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Birdland (1990) #3
I think this issue of Birdland is the best? I mean, I haven't really worked out what constitutes "best" for a porn comic, but Gilbert Hernandez has got a lot of variety in the art here. Like, combinations-wise. Literal orbiting orgy with issue's entire cast. Though not the series's cast. One of the characters from… 📖
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Selected Declarations 22.01.10
I’m having a “the only way is through” feeling about Selected Declarations, which isn’t fantastic given it’s only the second regular post. Whatever deep thoughts needing writing about I thought I would have every Monday, I do not really have them. It’s also been a very 2020-2022 week, very unexpectedly, and I don’t want to… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e08 – Trajectory
Will Robinson, falling for Dr. Smith’s shit since 1965. Having not seen the original show and not having great memories of the obvious evilness of Gary Oldman’s Dr. Smith in the Lost in Space: The Movie, I don’t know how this show’s version of Will Robinson, played by Maxwell Jenkins, falling for Parker Posey’s very… 📖
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Visiting Hours (1982, Jean-Claude Lord)
At the beginning, Visiting Hours pretends it will be about network news commentator Lee Grant. Despite being openly Canadian, the film also pretends it takes place in Washington D.C., based on the hate mail responses protagonist Michael Ironside frames on his wall. They never specify, so maybe he did write Grant when she worked in… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e07 – Pressurized
So, there’s a lot good about this episode. Director Tim Southam leans in heavy on the “we’ve got John Williams music anyway, let’s make it like a Spielberg” to good effect. There’s a very nice arc for Taylor Russell and Ignacio Serricchio (who still aren’t romantic, yay), and there’s a pretty good one for Molly… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e06 – Eulogy
Another episode, another new writer and director. Also, the opening titles are back. It’s also the longest episode so far (I’m pretty sure), clocking in just over an hour. Because a lot happens, and everyone gets something to do. However, the script (credited to Ed McCardie) compensates for its numerous supporting players by sticking Molly… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e05 – Transmission
Even though this episode opens with Parker Posey trekking back through the forest after watching the Robinson kids hide the robot last episode… it seems like more time has progressed than a few hours. Unless all the survivors moved all their space-campers (the Jupiter space-camper) to the same campground overnight and legitimately elected, but dipshit… 📖
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Around the World in 80 Days (2021) s01e07
After spending six full episodes ignoring the Black part of Ibrahim Koma’s Black Frenchman, this episode tackles and wrestles with the subject for most of the episode. Because they’re in the United States now and, what you’re not going to agree the United States, is really racist? Throughout the episode, it feels like “Around the… 📖
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Around the World in 80 Days (2021) s01e06
Outside the way too quick resolve to last episode's cliffhanger and either a continuity gaffe (or a lousy narrative choice), nothing is wanting about this episode. However, given its simplicity, it should be a slam dunk. And it is a slam dunk. It's maybe just not an exciting slam dunk. But, given the setting, the… 📖
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Around the World in 80 Days (2021) s01e05
A couple things jumped out from the opening titles for this episode. First, there’s a new director—Brian Kelly—but more interestingly, there’s a “story by” credit. “Around the World in 80 Days” is a novel adaptation. Debbie O’Malley gets the story credit, Jessica Ruston gets the writing credit. Jules Verne gets his credit, too (but not… 📖
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Birdland (1990) #2
Oh, good grief. Either I missed it, or creator Gilbert Hernandez didn’t make it clear enough—the guy in love with Fritz is her brother-in-law. It’s important to this issue because it turns out the brother-in-law, Simon, is carrying on with Fritz’s sister, Petra, who’s in love with Mark. Mark being Fritz’s husband and Simon’s brother.… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e04 – The Robinsons Were Here
So Ignacio Serricchio is playing Don West, a character from the original show (Matt LeBlanc in the movie). If they mentioned his name before, I missed it. However, given Serricchio refers to himself multiple times in the third person this episode, maybe I wasn’t the only one confused. Last episode ended with the heroes finding… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e03 – Infestation
