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The Unwritten (2009) #11
A small complaint. This issue features Tommy—sorry, Tom—having a big Jedi moment. Only no one thinks he’s a good enough Jedi to do it yet. But he can still do it… and Carey doesn’t even hint at why he can do it. It plays out fine because it’s a big set piece but it’s a… 📖
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The Unwritten (2009) #10
It’s been too long since I’ve read Unwritten. I had to remember stuff—why no recap page, darn it—I’m still not sure it’s been confirmed, before this issue, Wilson is alive somewhere. Maybe it has been. Anyway, Tommy and company end up in a sort of Nazi Germany where Tommy and the male sidekick—Savoy (Carey’s great… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #12
I’ve decided what Redondo does so differently from Wrightson (and how it effects the book). He draws Swamp Thing not as a muscle-bound, ideal specimen… but rather a lumpy, awkward creature. No wonder he looks forlorn all the time. It changes how the book plays. One wouldn’t think Arcane would be after Swamp Thing’s body… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #11
Nestor Redondo has the somewhat impossible task of following Bernie Wrightson. He does pretty well, though he could have gotten more help from Wein. Redondo recasts Swamp Thing as more of a lumbering superhero (Redondo’s expressions of Swamp Thing’s frequent dismay are startling, given the character is genetically predisposed to stoicism). But he does fine.… 📖
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Peanuts (1965) s01e45 – Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown
Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown is probably the first Peanuts film I’ve seen in twenty years. In those twenty years, the Complete Peanuts newspaper strips have started coming out (the film has a scene of the first Peanuts strip, which is nice) and the voice cast has changed. Unfortunately, the new voice cast… 📖
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The Stuff (1985, Larry Cohen)
According to IMDb, Larry Cohen cut about a half hour out of The Stuff. It’s entirely possible with that added footage, the movie might have made sense. As it’s cut now, it’s a somewhat diverting–at least until the third act–cross between The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Unfortunately, Cohen’s direction is weak throughout,… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #10
I love this issue. I only sort of remembered it, but I love what Wein and Wrightson do with it. Wrightson gets a story credit so maybe he’s the one who came up with the concept. Swamp Thing’s back in his swamp, basically just hanging around, when he comes across an old black woman. A… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #9
Wein and Wrightson (he has some amazing panels this issue, whether Matt and Abby at the beach or a captured alien) are back on task this issue. While Wein still overwrites, the plotting is so good it doesn’t matter again. This issue brings Swamp Thinig back to the swamp where he was created and Wein… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #8
While the cover—Swamp Thing versus green tentacles—might be memorable, this issue is the first where Wein doesn’t come up with something distinctive as far as narrative. It’s Swamp Thing not versus green tentacles but versus a Lovecraftian god. A really, really weak one who lives in a mine and eats people to get stronger. Swampy… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #7
Swamp Thing arrives in Gotham to save Matt and Abby from the Conclave and runs into Batman. Wrightson doing Batman is something, especially seventies Batman. I love Bruce’s hair, but how does he fit it into the cowl? Wein finds a great way to integrate Swamp Thing into the DC Universe proper; for a while,… 📖
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Captain America: Man out of Time (2011) #5
As Man out of Time finishes, it’s not clear if it’s the new continuity or if Marvel just gave Waid and company the chance to retell the Cap origin again. The series suggests it might behoove them to let other writers take a crack at it, because Waid does find a lot to talk about,… 📖
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Captain America: Man out of Time (2011) #4
It’s nice to read a Captain America comic where the writer isn’t afraid to be unabashedly liberal. Brubaker always keeps it on the back burner a little, like he’s not willing to alienate. Waid is willing to alienate. This issue might feature Molina’s best art so far, only because at one point I thought they… 📖
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Captain America: Man out of Time (2011) #3
Once again, Waid broaches a really interesting possibility for Man out of Time—Cap going back in time to WWII via Reed Richards’s time machine prototype, but then he closes it down again. Sure, it’s kind of cool to see Cap and Tony hanging out and the Martin Luther King Jr. stuff is excellent (I imagine… 📖
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Captain America: Man out of Time (2011) #2
I hate how I dull so quickly to bad art. Molina hasn’t gotten any better, but because I know what to expect (what not to expect, more like), I’m comfortable. This issue gets a lot more traditional. It’s not about Cap moving through time, it’s a retelling of him waking up; this time it’s when… 📖
