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Review: Straight Outta Compton

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Chronically Cubed and Cured

A Film review of Straight Outta Compton

Biopic films can sometimes be a difficult sell to studios and audiences because some can get too focused on heavy-handed performances and dramatic historical recreations. They also tend to move awfully slow and get a bit chatty as most individuals selected for this sort of Hollywood treatment aren’t exactly James Bond types. Straight Outta Compton is a film that plays like a biopic, but never loses sight of maintaining a high entertainment value thanks to two important factors. First, the individuals that comprised the NWA lived real lives that interwove with some of the most signature elements showcased in cinematic crime dramas such as guns, drugs, gangs, money, violence, loyalty, betrayal, ego and unbridled psychosis. These dangers were as real as they were common to these young men as the audience bears witness to a number of specific incidents involving the main characters that directly explains where they come from, why they feel the way they do and how it all inspired their music. Second, as seductive as all of the aforementioned vices may be on the fictional screen, they all constitute secondary window dressing to the music of NWA. With a multitude of scenes that use original recordings, the energy of some of NWA’s slickest tracks keeps the audience engaged with aggressive beats and defiant lyrics.

“Art reflecting life” was clearly the name of the game for this expertly casted, performed, directed and produced example of cinema. However, the audience should be made well aware that this film prizes the concept of legacy above all else so expect a lot of pulled punches when the mirror is held not-so-directly upon the individuals of NWA; specifically Dr. Dre. Ice Cube and Dr. Dre were at the epicenter of this film’s production staff as their firsthand accounts, attention to detail and mentoring of the young actors portraying their past selves certainly enhanced the overall quality of the film. But, director F. Gary Gary is boys with Cube and Dre having directed Friday (1995) as well as music videos for both and he certainly protects everyone that has the most to lose about revisiting parts of the past deemed too brutal for general audiences. Perhaps this is the reason why John Singleton (Boyz ‘n the Hood, Higher Learning) wasn’t tapped to direct this film because his style would demand showing at least some aspect of Dre’s admitted violence against women to raise the stakes and the drama. To suggest that this movie presents a revisionist’s history concerning NWA’s individuals is the understatement of the century.

Be that as it may, I must remind the reader that this biopic is still a work of fiction and (as with The Imitation Game) is not a documentary designed to expose fact. Straight Outta Compton is a drama rooted in a popular corner of the music business culture, but electrified by uncommonly refined performances by a raw cast of relative unknowns. Even putting aside the fact that most of these young men are the spitting image of which they portray (especially Marcc Rose as Tupac in a short scene where I’m certain necromancy was involved in its creation), the sincerity and visceral execution of the cast’s performance makes this movie Oscar worthy. The audience feels the frustration, the ambivalence, the defiance and the ascendancy. I would be shocked if Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E doesn’t at least get a nomination for best male lead or best supporting performance from the Academy.

[Note: the MPS rating system is still in full effect, but as it is a system designed around fairness, its modular nature allows for the non-application of categories not relevant to the production: in this case, digital effects]

Action Style	There is a surprising amount of action for this film as its first moments make it seem like Eazy-E is some true to life action star, but this eventually reverts to typical dramatic action through the general application of common violence during what may seem like uncommon times.	4/6
Action Frame	There are no moments of stagnation during this film as there is a constant change in scenery as well as dynamic camera work during NWA concerts. Close-ups are not abused and truly mark the moments of high drama.	3/5
Lead Performance	O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube), Corey Hawkins (Dr. Dre), and Jason Mitchell (Eazy-E) completely buy into their roles and embody their characters fully. The shear quality of their performance is a sight to see.	6/6
Supporting Performance	Paul Giamatti matches tone quite well with the young guns of the rest of the cast. R. Marcos Taylor is almost as psychotic scary as the real life Suge Knight. Did I mention Tupac was channeled from beyond?	5/5
Music	The music is as important as any one character in this entire film. Nothing about this story is relevant without it.	6/6
Sound F/X	Seemed good enough throughout. Nothing notably negative to report.	3/5

“Moving” = 27/33

Digital F/X	[NA]	[NA]
Special F/X	Minimal use of gunfire and its residual effects, but cruising cars with hydraulics and how they “light up” the streets was fun to see.	2/5
Costumes	Biopics are always going for authenticity (at least regarding the look) and this production obviously raided the accumulated inventory of Lids to get part of the job done. Still, the wardrobe isn’t particularly exciting.	3/6
Hair & Makeup	Exceedingly good casting shares in the excellent work being done to make the actors look their parts as well as possible.	5/5
Exteriors	Impoverished Compton is a far cry from the lavish hotels and even more lavish domiciles secured by the wealthiest of the NWA.	5/6
Interiors	Very interesting to see the evolution of the recording studios from the one NWA initially rents out all the way to the sharpness of Death Row Records.	4/5

“Picture” = 19/27

Hook	Learning a bit more details about the culmination of the NWA and the rise of Gangsta Rap may only be interesting to some. You don’t need to be a fan of rap to appreciate this film, but it certainly helps.	¾
Conflict	Jerry Heller may be the de facto “villain,” but his portrayal is very sympathetic. More interesting is the conflict the group experiences from the life they left to the life they were rewarded with is the fitting definition of more money, more problems.	4/4
Resolution	The story ends on a somber, yet very practical book end to this story of NWA, but the “aftermath” effects of the group’s influence was a commercial for Beats and Ice Cube movies and it left a sour, corporate, taste in my mouth.	2/4
Dialogue	Authentic dialogue is really interesting when west coast terminology needs to be explained to east coast talent. You don’t need to be fluent in Ebonics to comprehend what’s going on for the rest of the film.	4/6
Exposition	The audience has a good grasp of the overall activity as we’re constantly reminded of the time and place thanks to a healthy application of titles, but the details do drop off as to why we get to the places we get to and how the characters have changed during those transitions.	2/5
Character Uniqueness	Why is it that music stars always seem like the most eccentric out of the entire celebrity class? Well, it’s because they are.	5/6
Character Relatability	Not all of America can identify with the harsh realities of the urban ghetto, but even less can empathize with machine guns on tour, parties populated by exclusively naked women and dog fights in the recording studio.	2/5

“Story” = 22/34

Overall MPS Rating: 68/94 or 72%

Approaching this movie as any sort of inside track on the “real” happenings of the NWA would be a mistake because the propaganda of the film conflicts with police reports of reality. The better mindset would be simply sitting down to be entertained by a screen story inspired by true events. It is one heck of an entertaining tale that strikes a great balance between poignant drama and lyric action with a dash of laugh-out-loud comedic beats, but viewer be forewarned; this is a very male centric film. It depicts women as eye candy set pieces and obstacles to productivity, so this may not be the best movie to plan a date night around. Despite all the legitimate criticism this production deserves, it would be a crime to dismiss the excellent performances displayed by the entire cast. Gritty, gutsy and as true to life as the public personas they presented to the world is the least that can be said of all the actors fortunate enough to be a part of this film. As the fall approaches, so too does the Hollywood award season and I consider Straight Outta Compton as an early contender for some Oscar gold; that is of course, if Dre and Cube are willing to play a bit more Hollywood politics to get in that race.

Fantastic Four (2015) Review

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Return of the Flop

A Film Review of (Another) Fantastic Four

I can’t say I didn’t warn you back when people were losing their minds over Johnny Storm being played by Michael B. Jordan and I wrote an article that didn’t criticize his casting, but that of his sister being cast as white girl, Kate Mara. Thus, we have finally come to the opening weekend of this brand new Fantastic Four and what we have received is a decent amount of what I predicted, copious amounts of plot gaps, bland characters in a character-driven flick and one of the worst villains ever conceived for the contemporary comic book adaptation. Looks like Marvel won’t have to wait much longer to get those film rights back from 20^th Century Fox. My general criticism of this film has less to do with the particulars and character reinventions and more to do with the project’s overall lack of focus, its disjointed nature and complete inability to build drama and suspense to allow the action that unfolds on screen to matter. There’s some kind of identity crisis going on where you can see the film wants to be about family, or about shady government, or about environmentalism, or even about plain old action. The problem is, none of these themes are given the proper screen time and production effort to allow them to mold the story in any unique way. It’s as if director Josh Trank and his studio overseer kept hitting the randomize button on a ton of film clips captured on Final Cut Pro to yield this product.

I don’t care if “the studio” is ultimately to blame for what certainly seems the worst effort put into a potentially serious, money making adaptation because even common civilians know by now that in the comic book film game, you don’t handle Hollywood, Hollywood handles you! That holds true even when the writer/director is also responsible for having created the source material. Trank may very well be correct in identifying studio interference as having negative effects to the production, but so what? Even if you are given a huge budget that gets stripped away from you, even if you cast A-listers that walk out on you or even if the studio exec bursts in and forces a major overhaul mid-production, as the director, there is one thing you can still ensure that has a lasting, positive impact that can save an audience: your cast’s performance. Sure, the modern day American film director has many responsibilities, but the most important and often overlooked is that of evoking the best out of your cast. You give them a framework for what you want, you show them how their characters matter and then you give them the freedom to explore those characters inside negotiable parameters. This cast clearly had their own ideas with little discipline because it shows in the lack of camaraderie, the lack of onscreen chemistry. When one’s cast is barely interested in the film, how then can an audience be convinced to be interested in watching?

Action Style	One would think that a comic book adaptation would have lots of good nuggets of cool power sequences and other worldly combat, but this film boasts none of that save for the climactic battle which was still more about CG going wild than anything else. Seriously, most of Ben Grimm’s “clobbering time” is seen through video monitors.	1/6
Action Frame	This too, is a little on the bland side as the FF’s powers are well contained for 80% of the film. Is it weird that a street race among POS used cars is the most dynamic sequence of movement going on in the whole film? The camera doesn’t follow Human Torch flight much because he doesn’t fly around very much.	2/5
Lead Performance	Apparently, Reed Richards is only a stereotypical super nerd in the strictest sense because nobody else has been able to perform this character as anything but, including Miles Teller. His performance evokes no semblance of leadership and no sense of loyalty for his own “friends” and “family.”	1/6
Supporting Performance	You know how you dodge the bullet over explaining the whole African American Storm family adopting Susan? You ignore it completely, kind of like how Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan barely acknowledge each other as siblings onscreen. Jaime Bell is hamstringed by his character going full CG. Toby Kebbell delivers a Doom that is far too emo to be maniacal, too lazy to be a mastermind and too disinterested in being a character let alone a villain. The one shining light was Reg E. Cathey as Dr. Franklin Storm. Freddy from House of Cards gives us a character with charisma and cares about being there. Too bad he didn’t rub off on the rest of the cast	2/5
Music	Music was present, but held neither marquee melody nor lasting impression.	3/6
Sound F/X	Ben Grimm’s rock voice +, teleportation machine sounds +, other dimension sounds +	4/5

“Moving” = 13/33

Digital F/X	Human Torch looked fine, inter-dimensional portal and transportation light shows were bright and Ben Grimm looked great as pants-less Thing. Too bad his effects ate up 70% of the CG budget leaving the rest of the film with a lot of regular scenery to capture.	4/6
Special F/X	This area takes a hit not just because there isn’t a ton of practical effects going on here, but there is a scene where the glass on a backboard shatters due to a high pitched sound and it’s the ONLY glass in the area that shatters (no one’s glasses or windows are affected). Sure, this is more of a continuity issue but someone on the explosive team should have at least raised their hands.	2/5
Costumes	Uninspired is the only word that comes to mind here. Casual wear is fine what with all the scientists, military and business people walking around, but the FF’s clothes are generic spacesuits. The worst is the entire concept behind Doom: his garb makes no sense; it looks goofy and has nothing to do with any iteration of that character ever conceived for film, TV or comic books. Just awful.	1/6
Hair & Makeup	Not a bad job being done here. When people are roughed up, they show wounds and an appropriate amount of rubble. Still wished the script supervisor got with Josh Trank to point out Sue Storm’s mismatched hair style and coloring at incorrect chronological points.	4/5
Exteriors	Baxter building outskirts looked great as did the Grimm family junkyard. The other dimension looked threatening enough from the ground-scape but certainly need more going on in the background.	4/6
Interiors	Another comic book adaptation means more science labs and research facilities. They were certainly set up and dressed in an acceptable manner, but got a bit bland considering we spend most of the movie in these types of settings.	3/5

“Picture” = 18/33

Hook	Boy genius develops inter-dimensional travel only to grow up to become the stretchy guy on a team of super-powered people. The only difference this has from any other FF origin story is the extended screen time put into Reed as a child, which isn’t as interesting as Reed as a young adult.	2/4
Conflict	Very weak here. Is it smart people vs. government? Is it family vs. each other? Is it good guys vs. bad guys? It’s more like all of it jumbled in a washing machine and the focus changes throughout the film.	1/4
Resolution	Thanks to time being elapsed at multiple points in the film, everything is “solved” just as soon as anything becomes a problem. Of course, there’s a token scene to imply a sequel, but this film doesn’t deserve it.	1/4
Dialogue	There’s more significant talking that occurs between those that are “handling” the FF. The FF themselves are a bit too nonchalant as they go from perfect strangers to reserved “besties” in no time at all.	2/6
Exposition	Watch out for all the plot craters strewn about! A more nimble mind will be able to maneuver these to get a general idea so long as the viewer accepts and forgets to get to the next scene. Nothing is methodically explored or explained.	2/5
Character Uniqueness	All of the main characters are less amplified versions of the character types they are supposed to represent. Reed is just one of the squad as opposed to the alpha nerd. Sue is an emotionless, responsibility first kind of girl. Ben is the tamest rock warrior you’ve ever seen. Johnny isn’t an ego-driven hothead; he just has daddy issues.	2/6

Character Relatability

To achieve relatability, characters need a sympathetic anchor to the audience. Even if Dr. Franklin’s concern for “his children” is played well enough by the actor, those moments play as empty because the audience doesn’t have enough bonding moments between father and “kids” to matter much. Also, I have no idea why the hell Reed does what he ultimately does. I’ve never witnessed a more random display of cowardice onscreen than this.

