Whatcha Watchin'?

I'm so glad you asked!

I've actually had the rare opportunity to watch a few movies of late and thought I would post about them here.

First up, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Our local Cineplex theatre is participating in the whole Potter Passport thing where you buy a pass to all 7 Potter movies for $25 and you get to see them all, once a week, leading up to the premiere of the last movie. SO, this week it was HP3.

Honestly, I can't say enough good things about Azkaban. Not being an avowed fan of the novels (or films, for that matter) I think it carries a bit of weight to say that this is, perhaps, the best of the series. Something about the first two movies was just too...happy American hocus pocus with kids, you know? Smiling faces, sucky sweet music, overly warm lighting and a really traditional shooting style. With Azkaban, the studio brought on Mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón. I once read a comment that the first two films were perfectly serviceable but it wasn't until the third that they truly got it right and I think Cuarón had a lot to do with making that happen.

Right from the opening credits, you know this movie is going to be a bit different. The look of it is so much more moody and English than anything Columbus committed to film. The fog, the dampness, the aged exterior of Hogwarts, all of these things gave a new character to the series that, if memory serves, was never really recaptured in later installments of the series. The performances by the actors was a distinct improvement (although that may have more to do with age and experience than anything else) and little touches, like the irising in and out between scenes, just made this story so much more interesting to watch.

Lastly, I knew that John Williams did not do the scores for all of the movies, was certain that he did the first two, and assumed he did themes for the third but that Patrick Doyle (who did the next one) did most of the music. It sounded so different from the previous movies but just enough like Williams to make me think he still had some part in it. Well, I was surprised to find out that Williams was, indeed, sole composer on Azkaban and that he was clearly getting very specific direction on the first two movies because what we heard in the third was much closer to the kinds of music he was playing with in the new Star Wars movies, using more percussion and relying less on overt themes.

Some fans have criticized the movie as going too far off the page, but I've also heard the argument that it's the closest to the source material, so I guess it's who you ask. Me, I think it was pretty inspired, really.

---

The next movie I watched was Primer, a little indie movie that cost $7000 and made a splash at Sundance. A friend asked if I had seen it and I told him that I had always wanted to, ever since John Rogers mentioned on his blog that he thought the movie was amazing. He told me that was pretty much true and that I should check it out, so I went home and did just that.

What a treat this movie was. No budget sci-fi with a high concept, no special effects and a plot that will give your brain a charlie horse. To talk about it too much would probably take me into spoiler territory so I'll just say, if you dig movies like Pi or The Man From Earth, this is really worth checking out. And it's, like, 77 minutes, so it's not even a time drain for you busy people.

---

Last on the list for today will be Michael Clayton, a 2007 movie written and directed by Tony Gilroy and starring George Clooney. You've probably heard of it because it was nominated for a handful of Oscars. I remember when it was out and wanting to see it, just never getting around to going to the theatre and watching it. Writers I love kept blogging and tweeting about it expounding its many virtues, some even called it the best movie of that year. I'm not sure what sparked my interest in it last week, to be honest, but I'm so glad I put it in my DVD player and watched it one Monday morning. It was fantastic! A brilliant character piece and a legal thriller rolled into one. Sydney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, and Tom Wilkinson all delivered great performances, and Gilroy did a good job of balancing the action and keeping things flowing and interesting. It's not a flashy movie, but I can find little or no flaw with it and so it gets my highest recommendation.

That's it for this time. There are actually a few more flicks I wanted to talk about but I'll maybe get to those in another post. Until then...

Cheers!

mike

Director's Meme Who's Who #4

Returning to my Directors thoughts, I tackle #4 on my list of filmmakers who changed the way I look at movies:

Darren Aronofsky

I came to Aronofsky in a weird, roundabout kind of way. It was actually through the efforts of Ed Flynn, the artist of the then virtually unknown Pi: The Book of Ants graphic novel (and, oddly enough, the guy who gave me my first paid writing gig), that I got to know Darren's work. Ed sent me a random e-mail asking if I would be interested in interviewing him to promote the book and I was, at that time, happy to talk to anyone in the industry. He sent me a free preview of the book and a Pi pin (both of which I still have) and I was intrigued enough by the concept and our conversation that I sought out the film, managing to convince a co-worker to go see it with me at a local art house theatre.

The movie was great. On the cheap, high in concept and full of great ideas and a catchy industrial score by Clint Mansell. This was really good stuff. Science, math, faith, ants...I was hooked on this Aronofsky guy. I was eager and excited to see what he would come up with next and it goes without saying that Requiem for a Dream was brilliant and emotionally exhausting. Most stories have the structure where things get dark for your characters but through perseverance and other factors, they rise above their troubles and conquer their problems. Not here. In Requiem things just keep getting worse until they hit rock bottom. And then they keep going down some more. In fact, when we leave all the characters, there is still depths that they will likely sink to and you feel, as a viewer, pretty drained after the experience. The performances by Jared Leto, Jennifer Connely, Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn were top shelf, and the 'hip-hop' editing of the movie was stylish and interesting.

Then there is The Fountain which is as beautiful and engaging as it is impenetrable. Aronofsky, again, shows us how good these actors we've seen before can be when given the right direction and material. He once again examines love, faith and gives us scenes that are so heartbreaking it's honestly difficult to watch.

I'm not going to go into his other films because, honestly, I have yet to see The Wrestler or Black Swan, but they are on the list. I have the former and will pick up the latter when time and finances permit. Until then, though, I will close off this little love letter to Darren by saying that he has proven time and again to be one of the medium's most provocative and visually engaging filmmakers. He never shies away from difficult material and is able to think outside the box, something he has been doing since those very early days in New York, trying to make a small movie about God and math and publish his tie-in graphic novel.

I think most of that was gushing but I'm pretty sure I got my point across.

Cheers!

mike

Curses, Spoiled Again

So, I'm reading The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan and more-or-less enjoying the experience so I hit the 'net and check out the official site to see if they have any fun stuff there. They kind of do and kind of don't, but that's neither here nor there for this story. I clicked over to their Facebook page and was just browsing through pictures and poking around when I see a wall post by some d-bag named Vojtěch Weiss who totally drops not one, but two, spoilers in one blow, effectively spoiling a good chunk of the last 20 pages of the book I am just about to finish.

Not only that, but the second one ruins a plot point from the second book, The Fall, which I recently purchased and was going to start reading very soon.

This development makes me cranky. I'm not usually a spoiler sensitive person but something about these two were just touchy enough to make me surly and get my stomach acids bubbling. I guess I should know better than to recklessly peruse online but I did, and I did so without taking the proper precautions.

That'll learn me.

Later!

mike

Meeting 'Abby'

A week and a half ago I was in a small village in the south of Saskatchewan called Val Marie. I was there to serve as a chauffeur for one of the participants in a workshop that was going on there since he needed to catch a plane on the Saturday which was departing from the Regina airport four hours away. Jen volunteered me and I agreed. I figured, three days of kicking back in the middle of nowhere, reading and listening to podcasts on my iPhone might be a nice change of pace.

While there, we stayed in this converted convent. It was run by this couple who pretty much did everything from room service to cooking and serving all of the meals. Both nights we ate supper there they had a girl helping them with the service. A different one for each night. I don't know where they came from or who they were, but both were pleasant company and provided good service during the meal.

I found out later that the second girl was a Masters student working as a writer-in-residence there. She was writing poetry, or something, and chillin' at the convent in their sitting room upstairs, I think.

On the Saturday after I got back from Regina, we had supper and the group all went upstairs to continue their workshop while I prepared to go for a walk and the poet girl (I think her name was Natalie), was going to a movie. Stunned as I was by the fact that Val Marie even had a theatre (or a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile), I was more surprised that the more I spoke with Natalie outside the convent the more she started to remind me of one of my characters from Smitten, my romantic dramady magnum opus. Everything from the way she dressed, to the way she spoke rung true. The fact that she was a writer helped, too, seeing as Abby, while not a poet, is something of a wordsmith. The only thing that was different from how I had always envisioned Abby was Natalie had shorter hair. Suffice to say, I may chop off Abby's locks by story's end, now, as I liked the look. There would also be some relevance to the plot to do such a thing, which is always nice.