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Captain America: Man out of Time (2011) #1
Molina’s artwork is truly hideous. It’s goofy and bulky and… it’s indescribably awful. The crisp coloring doesn’t help either. That complaint made, Man out of Time is actually pretty interesting. Waid makes a serious goof with Cap dictating a report to his superior in his head during his first encounter with the Avengers, but otherwise…… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #6
It’s sort of amusing how Wein can construct these fantastic, devastatingly emotional moments for Swamp Thing… but still have inane plotting. This issue, Swamp Thing finds a little Swiss town in Vermont. He also discovers himself (as a human) and his dead wife living happily there. Wein soon reveals a Swiss clockmaker spent the thirty… 📖
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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright)
In terms of emotional depth, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comes in a little below the average John Hughes teen picture. Supposedly Scott Pilgrim is about a listless twenty-something… but with Michael Cera playing the lead, it definitely feels about that deep. Cera’s not bad, but he’s playing the same role he’s played since “Arrested… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #5
Wein’s writing is back on track—except one page with incredibly awkward second person narration where he addresses the reader. Swamp Thing ends up in Maine, teaming up with a young woman accused of witchcraft and her little brother. Wein and Wrightson have a good time with the setting—even coming up with a conclusion I’m surprised… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #4
Okay, so this issue confirms Arcane (and Abby) were in the Balkans… so the English-speaking thing is problematic. This issue drops them (Abby, Matt and Swamp Thing) in Scotland on the moors for a bit of an “old dark house” and werewolf story. Again, the draw is Bernie Wrightson doing a werewolf on the moors… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #3
This issue introduces Abby (still Abigail and oddly a great English speaker for Eastern Europe) and the Patchwork Man. The issue’s incredibly awkward, because most of it is Wrightson doing this lovely homage to old Universal monster movies. The Patchwork Man looks just like the Boris Karloff Frankenstein Monster (down to having his outfit, albeit… 📖
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Rendezvous with Rama (2001, Aaron M. Ross)
Ross’s Rendezvous with Rama is student film, but more like an effects demo reel. It’s CG and one actor mixed together. The all-CG shots are better than the composites, which feel very “video.” The all-CG shots have a far smoother move to them. But it’s also the short film as a movie trailer. I think… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #2
Wrightson (and Wein) take Swampy to Europe this issue for Arcane’s first appearance. Arcane doesn’t even get a first name here. I say Wrightson first because the art is truly wondrous. He gets to do daytime scenes, so there aren’t any colors muddling his art, and he gets to do the Un-Men and a big,… 📖
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Push (2009, Paul McGuigan)
It’s understandable Push bombed at the box office. It’s hard to find a film so with much intelligence in the filmmaking, casting and acting applied to such a subpar script. Strangely, David Bourla’s script isn’t bad in regard to dialogue—there are some great exchanges between Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans—or in how it’s plotted—the narrative… 📖
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Swamp Thing (1972) #1
Horror comics can get away with overwritten narration; other genres it stands out, but something about horror… it fits. Writing this issue’s narration, Wein goes overboard with the narration. Some of it works, more doesn’t. But his thought balloons for Swamp Thing (there aren’t any for Alec Holland, just Swamp Thing) work. They’re still a… 📖
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One Night Stand (1997, Mike Figgis)
One Night Stand is such an emotionally exhausting film, one of the few moments of relief comes when Wesley Snipes, Ming-Na (as his wife), Nastassja Kinski (she and Snipes had a one night affair) and Kyle MacLachlan (as Kinski’s husband) go out to dinner together. It’s awkward in a far more comfortable way than the… 📖
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Incognito: Bad Influences (2010) #5
Brubaker goes with a simple conclusion—not out of Tom Strong, but keeping with his Moore fascination on this series, out of Watchmen—and it works. Maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know. He ends the series with a lovely setup for a third Incognito and that setup works and so it just makes me want another one… 📖
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Incognito: Bad Influences (2010) #4
I just noticed, this issue, Phillips is really playing up the masks this series of Incognito. Everyone’s got a mask of some kind or another (well, all the girls have Catwoman masks out of the Adam West “Batman”) so it looks like he’s keeping busy illustrating other stuff, since Brubaker’s still not giving him particularly… 📖
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Incognito: Bad Influences (2010) #3
