You Knit What? Isn't she cold?

It's a sweater! No wait -- it's string art! Maybe it's leftover from a "Survivor" challenge -- connect the pieces in the right order and win reward.


All I know is, if I'm gonna spend all the time and effort it takes to knit a sweater, I want the whole danged thing.

I'm also not sure I'd want to spend $39 a skein on the silk/mohair blend that this beauty is knitted in -- $200 in yarn (needs 5 skeins) and you don't even get the shoulders?

This little charmer will appear in the winter issue of Interweave Knits. Be sure to reserve your copy today.

Manga Report: Ai Yori Aoshi 11

Kaoru returns to the Hanabishi compound to confront his abusive grandfather. But powerful figure that has haunted Kaoru most of his life has changed -- his grandfather is a fragile old man severely weakened by medical problems.

Kaoru is freed by what he finds at the Hanabishi home, but wait ... is there another Hanabishi??? And what will he do to Kaoru?

The flash of this new character is one of the most dramatic turns this manga has taken in a while -- I hope it plays out well.

Meanwhile, Tina, who is now completely in love with Kaoru, is going crazy without him. She asks Aoi where he's gone -- quite correctly pointing out that Aoi is the only one Kaoru really opens up to.

Tina decides she can't stand to be without Kaoru any longer and goes to find him. Kaoru is surprised to see her, to say the least, but he shows her around.

Tina says she wants to take Kaoru to her hometown -- or even to America. She fesses up about going back to America after graduation, and gets all weepy while she asks Kaoru to make some memories with her.

Well, wouldn't you know it, her little outburst means they miss the train *again* and end up spending the night together *again.* Tina, making another memory, borderline molests Kaoru in his sleep. (You woulda thought that would wake you up, but I guess not?)

Aoi get the surprise of her life when she meets Kaoru at the train station the next day, only to find Tina hanging on his arm.

Really, Kaoru is lucky Aoi is as sweet and accepting as she is -- she can't believe anything bad about him. Otherwise someone would have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.

Kaoru tells Miyabi that he will never return to the Hanabishi. He says they're evil, and if he loves Aoi he can't expose her to them. Miyabi is understandably disappointed -- part of her duties for the Sakuraba was to get Kaoru back into the Hanabishi -- but she says she'll support his decision.

I think Kaoru is simplifying the issue with his family far too much -- something that could come back to haunt him.

Kaoru starts working harder in his classes so he can take care of Aoi, but he ends up neglecting her. Odd how he does the same dumb things over and over.

After the girls have celebrated Kaoru's return and life is basically back to normal, Aoi buys a new obi -- a big deal with the expense and time it takes to make the formal kimono she always wears. She's hoping for a compliment from Kaoru -- not much to ask, after all -- but the other girls are out shopping for clothes that will better emphasize their bustlines. Will Kaoru even notice her?

There's a bonus chapter at the end spoofing the Ai Yori Aoshi "love sim game." I've seen a few of these before (one involving a would-be nun and the altar of an abandoned church) but this chapter was something else -- I guess the artist decided it had just been too danged long since she got Aoi out of her clothes.

Comic Report: Batman: Detective 27

Because Graphic Novel Report just sounded stupid. ;-)

I did some heavy reading last week to catch up on a few weeks worth of comics. One of the things in my stack was this "Elseworlds" graphic novel.

Since I'm the most rabid of the rabid Deadlands fangirls, anything with Lincoln, Pinkertons and Southern plotting has my attention. This didn't disappoint.

Our story combines Southern sympathizers, genetics, assassination plots, secret societies, seriously long-term plans and a host of real-life and DC celebs from the 1860s to the late 1930s.

Bruce's parents still die, but their deaths are more than a simple robbery -- it's all part of the grand scheme. Bruce Wayne becomes more than a playboy, but somehow less than the Batman we know and love. It's fun to see some of Bats villainous rivals in a new light, and Detective 25! We never knew!

And while I'm on the subject of comics ...

