A Frank Review of "Monsters vs. Aliens" (2009)

The Short Version? The title about covers it.
What Is It? CGI Kid Flick.
Who's In It? The voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Kiefer Sutherland, etc. etc. etc.
Should I See It? No.

I honestly don't have a lot to say about this movie. I've seen the first couple Shreks, and was amused by them. They were thin and as heavy in pop culture references as Saturday Night Live, but they had some heart, and didn't offend my sensibilities. Others weren't so lucky, and I feel I understand those people better now, because MvA embodies every criticism I've heard about the Shrek franchise.

It was bold to center a CGI movie around a female lead, but there's only a handful of scenes telling her story. Susan's arc is so by-the-numbers, it actually becomes shorthand. After her extended wedding day tragedy introduction, Susan becomes a generic POV character with a few brief, obligatory nods to a sketch of a romcom heroine. Her fellow "monsters" aren't even allowed that-- just a few second origin story each. If you took the amusing side characters from another CGI flick and cast them as leads with no further development, you'd have this picture.

The movie is a rarely funny stunt-cast-a-palooza with a mundane story. In-jokes for sci-fi/monster movie aficionados arrive by the truckload for the too-easily amused. The computer graphics are smooth, but the story is completely plastic. The 3D is very in your face, but I suffered from distortion when it came to the most extreme usage, and the novelty wore off fast. Compared to the sublime use of the process on Coraline, AvM is plain obnoxious, emphasis on both "plain" and "obnoxious." There's a good deal of action, but none of it is particularly interesting, and I confess to nodding off briefly in the third act because of it. To steal a tagline from another Vs. travesty, whoever wins, we all lose.

Shove A Meme Up Your Myspace, Blogger Bretheren

I haven't logged onto MySpace since mid-January, and not regularly in nearly a year. I don't have a Facebook account. I will not Twitter. I am an anti-social, overly-opinionated fuckwit with bad hair and a slight overbite. This being the case, I don't understand why anyone should care about trivial details of my miserable, hateful existence, much less wish to form some sort of self-destructive misanthrope community at my side. Yet, folks will send me viral "awards," include me in memes, and generally compromise the The Lord God's Intended Purpose for blogs-- to keep Blogger "types" off street corners, announcing the coming apocalypse with our sandwich board signs, spewing with vomitous breath about how George Lucas raped our childhood.

That being the case, good writers are well-read, and good bloggers follow a similar if comparatively fallow trajectory. In hopes of introducing others to blogs I like, I will deign to introduce them here...

1. when is evil cool?: Chris Bankrobber reminds me of Vern at AICN... plays at being rough around the edges while discussing alternative media, but is really very clever and precise. He's great about getting at the heart of his praise/complaint and grabbing your interest without rambling. It helps we're into a lot of the same stuff to boot, though he can be blamed for this post, so there's that.
2. Occasional Superheroine: This is a popular comic/geek culture blog I've followed for a few years, even though I kind of hate it a whole lot. Valerie D'Orazio is one of those women who's great at winning sympathy by painting a portrait from her viewpoint, until you realize how self-important, myopic, compromised, "victimized," and generally shrill she can be. So this has gone from a blog I followed in the "oh, that poor girl with the broken vagina terribly abused by the industry," days to "gee, what's that nakedly opportunistic, deluded Brontë character going to whine about today?" It's fun to watch the wimps vs. the trolls, though, and Val reads way more comic columns than I do, so she's not completely useless.
3. Pretty, Fizzy Paradise: Kalinara is the anti-Val, sidestepping a cult of personality in favor of a clubhouse. There's a lot of fluff pieces about deeply flawed television and movies to sort through, but where she really shines is in probing and insightful explorations of characterization in serial fiction. Kalinara has blown my mind a time or two by coming at a fictional persona from a perspective I never considered, validating even the worst writing by forming a gestalt impression of a character that makes perfect sense.
4. The Absorbascon: Scipio is another blogger with skills I admire, as he applies Ivy League education to the juvenile comics medium, specializing in DC and Golden/Silver Age material. He's also one of the rare bloggers who can make me laugh out loud. However, he can also be very snide and dismissive of contrary opinions (especially the faintest hint of Marvel Comics,) so he's also one of the more infuriating personalities I intentionally encounter.
5. Deep Fried: Jason Yungbluth completely immoral comics were fantastically funny in their heyday, and his political blogging helped me drown out my sorrows during the Bush Administration.
6. Egotastic!: Because after a hard day of geek blogging, you sometimes have to unwind by reading gossip about reality show tools and masturbate to B-list celebrities naked.

Okay, I was instructed to offer six, so there you go.

