Category: Reviews

The Creeps: The Trolls Will Feast!
By Chris Schweizer
Amulet, 122 pages, $17.95/$9.95

Last August, Amulet introduced us to Chris Schweizer’s middle school gang The Creeps. Their inaugural appearance, Night of the Frankenfrogs, was packed and didn’t entirely work so I was curious to see how he would deepen the characters or expand their world in his sophomore book.

To my pleasant surprise, Schweizer offers up a far more satisfying effort. The kids start off already in trouble with the local constabulary in Pumpkins County but quickly we get the impression bigger problems are developing. Something is interfering with electronic signals so cellphones and Wi-Fi connections are not working. And there’s something about Jock Brogglin that makes him more than just a troublemaker.

In short order, the kids learn from Jock that he is the last survivor of a previous generation of troll fighters and now, after too short a hibernation period, the trolls are ready to attack and feast on the inhabitants. One problem: no one can see the Trolls.

The Creeps need intel and here we learn more about the bizarre beings that are a part of their universe; not just the trolls, but also Mitchell’s older brother. While we still haven’t met their parents, we at least know they are not a collection of single children. Actually, the absence of parental figures rings false as the book opens with the kids in police custody, having their mug shots taken. As minors that would demand parental involvement.

Be that as it may, the four kids – Carol, Mitchell, Jarvis, and Rosario – prove tight and functional with distinctive personalities being rounded out. What seems like a throwaway bit, a video of Rosario singing (very badly) that has gone viral, prove pivotal later on.

Schweizer also gives us Jock, proving not every adult in the books (teachers last time, police this time) are idiots, which is refreshing.

Each of his 122 pages is packed with six to eight panel pages proliferating throughout. At times the pacing is a little off, especially towards the end where it feels like he was cramming things in to finish the story, but it’s all clearly laid out and colored so it makes for a good reading experience for the young adult reading audience.

This is a stronger offering and shows greater command of the characters and their setting so the series is taking on a nice shape.

Every now and then, you see a film that transports to you another time and place that feels very familiar but is also alien in many respects. It weaves its magic in subtle and quiet ways so you don’t even realize how transported you have become.

Brooklyn is not flashy but it tells its immigrant story with heart and soul, allowing actors to work through scenes so you feel like you are gazing on the real borough during the 1950s. Based on Colm Tóibín’s novel, the film was adapted to the screen by novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby and director John Crowley.

This is the Brooklyn where a generation of comic book writers and artists were raised and the one I visited to see my grandparents. It is where a city’s heart was broken when the beloved bums, the Dodgers will soon leave for California.

The sense of change is shocking to Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), who arrives in 1952, fresh from Ireland in need of a job. Back home, there’s just no work in the post-World War II economy but America is booming with opportunity. Her older sister, Rose (Fiona Glascott), arranges with Father Flood (Jim Broadbent) to bring Eilis over and find her work at a local department store.

Everything and everyone is alien to Eilis who is already shy and homesick so she withdraws even further, failing to successfully bond with the other girls in the boarding house, overseen by Mrs. Keogh (Julie Walters). (Among the residents is Emily Bett Rickards, in a role unlike that on Arrow.) In time, though, she thaws just enough to win over her supervisor Miss Fortini (Jessica Paré) and then capture the heart of the Italian plumber, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen).

But she’s not the only one changing. Brooklyn is beginning to alter its complexion as the expansion to the suburbs is underway and as nature abhors a vacuum, new people move into the area. This current is touched on in the finished film but one of the missed deleted scenes emphasizes the point.

Eilis falls in love but when her beloved sister succumbs to a heart condition, she returns home but not before marrying Tony. While home, the differences in culture and attitude deeply affect her and she lingers longer than expected, ignoring her husband’s frequent letters. She is a woman caught in two worlds as the ground beneath is shifting of its own volition.

The film is beautifully shot and superbly acted, earning its 97% freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes along with the armload of awards and nominations it has garnered. Out now on disc from 20^th Century Home Entertainment, this is a cultural and character study well worth your attention. Thankfully, the high definition is pristine and the colors rich and satisfying.

