Category: Reviews

Ed Catto: On Target with Green Arrow and Richard Gray

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moving-target-cover-1225578Moving Target: The History and Evolution of Green Arrow by Richard Gray. Sequart, $17.99 paperback; $6.99 Kindle edition

Way back when, Green Arrow was sort of the “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” of the superhero set. For a long time, fans could enjoy a new Green Arrow adventure just about every month, but he didn’t enjoy the headliner popularity of his hero pals like Batman or even Wonder Woman.

That’s all almost forgotten now. Today, so many fans enjoy this modern-day Robin Hood in comics, on TV and with licensed merchandise.

For some, Green Arrow became “a thing” when he debuted on TV, first as one of Superboy’s pals in Smallville and then in his own series. (He was briefly on Saturday morning cartoons before that too.)

green-arrow-the-longbow-hunters-01-3257119Comics fan, and local dad, Greg Parker started with the TV series and now reads the comics. “In today’s world of income imbalance and overall division, Oliver Queen represents someone willing to do the right thing, whatever that may be,” said Parker.  “Green Arrow has no superpowers. He simply wants to help defend his city from criminals and corruption. This is why we read about superheroes, someone doing the right thing regardless of the consequences to his fortune or popularity.”

For some fans, certain points of Green Arrow’s long comics career was their jumping on point. Many readers started to embrace this character during the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow series by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. Or it might have been when he finally headlined his own comic in a four-part mini-series by Mike W. Barr and Trevor Von Eeden. Other fans sat up and took notice during the 90s with The Longbow Hunters comic prestige series and the subsequent ongoing comic series by Mike Grell, Mike Gold, Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano, Dan Jurgens and so many other talented folks. I should note that this iteration was shepherded by ComicMix’s own Mike Gold.

grenarrowwy3-gray-morrow-1218265For me, Green Arrow was a “barbershop hero.” As a young boy, I distinguished the tattered comics I’d read in the barber shop from the new comics my dad would buy for me. For whatever reason, the local barber had a lot of old DC Comics with Green Arrow backup adventures. I never gave Green Arrow a lot of thought outside of getting my hair cut.

But one day I finally gained respect for Green Arrow. There was an adventure when a small child was confronted by a wild moose and Green Arrow saved the day with his “Antler Arrow.” I realized it takes a special kind of superhero to anticipate moose-related dangers, I realized.

I always liked the character after that. In my mind, it was years later, during the 90s Urban Hunter phase shepherded by Gold, Grell, Hannigan and others, when Green Arrow really grew up.

And It was during this Urban Hunter era that Green Arrow became a favorite of Australian writer Richard Gray. Those 90s comics were his starting point. Now he’s made himself something of a Green Arrow expert – searching out all the old stories and keeping up with the new comics, TV appearances and merchandise.

Gray wrote Moving Target: The History and Evolution of Green Arrow, which just debuted and is published by Sequart.

green-arrow-and-speedy-4110255He revealed that as part of his podcast, he had wanted to create one article on Green Arrow. But then he found there was too much to fit into one post. One blog became seven blogs, and that eventually became a book.

Gray’s pal, Ryan K. Lindsay, had written a Daredevil book, referred him to Sequart and Moving Target happened.

As I started my interview with Gray, I first wanted to understand if his Australian POV was similar to that of standard US comic fan. I was familiar with Australian titles like Tip Top (reprinting DC titles in the 60s and 70s), but more recently I had heard about how wonderful the Australian Comic Shops are. And that always seemed to be during the Eisner Awards Spirit of Retailer discussions. Gray explained to me that Australians now get their comics about the same time as stateside fans do. So it’s easy to keep up with Geek Culture and characters like Green Arrow. The direct market made it happen, although he remembers when he started reading comics and every corner had a “card store” that sold comics.

richard-gray-photo-by-amy-allenspach-c-4300082It was really right about the time when Oliver Queen died, and Conner Hawke took over, that Gray became a big Green Arrow fan. His passion for the character was ratcheted up when Kevin Smith started writing the adventures of a “returned from the dead” Oliver Queen.

