Tagged: review

MICHAEL DAVIS: What about me? What about my needs?

michael-davis100-2721174I have no idea what this piece will be about. I really don’t. I’m sitting in a Chicago airport waiting to get a plane back to L.A. and my mind is a complete blank. I sent my last Straight No Chaser in last night (Wednesday) and I am determined to get a jump on my next one. The problem is I usually wait until something bugs me or interests me before I start my weekly rant. I would call this another random thought article but I have no thoughts random or otherwise.

Let’s see, lets see. Well I got another angry email. This one was about what I said about how my dogs are pets and not a member of my family. People are really passionate about their dogs, eh?

 

There is a TV show called Me or the Dog. I think it’s on Animal Planet. This show is about how dogs run the lives of people. There was a woman on one of these shows who actually said she preferred her dogs to her husband and son. She said if given a choice between her family and the dogs she would put the family out of the home before the dogs. I think she thinks she’s a dog. Well if she thinks she’s a dog then I will address this in a way she would understand.

That bitch is crazy.

Ah, I have found my rant for this week… ranting!! One of my absolute favorite TV shows is Cheaters. I love that show! Every week the show exposes someone who is cheating on his or her partner. Here’s what I don’t understand: when you find out your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, sheep etc. is cheating on you, why are you mad at the person they were cheating with? Shouldn’t you be mad at the person who cheated on you? Being mad at the other party is like being mad at the mailman for bringing you your phone bill.

Well, mark my words someday Joey (the host) is going to put that camera in the wrong person’s face and BLAM! Can you imagine what will happen if they run up against that guy or girl?

Fade in: The Cheaters crew prepares to jump out of their band. Joey turns to the client, Lewannabe.

Joey: Would you like a chance to confront Ray Ray?

Lewannabe: No, you go ahead Joey. I’m not crazy.

Joey jumps out of the van with his crew and confronts Ray Ray.

Joey: Ray Ray, I’m Joey Greco from Cheaters. Do you want to explain why you are cheating on your wife Lewannabe?

Ray Ray: I’m not.

Joey; We have you on tape.

Ray Ray: That’s not me.

Joey: Really, well let’s just look at the tape.

Ray Ray on tape: I like cheating on my wife, my name is Ray Ray.

Joey: Still say that’s not you?

Ray Ray: That’s not me; it’s my twin brother.

Ray Ray on tape: If Cheaters ever shows up I will say it’s my twin brother and not me.

Ray Ray has produced a handgun and is pointing it at Joey’s face.

Joey: You know that does not look like you at all Ray Ray. What were we thinking?

Joey: (Yelling) Lewannabe! Why did you waste our time??

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MATT RAUB: Spider-Man 3 Review

So here we are, one day before the highest anticipated film of 2007, Spider-Man 3, gets released into a record 4,252 theaters. I, just like about a billion other fans, couldn’t wait to see this flick, mostly because this is the film where we get the infamous Venom as a villain, along with a laundry list of other storylines. But before I get too deep into that, lets break it down. Usually when reviewing comic book movies, I like to break the critique down into three separate sections: the Acting, the Story, and the FX.

Lets begin with my least favorite part of the entire film: the acting. Now I may be a bit jaded, but I’ve never really got into having Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker. This is where doing a book or comic adaptation gets funky, because originally the character’s voice and overall demeanor is up to their interpretation. A perfect example of this is the [[[Harry Potter]]] film franchise. The casting of those films were almost spot-on with the fan’s interpretation of the characters, and they didn’t even have the visual aids that comic books have.

With that said, in my head Spidey was the nerdy, quiet kid before bitten by the radioactive/genetically enhanced spider, but then gains self-confidence while still keeping his puerile attitude towards life. This is how we get the wisecracking interpretation in modern books. But with Maguire’s performance, we are constantly treated to the somber, “woe is me” Spider-Man who, granted, still jumps, swings, and does whatever a spider can, but in between those periods is constantly in a state of teary-eyed misery. Even in the second film where he is convinced that being Spider-Man is a curse, and trashes the costume, he still looks like at any moment, he could burst into tears. Some could attribute this to Maguire’s incredible range, but if I wanted that, I’d go see Seabiscuit again.
 
Spider-Man is the comic relief of the New Avengers, and even in the Ultimate books, he may cry, but when he’s in the suit, he’s a regular swinging Henny Youngman. The same goes for this film, in the times that the mask isn’t on (which is way too much to begin with), his eyes are constantly filled with tears.

