Author: Robert Greenberger

Review: ‘The Complete Steve Canyon on TV’ Vol. 2

The second volume of [[[The Complete Steve Canyon on TV]]] is just out and there are 12 more episodes from the one season series based on Milton Caniff’s wonderful comic strip.  As with volume one, no one other than Canyon appears from the strip and there’s precious little in recurring characters on the show.

This is a perfect example of 1950s television when the star was role model perfect and merely there to propel stories along. We learn nothing about Canyon, who has a wide network of friends and acquaintances from coast to coast. While based at Big Thunder, his adventures take him far and wide as he helps those in need or is caught up in problems that just happen to occur.

Clearly, the highlight of the two-disc set is the Christmas episode written by Ray Bradbury. On the one hand, it’s a typical holiday television story and on the other, it has a spiritual and emotional depth missing from so many seasonal tales. Not only that, unlike so many Canyon episodes it tugs at your emotions as Canyon ferries a group of Hungarian refugee children to a German base where local families will host them for the holiday. Canyon has to figure out why one girl finds no joy in the holiday and his solution is a nice, universal one.

On the other hand, some of the histrionics in other episodes stagger those of us raised on more nuanced acting. “[[[The Search]]]” has a hammy Jeanette Nolan as a panicked wife begging Canyon and the Air Force to locate her missing, well-connected husband. She chews the scenery, wailing beyond human reason for most of the 30 minutes.

The remaining stories range from illness overseas to a damaged landing wheel. The final episode, “[[[Strike Force]]]” starts off well with a tension missing from most of the other stories but then becomes tedious as Canyon commands a three-part strike team on a Cold War exercise over the Atlantic. We’re told how difficult the coordination will be and how tough it is on the pilots for flying 10-12 hours each to be precisely in position on time but everything goes perfectly with no twists, surprises or reason to worry. The episode did make great use of archival footage.

Another pleasure in watching these shows is to see guest stars we know from their later works. Leonard Nimoy has a fairly thankless role in one while Gavin McLeod and Jack Weston get the have some fun with more substantive roles in a different story. The final episode, “Strike Force” has a blink-and-you-miss appearance by [[[Mary Tyler Moore]]].

The episodes are crisply restored, most complete with commercials from the era with audio commentary from some o the guest performers and historians. This is definitely worth a look for those who love the character or old-time television.

Review: ‘Bayou’ Volume One

One of the first questions posed regarding digital comics is just how you make any money from a strip available for free. The usual answer is that the strip, if it’s any good, will find an audience who will then happily pay for a print compilation. That seems to be the model for DC Comics’ Zuda Comics as they released Bayou
, the first book collecting Jeremy Love’s charming southern serial.

Zuda has been a nice place to find some new talent or see familiar talent try new things. The interface is fairly dreadful but the content is a nice mixed bag, veering just a little too much on the traditional genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Few, though, use the genre as a jumping off point with the same affection and craft as Love’s feature. He called it “a southern fried odyssey”, set in 1933 Mississippi when the races were segregated. Two little girls, one white and one black, play as equals despite their parents’ views. When the white girl goes missing, Lee’s father is arrested for the crime and so begins the girl’s adventure.

Working with 1-4 panels per page (or screen), Love leisurely introduces us to the world of the Deep South and its players. Wisely, they are products of their time but not stereotypes or clichés. His simple art and lush color are wonders I these days of scritchy line art and oversaturated pages. Love knows how to tell a story from pacing to dialogue to art and color. No wonder the strip was lauded last month at the Glyph Comics Awards taking home five awards, including Best Writer, Best Artist and Story of the Year, Best Comic Strip, and his lead character, Lee Wagstaff, was declared Best Female Character.

The problem with the collection, though, is that at 160 pages we get only part of the story. Nothing is resolved and everything is left dangling, forcing you to wait for a second volume or more before we find out who these creatures living in the Bayou are and will Lee be fast enough to save her daddy from a lynching he does not deserve.