“I did miss Conner Hawke – he was underused,” recalls Gray. “The story I wanted to see was with the two Green Arrows. I wanted to see what the interaction would look like. I wanted to see two Green Arrows on a page.”

He’s less enamored with the recent changes to character in the New 52 and Rebirth, although he noted that the GA we know has seemed to return with the legacy elements.

But as the guy who wrote the book on Green Arrow, Gray asserts that for this character, all roads lead back to O’Neil and Adams era.

“It was during that period where they established he was a liberal and wasn’t afraid of standing up to the gods of the Justice League,” said Gray. “In the very first issue of that run – he’s holding up them up to task. But also proving, in the process, that he can be wrong too. Green Arrow’s single-mindedness can be a weakness for him.”tip-top-comics-5708136Gray talks about how enjoyed seeing the character struggle as a regular guy. And he mentioned how a favorite Green Arrow story was from that Mike Barr and Trevor von Eeden series. I learned, in my recent research on the cult hit comic Thriller, a bit about this Green Arrow mini-series. Artist Von Eeden was assigned to his mini-series in order to slow him down and keep him from starting work on Thriller.  In retrospect, the Green Arrow series certainly holds up and Von Eeden’s art is spectacular.

There’s so much to Gray’s Moving Target, including:

  • Speedy – Green Arrow’s sidekick was always a favorite of mine. Gray does not disappoint and provides a meaty section focusing on Speedy.
  • Kirby – Likewise, Gray has a long chapter on Jack Kirby’s contribution to the series. Although Kirby’s run on Green Arrow was painfully brief, and how it important it has been in defining the character.
  • Interviews – There’s plenty of in-depth interviews too. Gray chats with long-time creators like Neal Adams, Mike Grell, and Chuck Dixon as well as some of the modern era writers like Jeff Lemire and Brad Meltzer.
  • Foreward – And while not really an interview, Phil Hester kicks it all off with a humble and insightful forward.

Moving Target covers a lot of ground with care and detailed analysis. There’s something here for every Green Arrow fan.

Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman and Collen Doran

I didn’t remember Neil Gaiman’s story “Troll Bridge” well. In fact, if you’d asked me about it, I would have assumed some confusion on your part with Terry Pratchett’s short story “Troll Bridge,” and tried to lead you in that direction.

But story titles can’t be copyrighted, and even good friends can use the same ones without stress or strife. I’d forgotten it, but Gaiman did also write a story titled “Troll Bridge,” originally for the Datlow/Windling anthology Snow White, Rose Red in 1993 and collected a number of times since then. And, since Gaiman has a huge audience in comics that might not be as familiar with his just-prose works — or, at least, there are publishers willing to bet that’s the case — a number of his short stories have been turning into short graphic novels from Dark Horse over the past few years.

Last year it was Troll Bridge ‘s turn, adapted and drawn by Colleen Doran.

I’m not sure short stories need to turn into graphic novels, but they’re about the right length — a twenty-page piece of prose can be a forty-eight-page graphic novel and fit comfortably into that size, without the usual Procrustean manipulations to fit the format. So, given that it’s possible, and anything both possible and likely profitable will happen, the only question left is: how well does this story work, translated into this new medium?

It works pretty well, actually. “Troll Bridge” is a story of episodes — a boy meets a troll under a bridge near his home, somewhere in then-rural England, and then other things happen over time — and that translates to comics just as well as it works in prose. The troll itself, as seen on the cover, is traditional, which is fine for this twisted-traditional story. And the boy looks much like Gaiman might have at the same age, which is of course the point, as in so many Gaiman stories. (He works from material based on his own life a lot more than I think he gets credit for.)

So this boy meets a troll, who wants to eat his life. The boy would rather his life not be eaten, so he makes a deal. And this is a fairy tale, so that deal comes out badly in the end — fairy tales only reward the heroes who are strong and true throughout, and have the luck to be born third. (And not even them, all of the time — fairy tales are one of our bloodiest types of story.)