Moving on to our leading lady, Kirsten Dunst, I have a whole different problem. In the first film, I was starting to get into the idea of having a non-supermodel quality Mary Jane Watson and by the end of the second film, I was completely sold, though she looked like she hadn’t eaten since Jumanji. And just then, as if it was her master plan to get us all to love her, and then crush us, in a press junket for Spider-Man 2, Dunst was quoted in saying that her ideal plot for another sequel would be where our webbed hero dies in the first act, and the rest of the film is about Mary Jane coping in the modern world with an unborn Spider-Baby as a single mother. Some of you remember this quote as “The Day We Started to Hate Kirsten Dunst.” I don’t know what it is about female actors and preaching their ideas when the majority of the audience paying attention to them are people who could care less about them. We go to superhero movies to see [[[superheroes]]], not their girlfriends.

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Cartoonists Conundrum

While we’ve been in the throes of office hell, we’ve noticed some changes going on in cartoonist-land that bear passing along:

  • Alison Bechdel has announced that she’s cutting back on production of her popular Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip from biweekly to monthly, in order to work on her new memoir, which she estimates will be ready in 2009.  She’ll be interspersing the new strips with "archive strips" (aka reruns), the first of which was published today — check out the very first episode of DTWOF, from 20 years ago!  (And be sure to check out Amanda Marcotte’s review of Bechdel’s Fun Home on the A-list political blog Pandagon.)
  • Mikhaela Reid passes along the news about Ward Sutton ending Sutton Impact (check out The Beat for more) and about the closing of The New Standard, a very friendly venue for political cartoonists which will be sorely missed.  (See Glenn’s post below for further cartoonist troubles at larger circulation papers.)
  • We do have some good news to pass along, however.  The Ormes Society’s Cheryl Lynn has kicked off the Torchy Brown Art Meme over at her blog, the results of which will be published on TOS’s site.  (That’s Torchy over on the right.)  And Heidi MacDonald crows that the House of Twelve Comic Jam folks have a new meeting place, starting this very evening.  It’s not far from Jim Hanley’s, so Manhattanites can grab their weekly haul and a drink with that jam, if they have the bread.

And if you are going to drink, please draw responsibly.

Spider-Man, Heroes, and Free Comics… Oh My!

If there ever was a best week ever in Pop Culture, this is it! Spider-Man 3 is moments away from opening, Heroes is heating up and Free Comic Book Day rolls in on the weekend! 

The ComicMix Big Broadcast for Tuesday starts out with a full shopping kist of comics and DVDs you can’t miss, ranging from the end of 52 to the Best Of Fletch – plus news on Magneto on the big screen, Adult Swim expanding on the small screen and Scarface in the comics. We also trip back in time to when Jed Clampett was a private eye!

Please note: The Heroes review contains spoilers. It comes at the end of the podcast, so if you TiVo’ed it, you might want to bail at the sound of Matt’s voice.

Press The Button – Save The World!

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Comics soon in a theater near you

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

As a contrast to all the Spider-Man stories this week, Alan Kistler sends us a quick update on other movies in the pipeline:

"This is an interesting week in terms of comic book movies and the like.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau has confirmed that Jeff Bridges will be shaving his head to play the role of Obadiah Stane, who in the comics was a wealthy, sociopathic industrialist who took Tony Stark’s company and manipulated the recovering alcoholic into drinking again.

Rumors are flying that Sarah Michelle Gellar is up for the role of Harley Quinn in the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight, but this has yet to be confirmed by anyone.

And "Moriarty" at Ain’tItCoolNews has posted up a review of an advanced screening of The Transformers. The review is full of spoilers concerning plot, so if you want the gist without having the story ruined for you, here are the highlights:

  • The plot will involve the Allspark cube, analogous to the "Autobot Matrix of leadership" from the original cartoon series.
  • The characters in the film are said to be very accurate to how they were portrayed in the Generation One cartoon series.
  • Optimus Prime is said to have amazing action scenes and is showcased as an incredible warrior.
  • To the satisfaction of older fans, Megatron and Starscream do indeed argue quite a bit.
  • The supporting cast of John Turturro, John Voight and Josh Duhmel are said to give a solid performance.
  • The special effects are supposed to be very good, though it is said that a couple of the robots look odd when speaking with robot lips.
  • There is a criticism that certain characters are not shown enough or given enough to do, as screentime must be focused on explaining the origin and nature of the Transformers.
  • There are supposed to be several references to the old cartoon for fans to enjoy, including lines by Optimus that were lifted from the original series.

Sounds like a great report to me. Here’s hoping the movie lives up to the hype."

Sunday go-to-reading day

  • News
  • April 29, 2007

Where has the week gone?  We’re still not recovered from the last few 9to5’s of our day job, so it’s a good thing we have Sunday to peruse all the regular ComicMix columns from this past week:

Okay, we confess, we actually read all of those already.  We even wrote one.  But listening time has been nonexistent, so today’s activity will definitely consist of getting up to speed with Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s last three podcasts:

Now that I’ve switched back to first-person singular and taken care of the review of and visuals from yesterday’s Kids’ Comic Con (see below), I’ll be awaiting the Pittsburgh news from the rest of the crew whilst I spend the rest of the day catching you up on all the items I haven’t had time to write for the past few days…

MATT RAUB: Your weekly Who review!

