I decided that doing mini movie reviews monthly might create entries that are too daunting for some people. Plus I end up talking about like 30 movies and people will only comment about one or two and so it seems like kind of a waste. So I'm just going to do it every Friday. Though with the holiday this week it's on Thursday. So there.
We Are the Night: I probably wouldn't have rented this if I'd known it was in German. I swear the preview I saw was in English. Not that I'm opposed to watching movies with subtitles. I've watched movies in Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and Danish, but still it's nice to know that ahead of time. Anyway it starts out like "The Craft" only with vampires as a group of vampire chicks in Berlin (hence all the German) adopt an urchin named Lena. While soaking in a tub after being bitten Lena magically transforms from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo into German Kate Mara, which was an upgrade in my book. At first it's kind of cool being a vampire because they have a lot of money after centuries and they drive around Lamborghinis and the like at breakneck speed because they're already undead. But then of course she gets up to the part that sucks--literally and figuratively. Some mayhem ensues. It was decent for a vampire movie, though I would have preferred a little more skin. (2.5/5)
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: If you don't know, Jack Ryan is the guy from the series of Tom Clancy books that began with The Hunt for Red October, when he was a nerdy CIA analyst who convinces American officials a Soviet sub is trying to defect. Later he went on to be president or something. In the movies he was played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and then Ben Affleck. This movie is a reboot of all that and who better for Paramount to star in it than Chris Pine, the star of their Star Trek reboot, right? In a couple early scenes we see Jack Ryan drops out of school after 9/11, joins the Marines, gets shot down and badly wounded, meets his future girlfriend Cathy at Walter Reed, and then is recruited by Kevin Costner of the CIA. That's all a prologue to 10 years later when he has to prevent an evil Russian scheme dreamed up by Kenneth Branagh, who also directs. It was surprising how few real surprises there were in this. (The biggest for me was the woman who looks like Keira Knightley actually is Keira Knightley!) I mean there's no real attempt at a big twist. You think maybe Kevin Costner will be evil (he did play a turncoat Russian agent in No Way Out) or maybe Cathy will be a turncoat like Total Recall or something. Nah. It's all pretty straightforward. I suppose a warning flag was when a movie with known actors like this was released in January, the typical cesspool for Hollywood movies. (2/5)
The Art of the Steal: This movie reminds us that Kurt Russell still exists. he plays a has-been Evel Kineval type who on the side steals art until his weasel brother Matt Dillon (who also still exists) turns him in and he does 5 1/2 years in a Polish jail. When he gets out his brother seems to have one big score for him involving a book called the Gospel According to James. The scam in part reminds me of a Lawrence Block book I read recently. But like Matchstick Men there's a scam within the scam. All-in-all it was decent with a twist you don't really see coming. (3/5)
Wrecked: Also, Adrien Brody still exists. (There's kind of a theme to these last 3.) Remember when he won that Oscar? And then like 10 years later he was doing razor commercials and straight-to-video crap. This was probably straight-to-video but it wasn't crap. About half the movie is him trying to get out of an old crappy Chevy that's wrecked in the British Columbia forest. When he does get out then the latter half of the movie is pretty much him crawling around the forest while he's haunted by Caroline Dhavernas, who is...what? Actually we never do really find out how she's related to him. It gets a little boring at times, but there was a great surprise twist at the end. (3/5)
Joe: Hey speaking of former Oscar winners who are now down to making straight-to-video crap, this is yet another Nicolas Cage movie. He plays the titular character who lives way in the Deep South or somewhere and runs a crew of guys who illegally poison trees so they can later be cut down. Then he meets a 15-year-old named Gary who has an old drunk father that can't keep a job. Then it becomes kind of complicated as Joe is not exactly Mr. Nice Guy. I mean at one point he goes all Michael Vick and sics his American bulldog on another dog that hates him--I can't imagine why a dog would hate him! But he also helps out the kid and other poor people. There's also a mortal enemy (for some reason that isn't really explained) who at one point shoots Joe in the shoulder but this being a movie Joe can patch it up himself and in a couple days be right as rain. Overall it's kind of slow, though I suppose it's good in a way that it doesn't try to paint Joe one way or another because life is complicated. (2.5/5)
The Lego Movie: I finally got around to watching this. It was as fun as advertised. There are enough references to other stuff in it to keep older viewers like me entertained while it's not so adult that the kids can't watch it. And there's a great message about creativity and also for those nerds who glue Legos together and only build stuff to specifications. Alas I wish there hadn't been so much Will Farrell in it. (4/5)
In Her Skin: This is one of those "based on a true story" movies. It took place in Australia in 1999 so I have no idea how true it actually is. A 15-year-old girl goes missing and her distraught parents search for her and attempt to get the police off their asses to do something. (Sadly no one says, "A dingo ate your baby!") Then we jump to the woman who abducted the girl in a scheme that doesn't make much sense; I suspect it made more sense to her. A random thought is that it must be nice for Guy Pearce to do a movie in Australia where he doesn't have to fake an American accent. I'm sure it's the same for Brits when they can play Brits. It's probably like a kind of vacation. (2/5)
Showing posts with label Thursday Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thursday Review. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Monday, June 23, 2014
Double Feature: Godzilla (2014) & X-Men Days of Future Past Reviews
For as many movies as I watch I don't watch many in the theater. It's just too expensive and Saturdays I usually spend writing so when I'm working on a story I don't really want to take time off to go watch a movie.