I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten whatever lesson “Troll Bridge” has to impart — unless it’s “keep away from bridges, because trolls lurk there and will eat you” — which may be why I keep forgetting it. Burt this is a good adaptation of that story, keeping the flavor of Gaiman’s narration and adding Doran’s pastorally-colored and carefully seen vision of his world. I’m still not 100% convinced this story needed to be adapted, but, if it was going to be anyway, this is definitely a successful version.

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Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Black Dahlia by Rick Geary

I’m in danger of turning into a broken record on this subject: Geary has been doing the same thing brilliantly for so long that I’ve run out of different ways to say it.

Black Dahlia is the seventh in his “Treasury of XXth Century Murder,” which followed eight similar books in the “Treasury of Victorian Murder” (and one even earlier book, The Treasury of Victorian Murder, Vol. 1, a miscellaneous collection that was the prototype for the whole sub-career). Each one is a roughly comic-book-sized hardcover, of about eighty pages, telling the story of one famous historical murder. He’s done Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield, Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes, Sacco and Vanzetti and several more not as well-known in the 21st century. Each book is carefully researched and filled with maps and diagrams of the towns and murder locations — all drawn by Geary in his precise but puckish style.

The new book for 2016 — he’s had one of these for most years this century — covers the famous LA murder case from 1947, as previously retold by James Ellroy and countless others. As always, Geary isn’t here to fictionalize the case, or make up his own ending — he wants to present the true story, as best it can be determined, in all of its complexity and confusion, and lay out what might have happened, if that’s clear at all. It isn’t, in this case: whoever killed Elizabeth Short got away with it cleanly, and we’ll probably never know who he was.

Some of these books are more about the before, and some are more about the after — some murders have a huge media life, with shocking revelations and new suspects, and some just don’t. The Black Dahlia case basically went nowhere, so Geary doesn’t have a lot of after to work with. But Elizabeth Short did have a complicated life for her twenty-two years, which means Black Dahlia starts with the murder and then moves back to tell Short’s life story, or the pieces of it that seem to be relevant to her death.

Geary seems to be drawn to the unsolved, complicated cases the most — not the ones where we know what happened and who did it, but the ones where we can almost tell what happened, where there are some suspicions but not proof, the ones that are a bit frustrating, the ones where we’re pretty sure a murderer completely got away with it. Black Dahlia is deeply in that mode: whether Short was killed by a gangster or an angry boyfriend, he got away entirely. (And he’s probably dead now, which is as much getting away with anything that anyone can ever do.)

As always, Geary’s eye is focused and distinct. He gives us the people and places of the time — the right hairstyles, the right cars, the right streetscapes — to build the world that Elizabeth Short lived and died in. A series of books about old murders might seem frivolous or macabre, but death is just a lens to look at life. And Geary is excellent at telling us about both life and death.

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Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Box Office Democracy: It

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The original It miniseries came out when I was in first grade.  My parents, being reasonable people, didn’t let me watch it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know it existed back then.  But an elementary school has kids in it so much older than six and while I wouldn’t want my 10 or 11 year-old watching It they were certainly out there.  The imagery from that miniseries became the urban legends of our school.  The unused fifth floor had an evil clown living there and on an on.  Why did an elementary school in a busy urban area have an entire unused floor? I assume to make urban legends easier to stick.  I saw the miniseries myself in middle school and honestly was still probably too young to deal with all that stuff.  I’ve been scared of It for as long as I can remember.  I don’t think they should make movies based on It, I think all the copies of the book should be put in some giant box and never be touched again.  It scares me to the bone with almost no provocation needed and this new movie is spectacularly terrifying, I believe even to people without all the built-in baggage I brought to it.

It’s basically impossible to adapt an 1100 page book and not have to leave an awful lot out.  Luckily adaptation is an art form and not just a mechanism for translating a movie literally to the page (Peter Jackson I’m still quite angry with you for those Hobbit movies).  It leaves an awful lot out on the way to a 135 minute version of half a giant novel but it certainly gets the gist of it right.  There’s an evil clown trying to kill a bunch of kids and said clown has probably been doing it at this same spot for a good long time.  Bullies are terrible and adults don’t really care about the plights of children.  Oh, and the whole thing is balls-to-the-wall scary the entire time.  The atmosphere of menace only lifts for fleeting moments and it took every ounce of my willpower not to watch those moments though my fingers.