This was a tightly produced film and the 11 deleted scenes that make up the bulk of the special features are all very short and demonstrate how carefully considered each shot and edit was. The optional director’s commentary explains each excision. From the electronic press kit come six promotional features: The Story, Home, Love, Cast, Book to Screen, and The Making of Brooklyn. There is additional, interesting Audio commentary from Crowley. It should be noted that the combo pack comes with just the Blu-ray disc and Digital HD, as the day of the DVD appears to be waning.

This is not your typical ComicMix genre offering but film’s this well-crafted and performed is well-deserving of your attention.

You have to give credit to Dwight Frye, the underappreciated character actor who created the role of the hunchback Fritz, who aided Colin Clive’s Victor Frankenstein in the 1931 Universal adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel. In further Universal installments, the assistant was renamed Ygor and Frye was replaced with Bela Lugosi – but it is Frye’s portrayal that gave the world the stock character forever known to all as Igor.

In the re-envisioned world portrayed in Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), Igor is given an upgrade from simple lab assistant to brilliant physician and Frye has morphed into Daniel Radcliffe. Young Victor is actually still in med school as we meet out characters and it is Igor who proves to the brains behind the, ahem, operation.

Max Landis uses both Shelley’s novel and the Universal series of films as guideposts but charts a fresh, if not wholly original tale. Igor’s fascination with circus performer Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) propels the story especially once she is gravely injured and he thinks he can save her. Frankenstein, younger and more by the book at this stage, thinks otherwise.

The two become friends and Victor realizes Igor’s hunch is actually an abscess in need of lancing. Their bond grows deeper as Victor shares his research into the uses of electricity to reanimate dead flesh.

In short order, though, the duo’s life is complicated on multiple fronts, the most dangerous being policeman Roderick Turpin (Andrew Scott)’s improbable realization of the two are doing. There’s plenty here and it doesn’t all hang together terribly well and Landis’ script ultimately does not service the two leads terribly well. All in all, the ideas aren’t bad but the messy result leaves us longing for a faithful and melancholy adaptation of the source material.

McAvoy, Radcliffe, and Scott aren’t given enough to work with and despite their collective talent, the overall performances are flat and lack the manic energy that made us fall for Clive and his successors.

The film, out now as a Combo Pack from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, has a just fine high definition transfer with a solid lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack.

Given that the film was a box office and critical flop, the studio didn’t invest much in this release and the extras amount to a handful of Deleted Scenes (14:17) and an electronic press kit compilation The Making of Victor Frankenstein (29:27).

Humans appear to be hardwired to resist and even reject change. With that as a starting point, the amiable but not terribly original Sisters, starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Their alchemical bond makes this a slightly above average film and watchable but the without them, the film is familiar and flabby.

The film, coming to home video Tuesday from Universal Home Entertainment, kicks off when parents Dianne Wiest and James Brolin) tell Tina and Amy that they are selling the home where the girls grew up. While volatile Kate (Fey) was expected to take the news badly, it’s somewhat of a surprise that responsible Maura (Poehler) is equally bothered by the change to the status quo.

In an incredulous moment, the girls arrive in Orlando to clean their rooms one final time, just hours before the contract is about to be signed. In our world, the process takes weeks so this feels unconvincing.

In another bizarre version of reality, they decide there’s time for one final blow out of a party and the old gang is invited, allowing the girls to become teens once again, especially as old flames Dave (John Leguizamo) and Alex (Bobby Moynihan) turn up. When Brinda (Maya Rudolph) is not invited, she decides to ruin the nostalgia fest and so goes the rest of the film.

Given the quality of the people involved, including Rachel Dratch, Samantha Bee, Kate McKinnon, Jon Glaser, and Chris Parnell, in addition to the often funny Poehler, Fey, and Rudolph, this should have been more than a house party gone awry. Fey and Poehler have varying producer credits so they should have sharpened the derivative script from Paula Pell, who has done better work on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.

The film was handed to Jason Moore who made a mark in features with the brilliant Pitch Perfect so this is a huge disappointment from him and his cast.

The high definition transfer is perfectly fine for mindless viewing, matched well with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack.