So I decided since I wasn't working on a story at the moment I should catch up with a good old-fashioned double feature. I know people used to do that a lot like in the 30s-50s; I'd have to go ask the Chubby Chatterbox about that. I've done it a few times in the last 10 years. In 2004 I saw "Garden State" and "Spider-Man 2" and the next year "Revenge of the Sith" and "Batman Begins" and in 2007 it was "Transformers" and "The Simpsons Movie." In 2008 I saw "The Dark Knight" twice the day it came out, which I suppose would count as a double feature, right?
Anyway, in the old days you'd just stay in the same theater and watch one and then another, but it's harder to manage that these days. Especially since the movies I wanted to watch were older and didn't have as many time slots.
So anyway at 10:55am I went to the theater and watched "Godzilla." Y'all on the Internet had given me high hopes--which this did not live up to. When I pay $6 to watch a movie called "Godzilla" I want to see more than 10 minutes of Godzilla! They needed to adhere more to Ken Watanabe's character's line: Let them fight.
First off it took over an hour to even get to Godzilla showing up. In that time they killed off Bryan Cranston's character, which seemed pretty lame since he was the only one worth giving a crap about. All we had left then was his son, who was basically just a ripoff of Josh Duhamel's character in "Transformers." Oh and hey since it's 2014 maybe we could have his wife be something other than a freaking nurse. Why couldn't she be a doctor? There are women doctors these days movie writers.
Anyway, so finally Godzilla shows up in Hawaii to take on Bat-Monster and does his famous roar. Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuumble, right? (I probably owe Michael Buffer a quarter now.) Nope. Instead we cut back to the lame humans and only see part of the fight on a TV screen. Whaaaaat? Then it probably takes another forty-five minutes for Godzilla to throw down with the monsters in San Francisco and even then they'd get going and we'd have to cut back to the annoying humans.
The thing is the humans were so freaking stupid. Their grand plan is to set off a nuke out in the water to draw in the monsters and kill them. Well since the Muto monsters emit EMPs we can't use a conventional bomb from an airplane or anything so we have to deliver by train and then put in some old-timey clockwork detonator that can't be called back. So when the Bat-Monster takes the bomb and gives it to his sweetie in San Francisco the dumb humans have now put a timebomb in the heart of San Francisco. So they send Bryan Cranston's son in via a HALO jump to stop it. And the whole movie we hear all about how he's this hotshot bomb disposal expert...and he doesn't even defuse the fucking bomb! He just pushes it out to sea so it can blow up. WTF? Why establish the guy as a bomb disposal expert and then have him "dispose" of it like Batman or Tony Stark? Those guys at least have an excuse. And really the gist of it was he was saving the city from himself! WTF?
But when Godzilla does finally figure out how to use his nuclear breath or whatever that was pretty sweet. In his limited screen time Godzilla was probably the best character, with Bryan Cranston a close second and then I didn't give a shit about anyone else.
People can bash "Pacific Rim" but at least it had some sweet monster vs. robot fights. But the little Indian kid behind me in the theater liked it, so there.