I am a bit of a pushover when it comes to horror movies.  Even bad ones where you 100% know when the jump scare is coming can get me hunched down in my chair and averting my gaze.  It probably isn’t enough to tell you that I was scared during It but so was everyone else in my theater.  From my seat in the third row I could see that the entire theater was cringing and averting their eyes.  Statistically there must have been some horror mavens in that theater and no one was having an easy time.  This is the director of Mama, a movie I’ve often cited as the least comfortable I’ve ever been in a movie theater, finding new and more cunning ways to manipulate feelings of terror.  I never want Andy Muschietti to make another horror movie.  I can’t stand the idea of him getting better at this.  I will be there for It Chapter 2 the day that it opens.

I lived the last month of my life dreading seeing It.  I had to stop watching Nick at Nite when I went to bed because they would run commercials for it and it was too much for my subconscious to bear just before asking it to cook up some new dream ideas.  It ran a brilliant marketing campaign and backed it up with the scariest movie I’ve seen since Crimson Peak.  In a perfect world the story would have had a little more time to breathe but this is already on the long side for a horror movie and I can’t figure out what I would cut.  I’m anxiously awaiting the second part and planning what show I will have to watch on Netflix while I go to sleep because I won’t be able to stand those trailers either.  I’ll never quite be free of It but at least the rest of the world can live in the same mental hell as I do now.  Hooray!

Early Stories: 1977-1988 by Rick Geary

It’s a cliche that creators resent their fans who like best the “early funny ones,” but I have to be that guy for just a second. Rick Geary has had a wonderful career: he has a quirky but devastatingly precise line and has made several dozen excellent graphic novels about historical murders over the last couple of decades. (Plus a number of other things.)

But he started out even quirkier, and I might like that ultra-quirky Geary even better than the meticulous, methodical, organized chronicler of mayhem. For about the first decade of Geary’s career — say, the period covered by Rick Geary Early Stories: 1977-1988 — a Geary comics page was as likely to be a collection of lovingly-detailed kitchen appliances as anything else. Or a carefully-drawn collection of vignettes from oddly-named motels from around the country. Or a series of unexplained and possibly supernatural events, narrated dryly and matter-of-factly, as if it was just another day.

Geary nailed a deadpan affect from the beginning, and that, plus his almost-immediately strong drawing abilities made these slices of bizarre life unique in the cartoon world of the late ’70s. You might not have entirely understood an early Geary story, but it was compelling and memorable and unlike anyone else.

Those stories were collected other places over the years, most notably the Geary collections Housebound and At Home with Rick Geary. Both of those are long out of print, so it’s wonderful to see Early Stories gather eighty pages of prime high Geary weirdness into one place. You’re not going to find this book easily, though — it may turn up in a comic shop or independent bookstore or two, but the only dependable way to find it is to buy it directly from the author .

And I do recommend that you do that, if you have any inclination towards odd, off-the-wall stories told matter-of-factly in comics form. Early Geary practically invented that style, and remains its undisputed master.

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Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Paul Up North by Michel Rabagliati

Of course Paul Riforati is not Michel Rabagliati — he has a different name, see?

But Rabagliati has now given us about 1200 pages of comics — not all of which have made it into the English language, true — about Riforati and his life. They may all be completely fictional: Paul may just be someone born at about the same time as Rabagliati, living in the same places, having the same jobs, with all of the emotional and story content entirely unconnected to Rabagliati’s life.

Sure. That’s plausible, isn’t it?

We don’t know Rabagliati personally. We almost never know a creator personally. So he could have made it all up.

But I don’t think so. What a creator does is not so much “create,” which implies making something out of whole cloth, but transforming. And the Paul stories are one of the finest examples of life transformed into art that the modern world has to offer.

