I haven’t been keeping up very well the past couple of months at mentioning what I’m posting over on Row Three (aside from the crossposting of the DVD Triage and Film on TV posts, which are always posts here and there at the same time), so there’s a good chunk of them here, some of them a wee bit out of date. Sorry about that. But just in case you missed any of these posts over there, here’s some of what I’m been yapping about.

This is a film I saw at Cinefamily back in August almost by accident – it was a Wednesday night so I was volunteering, but they were showing this as part of a Cinespia-co-sponsored series of trippy films instead of their usual Wednesday night silents (in fact, I think the Wednesday night silents may be pretty much dead at this point, except for the monthly Silent Treatment series). I was a bit put out by there not being a silent, and I was planning to leave as soon as the movie started and my volunteering duties were over, but I found out it was directed by Milos Forman, and I’ve liked his other films, so I decided to check it out. So very glad I did, because I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I’ve been meaning to post this particular scene, of a young hippie showing a bunch of parents how to smoke marijuana.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim since I finished playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion back in, like, 2007. In other words, several years before Skyrim was even announced, I was dying to play this game. And so far, it’s pretty much everything I’d hoped it would be – almost exactly like Oblivion but with a few refinements (many of them pulled from Bethesda’s other major current-gen game, Fallout 3). I’ve been too busy with life to get much further in the game than I when I wrote this, but I’m no less eager to get home every night and try to spend a few hours in Skyrim.

Near the end of October, Cinefamily had a live band called Nilbog (presumably after the town in Troll 2) come in and perform their covers of classic horror scores, from John Carpenter to Bernard Herrmann to John Williams to Goblin, and after hearing them perform the music from Suspiria, I couldn’t get it out of my head and had to write this post about it. Mostly just an intro to the clip, though, which contains the first several minutes of Suspiria and already indicates just how important the Goblin score is to the feel of the film, and to the sound design of it in general.

I read this novel on Kurt’s suggestion, in a chat thread on Row Three about sci-fi novels. I had mentioned really enjoying Neal Stephenson’s Anathem and explained a bit about the plot, which involves a monastic order based on science rather than religion, but still incorporating a lot of elements from church history that I recognized and found fascinating. Kurt said I had to read A Canticle for Liebowitz stat, and he was totally right – this 1959 novel postulates a post-apocalyptic world in which a monastic order is the only thing saving the scientific writings of the twentieth century, and following it through the next several hundred years as the world rebuilds. Fascinating stuff for both sci-fi and history fans.

It’s easy to rail against remakes and despair that Hollywood never has any new ideas, but remakes have been around as long as movies have, and not all of them are bad! Here’s fifteen that are, in fact, not bad at all. They may not all be better than the originals, but I think they all deserve to be seen on their own terms, and they come from throughout Hollywood (and indeed, world cinema) history.

Rewatching Jaws recently reminded me how much I enjoy the quiet moments, the character-driven parts in between the shark attacks. Spielberg is so great on timing in his movies, but also at giving us something to care about and chew on besides the thrills and scares themselves. This scene with the three disparate shark-hunters in the boat drawn together (and to some degree, separated) by their scars is a perfect example of the vibe that Spielberg, Benchley, and the actors create so perfectly, making Jaws far more memorable than most creature features.

This evocative short played at Cinefamily before a Silent Treatment feature several weeks ago, and I was transfixed by it. It’s a very unique kind of animation that uses a box of thousands of pins that you can push in and out to create shapes when a light is shone on it from the side. I can’t imagine how difficult and time consuming creating this must’ve been, but it’s bizarre and gorgeous and creepy.

I told you some of these were really old – obviously we’re back at the beginning of October now, with a list of classic horror films that are light on gore, but heavy on atmospheric creepiness. I love horror films like this, and even though October is done for this year, it’s never too early to plan for next year!

Almost got it down to doing this weekly! There’s two weeks included in this update, maybe I’ll get it done every week going forward. Fingers crossed. A lot of good ones this week, with a few more third issues upping the ante from the second. Still a few relative disappointments, though. I didn’t flip through any this week, though, so kind of a smaller grouping than I’ve had before on here – only the ones I actually bought in print. I’ve really been enjoying noticing all the different at styles on display here – everything from the straightforward and cocky Birds of Prey to the bold lines of All-Star Western and Wonder Woman to the painterly looks of Supergirl and parts of The Flash. Obviously the quality of a book depends on both the art and writing, but it’s great to see so much variety just in the look. Makes it more interesting to pick up the next book and check it out.

Batman #3

Batman continues the trend of my being super-impressed with third issues after being slightly underwhelmed by the second issues. That’s not true in the case of all books, but there have been several so far. Last month, I enjoyed the book well enough, but the whole thing with the Council of Owls came out of nowhere really abruptly, which turned me off. This book explores that more fully, in a way that’s really engaging and worked for me really well. It also seems like it’s going to tie into the mysterious town council in All-Star Western. I STILL can’t tell Bruce apart from the politician guy, but the writing is so strong in this series and this issue especially that I’m fine with the somewhat generic square-jawed male face that everyone seems to have.

All-Star Western #3

They must’ve gotten the memo loud and clear that there was too much damn narration in the first issue of this, because this one pares it down to almost nothing again, relying on really eye-catching bold-lined drawing to move the action forward rather than narration or dialogue. There’s a little of that, mostly dealing with Jonah Hex’s outlier status, and his unwillingness to stay in Gotham City no matter how much he may be needed. At the beginning, he and Dr. Arkham take down the Religion of Crime members who had captured the guy at the end of issue #2 (possible tie-in with Batwoman and/or Batman?), but it does get a little confusing when two other groups of bad guys turn up – not sure how or if they’re connected to the others, or if they’re just part of Hex’s rock-em-sock-em lifestyle. In any case, this book is a blast to look at, lots of action, and I love the bold look of it.

Justice League Dark #3

The plot thickens in this issue, as we get the first real glimpse of what Sorceress is all about – apparently the Justice League Dark’s protection of June Moone is what’s bugging her, because she needs her for some reason. More good character interactions here, with Constantine and Zatanna, Deadman and June Moone, and Shade and his illusion girlfriend (here rendered with wonderful hideousness) all getting time. Straight-forward but often lovely art here, and the story and situations are definitely living up to the “dark” part of the comic’s title. This is one of the more thematically adult titles of the New 52, and I’m really glad I started picking it up.

Supergirl #3

The art style in this issue is VASTLY different than in the previous ones – a little more finished-looking and painterly, a little less quick and kinetic. That’s effective both because this issue is much less fighting and much more plot and character stuff, and also because frankly, it looks way better. The previous issues I was having fun with the action, but this one, I wanted to slow down and actually drink in the look. Storywise, we get a bit of Superman explaining his mission on Earth to Kara, but she leaves him despite his protests and promptly gets captured by a gazillionaire who works outside all governments to investigate extraterrestrial stuff, and hence wants to test Kara’s physical limits. Some echo here of Action Comics #2, but a little less mean-spirited on the captor’s part – he’s not sympathetic, but he just seems more clinical than anything else. He definitely has an agenda, though, and I’m curious to see what it is. And I hope they stick with this art style.

Superman #3

I may be fully turned around on the Superman title – I really disliked the first issue, but grabbed issues #2 and #3 just to see, and wow have they been a lot better. Less whiny monologue, more actual action and depth. This one really starts delving into the question of how many bad things happen in Metropolis simply because Superman is there – obviously something brought up by the anti-Superman journalist McCoy, but it’s definitely weighing on Superman’s mind as well. The ice monster part is fine, but honestly not as good as the first half of the comic (which also includes some nice shout-outs to Action Comics #1). There are some dialogue-heavy parts, but they’re much better written than the first issue was – even if this one does have still have a couple of cringe-worthy lines (“you’re heading for a meltdown!”…really?). I’m glad I didn’t give up on this one initially.

The Flash #3

I’m continuing to enjoy this series at a relatively low octane level. It’s solid, and there are always certain parts, certain panels that really grab me, but I’m still not totally into the military/clone/whatever storyline. This one does have an intriguing flashback that may explain some of the backstory to Manuel’s situation, but mostly I liked it because the painterly art style is really pretty. Meanwhile, an electromagnetic pulse has hit the city and Flash is trying to do what he can while also looking for Manuel…the biggest problem with this issue is this disjointedness. Is he saving people as Flash? Is he looking for Manuel as Barry? Did the guys who have Manuel sent the electromagnetic pulse? There’s a lot of stuff happening this issue, so it’s fun to read, but I’m having real trouble connecting it all together, which lowered my overall enjoyment.