As we parted ways, it was all I could do to keep from chasing after her and chatting her up some more. Maybe snapping a few pictures, like that wouldn't be creepy. Instead we said our goodbyes, she went to her movie, I went on my walk, hoping that she would return to hang with the group later that evening. She did come back as most of her stuff was taken from the reading room upstairs by morning, but she did so quietly and retired to wherever she called home in Val Marie.

I never saw her again after that but I'll never forget the weirdness and strange thrill of meeting someone who is, ostensibly, someone I created in my head but a real flesh and blood person I can interact with. It was trippy.

And, as my high school graphic arts teacher would say, "that's my story".

Peace.

mike

Red Hulk, Green Hulk, Go!

I was going to do this on Twitter but figured I would need more than 140 characters to express my feelings on what's been going on over in the Hulk title, so without further ado...

Now, I should start by qualifying that I haven't actively purchased or read a Hulk comic since Bruce Jones and John Romita, Jr. were doing the book a few years ago. I'm not even sure how the whole Mr. Green/Mr. Blue thing panned out, unless you count what they used in the second Hulk movie. I was not overly familiar with the "World War Hulk" storyline that ran for a while, and I pretty much ignored the Red Hulk material that Loeb and McGuiness were on about, so it had been a while since I knew what was going on with the guy. To say the least, I was surprised to find that the, along with the new Red Hulk (who was, in actuality, General 'Thunderbolt' Ross - Oh, the irony!), pretty much every other character in the Hulk universe got Hulkified by The Leader and...M.O.D.O.K., I think.

All kinds of crazy stuff has been going on since I've been gone, and the Hulk's single Incredible book has branched out into a family of books: Hulk, Incredible Hulk, & Incredible Hulks. Let me know if I've missed any.

Normally, this is not the kind of storytelling that entices me into picking up any book, especially when it's one that I've already taken off my pull list years ago. So, you ask, why am I fretting so about it?

That would be because of Jeff Parker.

I've always enjoyed Jeff's writing and still tell anyone who will listen that he is responsible for one of the single most enjoyable super-hero books I have read in my almost 30 years of reading comic books. So, you tell me he's going to be writing the book after Loeb departs and you have most certainly grabbed my attention. This is a guy who can handle the super-science, the monsters, the action, and the drama. You pair him with a talent like Gabriel Hardman who has a keen eye for visual storytelling and can draw the most outrageous action sequence or people eating soup with perfect aplomb and you have me adding it to my pile and I'm out the door with my LCS owner a few bucks richer.

Sounds like I'm loving this book like a fresh pair of socks on a cool September morning, doesn't it? Unfortunately, this is where I get conflicted about the whole shebang.

I want to like Hulk more than I do, but I'm finding it hard to fully embrace the darn thing. Oddly enough, I'm finding the character of the Red Hulk fascinating when I was certain that I wouldn't. I couldn't be bothered to even look at Loeb's issues on the shelf but I'm intrigued in these stories by how Ross is handling being the Hulk. It is so different from Banner, yet strangely similar, too. There's the alienation because he's a monster and the thrill that comes with so much power, all the things we are used to seeing with the Banner Hulk over the years. The main difference, though, is that Ross doesn't feel sorry for himself and whine about it constantly. He's a soldier and he deals with his new situation whether he likes it or not. A good example of this is in one of the early scenes of #25 where Steve Rogers is giving Ross his assignment. Steve is honestly trying to help Ross make good and have him be an asset. The tone of the dialogue, the staging of the scene, it's originally what sucked me in.

In that same issue, however, we are given an example of why I'm conflicted about this series, for as much as I am loving the character of the Red Hulk, this issue spends a great deal of it's 'running time' on a tired old super-hero team-up cliché; the fight-brought-on-by-misunderstanding-before-realizing-we-are-supposed-to-be working-together schtick. In fact, this is a cliché that gets played out for the following 2 issues, if I remember correctly, with Iron Man being followed by Thor and then Namor. Everyone wants a piece of Red Hulk, apparently, but I feel like every time they go down this road they kill all the momentum they've built up. I like my share of smashing in a Hulk comic, don't get me wrong, I just think there's more to mine here and these sequences are not adding anything useful to the overall narrative.

I remember in the '90s when Garth Ennis was writing Helblazer. I hated his run for a number of reasons I won't go into here but, without fail, every time I was going to drop the title once-and-for-all Ennis would drop an amazing single issue that had everything I needed in a Hellblazer story to make me happy. Every. Single. Time.

There's kind of a similar phenomena happening here minus the hating part. After reading #27 I was going to stop buying Hulk and move on but then #28 came out and I loved that issue. Then I read #30 and figured, okay, #30.1 would be the last one if I didn't like it but I did (although I don't think Tom Palmer should do finishes over Hardman anymore - it seems like a no-brainer but it really isn't a good thing). And in some of the cases where the main story was not grabbing me, I kinda dug the back-up featuring A-Bomb (Rick Jones) or the Watcher back-ups that are now starting to pay off in the main story.

I guess the fact that I'm bothering to take the time to write this does prove that these guys are doing something positive with this series because I'm interested enough to care. To want to see more interactions between Ross and the LMDs, to see the Fortean/Ross/Red Hulk triangle develop, and to see where sleep deprivation will eventually take the character. That, and the fact I obsess over books and movies I can't fully embrace/endorse. Really, I'll probably spend more time rereading and staring at Hulk pages than I ever will Atlas ones.

So, now I'm waiting to see what #32 will bring (I hear it's a corker) and I continue to live with this series issue to issue.

Fingers crossed!

mike

Vive le musique!

And, just so it's not all reflective first person narration here today, I give you a video I had meant to post about 2 years ago but, for some reason, never did. It's a video of some length where the band members of Phoenix go on to talk (in French with subtitles, I warn you) about all the music that influenced them in the creation of their own unique brand of pop. I loved it. I hope you will, too.

MUSICVISION PHOENIX from Guillaume Delaperriere on Vimeo.

Later!

mike

New Post

I spent a couple of hours yesterday adding and tweaking books on my GoodReads account. At first, when that sort of sank in, I thought, two hours?? Essentially databasing my books, and many of them comics/trades that I've read? But then I thought of how I went about it, drawing purchase locations and dates from memory until that was no longer an option, then skimming through my blog archives to find posts where I started with, "I just finished this great book today!" In a weird way, logging times and places, knowing that I bought George Lucas' Blockbusting at McNally Robinson Booksellers on boxing day, somehow that's important to me. Somehow, it's more than being pathological in the organization of 'my stuff' because by doing that, I'm ascribing a narrative to that book's place and time in my life. And when I'm done with it, I'll log the date completed and how many times I've read that particular book.

In a weird (and possibly sad) way, tracking my stuff is very much a part of the story of my life, just as I've found going back and skimming through blog posts here is. I used to poo-poo my efforts here, never quite knowing what I was trying to do with the blog, never quite achieving what I wanted to see with the blog, but looking back on it I've discovered that, since the beginning, I've logged a lot of moments in time, jotted down things that I had completely forgotten about until I started looking back, and left a digital trail of breadcrumbs, as it were, that I can always track back with. At least back to the inception of the blog.

I set out in the beginning to make this blog a personal journal but have spent the subsequent years trying to make it something else. Something popular, a place to express my views on pop culture, an outlet for my interviews, a production diary, you name it I've run the scenario, at least in my head if not in actual execution. What I didn't know until last night is that I succeeded. It is what I set out to make it. It is a journal, a chronology, an imprint of a certain part of the last few years of my life. It was interesting to look back on, and seeing how I've neglected it in the present, I'm hoping to step up the output a bit more and continue the process.

Cheers!

mike

Confessions of a Media Junkie - Trial Run

Picked Up Last Week: Playing God, The Manchurian Candidate (remake), The Joneses, Morning Glory, Despicable Me, 17 Again, The Hangover, Beyond the Sea, The Corner

Watched: Inception, Tron Legacy, Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead, Super Troopers, Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episodes I & II, Robot Chicken Season 4, The Closer Season 5

Directors Meme Who's Who #3

Continuing my Directors thoughts, I tackle #3 on my list:

Steven Spielberg

Although my relationship with Spielberg in later years has been rocky, I still look back on those early films with wonder and pure nostalgic joy. Movies like E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jaws are staples of most of my top ten lists, and two of them generally come up on my top 5 whenever I'm pressed to make one. He was a great storyteller who was not only proficient with doing large effects movies, but also smaller character pieces. Every time one of his movies opened, it was an event. Even if it stunk at the box-office, we'd still line up to see what was next out the gate, and movies like Hook and 1941 still hold a place for me despite being on most people's cinematic shit lists.

