Comic Report: Infinite Crisis

Every so often, the world of DC gets so borked up the only thing you can do is flip over the chess board and so sulk in your room.

The first time this happened, Crisis on Infinite Earths, a whole bunch of heroes died (heroically, of course) and the many different Earths were all squished together into one. Just one, that's it, there's the world, take it or leave it.

Except it's not.

Four survivors of the crisis (the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane, Earth-Prime's Superboy and Alex Luthor, the sole survivor of a world where Lex Luthor was the world's greatest hero) have been chilling out in a paradise bubble all this time and watching the DC world like it's The Truman Show.

But after events like the destruction of the JLU, Bats getting a brain wipe and Wonder Woman capping a guy, they're no longer reality TV fans. They want to fix things.

Oh, and did I mention that Superboy is batshit crazy and Alex Luthor is a megalomaniaical super villain?

Yeah, I thought that would be important.

So you get Superboy Prime vs. Superboy, Superboy Prime vs. the Flashes, Superboy Prime vs. the Teen Titans, Superboy Prime vs. damn near everybody, Superman-1 vs. Superman, Superman-1 and Superman vs. Superboy Prime (are you sensing a theme here?), Batman vs. his super computer, Alex Luthor vs. the Titans ... smackdowns abound, and there are plenty of those splash pages chock full of heroes that George Perez does so well.

Geoff Johns (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite comic writers) ties together way too many loose ends in a competent fashion, and even readers who aren't completely up on what's been going on will be able to follow the story.

The action is brutal, though, and at times over the top. People just don't die -- they get splattered across three pages. There's so much blood it could be a horror comic. In comparison to the original crisis, the brutality is shocking.

But all is kinda OK in the end, and there are a bunch of Earths again.

Until there's not. DC is already setting up for another crisis.

Sigh.

Manga Report: Gunsmith Cats Burst 2

I loled before I even opened the cover of this volume, because whoever was sticking those stupid "parental advisory" stickers on this put it right on top of Minnie May's coochie.

But in this volume, Bean veers dangerously close to being a nice guy, Rally loses something precious to her, and a crazy corrupt cop transfers to Chicago for the sole purpose of putting Bean out of business ... permanently!

The action clips along nicely with the story of Rally's wayward bounty more or less being wrapped up. The heavy focus on Bean has me missing some of the other supporting characters, but it's alright for now. I don't want to go too long without a real good dose of Minnie May, though. Grenades are good.

Manga Report: Gunsmith Cats Omnibus Vol. 2

Yay! More gun-toting, fast-car-driving, miniskirt-wearing goodness with the Gunsmith Cats!

Unlike Volume One, which seemed to have several filler chapters, this collection hits the ground running with the conclusion of the Cats' hunt for Grey.

We then get introduced to a new villain, the drug-dealing lesbian dominatrix Goldie. I think the Russian hitwoman in the anime was supposed to be based on Goldie, but if she was, the makers of the anime got it wrong.

Goldie's brutal and doesn't care who gets hurt if she makes her bank. She releases a dangerous psychotropic drug onto the streets of Chicago, and then sits back to reap the proceeds. When the Cats interfere with her business, Goldie decides she doesn't want to punish Rally, she wants to *possess* her.

And she'll do anything to get what she wants.

Rally's in her stickiest situation yet, and Minnie May's calling in favors to try to save her. But even if she makes it out alive, Rally won't ever be the same.

Movie Report: The Forbidden Zone

This performance art piece/movie was made in 1980 by the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, which morphed into the band, which morphed into Danny Elfman, the composer who makes zillions writing film scores.

Imagine if you will a Betty Boop cartoon mixed with boobs and *a lot* of LSD. Add in Alice in Wonderland and the Inferno, and then run the whole mess through a David Lynch movie.

I watched it when I was hopped up on cold medication and it hurt my brain.

That is all.

Movie Report: 30 Days of Night

It's October, so there must be vampire movies!

And for a vampire sorta zombie movie, this one wasn't bad. In fact, J and I liked it enough that we picked up the graphic novel the movie is based on today.

30 Days of Night returns vamps to their feral, bestial roots. Black trenchcoats, mouths full of fangs, speaking a super-secret vampire language with a guttural growl. And there's not a whiff of romance to them.

And I'm glad. The vampire as sexual predator bit is getting tired, and I think I'll scream the next time I see a story with the plot of "I met a super-hot vampire and he banged my brains out."

So we get a tiny Alaskan town cut off from the outside world and facing 30 days of night. Vampire buffet! So they send in a ringer (with possibly the worst dental work ever seen on screen -- GROSS!) to wreak some havoc and then move in for the kill.