Justice League #3

Justice League adds Wonder Woman this week, who has apparently been working with the Pentagon, who has also been trying to keep her out of trouble and off the streets, unsuccessfully as it turns out. So I guess there’s no connection between this and the individual Wonder Woman comic – I mean, none of the others really seem to have a connection with their individual comics either, but at least they feel like they inhabit the same world here as in their own titles. We’ll see how the integration works over time. I didn’t love this entry as much as the first two, as it gives a bit more time to large-scale action scenes against hordes of the demon creatures instead of the fun character interactions of the first two issues. Looks like the origin story for Victor/Cyborg is coming along, though, and I hope that connects to our main story more soon, because jumping between them is a little jarring. One by one the team is being assembled (one more gets teased by the end), and I hope the focus stays on the characters and not on the faceless action.

Wonder Woman #3

Three issues in, and I STILL don’t totally know how I feel about this book. This one is mostly taken up with Diana learning her true parentage and the circumstances that led to her birth, which result in her severing ties with Paradise Island. Still, she’s unlikely to join Strife, which is what Strife seems to want – although, her name being Strife, maybe she just wants to sow discord among the Amazona? In which case, mission accomplished. I’m not sure what her end goal is, and this issue has almost NOTHING to do with the current Zeus progeny problem (the girl who caused all the hullabaloo in the first issue is barely in this one at all), but I’m assuming that will take center stage now. This issue I noticed particularly how much of the story is told strictly through images instead of by dialogue, and I really like that aspect – especially since there are a few dialogue sections that hardly make any sense.

Birds of Prey #3

Big thing here is Poison Ivy joins the group. That’s…interesting. And not without its hurdles, as the first altercation is between her, Ev, and Katana. But there are bigger bads afoot, apparently, and after a captured stealth soldier explodes, they all go after some prominent politicians that are probably the next targets. But the next head-bomb victim may be someone even closer to them. This continues to be fun but not very deep, and the art is pretty plain, take it or leave it. The writing is decent, though, if a bit throwaway.

Aquaman #3

The fight from the previous issue continues, focused on Aquaman vs. the one really big Trench monster. There’s some good action here, but nothing as kinetic as some of the other books. After they deal with that, Aquaman and Mera go to find out what the things are from a guy he knew as a kid – they had a falling out when Aquaman wouldn’t show him Atlantis. I’m kinda anxious to see Atlantis myself at this point, since they won’t shut up about it. But instead they head for the Trench. I wasn’t too enamored of this issue; it was just all right.

Yeah, I know this post is weeks late, and yeah, I know new comics are coming out today for several of these series I’m talking about here. I’ve been busy with other stuff and this fell by the wayside, but I don’t want to let it get too far behind, so this is a catch-up and reset post. Hopefully after this week I can get these done weekly and not fall behind. I flipped through a bunch of ones over the past few weeks just to see how they were, found some I like more than expected and had some fall down a bit in my estimation. The best remain the best, though, and looks like that’s not going to change as we’re solidly into the third issues of each series.

One thing I’ve noticed as I’m gone through to write these up is that I find myself almost never caring about the big bad or the major plotline of the arc. The parts that draw me in and keep me interested are the character interactions, the bits of dialogue between people, or the insights into the characters from their own or others points of view. I guess this means I’m not bothered by issues that other people are calling “slow” or “not enough forward action,” because usually they’re filled with the things I like. Instead, I find myself getting bored when the alien/mech big bad shows up in Action Comics or they talk about Darkseid in Justice League, or the suited men terrorize clone guy in The Flash, and I have to reread the book to remind myself what’s even going on with that. But I remember Clark chatting with his landlady or Green Lantern snarking at Batman or Barry realizing his mental potential. It’s not true across the board – Swamp Thing, Animal Man, All-Star Western, and Batwoman all have me intrigued by the big bad plot as well as the character stuff. I don’t know what that means in terms of my relationship with comics. Anyway. On the individual books. Clicking the thumbnails will bring up bigger images in lightboxes.

Justice League #1-2

I initially avoided the Justice League flagship series because I didn’t think seeing a whole bunch of established superheroes working together would be all that interesting to me, but after a few people mentioned how fun it was, I figured I’d take a peek, and gorram, were they right. What I didn’t realize is that this book starts right at the formation of the Justice League, so most of the characters are meeting each other for the first time, and those “who the heck is this guy” interactions are a whole lot of fun. First off we get Green Lantern swooping into a fight Batman’s having with a raggedy villain (while the cops chase both vigilante and villain) – “Batman? You’re REAL?” Green Lantern is pretty much an arrogant jackass, but in the most entertaining way as he mocks Batman’s lack of supernatural powers. Wait until he gets a load of Superman, though, who’s none-too-impressed with Lantern’s theatrics. The Flash shows up in #2 and has a great evading fight with Superman that lets both characters display their strengths. There’s not a lot of story so far beyond setting up these relationships (the villainous creatures are leaving mysterious boxes everywhere that explode and seem to lead to Darkseid), but it’s written with so much vigor and humor that I don’t care. Wonder Woman gets added to the mix next month, and I can’t wait to see how she’ll fit in with this testosterone-laden group.

Swamp Thing #3

Wow, I was already loving this book, and if anything, the third issue has upped the ante. We start off with a young boy in a hospital, carefully sequestered in a bubble because he’s allergic to chlorophyll – allergic to plant life itself. Meanwhile, Alec is trying to figure out what Abigail Arcane’s agenda is, and it turns out her family has close ties to the black, to the rot that would destroy the earth, a connection the boy in the hospital also has. Alec’s connection to the green (and over in Animal Man, Bud’s connection to the red, that is, animal life) are going to be needed to stop the rot from taking over. Things are building up so nicely in both these books that I don’t even care that they’re about to crossover, even though I initially said I didn’t want any crossovers. In this case, it totally makes sense. This time out art duties have been split between Yanick Paquette (who’s done the previous Swamp Thing issues in the New 52) and Victor Ibañez, with Ibañez taking care of all the parts with the boy in the hospital – drawing in bold, simple but effective lines – and Paquette continuing the dark and twisty vine-laden panels in the swamps. It works out well, and I can’t wait to see what issue #4 has in store.

Action Comics #3

This continues to be a great story, extremely well-written and balanced by Grant Morrison. The world is starting to turn on Superman as the news outlets led by Glenmorgan (the guy Supes held off a balcony in the first issue) brand him as a dangerous alien, while Clark continues to delve into tough stories. I love that Morrison is giving so much time to Clark and his struggles to be a great reporter…it’s clearly more than a cover for him – uncovering corruption and trying to alleviate suffering through his journalistic endeavors is just as important to him as the more obvious stuff he does as Superman. Here he can’t catch any breaks, though, as the police investigate his apartment for basically no provocation, Lois is right on his tail for all the good stories, and, oh, yeah, he’s having dreams about the destruction of Krypton by an entity that has Earth in its sights next. The art is suffering a little now; different panels of Clark don’t even look like the same person at times, but the writing is so solid I’ll forgive the rushed look of some of the art.

All-Star Western #2

I picked on the first issue of All-Star Western for the interminable psychoanalytic voiceover by Dr. Arkham, and that’s thankfully gone this issue, leaving just wonderfully bold-lined action scenes with Jonah Hex taking no prisoners from the cowled assailants who threaten, and more staid but still great depictions of Gotham’s secret controllers. I don’t know how much the story was actually advanced this issue, but I love the way it looks so much, and Hex’s scowl is the perfect fit for this art style and setting, that I greatly enjoyed it. I’m hoping we’ll get more details on the secret society and their plans soon to give this gorgeous comic a bit more weight.