The book also lacks any sort of introductory material about the strip, Zuda or Love. All we get are a few sketches at the back to show the development, but even those pages are lacking context.

[[[Bayou]]] in print is a wonder to behold and comes recommended but be careful. Love’s work and the world he created are addictive and you will be left wanting much more.

Review: ‘Nobel Son’ on DVD

Every now and then you see a movie advertised as coming to video and you scratch your head wondering why you’ve never heard of it. Nobel Son, which opened December 8 and is available on DVD today, is just such a case. The film stars Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Eliza Dushku, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson and Danny Devito. Pretty nifty cast.

Now, check out the official synopsis: On the eve of Barkley Michaelson’s father receiving the Nobel Prize, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel Prize money. When his father refuses to pay it starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge.

Sounds like it should be a pretty cool thriller. And yet. And yet the film lasted a mere three weeks during the holiday season and earned a meager $540,382 at the box office. As we’ve discussed previously, the timing for serious dramas was off this holiday season, a factor no one could anticipate or program around. Instead, films opened and the studios hoped for the best.

This film probably deserved a better audience, but it also deserved a sharper script. Randall Miller and his wife Jody Savin co-wrote the script which Miller directed and the story has flash-forwards and flashbacks, and weaves one scheme after another. However, by the time you get to the last scene, you’ve seen everyone scheme, everyone outsmart the next guy and it got too convoluted and clever for its own good.

One of the film’s failings has to be that they don’t round out any of the characters. You have the good son, the son-of-a-bitch father, the pretty and smart wife, the psycho girl, the dogged detective and little else. Admittedly, there are a few surprising character turns by the end, but there’s little to set these up and some feel tacked on or coming from left field. Instead, we needed to really care about one or two of the characters and keep things from being twisty and turny for its own sake.

A psychological thriller needs clear patches so the twists come as a surprise. Here, it’s all surprise and you wonder. Danny Devito’s OCD tenant in the home owned by Rickman and Steenburgen is a perfect example. He shows up, helps move the story along then his arc is dramatically closed but you wonder why he’s there at all. Similarly, Ted Danson plays Rickman’s Dean and has absolutely nothing to do in the film. Rickman plays a wonderful pompous ass but you have no clue why he’s married to Steenburgen, who is underutilized. Dushku plays a variation on her usual character and plays nicely off both Hatosy and Greenberg.

There’s a great story here, one that could have made for a real enjoyable experience but the writer didn’t service the director and the director didn’t visually add anything to help the writer. Being the same person, Miller failed his own film.

The movie comes with a bare bones assortment of features including three deleted scenes, one of which is an alternate ending that doesn’t change much. The Making Of featurette is lackluster and self-congratulatory.

Review: ‘Defiance’ on DVD

We here at ComicMix write about heroes all the time. They tend to be muscle-bound, wear spandex and appear in the fevered imaginations of writers and artists. In the real world, people are given the title hero when they are bystanders, victims, or their feats are fairly ordinary. As a result, the term has been somewhat watered down and in need of rehabilitation.

The process could have begun last winter when two movies about World War II were released, featuring very different kinds of heroes. Neither Valkyrie nor Defiance made a lot of noise at the box office nor did they ignite a debate over the nature of heroism in times of war. And that’s a shame, really, since in the former, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was a patriot, a German who saw Hitler for the devil he was and risked everything to take him down, paying for it with his life.

[[[Defiance]]] visited a different side of the war, that of the victims, the Jews who rose above their adversity and defied by Nazis by surviving, led by three amazing brothers. Bother films suffered because by the time they were made and released, the country’s mood was too dour to pay attention to serious dramas or care about dated acts of heroism.

Today, though, Defiance comes out on disc and worth a look. Again, an incredible story from the war has been uncovered and brought to the screen. Edward Zwick first began writing this story in 1999, based on Nechama Tec’s [[[Defiance: The Bielski Partisans]]], and finally managed to shoot the story in 2007, starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell as the brothers Bielski. They were your lower class workers in Belarus when the Germans began killing the Jews. To survive, they fled into the forest where they played as boys. Fairly quickly, the scattered refugees in the forest coalesced around these three, who took on the responsibility of caring for them, and more importantly, organizing them to survive the impending winter.