Paul Up North is the sixth book about Paul to be translated into English, according to Rabagliati’s bibliography . (If I’m tracking it correctly, there’s two full books and some shorter stuff — Paul dans le metro and Paul au parc — that haven’t made it to my language.) We’ve previously seen Paul Has a Summer Job , when he was 17, Paul Moves Out , covering a year or two on each side of 20, Paul Goes Fishing, which combines a frame story of Paul at 30 with an embedded story of him at 15, The Song of Roland , less focused on Paul himself but finding him in his thirties, and Paul Joins the Scouts , when he was 9 and 10.

Up North falls right in the middle of the previous books, covering roughly a year between the runaway in Goes Fishing and the highschool dropout in Summer Job. This book doesn’t bounce around in time like some of the others do: it’s told in order, seeing Paul start to grow up and separate from his family. He gets a new best friend, a first girlfriend, a mode of transportation all his own, and a place away from his parents where he can be his new self. He also spends a lot of time with his uninhibited uncle, who gives him other chances to be someone different than the sullen teen his parents are becoming all-too-familiar with.

It’s a stage of life that everyone has to go through. Some do it earlier, some later. Some fly on their own, some are shoved out with force and have to make it however they can. Paul was lucky: he had a loving family and a stable society, and lived in a time when he could hitchhike a few hundred miles north without too much trouble. So, though there’s sadness here — adolescence is always fraught, and remaking yourself doesn’t always take — it’s, in the end, a positive story of a boy making the steps that will help turn him into a man.

As always, Rabagliati tells the story with quiet confidence and control. His people still have that appealing UPA-ish look, simplified just enough to be universal, and his backgrounds are somewhat more realistic but still take that slight turn into cartoony abstraction. He’s a great chronicler of his own life — or, I should say, of this life that we assume is parallel to his own.

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Reposted from The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

REVIEW: Flash: The Complete Third Season

the-flash-s3-bd1-e1496255075650-7422882After two seasons of relentlessly grim Arrow, we all welcomed Flash with open arms, rejoicing in its optimism and joy. Sure, there were some quibbles and wobbles, but it was still eminently entertaining with an appealing cast.

Then came season three. I do not understand DC’s fixation with Flashpoint, a miniseries that really doesn’t hold up to examination and was not only the cornerstone for this misfire of a season but will also be felt in the first Flash feature film. The repercussions of Barry’s rash decision at the end of season two, to race back in time and save his mother’s life, had substantial impact on his life and those of others in his world. Then, when he tried to fix it, other changes happened and he spent most of the season moping.

Flash: The Complete Third Season, out this week from Warner Home Entertainment, was an unhappy slog through muddled storylines and soap opera elements with bright bursts of hope things would get better.

In comics, Savitar was a serious threat to the Speed Force and all speedsters, but here, he was revealed to be a grumpy older Barry (Grant Gustin) stuck in a suit of armor that didn’t make a lot of sense. The drawn out thread was so badly handled the producers have publically regretted they didn’t plan it out better. No kidding.

They have also fallen into the bad trap of the characters always lying to one another to “protect” them or some other noble claptrap. Let them be honest and handle the fallout. No wonder Team Flash has trust issues – and they’re the good guys.

While people have rightly complained the Big Bads are always speedsters, the show is getting rather full of fleet-footed heroes, too. With Flash, Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale), Jesse Quick (Violett Beane), and Jay Garrick (John Wesley Shipp), it’s a bit much when trying to keep the focus on the title character.

The idea of different Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) coming to Earth-1 from across the multiverse is interesting once or twice, but I think enough is enough. Either stick with one or send him home.

So, instead, let’s focus on the better elements such as how well handled this series’ installment of the four-part (really two-part) “Invasion!” crossover was or how delightful the musical crossover with Supergirl was. The Barry/Iris (Candace Patton) romance simmered well as was Joe West’s (Jesse L. Martin) new romance with Cecile (Danielle Nicolet). HG’s nascent romance with Anne Dudak’s scientist was interesting but she was never fully integrated into the Team, which I thought was a shame.

From the beginning we knew Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) was doomed to become Killer Frost and had hints of it previously, but her permanent change was another well-handled bit of business, especially as she was falling for Julian Albert (Tom Felton). It was also interesting to see Cisco (Carlos Valdes) grow into his Vibe powers and his scenes with would-be paramour Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) were always fun.