Animal Man #3

It took me a few issues, but I am totally on the Animal Man train now. With Bud and Maxine full enclosed in the Red, the drawing takes on almost Plympton-esque level of surrealism, which spills over into the now-staid-looking normal life panels with Ellen and Cliff as three hunters (bad guys) go after them with increasing levels of distortion. They can take human form by eating people, but can’t hold it for long, and soon they’re spreading their bizarre shapes all over. The family scenes continue to work great, with a nice page of Cliff trying futilely to get Maxine’s zombie animals to stop bugging him and Ellen joins him to play his “disgusting” video game. It’s a great dynamic, and the intrusion of the hunters is a wonderful juxtaposition. Meanwhile, in the Red we learn that Bud isn’t fully an avatar of the animal, but that Maxine will be, and she’s got to step up soon despite her youth because a rot is threatening both the Red (animal) and the Green (plant) – presumably setting up a crossover with Swamp Thing. The story is coming together nicely, and the art has now managed to win me over as well. Great stuff.

Batwoman #2-3

I didn’t totally love Batwoman #2, which picks up with Kate and Bette beating up some guys in an apparently random encounter – not sure what it has to do with the kidnapping ghost, who shows up for one panel, a lovely spread (once again, the book is almost completely gorgeous spreads, which I liked, but your mileage may vary), and then disappears again. One truly brilliant use of the spread style is when Sawyer deconstructs a crime scene; Williams presents lots of information density in a very concise and attractive way. Of course, Batwoman was involved in the crime scene, but it’s kind of nice to see Sawyer’s perspective on what Batwoman is doing/has done. Batman is also continuing to pursue Batwoman for membership in his worldwide league of Bat-people (something I didn’t know existed, but at least it’s introduced a little better than everything in Batwoman #1), but she’s wary. But issue #3 picked up really nicely, starting off with Batwoman held underwater by the watery ghost, plagued with visions of her sister’s death (and implying her own guilt-impelled death wish) before she escapes and returns home, insistent that cousin Bette stop being a costumed crimefighter out of concern for her safety. The art in these parts is great, with the very different styles clashing as a costumed but unmasked Kate walks into the Bette’s room. Fight scenes are done beautifully, with Williams capturing the movement like a strobe light, jagged lines using space to indicate time. The art has been privileged over the story a bit in the first two issues, but with the third, the storytelling THROUGH the art is really starting to coalesce.

Supergirl #1-2

This one I didn’t pick up the first month either, though it was in my second-tier of “interested if something else goes south” books, and hence I picked it up in month 2, and really enjoyed it. The first issue is basically Supergirl landing on earth in a meteor but not knowing where she is or what’s going on – she thinks it’s a dream, even as a bunch of mechanized soldiers try to capture her and she fights them off with strength she didn’t know she had. There’s a lot of great moments as she starts gaining powers, especially the panel where she starts overhearing everything, including snippets of dialogue from other DC #1s (Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Aquaman). That’s a nice touch. The second issue has Superman show up and the two basically beat each other up for the whole issue. Yeah, not a lot of plot development there, but it is FUN. The art’s a little slapdash, but I like it.

Chew #1

The only non-DC book this time around (though I’m still working my way through the American Vampire trade – hopefully will have that finished before I do the next one of these). This series by John Layman and Rob Guillory and published by Image Comics is up to issue #27 or so, which came out a couple of weeks ago and the preview on Comixology intrigued me. A lot of times they have the first issue of a series for free or severely discounted, so I got #1 to check it out. Tony Chu is a police detective with a special psychic ability – he get psychic impressions from whatever he eats. So he’s mostly vegetarian to avoid seeing, like, the slaughter of the cow in the cheeseburger he’s eating. Anyway, on a routine case (in a non-routine place – apparently chicken is outlawed here and there are chicken speakeasies), he eats some soup and realizes the cook, who sliced a sliver of finger into the soup, is a serial killer. The book is quite macabre, but also really funny thanks to Chu’s smartass character. I liked it a lot, and if I get a chance at some cheap collected editions or something, I’ll definitely check out more.

Demon Knights #3

This continues to just be flat-out medieval fun. Less battle action in this one, more preparation for a coming attack, with Xanadu (who I just realized is the same character as in Justice League Dark) giving all her strength and many years of her life to create a magical shield over the village, and all the other disparate characters trying to figure out how to work together to get ready for the coming of the hordes. Lots of individual character moments here, two-on-two or two-on-three interactions that are mostly well-written, and drawn with a great level of detail. I love the varied color work here, as a lot of panels have slighlty different tints depending on where they are and which characters are foremost. There’s not a lot of depth, but it’s fast-paced and exciting to read, and sometimes that’s all I need.

The Flash #2

I was a little hard on The Flash #1 because I thought the writing was a little weak, especially toward the end, and it just didn’t hit me anything very special. This issue was a big step up for me, though. I’m still not totally on board with the cloning plot or whatever is going on there, which I assume actually going to become the big bad, but the part of the story that focused on Barry increasing his mental abilities to catch up with his physical speed was tremendous. Loved every second, every panel of it. And I also liked the flashback panels more this time around, with their watercolor-looking evocation of Barry’s past with Manuel, which should also tie into the main villain story before long. There’s a lot of promise here, and this issue realized it a lot more than the first one did as far as I’m concerned.

Justice League Dark #1-2

I skipped over this one initially for the same reason I skipped over the main Justice League title, but I figured I’d check it out this time, and it’s pretty solid. There’s a pretty great fight with big bad Sorceress overcoming the main Justice League heroes with her otherworldly magic – a step beyond the supernatural powers they have – hence requiring the formation of Justice League Dark, made up of more esoteric characters whose powers are a little more, well, weird. Deadman is here, with his ability to possess other people, and John Constantine with his demon summoning, and Shade with his reality-warping powers, plus magician Xatanna and fortune teller Madame Xanadu (though I’m not entirely sure whose side she’s on, even if she is doing most of the narrating). Interestingly, the second issue drops a lot of the mysterious tone of the first one and focuses on Deadman’s relationship with Dove (of Hawk and Dove, yeah, another crossover/backstory thing I’m not gonna get) – I actually quite liked the domestic break, though I’m sure things will get crazy again in the next issue. I just wish I knew a little bit more about what Sorceress is up to.

Wonder Woman #2

I’m still not sure how I feel about Wonder Woman, to be honest. I know people who love it, and there are certainly elements I like a lot – I like the bold drawing on the fight scenes, but the looser style on the more relaxed panels isn’t grabbing me. It looks a little unfinished/unpolished to me, and I haven’t decided whether I like that yet or not. The mythology continues to intrigue me, even as I have to readjust some of the things I know about Greek mythology to fit into DC Greek mythology. :) The modern girl thrown into the mix gets some of the best dialogue, but I also liked Wonder Woman’s clear intention to protect her rather than side with either Zeus or Hera in the feud they’re about to have over her. Little things like that are starting to reveal Diana’s character to me, and I like it. The whole thing just feels a little…light-weight to me somehow, and I’m not sure if that’s due to the art or the writing. I’m obviously still enjoying it, but we’ll see if it starts coming together for me a little more cohesively in upcoming months.

Batgirl #3

This issue kind of has three movements – one in which Batgirl tries to stop Mirror from blowing up a train with a bravado play that doesn’t quite work, one with police activity and Barbara talking with her father, and one where Batgirl and Nightwing alternately talk and beat each other up. I still really like Barbara Gordon’s narration, the most self-aware and jokey of the New 52 without ever losing sight of her very real trauma, but it starts to go off the rails a bit toward the end. The whole sequence with Nightwing doesn’t do much except establish back story that I’m not sure really matters and provide an opportunity for Barbara to have mood swings that will induce whiplash. But there are panels earlier where her self-doubting persona works really well, especially when she’s talking with her father and gives two versions of how the conversation could go. I love that stuff. More of that, please, and less of other superheroes popping in for no good reason.

Batman #2

I won’t say I was necessarily disappointed in the second issue of Batman, though it’s going to seem that way since it’s so much lower on my list than the first issue was – I still quite liked it, and Scott Snyder is quickly becoming one of my favorite comic writers. But I’m kind of getting distracted by the samey drawing, especially in the Bruce Wayne parts where all the male characters look the exact same. And some of the panels didn’t make sense to me spatially (especially when he was falling in the middle section). I do very much like the continued VO probing of Gotham itself and its nature, and the holographic link Batman has to the autopsy room is pretty cool. The end seemed really abrupt to me, though, and didn’t so much leave me wanting more as going “huh, where did that come from?” Hopefully we’ll find out next issue.

