Safe (2012)

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I actually saw another movie the same day I saw The Avengers (the first time), which is why I remember it even less. You know, not as good, plus just as long ago without a refresher. It’s not that Safe was bad, by any means. The truth is that Jason Statham has made an exceptionally good movie, full of non-stop action, with a likeably dark hero, a strong but nevertheless screwed person in danger, and scads of bad guys out to get them both. And he’s made this movie close to a dozen times now!

In this particular case, the likeably dark hero is an alcoholic, down-trodden MMA fighter and the strong doomed person is a little girl with a photographic memory, and the scads of bad guys are Triads and the Russian Mafia and crooked cops all after a big payday that can be scrounged from what she’s seen lately. And then comes about 70 minutes of punching, kicking, shooting, and chasing. Enjoy!, if it’s the kind of thing you’re into.

(You may be wondering if this would have been a longer, more thorough review if it had happened right after I watched. Answer: doubtful.)

The Avengers (2012)

It’s been I suppose weeks since I actually saw The Avengers, which is as personally frustrating as it is lame. But the larger problem (even though I’ve seen it twice) is that it makes it hard to remember any specific discussion I may have wanted to engage. So, obviously it was good. You already know that because I saw it twice. (Savvy viewers may also have known it because of what a good job has been done with the various properties leading up to this moment, or because they’ve watched Joss Whedon’s writing/direction in other formats.)

But let’s say you’ve done none of those things, and now you’re wondering if you want to go see a movie in which the Norse god of mischief acts as a catspaw for an invading alien army bent on conquering the earth and also stealing a head-sized white cube filled with limitless cosmic power, and then a bunch of Marvel superheroes attempt to quip aside their differences and prevent this clearly bad outcome? The answer is yes, and here’s the reason why: even though it may not be the best plot you’ve ever seen, it is very probably the most comic-booky plot you’ve ever seen, and not only is the dialogue consistently great, but practically every moment (and 100% of the moments in the third act) were among the most fun I’ve had at the movies.

Put another way: would definitely watch a third time.

The Cabin in the Woods

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It looks like I waited more than a week to see The Cabin in the Woods, which simply isn’t true. (It also looks like I haven’t read a book in more than a month, which, well, yeah, that’s true. What is wrong with my life?) It’s just that I had other stuff I needed to write about first, and on top of that I have of course remained incredibly busy with my new job. But this review marks me as all caught up again, which is on the one hand relieving and on the other tragic. I’ve only seen two movies in quite a bit more than a month, obviously no video game time to speak of, I’m drowning in books I want to read (not that the one I’m reading is bad, it’s just way too long)… I fear I am not type-A-driven enough for this number of hours per week.

That or I watch too much TV. Of course, if I didn’t, I may not have been sufficiently obsessed by Joss Whedon to run out and watch his horror movie on opening day, nor to hope but ultimately fail to watch it again prior to the review. Because, there’s a lot to watch. I fooled myself into thinking the previews unfairly gave away plot details, but it’s not true. The opening scene of the movie reveals just how much of a rabbit hole you’ve stumbled into, and all but dares you to figure it out before you hit the bottom. In case you need more of a plot summary than the none I’ve given so far, I’ll just mention that five college friends plan to spend a weekend at a cabin in the, um, woods, after which horror ensues. But I bet you already knew that? And yeah, everything else is wildly spoilerful and goes beyond a cut.

Well, except this: if you like like horror as a genre, and especially if that’s the kind of thing you’d say out loud? You must see this movie. (If you don’t / wouldn’t, it’s still pretty worthwhile. The only reason not to go see it is if you can’t stand to see on-screen gory violence, because, yes, that’s gonna happen.)

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John Carter

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I have been… well, I have been just incredibly busy lately. I mean, like wow. Significant overtime every week since I started my new job, significant percentage of time spent working (instead of “other”) even during the normal 40 hours, no time to finish a single book, nor to even play at a single video game, nor to watch a single movie. Well, sadly that’s untrue, I had time to watch one movie. But I had time to watch it weeks ago and did not have time to review it, which is the actually sad part of that story.

Because, yeah, watching John Carter? There was nothing sad about that at all! Except for how little I remember, of course. There’s this rich Civil War vet who has recently died, and he provides the stories of his adventures to his nephew and heir, none of which would be all that meaningful in the scheme of things except for how the journal in the bequeathment tells of an unexpected journey to a distant land full of flying airships, tall, green insectoid warriors, a particularly awesome canine companion, and of course a princess[1] in search of a savior for her people. It’s all very mythic and heroic, and I think it could have been the next big storytelling event, except that apparently it was just horrifically marketed to anyone who didn’t have fond memories of the century-old books on which it is based.