The latter half of Spielberg's career has, for me, been an exercise in self-indulgence, back-patting and self-congratulation. I find Minority Report and A.I. almost unwatchable, The Terminal and Catch Me If You Can alright diversions if only it wasn't for Tom Hanks and, while I have yet to see Munich, War of the Worlds is the only thing that he has made that I have cared for since Amistad, and that's with Tom Cruise in it, of all people.

I also blame most of the problems with the fourth Indy on Spielberg after reading various accounts of the making of the film.

So, there's good and there's bad, but in the end, he was a filmmaker who shaped how I viewed and responded to movies in my more impressionable years.

mike

Confessions of a Media Junkie

That's the title that's milling about in my head at the moment. I still haven't done a search on it online to see if someone else is using it, so it may change, but I've been giving some consideration to writing a column, of sorts, here or on another blog (one that I'd create seperate to this one). In it I would do something similar to what Nick Hornby does with his Believer columns, "Stuff I've Been Reading", but instead of books (or exclusively books) I would cover DVDs and Blu-Rays. I'm always buying new discs and do not always watch them immediately after doing so. In fact, they often sit on my shelf for a very, very long time before I even take them out of their wrappers. I do the same with books and comics. The only things I get into right away is music.

So, that might be coming on the horizon. We'll see how things go.

mike

Great Gatsby to be Remade by Luhrmann

Gatsby is one of my favourite books, Fitzgerald in my top 3 writers, and Luhrmann, Maguire and DiCaprio nowhere near my top ten directors or actors, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the 3D aspect of it, so I will be going into this new adaptation with great trepidation. The A&E version that came out a few years ago was pretty decent and still stands as my go-to version if I feel like watching the show. I really enjoyed Nick Caraway being played by the not-yet-an-Apatow-standard Paul Rudd, and Mira Sorvino had a decent turn at Daisy but I wasn't really sold on the remainder of the cast so I still have that not-quite-right feeling about it whenever I watch it.

I honestly have every faith that Luhrmann will be able to catch the look of the period, and Leo might actually make a decent Gatsby, but what I think will ultimately save this newest version for me is the casting of Carey Mulligan as Daisy. I adored her in An Education and she was a delight on Doctor Who. She's the only reason I'm planning on watching the LaBeouf-laden Wall Street 2 and think I would follow her to any show or movie. If she was in the new Transformers movie I'd probably go see that, too.

Anyway, here's the link to the story if you want to check it out.

Later!

mike

Directors Meme Who's Who #2

Continuing my Directors thoughts, I tackle #2 on my list:

David Fincher

I've loved the guy's stuff since Alien 3 and he's made very few missteps along the way. His music videos are generally exceptional and the guy worked for ILM on return of the Jedi. He gets some cool points for that right there. In fact, because of his experience behind the camera he is highly skilled in front of the camera. He can do light and shoot and design effects like Cameron are known for because he's done the job before, although he does seem like less of an asshole while doing it. He is one of the finest American directors out there with a subtle yet unmistakable visual style. He has an ability to draw out fantastic performances from his actors and chooses occasionally odd, but always compelling, subject matter.

He's also developing The Goon for animation, so watch for that to hopefully happen in the future.

mike

Directors Meme Who's Who #1

I mentioned last time that I would do a brief thing on each director I put into my 15 Director list, so I'm back to do a little blurb on each of them. I'll do them in order of appearance and I won't necessarily do more than one at a time, mostly because I'm lazy but also to give me a moment to reflect on the why before committing it to the ol' blog. Also, the order of the list is totally random. To start with:

Ridley Scott

I don't remember the first Scott film I saw but I think it was Blade Runner, and I'm thinking that because I was a huge Harrison Ford fan for years. I also wasn't allowed to watch Alien for the longest time because it was supposed to be horrifying, so I stayed away from that movie until I got wise. I don't think I need to tell anyone what I got from Blade Runner and how it changed the way I looked at movies. Everything from the story to the visual style just made such an impression. All the smoke and neon and retro-future design was intoxicating even for a young 11 or 12 year-old who probably didn't understand what about this stuff was blowing his mind. I remember loving Black Rain and still remember Andy Garcia's death scene in that one. 1492 had some issues but even in a period piece Scott managed to pull off that neon/sodium light glow using natural light sources. His movies were visually dense and more commercial and accessible than Gilliam or Lynch to a young cinema enthusiast. I think Scott made me think a little more about what I was looking at and why, and created in me an expectation for the filmmakers I would follow throughout my days.

Cheers!

mike

15 Directors Meme

This is a meme I picked up from the website Secure Immaturity and thought I would play along.

List off the first 15 directors that come to your head that have shaped the way you look at movies. You know, the ones that will always stick with you. Don’t take too long to think about it.

These are mine:

Ridley Scott
David Fincher
Steven Spielberg
Darren Aronofsky
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Wim Wenders
Orson Welles
Andrew Niccol
Steven Soderbergh
Edgar Wright
Cameron Crowe
Sam Raimi
Terry Gilliam
Luc Besson
Christopher Nolan

I'd also like to give Jonathan Glazer an honourable mention. He just missed the cut.

If I get a moment I'll come back in and 'talk' briefly about each director and how they changed the way I look at films. I also look forward to seeing what anybody else might come up with.

Cheers!

Mike

The Counterfifth Detective

I think 100 Bullets was in it's late twenties or early thirties when 'The Counterfifth Detective' storyline rolled in, and for whatever reason, I stopped buying and reading the series at that point. It was probably a money decision, or I missed an issue and my store didn't have it and the completist in me made me stop buying it until I found it. Either way, it ended my relationship with the book several years ago and I haven't read an issue since.

Now that the series is over I've kind of had thoughts of revisiting it. I've always liked the series. Azzarello was one of my first interview gigs, too, talking to me for FEARSMag sometime before the first year was up. It's what started me on the book, to be honest.

So, I'm at the library and I'm picking out some books and movies to take home when I run across the collected 'Counterfifth Detective' and I think to myself, "why not?". I bring it home, I finished reading it today, and I'm a little surprised at how clichéd it was in plot and dialogue. I don't remember the book being quite that 'on the button', for lack of a better word, with all the noir tropes and catchy dialogue. I can't remember, for the life of me, but was the whole run like this from the beginning? There were some interesting elements to the story, and the artwork by Eduardo Risso was beautiful, as always, but something here missed the mark for me.

I'm certainly going to continue grabbing the trades and finishing the story to the end, I'm just a bit non-plussed regarding my reentry into the series. Here's to Book 6, I guess.

Later!

mike

Reading Some Greek Street

Typical that just before I decided that I did, indeed, enjoy Peter Milligan's latest creator-owned offering, Greek Street, I find out that it has been cancelled as of its 16th issue. Not sure how long ago that was but it's been a bit. I seem to have a history of being attached in some way to books that don't survive. I'm a walking, talking, cancelled comics cavalcade, you might say.

Anyway, I grabbed the first collected edition of GS at my local library thinking, "I'm going to give this book another chance", and found myself really enjoying the heck out of it the second time around. I'm still not overly familiar with the Greek tragedies that the stories and characters are based on, but the stories in the first 5 or 6 issues was compelling enough for me to ignore that fact. Add to that the beautiful artwork of Davide Gianfelice and you have a comic book that was definitely unappreciated in its time. From what I've read in interviews with Milligan, he really hoped this would be another long-term project and he had a lot of stories to tell.

As it is, there are 16 issues of the series and I have yet to read 10 or 11 of them, so at least I have that to look forward to. I'm also able to continue enjoying Milligan's writing over on John Constantine: Hellblazer, so it's not like I'll be going without his particular brand of storytelling month in and month out.

I do recommend checking out Greek Street, though, if you haven't already. It's definitely not for everyone, but it may tickle your fancy.

Later.

mike

I Heart Jenn...Grant, That Is

One of my favourite artist discoveries of the last couple of years is the lovely and amazingly talented, Jenn Grant. I can't say enough about how great I think her stuff is, how amazing she is live, and the fact that her newest album, due out on January 11th from Six-Shooter Records, is streaming live for anyone curious enough to check it out at CBC3's blog here.