And kill they do. These vamps aren't neat eaters, and it appears that they rip through the majority of the town the first night. Which caused for me a bullshit moment. If they need this much blood and they're this brutal, the human world would have caught on long before now. If they were just having some good, old-fashioned blood orgy fun, they wasted 28 days or so of night. Because what do you do now that the town's dead? Have a quilting bee?

In this case, they spend the rest of the time hunting down a handful of plucky survivors led by Josh Hartnett, who can't rouse himself out of his sleepy drawl even when there's a nasty, fangy vampire breathing down his neck.

I did like, though, that everything the humans did seemed *real.* There were no random fireballs from crashed cars, and no superhuman feats of strength. Some of them were kinda dumb. They got grubby as the days passed. It looked, and felt, like what would actually happen.

Yeah ... and then someone punched through the back of someone else's head. But it was danged cool, and it was a climatic point for the flick, so I'll give it a pass.

This was a very stylized, cool-looking film, for as gritty and grubby as it is. There's a long, overhead shot of the town during the massacre ... wow. You won't forget it.

Movie Report: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

I have another urge to try to catch up with my reviews. Lets see how long it lasts. :)

I'm a fan of 1998's Elizabeth, which was one of the first movies that turned me on to Cate Blanchett. So I've been excited about a sequel ever since I heard they were making one.

First, a warning for the History Nazis in the crowd. This movie plays very fast and loose with Tudor history. It is not a documentary. It is a drama. They picked and chose which bits they wanted, altered others, and dressed it all up in costumes that should win an Oscar. If you cannot deal, please go watch the History Channel.

That being said ...

Blanchett is amazing as Elizabeth, and this is one of the roles that will define her career. She exudes power, strength and a delicate vulnerability, and commands your attention every time she's on screen. Her Elizabeth is radiant and triumphant, even when she's beaten. She's marvelous.

The film's pacing is deliberately as slow as a royal procession, and I think it adds weight at points where the director veers a bit too far into "oh, I'm a middle aged woman without a man" territory. The pace also suits Elizabeth's focused, rigid persona.

The film itself is beautiful. The camera may do one too many swoopy motions, but overall, the effect is very impressive. The Spanish Armada sequences, in particular, were wonderful -- not the ships, the ones with Elizabeth and her advisers.

And hey -- nice to see you, John Dee!

But there was a bit too much style for the substance. Exactly how many times do we need to see Elizabeth as an angel?

And while Clive Owen made for a scruffy, sexy Sir Walter Raleigh, the plot with him and the lady-in-waiting was a tired rehash from the first film. Seriously, you think that anyone wanting the favor of the queen would learn to keep his hands off the maidservants.

Go for Elizabeth. Enjoy the pagentry. Ignore the rest if you must.

Movie Report: Idiocracy

In a world ruled by Britney Spears, the remotely normal man is king.

Sigh.

So Mike Judge of Beavis and Butthead fame sets out to make his version of Planet of the Apes. Only this time, we're the damn dirty apes, and Luke Wilson (playing a remarkably average army brat) is Charlton Heston.

Low-brow, heavy-hitting, and riddled with satire, Idiocracy is the story of what happens to the world when all the smart people stop having kids and the human race devolves into a bunch of reality TV watching, beer swilling, sex crazed idiots.

So it's almost like now. :)

This 2006 movie got buried in the theaters, and was, ironically enough, dumbed down for release, with a bunch of needless narration and expository material. But I think it will have a nice life on DVD, much like Office Space did.

Well worth a rental or a watch on cable.

Movie Report: The Big White

Money, Death and Snow.

Robin Williams is playing a travel agent at the end of his rope. He's out of money, his business is failing, his wife is crazy and a hardcore insurance agent won't let him cash in a $1 million policy on his missing brother.

So when he finds a frozen body stashed in his trash, it could be the answer to his dreams, right?

Not so fast!

The insurance agent (Giovanni Ribisi) is hell-bent on sniffing out the plot, even if it means screwing over his life and his long-suffering psychic hotline girlfriend. The wife is seriously, hysterically nuts (Holly Hunter plays the hell out of this). The Keystone Krooks who stashed the body in the garbage need it back. And hey? Is that the missing brother?

A wacky, Fargoesque black comedy that was made in 2005 but apparently never released in theaters, The Big White has a stellar cast and a plot full of impossible coincidences.

The finale is flat-out violent, but before that, we get an overdose of "independent" film making -- long, artsy shots of nothing, overly quirky characters, brutal humor and copious amounts of sarcasm.

Funny, in an indie way. Too bad so many film makers are following the same map.

Has independent cinema become a cliche?

Movie Report: The Night Listener

No, not the Night Stalker. That was Kolchak, yo!

Robin Williams does a dramatic turn as an author and radio show host whose much younger lover has left him. Reaching out for someone, he gets involved in the story of his biggest fan, an abused teenage boy dying of AIDS.