2/5

“Story” = 12/34

Overall MPS Rating: 43/100

Few Hollywood comic book films make the Fantastic Flops of ’05 and ’07 look like Academy Award winning gems in comparison, but this Fantastic Four movie does just that. As mind numbing as they were, at least they were fun and at times funny. This film seems so desperate to take itself seriously, yet has no clear idea as to what it’s being serious about. I beg you all to put your money to better use: check in with Netflix, go out to dinner, go to a museum, go to a park – just please, do not pay to be “entertained” by this. Send 20^th Century Fox a clear message that pathetic, corporate attempts to squeeze as much profit from impotently developed licenses will not be rewarded by forgetting this movie exists at the box office.

Movie News Reviews

Terminator: Genisys Review

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No More Years

A Film Review of Terminator Genisys

Yes, yes I realize this film has been panned enough by everyone that it has played itself out of virtually every cinema, but I was able to catch a screening at the cheap theater recently, and I was thinking it might have some redeeming value seeing how it still has some connection to the Terminator legacy. As it turns out, the popular vote regarding this example of Hollywood haberdashery was more or less, right on the money. As always, I encourage my readers to make up their own minds with as much information as they have available to them and certainly not to simply take my word for it, but not only would I recommend not giving this film one single viewing, I’d recommend not even acknowledging its existence. Well, that just about wraps up this review in terms of cutting to the chase, but for those of you who’d like to accompany me on a short, cathartic journey of ridicule over this formerly beloved franchise let us venture forth.

It is a pure and simple fact that this franchise has completely lost its way ever since James Cameron relinquished control after Terminator 2: Judgment Day. To this day, it remains as one of the best sci-fi thrillers that not only bench presses tons of action, effects and stunts, but has some of the best social commentary regarding unbridled scientific research into artificial intelligence and an over-dependency on automation. Sequels since have tinkered with gimmicks to keep an aging “Ahnold” in the fold, brainstormed with different killer robots and considered focusing on different characters of this inescapable temporal loop. None of the post T2 sequels had the desperate tone and raw impact of its predecessors. The same is easily said about Terminator Genisys, a film completely dependent on CG for spectacle, nostalgia for interest and Schwarzenegger for anyone else wondering how a 68 year old man can still sell “killer robot from the future” in a spoof-free presentation. There is so much gobbledygook going on from a story perspective of this train wreck on celluloid that really getting into it negates this new bullet point analysis I am experimenting with. So let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get right to the specifics.

Action Style	If the strategy for the approach to the entire action scheme could be summed up into one theme, it would be a battering ram. Burly men throwing each other all over the place is great for the testosterone, but gets old pretty quickly – no matter how much gunfire and explosions are filling in the empty spaces.	3/6
Action Frame	Since there’s no pressing need to explain what the hell is going on to the audience, this film keeps the pacing up as locations constantly shift along with the prescribed angles to keep the hectic motion accelerating.	4/5
Lead Performance	Arnold needs to stop making these films. His Austrian strongman antics and charm left him when he ceased being a strongman. If this is the best Emilia Clarke can bring over from her experience with Game of Thrones, then, yikes!	1/6
Supporting Performance	Jai Courtney is a better robot than a human being playing a robot for a Hollywood film production. Jason Clarke is an actor with 2 sides: one that is deep and emotional (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and one that feasts on 2 dimensions (White House Down). This film received the latter, but J.K. Simmons is a surprise cameo even if he’s used as a complete throwaway.	2/5
Music	Average and respectable.	3/6
Sound F/X	See above.	3/5

“Moving” = 16/33

Digital F/X	There’s a ton of CG going on throughout. If it isn’t some kind of time travel effect, it’s some sort of robot battle or crazy chase sequence. Not quite as plastic as the Star Wars Prequels, but that fake Arnold from the original Terminator sure was.	5/6
Special F/X	A Terminator film has a prerequisite amount of gunfire, explosions and car crashes, but digital effects lifted a heavier burden regarding all these categories.	3/5
Costumes	Everyone is in street clothes all the time, but I guess I can be thankful they didn’t decide to over-sex Sarah Connor with combat jeggings.	3/6
Hair & Makeup	No, no, no. Arnold looks too old and his hair looks too white and sparse. I don’t care if the script calls for an acknowledgement of the organic elements of his Cyborg design as being worn over time. They could have looked a hell of a lot better than that!	2/5
Exteriors	Lots of places to get transported to yields a bevy of contrasting locales.	5/6
Interiors	Adequate, but also a bit simplified. I feel like if I were planning a sewer ambush for that many years, I’d have a Mad Max film on steroids waiting for them – not what the audience witnessed here.	4/5

“Picture” = 22/33

Hook	So we have to go back in time to go forward in time because this time around things are different thanks to a McGuffin overshadowed by a new evolution in John Connor. Is that right?	1/4
Conflict	Humans vs. Terminators, Yay! But this Storm Shadow Terminator is using the same liquid metal gags from 1991? I don’t know whose tactics are more predictable, humans’ or Skynet’s?	1/4
Resolution	A cool upgrade finally happens, but of course it’s too late to have any impact on the action and none of it really matters because the whole journey seemed to go from nowhere to nowhere.	1/4
Dialogue	Arnold’s robot is far too high on the talky-talky, which sets a self perpetuating trivial tone with how just about every character addresses each other. I thought this was the end of the world people?!?	2/6
Exposition	Why the hell were we going back in time to go forward in time again? Why couldn’t we have found a better way and destination with our own time travel device? Where did Pops come from? These are not the droids you’re looking for.	2/5
Character Uniqueness	Same Terminator Protector, same Sarah Connor, same Kyle Reese – simply played by less effective and talented actors. Yes, 1991 Arnold was more talented than 2015 Arnold.	2/6
Character Relatability	For a ragtag group pulling out all the stops to save humanity, they sure struggle to ground their cause in any humanity. No, I didn’t buy that shoehorned “romance” between Kyle and Sarah nor did I buy into the Terminator’s “paternal” relationship with Sarah. Linda Hamilton did more with one scene staring into space with voiceover than everyone else did in this whole movie.	1/5

“Story” = 10/34

Overall MPS Rating: 48/100

Ugh! Terminator Genisys? More like Terminator Exodus, as in, never return to this franchise again unless James Cameron or someone who actually wants to say something meaningful is in charge of the production. Of course, what will probably happen next is a stop motion, claymation Terminator voiced by Arnold because no amount of Futurama will be able to CG him walking across the screen, let alone blowing up the bad guys and saving the day. Do yourselves a favor and just get T2 on Blu Ray and just watch that.

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Movie News Reviews

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation Review

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Cruis’n USA

A Film review of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

I am not a Tom Cruise guy. I haven’t been since that really odd display of possibly manufactured emotion on Oprah back in 2005 regarding now ex Mrs. Cruise. I continue to be turned off to this actor when more stories regarding Scientology’s handling of its highest ranking member break through to the normal news cycle. Despite whatever personal distaste I may have for him, I cannot deny his ability to flex the full muscle of an undeniable Hollywood star and its ability to propel any film into the upper atmosphere. Granted, Cruise hasn’t exactly been setting box offices on fire recently with nice successes that seemed to have had much more potential: Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Oblivion (2013), Jack Reacher (2012) and Rock of Ages (2012). Still, Mission: Impossible is Cruise’s franchise, and he knows how to make Ethan Hunt wow audiences with irrational stunts, epic set pieces and strenuous physical excursion for the screen. No one in Hollywood runs better on film than Tom Cruise.

Rogue Nation is another fine addition to the Mission: Impossible saga that makes no attempt to bite off more than it can chew in the action genre. There may be a slight bit of commentary regarding the state of global security in there, but for the most part, it’s (still) all about Ethan Hunt saving the world by kicking butt (with some help from his friends). This being the fifth film in the franchise and seeing more familiar faces doing the same things they’ve done before makes the story feel all too familiar. Paramount certainly hopes familiarity breeds reliability (at least in terms of ticket sales), which certainly seems to be the case so far as Rogue Nation is poised for a strong global run after an impressive opening weekend at the domestic box office. As entertained as I was by the constant onslaught of visual stimuli, I feel that Ethan has come to full fruition as a character and has no more “story” in him beyond mentorship. Come to think of it, I wonder why we haven’t seen Hunt step into that role by now even if the powers that be haven’t deemed the very worthy (but often passed over) Jeremy Renner as next focal point for the franchise. MI still has some fuel left in the tank so long as the next installment takes a long, hard look at going to new places plot-wise; perhaps even the possibility of Ethan actually losing for once.

Action Style	I honestly don’t care what percentage of the stunt work, driving, combat, etc. may or may not have been actually done by Tom himself because it all looked terrific!	6/6
Action Frame	The shear variety of the types of camera angles at work, underwater sequences, dynamic tracking for car chases and of course the intro plane sequence ensures the audience only brief breathers to catch up on some exposition.	5/5
Lead Performance	Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in every way. He brings the intensity and he brings the enthusiasm. But he also needs more to do than always beating the bad guy.	5/6
Supporting Performance	Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are reliable sidekicks. Jeremy Renner is woefully underused. Alec Baldwin has some slick cameos. Watch for Rebecca Ferguson to become a major player in Hollywood films to come! Oh my, Sean Harris. Did they ask you to be another bland, uninteresting villain with zero passion and expression?	4/5
Music	The reliable remixes of the classic MI theme are always welcome if not a bit repetitive. Unfortunately, Hans Zimmer isn’t walking through that door.	3/6
Sound F/X	Everything seems to sound as if it should, but nothing spectacular is occurring here.	3/5

“Moving” = 26/33

Digital F/X	Some of the more fantastic stunts like “the plunge” underwater sequence and multiple car cartwheels were brought to you by some very fine CG work.	4/6
Special F/X	The focus on practical effects in this film is ever apparent. The best examples of these were car chases, collisions and crashes. Explosions weren’t particularly impressive.	4/5
Costumes	I understand that spies need to blend in with the crowd, but that also means designers can’t get crazy with characters’ looks. Everyone’s look fit their characters well enough.	4/6
Hair & Makeup	Ethan Hunt certainly takes a beating in this film. I only wished that it looked like everyone else was afforded that same opportunity.	4/5
Exteriors	London and Vienna were presented with prototypical European lavishness while Morocco gives the audience a nice dusty contrast.	5/6
Interiors	There’s some very good set design going on from court rooms, to concert halls as well as secret bunkers and tech centers.	4/5

“Picture” = 25/33

Hook	The Impossible Mission Force faces off against its version of James Bond’s “Spectre” called “The Syndicate.” Meh.	2/4
Conflict	Spies figuring out what they are fighting for and why it’s worth it after they seem to get burned by their allies is an interesting internal conflict. Fighting each other seems slightly less so in this film.	3/4
Resolution	Neither surprising, nor satisfying. Anyone who has seen a Tom Cruise film (let alone a Mission: Impossible film) can project the ending.	1/4
Dialogue	Every character plays off of Ethan’s charisma quite well, while Benji grows an unexpected pair. Solomon Lane is too cryptic to be menacing though.	4/6
Exposition	So Ethan has to save the world from what? Bad people doing bad things with a ton of money? And why is this syndicate so bad ass? It’s all bit too muddled. Or is it too boring?	2/5
Character uniqueness	Ethan is a super cool super spy. Ilsa is a super hot, undetermined ally or enemy. Solomon is a garden variety villain.	4/6
Character relatability	I can sympathize with the frustration that comes with a seemingly no-win situation. I can also get with not wanting to expose one’s friends to unnecessary risk. I don’t understand wanting to turn someone to your side only by showing them up with no attempt at bribery and not directly threatening their lives at any point.	3/5

“Story” = 19/34

Overall MPS Rating: 70/100

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is a very entertaining, action heavy, cinematic adventure that’s equally compelling to Tom Cruise fans as well as casual action film fans. If you’re looking for some solid popcorn outside of the super-hero game, check this out at your local cinema. Don’t even think about springing for IMAX or REAL 3D tickets, though.

Movie News Reviews

Ant-Man Movie Review

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Better Safe than Sorry

A Film Review of Ant-Man

In Kevin Feige, we trust. This is the message I continue to carry forward throughout the ever expanding MCU and once again true believers, we have another solid building block as we march towards Infinity and beyond. That’s not to say this result was a foregone conclusion. I believe fans had similar concerns for another seemingly left of center Marvel license known as the Guardians of the Galaxy. First of all, this film is about Scott Lang/Hank Pym/Ant-Man and this character(s) is completely off the radar for casual fans of comics and pop culture. Second, the lead is Paul Rudd: goofball comedy veteran actor and not an action star. Third, Adam McKay (goofball comedy writer) worked in tandem with Rudd to create the screenplay. Fourth, there’s Michael Douglass (screen legend) and you simply don’t know what you’re going to get from any actor in the twilight of their career no matter what the project is. Regardless of these or any other potential distraction or deterrent to a quality entertainment experience, you can indeed rest easy. The end result is a composed effort to yield another capable Avenger who has his own style and skill set to contribute to stories moving forward.

However, the effort put into keeping an Avenger film on task and not run off the rails on a crazy laugh train (a la, everything McKay has ever written) was very obvious at several moments during the film. How many more times did I need to be reminded that Scott was a family man? How often did Scott himself have to play the straight man to his own motley crew? How many cute bonding moments with insects needed to be shoehorned in? All of these were conscious plot devices that kept the Ant-Man from the brink of The Other Guys. As it turns out, they were necessary (and far too overt) “evils” to take as little risk as possible with the most obscure Avenger to date. Ant-Man is a hero, he has worthy moral ground to stand on, he has skill and he’s light hearted with a shade of sarcasm. Do any of these traits sound familiar to you? Perhaps it would have been better to allow Rudd to channel full blown Brian Fontana into Scott Lang because at least his obtuse, 70s, narcissism would have been hilarious to see next to Tony Stark in the future to see who wins the “inappropriateness wars.” Instead, the audience must rally behind a safe, bland, vanilla character type with precious little personality of his own to speak of. Individual Avenger adventures are as large as their respective protagonists’ personalities as well as their unique skills. I simply wished Ant-Man’s larval voyage left a larger footprint in the spectacular happenings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A full breakdown of the following Moving Picture Story Rating (MPS) “alpha build” can be found here.