Birds of Prey #1-2

I’d heard conflicting reports on this one – both that it was breezy fun and really boring. I vote “breezy fun.” My only exposure to Birds of Prey is the short-lived TV series WB mounted in the early 2000s, which I remember enjoying and my comic-book-nerd friends hating. Heh. Anyway, in this take, Barbara Gordon is on the periphery but not really involved (she’s shown wheelchair-less and Dinah mentions her being Batgirl again, so there’s consistency with the New 52 Batgirl); the main characters are Dinah/Canary and Ev/Starling, and they add a third, Katana, in the second issue. Yeah, this is just fun. Not overwhelmingly good writing or art, but it’s fast-paced and the dynamic between the girls is enjoyable and mostly witty.

Nightwing #1-2

I hadn’t intended to pick up another Batman subsidiary, but I kind of went crazy checking out random stuff this week, and it turns out Dick Grayson’s post-Robin character intrigued me the most out of the Bat-books I looked at. I know next to nothing about this character except the old Batman TV show, which doesn’t go into any of Grayson’s back story at all in the episodes I’ve seen. Like the fact that he grew up in a circus as a trapeze artist. Circus stuff is cool. The art in this comic is cool. Grayson’s pretty cool. So I might keep reading this one full-time, even if the “Seiko Killer” pun on the cover of #2 was pretty painful. That’s pretty much the worst thing in these first two issues, so I think I can overlook it. Oh, also, I didn’t know that Grayson took over from Wayne as Batman for a time, which is mentioned early in the first issue. Someone should catch me up on that sometime.

Superman #2

I know, I said I wan’t going to keep reading this one. And I still may not, but I figured I’d check out the second issue just to see, and you know what, I liked it a good bit better. Still not as much as Action Comics, I think, but at least it didn’t alternately bore me and piss me off like the first issue did. Here Superman/Clark is a bit down in the dumps thanks to his perceived failures in the first issue, both in terms of public acceptance of his superhero help and Lois’s romantic interest. Then he gets attacked by something he can’t see, but it turns out everyone else can, and that fight scene, with Superman at first unable to see his assailant and then helped thanks to Lois’s crew’s video coverage, is pretty awesome. I also liked seeing a bit more of Clark and Lois’s relationship.

Aquaman #2

I didn’t care for this month’s Aquaman quite as much as last month’s, even though it definitely has its moments. Most of it is a big, not particularly coherent or visually interesting fight scene with the Trench monsters (who are still pretty scary-looking). What I did find interesting is that Aquaman apparently doesn’t bother keeping his identity a secret – when the police guy looks for him, he just answers the door in his state of undress and seems utterly unconcerned about admitting his identity, and he and his girlfriend call each other by name during the fight. I also quite enjoyed their dynamic, of a committed but unusual couple that avoids the awkward flirtiness or outright sexuality of some of the other titles.

Batman & Robin #1-3

Yes, another Batman title. Don’t blame me, it’s DC going for maximum overload on their hottest superhero. This one has an intriguing dynamic between Batman and the current Robin, who happens to be Batman’s son Damien. I didn’t know Batman had a son until I started reading the New 52, but apparently he does, and he’s an amoral killing machine. It’s actually getting better as the series goes on, I think, with issue #3 having some really nice moments with Damien and Alfred and some great fighting panels with Damien doing his worst. I might actually add this one to my normal rotation.

Detective Comics #1-3

I chose Batman over this of the straight Bat-books, and I still think that was the right decision, but I gotta say after checking this one out, there’s some pretty gruesome and macabre stuff in here, in a good way. The Dollmaker character is f-ed up, and I’m actually pretty curious to see where that plot goes (one of the few villains that really intrigues me out of the whole New 52, to be honest). I actually wish it were just him and not Joker…just about every Bat-thing I’ve seen as a casual fan has had Joker, and even though he’s extra psychotic here, I don’t care that much. I was pretty back and forth on issue #3, as well – the Dollmaker is still scary, but some of the dialogue is really bad, and Batman just running around being ineffective only goes so far. A few of the plot elements are still intriguing, but a lot of is just “gotcha” shocks.

Resurrection Man #3

Picking up right from the end of the previous issue, our hitwomen wonder why Resurrection Man isn’t resurrecting immediately, but it turns out he’s chatting with a shadowy demon thing in an empty void of eternity, who reveals there’s some kind of battle over his soul going on between heaven and hell – his constant resurrecting is throwing off their rhythm. He fights off the demon and resurrects, only to have to fight the hit girls again, showing off various new powers as he dies and resurrects yet again. There are still elements of this book I like, mostly the basic idea, though. In execution, it’s getting a little old, and this issue ends with a WTF panel that pretty much makes me ready to give up on it. Might give it one more issue, we’ll see.

DC Universe Presents: Deadman #1-2

DC Universe Presents is going to be a catch-all title for lesser DC characters to cycle through instead of getting their own books. The first miniseries is Deadman, an arrogant trapeze artist who dies but ends up cursed to jump from body to body until he can redeem himself from the bad things he did in this life. The “bad things” seem to be stuff like “behaved arrogantly” and “looked down on others”, but whatever. This purgatory is run by a blue alien goddess person, but what exactly her agenda is and how long Deadman is going to have to go before escaping her realm is unclear, which is not a good thing about the book. Some of the individual scenes are fun, like when he works his way from person to person in a crowded nightclub, trying not be detected by paranormal-aware bouncers. Aside from that, I prefer Deadman’s more mature portrayal (as in, not an angsty origin story) in Justice League Dark.

Voodoo #2

Flipped through the second issue of this just out of curiosity, and still probably won’t be reading it for real. At the end of the last issue, Voodoo had killed the male cop and taken his form – she goes straight from there to sleeping with the cop’s partner, which is awkward. There’s a nice fight scene with the partner figures it out and goes in after Voodoo all angry, but the art continues to be bland, and the ending is essentially the same as the end of the first book. Not terrible, but not great.

I, Vampire #2

Another “can it possibly be as bad as the first issue” flip-through, and the answer is no, it isn’t as bad, but that’s still not enough. This one is from Mary’s point of view, and has a bit more of the vampire rebellion in it, which cuts down on some of the emo-ness, and the art is still quite lovely, but this book is just…boring. Possibly the worst of all sins in a line-up of 52 competitors.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1-2

I’d heard some good things about this other book by Jeff Lemire (who also writes Animal Man), but I just don’t see it. Frankenstein’s monster is the head of a secret organization of superheroes made up of old monster movie characters like The Mummy and others that are made-up but in a similar vein, and they go to stop an invasion by thousands of giant monsters from another dimension. A flashback story to one character’s human life before transforming herself into a black lagoon-like creature is well-done, but most everything else just seems really messy, in both storytelling and art style. Could just be me – after all, the Animal Man art style is taking me some time to get used to, also, but I don’t like the story or character set-up here nearly enough to put up with it.

The Savage Hawkman #1-2

I had high hopes for a story about a superhero whose alter ego is a forensic archaeologist. How cool does that sound!? It’s not actually cool at all, the book I mean, which is probably the worst written of all the ones I’ve read. After a good opening when Hawkman drives out into the country to burn his costume and try to eschew his superhero identity, it just devolves into silliness and repetitiveness and…horrible writing. I gave it the second issue chance, and it’s just as bad. It’s a double shame because there’s some nice art in here, a painterly style that I haven’t seen in the other books.

Since I heard that DC was rebooting pretty much their entire line, starting over at issue #1 and starting new storylines for almost every character, I’ve been a little obsessed with reading them. I’ve never been a comic book person, really, but I’ve dabbled with graphic novel collections and enjoyed movies based on the characters – getting into weekly comic reading was probably inevitable, I just needed a place to start. The DC New 52 gave me that place, and I’ve already started moving past it into other publishers and lines.

I posted a rundown of the 13 DC issues I read the first month of the reboot over on Row Three, but I don’t want to necessarily keep posting updates and continuing reviews over there on a weekly or monthly basis, so I’m going to do it here. First head over there and check out my thoughts on the #1s. Of course, there will be another group of #2s out tomorrow (Wednesday), but I didn’t want to wait to get this out there. I’ll try to be more on time in the future. For the record, after the first month I am no longer reading Superman, I, Vampire, or Voodoo. I did, however, pick up Demon Knights and Resurrection Man in their place, both of which I like much better.