And Flash in comics or TV has been about the fun, the joy of being a hero. He enjoys one of the best collection of villains in all comicdom and it’s good to see so many make it to the screen – it’d be nice if they were better developed, but who can complain about Flash vs. Grodd in an arena full of gorillas? More please.

“Finish Line” closed the season with Flash entering the Speed Force because, for reasons beyond comprehension, a speedster must always live there. Don’t worry, we all know he’s coming back and the producers hope it’s in some heroic manner but really, in October, get things rolling without dithering.

The Blu-ray set contains four discs with all twenty-three episodes, most coming with deleted scenes of varying length and importance. Additionally, there are numerous special features, mostly on the final disc but they are scattered. We have the The Flash: 2016 Comic-Con Panel, a bunch of talking heads trying to explain A Flash in Time: Time Travel in the Flash Universe, a look at Villain School: The Flash Rogues, one-part of Allied: The Invasion Complex (continued, of course, on the Arrow set); a look at the construction wonders in Rise of Gorilla City; A Conversation with Andrew Kreisberg and Kevin Smith, and a Gag Reel. Of special note is the four featurettes focusing on the series music and the musical episode in particular.  The Flash: I’m Your Super Friend, The Flash: Hitting the Fast Note, Harmony in a Flash, and Synchronicity in a Flash are really interesting, a rare look at scoring a weekly show.

 

REVIEW: Batman and Harley Quinn

batman-harley-quinn-3d-e1496165969396-5342903Warner Animation’s just-released Batman and Harley Quinn is an interesting project from the standpoint of it being a more mature sequel to the Batman: The Animated Series while still fitting into the now cohesive DC Animated Universe. It has the look and feel of the classic series while the content and themes are vastly different in keeping with Harley’s prominence in all-things DC these days along with upping the stakes in a longer production.

That said, the production is very entertaining and a welcome 30th film in the line of animated projects (the DC Universe: 10th Anniversary Collection is expected in November).

It’s a lot of fun to have Bruce Timm, Harley’s co-creator back in action as a co-scriptwriter. Sam Liu is also back to direct so we have a lot of veteran talent to bring tremendous affection to the project and it shows in every detail.

Poison Ivy (Paget Brewster) has been connected with Jason Woodrue, the extra-dimensional Floronic Man (Kevin Michael Richardson), ever since Neil Gaiman put them in the same class in Black Orchid. Here, though, we think Ivy is out to save the world from man’s ecological folly but we get a larger, nastier, and more in control Floronic Man than we’ve seen in comics or animation. He’s out to make the world a verdant paradise, as long as he’s in charge.

They are after Alec Holland’s bio-restorative formula, the one that turned him into the Swamp Thing, and once they begin not-so-subtly robbing places to obtain it, this alerts Batman (Kevin Conroy) and Nightwing (Loren Lester). To find Ivy, they turn to her long-time gal pal, Harley Quinn (Melissa Rauch) who is now out of jail and off the grid. When Nightwing tracks her down, we find her in costume, but waitressing at Superbabes, a super-hero themed restaurant (those wall decorations were a set of decals DC sold back in the ‘70s, a lovely touch).

To convince Harley to help them, the pair fight and, in an interesting turn, wind up sleeping together, only to be found by Batman.

bhq032540-e1504042147385-8741082From there, the chase is on, leading them all to Louisiana where the film’s extended climax occurs. Along the way, they look for clues in a bar that features a motley assortment of thugs dancing to twins performing, which is amusing, but when Harley has to sing, we get her full song and then a fight, prolonging what should have been a far shorter sequence.

There are loads of asides, gags, and tips of the cowl to other incarnations of Batman and the heroes so pay attention. This is where Timm tends to excel, never taking his eye off telling a strong story. And yes, despite some plot drag in the middle, the themes are very strong here. We do get a totally extraneous appearance by Swamp Thing, although they avoided making him a deus ex machina. Still, the story sort of just runs out of steam rather than neatly tie things up. Do stay for the post-credits sequences which are just a hoot.