Action Style	All Avenger films contain some form of combat and Ant- Man features plenty of pugilism and gunplay which are as bland as Scott Lang’s training montage.	3/6
Action Frame	Even if the fists and bullets aren’t flying around like ballet choreography, movement within the frame (specifically all of the miniaturization sequences) is really fun to look at; insects and all.	5/5
Lead Performance	Paul Rudd does an acceptable job while Michael Douglas blew me away with how genuinely interested he showed he was in his role and its place in the MCU. At some point, Ant-Man will have to be “just” Scott Lang without the Hank Pym training wheels.	4/6
Supporting Performance	Evangeline Lilly provides a decent love interest, Corey Stoll plays another 2-dimensional Marvel villain, Michael Pena plays a dumb stereotype and who hired T.I. for this movie?	1/5
Music	All films can certainly use emotionally heavy orchestration to make those epic moments on screen ascend to the next level. That wasn’t the case at all in this film.	2/6
Sound F/X	Hearing a tiny world come alive is just as important as seeing it come alive.	5/5

“Moving” = 20/33

Digital F/X	Getting a glimpse of the land of Avengers from an entirely different scale presented an excellent collision of “regular” and “tiny,” without too much cheesiness from the likes of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Insects working together with Ant-Man were also well animated.	6/6
Special F/X	Explosions? Check. Gunfire? Check. They’re simply nowhere near the scope of any previous Avenger film (Even Iron Man 3)	2/5
Costumes	Not much can be said of all the regular suits in this film, but I was much more impressed by the design of the “Yellowjacket” over the retro feel of the “Ant-Man” suit. Expect a redesign for future films.	4/6
Hair & Makeup	I was a bit distracted by Evangeline Lilly’s Jim Carey “bowl cut” wig. Why didn’t they let Kate from Lost simply grow it out? Everyone else was acceptable.	3/5
Exteriors	Regular scale settings were about as average as Hollywood can get, but at the subatomic level, “insides” and “outsides” (as assisted by heavy CG) has no meaning. There wasn’t too much interesting to see beyond the walls of abstract green screens.	3/6
Interiors	I was more impressed with the tech look of the research labs (thank you Iron Man films) especially when compared to the antique nature of Pym’s personal domicile.	4/5

“Picture” = 22/33

Hook	Who doesn’t love a tiny world perspective on things? This happens to be Marvel’s version of it and new angles on an ever saturating genre are always welcome.	4/4
Conflict	Hank Pym can’t be the Ant-Man anymore due to obvious reasons, but I wasn’t sold on Scott’s need to take up this fight himself, despite personal desperation being a clear and present motivator.	2/4
Resolution	I love all the connections made to the MCU, I appreciate the obvious lead-in to Civil War, but I was a bit underwhelmed by the cookie-cutter wrap up for Ant-Man himself.	3/4
Dialogue	Conversations in general seem natural enough, but every time Rudd speaks, he seems far too casual for a character that’s in the position he’s in. Douglas delivers more demonstrative lines in a more demonstrative manner. Ugh! I cringe at anything Scott’s crew says.	2/6
Exposition	The very first scene in this film gives the audience exactly what it needs to understand everything about Ant-Man and how he fits into this dynamic universe. No need to be cryptic, yet.	4/5
Character uniqueness	Hank Pym is my kind of scientist. Everyone else was my kind of been there; done that.	1/6
Character relatability	Sacrificing and doing whatever it takes for one’s family is a strong theme repeated amongst our heroes throughout this film. Can it be any easier to understand this?	5/5

“Story” = 17/34

Overall MPS Rating: 59/100

I was a bit surprised at this score as I enjoyed Ant-Man overall as a fairly entertaining popcorn, action and effects spectacle. In hindsight, I liked this film more for its connections to the growing cinematic universe of Marvel’s superheroes. I liked it less for its disinterest in really committing to standing on its own.

Movie News Reviews

Cosmic Book News Movie Rating System

The Moving Picture Story Rating

The MPS Rating is a cumulative point system whereby several specific elements of a film are scored to produce an overall grade that directly stands upon its designated strengths and weaknesses. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are well known and referenced when comparing media by way of their own number systems. Unfortunately, without transparency that reveals where these “scores” could possibly be derived, any number is arbitrary and ultimately has no comparative value. Criticism is subjective in its nature, but by fragmenting general observations into bullet point breakdowns, the reader can rely less on a leap of faith. An accumulation of specific valuations presents a series of more meaningful reflections that are still determined by the reviewer, but minimizes the impact of said reviewer’s expectations and preferences on the final score.

The philosophy behind this rating system revolves around equality and recognition for as many fundamental aspects of contemporary, narrative filmmaking as possible without turning every review into a dissertation. Mega-budget Hollywood productions may have a number of advantages over smaller indie films, but the MPS Rating is strictly interested in what is shown on the screen, what works for the film and what doesn’t. There is no perfect system because there is no perfectly balanced method to weigh the impact of costume design vs. computer graphic fabrication, for example. The key here is recognizing as much of the observable product as possible which unfortunately leaves other important parts of filmmaking like directing and producing outside of the MPS.

The final MPS Rating is a score out of 100 points and broken down into 3 major subsets:

“Moving” = 33 points “Picture” = 33 points “Story” = 34 points

The “Story” subset gets one additional point because every narrative film’s most basic concept before it enters any day of principal photography is the script. There is no film without a story or some concept organized into words that are written/typed on the page/screen.

Each subset is broken down further into 3 smaller categories:

“Moving”

– Action (11 points)

– Performance (11 points)

– Audio (11 points)

“Picture”

– Visual Effects (11 points)

– Cast presentation (11 points)

– Setting (11 points)

“Story”

– Plot (12 points)

– Conversation (11 points)

– Character (11 points)

From there, 1 additional layer of fragmentation occurs in each category dividing them as evenly as possible while favoring some above others.

——————————————————————————————————

[Within the Moving Subset]

Action:

“Action Style” or any featured special training movement the cast engages in such as martial arts, dance, parkour or gymnastics. (6 points)

“Action Frame” or any common movement within the frame by the cast (walking, running) in addition to moving the frame itself via tracks, pans, tilts and more. (5 points)

Performance:

“Lead Performance” or the effort put forth by the featured protagonists and/or antagonists of the film. (6 points)

“Supporting Performance” or the effort put forth by the supporting cast like sidekicks, love interests, mentors and villains. (5 points)

Audio:

“Music” or the implementation of any orchestral score or proprietary tracks to enhance the emotive moments of the film. (6 points)

Sound F/X” or the creation and application of any Foley recording (analog or digital) further enhancing the realism of anything fabricated from settings to props. (5 points)

——————————————————————————————————

[Within the Picture Subset]

Visual Effects:

“Digital F/X” or the use of computer graphics to create and interact with fabricated locations, characters, and anything else represented visually that simply cannot exist in real life. (6 points)

“Special F/X” or the use of more practical visual spectacles such as pyrotechnics, gunfire, artillery, vehicles. (5 points)

Cast presentation:

“Costumes” are self explanatory. Does the cast look like the characters they are attempting to portray for the screen? (6 points)

“Hair & Makeup” is more than making beautiful people look even better for their close-ups. As time, circumstances and other situations occur to affect the cast during the story; is it well reflected on their bodies outside of their performance? (5 points)

Setting:

“Exteriors” or any scene featuring an outdoor or outer space environment. Note: this physical space does not have to be captured in the natural world, but will still be evaluated for its detail which will enhance or detract from the realism of the moment. (6 points)

“Interiors” or any scene featuring an indoor environment. The above special note also applies to interior set design. (5 points)

—————————————————————————————————–

[Within the Story subset]

Plot:

“Hook” or the inciting incident/gimmick/idea that lies at the core of the film’s story. (4 points)

“Conflict” or any adversary the protagonists are challenged by. How interesting is it; circumstantial or otherwise? (4 points)

“Resolution” or how the story wraps up. Is it surprising? Is it satisfying? (4 points)

Conversation:

“Dialogue” or how every character verbally interacts with each other. It doesn’t need to come off naturally, but any stylized choices need to work for the story. (6 points)

“Exposition” or any information regarding this fictional world like the rules for how things work as well as understanding what is at stake and the risks involved to the main characters. This can be expressed via pockets of dialogue, narration or onscreen titles. (5 points)

Character:

“Uniqueness” or how dynamic the featured and supporting characters are in general. Are they intriguing everymen? Are they mysterious anti-heroes? Are they bland? (6 points)

“Relatability” or how well do characters make connections with the audience. Do we sympathize with them thanks to personal experience? Are we completely put off by their off-center code of conduct? Is there any part of them that we can appreciate? (5 points)

——————————————————————————————————

All of these elements combine to form a completed film. How well they stack up with each other determines how strong the final product is. I reiterate that even with 19 different sections to draw points from, it remains an opinion-based evaluation. My intention is to be as brief and as thorough as possible. Hopefully, I can communicate a more tangible sense of value to the reader so that he or she can determine worth for buying into a general admission, rental or on-demand viewing.

Movie News Reviews

Review: Jurassic World (2015)

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Dinosaurs and Kids Still Trying to Mix

A Film Review of Jurassic World

Giant f’ing reptiles return in the Steven Spielberg executively produced follow up to the much maligned Jurassic Park III with Jurassic World, a seemingly back to basics with fresh faces continuation of a fictional reality where contemporary human beings continue to bring real life dinosaurs into this day and age. We already know what kind of a success it is (beating The Avengers for best domestic opening weekend with a $208.8 gross at the box office) and as a result we can presume a trending success for the next few weeks as well. As a film franchise, Jurassic Park is as close to a sure fire blockbuster as Hollywood can come up with these days without having to knock on any comic book publishers’ doors. Jurassic World shows off just about everything a casual member of the audience is looking for in an exciting, summer, cinematic adventure that is relatively “safe” family fun for everyone save for parents who are exceptionally sensitive to exposing their children to fictional violence and danger. Although Spielberg did not direct this film, his imprint regarding childlike fascination for the improbable (E.T.) and “massive scale” (Transformers) combine once again to produce an experience that fills one up with nostalgia and wonderment.

However, the one criticism I’ve always had regarding these dino-destruction films, shamelessly rears its ugly head once more in Jurassic World. How are the all owners, scientists and corporate sponsors involved with anything “Jurassic” so incredibly stupid to continue to taunt (not tempt) fate once again by putting dinosaurs and contemporary humans in the same space? From a basic plot perspective, Jurassic World is pretty dumb in acknowledging and admitting the tragic failures of its fictional past, yet still marches forward with the delusional concept that people could and somehow should “walk with the dinosaurs” in a zoo-like environment. Despite his zeal and ambition, Dr. Hammond was proven to be woefully wrong by the end of the first Jurassic Park and guess what? It is still unsafe and generally speaking, a bad idea.

The script of Jurassic World, written by the combined efforts of Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver Derek Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow, comes up way short in explaining how we got from the chaos and anarchy of the past to the Disney World stability of Jurassic World in the present. Plot holes run amok as people who are supposed to be in charge don’t seem to have a clue and security somehow seems more lax than in the first film. We get no sense of how long this establishment has been operating peacefully, nor are we privy to any new system, technology or process that allows this iteration of “Jurassic Park” to be successful where others failed. Those details are apparently irrelevant as the audience is immediately thrown into the thriving business of Jurassic World as it continues to push “size” and “teeth” to continue draw in massive tourist dollars. Of course, dinosaurs are massive, unpredictable, wild animals and man’s inability to control nature results in a lot of rinsed and repeated death and destruction that the audience has seen in every Jurassic Park film: people manipulating nature for profit, super-dinosaur is the big bad, children have 1000% increased luck in avoiding being eaten, stomped, smashed and otherwise bloodied by massive reptiles. It’s all there.

The only thing new and worthwhile regarding the story of Jurassic World is the underdeveloped and under-featured angle regarding Chris Pratt’s character, Owen, and his project with Raptors. These moments are easily the most interesting as it presents the concept of partnership with nature as opposed to domination. Not only are these sequences relatively hopeful, but they also set the audience up for a very satisfying and electric final conflict that wraps everything up.

Jurassic World may attempt to pawn itself off as an adventure with important things to say about family relationships or a thought provoker regarding science’s ability to go too far; but ultimately it is an action film, through and through. Jurassic World easily boasts the highest body count of any Jurassic film. People are mercilessly chewed, skewered and crushed as effectively as previous films, but the fact that there are so many more potential victims really raises the stakes. Camera angles and movement of the frame (not simply inside the frame) produce a fairly exhilarating observation of all the action in general. What helps the audience retain this visual information is cinematographer John Schwartzman’s excellent framing and staging, but also his reluctance to enhance or exasperate the frame rate to make everything we do see, feel more hectic than it is. Not once is there a moment where the constant running and chasing amidst all the danger seems less adrenaline-filled. Extreme close-ups are not abused with sharp flashes of movement across the screen to fake a sense of added tension. The action in Jurassic World represents some of the most effectively captured sequences of many recent Hollywood blockbusters.

The visual effects were a bit hit and miss for me. CG dinosaurs looked great for the big boys, but not so much for the petting-zoo sized ones. Aerial dinos looked less menacing than those featured in JP III, but that may have more to do with the fact that they were captured more as flocks rather than one on one. Explosions and general destruction are nothing to write home about here. Gunplay is rather dry as security forces in Jurassic World are essentially mall cops with automatic weapons and tasers (again, people aren’t threats to dinosaurs, even though they could be with larger and more appropriate weapons). Dinosaur combat and battles are very well done and desperately needed to be extended because that’s what we really want to see.

The overall cast’s performance in Jurassic World is so bad that I experienced veiled levels of glee when dinosaurs dispatched or harmed them in any way. I understand that this movie (much like any Transformer film) is not about the people or the characters they play per say. We all know what it’s really about. However, people cannot be deleted entirely from Jurassic films (unlike any Transformer film) because their presence is vital to the story and regardless of how any of you may feel about Sam Neil or Jeff Golblum as individual thespians, their performances in the past are academy award winning in comparison. Bryce Dallas Howard as corporate tool #1 demonstrates no ability as an effective administrator and comes off as rather bumbling in her fluency of Jurassic World as a theme park. Nick Robinson as annoying child #1 and Ty Simpkins as annoying child #2 are yawn inducing for their stereotypical portrayals as siblings more interested in girls vs. more interested in giant f’ing dinosaurs respectively. Vincent D’Onofrio as the token (pseudo) bad guy is very disappointing because he’s a much better actor than the effort he gives here. Irrfan Khan as the cocky billionaire owner effectively channels what I presume was the director’s desire to mimic Sir Richard Branson charging in to save everyone with the hubris of his helicopter flying skills. BD Wong is the only returning cast member from a previous Jurassic film reprising his role as Dr. Henry Wu and is as memorable as any actor can be in a single, 2 minute scene for an action film. And then there’s Jimmy Fallon …

Chris Pratt is a different story, and it has less to do with his exceptional performance from Guardians of the Galaxy and more to do with his natural charisma as an individual actor. No, he’s not redefining what it means to be a leading man in a Hollywood blockbuster because he isn’t the prettiest and he isn’t the buffest (both of which are still requisites). What he does have is an everyman’s appreciation for decency and pragmatism for whatever character he plays in ridiculous situations. This is what allows audiences to root for him and it’s all one really needs to make a connection with viewers. This is precisely the reason why he would make for a great Indiana Jones, but there is no reason whatsoever why Indy needs to be rebooted in any way and for any reason unless it were a continuation of his adventures in a younger man’s body.