Anyway, I know we have to waste all this time on lame humans because we need characters we care about blah blah blah (which incidentally I didn't care about them, as noted above) but really guys if I want to watch a movie with human characters I'd go watch "Grand Budapest Hotel" or something more dramatic. When I watch a movie featuring monsters and/or robots I want to see monsters and/or robots! (1/5)
After that I went and got lunch and hung out at the library. Then I went to another theater that was showing "X-Men Days of Future Past" at 4pm, which was the earliest available in the area.
I liked it a lot better, though it wasn't exactly a perfect movie. Basically as you know they're trying to mash together the first three X-Men movies of the 2000s with "X-Men First Class." And they ignore the two Wolverine solo movies. So having seen all of those it can get a little mushy. Like wait Angel is dead? Wasn't he in X-Men 3? And how is it Beast came up with a sort of mutant cure back in 1973? And why the hell would that allow Xavier to walk? The Geek Twins linked to an article that had some of the more significant errors, such as: why does Wolverine have metal claws in the future when he lost them in "The Wolverine?" And didn't Xavier's body get vaporized by the Phoenix in "The Last Stand?" (Though a cookie scene showed he'd transferred his mind to another body.) The good thing is that after this movie any problems can be explained away as it's a different universe now because time travel, ie the Star Trek reboot.
Something funny to note is that since the original 2 comics came from the early 80s we're probably right now at or past the bleak future it predicted. So there. Anyway, I'm sure you know that in "the future" mutant killing "Sentinels" have run amok so the last mutants band together to send Wolverine back into the past, only in this case it's by beaming his mind back to his younger body in 1973, which originally was supposed to be done by Kitty Pryde but no one really gives a shit about Kitty Pryde whereas Wolverine is the most popular character.
Just like in the comics they were supposed to stop the assassination of the senator guy whom Magneto killed in the very first X-Men movie, so instead it's Mystique is going to kill Tyrion Lannister, the inventor of the Sentinels. (Wouldn't that be an awesome crossover?) Anyway, Wolverine has to get the band back together to find her and stop her. Though why they really needed Magneto I don't know. Basically they just needed Xavier to stop being such a wuss and man up about his psychic powers. Come on, you wouldn't see Patrick Stewart being such a whiny bitch about it!
One dumb thing I remember some people bitching about is Quicksilver is supposed to be Magneto's son and some people were like, "But they don't mention that anywhere!" Um, yeah they do. In the elevator Quicksilver's like, "My mom knew a guy who could move metal around." Hmmmm, I wonder who that could be? But I guess 1973 was too early to go on Maury Povich to see if Magneto is the baby daddy. Though I don't know why they really needed Quicksilver either; Wolverine couldn't just punch the glass with his bone claws?
In the end Magneto lifts up a whole stadium to surround the White House, which seemed kind of dumb. I mean sure it kept out cars, but we have these new things called helicopters. And airplanes. Yeah, even in 1973 we had those! Sure there were still the Sentinels, which really I seriously doubt we had the technology in 1973 to make giant sophisticated robot killing machines.
In that finale it's surprising how little Wolverine actually does. Basically he gets wrapped in metal and drowned in the Potomac, though obviously he can't die. You'd think since he's the most popular character he'd get more involved.
Like "Watchmen" the Nixon impersonator was pretty lame. Is it really that hard to depict Nixon on the big screen? I guess there's a tendency to make him too cartoonish with the nose putty and stuff. In which case maybe they should have set it in 1974 and Ford could have been the president. Similarly there seems no way to make Beast not look ridiculous in his blue beast mode. It might help if they did like the Hulk and used CGI and maybe lost the clothes so he could be more beast-like.
This was the type of movie where as long as you didn't think too hard about anything it was fine. Obviously the whole point was so they could launch a broader X-Men universe, because it's not enough to have a franchise; now you need a whole cinematic universe thanks to Marvel. I think at this point they're running second behind Marvel in that department. We have yet to see how DC's result is going to look and Sony's just sounds awful.
Of course the next X-Men movie is due out in 2016, providing Bryan Singer isn't in jail--or probably even if he is. I mean Brett Ratner is probably available.
The only thing going forward is I assume we'd be seeing the McAvoy and Fassbender Professor X and Magneto, not Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, which kind of sucks. The younger actors don't have the same gravitas for obvious reasons. Overall I'd give this a 3/5.
So there are the results of this year's double feature. I suppose I could do another one at some point, but it's hard finding two movies I want to watch at the same time. If you're a single guy with a lot of free time you could always try that for yourself.