I'll be shilling this thing for months, I'm sure, on all my social media outlets, so check it out if you want to know what the heck it is I'm talking about.

Hope it gives you as much of a buzz as it gives me.

Later!

Image is totally cribbed from CBC3's site.

mike

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #6

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #7
(Marvel Comics Group)

Plot/Script by: David Michelinie
Pencilled by: Kerry Gammill
Inked by: Sam de la Rosa
Cover by: Kerry Gammill

"Guess I'd better switch to 'Plan B'. Playin' it by ear!"

Dateline 1936

"Africa Screams!" begins with an adventure in medias res. Indy has infiltrated a monastery in France to retrieve a summoning stone that was stolen from the National Museum by a man named McIver who deals in the trafficking of ancient artifacts. He uses the monastery to house them and transports them in wine barrels so they go unseen by the authorities. Indy is wise to their scheme and, in the process, runs afoul of McIver who gets the drop on Indy and sounds the alarm. A chase ensues where Indy evades McIver's men, steals a truck and gets away, traveling back to Connecticut and home.

There he meets with Marcus Brody who points out that the rock Indy recovered was wrapped in a piece of paper that Indy grabbed, and that paper happens to be a rare map which may show the location of the lost tribe of the Shintay, an offshoot group of Atlanteans who fled the continent. It appears that they may be located in the Congo and Brody tells Indy he will have to leave at once since time will be of the essence.

Marion Ravenwood re-enters the picture as she was 'hiding' in the room during Indy's discussion with Brody and insists on being taken along. Several days later the pair hit Western Africa and try to put together an expedition with some bearers but another group already came through and hired everyone in the small village for a similar expedition. Indy and Marion decide to go on alone and have some misadventures with the local wildlife until they meet up with the aforementioned group led by Dr. Curt Vogel.

Indy suspects this other group of also trying to find the Shintay and does some poking around the camp that night. He is discovered and the enemy is revealed as Vogel admits to being Colonel Vogel and that he is a Nazi. He has been working with McIver, who recognized Indy, and is about to eliminate Jones but is thwarted as Indy escapes, rounds up Marion and hides in a cave with her, waiting for the soldiers to leave before they double back to the camp and gather some supplies before continuing on their own.

Just then, from behind the two of them, a pair of eyes come out of the darkness and an animal growl can be heard...

This was another really good issue with all the right pacing, action and touches to make a proper Indiana Jones adventure. Surprisingly, all the characters from the film are very much in character and, if one really wanted to go there, this story could even be considered canon. I hope Michelinie manages to keep this style and quality of storytelling up for the duration of his run. If he does manage it, this will be a very enjoyable reviewing process for the foreseeable future. The artists, Kerry Gammill and Sam DeLaRosa, do an admirable job of creating a world that I can believe belongs to an Indiana Jones story. Their likenesses of the characters are quite good and their environments are nicely detailed and have a lot of texture. The storytelling is strong and Gammill moves things along at a nice pace, never letting the reader get lost either geographically or in the narrative. After several artist changes, good and bad, I hope this is the new creative team for a little while.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story and look forward to the follow up in #8.

Summing Up Saw

I often get funny looks from friends and family when I say that I genuinely enjoyed the first Saw film and appreciated the twist and cast in the second. Because of my overall distaste for 'torture porn', which seems to be the preference of horror fans of today, I went into each Saw film expecting it to be my last. I made a decision that each time I sat down to watch one of these things, if it tweaked me the wrong way, I was done with the series. And so, the third entry would be my last foray into the house that Leigh Wannell and James Wan built. By that point the whole idea seemed to get subverted by the sheer pleasure of showing people tortured and ripped to pieces in the most sadistic ways possible. The morality that Jigsaw seemed to be enforcing was no longer a concern to the new writers and directors.

I never expected to be posting on the Saw movies, especially so long after I've seen and given up on them, but this blog post on Secure Immaturity conjured up some residual feelings on the subject when the writer echoed my feelings on the franchise with this comment:

The Jigsaw Killer kind of has a point in the first film and maybe at the end of two but. . .by Saw VI the dude is just a pure sadist and we, as an audience, have to admit we have a little sadism in us to enjoy something so sick. I only like the third Saw because of this fact: it pushes my buttons and brings me to the line where I say ‘okay, enough is enough’.

Granted, he liked Saw III, but it's still nice to see that I'm not alone in my feelings.

Now, I will say that I'm mildly curious (and I stress mildly) to see the last installment because of Sean Patrick Flannery's involvement, but after seeing Boondock Saints II, I think even the fanboy pull I once had for SPF's stuff won't get me over the hump for this one.

Later!

mike

Trek Commentary in High-Def

As some of you may know, I bought Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on BD for boxing day (along with a few other Trek movies) and part of the reason was to hear the new commentary track by director Nicholas Meyer and Enterprise executive producer, Manny Coto. I wasn't sure what to expect, seeing as how I had listened to the previous Meyer track done for the DVD release and the fact that I recently read his amazing autobiography, The View From the Bridge, and was a little worried that it would be a retread of everything I had heard or read previously. Meyer & Coto, however, do not disappoint and conduct a nice, informative discussion about the film, the franchise and the industry. Always nice to listen to anything new by Meyer & haven't heard Coto in a while.

Although it wasn't the new fan track, I also listened to the audio commentary on First Contact by Ron Moore and Brannon Braga and found it to be equally interesting and very interesting. Braga takes a lot of shit for 'ruining' Trek but listening to the guy on this track he comes off as very knowledgeable about the franchise, very willing to acknowledge what works and what doesn't in the film and the series, and I can't help but think that fandom should cut this guy some slack. I would be interested to hear or see more from this guy in some form or another. Maybe he should write a tell-all book about his experiences with the franchise like everyone from the original cast.

Moore, as always, is a commentary dream. He is incredibly frank, well-spoken, funny and a compelling creative force. I used to love listening to his Galactica podcasts and this track was different only in its polish (the podcasts were recorded on Moore's laptop in his home). I also loved the fact that Moore couldn't stop referring to the movie as an episode until Braga finally stepped in and called him on it. Considering he went from writing the series, to writing the finale "All Good Things", to the Generations movie and then First Conact in quick succession, I can't really blame him. In my opinion, all the Next Generation movies feel like episodes to me. Sue me.

I also explored the BD for VI but it was pretty unremarkable so I'm not going to elaborate on that here and I haven't even touched IV yet so I'll leave my commentary here.

Live Long and Prosper!

mike

Anniversary Post

Well, what can I say. I've been doing this off-and-on now for six years and, while I have focused a little more on the Twitter and the Facebook of late, I do plan to continue with the blog for the foreseeable future. I still like having it around, for some reason. Possibly because those other forms of social media are not compatible with long thoughts or rants. 140 characters won't cut it when I want to go on about boxing day shopping, to use the last post as an example. I also still like the online record that I've left. You can go back through status updates or tweets, but nothing is quite like going back and reading through blog posts. It's like going through your old diary, looking back at what you've done, what you were interested in, and what you thought about it. A little meatier than the photo essays on FB.

Anyway, I'm not saying anything anyone with one of these doesn't already know. Just wanted to mark the occasion, blow the proverbial noisemaker in celebration and to wish everyone a Happy New Year and all the best in 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, which promises to be pretty darn good for a lot of us.

Thanks for reading if you have been. Your patronage is appreciated.

With that, I take my leave to begin year 7. Maybe lucky number 7, eh?

mike

Boxing Day Shop-a-Thon

As per usual on Boxing Day, I and the rest of the family head out and grab some decent bargains on the kinds of things we enjoy: DVD/BD for me, electronics for the wife, games for the boy, and clothes for the girls.

Among my many other acquisitions, I finally managed to complete the Star Wars saga on DVD for very cheap. I have always had the prequel trilogy and the box set for the original trilogy, but when they last released the original trilogy in the two-disc packs with the theatrical releases included as a bonus disc, I only bought Episode IV. I felt the whole 'Han shot first' thing was important to have since the Special Edition version of events drive me batshit crazy. I passed on the other two, however, due to their few alterations and figured I would pick them up when they became available for a reasonable price (reasonable for a double or triple dip, anyway). Four years later, here we are.