After two episodes making a lot of noise but not really doing anything productive, Toby Stephens finally finds something he’s good at—fighting fuel-consuming alien eels. It’s another job the killer robot could do better, but the killer robot is too busy protecting Maxwell Jenkins. Once the robot deems there to be too much danger for… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e02 – Diamonds in the Sky
This episode feels a little bit like “Pilot: Part Two” since it introduces Parker Posey to the series. The soft cliffhanger last episode had her assuming a false identity and getting onto an escape spaceship with mechanics Ignacio Serricchio and AnnaMaria Demara. As the bigger spaceship was under attack from a killer robot before all… 📖
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Lost in Space (2018) s01e01 – Impact
I must confess I didn’t remember my “Lost in Space” enough to know they had three kids. I thought Taylor Russell was added for the new show. I also don’t think I’ve ever seen the original series, just the movie. But there are three kids. Besides Russell, who’s the Doogie Howser teen doctor, there’s Mina… 📖
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Selected Declarations 22.01.03
If The Stop Button has a theme, it’s killing your darlings. It’s a lot easier to shit on a childhood favorite than to expound on Fellini. At its best, it’s curated nostalgia. At its worst, it’s assassinated nostalgia. Except I haven’t been watching and reading about many old favorites. I made a 2022 watch list,… 📖
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Birdland (1990) #1
So, I wasn’t actually aware Birdland is a porno comic. I also wasn’t aware it was from during Love and Rockets: Volume One’s run and not immediately following it, meaning Fritz Herrera from Birdland goes on to become Luba’s half-sister in Love and Rockets. I was also unaware strippers Inez and Bang Bang are from the… 📖
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Scream 4 (2011, Wes Craven)
Oh, no, Scream 4 is Wes Craven’s last movie. At multiple times throughout, I remember thinking, “at least this isn’t Wes Craven’s last movie.” Not sure what I thought his last movie would have been, but I didn’t really think it would be this mess of a too-late sequel. Though I guess I’m curious if… 📖
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The Matrix Resurrections (2021, Lana Wachowski)
The Matrix Resurrections opens with a "cover" of the opening of the original Matrix movie. It takes a while before it makes sense in the narrative, but basically, new cast members Jessica Henwick and Toby Onwumere are watching the scene where Carrie-Anne Moss escapes from Hugo Weaving. Only it's not Carrie-Anne Moss or Hugo Weaving;… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s13e07 – Eve of the Daleks
I was recently listening to a podcast and the host explained the holiday “Doctor Who” specials are meant for a more general audience than the regular series. I believe he said something British-y like, “It’s when everyone’s watching BBC all day on the telly.” And it stuck with me for Eve of the Daleks and… 📖
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The Fabulous Dorseys (1947, Alfred E. Green)
The best scene in The Fabulous Dorseys is the jam session with Art Tatum. It’s the only time in the movie about jazz there are Black people, and it’s the only time the movie really lets The Fabulous Dorseys be fabulous. The film’s a biopic about band leaders brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, who play… 📖
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Hitman: Closing Time (1999-2007)
Hitman: Closing Time opens the only way it can (or should) following the previous collection’s gut-wrenching conclusion, which saw Tommy’s surrogate father, Sean, die protecting him. It starts with a Lobo crossover. And writer Garth Ennis spends the entire issue shitting on Lobo. It’s a done-in-one crossover with art from Doug Mahnke. The art’s perfectly… 📖
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The Linguini Incident (1991, Robert Shepard)
I watched most of The Linguini Incident’s 108-minute runtime waiting to go read the IMDb trivia page and discover what wealthy New Yorker bankrolled a movie for their kid to star in with Hollywood actors. Except there’s no such item on the trivia page, and it doesn’t appear to be the backstory to the film’s… 📖
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Selected Declarations 21.12.28
I wasn’t planning on launching Selected Declarations until 2022 (I’ve even got a topic ready), but since I’ve been inbox-bombing Stop Button subscribers with archival posts all night, I thought I’d explain in a “preview. While I don’t have any significant plans for the blog in 2022, I did have a bunch of cleaning up… 📖
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Superman ’78 (2021) #5