This is for me a huge disappointment, because I don’t care if everyone in Hollywood has already cannibalized the set pieces and the themes and if the purported audience did not understand what the point of the preview was. Because this is a damn fine story, no matter how stolen and how miscomprehended today, and if people would just walk into the theater and watch it, they’d be all “yay, that was good, make more of them for me now please!” And I know this will not happen, and that even if my review had not been too late, it still would have been far too little. Nevertheless, I will continue to wish[2] and to be willing to go see it again if anyone has interest and a more-flexible-than-mine schedule.

Maybe I’ll grab the books on Kindle if I can find a sufficient overlap of “cheap” and “moderately edited” in the reviews, and then be horrified by just how sexist they are in print! If I do, you will be the second or so to know. I promise.

[1] Spoiler alert: …of Mars!
[2] I mean, still bring back Firefly first, if we’re talking about screen wishes in my arsenal. Obviously. But still.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – Volume 1

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Brian Michael Bendis has impressed me no small number of times over the past, what, four years? This probably isn’t the most impressive thing he’s managed, and it’s probably not the first time I’ve thought it might be. But you have to admit, winning me over on a new Spider-Man is pretty impressive!

It’s just, as I have certainly said before, I have a real attachment to Peter Parker. So, when he died as a part of the Ultimate Universe reboot of ought-ten, I was not, how you say, thrilled. But the editors and (in the case at least) the authors had earned enough street cred for me to accept that life is permitted to go on; so I’ve stuck around to see what happens next. And what happens next happened previously, too, as is only fair. (Bendis in particular has always played with flashbacks to fill in events that happened simultaneously with the meat of his stories, and rightly so. I had no need of knowing about Miles Morales’ unlikely rendezvous with an Oscorp spider when Spider-Man was alive and the direction it was going to go was still hidden from everyone, Miles most of all.)

So, here we have an implausibly young[1] mixed-descent kid from Brooklyn (I think), who gets bitten by a different spider and develops different powers, just in time to fill the impossibly large shoes of a hero. I can accept the coincidence because it’s a superhero world, where coincidence is dictated by fate. And I can accept Miles, at least provisionally, for, well, a lot of reasons. Different powers. Universal unhappiness at his initial attempts to fill the shoes of said really big hero. His own willingness to help and learn from Peter’s example.[2] And, perhaps oddly, perhaps as fittingly as it’s possible to be, Nick Fury’s reaction to his existence.

I still think this was a huge mistake, and I still think the Ultimate Universe has lost something critical, last year. But I also think that this subsequent story will be worth hearing, and I really wasn’t sure about that in 2011.

[1] Peter was 15 when he was bitten, and possibly as old as 17 when… later. Miles can’t be older than 14, and 13 seems more right.
[2] Seriously, I welled up again at his perspective of the climax of final last book of the original run. Which answers that Moiraine question, I suppose.

The Unwritten: Inside Man

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To start with, yes, I will be reading more of The Unwritten. It is about literature on every level: in plot, in theme, in voice, and I’m sure more ways that I haven’t thought of yet, and by gum, I don’t have this degree in English Literature for nothing. It’s really smart, really convoluted, and I expect to know more things at the end than I knew at the beginning, about the psychology of readers and reading as much as about the creation and function of stories.

As for Inside Man, aside from being obviously good enough to win me over, I can say a few things I suppose. In addition to following Tommy Taylor into prison (for a crime he didn’t commit!, no less) and into Nazi Germany, it explores the psychological impact of stories. On children and adults. On the stories themselves. On (at, okay, a more metaphysical level) the very earth upon which they occur. And then, after reading five issues’ worth of storyline that seems like it was made specifically to accommodate my personal interests, it’s capped off with a cautionary allegory set in Carey’s parody of the Hundred Acre Woods. So it may be fair to say that the closer your (non-horror, non-cult-classic) tastes match mine, the more you will like this series.

But man, there sure is a lot of foreign language in it, enough that I end up not trying to translate it. (This complaint is probably properly directed at me, not the book.)

Best Worst Movie

mv5bmtq1nje1mjyznf5bml5banbnxkftztcwmdu0mdczmw-_v1_sy1000_cr006851000_al_It would behoove me, I suppose, to first say a few words about Troll 2. You’d think it was a sequel about trolls, but it’s actually an independent film about goblins! There’s a family, loosely portrayed by what I will call actors, who move into the town of Nilbog[1], only to discover a conspiracy to kill outsiders, and maybe eat them? Also, there’s a Transylvanian witch for some reason. It is, by my estimation, the worst movie not created by Ed Wood.

Which is in fact the topic of the documentary I’m actually here to review. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch a documentary about a terrible movie without having first seen the movie, but then again, it’s hard to imagine liking that movie in the first place, and I am speaking as someone who does. But maybe that’s the point, is that it kind of explains how anyone could like such a thing, and maybe you want to know that. Or maybe you want to see the people involved, from the implausibly likable dentist to the (at the time of filming, no less) mental patient to the utterly insane, albeit undiagnosed… well, I suppose that would be telling. And let’s not forget the hilarious writer and delusional director. But mainly, I think, the fans.