While the film focused entirely on that first formative year, it should be noted they survived in the forest for three years, with over 1200 walking to freedom when the war ended.  The brothers had their differences, with Tuvia (Craig) and Zus (Schreiber) arguing over what to do and Zus eventually leaving to serve with the Russians for a time. But we see how these “street smart” people came to lead a motley crew of intellectuals, peasants, upper class, and just plain folk who needed guidance. We watched as news reached them of now-dead loved ones, including Tuvia and Zus’ wives. In time, people took Forest Wives and Husbands, seeking comfort where they could.

Zwick is no stranger to historical tales ([[[Glory]]]), and brings the same attention to detail and character here. Not only do the brothers evolve over the course of the story, but we watch all the bit players adapt, change, and grow; filling the screen with a sense of life that Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie was devoid of.  The movie is not entirely faithful to history as combat sequences including the climax were added for “Hollywood” concerns but their struggles, especially the harsh winter, ring true.

The film is backed by several special features. The 30 minute Making Of shows the attention to the little things extended to the weapons, costumes, and makeup – all well displayed. Zwick took portraits of some of those who survived and we’re treated to a nice black and white gallery. Children of the Otriad: The Families Speak, though, is the highlight, as the children and grandchildren of the Bielskis talk of their fathers and what they were like after the war. Whereas Asael (Bell) died soon after these events, the two remaining brothers survived and worked side-by-side in the trucking industry here in America for 30 years. We see them as older men in bar mitzvah footage, and it’s hard to see these elders as war heroes but there they were and while Zus still had a spark of life, Tuvia carried a gravity about him. Lilka (Alexa Davalos), the woman who came to marry Tuvia after meeting in the forest, never seems happy in the footage. Her children spoke of her inability to fully enjoy anything, another price exacted by World War II.

Review: ‘Funny Misshapen Body’

  • Uncategorized
  • June 1, 2009

One of the really interesting aspects about the growth in graphic novels is that more and more people are using the form for memoirs and autobiographical works. Will Eisner explored growing up in the tenements, kicking things off, and since then we have had utterly fascinating works that detail romance, aging, life on the streets and the like.

Jeffrey Brown has been mining his experience in numerous works and has made a name for himself with his books, beginning with [[[Clumsy]]], which has been acclaimed since its release in 2005 and has remained in print since Top Shelf acquired rights in 2007. Brown has done short and long works, all with observations on life and work and art. His work has won him numerous accolades and he has even gone on to direct a music video for Death Cab For Cutie.

Before Funny Misshapen Body hit my desk, I knew nothing about Brown. As a result, the book, now available from Touchstone Books, was a window into a new world and one I was pleased to visit. Brown’s growth from doodler to artist no doubt mirrors the journey many working artists took, but watching him lurch from school to work to art was interesting, since they all wound up informing his work.

Brown’s style is a little on the crude side, but he keeps his page design fairly consistent, mostly the six panel grid. He doesn’t try and confuse with pyrotechnics but fills every panel with detail. His simple style manages to convey time, place, and emotion so one is never confused. The lettering could be cleaner and better space for legibility, but there’s an earnest feeling to the drawings, letting us watch him try and fail, finding his way. The story is told in chapters and in a non-chronological way but by the time you finish the 308 pages, you can put the pieces together and see what he has accomplished.

The adversity he faced included his own slacker ways through college, fueled by disinterested and clueless art professors. His diagnosis and handling of Crohn’s Disease is largely confined to one chapter but clearly affected everything that followed. Similarly, we get glimpses at friendships and lovers, all of which were influential but the book keeps returning to Brown’s herky-jerky path towards working as a professional artist. His trial and errors are exposed along with the tremendous support he received from artist Chris Ware.

There are moments of humor and times you shake your head at how stupid he was for wasting so much time getting drunk, but all in all, you find yourself cheering Brown as he found acceptance for his work, and finally a point of view to his artwork that culminates with the arrival of Clumsy from the printer.