The Combo Pack comes with the Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD package. On the Blu-ray you can find a full range of extras starting with a slightly longer and no better unrated version of the film. There are nine deleted scenes and another nine extended scenes plus a Gag Reel (3:17). As one would expect, there was a lot of adlibbing during production and the best takes were compiled for The Improvorama (8:40) while How to Throw a Party (1:36) offers up advice. More interesting is the Grown-Up Parties Suck (5:18) featurette that is exactly as it sounds. Bobby Moynihan gets the spotlight in outtakes called The Alex Chronicles (2:51) and The Kate and Pazuzu Chronicles (2:05) focuses on flubs from Fey and WWE star John Cena. You can learn the Behind the Scenes story during the interesting but short A Teen Movie…For Adults (10:26). The Original Sister (6:40) allows writer Pell to reveal how much of the film was taken from her relationship with her sister Patti. Finally, Pool Collapse VFX (0:50) looks briefly at the set piece.

There is also Audio Commentary from Moore, Fey, Poehler, and Pell that makes the film sound far more ambitious and interesting than what was actually screened for audiences.

The Daniel Craig cycle of James Bond films has proven divisive to fans compared with his predecessors whom we either seemed to uniformly love or loathe. Of the four films he’s headlined, Spectre has proven the most unevenly received, most admiring its technical virtuosity and everyone else less certain about its story.

MGM Home Entertainment released Spectre as a combo set (Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD) and revisiting allows some perspective. Helmer Sam Mendes intended to tie together the dangling threads from the last three films – Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and the terrific Skyfall – while offering up a rousing caper which was intended as his personal swan song. Unfortunately, Christoph Waltz’s casting as Franz Oberhauser was as mysterious and frustrating to fans as Benedict Cumberbatch’s role on Star Trek Into Darkness. In both cases, the fans circumventing the marketing and deduced the true nature of the opponents, weakening the reveals when they finally arrived on screen.

Also deadening the film’s impact was the unfortunate bit of timing as the latest Mission: Impossible, Rogue Nation, offered up much the same plot: the government was convinced the agency’s usefulness was a thing of the past and our heroes were to be mothballed. However, a global threat, initially ignored then underestimated, reared its ugly head and only our hero could save the day. The differenced proved to be that director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise delivered a far more exciting adventure than did Mendes and Craig, whose film felt bloated and tired.

Not that Spectre is all bad. The opening in Mexico, during its Day of the Dead celebration, was as masterful a bit of filmmaking as you could ask for and reintroduced us to Craig’s Bond, still reeling from the loss of M (Judi Dench) in the last installment. He was on to Spectre, a background threat to the world, long before anyone else had a real sense of its scope. Back at MI6, though, a new bureaucrat, Max Denbigh, a/k/a “C” (Andrew Scott), was trying to retire the 00 division at a time when Bond was most needed. This entire thread felt unrealistic but did allow his supporting players – Q (Ben Wishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) – a chance to shine for a change. The new M (Ralph Fiennes) left the audience wondering where his true allegiance lie.

Once Spectre was revealed as the threat, and Bond saw Oberhauser, it became a cat and mouse game. The first cat to chase Bond, proved to be the imposing and impressive Hinx (Dave Bautista) who lightened the film every time he appeared. And of course there’s a girl or two, notably Dr. Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux), who morphs into a stereotypical damsel in distress who feels anachronistic.

Then it fell to Bond vs. Oberhauser and here screenwriters Neil Purvis and Robert Wade falter and give us an unbelievable connection between the two and an implausible motivation for Oberhauser that deadens the final third of the film.

In fact, the movie leaves many questions unanswered and therefore, after 148 minutes, you find yourself slightly bored and dissatisfied – which is no way to end a film, especially with a two-to-three year wait before the next installment.

The 1080p, AVC-encoded high definition transfer is as good as one could hope. This, along with the lossless DTS-HD MA 7.1 track, means the film certainly looks great on a home screen.

You can tell the studio lost some faith in the film as their special features feel particularly thin this time. We get Spectre: Bond’s Biggest Opening Sequence (20:12), which gives the first few minutes of the film it’s just due.  The six Video Blogs (9:09) were released during production and are collected here. Finally, you get a Gallery of production and behind-the-scenes images along with the film’s trailers.