Because the truth is, even though I can’t explain to you what possible justification I have for liking Troll 2, I would probably try to get you to watch it.  And worse, I don’t even feel that bad about it!

[1] ….yep.

The Map of Time

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You may or may not remember that I started reading The Map of Time on a plane in October, only to lose it on said plane due to a series of circumstances best blamed on myself. Tragically, it took an extremely long time before I admitted I wasn’t going to find another physical copy anytime soon and acquired a Kindle copy instead; and perhaps fittingly, the Kindle came to me in part to make fun of my having lost that very book. And it is one hundred percent fitting that there should be such a circular tale to my reading of the book when it is itself so very concerned with circular tales.

See, there’s this guy who had a prostitute girlfriend, only she was Jack the Ripper’s fifth and final victim, right before he got caught. And before you know it, first Murray’s Time Travel (offering scenic trips to the year 2000 to watch mankind’s final battle against his automaton overlords) and then famed author H.G. Wells are enlisted to help him travel back in time and stop the Ripper before poor Marie Kelly’s demise. And then there are two more stories after that, all set in the same several weeks long period of November, 1896, and with similar time travel plots. You have to watch out for Palma; he pulls so many fake-outs and double blinds within his characters’ time-travelling escapades that you’ll think you’re watching an episode of Lost. From the second season. Or possibly Back to the Future 2. But you know, mostly it’s a period piece, of which I suppose I’ve read quite a few lately, mostly written by Dan Simmons.

My thought? Totally worthwhile, go for it. And then let’s talk about it afterward, because I feel uncomfortable adding more details than I have, which may already be too many, but there’s a lot of stuff to tease out up in here.

Wanderlust (2012)

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Wanderlust is really a pretty standard by the numbers married romantic comedy. (New relationship romantic comedies have different numbers.) Couple run into difficult situation, get frustrated with each other, end up in unrelated extreme fish out of water situation, determine how to integrate that into their relationship, inevitably growing closer in the long run but probably further apart first. Hmmm. Upon reflection, steps one and three can happen independently of each other, but one of them as well as steps two and four are mandatory.

So, why do you care about this particular one? Well, you may like Paul Rudd and/or Jennifer Aniston. Or, like me, you may have some small experience with the hippie commune that was the fish-out-of-water aspect of this particular romantic comedy. I’ve never lived in a permanent hippie commune, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve spent enough time in the temporary ones to immediately recognize that whoever wrote this movie understands the concept pretty darned well. So, I found it to be incredibly true and therefore incredibly funny.

Also, there are naked people. (In a hippie commune?? GASP.)

Marvel 1602

51vtf1JzwOLYou know what I hadn’t done in an exceptionally long time? Read a comic authored by Neil Gaiman! Luckily, Marvel 1602 exists to fill that precise gap, and now I’ve done so again. (But I am not convinced any other new ones exist, so that may have just been the end of that. Alas!, if so.) Imagine, if you will, the waning days of the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Only, over the past 50 or so years, important people are being born, people you would expect to be born almost half a millennium later, if you were familiar with the “Marvel Age of Comics”. So there you are in 1602, reading about the Queen’s personal physician and naturalist, one Doctor Stephen Strange, and her spymaster, Sir Nicholas Fury, and a school for certain gifted young people run by a Carlos Javier, and, well, really a lot of other names you’d recognize from the 1960s, if you had been reading these comics then, like me.[1] In fact, what few names there are missing would be spoilers to reveal by their very absence.

Into that unexpected cauldron, we need only add mysterious weather harbinging the end of the world, and Virginia Dare, the first English immigrant born on American soil, lost in our history along with the rest of the Roanoke colony but somehow alive in this apparently altered timeline; and voila, instant Gaiman mythology, complete with meditations on predestination and sacrifice. It was interesting to learn that Virginia Dare is a highly mythologized character in her own right; I remember in the vaguest way learning about her existence in school, but not that she had drawn much focus in American folklore since. I wish to learn more, and particularly welcome any recommendations; my only source of book recommendations right now is to poke through the Wikipedia article.

Other than to approve of and recommend 1602, though, there’s not much else I want to say. There are lots of good twists, and not knowing about them in advance was a lot of my fun. But I will say that Gaiman’s use of spiders in and around Peter Parquagh constituted one of the largest literary teases it has ever been my pleasure to witness. There are a handful of sequels, none by Gaiman of course, and I own / will read one of them soon. I hope they are at least pretty okay, because I do want to know what happens next, yo. I just also want what happens next to be non-lame.

[1] Okay, but’s it’s a close approximation of true!