Some things I'm digging lately (in no particular order): Fables, Jack of Fables (love it!), Girls, Spike vs. Dracula, Batman Detective Stories, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther, Boys, Astonishing X-Men, Moon Knight, Angel: Spotlights.

I'm still annoyed that The Legion of Super-Heroes, a title I was enjoying, has added Supergirl and turned stupid. I've dropped it.

Most of the Civil War titles are pretty cool, but I've got some quibbles:

• Why are the cape-killers so intent on hunting heroes? Luke Cage was just chilling in his house when the deadline passed. Cap was first attacked *before* the law was passed. If they hunted super villains with half this ferocity, there would be peace on our planet.


• The writers have made little attempt to make the pro-registration side sympathetic. That's lazy. The original school incident also didn't have the impact it could of had.


• Reed Richards' actions in Civil War are inconsistent with the guy who has repeatedly flouted governmental authority for what he thought was right.


• There's some continuity errors that are lazy editing. Sue Richards' departure from the FF is significantly different in Civil War No. 4 than it appears in the latest issue of Fantastic Four.


• Just when I wonder if Iron Man can be a bigger bastard, there he goes cloning Thor, freeing villains from jail or locking people up in Guantanamo Bay ... excuse me, the Negative Zone. I'm wondering how Marvel is planning on redeeming this character, because you don't want to make a $100 million movie about an asshat that fans don't like.
  
  I also think it would be cool if Doom showed up to slap Tony around for stealing his moves. There should only be one armored despot in the Marvel universe.


• Stop beating me over the head with the "message." My head hurts.


• Poor Speedball. He deserves A-list status after all this shit.

But I'm still reading, and I want to find out how it ends, so ultimately, the writers have done their job.

Movie Report: "Jet Li's Fearless"

A note to the movie studios: Don't put anyone's name in the title like this. I don't like to see a poster for "Jet Li's Fearless" anymore than I want to see "Mel Gibson's Hate Speech Tirade" or "Tom Cruise's Alien Invasion." No matter who the star is, its pretentious and unnecessary. So stop it.

That being said ...

I am an oddity in the world -- a woman who likes kick flicks. I'm not crazy obsessed or anything, and I won't drive all night to see a Sonny Chiba festival, but I do own "Iron Monkey" on DVD. So take that as you will.

I've seen a lot of lovely films lately, and "Fearless" is one of them. It's beautifully photographed and the fight choreography is stellar. Some of the smaller fights were my favorites -- the one where he takes out the backflipping monks in two moves and the fight in the rain where Jet Li whoops some poor guy while holding on to an umbrella were choice. The fight with Hercules O'Brian is pretty good too.

Jet Li plays an at-times unlikeable character, a prideful martial arts champion only concerned with the next win and the next party. He neglects his family and his loyal best friend for a crowd of sycophants who claim to devote themselves to his style of fighting, but really just want him to pay for their drinks.

Yeah, we can see this isn't going to go well. And we didn't need that annoying, ever-present homeless guy to tell us.

Huo Yuanjia (that's Jet Li) loses it all -- including himself. Rebuilding his life in a typically bucolic village, he decides that sportsmanship is more important than championships, and now he fights to raise the spirits of the Chinese people, culminating in a match with four opponents in a row -- a boxer, a swordsman, a soldier and a Japanese karate expert.

"Fearless" is more "Braveheart" than "Bloodsport," and it's obvious it was Li's love song to his Wu Shu background. It also appears designed to thrill a censor in Beijing -- Western capitalists and self-serving ambition = bad, unity and community service = good. I don't mind movies with a message, but do you have to beat me over the head with it?

Overall, "Fearless" was a watchable movie, but it didn't have the "wow" factor in its martial arts and it didn't have the heart and emotion of other similar films such as "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Anime Report: Howl's Moving Castle

I'm always amused by what Japanese animators think Victorian England looked like. It's like Jules Verne crossed with a fairy tale. And it's very, very clean.