For those who aspire to working in the field, this is a good travel guide and for those of us who like to see how others live and learn, this is a good picture of life in the 1990s. The engaging book can turn most into fans of Brown’s work.

Review: ‘Revolutionary Road’ on DVD

revolutionary-road-dvd-3d-1664948America had won World War II, becoming the first true Super Power of the 20th Century. But with it came a price and that was a desperate desire among the populace to preserve their freedom through an amazing sense of conformity. Being different was seen as being un-American and you were likely to be accused of being a Communist, which had replaced being a Nazi as the vilest kind of person.

The spread of television and the broadcaster’s desire to present a harmonious vision of an ideal lifestyle led to a sameness from coast to coast that the country had never experienced before. Nor had the country really seen the rise of suburbia as people commuted by the tens of thousands to jobs in the nearby city, which also had it s affect on society.

Against all of this, Richard Yates wrote the 1961 novel Revolutionary Road that was the first work of fiction to examine the cost this conformity exact from the soul of the individual and society as a while. The acclaimed work had resisted being adapted into film until Kate Winslet campaigned for nearly four years to get the film made by her husband, director Sam Mendes.

The resulting production, coming out Tuesday on DVD, quickly became a critics’ darling, garnering three Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe nominations. Starring Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, it told of the Wheelers and the day they woke up to declare they didn’t want to be trapped by the conformity that was suffocating them.

By 1955, they were married with two children, living in Connecticut while Frank commuted to Manhattan to work at the same business machine firm as his father while April felt suffocated in her perky home. She seized on the notion they should follow Frank’s youthful dream of living in Paris so he could figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. She had the then-radical notion of working to support him while he figured it out and her fervor was such that he initially signed on. As the summer progressed, you could watch his cold feet developing as he turned 30 and appeared to lack the courage to act.

The film does a nice job of showing Frank’s isolation despite being surrounded by an army of men in their gray flannel suits contrasted with April’s loneliness in the house. You see them fiercely trying to maintain their marriage while they each drifted in different directions. When April revealed her pregnancy, it became the moment they seemed to permanently part.

The film nicely realizes 1950s suburbia, from the kinds of appetizers served to company, to the uniformity of business attire in the office. What it fails to do is show them in the greater context of their life. The two children are mere decorations with neither parent apparently having any relationship with them. April seems to have a mere two friends despite her participation, no doubt with the children’s peers and their parents. There’s no real sense of their social circle; instead, we’re told they were a special couple but we’re never shown what that means.

As a result, we’re told a lot but not shown enough to understand how they came together and then violently pulled apart. The dialogue is well done by Justin Haythe and delivered by top performers but ultimately, I’m left with an incomplete portrait. The stars are ably supported with the familiar likes of Jay O. Sanders, Dylan Baker, and Kathy Bates.

Nearly stealing the film out from under them is Michael Shannon’s performance as John Givings, a mentally disturbed adult who acts as the vocal conscience for April and Frank. The madman is the only one to see the hypocrisy of their world which is a metaphor that could have been explored further.

The film needed more to win me over but it’s a riveting drama despite its flaws. The DVD comes complete with a handful of deleted scenes, some of which expanded on the themes but reveal nothing new. The 30 minute Making Of featurette gives lip service to the themes but spends a lot of time on the costuming and set design, all of which contributed to the feeling of isolation.

There’s never a hint that while the couple battled the world they made for themselves, there were others slowly evolving beyond the constraints of the expected. Rock and Roll, the Beat Generation, and the civil rights movement were all bubbling to the surface at the time of the film, and the destination from [[[Revolutionary Road]]] could have been found had they worked together to find it.