(I’ve included some of my favorite panels from each comic; some of them may be spoilery. Click on any of the images to see a larger version.)

DC New 52

Swamp Thing #2

The first issue of Swamp Thing was a surprise top favorite of mine last month, but this time I was ready for it, and it didn’t really disappoint. The confusion I had at the end of the last issue is cleared up totally as Swamp Thing explains everything to Alec Holland, which is admittedly a whole lot of exposition at once, but it’s necessary and well-written. The art continues to impress as well, with the first half of the book (set in the swamp) is panels all separated by tangled and uneven branches, entangling Alec both in the plant-ridden physical location and his plant-ridden destiny. The second half brings back the neck-twisted minions that remain the creepiest thing in the whole of the New 52 that I’ve read, and they’re as chilling as in issue #1, despite the shock factor being somewhat diminished. I’m definitely noting Scott Snyder as one of my favorite writers so far.

Action Comics #2

I quit reading the Superman series after issue #1 in favor of sticking with Grant Morrison’s younger, edgier, more unpredictable take on Superman in Action Comics, and issue #2 didn’t make me regret that decision at all. Here Superman has been captured by Lex Luthor (who insists on calling Superman “it” and correcting everyone who calls him “him”) and is undergoing increasing levels of physical torture as Luthor tries to find out his breaking point – but instead Superman breaks out, and gleefully rampages through Luthor’s compound. I’m seriously loving this Superman, and the hints of the big bad working with and through Luthor and the army are pretty cool.

Animal Man #2

Animal Man #1 had me a bit on the fence – somehow both intrigued and uncentered by the shifting art style, the surreal parts, and the writing focused on family life rather than superherodom. It was just very different from the other things I read and what I expected from a superhero comic book, and it took me another issue, I think, to really warm up to it. Now I’m kind of embracing the sheer weirdness of it, and I think as the series continues, it’ll probably be one of my favorites. Buddy’s daughter is turning out to be as connected to the animal world as he is, maybe even more so, and the two embark on a journey to “The Red,” an abstract concept if I’ve ever heard one, to get ready to stop some big bad. The family dynamics continue to be central here, a very good thing.

Batgirl #2

I’m still enjoying the heck out of this series. I like the way Gordon is struggling with her physical abilities – she’s recovered from being paralyzed miraculously (the book still doesn’t go much into how that happened), but she hasn’t regained all her strength, and she often tries and fails to handle herself in fights the way her mind THINKS she can handle herself. I do hope they don’t continue to beat that idea in the voice-over, though, now that’s it’s been clearly established. I like her voice-over, despite how nearly omnipresent it is, because I like the way she slyly undercuts herself all the time. It makes Batgirl one of the most entertaining books in the relaunch. Here she meets and fights with the Mirror, who could turn out to be an interesting villain, but I hope they don’t let it get too caught up in his self-loathing backstory. I do really like her budding relationship with her new roommate. That’s a nice counterpoint to all the fighting and self-doubt.

Demon Knights #1 & #2

This was one I didn’t pick up the first week, but I’d heard good things about it and when I ended up with fewer books in the second week of #2s, I figured I’d try it out. Especially since the Comixology app is discounting the first issue of these runs as soon as the second one comes out – makes it easy to pick up back issues. And this is a really fun series so far, set in the Middle Ages. Thus it’s so far completely separate from any of the other books, which I kind of like. At the fall of Camelot, Merlin emprisons the demon Etrigan in human form; as the book continues, it turns out that this man Jason can turn into the demon at will, which he does whenever there’s danger nearby. There are bad guys with dragons, and various other knights and barbarians aplenty. Issue #2 was basically a really long, awesome fight scene, with some great art and fun character interactions. Not too deep, this one, but a rousing good time.

Resurrection Man #1 & #2

An intriguing one in concept, for sure, with a main character who comes back to life every time he’s killed with a different power. When we first see him rise at the beginning of #1, he’s attuned to metal and can control it the way Magneto does in X-Men. The next time, he can morph into water form. He also appears to have some level of amnesia, as he heads to try to find his father in a nursing home to find out about his past. Not all the dialogue writing is particularly good, but the concept is SO good, and so far I’ve enjoyed the action and interactions (I really like that he appears to be older than your average superhero, which gives him a maturity and gravity that’s unusual) enough to keep with it a while longer.

Other Series

Criminal: The Last of the Innocent

This is actually the newest of the Criminal books by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, but after seeing Ed Howard talk about it as a noir book playing off an Archie-like universe, I had to check it out. I used to read Archie incessantly, and that backdrop to a very dark crime story sounded awesome, and it totally was. Basically the main character Riley is the Archie-esque character, while Jughead becomes his junkie friend, and Riley has chosen to marry the Veronica character and live the highlife in the big city, leaving the Betty character behind in his small home town. (All the names are changed.) The current timeline is done in really evocative dark drawings (which is also how the other Criminal books are drawn), but there are lots of flashbacks as Riley remembers his time growing up, and those are done in Archie-style. It’s both an excellent story on the surface and a dark, twisted satire on the world of Archie and the perfect American Dream life that it represents. It’s only four issues long, all of which are available via the Comixology app.

Criminal: Coward

After I liked the new run of Criminal so much, a friend was kind enough to send me the first couple of collections, of which Coward is the first. It’s the same style as the modern sections of Last of the Innocent, but without any of the Archie connections. It’s a straight noir crime story of a bank robber who always gets away, thanks to following his “rules,” which basically look out for his own skin at all costs, hence labeling him a “coward,” since he’d rather run away than face any potential of being caught. When he’s approached for a job by a crooked cop and a former cohort of his father’s (also a crook), he’s suspicious but ends up taking it anyway – which is not a good idea. Lots of twists and turns are augmented by really great character writing, and it goes to some really surprising dark places. Can’t wait to read the next collection…and everything else Brubaker and Phillips write.

Batwoman: Elegy

I picked this up at the library after being confused by the New 52 Batwoman #1, and it was definitely a good choice. DC didn’t totally reboot Batwoman – she was destined for her own series anyway, and the #1 issue is basically just that. It contains a lot of callbacks to Elegy (which I believe was originally a run of Detective Comics) that make NO sense if you haven’t read Elegy and perfect sense if you have. It’s a great collection on its own, full of the same gorgeous art that made me love Batwoman #1 even whilst I was confused, and a bit of a whacked out story with a Religion of Crime led by an Alice in Wonderland lookalike that Batwoman has to take down. The Kate Kane character is an intriguing one, too, a woman kicked out of the military because she refused to lie about being gay who takes up the cape of a crimefighter after a chance encounter with Batman. Now that I’m all caught up on her story, I can’t wait to read the rest of the New 52 arc.

One thing that nearly always grabs my interest in any book or film is an explicit focus on storytelling itself – that can be anything from Italo Calvino’s playing with different genres/ways to tell a story in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler to the suggestion in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus that it is monks telling stories that actually keep the world stable. So when I come across a particularly intriguing passage about stories and storytelling even in works that aren’t necessarily about that, I perk up a little bit and get all happy inside.

Here’s such a passage from Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, which I’m currently about halfway through reading – it’s been slow only because I don’t devote nearly enough time to reading, but I am quite enjoying the world he’s built and find it difficult to put the book down when I do pick it up again. The basic premise is an earth-like world that’s split into two groups – avout and Saeculars. Avout are basically monks, people who have separated themselves from the world into places called maths where they devote their time to studying mathematics, philosophy, science, etc. Saeculars are everyone else, the regular people in the world. Basically think of it like our Middle Ages, but with science instead of religion driving the avout. (It’s pretty interesting to read as a Christian who knows something about church history – there’s a lot to recognize, for better or worse, and the interplay with the religions of the Saeculars is fascinating.)

Anyway. In this section, our main character, an avout who has been in his math for ten years with no contact with the outside world, has left the math to search for his mentor, who has recently been banished from the math. He’s interacting with Saeculars more than he has since entering the math as a child, and he’s bringing the book knowledge that he has about the world to bear on the actual world for the first time. I find his suggestion that mechanization and industrialization brought about a loss of story intriguing – compare with The Matrix‘s suggestion that human beings can’t actually live without story, so a story is created for them to keep them content.