One thing I have enjoyed about the box set and these discs is the fact that they are covered with different kinds of Star Wars art, poster or otherwise. The covers are photo mash-ups of the original poster art, then there is different poster art, or possibly production art, on the sleeve inside, and more art on the discs themselves. I remember there being a very expressionist style to the inserts on the box set. Just very nice efforts on the packaging, overall.

So, I now have one set of original trilogy on VHS and two on DVD, but I have a strong suspicion that the BD release in the next year or two will not include the theatricals as a bonus feature since George would rather they be forgotten, hence my desire to grab these while I still can.

Among my other boxing day treasures, I mostly upgraded many of my DVDs to BD versions. I always make sure there is something different about the BD before I do so, otherwise I just feel like a tool for spending money again. There has to be new features, or exclusive features or being totally remastered or something to justify it. So, I grabbed the X-Men trilogy, the first 30 Days of Night, Star Trek II, IV, VI & First Contact, V For Vendetta, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Chocolat, Hellboy II, Terminator Salvation and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.

Also grabbed some books over the holiday season like Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza, the second book in Stefan Petrucha's Timetripper series, and George Lucas' Blockbusting, which I've had my eye on for a while.

Oh, and Jen bought me Homicide: Life on the Street as my Christmas present this year. A good haul, overall.

Until next year!

mike

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

The Indiana Jones Comic Book Revue #5

All books are rated on a 0 to 5 Fedoras system.

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #6
(Marvel Comics Group)

Plot/Script by: David Michelinie (from an idea by Archie Goodwin)
Pencilled by: Howard Chaykin
Inked by: Terry Austin
Cover by: Howard Chaykin & Terry Austin

"I actually enjoy saving a person's life twice in one day for no gratitude whatsoever."

Dateline 1936

"Club Nightmare!" reintroduces Marion Ravenwood to the world of Indiana Jones as our hero joins her in New York for the opening of their new business venture, The Raven. With all the money Marion received from "that lost ark mess", and Indy as a silent partner, she decides to open a club in New York. Eventually, she runs afoul of local gangster, Emil Marko, who wanted to be a partner in the business in order to use it as a front for a gambling setup. Marion tells him to go suck an egg and Marko puts the squeeze on Marion, jeopardizing her life and opening night!

This is a pretty good story and stands as one of the best since the Byrne issues right off the top. Michelinie shows some classic pulp sensibilities, giving the affair a nice '30s New York feel and populates the story with characters that remind me of many of the cast of Casablanca. The wonderful art by Howard Chaykin (also the best in the series since Byrne's departure) only serves to enhance the period look and feel of the story and he does an excellent job with the action sequences. It's a shame that he's only here for a single issue fill-in. At least we get to enjoy Chaykin's work in the future when he lends his considerable talent to some excellent covers for the series.

This issue was a really solid installment in the series. It was nice to see a straight up Indy adventure that did not take place in a jungle (unless you want to argue a concrete one), had no supernatural elements and worked like gangbusters (no pun intended) without relying on Nazis, communists or the occult for an antagonist or a MacGuffin. It was also nice to see Marion return even though this story (and this whole series, for that matter) clearly takes place outside of Indy canon. She was consistent, in character and a really good foil for Indy. From what I can tell, Marion continues on in the series for a few issues so we'll see if that trend holds.

Now That I'm On GoodReads...

Tintin: A Biography by Harry Thompson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not a portrait of the artist so much as an analysis of Hergé's work. Granted, Hergé was not a person who spent a lot of time doing interviews or talking about his life, so the source material Thompson used to inform his book is sparse. Add to that the fact that the author did not have access to Hergé's estate and you have a book that is big on enthusiasm but lacking in any real meat-and-potatoes biography. The analysis of each album in the series does give Thompson an iron-clad structure and he manages to offer up some valuable information for the art/cartoon/comic historian/enthusiast. Still, for as much as it says about the artist and his work it still feels lacking. An enjoyable read, overall, and a good primer for the TINTIN neophyte, but I'll probably keep looking for the Hergé bio that sates my appetite. Not a bad thing, necessarily.



View all my reviews

Later!

mike

Ghostbusters Completed

About a week ago I was overcome with ennui and decided to throw in my Ghostbusters video game into the PC and finish it once and for all. When I stopped playing it a while ago I had left off on one of the last levels, I was sure, as the story was kind of wrapping up in a climaxy kind of way. I don't remember what it was that stopped me from playing it through at the time, but I'm sure it got overly difficult and I got bored and busy or something. Anyway, it had been sitting on the shelf for some time and I decided to dust it off and get it out of the way.

Overall, it's probably some of the most fun I've had gaming. Really. The story, acting, graphics, all were top notch!! And, as far as I'm concerned, the game was written by Aykroyd/Ramis, stars the original cast (even Atherton and Potts) and continues the story as if it was the third in a trilogy bringing everything back to Shandor, Gozer, and explaining some of the stuff from GB1. And the new character you play doesn't intrude at all on the story. Even without saying a word he is seamlessly interwoven and actualy interacts with the other characters.

This, folks, is Ghostbusters 3. Make no mistake.

Anyway, now that I'm done the game I seem to still have a bit of a GB jones so I'm probably gonna grab some IDW Publishing GB comics and get an extended fix. I was buying and following all the GB comics but kind of dropped off there for a bit. A lot of one-shots seemed to be coming out that looked hastily conceived and quickly produced, so I sort of stopped buying, but I'll probably go back and re-examine. I just bought the Halloween special written by Peter David which wasn't bad. There's a time-travelling mini written by Scott Lobdell which I'm sure I should be checking out, so that's probably the next step.

Take care!

mike

Check It Out

Watch the pilot episode of The Walking Dead courtesy of AMC. If you like drama, zombies or good storytelling, give it a shot. The books it's based on are great and I'm hoping Frank Darabont gets this right!



Later!

mike

Lap Time

This is getting to be a flattering and, ultimately frustrating, habit of one of our housemates. Whenever I sit down to work or play at my computer, Starbuck finds her way here, gives the weepy-eyed look and jumps up. Not only does my leg fall asleep, not only does hair get everywhere on me and my computer, but I can't really function while she's there. Maybe that's the point.

Oh well, Jen tells me it's adorable.

Later!

mike

Trick-or-Treat

Another Halloween come and gone again for another year. I didn't really do anything myself, per se, on the day (does seeing PSYCHO in a snazzy big theatre count?) but I took the kids out and they trick-or-treated in their costumes with their friends. Costumes are beginning to get more interesting as the years go on because of their changing/evolving interests and because they've started assembling them themselves instead of having us do it exclusively. Kate (with a little help) cobbled together this Hogwarts student outfit and Emma went as Buffy the Vampire Slayer after an aborted attempt at trying to put together an Envy Adams cotume (an expensive error in judgement, too). Simon used an old costume we had which was the Brandon Routh Superman tights with the colouring and fit from Superman Returns.

Overall, it was a good time, a good haul, and the yard has never looked better. I wish I had some pics to show it off. The last few years we've been collecting up decorations at Halloween sales and things have been shaping up nicely. We can finally start celebrating one of our fave holidays in a way we haven't really done in the past.

Anyway, pics of the kids below. Kate is the Gryffindor girl on the far right.



Later!

mike

Fringe Reading

This afternoon I finished reading the collected Fringe comic that Wildstorm put out a while ago. I picked it up because of my interest in the show and I'd heard that it was a not-bad read that did, in fact, enhance the viewing experience somewhat due to its exploration of the pasts of William Bell and Walter Bishop.

Well, the main story featuring the two oddball scientists was pretty lackluster so I was, overall, disappointed with the experience. I'll definitely keep to the show and avoid any more 'hidden tales' from the fringe. The shorter back-up stories, however, were pretty decent in a Weird Tales or Strange Science-Fiction Stories sort of way. In fact, it looks like the publisher is following this format for their second Fringe series called Tales From the Fringe which appears to be all shorter stories with twist endings and weird situations. The only real difference is the new series actually stars characters from the show like Broyles, Dunham and Peter, so it's a little more interesting to read.

Anyway, just wanted to get some thoughts down on the experience. Not really recommended for anyone but the most die-hard of fans, so reader beware.

Until next time.

mike

What's Going On?