Review: ‘[[[Valkyrie]]]’ on DVD

valkyrie-dvd-5151520World War II seems to have generated countless stories about heroism and bravery, stories told for the point of view of the allies and the axis, stories told about life on the homefront and life in the foxhole. As a result, it remains an enduring source of fodder for filmmakers as more and more details come to the surface. Through the 1950s and 1960s, most of the WW II movies were highly fictionalized accounts and by the 1970s war stories were played out, fewer and further between. In the last decade, we’ve had history to sift through and we now know of [[[Schindler’s List]]]. Valkyrie, Bryan Singer’s entry into the pantheon, intended to tell us of the closest a plot to assassinate Hitler came to working.  Presuming you were taught anything about the war in school, you might not even know there were over a dozen attempts to kill the Chancellor of the German Republic.

It’s a story worth telling but it should have been better told. The film was well structured by writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and Singer is to be commended for shooting on location, which gave the film a great look. The cast, led by Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard, is to-notch with many performers closely resembling their real world counterparts.

All that was missing was giving a damn about any of these players. The script drained each and every character of personality, sapping the energy out of a story that should have been as compelling as the facts. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, credited as the mastermind behind using Hitler’s own Project Valkyrie against him, was actually an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany. He was a brilliant, well-educated man who spoke multiple languages, loved literature and was partial to horses as well as being a family man, raising four children and embarking on his mission while his wife carried their fifth child.

Wish some of that came through beyond perfunctory scenes of him leaving the family to go kill the Führer.  Cruise is restrained but also bland. The others allying himself were also drained of personality so we never understand why everyone revered Ludwig Beck (Stamp), who was actually quite the legendary figure and a reason so many signed up for the July 20 Plot. Instead, Stamp sits around and makes phone calls.

The actual plot is like a [[[Mission: Impossible]]] story with the usual complications but add to this a lack of conviction on the parts of various players, which at first slows and later tips the balance of action on that fateful day in 1944.  It’s fascinating to see the way communications worked back then, and how people had to sit around and wait for the news over the teletype or radio.

In the end, though, we see how the plot failed and what became of the conspirators but by then, their fates leave you unmoved because after nearly two hours you don’t care about any of them.

Instead, you can skip the movie and go the special features on the DVD, now available. There’s the usual Making Of which shows the detail that went into securing the locations and what some of the locale people thought of the production, especially those still alive who recalled that day. But, best of all, is the 42-minute documentary from Kevin Burns that tells a far more compelling story as the children of von Stauffenberg and other conspirators discussed what they remember plus what their lives were like in the years that followed. This made us care and showed an aftermath the film barely acknowledged. The documentary also tells us some 700 people associated with the plot were tried – that’s a much larger scope than implied in the film which would have given the story more impact.

If I were you, I’d rent the disc, skip the film and watch the documentary.

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Review: ‘[[[Taken]]]’ on DVD

taken1-3080009No one knew what to make of Taken when it opened in late January and the film garnered largely positive reviews but as the winter dragged on, the Liam Neeson action film took in more and more money. As it hits DVD, the global box office take stands at a robust $220,789,777 and was the feel good movie of the season.

The movie, though, is thoroughly predictable. Liam’s 17-year-old daughter goes to France with a pal and immediately gets kidnapped by a white slavery ring. Former Special Forces (or whatever) Dad flies over and is told he has a mere 96 hours to find her of she vanishes forever. So, we know there will be mayhem, the clock will tick down and he will save her. It’s a modern day Charles Bronson flick. I get that.

The trick is to make the journey an enjoyable one and frankly, it’s so standard that there’s little to be entertained by. Fights, car chases, double-crossing people, been there, seen that.

Neeson is not your first thought as an action star, [[[Star Wars]]]  not withstanding. He’s more the everyman and he wrings your sympathy and you cheer to see him in action, regardless of the predictable outcome.

What would have been a lot more interesting would have been to show us two points of views, not just Liam Neeson’s. The most original thing in the film is the moment he tells her she will in fact be kidnapped. From that point, it would have interesting to see parallel tracks – while Liam Neeson sought his daughter throughout Paris; we also see what Maggie Grace as the daughter had to endure. As it stands, she appears to be the only one who was not drugged, not sold right into street prostitution and by happenstance, the sole virgin capping off an auction for international clientele. That makes her a little too precious and frankly, would have given Grace, a capable actress if too old for the role, something to do other than look terrified or cry.