So I looked with fascination at those people in their mobes^[1], and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who’d made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day’s end with interesting stories to tell, it meant something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be^[2] would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn’t live without story had been driven into the concents^[3] or into jobs like Yul’s^[4]. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part? We avout had it ready-made because we were a part of this project of learning new things. Even if it didn’t always move fast enough for people like Jesry, it did move. You could tell where you were and what you were doing in that story. Yul got all of this for free by living his stories from day to day, and the only drawback was that the world held his stories to be of small account. Perhaps that was why he felt such a compulsion to tell them, not just about his own exploits in the wilderness, but those of his mentors.

I especially like the line “All the story had been bled out of their lives.” So evocative.

Notes

1. ^[1] cars ↩
2. ^[2] meaning those in power in the Saecular world, no supernatural connotation ↩
3. ^[3] a bunch of maths concentrated in one place ↩
4. ^[4] Yul’s job is a wilderness guide, transporting and guiding travelers around in the northern reaches of the Saecular world ↩

I‘m going to make a vow right now to never again say in print or in conversation the words: “The book is better.”

Not because the book isn’t better, not because I don’t think the book is better in many cases, and not because I don’t think it’s ever valuable to compare a film adaptation with its literary original. But because the statement “The book is better” is too easy a gut reaction, too simplistic a critical statement, and too cliched a response. It doubles as an elitist phrase, both revealing that you’ve read the book in question and that you, being literary, prefer it to its pop-art cousin the cinema. Now, of course not everyone who uses the phrase intends those elitist connotations and I don’t mean to suggest that they do.

Instead, when dealing with a film adaptation of a book, I will seek to compare how they differ, what specific things the book did better, and what specific things the film did better. Sometimes I can’t be that specific, because the difference is more ephemeral than that, but I will be specific about that, too, as specific as I can.

I already try to do this, recognizing that the film, though based on an existing work, is also its own work of art and ought to be treated as such rather than merely a copy/shadow of the original. But I will make it explicit. Hold me to this. If any time after today, you hear me say the words “The book is better” or see me write them, call me on it. Remind me to think more carefully about the relationship between the two works, and tell me to rewrite or expand what I wrote.

As per usual, I haven’t seen enough 2008 releases to be justified making a Best of 2008 list, so here is my much more egocentric list of my favorite movies that I saw during 2008, no matter when they were released. And I threw in books, music, and games, with the same caveat. The links go to my reviews, reactions, or other previous writings about them. The non-linked ones I, uh, didn’t write about. Because I am lazy. So I’ll throw in a line about them, but I may still write about the more in the future. Or not. Because I am lazy.

Oh, and also, don’t even think these are lists of bests. They’re lists of favorites, 100% subjective. And highly subject to change.

FILM

LOVED

Cleo from 5 to 7 (imdb) – A New Wave film from a female director (Agnes Varda). It’s an excellent combination.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sunrise
Wall-E (imdb) – edit: I managed to forget this one upon publishing this post. BAD JANDY. A breathtakingly beautiful, heartwarming but not maudlin, and prescient sci-fi animated film. Virtually perfect in every way.
Divided We Fall
Easy Rider

The Fall (imdb) – A dazzlingly imaginative film set partly in war-torn Spain and partly in the story a dying soldier tells a young girl. Not as cohesive as Pan’s Labyrinth, but very much in the same vein.
Kicking and Screaming
All That Jazz
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Speed Racer (imdb) – One of the most criminally underrated films of the year. A visionary expression of sensory overload and invention. Plus, shiny!
I Walked With a Zombie
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Planet Terror

REALLY LIKED

I’m Not There
Rachel Getting Married (imdb) – Fantastic acting and script. Just misses being in the “Loved” section because I could strangle Jonathan Demme for misusing the shakicam.
The Savages
Orpheus
Werckmeister Harmonies (imdb) – Director Bela Tarr is known for using reaaaallllly long takes, and he does. But the slow pacing soon becomes mesmerizing and stunningly beautiful.
Iron Man
The Dark Knight (imdb) – I’m sorry, but I have to say I think The Dark Knight is a little overrated. Ledger is fantastic, and the Joker is the best villain the movies have seen in a long time. But I pretty much can’t remember ANY of the scenes without him.
Go
All the President’s Men
Repulsion

Burn After Reading (imdb) – The black humor Coens return in force (and farce) here. It’s nothing like No Country, but it’s an over-the-top great time.
The Innocents (imdb) – This should’ve been in my Month of Horror post; don’t know how I forgot it. Very well-done quiet (maybe) evil kid horror film based on The Turn of the Screw.
Them!
Let the Right One In
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (imdb) – Perhaps a movie about hipsters running around New York City in search of an elusive band is just made for me. Granted, it’s slight, but it’s really enjoyable.
Australia (imdb) – There are admittedly a lot of tonal problems with Australia, but I enjoyed watching every second of it.
Tell No One (imdb) – A man’s wife is murdered…or is she? When he starts seeing her and hearing from her years later, it quickly becomes clear there’s much more going on in this twisty French thriller.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Transsiberian (imdb) – A couple travels from China via the Transsiberian Railway, but gets pulled into trouble by a couple of young drifters. A solid thriller with a good twist or two.
Shaft (1971) (imdb) – I saw Samuel L. Jackson’s remake a few years ago. As cool as Sam Jackson is, he WISHES he were as cool as Richard Roundtree, the original iconoclastic black private eye facing off with Harlem and Italian gangsters and the NYPD.
Night of the Living Dead

Saawariya (imdb) – This fairy-tale Bollywood film is extremely stylized and imaginative – one of the more interesting Indian films I’ve seen so far. They’re always visually sumptuous, but this one takes it to a whole new level.
The Flower of My Secret (imdb) – Pedro Almodovar film similar to All About My Mother in tone. Not as good, but still very worthwhile.
Synecdoche, New York (imdb) – I can’t do this one justice in a few sentences. I’m still working out in my head what I think about it. The best quote I’ve seen about it, though, is from Roger Ebert: “a film that should never be seen unless you’ve already seen it at least once.”
Les bonnes femmes
Atonement
Village of the Damned (imdb) – Evil alien children take over a rural English town. It’s way better than it sounds, a classic old-school British horror flick.
My Blueberry Nights (imdb) – Wong Kar-Wai’s first English-language film is a visually beautiful odyssey following a girl as she tries to find out what she wants. I’m excited to see his other films now, which I’ve heard are better.
Sunshine
Metropolitan
Some Came Running (imdb) – Frank Sinatra gets to prove his acting chops again as a cynical soldier returning to his small-town home. Shirley MacLaine is a revelation, and Dean Martin gets probably his best role, as well.
Lars and the Real Girl

Ace in the Hole (imdb) – Reporter Kirk Douglas will do anything to get a good story, even keeping a trapped miner trapped as long as he can to increase the media frenzy. It’s Billy Wilder, so you know it’s going to be solid, and it is.
Two-Lane Blacktop
The Body Snatcher
Wristcutters: A Love Story
Isle of the Dead
Do You Like Hitchcock (imdb) – This Dario Argento film has a film student getting involved with a murder that bears a close resemblance to Strangers on a Train; the overall film also had plenty of Rear Window and I like to think a little Vertigo in there.
Be Kind, Rewind
Leatherheads
Shadows (imdb) – John Cassavetes’ first film, and often hailed as the beginning of American independent film. Touches on show business, youth, and sibling rivalry, but the tough look at 1960s racial issues is the most interesting aspect.
In Bruges (imdb) – I expected a comic action film, and it is that sometimes, but it’s also got a huge dose of thoughtful philosophy in there, as two hitmen go to Bruges (read: Purgatory) to wait out a botched job.

RECOMMENDED

Hannah Takes the Stairs
Lacombe, Lucien (imdb) – A young German boy falls into working with the Nazis during WWII, but finds his loyalties divided when he befriends a Jewish family – and falls in love with the family’s daughter. It’s a big tough at first to relate to the implacable boy, but there’s more here than meets the eye.
The Seventh Victim (imdb) – Val Lewton, occultism, missing sisters, overall creepiness – what more do you want?