So I decided since I wasn't working on a story at the moment I should catch up with a good old-fashioned double feature. I know people used to do that a lot like in the 30s-50s; I'd have to go ask the Chubby Chatterbox about that. I've done it a few times in the last 10 years. In 2004 I saw "Garden State" and "Spider-Man 2" and the next year "Revenge of the Sith" and "Batman Begins" and in 2007 it was "Transformers" and "The Simpsons Movie." In 2008 I saw "The Dark Knight" twice the day it came out, which I suppose would count as a double feature, right?
Anyway, in the old days you'd just stay in the same theater and watch one and then another, but it's harder to manage that these days. Especially since the movies I wanted to watch were older and didn't have as many time slots.
So anyway at 10:55am I went to the theater and watched "Godzilla." Y'all on the Internet had given me high hopes--which this did not live up to. When I pay $6 to watch a movie called "Godzilla" I want to see more than 10 minutes of Godzilla! They needed to adhere more to Ken Watanabe's character's line: Let them fight.
First off it took over an hour to even get to Godzilla showing up. In that time they killed off Bryan Cranston's character, which seemed pretty lame since he was the only one worth giving a crap about. All we had left then was his son, who was basically just a ripoff of Josh Duhamel's character in "Transformers." Oh and hey since it's 2014 maybe we could have his wife be something other than a freaking nurse. Why couldn't she be a doctor? There are women doctors these days movie writers.
Anyway, so finally Godzilla shows up in Hawaii to take on Bat-Monster and does his famous roar. Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuumble, right? (I probably owe Michael Buffer a quarter now.) Nope. Instead we cut back to the lame humans and only see part of the fight on a TV screen. Whaaaaat? Then it probably takes another forty-five minutes for Godzilla to throw down with the monsters in San Francisco and even then they'd get going and we'd have to cut back to the annoying humans.
The thing is the humans were so freaking stupid. Their grand plan is to set off a nuke out in the water to draw in the monsters and kill them. Well since the Muto monsters emit EMPs we can't use a conventional bomb from an airplane or anything so we have to deliver by train and then put in some old-timey clockwork detonator that can't be called back. So when the Bat-Monster takes the bomb and gives it to his sweetie in San Francisco the dumb humans have now put a timebomb in the heart of San Francisco. So they send Bryan Cranston's son in via a HALO jump to stop it. And the whole movie we hear all about how he's this hotshot bomb disposal expert...and he doesn't even defuse the fucking bomb! He just pushes it out to sea so it can blow up. WTF? Why establish the guy as a bomb disposal expert and then have him "dispose" of it like Batman or Tony Stark? Those guys at least have an excuse. And really the gist of it was he was saving the city from himself! WTF?
But when Godzilla does finally figure out how to use his nuclear breath or whatever that was pretty sweet. In his limited screen time Godzilla was probably the best character, with Bryan Cranston a close second and then I didn't give a shit about anyone else.
People can bash "Pacific Rim" but at least it had some sweet monster vs. robot fights. But the little Indian kid behind me in the theater liked it, so there.
Anyway, I know we have to waste all this time on lame humans because we need characters we care about blah blah blah (which incidentally I didn't care about them, as noted above) but really guys if I want to watch a movie with human characters I'd go watch "Grand Budapest Hotel" or something more dramatic. When I watch a movie featuring monsters and/or robots I want to see monsters and/or robots! (1/5)
After that I went and got lunch and hung out at the library. Then I went to another theater that was showing "X-Men Days of Future Past" at 4pm, which was the earliest available in the area.
I liked it a lot better, though it wasn't exactly a perfect movie. Basically as you know they're trying to mash together the first three X-Men movies of the 2000s with "X-Men First Class." And they ignore the two Wolverine solo movies. So having seen all of those it can get a little mushy. Like wait Angel is dead? Wasn't he in X-Men 3? And how is it Beast came up with a sort of mutant cure back in 1973? And why the hell would that allow Xavier to walk? The Geek Twins linked to an article that had some of the more significant errors, such as: why does Wolverine have metal claws in the future when he lost them in "The Wolverine?" And didn't Xavier's body get vaporized by the Phoenix in "The Last Stand?" (Though a cookie scene showed he'd transferred his mind to another body.) The good thing is that after this movie any problems can be explained away as it's a different universe now because time travel, ie the Star Trek reboot.