In fact, other than Neeson, no one is given much of anything to do or so say to round out the story and show us the world Neeson thought he left behind.

Cowritten by Luc Besson ([[[The Professional]]]) and Robert Mark Kamen ([[[The Transporter]]] films), the film felt on autopilot from beginning to end. And with 96 hours to accomplish his task, we’re never given a good sense of when Neeson sleeps, eats, or actually rests. Sure, he’s driven, but he can’t be at his peak for that length of time and the story avoids the issue entirely, a common problem with stories like these. Pierre Morel directs with a nice attention to detail and setting, getting a good, smoldering performance from Neeson but everything else looked pretty much like his Transporter.

The movie comes in the release edition and an extended version that amplified the violence here and there but adds nothing to the story and barely three minutes to running time. The extras are perfunctory with Le “Making Of” featuring everyone gushing over how wonderful everyone else was. The Inside Action: Side by Side Comparisons of six sequences is more interesting.

The stars and crew are all capable of so much more; the overall product is a lackluster affair.

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Review: ‘Star Trek Movie Collection’ on Blu-ray

trek-movies-11-8455787It is most logical for Paramount Home Video to be flooding the shelves with product capitalizing on the release of [[[Star Trek]]]. We’ve been treated to the various Best Of sets, the first season of the original series and now the first six feature films all making their Blu-ray debut. The first question is always, why should I upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray? In the case of the television, there was little doubt. Here, with the films, the answer is less clear cut.

The sextet of films featuring the original crew of the [[[U.S.S. Enterprise]]] was, at best, an uneven affair. It all began when Paramount floundered throughout the 1970s, unsure of how best to capitalize on the growing fan base for the canceled series. It made sense to launch a fourth television network with a revived Star Trek but when that was derailed, it took a while for them to figure out what to do next. George Lucas and [[[Star Wars]]] changed all that. Unfortunately, the corporate handwringing over the next two years meant we were presented with a turgid film that may have featured the cast but lacked the feel of Gene Roddenberry’s series.

The Motion Picture’s costumes were monochromatic bores, much like the performances wrought by director Robert Wise, and the crew were never really given much a chance to show that they still liked one another. Instead, we’re given some new faces to dilute the story and the conflict between the Enterprises new captain, Stephen Collins, and his predecessor, William Shatner, is never fully developed. Nor is the story about Spock and his search for something beyond pure logic. Instead, we’re left gazing at some kinda nice visuals as V’ger comes to menace Earth. It’s slow, ponderous and more than a bit of a mess. For $44 million, Paramount expected something more satisfying and profitable.

Turning the franchise back to the television division and asking for a fresh start with a quarter of the budget was perhaps the most inspired move. Veteran Harve Bennett was given the show to run and did so by combining with director Nicholas Meyer to give us the single best feature of them all. Why? Because it had everything from nifty one-liners from the crew, a philosophical debate over a truly important matter, a memorable villain and a good guest cast.  Killing Spock to accommodate Nimoy also meant the status quo could change which was a good sign.

The next two films, though, suddenly turned the solid [[[Wrath of Khan]]] into the beginning of a trilogy that really doesn’t hang together. [[[The Search for Spock]]]was crafted to allow Leonard Nimoy back on board but did so without
giving us anything but the most stock of Klingon villains. The
philosophical and moral debates from the previous film are gone and
Kirk watches the son he just met die for no obvious reason. Robin
Curtis, replacing Kirstie Alley as Saavik, wasn’t given enough to show
she could be as interesting a character. Nimoy also made a nice debut
as a director although the film felt claustrophobic and shot entirely
on sets which didn’t help.

[[[The Voyage Home]]] wisely changed the tempo and look. Nimoy
grows as a director and the humor is all character-based which is
terrific. The fish out of water theme nicely works as does the
ecological message. A fine way to bring everyone home and reset the
mission parameters.

