Category: 2011
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So if you’ve been desperate to find out what happens after Robert Downey Jr.’s cameo in The Incredible Hulk, The Consultant would be the bridging short for you. It’s an interesting concept—little Blu-ray specials to flesh out side stories—but it only runs two and a half minutes, including lifting the cameo in its entirety. No,…
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Maybe Simon Pegg needs Edgar Wright or maybe Nick Frost just shouldn’t be writing because Paul should be great and it’s not. Some of the problem comes from having Seth Rogen voice the titular, CG alien. Rogen does a fine job but he’s such a dynamic presence, Pegg and Frost sort of fade into the…
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When it gets to the conclusion, Wonder Woman finally distinguishes itself. Until this point, it has major problems—mostly acting, which I’ll get to in a second—and some great ideas. But there’s no balance between writer David E. Kelley’s thoughtful “reality” with a superhero and the day to day of Adrianne Palicki’s Wonder Woman. Until the…
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I’m not sure where to start with Captain America. There are two obvious places. First is Chris Evans. His earnest performance is unlike any other superhero movie of the last few decades (because the character is fundamentally different). Second is Joe Johnston. I think I’ll start with Johnston. Captain America is very well-directed. Johnston manages…
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Drive Angry is T2 with a supernatural bent. It’s like Lussier wanted to make a 3D Terminator movie, couldn’t, and came found a way to make it possible to do most of the action scenes of one. Actually, Drive Angry isn’t just some supernatural movie. It’s all about Nicolas Cage breaking out of Hell (which…
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I’m disinclined to call Splitscreen a technical marvel because it was shot entirely on a cellphone, but rather because of how Griffiths matches the two shots. The entire short is two vertical shots sitting next to each other, both showing the events from one character’s point of view. These images aren’t just connected by content,…
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I’ve been looking forward to Snarked since I first heard of it. I didn’t know anything about it, just it was a new original series from Roger Langridge. As it turns out, Snarked owes a lot to Lewis Carroll—both in the title and the characters of Walrus and McDunk (though McDunk gets named in Snarked,…
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DeConnick brings Osborn to a depressingly lesser conclusion. She needed another issue. She fast forwards a few weeks and everything’s resolved. It provides a nice narrative device (a Congressional hearing) but it’s not satisfying at all. Worse is the decision to narrate from Norah the reporter. Norah is, as Norman points out, not special. She’s…
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So, yes, it turns out—unfortunately—I was right. Norman Osborn is a megalomaniac who needs an audience, so he keeps Norah the reporter alive. However, his sidekicks are very bad people who would not. But still they hang out with her. In fact, I wish Osborn was an issue longer because DeConnick has such a great…
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There’s a lot of great stuff in this issue of Osborn—my favorite is the way DeConnick mostly spends the non-Norman time with the senator, making it very different than what I expected. So after the utterly realistic scene where the Democrat senator realizes she’s getting blamed for sending Norman to a secret prison (shockingly, her…
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Peter Parker fails to show up again this issue for more premarital sex, which is disappointing, but otherwise DeConnick is in fine form. Setting up a cult centered around Norman Osborn is a good plot point, as are some of the smaller developments. DeConnick knows how to tightly wind scenes and she’d probably do really…
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The first thing I noticed about Osborn is the Emma Rios artwork. She reminds of Paul Pope in a lot of ways. She’s very good, able to mix the implied evil and then the lighter comic moments with the Daily Bugle cast. The second thing I noticed was the implication Peter Parker was rushing off…
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Malick shot The Tree of Life in a variety of formats, but it displays at 1.85:1. It’s his first 1.85:1 since the seventies and, somehow, it feels like the film would be more intimate wider. Somewhere in Tree of Life, there’s a great film. Not the best film Malick’s ever made or anything along those…
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Seeing Brett Anderson do a Plastic Man story is somewhat irresistible. Anderson’s so refined and restrained and Plastic Man’s anything but. Needless to say, the art on Weapons of Mass Deception is fantastic. Occasionally, Green Lantern seems a little too muscly, but it’s still fantastic. The story concerns Plastic Man and Green Lantern teaming up…
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Midnight in Paris is one of Allen’s single stroke films. There are some painters in it, so using the paint stroke metaphor works rather nicely. The film’s about one thing; it’s about Owen Wilson’s Hollywood screenwriter who wants to be a novelist learning to take an active role in his life. There’s a lot going…
