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Airboy
Greg Hinkle and James Robinson
Book
"We live in a world where meta-comics putting their creators at the forefront of stories is about as...
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Mummy (2017) in Movies
Feb 11, 2018 (Updated Feb 11, 2018)
Oh, Mummy.
Laborious attempt by Universal to grab a slice of Marvel's meta-franchise pie by launching a series of fantasy blockbusters based on their stable of famous monster characters. Tom Cruise plays an annoying mercenary who catches the eye of an ancient and evil supernatural creature unearthed in Iraq.
There's a good reason why sensible studios don't try to make horror blockbusters, and especially horror blockbusters starring Tom Cruise - every time the film starts to be effectively creepy or atmospheric, along comes a CGI-enhanced chase sequence, or Tom Cruise doing that smirk, or some other manifestation of corporate blandness. Isn't Tom Cruise too old for this sort of thing? Watching him flirting with a considerably younger actress is by far the creepiest thing in the movie, and he seems quite incapable of the moral ambiguity the part probably requires - Russell Crowe, in the Samuel L Jackson plot-device-character role, acts him off the screen.
You scratch your head wondering how this thing is supposed to work - are all the monsters going to team up together? And do what, exactly? No-one seems to have thought this through. It's much more of a zombie movie than one about an actual mummy, anyway. The depiction of the one-way system in Oxford City Centre is also very misleading; I nearly knocked off a point because of it.
There's a good reason why sensible studios don't try to make horror blockbusters, and especially horror blockbusters starring Tom Cruise - every time the film starts to be effectively creepy or atmospheric, along comes a CGI-enhanced chase sequence, or Tom Cruise doing that smirk, or some other manifestation of corporate blandness. Isn't Tom Cruise too old for this sort of thing? Watching him flirting with a considerably younger actress is by far the creepiest thing in the movie, and he seems quite incapable of the moral ambiguity the part probably requires - Russell Crowe, in the Samuel L Jackson plot-device-character role, acts him off the screen.
You scratch your head wondering how this thing is supposed to work - are all the monsters going to team up together? And do what, exactly? No-one seems to have thought this through. It's much more of a zombie movie than one about an actual mummy, anyway. The depiction of the one-way system in Oxford City Centre is also very misleading; I nearly knocked off a point because of it.
David McK (3854 KP) rated The Ultimates, Volume 1: Super-Human in Books
Jan 28, 2019
I only picked this up recently out of curiosity when Marvel started doing a hard-backed comic-book collection, to see what it would be like.
Now I've read it, I have to say: I wasn't really that impressed by this. Written pre Joss-Whedon's Avengers movie (and even pre the Marvel Cinematic Universe), I found pretty much all of the characters within to be unlikeable and uninteresting: while you can get away with the former, the latter, however, is a major flaw (IMO) in any story.
I don't know whether that's because I associate the characters more with their big-screen counter-parts than with how they are presented here (both of which, incidentally, are designed to show how the team comes together), with Hank Pym, in particular, coming across as a bit of a jerk while Betty Ross (Bruce Banner's girlfriend) also comes across as, well, just not that pleasant at all.
On the plus side, I did like the (somewhat meta) panels where they were all discussing who would play themselves in the Hollywood adaptation ...
I also noticed that, unlike their movie counterparts, they are able to use the term 'mutants': a term which, I believe, Marvel are unable to use on the big (or small) screen as it is licensed to Fox instead .
Now I've read it, I have to say: I wasn't really that impressed by this. Written pre Joss-Whedon's Avengers movie (and even pre the Marvel Cinematic Universe), I found pretty much all of the characters within to be unlikeable and uninteresting: while you can get away with the former, the latter, however, is a major flaw (IMO) in any story.
I don't know whether that's because I associate the characters more with their big-screen counter-parts than with how they are presented here (both of which, incidentally, are designed to show how the team comes together), with Hank Pym, in particular, coming across as a bit of a jerk while Betty Ross (Bruce Banner's girlfriend) also comes across as, well, just not that pleasant at all.