Nightwing: Freefall

Dick Grayson has been a favorite of mine for almost as long as I've been reading comic books. I loved Marv Wolfman's work on the character up until the '90s, and his return to Nighwing with Love and War showed promise. However, The Lost Year was dreadful on every front, leaving the next creative team with nowhere to go but up. I've gone on at length about The Trouble With Nightwing, and was somewhat heartened on starting this trade paperback that writer Peter J. Tomasi seemed to share some of my concerns. In his initial run, he wrote a lighthearted Grayson that could never be confused with Matt Murdock, frequenting the Batcave as he pleased, and fraternizing with his replacement as Robin. This Nightwing carried over old foes from his Boy Wonder days, took advantage of his fortune to enable his heroics, and began building a new lair of his own. All this, and drawn by Rags Morales to boot. What's not to love?

A bit too much, I'm afraid. Most of the trade is devoted to entanglements with Talia, mother of Batman's bastard child. However, Talia was usually a reluctant aid against the schemes of her father, Ra's al Ghul, meaning Nightwing is stuck with the suddenly villainous but mostly dismissible daughter of a far more worthy foe. Alternately, there's mad scientist Creighton Kendall, a leftover from the largely forgotten Black Condor series Rags drew in the early '90s. These do not inspire confidence in the abilities of our hero.

Next, there's Grayson's new role as a museum curator, not unlike Hawkman, from another series drawn by Rags. This development comes out of nowhere, is highly derivative, and poorly suits the lead character. How about his new librarian girlfriend Deborah, separated partly by his old librarian girlfriend Barbara Gordon by (snicker) blond cornrows? Cameos by Superman, Flash, and the JSA show how easily Nightwing can network, but they're used so casually, and without canonical support, that they seem out of place. There's repeated references to Nightwing skydiving that just take up space. The cavalier script reads like a more graphic retread of old '70s comics, the second coming of Gerry Conway or Mike W. Barr. The story itself veers into bad Roger Moore Bond territory. The final battle is especially ridiculous, as Nightwing relies on lightning precognition to place an unimpressive villain right where he needs him at the exact second. Plus, Don Kramer has to pick up the ball for Rags routinely, leaving the art inconsistent.

There's no weight here, and Nightwing remains firmly on the B- List. Shoudn't having been one of the most recognizable heroes in the world once still mean something, or will he always remain in the shadow of not just the Batman, but even the latest Robin?

DC Challenge #3 (1/1986)

Previous issue writer Len Wein set up Aquaman's salvation just as Doug Moench would play it out, but felt Moench had "copped-out" on the symbol Superman found in the bomb crater. Len would have had B'wana Beast use his power to combine or disassemble two or more animals to separate the Manticore into a lion and a scorpion.

• In ancient times, Jon, the Viking Prince kept night watch. He was alerted to long-dead Hrolf using a laser to carve a portion of sacred runes off a cave wall. A demon flowed from Hrolf's chest, and defeated Jon with the help of one Cuthbert J. McGonigle, an anachronistic pedantic dressed in a white double breasted suit. McGonigle next merged the prince with a lance that he then threw into a deep trench.


• A bald, pointy-eared alien had viewed recent goings on in this series through a monitor. "I am not pleased. Let him in." A merciless despot was allowed into the alien's chambers for a dressing down. "Mongul, you not only failed-- you left another clue for subject Superman. " Mongul replied, "I warned that these Earth super-heroes would not be easy to--" but was cut off. "Never mind the excuses, Mongul! I want you to get back to their moon with another relay device at once-- or Project X will never be successfully completed. Now go-- the next crew is already waiting to leave."


• Jonah Hex swerved to avoid the nuns and children, though he did smash into another couple of cars in the process. Then, the Djinn/Other that fought the Manticore last issue arrived, explaining he had only left the battle to retrieve Hex's piece of the stone. Once that was done, the undead gangsters vanished, while Hex himself was returned to his year of departure, 1876.


• Congorilla and B'wana Beast were in the Manticore's clutches, until the latter used his powers to merge the golden gorilla with the mythological monstrosity. Congo Bill then did some brain swapping, but in the end everyone's psyche returned to where they had started. The Manticore eventually left the scene in search of the Other...


• On the moon, Superman somehow determined the symbol left in the crater referred to Deadman, though I'd say it more closely resembled half a pretzel, or maybe the letter "D" (hey-- wait!)


• In Midway City, Batman delivered the stone tablet and number sequence he'd received to museum curators Carter and Shiera Hall for further study. Shiera determined that the tablet's message had been altered, having found a deceptive "plug" covering a piece extracted from the tablet. Word then came over the radio that the Manticore was rampaging in town, so the couple changed into their super-hero garb as Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Hawkman took with him the viking lance seen earlier...


• In Metropolis, Floyd Perkins underwent hypnosis to recall he'd reached the mystery floor at the Daily Planet by pushing the lobby button while on that floor. With the help of Jimmy Olsen, Superman learned of this, and detected radiation traces on the Planet's roof that were also strongly present at the WGBS broadcasting antenna...


