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Giant-Size Werewolf (1974) #3
Giant-Size Werewolf #3 might be artist Don Perlin’s best… oh, wait. He just penciled. Sal Trapani inked. Perlin was penciling and inking over in regular Werewolf by Night at this point. Okay, never mind. I mean, it’s okay art—especially for Perlin—but it’s nowhere near as impressive with someone else helping out. Especially since my biggest… 📖
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e05 – Youth Patrol
Wow, it’s so good. Even for “Doom Patrol,” it’s so good. It’s a very “Doom Patrol” episode, too; the team has a mission, then something happens, and they have to go on a side mission. Given guest star Mark Sheppard finally reveals there’s a narrative reason for the main cast to remain young, it’s not… 📖
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e04 – Casey Patrol
“Doom Patrol” has been having a fine season to this point; fine enough, one hopes they’re prepared for a non-renewal, but the series hasn’t been sublime. Every so often, “Doom Patrol” has a way of being sublime, where the story’s quirkiness, the characters’ humanity, and the Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell music is just right,… 📖
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Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000, Kenneth Branagh)
It’s a funny idea, and it would explain a lot about Love’s Labour’s Lost, but I don’t think screenwriter, director, and co-producer Branagh cast Alicia Silverstone on a bet regarding whether or not he could get her to deliver an okay monologue. He succeeds and she succeeds, but just okay, and it takes most of… 📖
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All Creatures Great and Small (2020) s03e07 – Merry Bloody Christmas
Pun fully intended, Callum Woodhouse continues to show why he’s “All Creatures”’s trickiest casting but also its most successful. This Christmas special is set, appropriately, at Christmas, only war’s on, and no one’s feeling like celebrating this year. Especially not with Nicholas Ralph chomping at the bit for his chance to go—after the proper season’s… 📖
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10 Things I Hate About You (1999, Gil Junger)
10 Things I Hate About You is from that strange period in American mainstream filmmaking when they knew you couldn’t make too many jokes about high school girls anymore, unless you establish at least twice they’re eighteen so it’s not technically illegal. There’s also the issue of Andrew Keegan’s sexual predator, who the film treats… 📖
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Throne of Blood (1957, Kurosawa Akira)
Co-producer, co-writer, director, and editor Kurosawa loves himself some Macbeth. Throne of Blood is Macbeth in feudal Japan, with Mifune Toshiro and Yamada Isuzu as the doomed couple. Kurosawa and his co-writers structure the film as a historical war epic, with modern-day bookends, and then fit Mifune and Yamada’s Macbeth into the war epic. But… 📖
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Richard III (1995, Richard Loncraine)
Richard III takes place in an alternate history where the British are five hundred years late with their royal wars, but still in the 1940s for technology and rising fascism. The film doesn’t update Shakespeare’s dialogue, so it’s the cast performing while dressed—increasingly—as Nazis. Except they’re British. Well, not Annette Bening or Robert Downey Jr.… 📖
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Sum Up | The Nostalgia Merchant: Forty Years of Classic Movie Watching
I’ve been watching classic movies my whole life. As a kindergartener, I was so scared by Young and Innocent’s blinking, black-faced murderer I refused to participate in an eye-closing exercise. My childhood Saturdays were filled with Svengoolie’s best, my dad and I recording them and trying to edit out the commercials. For anyone not forty-plus… 📖
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Wayne’s World (1992, Penelope Spheeris)
Wayne’s World ought to be a no-brainer. Slick, soulless media exec Rob Lowe turns public access metalhead slackers Mike Myers and Dana Carvey into real celebrities; only they don’t like the deal they’ve made with the devil. Along the way, Myers meets metal rocker chick Tia Carrere, and they fall in like until Lowe tries… 📖
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Leather Underwear (1990) #1
I’m trying to imagine how Leather Underwear would’ve read when it dropped in 1990, one of the first comics from then early twenty-something creator Roger Langridge. The comic is entirely a riff on religion, specifically Christian, more specifically Catholic, starting with a strip about the Catholic abortion service run by one Sister Knuckles. She’ll be… 📖
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e03 – Nostalgia Patrol
This episode leaves the butts behind—had to—and gets going with the other big bad of the season. The season premiere had special cameo guest star Mark Sheppard explaining he and the other wizards knew the Doom Patrol would have to fight the butts this season, but they’ve also got to fight someone or something called… 📖
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Catwoman (2002) #6
Still newish penciller Brad Rader (his second issue) leans a little too heavily into the Silver Age romance comic homage, but otherwise, it’s a near-perfect comic. Writer Ed Brubaker figures out how to give the story the done-in-one feel while still kicking off a new story arc. So it’s part one of four, but really… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e18 – Hot Pursuit