Jurassic World has made and will continue to make a ton of cash around the globe. It is more than a worthwhile expense for your time and wallet to check this adventure out at your local cinemas. If you have the opportunity, try to check it out in IMAX 3D. However, I would not necessarily recommend spending more on a regular, REAL 3D ticket on a standard displays because dinosaurs need as much screen as possible to show how awesome they are. I didn’t like spending half the film chasing around with the stupid brats that get lost in the park, but Chris Pratt represents the other half and he takes the audience home with some great action and comedic timing.

Comic Book News

Review: Invincible #120

Tired of Marvel disrespecting cosmic and talking down to cosmic fans? Tired of the terrible writing and art in the books Marvel is calling “cosmic” these days? I’ve got a simple answer for you. Invincible.

This book just keeps re-inventing itself. And I mean that in a good way. The characters change, grow, and mature just as they would in real life. They are faced with situations every day – both fantastic and mundane – but nevertheless the story is written in such a way as to keep the reader riveted if only because the characters are so appealing.

Sadly, a great warrior and fan favorite character is lost in this issue. I will miss this character. But it sets things up nicely for Mark to face the biggest and baddest of the the big bads – King Thragg – in future issues. Especially since King Thragg is building an army of Viltrumite hybrids. I think the Invinciverse is going to be in for a rough ride in the near future.

Ottley’s distinctive artistic style is the perfect complement to Kirkman’s outstanding writing. This book would simply not read the same if not for this team-up of creators, and I hope this team stays together for the next 100 issues of this fine book.

If you’re a cosmic fan, rush out and buy this book. Reward great quality with high sales.

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Guardians 3000 #8

Today we bid a sad farewell to Marvel’s only true Cosmic book, Guardians 3000.

It’s sad, really, that Marvel wouldn’t commit to this true example of Cosmic, but will commit to all the truly terrible pseudo-cosmic books like GotGINO, NINO, etc.

This issue wraps the series and paves the way for a re-telling of The Korvac Saga during Marvel’s upcoming Secret Wars event. The quality of the writing and storyline is light years ahead of everything else Marvel is calling “cosmic” these days.

Abnett weaves a complicated and riveting ending to what would now be called a “limited series” with the G3K crew playing a pivotal role in using Korvac to try to correct the damage being done to the universe by Dr. Doom at the start of the Secret Wars event.

The art is much improved from the first several issues of this series and should be much more palatable to most readers.

I am truly sad to see this book ending. I hope that Abnett’s retelling of The Korvac Saga continues the fine quality represented by this, Marvel’s only truly cosmic book. Reward this quality by buying this book and leaving the pseudo-cosmic trash like NINO and GotGINO on the shelf. That will send Marvel a message that there is a market for good quality cosmic

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: NINO #31

Happy Day! This trash book is finally over! It can now be relegated to the dust bin where it and other bad memories belong. Hopefully, Brevoort and Alonso will join it there when their Secret Wars event flops.

The art is particularly bad this issue. I have always hated this Manga-ized version of the Nova uniform, but NINO looks particularly stupid in it this issue. In some panels, his neck is the size of a pencil. When his helmet is off, he has Dumbo-sized ears. I guess that’s the source of his flight powers.

The story is just as dumb as always with NINO improbably beating a much more powerful and experienced fighter after his actions place Earth in danger. I, as always, was rooting for the villain. The perfect ending to this story would’ve been NINO’s death. Sadly, he survives. And his unfit parents look to be letting him continue to wear the helmet. Hey Marvel, this isn’t entertainment. It’s a tragic example of why kids shouldn’t have super-powers and shouldn’t be soldiers/cops – and why unfit parents shouldn’t have kids. Not to mention an example of why Duggan shouldn’t be allowed to write cosmic.

Rocket Racoon and Beta Ray Bill have cameos in this issue – showing up just in time to keep NINO’s screw-up from laying waste to Earth. Yet literally thousands of fairly large asteroids are shown left circling Earth – with no indication that NINO actually cleaned any of them up. Irresponsible? I guess anyone can be made an Avenger these days. At least NINO’s upcoming Avenger book will have a short life span. Maybe after that, Marvel will give up on this failed experiment.

NINO’s gone, and good riddance to him and his fans. It’s been too long in coming and he won’t be missed. Leave this one on the shelf. Nothing to see here. And the last issue needs to go out selling less than 18K to ice the NINO failure cake and send Marvel a clear message: No more NINO’s!

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy #27 (Bendys)

The cover teases “The End?” Oh – please let it be so. The end of Bendis’ run on this book, at least. He’s done everything he possibly could to run it into the ground. It deserves to be put out of its misery.

This absolutely terrible storyline is finally brought to its inevitably stupid end. Thank God. I don’t think I could’ve handled any more of the sit-com type banter between Star-Lord and Kitty. It was groan and eyeball-roll time every time they interacted. This has to be the most stupid comic book marriage of all time.

And of course, Bendys couldn’t resist throwing in a bunch of “Blam! Murdered You’s” any time he could squeeze one into Rocket’s dialogue box. He obviously hasn’t given up on that catchphrase and no doubt dreams of the cash to be made having it emblazoned on millions of tee shirts sporting Rocket’s image.

Hey Bendys – did you never come to the simple realization that the comic didn’t have to be an even more ridiculous version of the movie? Alternatively, the comic could actually be written as the GOOD source material that the movie writers then have to water down to make palatable to the great unwashed masses. You know – just like what Gunn did to the original well-written DnA source material and is doing again using the good DnA source material for the sequel. He’s staying away from your stuff because it’s so bad. Probably no one else will tell you this simple truth out of politeness. I’m not polite. But – take it to heart anyway. Do the right thing and leave this book to a more talented writer. Cosmic isn’t your thing. Follow your dream and go write TV sit-coms and rom-coms.

The art this time out is variable – at times impressive and at times jarringly bad. It doesn’t save this book. It’s just par for the course. Bad writing and commensurate art.

Let’s all join hands and pray that Bendis moves on to something else after this Secret Wars atrocity stumbles to its end. I guess it would be too much to hope for to have Bendis, Loeb, Brevoort, and Alonso all gone after this event. But we can always dream of a time when they are just bad memories.

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Secret Wars: Infinity Gauntlet (In Name Only) #1

IGINO #1

An Opinion-Editorially Oriented Review

First off, don’t believe the hype for this book being shoveled high and deep by Marvel shill websites like CBR and IGN. This book is really just another showcase for Duggan’s un-originality and an opportunity for Marvel to answer all the media criticism about females and racial minorities being in short supply in their universe with yet another replacement of an established superhero with someone with politically correct demographics.

Duggan freely admits that he blatantly re-packaged teen Spiderman tropes for his excruciatingly bad NINO series which thankfully and mercifully ended this week. For Infinity Gauntlet in Name Only (hereinafter referred to as IGINO), he simply begins with the tired old “Lone Ranger” cliché that has too often been applied to the Nova concepts, adds a Good Times-like family with all the desired PC demographics as the protagonists of the story, inferiorly re-packages the Annihilation Prologue storyline, and throws all this into a War of the Worlds type setting with a raggedy-looking Thanos skulking around in the background looking for Infinity Stone fragments as the only real tie to the namesake of this storyline – Marvel’s best pre-Annihilation cosmic story, Starlin’s original The Infinity Gauntlet. Given all that, I’d have to conclude that Duggan has replaced Bendys as the King of Hackery. He’s obviously poorly versed in Science-Fiction and it shows. He simply re-packages concepts from popular SF-oriented comic books, TV, and movies – and produces something vastly inferior to the original.

Frankly, I’m tired of all the PC nonsense. All this howling in the mainstream media is mainly directed toward the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is primarily coming from critics who don’t buy and read comic books. If there really is a comic book market of buyers eager to buy books about female and racial minority heroes, it isn’t evident if sales history is used as a measure. She-Hulk, Spider-Girl, Spiderwoman, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Falcon, etc. have all had multiple re-launched books and have never really been able to stay above cancellation threshold for very long. Sure – some of them were kept on life-support for a while. But none of them have had real staying power. I give credit to Marvel for trying. But if the buyers aren’t there, they aren’t there.

What annoys me is when Marvel cheats and takes the lazy (and racist and/or sexist in its own way) path out. Instead of taking the risk and creating new characters with PC demographics from scratch and trying to make them compelling enough to catch on with the general population of comic buyers, they, in a form of reverse racism/sexism, replace beloved white male superheroes who already have a large following with female and/or racial minority characters knowing that the buyers will continue to buy the books they habitually buy for a while – all the while knowing in the back of their minds that the originals will return. Does anyone really believe that Thor Odinson and Steve Rogers won’t return to their respective roles of Thor and Captain America once the PC characters now filling their shoes wear out their welcome? Of course not. Marvel doesn’t want to lose those habitual buyers. The exception to this rule appears to be Richard Rider’s Nova. For some reason, Marvel doesn’t care about alienating his fan base, and Marvel Writers and Editors go out of their way to insult and denigrate his fan base.

First we’ve had Loeb’s truly pathetically bad half-Xandarian-half-Hispanic teen idiot, Sam Alexander, as Rich’s permanent replacement. Now comes Black Female teenage Xandarian, Anwen Bakian, and her family – including a salty old grandpa and a dog. Could you get more PC than this? I think not. And the zombies and the small minority of PC-lovers are standing in line to drink this Guyana Kool-Aid. Of course, I fully expect to be viciously attacked by the PC-Police with their Ferguson-Missouri-Police tactics merely for expressing these views.

Let’s talk about how clichéd and dumb this IGINO concept and storyline are in the first place. How many times have you seen this kind of chase and narrow escape scenario? In just about every monster movie you’ve ever seen, right? How many times on how many TV shows have you seen a grandpa and son-in-law argument such as presented in this book? On how many dumb child-oriented TV shows are the teenagers and children portrayed as wiser, smarter, and braver than the adults? And how stupid is that anyway? I’ve got no problem with there being dark-skinned Xandarians. I do have a problem with there being a dog on Xandar. Why is there a German Shepherd dog on Xandar? I have no problem with a dark-skinned adult female Nova Corpsman. I have a problem with the entire family getting Nova powers. Once again, Marvel is going down the immoral child soldier pathway. And I have a huge problem with Anwen being the next in line as Rich’s replacement. I suppose the dog will also get powers – or more likely, since Duggan can’t resist a good cliché, the dog will die a tragic, heroic death since none of the principals except maybe dad or grandpa will get killed. Why is Thanos skulking around in the background? He’s not that kind of guy. He’s a lot more powerful than the bugs and Anwen’s mom. Why doesn’t he just stride in and take the stones he’s looking for? Also, why do we need another NINO type book aimed at children? Wasn’t the original NINO experiment a big enough failure? This book is hardly original or of high quality – unless you have the deficient mentality of a CBR/IGN reviewer or a CBR forum regular or one of the chronic complainers who show up on Facebook to take issue with me. In that case, you probably think it’s wonderful as you wash it down with the rest of your Pablum.

Weaver’s art is decent for most of the book. At times – such as the underground scene and some of the chase scenes – it’s muddled and confusing. But for the most part, it’s well done. It’s not enough to save this book – but it keeps the book from being a total waste of paper.

So, my advice, particularly if you’re a Rich Rider Nova fan, is to vote with your dollars and boycott this Politically Correct NINO-ette (hereinafter referred to as PC-NINO-ette). Marvel needs to be slapped down for disrespecting the Rider Nova fans once again, for disrespecting the Annihilation and The Infinity Gauntlet source material, and for producing this PC-NINO-ette disgusting, hackneyed trash. Making this book a sales failure is a good way to do it.

Movie News Reviews

Review: Tomorrowland (2015)

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A Better Tomorrow Starts With Today

A Film Review of Tomorrowland

Who doesn’t like George Clooney? He’s a classy, millionaire, former playboy and philanthropist who’s been in a number of successful films over the course of many years and has disallowed his ever advancing age to deter him. He’s got the Hollywood pedigree as well as individual affirmation by way of his academy award for his supporting role in Syriana (2005). As far as star power goes, George Clooney is a “sure thing,” right? I would just about agree with that notion for just about everything save for a PG-rated, kid centric cinematic adventure. What’s that you say? Tomorrowland is a PG-rated, kid centric cinematic adventure? Darn it! Before those of you who don’t have kids or would simply rather watch Avengers: Age of Ultron for a third or fourth time, stay with me. The formula of Clooney + sci-fi + kids + Disney is certainly uncommon, but is far from a mishmash of completely ill conceived ideas.

From an adult’s perspective, this film starts and ends with Clooney himself as inventor Frank Walker. His character isn’t entirely unsympathetic, but at the same time doesn’t display any unique charisma that isn’t a result of George infusing as much of his own personality to fill out the role. Translation: his character is there, but who cares, it’s George Clooney (but chances are anyone else could’ve played this part for cheaper). Any film that boasts a healthy budget of around $190 million (Disney) dollars isn’t looking for bargains at any level of production so his presence is not a question of affordability; it’s a question of worth. Frank is the key character to this film’s plot, but he isn’t the main character and he isn’t given enough screen time to make for an adequate mentor, so he’s essentially a side-kick and that doesn’t make for a worthy investment regardless of his enhanced star power. That’s not to say his performance was mailed in via UPS (what does brown do for you?). He does an adequate job for a veteran actor who doesn’t have a strong history of sci-fi under his belt and it’s his charm and his signature delivery that prevents the performance from being a wash. Still, Clooney in this role for this type of film feels awkward at best and reaffirms the importance of the casting process in any production. “Any actor you can get” or “the biggest names you can book” are not words that should have been used by those creating this film. This is not Clooney’s best work.