It is a real pleasure to hear Conroy and Lester together again and it’s all the more a shame Arlene Sorkin, Harley’s original voice, is absent from the reunion. Rauch is good, but her Bernadette bleeds through now and then.

batman_and_harley_quinn_movie-e1504042297581-3412180Parents should be aware this is rated PG-13 for “sexual references” and “rude humor”, mostly in the form of Harley’s words and deeds – but really, did you expect any less?

The movie is available in a variety of formats including the 4k Ultra HD/Blu-ray/Digital HD and the collector’s set with a Harley figure. Word is, the 4K and Blu-ray are almost indistinguishable and the 1080p, AVC-encoded version is just lovely and well matched with the lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, featuring a top-notch score from Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion and Lolita Ritmanis.

The Blu-ray comes with the usual assortment of Special Features, starting with A Sneak Peak at DC Universe’s Next Animated Movie (8:30), which is Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. I frankly am offended so much credit goes to Mike Mignola without author Brian Augustyn’s name being mentioned – and quite a bit of the art from the comics is actually from the Ed Barreto-drawn sequel.

There is also The Harley Effect (21:15), where her co-creators, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, discuss her origins and slow-building popularity until she is now one of DC’s most ubiquitous characters (effectively their version of Deadpool, put her on anything and it’ll sell); and, Loren Lester: In His Own Voice (11:46), talks returning to the role that made his voiceover career. We get the Sneak Peaks to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part I and II and Batman: Assault on Arkham. From the DC Comics Vault offers two well-chosen selections: Batman: The Animated Series, “Harley and Ivy” (22:23) and “Harley’s Holiday” (21:15).

Box Office Democracy: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

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I have to imagine production of The Hitman’s Bodyguard started with director Patrick Hughes gathering the whole cast together and giving them some kind of speech along the lines of “Look, we all know this script is a piece of garbage but if we pull together we can elevate it way past tolerable” and then there was some big cheer and they ran out to the set like a sports movie.  It’s a laughable script that doesn’t hold together under the smallest bit of scrutiny, but the cast absolutely crushes it.  It’s the best bad movie I’ve seen all year and I don’t mean that as faint praise.  The world is full of people doing average work with average material but seeing fantastic work come from a wretched foundation is something special.  This is a diamond found in a coal mine.

The chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson is basically driving the whole movie.  We’re getting a Deadpool-lite version of Reynolds thick with meta commentary on the events of the movie and sort of action movie in general.  This plays well with the standard action-comedy version of Jackson we’ve been seeing since Die Hard with a Vengeance.  This interplay drives the whole movie dragging a murky nonsensical plot and a seemingly endless numbers of big pauses for jokes that just aren’t that funny.  Everything that’s Reynolds and Jackson bickering is great, every scene that has Selma Hayek in it is good, everything else is pretty bad.

The action in the movie is good enough, but it feels more like a greatest hits compilation than any kind of new composition.  The best sequence in the film is one where Jackson is walking through a Dutch square seemingly oblivious to potential attackers while Reynolds stealthily takes them down.  It’s a good sequence but it feels an awful lot like a knock-off of the Waterloo Station sequence in The Bourne Supremacy and while it’s 10 years later feels a bit slower.  There’s also a reasonably thrilling chase through a canal with Jackson in a boat being chased by bad guys in SUVs while Reynolds on a motorcycle harasses them.  It’s a nice idea salad mixing bits from a number of other movies.  Maybe greatest hits is too reductive, more like a remix of some old favorites, you ought bop your head a few times but odds are you’ll go back to the original.

Most of the story of The Hitman’s Bodyguard is just low-level stupid.  You know, stuff like trial scenes that were written by someone who has only experienced the legal system from their drunk friend describing Law & Order episodes to them.  But then toward the end they try to pretend like there’s some big moral quandary between a life spent protecting terrible people versus a life of killing bad people for money.  For one, I don’t believe that you can make a great living as a contract killer just sitting around and waiting for bad people to need killing that badly.  Also, people who decide to hire assassins to deal with their problems aren’t people who are on the highest of high grounds to start with.  It’s not an interesting moral quandary, and it directly detracts from the stuff that’s actually entertaining in the movie.  Wikipedia says that when this script was named to The Black List it was a drama— maybe this is an artifact from those days, but it has no place in this movie. (I also can’t imagine this was a better movie as a drama.  I’m bored just thinking about it.)