Made in USA
The Blue Angel
Lola Montes (imdb) – Max Ophuls’ only widescreen, color feature about the rise and fall of a the title character in the courts of Europe is sumptuous, but a little distancing. Perhaps purposefully.
Paprika
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Lantana
Mickey One
Michael Clayton
The Cool World (imdb) – Another early independent film, this is the story of a young Harlem boy who thinks everything in his life would be better if he just had a gun, and thus some power and authority. Hard to see due to rights issues, so if you get the chance, jump on it.
I Am Legend
Papillon
Bottle Rocket
Ghost Ship

BOOKS

LOVED

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James – First thing I’ve read by James, and I was highly impressed. His mastery of depicting the interior life is a great foreshadowing of Modernism.
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons – Proof that graphic novels can be just as complex and well-written as traditional novels.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – The basis for my current revaluation of Hemingway, who I used to not like. But this one is great.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – A Victorian mystery, and with my general dislike of Victorian lit, I was shocked at how much I liked it. It’s perfectly written, and so much more than *just* a mystery.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers – Similarly here, as this is technically a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, but the mystery is almost secondary to Sayers’ exploration of life at an Oxford women’s college, with side notes on feminism, class, and academia.

LIKED

Good Night Mr. Holmes by Carol Nelson Douglas – Douglas rewrites Sherlock Holmes from a woman’s point of view, making Irene Adler, the only person to outwit Holmes (in A Scandal in Bohemia), the heroine.
Alias Grace Margaret Atwood – Grace is a convicted murderess, shuttled between prison and mental institution; she tells her story to a sympathetic doctor who hopes to absolve her. But the truth of the matter is elusive, even to the reader.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Ichebe – A leader in an African tribe struggles with pride and the conflict between tribal customs and the incoming Christian missionaries. Achebe is known for being among the first to bring a truly African voice into English-language literature, and his minimalist style suits the story perfectly.
Spook Country by William Gibson

MUSIC

With music it’s more “these are what I’ve been listening to the most in 2008.” Although I think I did acquire all of these albums in 2008, even though several of them are from earlier. All 2006-2008, though, I think. I linked Music Monday or concert coverage posts where I had them; otherwise tacked on a MySpace link so you can hear them yourself.

LOVED

Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue
The Submarines – Honeysuckle Weeks
Babyshambles – Shotters Nation (MySpace)
Mates of State – Rearrange Us
Los Campesinos! – We Are Beautiful, We are Doomed / Hold On Now, Youngster
Metric – Live It Out (MySpace)
Army Navy – Army Navy
Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
The Apples in Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder (MySpace)
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (MySpace)

REALLY LIKE

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (MySpace)
We are Scientists – Brain Thrust Mastery (MySpace)
She & Him – Volume One (MySpace)
I’m From Barcelona – Who Killed Harry Houdini / Let Me Introduce My Friends (MySpace)
The Rosebuds – Life Like
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
The Fratellis – Here We Stand

GAMES

LOVE

Mass Effect
Bioshock – One of the most amazing stories and art direction in any game ever.
Bully – Like GTA, but at a boarding school. :) Not particularly innovative, but a blast to play.
Portal – The only problem with Portal is it’s too short! Fantastic puzzle game with a fun story to boot.
Fallout 3 – I’ve only played a few hours of this, but I can already tell it’s headed to the “loved” category. Looks fantastic and plays like Oblivion (aka, my fave game of all time).
Rock Band 2 – Not much different than Rock Band, but don’t fix what ain’t broken, and the improvements made are good. I just keeping coming back for more.

REALLY LIKE

Fable 2 – Does a nice job of improving on the first Fable, which was already good. The difficulty’s not perfect, though – I found I got through the whole main quest with very little leveling.
Guitar Hero: World Tour – The first Guitar Hero game that remotely gives Rock Band any competition, to my mind. I actually think the gameplay is a bit better, but the overall experience was less enjoyable.
Assassin’s Creed – Climbing up every building in town and running over rooftops never got old. The gameplay here is spectacular, but it’s not one I’d ever play again. Looking forward to seeing what the sequels do with the story, though.
Mirror’s Edge – Again, groundbreaking gameplay, once you get the hang of it. But I’m about halfway through and I’m already bored with the story and missions. Still, paves the way for potentially stupendous games in the future.
Lost Odyssey

Now that most shows have had a few weeks to get going, let’s see how the must-watch lists are playing out. Spoilers for all aired episodes are likely.

Obsessing/Loving

These are the shows that a) get watched almost immediately, b) I anticipate every week, c) I whole-heartedly love every episode whether it deserves it or not.

Chuck
I am pretty much loving Chuck more than anything else right now. It’s one of the few shows I MUST WATCH the night it airs. I’m enjoying the slow progress in Chuck and Sarah’s relationship; sure, they’re stalling it with the whole “agent-asset no-dating” policy, but it’s working for me. They’re also making good use of Morgan this season – last year he got incredibly annoying for me, but this year they’ve got him on enough to bring the extra funny but not enough to be overkill. (I think giving him a girlfriend was the key.) And can we just talk about Casey? I’ve been an Adam Baldwin fan since Firefly, but he’s nearly as awesome here. Everything is awesome. Although, the Sarah vs. Nicole Richie fight in the last episode? Cool on one level, but in the locker room? With the showers on? Obviously written by men. ;)

How I Met Your Mother
The last episode made me really happy. Not that I have anything against Stella; I like her a lot. But any time I can grab any hope of Robin and Ted getting back together, even temporarily, raises my spirits. They’re my ‘ship, y’all. You can’t compete with that. Ooh, and Alyson Hannigan is apparently expecting a child with hubby Alexis Denisof – wonder if they’ll write that into the show?

Grey’s Anatomy
I know, I know. Grey’s was on probation at the beginning of the season. And would I say it’s really gotten a ton better? Some, maybe, but not a ton. But when I started watching the first episode this year, I went a little melty inside. Because they’re my people. And they are acting more in character than they have for a couple of years, so I’ll give them that. And Callie isn’t messing with George any more. (I was never a fan of that relationship, let’s just be frank. I don’t much care about her or Erica, so they can go do whatever and I can just largely ignore them. Keep them both away from my core group.) I can’t explain the comfort I feel just having Meredith, George, Izzie and Cristina on my screen, because it isn’t rational. That, more than any other reason, is why the show’s in the “obsessing” category.

30 Rock
In case you didn’t catch it, the premiere’s up on hulu now. Yay! It’s hard to say much about the season only one episode in, but Megan Mulally as a guest star is a great start. And the writing remains typically high quality, and Fey and Baldwin continue to play off each other perfectly (and if you didn’t see the cold open on SNL last week with Sarah Palin, and Fey and Baldwin, you should look that up on hulu too). Oh, I’ve missed you, 30 Rock! Please don’t stay away so long again.

Pushing Daisies
I’m still a little worried about how they’re going to continue the coy Ned-Chuck relationship, but when the show started up this season, I just fell in love with it all over again. The clown episode was pretty weak, but the others have all been interesting and well-balanced between monster-of-the-week and relationshippy stuff. So I’m glad I don’t write for it, but I’m more than willing to go along for the ride and go “aw” every ten minutes.

Enjoying

These are the shows that I consistently enjoy watching, often love, but for whatever reason aren’t grabbing me as much as the shows in the above category. Roughly in “most enjoying” to “least enjoying” order, but I’ve moved them around so many times I can’t guarantee that.

Ugly Betty
Betty‘s coming along nicely this year, I think. I like moving her down to the city (though her totally hot, guitar-playing next-door neighbor needs to make another appearance, stat), I like the arc with Daniel’s son (though I guess that’s over now), it’s good to see Gio back, and I even liked the stint at the other magazine. Not that I would’ve wanted Daniel and Betty to stay there, but it was a nice contrast to Mode. Bummer that I guess Alexis is out for a while (I suppose this is how they’re dealing with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos’s pregnancy). Suggestion – do more with Mark and Amanda!

The Office
I miss Pam. :( I mean, I know she’s around, but the lack of Jim-Pam interaction is getting me a little down. On the other hand, Michael + Holly? FULL OF WIN. Every time I see Holly, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s the same Amy Ryan that played the neglectful low-class mother in Gone Baby Gone. Maybe I should reevaluate my meh impression of her performance in the film. Anyway. I’m a little bored with the Dwight-Angela-Andy triangle, so I wish they’d finish that arc out somehow. And bring Pam back.