• The Other was in Midway City, inserting Jonah Hex's stone into the Hawks' tablet. The Hawks themselves fought the Manticore, until Hawkman threw the viking lance into the creature's forehead gem. Shattered, the Manticore vanished, while a gem shard found by Hawkwoman now contained a tiny Viking Prince...


• In the Sahara Desert, Aquaman snatched a vulture that intended to feast on him from the air, and turned the intent against it. Rejuvenated by the 97% water found in its blood, the Sea King rose to carry on with his trek. Less than an hour later, another seeming oasis proved real, and Aquaman emerged from it to find the classic Justice League of America had homed in on his signal device. As an aside, among them was a Green Lantern John Stewart that was clearly a recolored Hal Jordan.
  
  Aquaman explained, "I was on duty in the JLA Satellite [even though it had been destroyed once or twice by that point in continuity]-- when I detected unusual transmission beams originating from the moon, and teleported myself down to the beams' target point-- an excavation site here in the Sahara. From hiding, I overheard the Arab diggers say they were looking for 'cuneiforms of Allah's sacred words' which would give them 'the power to defeat all' ...When I snuck into one of the tents to steal a burnoose disguise, I discovered a device [duplicating Mongul's] of apparent alien technology... and I also saw that the diggers were not really Arabs."


• The Hawks returned to the museum and the tablet. With the new piece and some time, they determined a coded time and place-- almost twelve hours hence in the Peruvian jungle. Hawkman took the gem shard with him to Peru, leaving Hawkwoman to wait for additional information from Batman...


• In the Batcave, the Dark Knight determined that the number sequence could mean the end of the world, and set about contacting Midway City...


• Hawkman arrived at the allotted time in Peru, only to be struck by a Zeta Beam and teleported to the planet Rann. Adam Strange greeted him, as the pair fought through rampaging monsters to the lab of the scientist Sardath. Rann was overrun by warring factions of their ancient mythological beings, and these were the same alien "demons" continuing the fight to Earth. Hawkman presented Sardath the gem shard, from which a projector ray released the Viking Prince. Just then, Hawkman was knocked out by a collapsing roof, while Adam Strange's zeta-beam radiation wore off, returning him to Earth. From above, a monster attacked...


• Back in the Sahara, Aquaman explained he'd had to run into the desert after being detected, only to find he'd just given the full skinny to aliens of the type commanding Mongul, disguised as the JLofA. Resuming their true forms, the aliens directed their ray pistols at the Sea King...


• Batman and Hawkwoman reached the Peruvian jungle, but were attacked by a green monster that ripped off the heroine's wings. As the pair were about to plunge off a cliff to their doom, Adam Strange arrived. He couldn't save the duo and catch the Zeta-Beam home, could he?


• "Viking Vengeance" was by Doug Moench, Carmine Infantino and Bob Smith.
  

A Frank Review of "Quills" (2000)

The Short Version? The definer of sadism taunts authority from an asylum.
What Is It? Period Dramedy.
Who's In It? Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, & Michael Caine.
Should I See It? Yes.

At the heart of Quills is a rather disturbing point; that art can indeed inspire evil, yet must still refuse responsibility for its misdeeds to service the greater good. It's a tale of common people with undesirable lives enlivened by the deviance of the Marquis de Sade. The film is intended as a fable, and is therefore far from historically accurate, but a wicked delight nonetheless.

The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) has evaded execution after the French Revolution by getting himself committed to an asylum. He benefits from the liberal policies of the institutions director, the Abbe du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix) until Napoleon gets wind he's still getting his deviant work published with the aide of the wash maid Madeleine LeClerc(Kate Winslet.) This brings down the oversight of Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine,) a man whose callous methods puts the Marquis' pretend sadism to shame. The Marquis strains at his leash, while Maddy makes the padre's collar chafe, sending the madhouse dangerously close to a fever pitch.

The performances across the board are spectacular, even if the casting is completely inappropriate when compared to the historical figures. Winslet is far too mature to play a girl not yet out of her teens, and Phoenix is about as removed from a middle aged hunchback as one can imagine. However, these characters are not meant to be biographical, but allegorical. The material originated as a play, and retains that feel, remaining a modern morality play for a preferably polluted crowd. Doug Wright's script begs for personal interpretation and debate, but not during its running time, when one is expected to be transfixed by its deviant charm, as well as its serpentine shifts in plot and tone. This is an adult cinematic experience, surprisingly light on graphic sex, more concerned with engaging the mind and emotions. By the end, viewers have trod a grim path, but its difficult to leave without a smile.

1987 Brian Bolland Valkyrie! Pin-Up

From the June cover-dated Valkyrie! #2 (of 3,) published by Eclipse Comics.

1987 Brent Anderson Valkyrie! Pin-Up

From the June cover-dated Valkyrie! #2 (of 3,) published by Eclipse Comics, and featuring Airboy.