From a kid’s perspective, this film is all about the computer graphics and visual effects that meld otherworldly wonders with live action. I can’t imagine any kid not wanting to be THAT kid that gets to go to Tomorrowland. Most of the budget went into this aspect of the filmmaking process, but film buffs will make note of a lot of “been there” and “done that” much bigger and better in blockbusters of the recent past. But the kids will have plenty of lasers, spaceships, robots and technology to gawk at. There’s a few neat takes on applied sciences of the future (my favorite being the free floating, multi-tiered diving pool). Everything looks bright, clean and colorful and it would have been nice to explore some of these newfangled toys had the plot allowed it.

As for said plot, well, let’s just say it doesn’t have the luster or polish of the subject material it’s attempting to showcase. The story is a garden variety road trip that follows our heroine, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), and her journey to apply her personal confidence and sense of self to “fixing” Tomorrowland’s problem(s). There is no complimentary coming of age or identity crisis tale that bolsters the plot because the story is quite dependent on Casey knowing exactly who she is, what she wants and how she needs to go about doing things. She tells the audience directly in so many words during the film’s opening moments. Newcomer Britt Robertson has a kid safe demeanor about her and easy enough to relate to for boys and girls of any age. Like Clooney, she provides a good enough performance that neither awes nor reviles. I simply wished to have more scenes featuring Raffey Cassidy as Athena in a support role that features the most emotionally poignant moment of the entire film.

Did I mention that House (Roadhouse, that too) was in this film? Yeah, Hugh Laurie’s performance was an afterthought for this production.

For a film going by the name of Tomorrowland, it sure would have been nice to spend more time there. Instead, the audience has to spend the majority of time in Today Land which makes sense from a plot point perspective, but isn’t particularly interesting or entertaining. The strength of the story is hidden in its themes regarding technology, development, society and figuring out how real people fit into the application of everything. Jetpacks are cool, but are they safe and can they be fueled by something that isn’t going to smog the skies with carcinogens? It is good that the film identifies today’s real world problems regarding the environment, the economy, warfare, poverty, hunger, disease, etc; but then what? Being a kid movie, the story doesn’t get past the notion that little (if any) is actually being done to “fix” these things and presents precious little regarding solutions such as the tried and true (and awfully generic) “we need new ways of thinking,” which is equal parts inspiring in its optimism and frustrating in its nonspecific nature. J.J. Abrams’ acolyte Damon Lindelof and kid movie vet Brad Bird are responsible for this screenplay that is decent enough and completely unremarkable at the same time.

I’m not entirely sure of how the true potential of a film adaptation based on a Disney Theme Park attraction area can be accessed without some strong characters at work. I’d say it’s about as good as adapting a movie from a board game. Strong characters can give you Clue while irrelevant characters (and plot, and performances and just about everything else) can give you Battleship. Tomorrowland is not a character driven adventure. It is propelled by gimmickry and circumstance and that might be good enough for some pre-teens out there, but PG doesn’t have to stand for just “pretty good.” This is only a must see for young kids that desperately need to be corralled by mom and dad for some safe summer fun. It’s a solid Netflix or not at all for everyone else.

Comic Book News Marvel

NINO #30 Review & PC Op-ed

An Opinion-Editorial Oriented Review Decrying Political Correctness in Comic Books

Duggan, like Bendis, has no real understanding of science-fiction. They both just rip-off plot and action elements from popular cinema and televised science-fiction and science-fantasy. This issue, Duggan copies some elements from Babylon 5 and Deep Impact to make yet another thoroughly insipid and totally implausible NINO storyline.

Duggan admits he copies teen Spiderman plot elements from the past, and he likes to take to twitter to talk about what a brave, filled-to-the-brim with integrity kind of guy he is because he resists the harsh criticism leveled at him about NINO and keeps churning out NINO trash. Hey Duggan, that doesn’t make you brave or full of integrity. Re-packaging well-worn tropes from comics, cinema, and TV just makes you a hack.

The eye-rolling and stomach-churning moments go hand-in-hand in this issue with Duggan having NINO take on an ultra-powerful and ultra-experienced trained warrior – and of course, totally implausibly winning. Stupid. Unbelievable (in a bad way).

Of course, NINO predictably continues to screw up and his screw-ups result in Earth being put in incredible danger from multiple sources including a storm of asteroids heading straight for Earth. Also, predictably, NINO (just like all the other current cosmic characters) has the Avengers on speed dial to call to save the day because cosmic characters are such buffoons under Bendys, Duggan, Loeb, Brevoort, and Alonso – that all cosmic characters can do is screw-up and place Earth in danger. They can’t save Earth (or anything else). Cosmic characters can no longer effectively single-handedly deal with cosmic threats. They just trigger cosmic threats. Then they’ve got to call The Avengers or The X-Men for help. How dumb is that? Pretty dumb. But what else do you expect from Bendys, Duggan, Loeb, Brevoort, and Alonso? They wanted to reduce cosmic to bathroom humor level buffoonery and they succeeded.

The art continues to decline on this deplorable book. NINO continues to look thoroughly stupid in a poorly designed manga-ish military uniform he never earned in the first place. It’s actually painful to look at the little idiot.

With sales under 20K despite all the marketing hype, a regular cartoon appearance, and shoehorning the little idiot into every major event, Marvel needs to wake up and declare this trash the failure that it so obviously is. But that would make too much sense. Instead, they decided to double-down on the failed formula and do an even more politically correct version of NINO, a PC-NINO-ette as it were. Out with the half-alien/half-Hispanic male kid and in with the black female kid. I guess the reasoning was, “If it worked for Ms. Marvel, maybe it’ll work for NINO.”

If you’re a true fan of the original Nova concepts and you’d like to see Rich Rider back in his rightful place, its past time to take action. Boycott, NINO and PC-NINO-ette. Send Marvel a clear message that they need to stop replacing beloved classic characters just for the sake of appealing to political correctness in the general population. The general population could care less about comic books.

That being said, despite all evidence to the contrary, if Marvel thinks that there really is an enormous demographic of buyers out there just dying to buy books about female, racial minority, religious minority, and sexual orientation-minority characters – then by all means please create such NEW characters from scratch and give them a book. Let’s have a book about a super-powered, bi-sexual, female, half-Gypsy/half-Pygmy, wheelchair-bound, Shinto priestess who’s seriously considering sex change surgery. Sounds hilarious. I might even buy the first issue. This ultimately PC character would certainly please the “small but vocal” PC crowd (and their PC police force who frequently shoot the rest of us in the back as we try to flee this PC nonsense). But please, don’t use that ultimate PC character as a replacement for Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Nova, etc. Live up to your name as the “House of Ideas,” do the courageous/non-lazy thing, and create a brand new character with the demographics you want to capture.

Comic Book News Marvel

Advanced Review: Secret Wars #1

Fans have been clamoring over all the buzz regarding Marvel’s attempt at “re-creating” it’s universes for months. They have been clogging up chat rooms and drooling over the chance to see some of their favorite storylines from the past come blazing back to life throughout the Secret Wars event. I personally cannot wait to see the new take on Inferno, but I digress. Even though the hype is through the roof for this event, it is the first issue that sets the tone and will drive fans to comic shops in droves. Sadly, I was hoping for more than what Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic are bringing to the table.

I LOVE an epic tale that throws caution to the wind and has you on the edge of your seat throughout the tale. That is what I was expecting here, and it just never got to that level of excitement. The entire book, from start to finish, is one giant battle that comes across as having way too many moving parts to feel like a cohesive tale. It is just a jumble of explosions and falling debris with commentary by opposing Reed Richards’ that tries to form itself into some semblance of a story. Even the prolific yammering of Doom as potential bookends to the tale just couldn’t hold this story together enough for me to enjoy it as an actual, singular tale that is supposed to launch Marvel into a new era.

And yes, there are some great scenes in this book! There are a number of character deaths that were unexpected and shocking, there is a “fastball special’ sequence that I NEVER would have thought I would see, and there is a particular scene by a gun wielding man that I thought was absolutely brilliant. But all in all, these scattered scenes do not make up the entirety of the book, and there is too much emphasis on fitting the utter destruction of two worlds into this single issue to actually build up a great story.

Fans of the Avengers books will enjoy Hickman’s eventual “payoff’ that he has been building up to for the past few years, but for those fans who want to buy this book to see what is going to happen to the Marvel Universe, they will be utterly lost! Absolutely NOTHING is explained to the reader, you are thrust face-first into utter chaos, and the only options you have are to hold on or close the book and move on. Unfortunately, Hickman has made this book impossible for new readers to feel connected to at all, when the whole point of this event comic is to draw new readers into a brand new Marvel U!

If you have been enjoying Hickman’s run on Avengers then you will love this book. But if you are someone looking for a cohesive, enthralling story that launches into an epic new direction for Marvel, you will be left wanting more.

As of this issue, if my hard earned dollar had a choice of going to a bunch of domes “converging” or two worlds colliding – it would be nestled safely “under the dome!”

Movie News Reviews

Review: The Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Marching Towards Infinity (kinda)

A Film Review of Avengers: Age of Ultron

I am reminded of how earlier in the year, during the last Academy Awards, of the anti-super hero/comic book action blockbuster sentiment that filled the air. I do not subscribe to the notion that a flashy, licensed Hollywood production is somehow less worthy of being validated as “cinema” than the garden variety art house film made with zero budget and maximum imagination. A hell of a lot of creativity, hard work and organization goes into the art of filmmaking that it would be irresponsible for anyone to casually dismiss any segment or genre as drivel for any reason under the sun. We are all entitled to our opinions so chances are Indie purists will continue to diminish Hollywood for its profit driven grandiosity as fanboys will continue to mock Indies for their obscurity and therefore irrelevance. However, the next time you have a moment to bash a film for the sake of bashing please keep in mind that it is a major accomplishment simply getting a film made. Its ultimate worth is in the hands of audiences and critics, but there is no such thing as a perfect film nor does any film warrant a true value of zero.

And with that we have director Joss Whedon’s second (and final) contribution to Marvel’s cinematic universe in Avengers: Age of Ultron, a mega budget Hollywood production that continues the episodic journey of some of the most iconic characters in comics in live-action on the silver screen. Those who have been following these films since the first Iron Man in 2008 know that the quality of these films began at a relatively high level and (for the most part) have shown steady improvement. When combined with media hype, this franchise’s own success has justly set expectations for every installment at an equally high level. The audience can be assured that investing in a general admission will once again result in a high level of entertainment and fun for a film that features lots of action, visual effects and computer graphics. Every character has a moment or two (or more) to shine just like before as the genuine camaraderie among the cast relays a comfortable warmth and relatability to the audience with this assembly of superheroes. Joss Whedon knows that half of the wow factor for these spectacles is simply allowing these A-list actors representing top tier characters to simply share the same space together and watch what happens. The secret to his success is getting them into the same space and balancing the screen time all while cramming in as much action as possible to show off the full extent of their prowess as super individuals of a super team.

Age of Ultron’s story was also written by Joss Whedon, and it revolves around the Avengers dealing with the global threat of a maniacal AI and its unpleasant plan of achieving world peace by making human beings extinct. There is no question that there are several other movies that delve into the ideas, benefits and threats of a self aware artificial intelligence as a scientific reality better than Age of Ultron, but the plot of this film isn’t the draw. The Avengers are, and when a movie is driven by characters, the plot needs just enough to get them into position and keep them there until resolution. An army of evil robots is certainly a threat worthy of the Avengers in every respect, but it isn’t a far cry from Loki’s army of invading Chitauri in narrative terms. How the Avengers “deal with it this time” is the name of the game and that’s where Whedon’s dialogue is as efficient in its exposition as it is with its character interplay to not only keep the plot moving, but keep it entertaining. Unfortunately, with so much focus on character, important plot points like the infinity stone inside Loki’s staff, Thor’s “spirit walk,” and the introduction/deletion of characters from the team are glazed over in the most expedient of manners. Of these, Thor’s brief hiatus is the least satisfying and most frustrating because it comes out of nowhere, is riddled with plot holes, has no setup and therefore has a whimpering impact.

There is a greater dedication to action sequences in Age of Ultron than there was for the first Avengers because this film does not require any additional screen time for setup exposition. There are more of them and there is more happening within each extended cut with layers of simultaneous action. Hulk smashes while the Widow stings while the Hawk snipes as Cap shields, Thor bolts and Iron Man soars. Once again, there are several instances of combining powers as tag team attacks such as combining Thor’s hammer with Cap’s shield to produce a rather effective shockwave to debilitate a wave of opposition instantly. There are moments where the mammoth amount of content and movement within the frame is simply too much to process, but Whedon compensates with slow motion effects without using it like a crutch vis-à-vis Michael Bay in any film he does. There is plenty of martial arts, acrobatics, melee fisticuffs and gunplay at work throughout, however with the exception of the climax, there didn’t seem to be as many explosions this time around.

CG and visual effects are once again top notch for this production. Iron Man animations and Thor flight and lightning are reliably proficient as ever. Hulk animations (movement and facial) seemed to have an upgrade as the character is not required to be destroying everything in his path as often as before. I wasn’t as impressed with the powers of the “Twins.” Wanda’s chaos magic was essentially mini clouds of red dust emanating from her fingers, and Pietro’s super speed was simply outclassed (no pun intended) by the visual effects for the same character used last year in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Cap’s shield throws and bounces are really fun to follow onscreen. It’s almost like a “follow the bouncy ball” guide through a sequence of chaos and destruction. Ultron’s animations are very smooth and emotive (especially for his face) which is odd seeing how his AI is presented as various platforms of killer robots. Perhaps this was done to incorporate as much of James Spader’s motion capture performance as possible, but I’m not sure if using the same voice over with more rigid/mechanical animations would have yielded a more menacing villain.