It’s the Superman ’78 version of an action issue, which means a terribly written scene for Marlon Brando and Susannah York saying goodbye to adult Christopher Reeve this time, some boring Superman vs. Brainiac robots action, and Metropolis-in-danger montage shots. The montage shots have bad dialogue when they have it, but also a cameo from… 📖
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The Matrix Revolutions (2003, The Wachowskis)
I understand there are reasons for The Matrix Revolutions. If that one rumor is true, it’s basically Keanu Reeves didn’t want to do sequels forever, and the Wachowskis wanted to do a long-running franchise. Old Internet gossip (oddly more reliably than some later Internet gossip, but still… Internet gossip). And then the costume changes… the… 📖
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The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowskis)
I’m trying to think of something nice to say about The Matrix Reloaded. None of the returning good guys give bad performances? None of the leading returning good guys? Like, Gloria Foster’s back and, while she doesn’t give a bad performance, it’s an utterly charmless one heavily leveraging her charm in the last movie. But… 📖
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The Matrix (1999, The Wachowskis)
The Matrix starts kicking ass in the second half. The first act clunks along, introducing both Keanu Reeves’s plot and then the Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne one. The second act makes a lot of promises and stumbles delivering on them. There’s this big fight scene between Reeves and Fishburne, and instead of accelerating the… 📖
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Hawkeye (2021) s01e06 – So This Is Christmas?
After three episodes away, Rhys Thomas is back directing this episode of “Hawkeye” for the grand finale, and… well, I wish they’d let Bert & Bertie do it. Thomas’s fight scenes aren’t any better than the previous directors’ fight scenes, and he doesn’t have the same light touch with the characters. It’s fine. It’s a… 📖
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The Witcher (2019) s02e08 – Family
It’s the worst-case scenario for our heroes, with Henry Cavill racing to the Witcher Winter Wonderland where he’s sure an eternal evil spirit is after Freya Allan. Anya Chalotra is tagging along with Cavill, desperate to convince him she’s not just really sorry she was going to give Allan to that same evil spirit; she’s… 📖
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The Witcher (2019) s02e07 – Voleth Meir
Lots gets done this episode. An almost unimaginable amount, given all the characters in play. The episode begins with Henry Cavill apologizing to Adjoa Andoh for fighting in the temple (no fighting in the temple is one of the rules), but it’s not his fault; it’s bad guy Chris Fulton’s fault. Andoh forgives Cavill and… 📖
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The Witcher (2019) s02e06 – Dear Friend…
This episode opens with a profound downer. Henry Cavill and Freya Allan have left the Witcher Winter Wonderland and run into the new flying monster from last episode. Turns out the new monsters are all trying to get to Allan for some reason. There’s the most significant casualty of the season so far and possibly… 📖
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The Witcher (2019) s02e05 – Turn Your Back
I neglected to mention there’s a scene last episode with Joey Batey defending his popular song’s use of deceptive timeline chicanery (oh, if they’d called it Westworlding). It’s only important here because the first scene in the episode doesn’t resolve anything from last time; it instead introduces an evil mage, Chris Fulton. Fulton was imprisoned… 📖
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Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021, Jon Watts)
Spider-Man: No Way Home’s got a very appropriate title. There’s just no way to bring this one home, not for any of the things it tries to do. Though “tries” might be stretching it, No Way Home’s script feels like it’s four different ideas strung together with plot points dependent on the latest Academy Award-nominated… 📖
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Hotel Splendide (2000, Terence Gross)
Hotel Splendide is based on a novel by Marie Redonnet. She doesn’t get any credit in the film, director Gross instead taking the full writing credit. Guess the WGA is good, actually. The film having a novel source explains a few things, principally why Hugh O’Conor is narrating the movie. O’Conor’s ostensibly an aquaphobic staying… 📖
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The Witcher (2019) s02e04 – Redanian Intelligence
Lots goes on this episode, including the return of a season one regular, the return of a season one guest player, and a new political intrigue subplot. Still, nothing’s more important than the Kevin Doyle guest spot. It’s the episode of “The Witcher” with Mr. Molesley from “Downton.” Everything else is secondary. The episode opens… 📖