The Mentalist
I wasn’t even fully planning to watch this show, but I did, and it’s one of my favorite new ones of the season. It’s a procedural, and the main character has powers of observation and mental deduction that border on psychic power. But aren’t. Anyway, he’s also a really likeable character, and his partner is played by the girl who played Veronica on Prison Break (who I really liked before I stopped watching it). So it’s kinda like Psych, but less goofy, and doesn’t make me want to hit the main character half the time.

Crusoe
Honestly, I expected Crusoe to crash and burn (a primetime network series set in the 18th century?), but I just watched the 2-hour pilot and was really impressed. It’s like Swiss Family Robinson meets Pirates of the Caribbean, and I enjoyed pretty much every second – especially those seconds that had Friday in them, because Friday is awesome. If they can keep the interest level as high in future episodes as it was in the pilot, and figure out how to get people to watch a period piece, even a swashbuckling one, on Friday nights, I’m in for a while.

Survivor
I need help, people. I’ve been railing against reality TV, led by Survivor, for years. And I decided I’d never actually watched Survivor and I should, just to say I had. And now I can’t stop. Reality TV is like a contagious disease, and now I’m infected with Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, Last Comic Standing, etc. HELP ME. Or don’t. Just let me go.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles
I’m actually a few weeks behind on this, because it’s up against Chuck and How I Met Your Mother (see above) and I haven’t been keeping up online as quickly as I should. But every episode I do watch I really enjoy. I think it’s found a good stride, I’m fascinated by the things going on with Cameron, and I like John’s newly found rebellious streak. Thankfully it did get picked up for the rest of the season; now if I can just sit myself down long enough to catch up.

House
Oh, House. It’s getting in a bit of a rut – it feels like they’re starting plot points that just sort of peter out or get unsatisfying resolutions. I’m not sure exactly what to do to really fix it, but the good news is that it’s not all the way broken, because it somehow remains enjoyable. I want them to make something good of the Thirteen storyline, but they need to give her more depth as a character. I’m kind of done with the House-Wilson feud, but I think maybe they are, too. Anyway, it’s not appointment TV anymore, but it’s still good next-day DVR viewing.

The Amazing Race
See above re: Survivor. Although I actually feel less bad about liking The Amazing Race because, hello, traveling around the world. I’d like to be ON The Amazing Race. It’s lower on the list this year, though, because honestly, the people racing this year are pretty boring. I like the mom and son team (they’re nice and know that being nice to other people tends to result in good karma for them) and the brother and sister team (um, because they’re pretty? And a strong team). I want the divorcees gone now, because they annoy me. Frat boys ditto. But really, the biggest drama these people can come up with is “OMG, she pushed my sports bra off the ledge!” Where’s Rob and Amber when you need them?

The Unit
I’ve never watched The Unit before; only started because my pastor keeps mentioning it (it’s filmed near where he lives). So I’m still jumping into learning about the characters and what all they’re doing. Honestly, right now, the sections dealing with the unit wives interests me more than the shenanigans the unit itself gets into. However, I do find all the characters interesting, and I expect once I’ve spent more time with them I’ll be a lot more into the show, which is pretty solid.

Dirty Sexy Money
I’m not sure where they’re going with this season (and I miss Juliet like whoa; she needs to come back stat), but then you pretty much watch Dirty Sexy Money just to go along for the ride. Narrative arc? What? :) It’s kind of like I don’t feel a driving need to start watching each episode (I do because my DVR fills up otherwise), but once I start, I always enjoy watching, just to see what crazy things will happen. And I really like pretty much all of the characters. I tell you what though, if Nick doesn’t start treating Lisa better, I’m going to smack him. Plus, I don’t know how much longer they can drag out the Lisa-vs-the-Darlings tension (which has been going on since the beginning of S1) before it gets REALLY OLD.

Desperate Housewives
Jumping ahead by five years actually seems to be working out. I’m enjoying Lynette’s dealing with her now-teenage twins, Bree’s new business, and Susan’s new boyfriend (yeah, I liked Mike a lot, but new guy is pretty hot, too). Not loving Gaby’s storyline, but neither is she, so maybe that works out. The big season mystery could turn out pretty interesting too – certainly Edie’s new husband is an intriguing character. It’s not first off the DVR anymore, but I’m still into it.

Bones
I’m not disliking this season, but I’m not hugely in love with it, either. It’s not even the lack of Zack that’s got me down. It’s nothing, really, except that I’m probably watching too many shows and the procedurals, as much as I enjoy them, are taking the worst of it. Plus it’s been on hiatus for the past few weeks (baseball? I don’t know) and so it’s not fresh in my head as I write this.

Watching

These are the shows I’m continuing to watch, but I’m not heavily invested in. I probably won’t cut any of them, but they’re weekend filler.

Numb3rs
Numb3rs is usually weekend filler, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I like Numb3rs a lot, but if I missed an episode, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to acquire it before the next week.

NCIS
NCIS is another one, like Numb3rs, that is good weekend show. My enjoyment of the episodes largely depends on how much Abby there is (and Ziva, and their interactions with Tony and McGee). Looks like next week’s is going to be an Abby-in-danger episode, which pretty much guarantees I’ll be watching it sooner than usual.

Criminal Minds
I just started watching this after people told me I couldn’t claim to like procedurals and not watch Criminal Minds. And yes, it is good. I’d like to see some of the earlier seasons sometime. But having just started, I’m not invested in the characters enough yet, and two or three of the plots so far this year seem rather derivative of other things I’ve seen. (I can’t remember which other show did a polygamous cult episode a while back, but there was one, and the latest episode seemed pretty much like Vacancy or [insert other backwoods hotel torture-porn horror film here].)

Family Guy
As I said in my TV preview post, Family Guy is highly enjoyable filler. I don’t have to watch every episode and there’s no overall arc to get into, which is why it’s down here so low. Doesn’t mean I don’t LOL a lot while I watch it. (I’m also watching The Simpsons and King of the Hill this year, because hey, why not, but I’d pretty much say the same exact thing about them as I did about Family Guy, so I didn’t separate them out.)

Without a Trace
I watched the first season of Without a Trace on DVD and LOVED IT. Then the rest of the seasons took forever to come out on DVD, and I decided this year I’d just start where it was and see if I could catch up. It’s a good show, but I’m seriously thinking of dropping it and picking up with the DVDs again. I haven’t gotten the thread of the characters back yet. Plus I gotta say, looking at all these procedurals down here is mostly just making me want to finish watching The Shield (I’ve seen about half of the first season, but need to get back into it).

Fringe
I’m “this close” to dropping Fringe. It’s trying to be X-Files, but not quite making it. The backstory isn’t clear (probably purposefully, but it’s unclear in such a way as to be offputting rather than intriguing), the characters aren’t that likable (except for Walter, and crazy old man likable can only go so far), and it just doesn’t hang together that well. But I somehow keep hoping it will get better. And I like seeing Joshua Jackson, because he is pretty.

Quitting

Heroes
This was hard. It is so hard for me to give up on a show, especially after two years of persevering with it. See Grey’s Anatomy as an example. But I gave Heroes plenty of time to stop sucking and it didn’t come through. Instead, it brought in even more characters for me to not care about and added even further plot complications for me to not untangle. And really, when you have two characters who can do ANYTHING? (And I hear now one character who can stop anyone from doing anything…) You have multiple deus ex machinas running around, which just makes the whole thing pointless.

Private Practice
I never really started watching Private Practice this year, so it doesn’t really count as “quitting.” Its time-slot is overcrowded, and I don’t care enough about it to seek it out online. Bye, Addison. Come back and guest on Grey’s when you get the chance.

Knight Rider
Honestly, I didn’t hate the pilot of this, as I think most other people did (at least, people who write blogs about TV shows seem to universally hate it), and if it weren’t up against Pushing Daisies and Bones, I might’ve kept watching it. But obviously I didn’t like it enough, because even though I initially meant to, I never went and watched it online. Oh well.

Kath and Kim
I made it through fifteen minutes of the pilot. Pretty much up to the point where Molly Shannon’s boyfriend showed up and annoyed the heck out of me within ten seconds. Before that, I thought there might be some potential in Shannon and Blair, but not enough for me to put up with the show as a whole.