Performances by the cast are the meat and potatoes of these Avenger films and once again, the individual micro contributions of all result in a fantastic group dynamic that has become the gold standard for comic book adaptations that feature more than two or three major characters. Everyone does an excellent job for the screen time they are afforded so I won’t guild the lily anymore by reminding everyone how great Robert Downey Jr. is playing Tony Stark. The most valuable relationship is between Bruce Banner/Hulk and Natasha/Black Widow. Sure it seems cheesy that the one female combatant on the team holds the key to soothing the savage beast on the battlefield, but there’s some actual chemistry going on between Johansson’s sex appeal and Ruffalo’s awkward innocence. Like it or not, their relationship adds a much needed romantic subplot to all the super heroics for the shear sake of variety. Most valuable standout performance goes to Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye for having all the best comedic moments as well as a nice heart-warming surprise to explain what he’s fighting for. Special recognition goes to Paul Bettany for making his first physical appearance as a member of this cast as well as added appreciation for not making the Vision a full on CG character. Bettany’s demeanor and facial expressions will compliment his witty banter in bringing even more charisma to his character. I also loved James Spader’s interpretation of an evil Tony Stark as his inspiration for Ultron: same ego, similar self reflections.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a cinematic adventure worth paying a little extra to see on the big screen sooner rather than later. The added cost for a 3D viewing is much more justifiable than 80% of the rest of the films that get a cheap conversion these days. Casual movie goers need not be intimidated by the series of Marvel films that have built up to this point as the events of this film are contained enough for novices to come in fresh and enjoy nonetheless. Fanboys and girls will enjoy this film in general, but may be a bit underwhelmed for three reasons: 1) it isn’t as amazing as seeing the Avengers assemble for the first time (as few other films could ever be), 2) the connections to the ominous Infinity conflict were poorly developed and 3) the team will not be the same moving forward. Age of Ultron will most certainly be the biggest money making film of 2015, but it will be interesting to see the comparison with another Disney owned IP in Star Wars Episode 7 when it begins its theatrical run December.

Comic Book News

Advanced Review: Batman #40

There are tales in comics that truly reveal how the medium can transcend all others. These instances are swollen with theatrical imagery, drama and action sequences that exceed those of movie or television. Ones that put a microscope on the duality of heroism, eloquently portray the finality of man and grace us with inevitable quest for hope more than prose or poetry can. Tales that dazzle the senses with color and form, juxtaposition and layout more than any art museum could hope for.

Scott Snyder’s Batman #40 is one of those tales.

The final chapter of “Endgame” is a stunning piece that will move readers. It is a cornucopia of themes, burrowing deeper into the mythos of Batman than Snyder has ever gone before. At moments you are careening down an unmanned roller coaster, a journey that will have you gasping for air then, suddenly, you are left completely breathless, hovering above it all not being able to believe where you are or how you came to be in this position. It is a story of life, the inevitability of death and the realization of who we are along the way.

I have often called Scott Snyder the “modern day master of horror,” and I will again now. His portrayal of the Joker as a malevolent, undulating demigod of terror has become synonymous with horror on multiple levels and will surpass many incarnations from the past seventy-five years as THE Joker! But the fear in this book does not solely come from the Joker, it is deeper than that, even though Greg Capullo’s renderings of the “clown prince” and his Cheshire grin will always scare the hell out of me! It comes from Bruce and his final realization that he is not the man he always thought he was. It is that revelation that sometimes, even though we have fought so hard to believe otherwise, we were inevitably wrong about ourselves.

Scott Snyder has created a masterpiece of storytelling that will be beloved and despised like all great works are. He has taken a rich world and made it richer in just forty issues, a feat rarely seen in the medium today. He has taken risks and pushed a hero to the brink and beyond and I thank him for the nerve to give us something never seen before with such an iconic character.

The beginning will ensnare you, the middle will enthrall you and the end will crush you. Who could ask for anything more?

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy #26

As far as silly situation-comedy-ish cliché goes, I will say that this issue is among the best of the worst. Faint praise, but really that’s all it deserves.

On the up side, the well-worn clichés of someone being unwillingly elected to office, the duck-out-of-water scenarios, the enjoyment of the good life that the group falls backward into, etc. are not over-played to the point of being offensive. But make no mistake – if you read this, you’ll be wading through clichés so familiar that you’ll know what’s going to happen before you turn each page.

On the down side, Bendys just can’t seem to get the character’s voices right. He inexplicably has Drax yelling Shakespearean English such as, “Have at thee!” as if he suddenly channeled Thor. He portrays Drax as completely unfamiliar with Earth culture even though Drax began life as a human. This isn’t the historical Drax from Marvel Comics or even the Drax from Gunn’s movie. This is some inferior, newly created Drax – born of Bendys’ unfamiliarity with the character.

Bendis has never gotten Quill right, either. Quill is no longer a leader capable of single-handedly taking on a Herald and winning. He’s just a goofball screw-up who falls bass-ackward into situations and either has others rescue him from his stupidity or his srew-ups just luckily turn out right.

This incredibly stupid storyline of Quill getting married to Kitty is unspeakably asinine. I weep for what cosmic has become under Bendys, Brevoort, Loeb, and Alonso. This relationship is like every other one you see on any number of clichéd network situation comedies where the woman is the wise voice of reason and the guy is an idiot screw-up who couldn’t tie his own shoes without her. I wish Bendis would just give this comic up and take a job writing one of those television rom-coms. I’d call it good riddance.

The art and coloring has its ups-and-downs, too. Some panels are impressively rendered and colored. Others have Quill and Kitty with distorted facial expressions right out of a Looney-Tunes cartoon.

I suppose the Looney-Tunes comparison is fitting, though. Because, after-all, Bendys is just writing farce. That is the ultimate disappointment of what Marvel is now calling cosmic. It isn’t serious anymore. It is just second-rate farce to their serious Earth-bound superhero stories.

Comic Book News

Review: Convergence #3 (of 8)

Up until now the core Convergence title book has been found wanting. Personally, I enjoyed the Earth 2 series and the World’s End series quite a lot, but I found it hard to get behind Jeff King’s band of misplaced heroes in the first two issues of DC’s “mega event.” The camaraderie seemed forced and even though most of the group have fought side by side before, the reader doesn’t have enough belief in these heroes, enough “history” with these particular heroes, to fully care about them. We are not given DC “core” characters to get behind. We don’t have THE Superman, THE Batman or even THE Dick Grayson to propel us on a nail-biting journey of lost hope for the universe that could lead to the possible demise of an icon. But that may be Jeff King’s purpose all along. The characters he uses DO have great stories attached to them, if you read the aforementioned books, and they can do something that DC would not allow their “icons” to do in this universe rebuilding crossover; they can DIE!

Of course DC has killed off plenty of “icons” before, but we all know how that always turns out. But in Convergence, Jeff King has the unique task of building a stunning story where he can create new icons, ones that may survive the course of eight issues and beyond, or, he can create magnificent, sacrificial deaths for these characters where they have served their purpose for the greater good and exile them into oblivion.

I know that I keep referring to “death” in this review, but it is well warranted. Jeff King steps up the stakes in this issue, and our main band of heroes are not the only ones looking into the eyes of the reaper. Long time DC fans will be astonished with the choices Jeff King makes in this issue. There are things that happen that will set the message boards ablaze with debate! But this book doesn’t JUST revolve around shocking deaths, there is a tale of heroism and loss brewing throughout!

Jeff King has finally found the voice of his characters in this issue. There were moments from issue #2 that were done quite well, but here, King has found the rhythm to string those moments into one riveting story for the entire issue. He weaves in stunning new plot twists that excite and bewilder the reader, ones that can change the entire dynamic of the book through to its finale. But the part that takes this story to the next level is King’s inclusion of popular DC history and spinning it to involve these new characters. For longtime DC fans, it will make the story resonate even more with you as you smile in spite of yourself, and for new fans, well, you get to make some shocking new memories for the very first time!

All in all, this is the best issue yet, and the three distinct cliffhanger pieces guarantee that issue four will be amazing!

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Guardians 3000 #7

Sadly this is the next to last issue of G3K, and with Marvel’s hostility toward this, their only true cosmic comic book, it will likely not return from hiatus after the silliness of the “Secret Wars” event has reached it’s no doubt too long in coming and astoundingly annoying conclusion.

Interestingly, the apparent cause of the Secret Wars event debuts in this book – but since the zombies aren’t buying this book, I guess they’ll have to wait and read it in whatever generic Avengers title they’re buying en masse these days.

One of the highlights of this book is how it indirectly points out how small and petty Quill’s GotGINO team has become under Bendis and Gunn. Star-Lord is pointed out as lacking in leadership skills and proves that point repeatedly over the course of the storyline. This is not the leader of men that Peter Quill was in times past – a guy who could take out a Herald of Galactus single-handedly. It is Bendis’ and Gunn’s twenty-something goofball who is repeatedly outclassed by the original GotG team.

And, of course, when the situation takes a turn for the worse, what does this weak, pitiful, farcical, buffoon-ish, Bendis-fied version of Quill do? Hits the speed-dial button to call in the Avengers, as always. Vance rightfully points out that the GotG are better qualified to handle the situation. And Quill disagrees! Jeez! This buffoon version of Star-Lord has drunk the kool-aid and bought into Bendis’ propaganda.

I’ll go on record as not being that big a fan of the Korvac Saga, but Abnett is able to weave an interesting tale from that source material.

Leon’s art and Delgado’s colors are vast improvements from the first five issues. The teams look more like themselves and less like some abstract art version of the team.

Rush out and buy this book, and its TPB. Quality needs to be rewarded, and very little of what Marvel is now calling “cosmic” has any quality to be rewarded. Guardians 3000 is the shining antithesis of Bendis. Rush out and buy this book!

Comic Book News

Review: Invincible #118

Now here’s a true cosmic comic book.

This issue marks a major change in direction for the Invincible storyline with Mark and Even immigrating to Telescria to begin a new life with their new baby. This story chronicles their first day on the planet and their catching up with old friends and relatives. Oliver, now grown, makes a surprise visit and it’s always good to see Alan.

Their new life is not without peril and heartache, though, as you’ll see with Mark’s PTSD symptoms in dealing with his recent rape and with the totally unexpected final page cliffhanger.

Kirkman and Ottley are a writer-artist dream team. Mark’s story remains as compelling today after 118 issues as it was in Issue #1. It just goes to show you that Kirkman can break the mold and allow a character to grow, change, and mature over time – and still keep readers interested. Kirkman can also tell a true cosmic story aimed at adults where the space setting is central. There is humor, but he doesn’t make his cosmic stories into a farce. The humor flows naturally. Marvel could learn a lot by emulating him.

Ottley’s art remains as amazing as ever. I look forward to his work and can’t wait to see what he renders every issue.

This issue is priced at only .25 cents as it’s aimed at bringing new readers aboard for this new phase of Mark’s life. So check it out. Good cosmic comics need to be rewarded and trust me, you’ll be hooked by this one.

Comic Book News

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy #25 (Bendys)

This one is slightly less horrible than usual.

That’s not meant as a compliment. Every once in a while, Bendys screws up and writes something halfway decent. At least this time, he doesn’t make the team seem like guest stars in their own book and he’s able to balance their appearances and contribution to the mission with those of the X-Men, the character’s he’s vastly more comfortable writing and appears to vastly prefer to write.

And I wish Bendis would go back to writing more traditional characters and leave cosmic alone.

It’s still a bad story, made all the worse by the appearance of NINO with all his typical screw ups. He’s even referred to multiple times by multiple characters as a child. Why would these supposed “Guardians of the Galaxy” put a child into combat? Stupid. Typical Bendis. Typical Bonso. Typical Marvel Pseudo-Cosmic. They’ve just turned what they’re calling “cosmic” into a farce – a running joke – that only zombies could love.

The annoying hot-potato game with The Black Vortex continues in this chapter of this increasingly annoying and overly long story about absolute power corrupting absolutely. This excruciatingly hackneyed story could’ve been told in one issue and is not deserving of an “event.” Or in this case, a disappointing “non-event” would be the better descriptor.

At least the art is not bad this time out. Schiti appears to be growing into the role of depicting pseudo-cosmic characters.

Frankly, I’ll be glad when this comic goes on hiatus for the upcoming silliness of the totally un-necessary sales gimmicky Marvel reboot. Maybe Bendys won’t come back to it when the hiatus is over. That would be something worth celebrating.

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy: Best Story Ever

Normally, I’m a Tim Seely admirer. I’m a huge Hack-Slash fan and think his work on said comic was absolutely brilliant in that it breathed fresh air into a pretty stale concept.

That’s why it so pains me to have to say that “Best Story Ever” is a terrible misnomer for this comic. It’s certainly not the worst story ever. Bendis writes those. But “best story ever” is quite a stretch. The best stories for this team were written by DnA. It’s all been downhill since they were fired.

The problem with this story is that it tries too hard to mimic the movie. And it fails.

I’ll cut the movie some slack because in order to recoup the rather large monetary investment to produce it, it had to be written to appeal to the lowest common denominator of movie goer. Fine. I don’t like it that the concepts were watered-down, and it was played too much as a farce for cheap laughs, but I’ll tolerate it for the above given reason.

Comics don’t have the same up-front investment as movies. They can afford to concentrate on quality and even be written for a niche audience. So Marvel doesn’t have to try to mimic the movie. Trying to mimic the movie will always just result in what this comic ultimately is – a juvenile farce played for way too many cheap laughs – most of which are duds.

I mean, come on. The entire mission is about stealing a toilet because Rocket broke the only toilet on the ship? Really? Doesn’t this take bathroom humor to an all new low? Murdering dozens of sentients at a warehouse just to steal a toilet? Is the team that amoral?

The art is certainly an improvement over the regular fare on Bendys’ book, but it just can’t make up for the weak story.

Sorry, Seely, but I hope you direct your talents to something else in the future, because this effort is a fail. Only a zombie could love this – another episode of Marvel Cosmic gone horribly wrong – again thanks to Brevoort and Alonso.

Comic Book News

Review: Guardians 3000 #6

Finally, a good cosmic comic book from Marvel!

And, of course, they’ve cancelled it. They’ll keep NINO on life support and double-down on the bad NINO formula with PC-NINO-ette, but they’ll not keep a good and true cosmic comic like G3K going even though it sells better than NINO. Go figure. Typical Brevoort and Alonso “leadership.”

Abnett winds a fantastic tale of cosmic adventure and time travel – in the first good story featuring both the original team and the movie-influenced team. The pace is rapid, the dialogue is snappy, the humor isn’t forced or overbearing, it’s not played as a farce, the space-time aspects are central to the story. In other words, we have an actual true cosmic comic aimed at adults on our hands! Hooray! It’s about time (no pun intended).