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There’s nothing really wrong with this issue, it’s just off. The combination of Roger Stern’s pleasant, deferential style and Neil Vokes’s animated-style artwork makes it all…. It’s like they’re trying to sell Doctor Strange for kids. But for kids who can’t even handle mildly scary stuff. This issue is maybe the least scary haunted house…
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Um. I don’t know if Spencer could have written an issue with less content. I mean… this thing is paced worse than one of those Ultimate Spider-Man’s where Peter just stares at a something for twenty pages. The mission is over. Nothing is resolved with the twist from the last issue. In fact, Spencer just…
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Yeah, I definitely think the longer first two issues spoiled me. Or maybe it’s just the position Spencer puts the reader in. After totally changing the status quo with the last cliffhanger, he changes it again this issue. Or at least he implies he didn’t totally change it like he suggested. Maybe I’m just upset…
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Now there’s a big surprise. Spencer was pretty cute the way he diverted attention from it; it works. Unfortunately, the issue is the first weak one in the series. Not because of the twist, but because backup artist George Perez apparently wasn’t hired to draw anything important. Instead, Perez draws the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. orientation tour. It…
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Ah, here we go… Spencer has to deal with a regular length issue. He does well–the soft cliffhanger all of a sudden makes a lot of sense with the pacing. He’s going through the team’s first mission. Even though the issues focus on an agent, the handlers provide the continuity. But this issue introduces an…
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Spencer does just fine with the pacing again. Of course, he’s got another over-sized issue. This one concentrates on one of the agents, Lightning, who’s a disgraced Olympic runner. One assumes the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. organization did something to lead to that disgrace, but it’s never made clear. The protagonists—Toby and Colleen—continue their charming bickering. I wonder…
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Spencer does great with an oversized first issue, but I’m wondering how he’s going to be able to do his multilayered narrative in a regular length one. While T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents seems pretty innocuous, it’s actually this spy thriller with double crosses and “Get Smart” references and some really good dialogue. Spencer sets it up with…
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Bunn has taken the reader’s expectations—or at least, Bunn’s perception of the reader’s expectations—and reversed them. It means he gets to end this issue, and its arc, in an unexpected place. Gord, who’s been sort of a seventh wheel around The Sixth Gun for a while, is apparently bowing out for a bit and Becky…
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If Bunn feels he needs to redeem Becky in some way, he’s sure taking his time about it. There’s some awesome looking awful stuff this issue—Hurtt reminds, more than once, of he and Bunn’s previous series, The Damned, with the supernatural elements—but also of important has to be Billjohn. Well, Billjohn the clay golem. He…
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Ho hum. Bunn does the exact thing I was really hoping he wouldn’t, but he aggravates the situation by accelerating Kirby and Becky’s friendship into a sexual relationship immediately this issue. Well, not immediately, because Gord and Drake sit around and talk about the six guns possibly being even more trouble than they imagined. Then…
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Things are still developing, but while they do, Drake gets into a bit of trouble and we get to see Hurtt do a man versus giant alligator scene. It’s a fantastic few pages from Hurtt, who’s otherwise not doing a lot of action this issue. There’s some talking and some more of those discreet little…
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Mr. Stache is a little like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, if they did good ones. The whole thing is done in summary, narrated by Kali Rocha. She sort of sells it—the film’s actually at its best when she, the narrator, starts talking about her own experiences and not the content of the film. Otherwise,…
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Thor has two problems to overcome. Director Branagh is successful at one of them. The first problem is half the film takes place in mythological Asgard, which is an ancient place, but very modern with all the latest streamlined architecture—think if Art Deco molded with neon, some magical stuff and then inexplicable horse-based transit. For…
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Carey brings the arc into port—sorry, couldn’t resist—and ends on a profound moment. Well, sort of. Tom learns the source of his power and, since it makes so much sense, it’s not surprising. Carey and Gross don’t go crazy visualizing it, showing admirable restraint. The real thing comes on the final page though, when it’s…
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It’s sort of an action issue. I think it’s got to be the fastest read so far in Unwritten’s issues, maybe because Carey doesn’t do much with any of the subplots. Tom calls the Monster (the Frankenstein Monster), who’s sort of his guide when he needs one, and figures a way out of the mess…
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