Of course, Shatner has to be given a shot at directing but his
ham-fisted story development and desire to search for god without
really exploring how everyone views the deity is a notion that arrives
stillborn.  Shoehorning Sybok into the Spock family tree doesn’t help
matters nor does the lackluster performances by the guest cast. And the
humor here is more slapstick than necessary and the supporting cast is
ill-served.

As a result, Meyer was brought back for what everyone acknowledged would be the final original cast film, [[[The Undiscovered Country]]].
Given an opportunity to go out with a bang, the story is strong but the
execution isn’t quite as sharp as it should be. Overall, it was a
pretty fine way to go out, leaving us wanting more.

Today, we get that in the case of the DVDs with hours upon hours of
extras. Most noteworthy among them is the extra disc with a roundtable
discussion between Shatner, Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and
moderator Whoopi Goldberg. Here’s a preview:

Each disc comes with its own set of extras, many of which are
already included on the DVD versions. New commentaries and featurettes
freshen each film’s experience. I can quibble that Blu-ray should have
allowed Paramount to include both the original Motion Picture
and the more-recently released director’s cut. The discs collect the
High-Def features plus the special two-disc DVD features, so all
together, you get 2.5 hours or so per film of goodies. New commentaries
are added with the previously released comments which could enhance
your enjoyment of the films, although little will improve [[[The Final Frontier]]]. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, from the new film, provide some fun commentary on [[[The Voyage Home]]].

Each disc has a link to BD Live with additional features such as quizzes.

Of the six films, only the best, The Wrath of Khan was given
a complete restoration. The rest look better merely because they’re
being watched on Blu-ray. All six, though, sound better than thanks to
Dolby TrueHD 7.1. Dialogue, sound effects and score all sound vastly
improved.

While not as good as the original series season one on Blu-ray, it’s
the best these films will look. While the Human Adventure may only be
beginning, the revamping and reworking of the films may well be a work
in progress so either get them now or wait until some undetermined
future date when remastered versions may arrive. The consensus seems to
be that the lack of a director’s cut or slightly modified edits of the
other films may well mean a new and improved set is in Paramount’s
plans.

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Review: ‘Sunny Side Down’

  • Uncategorized
  • May 25, 2009

sunny-side-down1-8545341[[[Tales of Mere Existence]]] began as a series of videos beginning in 1999 and now found at YouTube as Levni Yilmaz drew simple cartoons and added a narrative. They were immensely popular and won some awards and now Simon Spotlight Entertainment has released Sunny Side Down, a collection of those cartoons.

The book, the fourth such collection, attempts to humorously take us from birth to old age and the struggles along the way. At first, the early sections were somewhat reminiscent of Jeff Kinney’s [[[Wimpy Kid]]] books but as his cartoon self aged, the material moved into other realms.

He draws in an engagingly simplistic style and he nicely varies the page composition so you don’t get a feeling of sameness. On the other hand, the same cannot be said of the observations. With age comes cynicism and frankly, by the mid-point, as he ponders life after college, the character is downright pathetic, not funny. The material covered here felt familiar, similar themes have been played out on other web comics and even in [[[Doonesbury]]]. Lev seems to be celebrating the slacker lifestyle as opposed to mocking or questioning it.

He looks at types of girls, types of job hunting and shows how sad and pathetic it all is. There’s weariness to his day-to-day existence as he seemingly meanders from home to school to an apartment. There’s no support group of friends or a positive romantic relation, no job that fulfills him even for a month. The pervasive feeling exists from cover to cover and certainly lives up to the title.

In fact, the sense of despair regarding careers and relationships garners some chuckles but taken as a collection, it’s actually a sad commentary that perpetuates stereotypes of an entire generation.

The book’s concluding chapters, the pondering of the future and relevance with advancing years actually covers some fresher territory although the conclusions are fairly bleak.

Yilmaz is a filmmaker who fell into doing the comic material and he seems to have run out of fresh observations because this all felt very familiar. While engaging and entertaining, there’s nothing new to be said here. If you want to sample this for yourself, try the videos before investing in the books.

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