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is good because you get to see Deadpool interact with Nick Fury.  They had to file off all the serial numbers, superpowers, and sci-fi gadgets— but that’s what it is.  We’ll never get the actual pairing because of all the various rights headaches (and honestly, what would need to be happening in the MCU for it to even happen) but we can get it here stitched on to a wretched story about the trial of a dictator who commands an army of mercenaries while imprisoned at The Hague.  Come for the cast, stay for the cast, leave with a smile on your face, pick it on Netflix 18 months from now, never think about it after that.

REVIEW: The Lion King – The Circle of Life Edition

Walt Disney was a canny marketer, cycling his films in and out of release, on and off television, through the years, recognizing it would appear fresh to younger viewers and fondly recalled by those at later stages in their lives. That practice has continued into the world of home video with the films on rotation and we’re now getting The Lion King: The Circle of Life Edition after having received Masterpiece Collection, Platinum Edition and Diamond Edition. The new edition is already available as Digital HD and hits disc today.

An interesting thing to consider about the story itself is that Simba is being trained by his father to one day succeed him as King. This connection with a parent and this effort towards being prepared to rule is entirely absent from any of the Disney Princess films.

Of course, the movie is a wildly entertaining musical which still holds up on repeated viewings. Credit for this has to go co-directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, writers Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton, and composer Hans Zimmer. The strong vocal cast, led by James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Matthew Broderick, Moira Kelly, Jeremy Irons, and many others grounds the production.

Is it a perfect story? Probably not, since there are gaps in time and Simba and Nala seem to be the only ones to actually age. And yes, it still makes me think of Kimba the White Lion but I’ll believe the makers were largely ignorant of this early anime that played briefly in the United States.

From a technical standpoint, this edition is identical, from what I can tell, from the most recent Diamond Edition. It therefore looks brilliant and sounds lovely.

The film is available in a variety of formats and there are some features unique to specific retailers (an annoying trend), but most will receive the film, and a new Sing-Along Version. The Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD combo also comes with a Limited Edition Film Frame (a small strip of film; mine had Raffiki holding up baby Simba).

Additionally, there is, held over from previous releases:

  • Audio Commentary – View the film with commentary by producer Don Hahn and co-directors Allers and Minkoff.
  • Visualizing a Villain – Against a backdrop of live dancers and the animated “Be Prepared” sequence, artist David Garibaldi paints a masterpiece of evil.
  • The Recording Sessions – Rare footage of the actors recording their roles, matched with the final animation. Intro by Allers and Minkoff.
  • Nathan and Matthew: The Extended Lion King Conversation – Lane and Broderick talk making the film and its worldwide acclaim.
  • Inside the Story Room –Allers and Minkoff present archival footage of five original story pitches.
  • Circle of Life – See how color creates emotion and meaning in the film’s iconic opening.
  • Simba & Nala – See how elements proposed in story meetings evolve into what appears onscreen.
  • Simba Takes Nala Out to Play – …And, sometimes what seems funny in story meetings never makes it into the film!
  • Hakuna Matata –Allers and Minkoff sing, act and dance their hearts out as they pitch the “Hakuna Matata” sequence.
  • Rafiki and Reflecting Pool –Allers & Minkoff pitch a sequence that became the emotional heart of The Lion King to Producer Hahn.
  • Galleries
  • Visual Development – Explore a gallery of striking artwork that inspired the movie’s look and feel.
  • Character Design – Trace the development of the film’s unforgettable characters through early concept art drawings.
  • Storyboards – Examine storyboards created in the development of The Lion King.
  • Layouts – Feast your eyes on layouts created in the development of The Lion King.
  • Backgrounds & Layouts – Journey through a gallery of landscape paintings that shaped the world of The Lion King.

For fans of the film, and there are many, the above will be satisfying and enlightening or just entertaining. Sadly, the Classic Bonus Features are Digital only.

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