Hot Pursuit is the second of two season seven “Frasier” episodes credited to writer Charlie Hauck. Considering the job he got on this one, it’s understandable he wouldn’t be back. It doesn’t seem fair to give a new writer an episode about Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin wondering if maybe they ought to just get… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e17 – Whine Club
Whine Club is half a regular “Frasier” episode, half a “mythology” episode, meaning working on the season’s low-burning arc about Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) getting serious about other people when they should (?) be getting serious about each other. It’s also got an excellent subplot for John Mahoney where he and… 📖
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The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton)
Night of the Hunter is a singular experience. Definitionally. It’s the only film Laughton ever directed, which makes sense. The film’s visuals are decades too early for the composites they can do; Laughton did direct plays, which also makes sense. Hunter feels “stagy,” but not. Laughton directs his actors for close-up without ever losing track… 📖
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Shadows on the Grave (2016) #8
I just got the final reveal in the Deneaus conclusion. Not like I just finished reading it and got the reveal; a few hours later, sitting down to write about Shadows on the Grave’s finish, I got it. I should’ve gotten it earlier. Maybe I would in a single sitting reread (I mean, probably not,… 📖
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e02 – Butt Patrol
I’m hesitant to call anything “Doom Patrolling,” a la “Westworlding,” but this episode comes close. The team is recovering from their trip to the future and discovering they bring about the “Butt-pocalypse;” one of the zombie butts from last season has survived to destroy the world. April Bowlby’s all set to lead the team to… 📖
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e01 – Doom Patrol
Last season, “Doom Patrol” had to recover from a Covid-19-induced shortened second season, then get the show into a decent spot for HBO Max to cancel them. Thankfully, HBO Max did not cancel them, and now the show gets to do, presumably, at least this fourth season. You never know with HBO Max, however. Anyway.… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e16 – Something About Dr. Mary
I’m not sure where to start with this episode. Jay Kogen’s got the writing credit, and he’s had his name on some good episodes in the past. But why they ever thought they ought to do an episode like Dr. Mary. Dr. Mary is played by Kim Coles, a Black woman (and possibly the first… 📖
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Killer of Sheep (1978, Charles Burnett)
Killer of Sheep is a series of vignettes, usually connected with a sequence at the slaughterhouse (though not always slaughter, but sometimes, so be ready), always connected with a piece of music. Sometimes the music recalls a previous scene or musical selection, creating a narrative echo between the sequences. And even though Sheep is incredibly… 📖
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Stage Struck (1958, Sidney Lumet)
Conservatively, Stage Struck has six endings. They start about fifty-eight minutes into the film, which runs ninety-five minutes. Actually, wait, there are probably—conservatively—seven. I forgot how many there are mid-third act before the actual (ending-laden) finale. For a while, the false endings add to the film’s charm. Maybe if the third act hadn’t reduced lead… 📖
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Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #262
James Sherman is back on art after an extended period, now going by “Jim.” His style’s simplified, with a lot less detail. He’s still got fantastic composition and his people—again, simplified—have a lot of personality in what he does give them. Last time he was on the series, he was doing these lush, expansive sci-fi… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e15 – Out with Dad
As usual, I regret not keeping better track of writing credits. Joe Keenan gets the credit this episode; he’s been writing “Frasier” since season two with numerous big successes, but based on Out with Dad, I’d have thought him a newbie. The episode picks and chooses plot points from outstanding—and memorable—episodes and mixes them a… 📖
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Tomb of Dracula (1972) #29
I can’t believe how well writer Marv Wolfman ends up doing with this issue. It very much should not work, yet it ends up working (in no small part due to Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s superb artwork; it’s one of their best issues). But the story… wow wee. Dracula starts the issue attacking a… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e14 – Big Crane on Campus
Oh, “Frasier: Season Seven,” why do you continue to taunt me? This episode has Jane Leeves and David Hyde Pierce cooking together and being adorable for the first time since Leeves found out about Hyde Pierce crushing on her. It’s a good scene, with Hyde Pierce getting to more fully participate—previously and problematically, these scenes… 📖
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Dan Dare (2007) #7
I’m going to assume Dan Dare had a future-sword in the original comics or whatever, because otherwise, writer Garth Ennis has even more to answer for. This final issue is oversized, which I’d been gleefully anticipating, but it turns out it’s too long. It’s fluffed up with lots of double-page spreads and it’s still too… 📖
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Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates)