Wise beyond his years, the kid has written a searing book detailing the years of sexual abuse. So Williams' character starts talking to him, gets wrapped up in his life, and when questions of identity arise, he's determined to find the answers.

First off, I'd like to point out that there are very few fourteen year old boys enthralled by talk radio. Maybe that should have been the first clue something was rotten in Denmark.

Based on an event that happened to author Armistead Maupin, the movie clocks in at a brisk 90 minutes but never seems rushed. Maybe it's the slow, hypnotic tone of voice Williams uses throughout, or the long, slow shots of Wisconsin snow, but this is a movie that feels like its taking its time.

Fabulous acting by Williams and Toni Collette make this worth seeing, but don't expect a Hitchcockian thriller. The mystery will be answered in its own way, but this is about story, not suspense.

Movie Report: A Heaping Helping of American Pie

In a sign that I've never really grown up, I occasionally enjoy the teen movie, a genre built around the premise of characters who will do anything and endure any embarrassment for the chance to see a girl naked.

I'd like to see a movie based around a bunch of sex-starved teenage girls for once, though -- they're out there. They're raunchy. And they're well represented ... in comedy manga.

Anyway, one drab weekend (yes, they have those in California) the sweetie and I watched all three American Pie movies!

There were many, many, dick jokes.

First up is the original, American Pie. Of course, I can't see this movie (or Jason Biggs) without thinking of Biggs' "I'm the pie fucker!" wail in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. So I start giggling every time I see him. He could play a serial killer, and I would giggle when I saw him.

"I'm the pie fucker!!!!!" roflcopter.

Built around the universal premise of "we've got to get laid on prom night," this movie has a group of pseudo-geeks (seriously, most of them should have been getting some touch before) going through various trials and tribulations for a little action. Add in Shannon Elizabeth as a foreign exchange student (with the worst accent EVER) who's more than happy to show her boobs to a nerd and you've got a movie.

This movie works because Eugene Levy makes any movie funny and because the characters are all likable. You want to root for these guys. Even Stiffler. Everyone gets laid, everyone is happy, and Alyson Hannigan absolutely steals the movie as a sex-crazed band geek. No one who's ever seen this movie will ever look at a flute the same way again.

Say my name, bitch!

American Pie made a ton of money, so of course we had to have a sequel. This time the guys rent a house on the beach for some summertime male bonding and tail chasing.

The makers of the movie realized the comic chemistry between Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Stiffler (Seann William Scott) this time though, so much of the film is sparring between this modern odd couple.

They make a cute pair. I'm touching his ass I'm touching his ass I'm touching his ass ...

They stick to the formula of sexual situations and slapstick, while giving the fans more of what they want -- more Michelle, more Stiffler, more horrible things done to Jim's dick, hot lesbians and a big party scene where once again ... everyone gets laid.

The "Smooth Criminal" scene is a killer, as is the walkie-talkie bit. That will be imitated and parodied in movies for years to come.

The bit with Nadia was forced, though, because by the middle of the movie you could really see the relationship between Michelle and Jim blossoming, and I was rooting for Jim to wise up and get the girl he *really* wanted.

It might have been a better movie, though, if they had the guts to cut a few characters. Oz and Heather have no reason to even be in this movie, and I didn't care at all about Kevin and Vicky's drama llama. In fact, I spent much of the movie wishing Kevin would shut the fuck up.

A few years go by and you get American Wedding.

Jim and Michelle are still getting it on like horny little monkeys and now Jim wants to pop the big question. And since most people in the movie are getting laid on a regular basis, we get more of a comedy of errors.

Oh, don't get me wrong, there's still lots of sex (the bachelor party is hysterical). But more of the movie is about Jim trying to impress Michelle's parents and dealing with wedding disasters.

By now the movie's makers have this down to a science. So it's the Stiffler show. He has the majority of the movie's jokes, and while some of them are great (the dance off, the bit with the hotel clerk) I just wasn't that interested in his quest to nail Michelle's hot little sister. Now, if they had given Finch more screen time, those two's duel for her virginity would have been really something.

And, of course, you had to have the redemption bit, as Stiffler saves the day and proves he's not a complete asshole after all.

I found it hard to believe, though, that Jim had never met Michelle's parents, considering that in the first movie they all lived in the same town. Was she ashamed of her bitch?

Thankfully, the cast had been cut down, although Kevin was still there to annoy the pie out of me. Of course, this is probably the only job the actor can get, so you've got to make allowances.

The worst part of the movie for me, though, was that they basically relegated Michelle to playing straight man except for one or two bits. What, once you decided she was pretty she can't be funny too?

I hope I never get too old to appreciate a few good dick jokes.

Movie Report: Little Miss Sunshine

Yes, I finally got around to seeing this movie.