  • News
  • April 19, 2007

picture-1-6586209Hey gang, Matt Raub back again, and that can only mean one thing – it’s Who time! So here we are, already a quarter of the way through another explosive year of Doctor Who. And what better time to start the season three story arc than in the 727th produced episode, beating out all of the Star Trek series combined!

In the episode, entitled “Gridlock,” the Doctor and Martha travel on their third voyage together, this time to the future city of New New York. Some of you may remember that we’ve been to New New York, and fairly recently (Don’t worry, Martha brings that up too). Last time, the Doctor and Rose visited a sick friend in very chic hospital above ground, but this time we find our traveling duo deep in the city’s bowels and on the New New York Motorway, which reaches all the way to New New Jersey. Fun thing about this motorway is that, due to the traffic, it takes about 10 years to go four miles. Well, in all the chaos, Martha is kidnapped by two motorists hoping to get into the express lane. The doctor then does his doctor thing and declares he will find her if it’s the last thing he’ll do.

The greatest part of this episode isn’t a quirky part of dialogue, or interesting plot point, but the way the episode was shot. The majority of this episode is going from car to car, whilst the doctor searches for Martha. Now, each car is shot in the exact same set, just with a change of furniture and a few new actors. This makes for an incredibly cheap budget for the episode, and while this is completely unnecessary for the BBC’s top rated show, it reflects some of the ingenuity that American TV lacks. My hat is tipped to executive producer and episode writer Russell T. Davies and the boys and girls overseas for this particular stunt.

Back to the episode, while looking for Martha, the doctor comes across an old buddy – in fact, the same old buddy he came across the last time we were all in New New York: The good ol’ Face of Boe. Those of you who remember the last encounter with that giant head-in-a-jar, remember that Boe said he would meet the Doctor a final time, and then he would tell him the great secret. So now here we are, and that big secret is? **SPOILER WARNING**

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Early word catches the spider, man

  • News
  • April 16, 2007

spidey3newposter2-6620851Mark this down in your Week-At-A-Glance: If you’re hankering to get the early word on Spider-Man 3, Ebert and Roeper will be reviewing the movie on their hit teevee show the weekend of April 28th.

As of this writing we don’t know who Richard Roeper’s guest critic will be – Roger Ebert is recovering from cancer surgery and whereas he will be making an appearance at his "Forgotten Movies" film festival, he is still at least one operation away from getting his voice back. However, he does stand ready to review silent movies.

Ebert and Roeper airs at various times in sundry markets;  you can use their "station finder" (http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/) to discover the local whens and wheres. This show will air sometime between Friday, April 27th and Sunday, April 29th.

 

A look at Sunderland

  • News
  • April 16, 2007

sundereview-3215641Forbidden Plant International leads us to another glowing review of Bryan Talbot’s amazing Alice in Sunderland by Steve Flanagan. The catch is that Flanagan’s review is illustrative, done in the style of the book it’s discussing.

Flanagan’s 7-part comic strip review discusses Talbot’s presumed influences for this book, his stylistic choices, perceived structural weakness and subject matter.  Pretty heady stuff, and Flanagan’s not afraid to puncture his own pomposity.

It works better, of course, if you read the book first.  By that time maybe the traffic will have died down from Flanagan being BoingBoing’ed.

Grindhouse to amoeba?

  • News
  • April 10, 2007

10m-3779307Grindhouse executive producer Harvey Weinstein has been on a spree explaining why the movie  tanked last weekend. Without revealing the fact that the reviews and word-of-mouth generally noted people’s tastes running towards one of the two movies on the double bill and against the other – with little consensus on which is better – Weinstein said the three hour running time was a major deterrent to sales. Certainly, film exhibitors agree.

So he’s floating a trial balloon. He’s "thinking" about rereleasing Grindhouse as two individual movies: Robert Rodriquez’s  Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. That should do wonders for this weekend’s box office.

But here’s Weinstein’s dirty little secret: when they made Planet Terror and Death Proof, extra footage was shot. Yeah, that’s always the case. But in the case of these two movies, a lot of extra footage was shot. Enough to add at least 20 minutes to each movie. The plan, of course, was to release "extended versions" on DVD and to seperate the movies for some overseas audiences. Now, it looks like these extra 40 minutes (give or take) is becoming Plan B.

Thus making Grindhouse ironically the longest trailer ever released.

You can listen to Matt Raub’s review on today’s ComicMix Podcast (below) or do a search for his ComicMix print review, which we ran last week.

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