Bullitt is from the period when Hollywood wasn’t calling the Mafia the Mafia yet—it’s “The Organization” here—and none of the mobsters had Italian names, but they are mostly Italian (heritage) actors. It’s especially funny because part of Bullitt’s conceit hangs on WASPs like up-and-coming senator Robert Vaughn not being able to tell Italians apart. But… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e12 – RDWRER
Despite the unfestive title, RDWRER is the third “Frasier” in a row to do a holiday. Two episodes ago, it was a birthday episode (sort of) for Kelsey Grammer, then last episode was a Christmas episode, and now this episode is the New Year’s. There’s no specific mention of the new elephant—Jane Leeves knows David… 📖
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #26
Artist Don Perlin keeps himself busy this issue. Each page has at least seven panels, usually with Perlin doing the action in small, vertical panels, in long-shot. As detail isn’t Perlin’s strong suit, the composition choices help. I have to be honest and admit I dug this issue so much I’m worried about myself. There’s… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e11 – The Fight Before Christmas
“Frasier” does indeed run into immediate problems with Jane Leeves finding out David Hyde Pierce has a crush on her (and has had one for quite some time). Leeves has her first moment of romantic interest—post finding out—and it’s when Hyde Pierce puts his jacket on her. They’re standing out on the balcony unraveling the… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s07e10 – Back Talk
This episode is the first entry in a two-parter, but one of those loose sitcom two-parters where it’s just so they keep them together in syndication. Whatever comes after Back Talk will be inevitably different because, after over a hundred and seventy episodes, “Frasier”’s going to deal with one of its longest-running story arcs. Not… 📖
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Emergency Declaration (2021, Han Jae-rim)
Emergency Declaration is a disaster movie made like a horror movie. It’s not just any disaster movie, either; it’s Airport meets Airplane but with bioterrorism. The bioterrorism doesn’t have to do with the horror movie; it’s all the investigation procedural. The horror movie experience is entirely reserved for the victims (and the audience). Declaration doesn’t… 📖
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Catwoman (2002) #5
New art team Brad Rader and Cameron Stewart take over for this done-in-one, which brings Slam Bradley into the series proper—he appeared in a Detective Comics backup setting up Catwoman (or at least tying in enough to be reprinted in the first trade… I think). But he and Selina team up this issue, which is… 📖
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Shadows on the Grave (2016) #7
I’m back to wondering if they commissioned a bunch of stories from the same prompt, and now it’s creator Richard Corben’s turn to do them himself. There aren’t any co-writers this issue, not even on the one-page strips. It’s just Corben, and it’s a triple. Unfortunately, there are four stories, but the first three more… 📖
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Black Adam (2022, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Black Adam opens with kid narration. At first, it seems like the narrator kid is Ancient Kahndaqi Jalon Christian, who’s sick and tired of living under a tyrannical king who has his people mining eternium for him. Eternium is not a “Masters of the Universe” thing; it’s more like the DC Universe version of vibranium.… 📖
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Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #261
Ric Estrada takes over on pencils—John Calnan still inking—and I guess I hope he takes over from Joe Staton. Estrada’s not great on distance or action shots, but his close-ups are okay. And his not-great stuff fits with writer Gerry Conway’s Silver Age-y Legion. For example, this issue has the Legionaries hitching a ride on… 📖
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Tomb of Dracula (1972) #28
Writer Marv Wolfman starts this issue with a…. Okay, here’s a welcome to the future moment. Wolfman starts the issue with a quote about a Hindu king, making me think this issue was the third in his “religion” trilogy of issues (beginning with the Jewish issue, then a generally religious one) with Hinduism. But not… 📖
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Dan Dare (2007) #6
As I feared, Gary Erskine continues to fall apart on the art this issue. As I assumed, it doesn’t really matter. Writer Garth Ennis is doing such a phenomenal job with the script, Erskine gets a pass. He’s got exceptional problems with depth—I don’t even know how to describe it but somehow, although Erskine’s figures… 📖
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Lady Bird (2017, Greta Gerwig)
Lady Bird is a loving tribute to Sacramento, California, specifically growing up there as a teenager, from the perspective of a main character who hates Sacramento. Writer and director Gerwig opens the film with a travelogue of Sacramento streets and locations, a device she repeats sparingly (only significantly in the fantastic finale); Lady Bird is… 📖
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The Jericho Mile (1979, Michael Mann)
The Jericho Mile plays a little like a truncated mini-series. The first hour of the film introduces the characters, the ground situation, and does an entire arc for six characters. There’s a minimal subplot about prison psychologist Geoffrey Lewis trying to convince seemingly super-fast-running inmate Peter Strauss to open up in therapy. Lewis then gets… 📖