And it's sweet and funny in a independent movie "aren't we offbeat and precocious" kind of way. I liked it. But I'm not sure I thought it was the masterpiece so many other people did.

Maybe it was because so much of the script felt like it was "we're real, we really, really are!" Yes, every family is dysfunctional, but this one was so messed up it felt contrived.

Maybe it was because for the majority of the movie I wanted to smash Greg Kinnear's character's head through a wall. I felt no connection to or sympathy for this guy, I just wanted him to SHUT UP, stop oppressing his family with his bullshit and go away. And I couldn't understand why anyone around him had put up with him this long. Emotional abuse is not heartwarming.

Or maybe it was because the movie veered from warm fuzzys to slapstick to angsty drama at the speed of light.

But that's life. It does that too. So I'll cut it some slack for that last one.

Best parts of the movie? Abigail Breslin was fabulous as Olive, and the entire film hung on the strength of her performance. She's got quite a career ahead of her, if she's this good this young.

And hey -- check out Steve Carell! He can act too -- something I wouldn't have thought when I suffered through The 40 Year Old Virgin. But he does a semi-serious role here, and brings a beaten-down gravitas that the chaos desperately needs.

So it's good, but it's not the indie sensation for the ages. Your opinion may vary.

Movie Report: Underworld: Evolution

I was bored, it was on cable ... yeah, you know the drill.

If you weren't a fan of the first movie, don't bother watching the sequel. Which is a lot like the first movie with the additions of partial nudity and Derek Jacobi.

There is a *ton* of background and exposition about the history of this "eternal conflict" and the Underworld universe shoved in between the action scenes, which are larger and involve many more bullets than the ones in the first movie. Unfortunately, there's no really cool "shoot through the floor" move like in the first movie. Oh well.

I could have done without some of the extensive flashbacks from the first movie, as well as with about 20 fewer shots of Kate Beckinsale looking hot and intense. Have a little trouble filling the time, guys?

So not bad, not great, and not for anyone but fans of the first movie.

But I'm still trying to figure out how Selene gets in and out of that catsuit so fast without three assistants and a tub of baby powder. It must be a vampire thing.

I Made It! WIP Update

A few pictures of what I've been fiddling with over the past few months:



My Lizard Ridge got its second square ...



And the Technicolor Nightmare grew. My cat Gabriel was inspecting my progress.



I started a wave dishtowel on the trip to Cali, but then I ran out of cotton. So I bound off on the next wave, turned it sideways and called it done. Everything has a story, even dish towels.



And there are more mitered squares for my beach blanket. Sixty-eight to go.

Manga Report: Ai Yori Aoshi 16

This seems like an odd direction to go when there's only two volumes left in the series.

Basically, I can sum it up thusly: The Sakuraba family severs ties with Miyabi, who has been a loyal retainer all her life (and raised as a daughter by Sakuraba-san's wife).

Kaoru and the gang have one day to pack up and move out of the mansion.

So we get rushed farewells and regrets, and everyone admits they're madly in love with Kaoru. Except Miyabi -- you gotta respect her for not falling for his sensitive guy act.

Kaoru doesn't even get to respond to all these admissions of love -- he's off to save Aoi, who's still being held hostage and being force to marry Not-Kaoru.

The girls' plotlines are defintely wrapped up, although I feel that they got the short end of the stick -- especially Mayu, who's loved Kaoru since she was a child. I still don't know if she has any idea about his relationship with Aoi, and she's going to be terribly hurt when/if she finds out.

I'm guessing the last volume will be the rush to save Aoi from a forced marriage. I don't know about the happily ever after yet.

Movie Report: The Lost Boys

Pie I love this movie!

This is all tangled up in my high school memories. I was a Job's Daughter (aka vestial virgin) and we'd get together most weekends for sleepovers and funness.

And, because this was a supposedly "safe" activity, my parents actually let me go. I was kinda smothered ... uh, sheltered. ;)

Anyway, every weekend we got together, we watched The Lost Boys, Dirty Dancing and Witchboard. Every danged weekend. I musta seen this movie a hundred times before I graduated.

And I never, ever get tired of it. This movie *is* the 1980s for me.

Stylish and sleek, with a rocking soundtrack (I'm listening to it now). Add in performances by quintessential 80s movie hunks like Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric and *both* of the freaking Coreys and you have movie perfection.

I'm still way behind on my reviews, so I actually saw this a few months ago. John and I drove down to Santa Cruz to watch the movie on the boardwalk where it was filmed. With the waves crashing on the beach and more than a thousand screaming Lost Boys fans, it was a hell of a night. I think I even got a corn dog in the space where the Frog brothers comic shop was set.

I still want to be as cool as Star when I grow up. So once in a while I look at the Lost Boys poster above my desk at work and pretend that I am.

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.