It's been a busy and somewhat hectic couple of months here at Jozic HQ. For starters, Jen has moved back from Regina (where she was working at the Provincial archives), my job has been downsized something awful, I've started the process of putting a business together with my brother, had some family health issues, and read and listened to a lot of really cool stuff.

Looking back on my TwitterFeed (yes, I really do have to look back to remember) the kids and I celebrated Groucho Marx's birthday on the 2nd of Oct. by watching A Night at the Opera and it was received very well by middle child, Kate. Emma had already seen it and Simon remains uninterested in anything B&W, so to hell with him. Anyway, Kate got a lot of the jokes, which is impressive considering how much of it is wordplay, and I've even caught her quoting lines every now and then. "And if not, I'll be back. And with squeaky shoes!"

The kids and I also finished Season 3 of Doctor Who and started the fourth, and final, Tenant series. We've been having a blast with these episodes and if I could just convince them to explore some Eighth Doctor goodness with me, that would make things just perfect. It's a work in progress, to say the least.

I debated on starting a Human Target podcast. Could be fun, but am I really committed to the idea? Give it some time to simmer a bit, I think.

I kinda went off on Steve Rude in 'his time of need' on Twitter. In fact, you probably can't even call it going off on him, since he probably doesn't know about it. Comics journalist Tom Spurgeon did reply with some commentary, trying to put some perspective on my irk, which prompted my Rude post a week ago, but I just received a print that I ordered from the Rude Dude store and it was in rough shape so I'm pissed off again.

Started up with Netflix, which has been a ton of fun. Lots of docs and foreign films I've been wanting to see. Watched some other stuff, too. Well worth the $8 CAN so far. I urge anyone who hasn't to try it out.

Everything kind of wraps up with Thanksgiving, some DVDs and BD's I've bought and watched, and that brings us up to the current situation.

So, with that, I'll take my leave. There are some things I'd like to post about and they're just itching to get out but for whatever reason, they're not there yet. As soon as they are, I'll be back here in a flash.

Toodles!

mike

Help a Dude Out

Okay, so I posted a new banner up top of the page and will continue to do so throughout the series of auctions being put on by Steve Rude and his wife Jaynelle. See, they're in a rough patch and their house is in danger of being foreclosed on and these folks are trying to unload a bunch of comic art and other merch in order to help pay some of the bills.

Steve is one of the finest artists to ever work in comics and his Nexus series with Mike Baron is possibly one of the finest series ever produced. There was a recent attempt to relaunch the book under Steve's creator owned imprint but for whatever reason that didn't pan out for the long-term, much to the dismay of all of his fans, this one included.

Anyway, if you are a fan yourself, love comic book art or just wanna maybe help a guy and his family out, click through at the top of the page and take a gander at what's being offered.

Take care!

mike

Sharing a Little Grace

It was on this day back in 1982 that Grace Kelly, Hollywood icon and Princess consort of Monaco, died when she lost control of her vehicle and drove off the road and crashed. I've never considered myself a huge Kelly fan, but I've enjoyed several of her movies, particularly To Catch a Thief, and have always appreciated her class and stunning beauty.

Grace was recently reintroduced to me through a Vanity Fair article which discussed he fashion sense (which I have always adored), and touched briefly on her life which, subsequently, stirred some interest in me to seek out a biography to get a more thorough picture of her, and her time in Hollywood. In the process, I ran across High Society by Donald Spoto, which seems to be pretty good so far and also subscribes to the same sort of interviewing and biography ethos I personally follow. There's a great deal of respect for the subject, and that's something I like to see. Torrid tell-alls are not mu cup of tea.

From what I've seen so far in Spoto's book, Grace was a genuinely nice, generous and real person, despite her status and fame; another thing I like in my celebrities.

I'll also never forget Lauren Bacall tweeting from the Oscars when she referenced the young girls there who all had beautiful gowns but also terrible posture and little refinement. She said Grace would be rolling in her grave.

So there it is, my odd little tribute to Grace Kelly. Maybe I'll watch TCaT again tonight. Or grab one I haven't seen. Either way, I'm gonna squeeze a little Grace into my day.

Later!

mike

Mobile Databasing

I downloaded a new app for my iPhone which is a database for my DVDs and BDs that I can take around with me. It's not a really important thing to have on me at all times, but I am asked often enough about my movies (a collection that is 1500+ unique titles strong) when I'm not at home that I thought it might be nice to have something like that available at my fingertips. I also kind of loved the fact that I can use my camera to scan each and every one of my movies and it automatically adds them to the database. So far, I've only run into a few that have stumped IMDB and those are easy enough to add manually. I was kicking around, relaxing and listening to some Fringe commentary and scanned, like, 100 discs into the database in the time it took to finish one episode. Not too shabby.

A lot of other stuff was done today, but for whatever reason the database app is the one thing standing out to me right now, so that's what you get on the blog.

Later!

mike

Image Worth a Thousand Words

This image and cover makes me ridiculously happy.

mike

Thinking of DS9 Again

Just started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine again and decided to look back at some of my earlier DS9 posts from, like, 2005.

Originally I made the decision to watch the series in its entirety, since I never had before, and since I was probably looking for content at the time figured I would do reviews of the episodes as I watched them. Looking at them now I'm actually happy with what I was doing at the time but I also noticed that I stopped reviewing episodes after Season 1. I'm sure that it had something to do with nobody commenting on them at the time and me deciding that it wasn't worth the time and effort, but I'm considering going back and doing Season 2 and catching up to where I currently am on Season 3. Right now I am, literally, in the middle of watching episode 17, "Prophet Motive", so there would be a bit of catching up to do, but I am finding that every time I come back to this show after a lengthy hiatus it never gets stale, I'm never not in the mood, and the stories and characters keep getting better and better.

I was just talking to my wife about guilty pleasures or junk food TV (she watches Grey's Anatomy and Friday Night Lights for her silly fix, for example, while I have been known to occasionally watch Smallville) and I also mentioned how I used to consider DS9 just that. But the quality of the show (despite dragging along 30 years of franchise history and the baggage and clichés of two previous series) and my enjoyment of it elevates it beyond that, I think.

So, I'll give it some thought, maybe revisit the idea as I continue to run through the series. If anyone has any opinions on the matter, feel free to voice them.

Until then...

mike

Cleaning Up

I noticed that I have a crapload of links that I've snagged and left in my bookmark folder and decided to clean a few of them out with a good ol' fashioned linkblog. Haven't done one of these in a while so I'll just get started and perhaps there may be something of interest to someone herein:

This post by Valerie D'Orazio is from her blog Occasional Superheroine. It's a couple of years old but I always loved the story and the punchline is gold.

A few months ago I was on a big Hannah Georgas kick and this Q&A grabbed my attention for some reason. It might have been the description of the song meanings or perhaps the story about the children vocalists. Either way, if you're a fan or a curious observer, there may be some tidbit of interest there for you.

This link will take you to a Rian Hughes video where he talks about his career in design and comics. If you're interested in graphic design, comics, typography, that sort of thing, it's worth checking out.

After The Golden Compass hit theatres, I found this interview with the author of the Northern Lights trilogy, Phillip Pullman. I quite liked the interview at the time and thought Pullman was an interesting subject.

The Cerebus: A Diablog site is the brainchild of Laura Hudson and Leigh Walton where they read and discuss each issue of Cerebus from #1 on. It's pretty interesting to read, to be honest. I think they are at #11 or #12 at the moment, I could be wrong. I suppose I could always click on the link to find out, couldn't I? Well, so could you if you were so inclined.

This is an article from RodSerling.com discussing the adaptation of Planet of the Apes from novel to film. It discusses changes made and what-not. I was on an Apes or Twilight Zone kick a bit ago and dug this up around that time. Kind of interesting reading for those interested in the film series or Serling. I also remember digging up Pierre Boulle's script for the proposed sequel, Planet of Men or something like that, but that's another link for another time.

The Magic of Shazam! blog was created by Mark Kunkel to document his experience while creating the first 5-or-so issues of that series. It's a good read if you care about that series or Kunkel in any way, shape or form.

io9 gives you 13 Alien Languages You Can Actually Read. 'Nuff said, I think.

John Adcock wrote an article called "Runyon on Herriman" which, if you recognize any of those names, is worth a read.