On the plus side, I did like the (somewhat meta) panels where they were all discussing who would play themselves in the Hollywood adaptation ...
I also noticed that, unlike their movie counterparts, they are able to use the term 'mutants': a term which, I believe, Marvel are unable to use on the big (or small) screen as it is licensed to Fox instead .
Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir
Book
This book presents a new reading of film noir through psychoanalytic theory. In a field now...
EO
Essentials of Human Nutrition
10.0
Rate It
Book
Food is one of the basic necessities of life, yet nutrition has only relatively recently been...
The Shamanic Powers of Rolling Thunder: As Experienced by Alberto Villoldo, John Perry Barlow, Larry Dossey, and Others
Sidian Morning Star Jones and Stanley Krippner
Book
One of the most celebrated and controversial Native American medicine men of the 20th century,...
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season 6
TV Season
Brass, now partnered with Sofia Curtis, finds himself caught in a shootout that leaves one officer...
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated We Summon the Darkness (2019) in Movies
Jan 5, 2021
This is fun but there's no reason it shouldn't be gorier, crazier, more inventive, and/or more insightful given the film's insanely clever choice to frame a horror/slasher flick through the lens of religious sects vs. metal culture in the 80s - but I digress, perfectly serviceable fluff trash as it stands. Daddario is awesome in it, and I just can't get enough of Knoxville as a deliciously fire-and-brimstone pastor. I at least appreciate the formality - I'm glad this wasn't an obnoxiously meta "hey, remember this?" nostalgia soundboard like droves of films or shows detrimentally feel the need to become whenever they're set in the 80s now. But at the same time, there's so much potential for super bombastic kills and nuanced commentary that never was, and in their place it just tends to lumber for no real reason. Otherwise entertaining solely on principle, with another dependably cool score from Timothy Williams keeping things entertaining. And yes the twist is as righteous as everyone says. Not going to shake a stick at the amount of blood, enjoyment, and amped-up performances this does end up delivering - it's a decent little throwback slasher on its own - but God could you imagine if like Adam Wingard had made this? Holy hell what a picture that would have been.
Awix (3310 KP) rated When the Tripods Came (The Tripods #4) in Books
Sep 18, 2019
Fourth books in trilogies are inherently inelegant and awkward beasts; Christopher's final Tripods novel is unsurprisingly no exception. 1980s Earth is visited by alien invaders, who (initially at least) are easily repelled. But it turns out that your mum was right when she said that too much TV was bad for your health...
A bit dated, but that's the least of the book's issues. A prequel to the main series was really not required, and the main catalyst for writing it seems to have been the Tripods TV show which was broadcast three or four years earlier. (The TV show the Masters use to take over the world bears a suspicious resemblance to the TV adaptation of the first two books.) It's not really meta, more sort of peeved: peeved at critics of the show's shortcomings, but also peeved at the makers of the show for not doing a better job. As well as being dated, the relationship subplots of the book feel a bit proforma, but the depiction of the world slowly sliding out of human control and the end of modern civilisation is vividly presented in the usual compelling fashion. Whether it should all feel a bit more downbeat and bleak is probably a question of personal taste; Christopher's prose retains its good manners as well as its readability.
A bit dated, but that's the least of the book's issues. A prequel to the main series was really not required, and the main catalyst for writing it seems to have been the Tripods TV show which was broadcast three or four years earlier. (The TV show the Masters use to take over the world bears a suspicious resemblance to the TV adaptation of the first two books.) It's not really meta, more sort of peeved: peeved at critics of the show's shortcomings, but also peeved at the makers of the show for not doing a better job. As well as being dated, the relationship subplots of the book feel a bit proforma, but the depiction of the world slowly sliding out of human control and the end of modern civilisation is vividly presented in the usual compelling fashion. Whether it should all feel a bit more downbeat and bleak is probably a question of personal taste; Christopher's prose retains its good manners as well as its readability.