To top it off, we have better art this time out. It’s more photo-realistic with cleaner lines and non-exaggerated features – avoiding the jarring out-of-proportion depictions of the team and toothy facial expressions that plagued the first 5 issues.

In short, this is what cosmic fans have been asking for over the past several years. Brevoort hated it before it ever got out of the gate, and Marvel has given it absolutely no promotion. Yet is sells better than NINO – who has been given every chance in the world. Of course, NINO will be back, but G3K will probably not get such a reprieve. Brilliant leadership, Bonso, absolutely brilliant.

Go out and buy multiple copies of this book. Let it at least go out on a high note. That will send Bonso a clear message. Down with NINO. Give us more G3K!!!

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: NINO #28

What is wrong with Marvel?

They actually think this “story” about playing “hot potato” with “The Black Vortex” is entertaining?

Silly, yes. Entertaining, no. Unless, of course, you’re an easily satisfied zombie who will buy anything and take to the internet to defend it to the end.

It’s just typical Duggan in a typical NINO story. Screw-up after screw-up that somehow works itself out in the end mostly due to NINO’s dumb luck or another NINO screw-up that fortuitously ends well. Of course, the requisite cardboard villains written as if they belong in an episode of Scooby-Doo are prominently on display as always.

Of course, Duggan, not satisfied with his appearances on forums to insult Rider fans, has to throw in an insult to Rider fans in the body of the story. Seriously, if there are any Rider fans still buying this trash, this has to be the final straw for you. Join the rest of us in the boycott.

This is just another episode of Marvel Cosmic gone horribly wrong. It isn’t even cosmic, really, as the space setting is just incidental. It’s just puerile, juvenile trash aimed at 8-year-olds and played as a farce for cheap laughs for chronologically older persons with the mentality of 8-year-olds (aka Marvel Zombies).

The art continues to decline. Thane’s “googly eyes” turn what is supposed to be the only serious dramatic scene in this ultimately stupid story into yet another Scooby-Doo moment of farce.

Cancellation of this garbage can’t come too soon. Marvel needs to man up and admit that this experiment has been a total failure. Unfortunately, Brevoort and Alonso are in charge, so that will never happen. Like NINO, you can only count on them to do the most stupid thing possible and double-down on the failed formula. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for Bonso’s Double-Down: “Politically Correct NINO-ette (PC-NINO-ette).” Join us in boycotting her, too.

Movie Trailers Reviews

Movie Review: Insurgent (2015)

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Guns of the Insurgency

A Film Review of Insurgent

The first thought that came to mind when the end credits rolled on Insurgent was how similarly it improved on its predecessor in the exact same manner as Catching Fire (2013) did for The Hunger Games (2012). Of course, these two stories are eerily similar in so many ways that it doesn’t take a board member of Mensa to realize that Veronica Roth had more than just an “inspiration” in mind for her own brainchild seeing how Suzanne Collins wrapped up her book trilogy a full year before Divergent was released in 2011. I am certain their respective literatures divulge more than enough differentiating detail about the worlds and characters these stories are about to make it worth any reader’s while to devour every page. But you just don’t get that kind of flavor in a series of two hour movies. You get the bare bones of the world, some expository jargon; make a b-line for character which finally launches you right into the drama and action. Taken in this regard, the similarities of these film franchises start converging like every loony in Gotham gravitates to Batman.

I’d be willing to bet that, “A pretty young white girl compelled to engage in mortal combat to make some difference in a dystopian society that will implode unless her efforts inspire a revolution towards positive change” was used to pitch both trilogies (parts 1 and 2 for their respective final installments, of course). So what? Who cares, right? Meathead, bro-action blockbusters are all remixes of themselves, too! Die Hards and Under Sieges involve one man killing machines that grind up armies of opposition into kibble to save the day. Why not let the girls have their shot at it? I have absolutely no criticism of any of this save for one, and it’s the reason why Under Siege (1992) will always be described as Die Hard (1988) … on a boat. One of these films came first, caught some kind of lightning in a bottle and every other that follows in an attempt to recreate the formula of the progenitor will always be compared as its doppleganger until it is ultimately forgotten when another copycat steps up to the plate.

Long story short (too late); as entertained as I was by Insurgent, as improved as the visual effects were thanks to an additional $25 million to the budget of Divergent, and as talented as I am sure that Shailene Woodley will prove herself to be when she’s in her prime, this film and this series is old hat: been there, done that. Perhaps if there were more separation in real time between the releases of the Hunger Games and Divergent sagas, I’d be less susceptible to monotony fatigue. Lionsgate’s desire to have them run concurrently is curious. Yes, it makes sense to continue to capitalize on the popularity and success of The Hunger Games films by keeping its target audience primed for another run to the cinema for a similar, girl-powered, butt-kicking adventure. However, attempting to take advantage of the audience through this kind of acute, formulaic regurgitation is a dangerous game that can easily turn Insurgent’s opening weekend feast of $52.3 million into a second week famine in an instant. Even if Hunger Games and Divergent have several core concepts and characters that are closely related, it’s on Lionsgate and more specifically screenwriters Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback to make enough difference to motivate an audience to buy a ticket. There are too many paralleling plots and coincidental twists with the franchise that came before for Insurgent’s story to be a standalone draw for this movie.

Insurgent isn’t a bad film by any means and the primary reason for this is money, as in added money to the budget which shows improvements in so many ways. Set design gets an upgrade, external locations are vast and intricate, stunts and combat are more intense, and props actually look like they belong in this futuristic world, guns look much beefier than the piddling blow darts they used in Divergent. All of these elements translate directly into added entertainment value to the viewer, but as good as they all are, they pale in comparison to the huge upgrade in the visual effects department that is showcased during Tris’ faction simulation unlocking scenes. These surreal dream sequences push her divergence to the limit as her ability to overcome her fears amidst the challenges that each faction represent is loaded with all sorts of eye candy like floating buildings, obliterating walls with bare hands and disintegrating particle effects. From top to bottom, Insurgent is a much prettier and visually dynamic film than Divergent.

Performances by the main characters were solid. Shailene Woodley and Theo James have good chemistry together as Tris and Four, respectively, although I wouldn’t mind seeing them steam things up a lot more as passionate lovers than the good friends who happen to sleep with each other they come off as in this film. As individuals, Woodley succeeds in manipulating her vulnerability to dominate every scene when Tris is at her weakest. She needs a bit of improvement on showing her anger and rage as well as her fight choreography which is nowhere near as intensely staccato as Four, the love interest. Theo James is certainly a man’s man in addition to being the lady’s man because he demonstrates textbook intensity and strength at all times, even at restful times, when he needs to let that iron jaw of his kick back and take a rest. Kate Winslet as intelligence Nazi Jeanine reprises her role as the ice queen proficiently. I wish her villainy was allowed greater depth of depravity, but her character’s machinelike callousness represents the apex of her negative energy.

The rest of the cast is inconsistent at best. Jai Courtney delights once again as precocious, dickhead Eric while Mekhi Phifer’s Max is simply fortunate to be present to recite his lines to the camera. Miles Teller’s Peter is reliably untrustworthy and self-serving and shows the potential for being a much more capable villain than Jeanine at times. Ansel Elgort’s Caleb isn’t afforded much screen time to evolve his character and thankfully so because his casual demeanor at all times was as unimpressive as his one facial expression of nonchalance throughout. Octavia Spencer’s Johanna was a nice surprise to see a veteran showing how one “does more with less,” but it was in fact so little that it seemed like a complete misuse of her talent. Naomi Watts was in this film? My favorite moment of Insurgent was seeing Daniel Dae Kim as Jack King who is cool, calm, collected and in command of Candor faction with the charisma he learned to channel from Lost.

Insurgent is a fully capable and worthy follow up to Divergent for all the fanboys and girls. Casual viewers will continue to draw the parallels with The Hunger Games because the fictions are too similar, plain and simple. So far, global ticket sales are showing immunity (or apathy) to the elephant in the room and ultimately, that’s the only thing that really matters. As a pre-summer blockbuster, this film doesn’t have the same competition or expectations of the big boys like the next Fast and Furious or Avengers, but even Divergent saw more than a 50% drop in ticket sales in its second week domestically, and I would expect the same here. Don’t even think about wasting your money for IMAX or Real 3D screenings of this film as the conversion adds zero emersion to the experience and is a shameless cash grab. As for a recommendation for purchasing a general admission, I would suggest saving for multiple screenings for the true blockbusters that are just around the corner. Insurgent is good enough to satisfy that itch if you haven’t been to the movies in a while, but if you don’t feel the need, this can easily be pushed to Netflix.

Comic Book News

Spoiler: Death in DC’s Future’s End #46

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This week has seen plenty of “death” in the world of comics, some in print and others on screen.

Both Aiden and Noah were literally torn apart on AMC’s, The Walking Dead. Cisko payed the ultimate price for being too curious on the CW’s, The Flash. Marvel bumped off Falcon’s longtime friend and partner, Redwing, in the pages of All-New Captain America #5; and TMNT fans shed a tear as their favorite “techy,” Donatello, got smashed into oblivion in this week’s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #44!

Not to be left behind, DC, let the Joker – albeit a Brother Eye inhanced Joker/Batman amalgam from the future – gun down one of the most popular characters in the Batman mythos, Terry McGinnis! That’s right, Batman Beyond has gone to the “great beyond’ in a hail of gunfire and heroics all in order to save the present from becoming the future he came from. Take a look at how it all went down below:

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We will miss you Terry, maybe they will bring you back with super powers!

Comic Book News Marvel

Review: NINO Annual #1

Silly, juvenile, disrespectful of Nova mythos and fans, and un-heroic – this book is everything you’ve come to expect of NINO.

At least NINO admits at various times in the book that he’s stupid and doesn’t know what he’s doing. That places him in the company of the 19K of zombies still buying this trash.

Of course, Duggan either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Xandar hasn’t existed as a planet for a long time now. He blithely sends NINO and the Hulk on a selfish quest to repair NINO’s helmet. Upon arriving at the somehow re-constituted planet of Xandar, they find a powerful alien who has enslaved the “remaining Xandarians” and is forcing them to perform heavy labor. Again, Duggan either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Xandarians are nearly identical to humans as he portrays the Xandarians as very alien.

Do you think NINO and Hulk do the heroic thing and free the Xandarians from slavery or make some attempt to resurrect Xandar? No. Hulk temporarily disables the alien slave lord, finds some parts to fix NINO’s helmet, then he and NINO selfishly and un-heroically leave the remaining Xandarians to be re-enslaved. What a nice thank you to the culture who provided the loser duo of NINO and his dad their powers. Pathetic. Immoral. But that’s why this trash is and ever will be “Nova In Name Only” – because no other being worthy of the uniform would ever behave so selfishly, un-heroically, and utterly disgracefully.

The art and coloring are mediocre with NINO continuing to look ridiculous in his manga-ized version of a Nova uniform. The art used to at least distract readers from the atrocious writing, but even the art is slipping as this book comes ever closer to its recently announced cancellation date. Given that NINO is a Loeb vanity project, it’s probably too much to hope that we’ve seen the last of NINO. I’m not too worried about the upcoming politically correct NINO-ette – as she’ll be DOA.

So good riddance to NINO (and a hoped for quick riddance to PC NINO-ette). Your final issue can’t come too soon and you won’t be missed.

Comic Book News

Why Does Scott Snyder Hate Alfred?!

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He’s Mad I Tell You!

“A Penny For Your Thoughts”

By Chris “DOC” Bushley

Caution: Spoilers Dead Ahead!

We have all seen Scott Snyder’s DC All Access “Endgame” interview regarding the Joker and plans for what happens next in the Batman mythos. But there is one thing the soft spoken scribe failed to tell you — he is TWISTED! Don’t let his facade fool you, Mr. Snyder is riddled with horrific, inhumane thoughts that churn and bubble to the surface. Don’t believe me? Check out his Image comic Wytches! He’s twisted, man, TWISTED!

Not only is Mr. Snyder a possible Arkham escapee, he seems to have a penchant for letting his disturbing ideas torment a single character incessantly. No, not Batman, Alfred Pennyworth! Yes, Alfred! The beloved butler that helped a young Bruce Wayne evolve into the crime fighting machine he is today. Now, we all know that in order to hurt a hero the most, you must hurt their inner circle, their loved ones, it just makes for better storytelling. But the things Mr. Snyder has bestowed upon poor Alfred are, say it with me… TWISTED!

Let’s go down memory lane so we can see how far Scott Snyder has pushed Alfred to the brink.

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Snyder’s path of depravity began way back in the “Death Of The Family” story arc where poor Alfred was attacked by the Joker. Not only was he beaten with a ball-peen hammer, he was then tortured while the whole thing was being tape-recorded in order to send Batman a message. Was that enough for Mr. Snyder? NO! He then “Jokerized” Alfred and made him fight the family he dearly loves!

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Then came Batman Eternal where Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV decided to destroy Gotham and Batman in the process. Bruce Wayne loses everything; bank accounts, weapons depots, even Wayne Manor itself! But he loses something even more dear to him, yep, Alfred! In issue #21, Alfred is attacked inside the Manor by Hush and is violently injected with Fear Toxin directly in the temple. This drives Alfred completely insane, and eventually, he is admitted into Arkham Asylum. If this isn’t bad enough, while still fighting the effects of the toxin, Arkham collapses, sending the inmates into deep chasms beneath the structure. Insane, beaten and buried, Alfred, eventually crawls out of the rubble and teams with Killer Croc in order to escape from certain death.

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After all of that, you would think Mr. Snyder would give ol‘ Alfred a break. Possibly a nice vacation, some quality time with, Julia, his daughter, but no! This week, Mr Snyder showed us what truly lies inside his maniacal mind. In Batman #39, the Joker makes his way inside the Batcave and descends upon the still recovering Alfred. Although he gets a shot off at the Joker, he is still weak and is brutally attacked. The Joker cleaves Alfred’s right hand clean off!

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Is there anything more that Scott Snyder could possibly due to Alfred Pennyworth besides ultimately killing him off? We all know that Mr. Snyder’s inner thoughts are just teeming with more sadistic things to unleash upon poor Alfred before destroying him completely, but will he keep Alfred alive through the finale of the “Endgame” storyline? That is the question on everyone’s lips, but I personally think the ol’chap will make it. Everyone, including me, thought Alfred was going to die in “Death Of The Family,” and Snyder kept him alive to do even more brutal things to him.