On a more recent note, Bryan Singer talks Matthew Vaughn and the upcoming X-Men: First Class movie over at AICN.

Eddie Campbell interview with Forbidden Planet International. He talks about the big Alec book and other stuff.

Hmmm, that's a few of the links that are cluttering up the ol' PC. I hope some of them are of interest to people. At the very least, they're not taking up space on my end and I can hit the blog whenever I want to check one of them out, which is the whole purpose of doing this anyways, isn't it? Perhaps I will attack with another set in the near future.

Cheers!

mike

Kudos To Red Hood

I gotta give credit where credit is due here, and the bulk of the success of Batman: Under the Red Hood lies in Judd Winick's screenplay which he adapted from his own work on the Batman comic books (I think it was in Batman but it could have been Detective, I don't know). I mean, sure, the show looks good, and has some good action sequences, and decent art direction, and great sound design, and pretty good music, and the cast is not bad, but I honestly think it's the pacing and structure of the story that really makes this thing work better than most of the D2DVD Warner/DC animations to date. Everything from Superman: Doomsday to Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths suffer in one way or another and never truly feel like a fully fleshed out and complete story. Every one of them, with the exception of Green Lantern: First Flight and Batman: Gotham Knight because of its anthological nature (is that even a word), feel compressed, rushed, and squeezed into their limited running times.

Despite my previous misgivings, I have to concede that Under the Red Hood was an entertaining experience and had many good moments in it. The only weak points it really has stem from some lame CGI and my own lukewarm reaction to the Red Hood storyline when I first read it a while ago.

Anyway, disjointed and rushed though they may be, those are my thoughts on the movie and I'm moving on to work on some other stuff. I just wanted to sound off while this was fresh in my mind.

Take care!

mike

Under the Hood

Not looking too forward to this although I cannot deny some curiosity:



Probably a renter rather than a purchase. Haven't really embraced any of the DC Animated films since Wonder Woman, which wasn't all that strong. Actually, Green Lantern: First Flight was pretty good, now that I think about it, but I haven't bought any of them since WW.

Anyway, time will tell. Released on July 27th, if I'm not mistaken.

Later!

mike

Not Sure What To Post...

...but I sort of have a bit of momentum going. I think I've posted something just about every day this week. Considering my previous output, I consider this nothing short of a miracle.

Anyway, not much going on right now.

I could mention I went to the Star Wars: In Concert show a bit ago, which was cool. The performance itself was solid and one tended to stare at the big screen as opposed to the orchestra so it wasn't much in the way of concert experiences, really. Seeing Anthony Daniels was a treat, though, and getting to see the traveling exhibits was also very, very cool.

Each case was incredibly crowded and it was almost impossible to get any photos of myself with them since I was alone, but I snagged a few and took straight shots of everything else for the ol' FaceBook album. I had to use my iPhone so they didn't all come out great, but at least I have a record of the event, which is more than I can say for many other things I've seen and gone to in the past.

If you're a FaceBook buddy of mine you can head over and check them out. If not, I'll maybe post more pics another time. For now, though, here's me and the Dark Lord of the Sith, himself.



Peace!

mike

Thank You BRMC

I've gotten a bit of a respite from my disastrously bad mood in the form of some kick-ass BRMC tunes. I don't know what it was, exactly, that lifted me from my funk, but lifted I am. It could be temporary, and I'm prepared to take that as it comes. For now, though, "Bad Blood", "Howl", "Promise", "Weight of the World", "Shadow's Keeper" and a few others are life-savers of the best kind. Whether it's the lyrics or the music or a combination of the two, I don't care. I've been enjoying the last few hours and this is good.

I just thought I would share.

And speaking of sharing:



Later!

mike

Something That Made Me Go Hmmmm

So, I'm sitting in the car after work, having just driven up in front of the house, and I started putting some touches on another poem that I started writing at work (yeah, don't even ask) and waiting for the rain to die down before going in. I had Death Cab For Cutie playing on the stereo because I had been listening to them all day, off and on. So, they're right in the middle of "The Ice Is Getting Thinner", right when that agonizingly lonely guitar comes in for the solo, and just as I stopped writing the sky opened up and down came the the rain in a torrent. I couldn't see out the windows, I couldn't very well get out of the car, and there was just me, the music and the weather. It was an interesting moment. I'd use the word poetic but that would just seem like a crass pun.

Although it is entirely unintentional, I'm also finding it not entirely coincidental that I'm in the middle of reading a Nick Hornby book and listening to a lot of DCFC. Hornby has always been the one writer who seems to know me better than I do. Alternately, Ben Gibbard has quickly become a favourite songwriter for writing many, many lyrics that seem torn from the pages of my life, thematically if not literally. I've always had a passing interest in the band but their Drive Well, Sleep Carefully DVD sort of put it all over the top for me. Now they are on heavy rotation in the ol' iTunes.

Anyway, I'm kind of trying to organize a snack run of some kind so I'm gonna blast.

Later!

mike

Recent Acquisitions

Among other things, this weekend involved some new acquisitions which I thought I would make mention of here. While out and about with Jen we hit a local used bookstore and I found a very nice copy of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, something I've been meaning to buy but never have gotten around to. I took the book out of the library once, years ago, and had to return it before finishing it so I look forward to taking another crack at it. Maybe I'll watch the movie when I'm done. Not the Farrely Bros. one, the one starring Colin Firth.

I also grabbed the first issue of what appears to be a new Batman Beyond series. I had not heard of this (which shows how unplugged I am from mainstream comics these days) but I curious and excited to explore what lies within. Writer Adam Beechen knows his animated properties and the artist, Ryan Benjamin, looks pretty decent so I have high hopes for reading it. I was, and still am, a huge fan of the television series this comic is based on and any chance to see Terry McGinnis again (as long as it's not complete shit, anyways) is a nice surprise.

Update: Just read it and I'm pleased! Art and story were well done. A little out of my comfort zone style-wise to really embrace it as 'of the series' but I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this six-issue series pans out.

I also grabbed an official guide to Battlestar Galactica which covers the relaunch, the mini-series and the first season, if I'm not mistaken. So far, from what I've read, it's pretty darn good. Moore is not pulling any punches and, short of covering all the failed attempts to bring the series back, it's an informative read coming from primary sources.

Nabbed a couple of albums by Pinback, which were recommended to me by Jen. The jury's still out on the band but so far I'm liking what I hear.

Kate picked up Lego Rock Band and we have been rockin' out for most of the evening to some cool tunes by some of our favourite bands. I have to say I'm happy to see The Kooks, Vampire Weekend, Glasvegas, Blur and Phoenix all represented amidst the Big Ones that you expect to see. It warmed the cockles of my heart.

Oh, and while she was doing that I picked up a discount copy of Mothra vs. Godzilla for, like, $5. I haven't opened it yet but I doubt I'll return it. Simon might have fun watching it with me, he's a bit of a Godzilla nut. I mean, he's 9, what do you expect?

So that's it. I could mention the cannelloni dinner I made today, which was fabulous, but that's less of an acquisition and more of a 'see what I DID today' kind of thing. Maybe post on it later. I'll be taking some samples in to work to let the proles sample some of my wares.

Anyway, on that note, I will depart. Take care, stay warm, keep fit and play safe.

mike

Packaging Fubars

For an explanation of what this is and means, click through to Jerry Beck's post at the Cartoon Brew blog.

This is almost as good as the "Rob Liefeld's Shaft: 7 Inches, fully poseable" ad that ran in Diamond Previews several years ago. Although, only comic book people saw that so I guess this is not as funny but more universal.

Anyway, 'til next time.

mike

To Airbend, or Not to Airbend?

I was planning to go to The Last Airbender this week (being a huge fan of the animated series) but the reviews are kind of scaring me off. I look at the Tomatometer and it has a 9% fresh rating right now. That's terrible. Still, the last X-Files movie had a 12% and I loved it to bits, so maybe TLA isn't that bad. But then I hear the fans responses, and Ebert's review which was painfully scathing in its dislike of the film (Ebert, btw, loved the last X-Files movie) and I have to wonder. The Avatar community is also pretty heated in its hate for the film. I don't know if it's just expectations that were too high or what but it's enough to keep me away, possibly until it hits the discount theatre or the kids push us to take them.

