, affable and a lot of fun. The Transporter series is a constant disappointment, since…
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When The Hurt Locker gets predictable, it gets into trouble. Of the super predictable events, there was only one thing I didn’t get right. The Hurt Locker, which uses its recognizable faces in bit parts better than any film in a while (I don’t know the last time Ralph Fiennes was so good–he ought to…
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I guess I feel bad John C. Reilly isn’t taking more… intellectual roles, but they probably don’t pay as well. He’s essentially playing his character from Boogie Nights here, only a little stupider but also a little more self-aware. He’s still great and he’s hilarious, but there is definitely something missing. But Step Brothers is…
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It’s hard to say whether Killshot falls apart because of the filmmakers or because of the source material. Killshot changes its mind about what to deliver every three minutes. The script can’t decide on a main character–is it Mickey Rourke’s hit man or is it Diane Lane’s woman in distress or is it Thomas Jane’s…
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The Spirit is a disaster. It’s a complete disaster. But sometimes, it’s a wonderful one. Frank Miller can’t write a movie, he can’t plot a movie–arguably, with the exception of his straight-on shots, he can sort of direct one–but it doesn’t matter. There’s no good reason anyone should have given Miller any kind of budget…
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Punisher: War Zone got a theatrical release (sorry for the passive voice, but pointing out Lionsgate released it in the theater sort of kills the emphasis). I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to describe the terrible script. Watching an early exchange between mobsters, I kept wondering if Italian American associations were aware of the…
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Bolivia didn’t do Butch and Sundance any favors and it doesn’t do Che any either. Che: Part Two isn’t just a downer for Del Toro’s franchising revolutionary (he’s bringing the revolution to Bolivia, whether they want it or not), but it’s an entirely depressing film too. There’s probably not a positive way to tell this…
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There’s a majesty to Che: Part One, the endless, blue Puerto Rican (I think) sky standing in for Cuba. Soderbergh loves that sky. Soderbergh’s Panavision frame doesn’t allow for much in the way of lyricism–I think the first shot of that nature comes in the last twenty minutes of the film. It’s a great looking…
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As Milk‘s opening titles ran, it occurred to me Danny Elfman scored it. It doesn’t sound anything like Elfman’s norm–you know, the modified Batman music–but it sounded like the kind of score Danny Elfman should be doing (and should have been doing for years). Milk‘s a biopic–and always feels like one, thanks in great part…
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Maybe Darren Aronofsky actually gets it. As The Wrestler started, I marveled at what must have been Aronofsky’s longest shots to date until they kept getting longer and longer. His direction of the film is incredibly simple–put the camera on the actors, occasionally do an establishing shot. No medium shots. Long shot to close-up. The…
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Red‘s a really safe movie. I’ve seen Noel Fisher play a young creep multiple times on television–just a few weeks ago even–and I’ve seen Kyle Gallner play the sensitive kid who hangs out with the creep. Twice for him. And casting Brian Cox as a loner who loses his dog and relentlessly pursues justice… well,…
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Second attempt (Alec Baldwin tried in 1995’s HEAVEN’S PRISONERS) to turn James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels into a film franchise. Tommy Lee Jones is good in the lead and the supporting cast is all fine (Peter Sarsgaard is fantastic) but the script’s a mess. The “mystery” involves Jones, Hollywood actors (Sarsgaard and Kelly Macdonald),…
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Tedious and self-indulgent mystical-ish ghost story about psychologist Angelica Lee taking a hypnosis drug and seeing, you know, ghosts. Lots of underwear stuff because her dude (Guo Xiaodong) is an underwater photographer. (Writer-director Hark can’t shut up about the water in the bad narration). Okay time killer until the third act, when it all falls…
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The Good, the Bad and the Weird, if the title is any hint, is an homage to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Kim Ji-woon borrows liberally from all three of the Clint Eastwood films, taking a scene from one then, a little later, one from another. He takes it further than just a cheap reference–at one…
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For Valkyrie to work, Bryan Singer needs to get–give or take–five minutes when the viewer isn’t entirely sure Adolf Hitler wasn’t assassinated. The entire premise of watching a film, a historically-based film, where the conclusion is well-known and suspending disbelief… he needs five minutes. Maybe the trick is casting Tom Cruise as a German. By…
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Once upon a time (in Hollywood), there was a bald director (who always wore a cap) who first got famous on television as an actor, then as a director of comedies, who then started making excellent mainstream Hollywood pictures. Then he started making mainstream crap and then it got worse. The question of Frost/Nixon is…
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There’s a good movie somewhere in the idea of Doubt (a nun suspects a priest of molesting a child, but it’s 1964 and the patriarchy of the Church isn’t going to listen to her). The film’s full of almost detective moments (and faux-auteur Shanley pulls out some Hitchcock angles after the big reveal), but the…
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With Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle hasn’t just finally made his grand romance (something he’s wanted to do since A Life Less Ordinary–this time without the “acting” stylings of Miss Cameron Diaz), or given cinema its first great mainstream romance in nine years, he’s also made the best adaptation of a Charles Dickens novel (even if…
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Traitor is the Superman IV of terrorism movies. I suppose I need to explain. I think Tom Mankiewicz once told Christopher Reeve you couldn’t have Superman messing around with the real world. Traitor is a Hollywood terrorism movie–in the vein of Telefon, The Assignment, Nighthawks or even The Jackal–except it takes 9/11 into account. The…
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JCVD might be the ultimate vanity project. I’m not sure if there’s any intention in Van Damme trying to rehabilitate his image–his fans will be his fans no matter what, something the film touches on–but it’s kind of spectacular in its purity. Van Damme’s a well-known punch line, a leftover from the 1990s, and he…
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When Bruce Springsteen did his 9/11 response record, The Rising, he was in an odd position–given the gravity of his intent, he couldn’t misstep. He might get excused for it, but then the record would be (albeit well-meaning) propaganda. It wouldn’t be art. Clint Eastwood’s in a similar situation with Gran Torino. He’s dealing with…
The Stop Button 