This time I think Alfred should get a little payback. I think during DC’s upcoming “Convergence” storyline that ALL of the Alfreds on ALL of the alternate planets should form the ultimate revenge team — the Blitzkrieg Butlers! That’s right, an all butler squad that can finally get revenge for everything Mr. Snyder has put poor Alfred through!

What do you say Alfred, would you join a barrage of badass butlers to take revenge on the Joker, Hush and anyone else who has ever done you wrong?

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Movie News Reviews

2015 Oscars: Results, Recap & Opinions

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Oscar Fallout and Recap 2015

(Hold on to your butts!)

Welcome one and all to Oscar Night 2015 when the Academy Awards will be doled out by Doogie Howser M.D. in an attempt to surpass Ellen’s “internet breaking” effort of last year. As with every Oscar award season, perception, conjecture, and theories abound when it comes to who will actually win. There are a few foregone conclusions, there are some tight races, but I can posit with some certainty that we will have at least one major surprise and plenty of controversy (I’m looking at you John Travolta!).

The Red Carpet Observations

1) Does it matter who Kevin Hart brings with him anywhere? All women tower over him.

2) Boyhood’s director Richard Linklater and supporting actor Ethan Hawke get early featured love by interviewers, and Hawke shows much more excitement and charisma than his director. Perhaps Linklater is bracing for disappointment?

3) Dakota Johnson and mommy dearest, Melanie Griffith, are shown video footage of her years ago as a little girl at the Oscars in what I’m sure was #50shadesofawkward. Thanks for the reminder of young innocence turn softcore porn, Mr. red carpet coverage man. Lara Spencer’s follow up to push Melanie into watching 50 Shades of Grey made it even worse. Is there some kind of bounty on Johnson and Griffith tonight?

4) Andy Samberg got invited to the Oscars? I guess he can thank Adam Sandler for the invite?

5) Did everyone remember how Steve Carell was nominated for best leading actor for Foxcatcher?

6) Marion Cotillard is a beautiful woman, but she wasn’t wearing a beautiful dress. #plainjane

7) Michael Keaton and Birdman director Alejandro Iñárritu seem to have a bit more positive energy about being present. Too bad Keaton is dwarfed by Lara Spencer.

8) Rosamund Pike looks killer in that hot red dress of hers!

9) Nice guy Eddie Redmayne admits to bringing the wretched British weather over to LA. I appreciate the honesty.

10) I really like Anna Kendrick’s dress, but really, her look overall because despite her youth, she tends to give off a much more seasoned class to public appearances like this.

11) Lady Gaga fake holding an Oscar – yeah right. Well, maybe I shouldn’t mock her seeing how they gave Cher an Oscar. #anythingispossible BTW, does she plan on doing some dishes tonight with those rubber gloves?

12) Jimmy Kimmel is dressing down for the Oscars. #mailingitin

13) Wow! What kind of future-alternative dress is Naomi Watts wearing? I guess I like it, but wouldn’t figure her to rock that kind of look.

14) Chris Pratt’s a cool dude, but there’s no way anyone should be rebooting Indiana Jones for any reason.

15) Reese Witherspoon wants more questions asked to her on the red carpet other than the designer she’s wearing. I respect that. But, that goes away if Legally Blonde 3 is ever announced.

16) Jennifer Lopez wearing a remix of the only kind of dress she knows how to wear: plunging v-neck down to her belly button. #pass

17) What did Scarlett Johansson do to her hair???

18) Adam Levine still needs a shave. You know, I heard Gillette is the best a man can get.

19) Taya Kyle is present at the Oscars representing Chris and American Sniper. She’s still not sharing any proceeds of her husband’s book with the families of fallen service men and women like Chris had reportedly requested prior to his death. #anymorelawsuitsagainstthekyleestate?

20) Faith Hill and Tim McGraw don’t look like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

21) Kerry Washington looks really cute tonight. We need to see her in some more movies so hopefully Scandal won’t Black Snake Moan her from the rest of Hollywood.

22) Robin Roberts making an embarrassing moment with Captain America himself Chris Evans regarding his date wasn’t horrible, but never presume anything regarding the relationship between stars and their +1’s at these events.

23) Patricia Arquette seems a frumpy hot mess. Didn’t she learn anything from Jack? You gotta wear sunglasses if you do a line before sitting through the Oscars.

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And Now, the Show …

Oooo, Neil Patrick Harris starting off right away referencing the “white-washing” of this year’s nominations before launching into his introductory song and dance. His impromptu duet with Anna Kendrick as Cinderella was a nice little surprise, but Jack Black’s interruption representing the cynicism of Hollywood wasn’t as satisfying. I get that they were going for the magic vs. mud, but as far as opening musical numbers go, Hugh Jackman’s remains the gold standard. Also, Anna Kendrick is a much stronger singer than Neil, so it was good, but not great.

Best Supporting Actor– J.K. Simmons for Whiplash – First award of the night is not a surprise by any means. He was the hot choice for this category and I really liked his acceptance speech even if he kind of threw his own kids under the bus a bit. Also, I liked Neil Patrick Harris’ State Farm Commercial reference to this victory.

Liam Neeson’s aside regarding the nominated films this evening and their separation from the blockbusters like comic book films irked me a tad. I understand that he didn’t necessarily write the lines, but he did agree to read them, and it was somewhat hypocritical seeing how American Sniper was one of this past year’s big studio blockbusters. Excellence achieved in blockbusters is no less prolific than those “worthy” of recognition by the Academy because people don’t just go to see those cinematic adventures because they’re fanboys and girls. They go because those films are great fun, well, at least the good blockbusters are.

Chris Pine and J-Lo present best costume design. You must hand it to this show for always being able to pair some of the most random duos.

Best Costume Design– Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel – Another disciple of Wes Anderson’s reaping the rewards of art house film proximity. This was the year for indie films and Wes Anderson is a marquee champion of the little guys.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling– Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier for The Grand Budapest Hotel – The only thing that you could bank on in this category was that it wasn’t going to Guardians of the Galaxy for every reason I mentioned above.

Best Foreign Language Film– Poland’s Ida – This victory was obviously a surprise for the winner, but he sure didn’t run out of people to thank as he went well over his wrap up time and kept going, and going, and going, and going …

Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island perform Everything is Awesome. This might have been a highlight of the show for some viewers out there, but I would have preferred the song exactly how it was performed from the movie, minus The Lonely Island.

Best Live Action Short Film– Mat Kirkby and James Lucas for The Phone Call – Foreigners will have their moment on Oscar night! Orchestra be damned!

Best Documentary Short Film– Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry for Crisis Hotline – An interesting black, pom pom dress selection for one of these ladies. It DOES take a lot of balls to wear it! I respect them for being aware of very brief time to speak their acceptance.

Neil Patrick Harris may be in need of a little life preserver with his joke tie-in with David Oyelowo. David’s reaction may have salvaged it, but a tidal wave of meh seems to be rising at this point in the show … and to get the energy back up, he shows back up on stage in tighty– whiteys with what I presume is a well placed sock. Yes, acting IS a noble profession. Thank you, Neil.

Best Sound Mixing– Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley for Whiplash – Even more indie love for perhaps the most indie film amongst all of this year’s nominees. This may go down as the most awkward acceptance

Best Sound Editing– Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman for American Sniper – This is certainly my first surprise of the evening because the indies were really putting the petal to the metal. Winning a category like this might be an indicator for bigger victories for American Sniper because having “Academy Award winner for best Sound Editing” as the only label on the cover of this movie when it releases on retail would be awkward.

Best Supporting Actress– Patricia Arquette for Boyhood – Not a surprise here as she was getting the love for this win well before NPH (Neil Patrick Harris) started rehearsing for the Oscar show. Patricia had some important things to say about wage equality for women. I’m pretty sure what the world, not just this country, needs is wage elevation for the poor.

Best Visual Effects– Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher for Interstellar – I honestly thought this was going to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes just for the Andy Serkis factor, but Chris Nolan’s overlooked space adventure comes away with a little hardware.

Anna Kendrick and Kevin Hart actually made a very cool pairing to present an award. And yes, Anna IS bigger than Kevin.

Best Animated Short– Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed for Feast – This animated short really was a neat, entertaining tale of a pet’s perspective of its master’s relationship gone wrong. Thank you Dipson theatres for letting me see it before learning about it for the first time during the Oscars.

Best Animated Feature– Don Hall, Chris Williams and Roy Conli for Big Hero Six – Was anyone surprised at Fall Out Boy’s big comeback platform taking this category? The country of Japan sure wasn’t as this film enjoyed a 6 week reign as #1 at the box office. There was plenty of love for the Mickey Mouse corporation in this acceptance speech.

Best Production Design– Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock for The Grand Budapest Hotel – Yet another slam dunk for the art house, Wes Anderson and style over substance.

Best Cinematography– Emmanuel Lubezki for Birdman – Finally, one of the so-called considered favorites of the evening actually wins an award. When you have practically zero cuts in your film, all you have is framing and camera work and that’s all cinematography baby!

“In Memoriam” sequence presented by Meryl Streep. This is always a difficult moment during the show which is important for its recognition, but I’ve never understood why anyone in the live audience would applaud for some of the bigger or more popular names as if their passing was more tragic than any other. They are dead. They have not won an award. So please, take this moment to be somber and respectful and keep your inner fan boy or girl in its seatbelt.

Best Film Editing– Tom Cross for Whiplash – The little film that could keeps racking up the victories. If there wasn’t full on confirmation of indie love tonight by now, we are officially there now.

Terrence Howard’s presentation of Whiplash, The Imitation Game and Selma is the first live train wreck of the evening. Travolta may be in the clear. Could it have been drugs, alcohol, overacting, or perhaps he actually was THAT emotionally moved by the films he was talking about? Terrence is a good actor, but he’s not that good. Maybe he’s still pissed about being replaced by Don Cheadle as Rhodie’s War Machine?

Best Documentary Feature– Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky for Citizenfour – A documentary about shadow government and praise for Edward Snowden in Hollywood? Good thing I discovered it existed in the first place tonight. #wherearethedocumentaryscreenings

NPH may have completely redeemed himself with the “Benedict Cumberbatch is what you get when you ask Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck.” And THEN Idina Menzel presents best song WITH John Travolta and the two have awkward fun at each other’s expense. I wouldn’t exactly call it one of Tosh’s “web redemptions,” but it comes really close.

Best Song– “Glory” John Stephens (John Legend) and Lonnie Lynn for Selma – First of all, who knew Common’s real name was Lonnie Lynn? Common and Legend make a great acceptance speech regarding social justice. We ARE an over-incarcerated country, so whenever I hear stories about American money (private or government) being exported for ANY charity reason, I ask why can’t that money stay to help people HERE in THIS country: the homeless, the poor, the disenfranchised, the uneducated, the hungry.

Lady Gaga performing My Favorite Things and other songs from The Sound of Music does the legacy of Julie Andrews proud. She produced a clean operatic voice for every ballad and kept it classy the whole way. I must say this was a big surprise, but an even BIGGER surprise was Julie Andrews herself coming on stage to congratulate her. As powerful as the performance of “Glory” was, this moment was easily the warmest and most emotional of the evening.

Best Original Score– Alexandre Desplat for The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson acolytes know how to suckle from the power teet as this fine little hotel continues to rack up the gold left and right. I personally would have liked to see this award go to Hans Zimmer for Interstellar because even if the audience got confused by the plot or the theoretical science, there’s no denying the emotion of his score. The Academy sees it otherwise.

Best Original Screenplay– Alejandro Iñárritu and company for Birdman – I’d like to note how the director thanked his cast entirely by first name, except for “Mr. Norton.” Hollywood likes a shiny mirror put up in front of itself; even if it isn’t pretty; even if it isn’t nice.

Best Adapted Screenplay– Graham Moore for The Imitation Game – This is a HUGE shocker! And historians are rolling up their sleeves right now as this script was maligned for its historical inaccuracies. I feel bad that Graham wanted to kill himself when he was younger, but if he wanted to make Alan Turing’s story about his sexuality, then he should have done exactly that from the first frame of the film and NOT slide it in at the very end as a footnote.

Best Director– Alejandro Iñárritu for Birdman – Major score #2 for Iñárritu. With two major victories in the bag, is Birdman set up for a clean sweep the rest of the way? This kind of film needs a director on cue and on his cast at all times because quite frankly, they were on, at all times.

Best Actor– Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything – Eddie is gleefully enjoyed to accept this award and regardless of whatever politics were at work, or whoever’s “time it was,” no one could deny the power of his performance in this film. It was transformative. It was undeniable. I almost thought Birdman’s momentum was going to carry Michael Keaton through to the other side, but Redmayne was both the unstoppable force and the immoveable object.

Best Actress– Julianne Moore for Still Alice – One classy lady gives an equally graceful and humble acceptance speech. She’s had an amazing career and gave an amazing performance in this film. People had been talking up her victory for weeks

Best Picture– Birdman – And that’s all she wrote! Check out my review right here if you possibly needed any additional reason to check this movie out. It was fun, artsy, had social commentary and Michael Keaton maybe having real life super powers? No one can be told. You have to see it for yourself.

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Conclusion

Another successful evening of Hollywood showing the world how awesome it is all wrapped up and I must say that I was more surprised than not at the results. I was surprised that The Grand Budapest Hotel and Whiplash won as many awards as they did, but I am absolutely stunned that pre-Oscar night darlings Boyhood and American Sniper took home only 1 award each! Equally snubbed was Selma, but apparently the real reason for that was untimely logistics during the submission and campaigning process for the production. Birdman deserved ultimate victory as it took a number of major categories, and it was just plain great in every aspect of filmmaking. As for the Oscar show itself, yes it’s a LONG show, but Neil Patrick Harris did an adequate job as host with several moments of peaks and valleys throughout. I wouldn’t say he surpassed Ellen in any regard, but I also wouldn’t say he is undeserving of a second opportunity next year or any other in the future. I don’t disagree with any of the victors save for the firestorm that may culminate over The Theory of Everything’s victory for best adapted screenplay.

As I’ve said in my reviews leading up to this night, this past year was an “indie” year and with that, “indie love” was certainly represented at the Academy Awards. Despite this year being a down year in terms of tickets sold and money made, I felt this year’s nominees were superior to last year’s overall. This coming year will be a big time comeback for Hollywood as The Avengers and Star Wars will almost exclusively make all the difference.

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