I am totally a day late and a dollar short. I had to work early yesterday and I also wanted to finally swing by the comic book shop to pick up my comics for the past month. I really just wanted to pick up a trade from Top Shelf called Veeps, but evidently it isn’t coming out until next week.
For the second week in a row the theaters are flooded with 50,000 new releases, all of the potentially crappy. That being said, I am still interested in seeing Clint Eastwood’s latest effort Changeling, even though his last film was so awful it almost put me off his movies for good.
DVD releases are even tougher as they are limited AND crappy. I don’t care what buzz you heard about Transsiberian, it is truly terrible. Avoid it like the plague. Thus my DVD recommendation is for When Did You Last See Your Father, a film that I heard was good, but looks far too sappy for me to ever watch it for fear of crying like a 32 year old me tends to cry, in bunches.
I’ve never really given much thought about what I would consider the perfect crime. I’m not exactly ambitious so it probably wouldn’t extend much further then trying to purchase comics for my collection without Anna’s knowledge. She watches the movies and the Wii games like a hawk after all, so if I want to buy something perfectly crappy without having to listen to her grumble to me about it comics are really my only legitimate avenue of deception. Hey, I already feel guilty about buying Spider-Man comics, I don’t need her adding to my own self-imposed lecture.
Now sure, I found the whole Brand New Day storyline interesting at first, as writing out Mary Jane was the kind of huge shakeup that might recover the comic from the truly terrible Civil War storylines I had previously suffered through. But the whole concept has quickly stagnated, resulting in what now appears as nothing more then a blatant attempt at erasing everything J Michael Straczynski had written over the length of his tenure.
Now I know JMS wasn’t exactly popular with the Marvel fanboys. I mean really, attempting to add more depth to a character that was over 40 years old was simply unacceptable. Marvel and its fans simply would rather have numerous Spider-Man books that follow a basic plot by numbers arc rather then suffer through something that might actually result in a new experience for both the character and the reader.
Now I have been fairly slow to hop on the High Def bandwagon for many reasons. I don’t like being forced into buying a new technology, nor have I fallen for the claims of how HD is the new standard bearer. HD still is vastly inferior to film, and no amount of campaigning by Sony is going to change that fact. But that all being said when it comes to home viewing HD is the best option. And my 25 inch analog set has hit 15 years old and is ready for a well earned retirement, leading me to have a less then ideal home viewing environment for the oodles of movies I watch on a weekly basis. So while I wasn’t ready to proclaim my undying love for all things HD, that didn’t change the fact that I needed a new television set.
So this week Anna and I have begun to do some shopping. Unlike most shopping, for example the kind where I have to find clothes that I don’t particularly like but try on simply because a certain someone thinks I look good in them only to discover that I feel even less attractive and by the third or fourth trip to the dressing room I have what could only be described as a meltdown in which I threaten to buy a Family Guy t-shirt or some other ridiculous advertisement of stupidity if I am not allowed to immediately leave the store, I quite enjoy shopping for televisions and home theaters. Probably because I don’t feel the need to immediately go on a diet after completing the entire ordeal.
“The Walking Dead will be the zombie movie that never ends.”
-Robert Kirkman
So you like zombies do you? You watch every new Romero film that comes out. You have even tracked down a bootleg copy of [Rec] so you don’t have to sit through an American remake. And you just might be the type of person who keeps their copies of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z in the Nonfiction section of their book case.
Or maybe you are one of those avid readers who still shuns comics because you think it is a medium only for kids and post-adolescent fanboys? You selectively ignore the number of critically acclaimed authors working in comics, or the numerous literary awards being won simply because it is easier to classify comics as something beneath you, and thus a waste of your time.
Or maybe you have one of a thousand other perfectly legitimate reasons for not reading The Walking Dead. (more…)
Going to keep it short this week. I’ve been pretty busy and I am trying to keep pace with all the reviews I need to write. Quick site announcement, be on the lookout for 2, yes 2, giveaways next week. Only one of the movies is outright horrible, the other is just plain odd. And in a blatantly shameless plug, please check out my review of Tropic Thunder over at Cinema Fusion. As far as I know it is a scoop, so I’m sure I will be asked to take it down by the end of the weekend.
As for new releases this week the only one I care about is Hellboy II. I don’t care if the greatest independent film of all-time is being released, I’m going to Guillermo del Toro’s latest masterpiece.
On DVD next Tuesday comes Penelope, which wasn’t half bad. Certainly worth a rental. I also heard that The Year My Parents Went On Vacation is pretty good. Then their is … good grief that might be it. Yikes.
I was saddened to hear today that Steve Gerber died. He certainly isn’t a big name in the comic book industry for many people, but he was often times hugely influential on many of today’s writers, both with his stories and his causes. And while best known for his creation Howard the Duck he was hugely influential to almost any child of the 80’s, as he was regularly enlisted as a story editor for animated television shows like The Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Dungeons & Dragons.
And as I pointed out in my latest column, he also has a bit of responsibility for bringing to my television set Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, as Steve Gerber was the creator of Thundarr the Barbarian. He’ll be missed, but lucky for us his work will not.
And here is a link to a much better written, and more worthy write-up of this man’s work and influence.
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