Loosely based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, "Howl" is the story of Sophie, a shy girl in a Victorian-style world (it's not London, but somehow they all look alike). Sophie is resigned to a dreary life working in her family's hat shop, but two things happen: She has an encounter with a mysterious wizard and later is cursed by the dreaded Witch of the Wastes.

The curse transforms Sophie into a 90-year-old woman, and also forbids her to tell anyone what has happened. Seeking a way to restore her youth, Sophie sets off into the wilds, where she ends up in the chicken-legged castle (Baba Yaga reference, anyone?) of Howl, a spoiled but handsome wizard (and the same one who rescued her earlier).

Now Sophie has to break the curse, discover her own power, find true love, save her friends and stop a war, all while having assorted adventures along the way.

This is a fairy tale, and I like fairy tales. They make me happy. And there's a lot to like. The visuals are well done, and the English dubbing is fantastic -- Billy Crystal, Christian Bale, and they even got Lauren Bacall to be the Witch of the Wastes! There also are some very charming characters, including Calcifer, the fire demon bound to Howl's castle, the ever-helpful Turniphead and a funny little asthmatic dog.

Sophie, of course, is plucky, resourceful, hard-working and big-hearted -- she's a fairy tale heroine. What else could she be?

(Of course, I could get into a discussion of the butcher-job Victorians did on fairy tales in general, turning them from dark cautionary tales to pretty fluffy stories, but I'm not gonna. Catch me on a different day or read something along the lines of "From the Beast to the Blonde" or "Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales" to learn more.)

The story is sweet, but has holes -- Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away") assumes the viewer knows things that I didn't, like what the heck was up with Sophie's curse. It appears to fade away at times, then reassert itself. The relationships between some characters are sketchy -- it was never explained exactly what the history was between the king's sorceress and Howl.

Actually -- don't try to follow the story that closely. You'll just be frustrated. Enjoy the beautiful visuals and know all will turn out right in the end.

Manga Report: Ai Yori Aoshi 10

The first chapter of this volume is absolutely useless. It's Chika at school, and it's just an opportunity for shameless, barely-adolescent fan service. Chika and her friends are in the swim club, so we see them changing, stretching in their swimsuits, in the shower ... enough already!

Thankfully, the rest of the volume gets back to the main Aoi and Kaoru story. Finally!

With the other girls out of town, Aoi and Kaoru get to spend sometime alone together. But Kaoru's professor has given him two passes to a swanky hotel, so an innocent day out could end up being a night that changes his relationship with Aoi forever.

But after the night doesn't go as planned, Kaoru falls into a depression. Each of the girls tries to cheer him up in her own way -- Mayu gets him to take her on her first date, Tina tries to get him drunk, Taeko tries to exorcise his demons, and Chika? Well, Chika starts to give him a massage (while wearing inadequate clothing, as usual) and ends up getting a massage from Kaoru instead.

Ultimately, Kaoru decides two things -- he needs to be a better person for Aoi and he must confront and deal with his past before he can embrace his future.

This looks like it could be a turning point for the manga -- it may be time to cut back on the beach and hot spring trips and concentrate on the story.

And Kaoru -- if you want to treat Aoi better, you could start by cutting back on the dates with Tina and Mayu and touchy-feely games with Chika and Taeko. Choose Aoi or don't -- but don't be wishy-washy about it.

Movie Report: "The Black Dahlia"

The movie "L.A. Confidential" got me hooked on James Ellroy.

I wanted to read the novel, but once I found out that "Confidential" is book three in Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, I had to read them in order. It's the borderline obsessive compulsive in me. So I read "Black Dahlia" first.

That was a strange experience -- "Dahlia" was the first book that was so ... intense that I had trouble reading it when I was alone. It wasn't that it was scary -- graphic, brutal and shocking to be certain, but the only real scares are the depths to which the human psyche can drop. It was that I just felt better when my sweetie or someone else was in the room.

Early one morning in a hotel room, I actually had to put the book back in my suitcase until John woke up. Crazyness. But I can't help but be hooked on any author that can grab you by the gut like that.