Okay, so every issue of Bad Influences so far has had a different pacing structure. Here, Brubaker splits it between his three or four main characters. Except two of the main characters are antagonists and it’s unclear how much either is going to have to do with the series overall and he gives Zoe Zeppelin… 📖
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Incognito: Bad Influences (2010) #2
Look at Brubaker surprising me… not so much with anything going on in the issue, but with the soft cliffhanger. The entire issue suggests he’s going to have problems filling out three more issues, then the cliffhanger suggests he’s not going to have enough time for all his plans. I coasted through this issue on… 📖
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Salem's Lot (1979, Tobe Hooper)
During Salem’s Lot’s finale, Hooper gets this amazing physical performance out of Bonnie Bedelia as she is exploring the vampire’s lair. At that moment, I realized Hooper was intentionally making Lot palatable for a television audience—he could have made the entire three hours terrifying, but he was handicapped by the format. The miniseries issues are… 📖
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Incognito: Bad Influences (2010) #1
Until the last few pages, the first issue of Bad Influences seems like a slice-of-life book. Zack Overkill is relating his new life to the reader and it’s all rather amusing. The issue opens with an event then Brubaker goes back and explains it—humorously and cinematically. Even with the ending’s change in narrative tone, this… 📖
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Kidnapping Caitlynn (2009, Kat Coiro)
Kidnapping Caitlynn is a couples’ film and not just because it’s about a woman breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s house. Stars Jenny Mollen and Jason Biggs, who concocted the story together, are married (Mollen scripted). Director Coiro is married to supporting actor Rhys Coiro. If it were just four people making some stupid home movie because… 📖
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Quality Time (2010, James Redford)
Redford sort of comes up with a new genre in Quality Time, the suburban amusement. It’s innocuous but realistic, with Jason Patric trying to get his kids to the school bus early. Patric is the essential element as he’s able to bring the reality the film needs, whether it’s begging one daughter to hurry up… 📖
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Arthur (2011, Jason Winer)
My Thin Man affection aside, I’m not against sobriety. However, Russell Brand movies integrate the glory of AA to the point it hurts the film (Get Him to the Greek made a similar move at a similar time). The development hurts Arthur, somewhat significantly. It’s good the film has Greta Gerwig, as she pulls it… 📖
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War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle (2008) #5
Ennis brings back the humor for the finale, but it’s different now. The protagonist isn’t a buffoon anymore, so it changes how the humor can play. Most of the story takes place on the ground and Chaykin’s able to handle it (he still screws up a flying sequence at the opening of the issue); it… 📖
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War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle (2008) #4
Now, at this issue, Ennis has shed the humor, he’s shed the doofus protagonist, he’s even shed enough of the supporting cast one can discern their identities even with Chaykin’s art… War Is Hell is now just a World War I comic. As such, it’s just an intense, constant tragedy. It makes the issue somewhat… 📖
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War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle (2008) #3
I do so wish Chaykin took the time to make the characters look different. If it weren’t for the differences in hair color, I’d be constantly confused. Even with the hair color, it’s still sometimes a challenge to immediately identify the protagonist. After introducing humor into the series last issue, Ennis changes it up again… 📖
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War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle (2008) #2
It takes Ennis until the last two or three pages to finally set up War Is Hell. It’s a great use of five issues, because his reveal isn’t particularly extraordinary. it’s just funny. This issue also features the first complicated dogfight and Chaykin fails miserably. The rest of his layouts are fine, good even. But… 📖
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War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle (2008) #1
Here’s the thing about Chaykin… no matter how many misshapen heads he draws, he still knows how to compose a panel and a page. Doesn’t remember what to do with it once that task is done (or more likely care to take the time), but he can lay it out right. So while he’s not… 📖
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DC Universe: Legacies (2010) #10
The story ends before Infinite Crisis, with an OMAC showing up and attacking the narrator. The narrator’s nurse at the assisted living place ends the issue suggesting he’s full of crap, which ends Legacies on a decidedly negative note. Not because the reader would believe he’s a loon, but because it’s such a mundane thing,… 📖