Every time I try and overcome a negative with this movie I always manage to find something to make me pull back and away, again. Maybe that's enough reason to stay away.

mike

On a Happier Note

I`ve been listening to a lot of Charlatans lately so I thought I would share this live version of `Oh! Vanity`.

The Charlatans@Ray Ban Unplugged Primavera Sound 2010 from VICE España on Vimeo.

And, if anyone cares, the mood is a little better today than yesterday.

Cheers!

mike

Seriously?

I'm not gonna explain why, or who is involved, or what it's about, but I'm so angry right now I want to break things. It's times like these that I wish I boxed or belonged to a gym or something and that I could just go and punish myself physically or beat on something for an hour until I couldn't muster the energy to bother anymore.

I don't remember the last time I felt quite this way. I suppose I could get a lot of cleaning done around the house with all this anger built up inside.

And with that I take my leave. I just had to verbalize it, or say it publically to help take the edge off and that mission is accomplished.

Hopefully there will be something more cheerful next time you hear from me.

mike

Surprise Return

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of me for another two months, here I am.

I'm kind of sitting here at my computer, doing not much. I'm waiting for someone to contact me who I'm beginning to suspect will not, in fact, contact me, so I decided to head over to NPR and stream the new Stars album which is bloody fantastic!!! I also figured I'd pop on and do another posting. Go figger.

I don't have much to say, really. A lot of weird stuff has been going on at Meanwhile... HQ and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that is, but there's been some soul searching, some examining of life changes and choices, and lots of other boring stuff that nobody wants to read about, I'm sure. It's part of the reason that I haven't been blogging. I've never made this much of a personal forum, reserving it for my pop cultural predilections, so this end kind of gets neglected when I'm in one of these moods/phases.

Anyway, That's all for now. Will post again soon. Promise. Hopefully it will be more interesting than this.

I will leave you however with this:



mike

Been a While

So, yeah, like the title says, it has been a while since I've posted anything here. That's partly because of my other online social networking accounts, but also because I'm just finding I have less patience for sitting and posting on here. I figured I would pop on and do something, though, since I've left it to flounder for something like 2 months.

Since coming back from Ottawa I had this really strange dream which may or may not be slightly influenced by being at the National Gallery only days before. It was this weird amalgam of a Jacob's Ladder type surreal experience with a They Live like twist for flavour.

I was in this enormous gallery/mall where there were doors on certain levels that would take you to another dimension where everything was red or everything was blue or yellow exclusively, and each colour would correlate to a behaviour or mood. Red being aggressive, maybe yellow was passive or cowardly, I don't know what the rest were anymore. So, occasionally a person would slip through accidentally and they would be prized by the denizens of these alternate worlds because they wanted to use the openings that you accidentally created to slip through into our world and take your place.

I remember there was this large open area, like an arcade or square, that was enclosed in glass. There were these giant dancing female creatures with crazy twisted/monstrous features which I think only I could see. This may or may not have been an effect of what eventually led me to the other world or not. Possibly a precursor of the walls breaking down, or something. Now that I think about it, the gallery art and certain details would change as well depending on the world you were in.

I somehow slipped into the red world and everyone there had transparent skin so you could see the musculature and bones and eyeballs underneath. They knew that I was wrong when I reacted to their appearance. I'm guessing if I kept my cool thay might not have clued in but they ended up chasing me, trying to capture me, before I could get back to where I came from.

Sounds kind of silly typing it up but it was pretty weird and discomforting while I was in the dream.

Maybe there's a story there.

Anyway, that's perhaps not what one might expect from a comeback post but that is what I have got, so...

Take care and we'll see you later!

mike

You Gotta Take Your Medicine Where You Can Find It

Kinda rediscovered a little band by the name of Medicine not too long ago. They're probably most widely known for contributing a song, "Time Baby 3", to the soundtrack album for The Crow. It is, in fact, the first place I ever heard of the band. Their stuff is a pain-in-the-ass to find but I did run across these videos which give you a taste for what they sounded like (and looked like, I guess).


Medicine - The Pink (1993)

Medicine | MySpace Music Videos


Medicine - Never Click (1993)

Medicine | MySpace Music Videos

It was always difficult to listen to an album all the way through without getting a headache, but when the mood struck it was brilliant chaos blasting through the speakers. Still is, really.

Anyway, I'm so freakin' tired I'm falling asleep in my computer chair so I'm gonna sign off.

Cheers!

mike

Small Update to the Site

Just went in and updated the sidebar with new items from the Amazon store which, of course, is all stuff I have worked my grubby paws, eyes and ears through over the last little while. I've also added an old friend's blog to the sidebar links. Just check under Citric Sugar and click through to see my friend Carly's regular updates, projects and thoughts.

As for casa Jozic, not a lot happening around here right now. Spent a lazy Saturday watching Hot Fuzz with my eldest daughter and a late night last night watching (500) Days of Summer, which is now also my absolute favourite rom/com of all time. Just trying to keep things on the downlow, overall.

There may be some news to share soon but until then I'm gonna keep mum on the subject.

Oh, and I guess I could mention that I've been writing a bit these days. Even tried my hand at writing song lyrics, but that proved painful and I abandoned it after a day or so. Still, I've made some progress on the forever unfolding Smitten and look forward to seeing where things go from there.

And last, but not least, I just went and spent a schwack of dough on some comics at a big sale at my LCS. I completed a number of sets including Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye, Savior 28 (although the 5th issue has a buggered cover), Agents of Atlas (the proper monthly as well as the X-Men cross-over), got current with Mike Allred's Madman up to #17, I think, most of the first year of X-Statix, X-Men: First Class: Finals, some issues of Incognito, B.P.R.D. 1947, the last three issues of Millar and Hitch's FF run (although Hitch didn't actually finish it), and some random singles and magazines. It was a good haul. Gonna be reading for a while, I think.

I guess I could mention that I purchased the new Gorillaz album and The Flash Season 1 for a steal, but I'll maybe comment on those at a later date.

So, until then...

mike

"I am not a number!"

I know it's yet another video post but I've started watching AMC's Prisoner remake and it's got me in a McGoohan state of mind. AMC is also streaming the original series and I thought I would link to it here.



Cheers!

mike

Made Me Jump Up & Down With Jubilation File

The only thing better than a new album is the fact that they'll tour it and I get to go see them again. Woot!



Peace!

mike

Made Me Smile File

Saw this when Ebert tweeted it. Love Phoenix and this arrangement is pretty cool.



Hope you like it as much as I do.

Later!

mike

Tweet Tweet

Yes, as the title suggests, I've begun a Twitter account. I'm still not sure what practical application Twitter serves, but seeing as how most of my blog posts, if I wrote down every idea that popped into my head, would be about 140 characters long I figured I would give it a go. More often than not, I'll get an idea while driving, at work or just wandering around in public and by the time I get home and start thinking of how to put it together in a blog post, I've already lost interest. Fickle, I know, but the cold, hard truth of the matter.

I'll still be writing meatier bits here, but when the lightning strikes me, I'll probably fire it off there first and see what happens.

Cheers!

mike

Send In the Clones

So, a little while ago I bought the first season of the Clone Wars animated series on Blu-Ray and apart from being just amazed with the overall quality of the presentation, I have kind of been rediscovering these early episodes and seeing them in a slightly new light.

Stories that seemed a little 'meh' on first viewing stand a little taller when watching them in a clump on this set. I've started to really appreciate the writing more, especially in light of where things have gone with the next season. I also think I've started appreciating their time and dollar budgets a little more and have been cutting them some slack for any early missteps. Again, when you see how far they've taken things in season two, you start to see these things from a certain point of view.

One of my favourite things that has really stood out have been the textures on the show. Everything from the characters skin to the sides of buildings and the clone armour have been textured in such a way that they have a very painterly feel to them. And when I made the connection between the crews love of early Star Wars production artwork and the look of Ralph Mcquarrie's artwork, it was like a lightning bolt to the head. Everything on the show is, essentially, a three dimensional, walking and talking Mcquarrie painting. It's great.

And there are so many other tiny details and minutia that make this show a truly underrated effort. I know it is popular, but it doesn't get talked about much outside of Star Wars fandom and the playground. I would actually love to see someone who has lost their Star Wars mojo post-prequels try this show out and see what they think of it, to be honest. I think they might be surprised.

Anyway, that's my Lucas-related post for the month.

As always, more later.

mike