So as you can imagine, I was pretty stoked to see this movie.

Let me say right off: It's not as good as "L.A. Confidential." (But "Confidential" is pretty damn hard to top.) Brian De Palma not withstanding, I'm not even sure it's better than "Hollywoodland." And if you're only go to see one of them, go see "Hollywoodland" -- the strength of the cast puts it over the top.

That being said ... "Dahlia" is still pretty good.

I've seen some reviews cracking on the movie because it isn't really about the Dahlia case. And it's not. The murder is a backdrop, a plot device -- the movie is about Bucky and Lee, the detectives.

Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett channeling Brad Pitt -- in certain shots he even looks like a younger Pitt, and 10 years ago it would have been Pitt in this role) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are L.A. cops thrown together for a stunt boxing match. They become partners and friends, and they even fall for the same girl, Lee's live-in "lover," Kay Lake.

And then it all falls apart. It just so happens that Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, is found on the same day that the descent begins.

The look of late 1940s L.A. is beautiful -- this was a time when everything was a little more ... put together than today. Scarlett Johanssen is a lovely ghost as Kay, drifting through the film in platinum blonde waves, champaign satin and pale cashmere sweaters. The sweaters are fabulous -- made me want to look for some vintage knitting patterns.

Mia Kirshner (from "The L Word") is sad and vulnerable as the Dahlia, seen in flashbacks. Hilary Swank vamps it up as a slumming heiress, and her family makes with the crazy.

It's a twisty, layered film noir -- there's a lot of plot and a lot of names, and if you don't pay attention it's not going to make any sense. So try to keep up.

But at several points I found myself thinking about 1946's "The Big Sleep." Now there was a movie that did it right -- Detective gets mixed up in a world of rich people with too much time, too much money and too many tendencies to the kink. Detective has to cut through the BS and set things right -- or at least as right as they can be. And Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? Absolute perfection -- no "star" in the last thirty years can match the heat these two generated, or put so much snap into snappy banter.

So here's my recommendation:

1. Go see "Hollywoodland."
2. Rent "The Big Sleep" on DVD (If I really like you, I might let you borrow my copy.)
3. If you're like me and just can't get enough noir, go see "The Black Dahlia."
4. Come home and watch "The Big Sleep" again.
5. Read Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia." Might as well read Chandler's "The Big Sleep" too -- I read it on vacation this year.
6. Overdose on the noir goodness of it all.

Movie Report: "Hollywoodland"

I adore film noir. And I've been wanting to see this since I first heard about it. A murder mystery set in Hollywood's golden age? Sign me up!

The story of the death of George Reeves, TV's Superman, (and one of the first actors to fall into the so-called "Superman Curse") "Hollywoodland" looks into the strange circumstances surrounding his death. Was it suicide, accident or murder? "Hollywoodland" sets up the questions, but doesn't give you the answers. I don't think it can.

The look of the film is superb -- you really get the feel of 1950s Hollywood. The costumes are stellar. And the acting -- not a bad performance in the bunch.

Now, I know its popular to hate Ben Affleck. But I can't. (He was the bomb in "Phantoms," yo!) I have felt sorry for him. He went from the promise of greatness in "Good Will Hunting" to a celebrity-shaped caricature -- a "South Park" joke clinging to JLo's oversized ass. It's a parallel to George Reeves, and its uncanny how he slips into the Reeves role perfectly. I hope its the start of a whole new career for him.

A couple of things:

I've seen a lot of reviews saying how Diane Lane isn't afraid to show her age in this movie. She's only 41, people! That's makeup! They're making her look older!

I had trouble caring about the secondary story in "Hollywoodland" -- the washed up private detective (Adrian Brody) whose life and family are falling apart. I kept wanting them to get back to George and Toni, who were far more interesting. It was nice to see Molly Parker (one of my favorites on "Deadwood") as his ex, though -- she is the queen of the arched eyebrow and the pointed glance.

I won't say this is one you need to see in the theater -- it will pack almost as much punch on DVD -- but don't miss it.