Something funny to note is that since the original 2 comics came from the early 80s we're probably right now at or past the bleak future it predicted. So there. Anyway, I'm sure you know that in "the future" mutant killing "Sentinels" have run amok so the last mutants band together to send Wolverine back into the past, only in this case it's by beaming his mind back to his younger body in 1973, which originally was supposed to be done by Kitty Pryde but no one really gives a shit about Kitty Pryde whereas Wolverine is the most popular character.
Just like in the comics they were supposed to stop the assassination of the senator guy whom Magneto killed in the very first X-Men movie, so instead it's Mystique is going to kill Tyrion Lannister, the inventor of the Sentinels. (Wouldn't that be an awesome crossover?) Anyway, Wolverine has to get the band back together to find her and stop her. Though why they really needed Magneto I don't know. Basically they just needed Xavier to stop being such a wuss and man up about his psychic powers. Come on, you wouldn't see Patrick Stewart being such a whiny bitch about it!
One dumb thing I remember some people bitching about is Quicksilver is supposed to be Magneto's son and some people were like, "But they don't mention that anywhere!" Um, yeah they do. In the elevator Quicksilver's like, "My mom knew a guy who could move metal around." Hmmmm, I wonder who that could be? But I guess 1973 was too early to go on Maury Povich to see if Magneto is the baby daddy. Though I don't know why they really needed Quicksilver either; Wolverine couldn't just punch the glass with his bone claws?
In the end Magneto lifts up a whole stadium to surround the White House, which seemed kind of dumb. I mean sure it kept out cars, but we have these new things called helicopters. And airplanes. Yeah, even in 1973 we had those! Sure there were still the Sentinels, which really I seriously doubt we had the technology in 1973 to make giant sophisticated robot killing machines.
In that finale it's surprising how little Wolverine actually does. Basically he gets wrapped in metal and drowned in the Potomac, though obviously he can't die. You'd think since he's the most popular character he'd get more involved.
Like "Watchmen" the Nixon impersonator was pretty lame. Is it really that hard to depict Nixon on the big screen? I guess there's a tendency to make him too cartoonish with the nose putty and stuff. In which case maybe they should have set it in 1974 and Ford could have been the president. Similarly there seems no way to make Beast not look ridiculous in his blue beast mode. It might help if they did like the Hulk and used CGI and maybe lost the clothes so he could be more beast-like.
This was the type of movie where as long as you didn't think too hard about anything it was fine. Obviously the whole point was so they could launch a broader X-Men universe, because it's not enough to have a franchise; now you need a whole cinematic universe thanks to Marvel. I think at this point they're running second behind Marvel in that department. We have yet to see how DC's result is going to look and Sony's just sounds awful.
Of course the next X-Men movie is due out in 2016, providing Bryan Singer isn't in jail--or probably even if he is. I mean Brett Ratner is probably available.
The only thing going forward is I assume we'd be seeing the McAvoy and Fassbender Professor X and Magneto, not Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, which kind of sucks. The younger actors don't have the same gravitas for obvious reasons. Overall I'd give this a 3/5.
So there are the results of this year's double feature. I suppose I could do another one at some point, but it's hard finding two movies I want to watch at the same time. If you're a single guy with a lot of free time you could always try that for yourself.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Finales: Arrow vs. Agents of SHIELD
This post contains spoilers if you haven't watched these episodes already. You've been warned!
This week saw both big comic book-related TV shows, "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" and "Arrow" wrap up with their season finales. As has been the case most of the year (since I started watching it at any rate) "Arrow" was the winner in terms of superhero action. But Agents of SHIELD wasn't terrible either.
I had stopped watching Agents of SHIELD in February or so when they took a break for the Olympics or whatever, but I started watching again after "Captain America 2" came out because I heard there was a seismic shift in the show. Which there was as SHIELD crumbles in the wake of discovering Hydra has infiltrated it to its highest levels, including uptight supposedly straight-arrow Agent Grant Ward. This made the show slightly better as the team was fighting for their lives instead of the bogus X-Files ripoff crap from earlier in the season.
In the last episode Coulson and company are tracking down the evil Garrett, who's trying to make an army of supersoldiers like the cyborg assassin Deathlok. For the last couple of episodes they've been tracking him down but now they finally reach his base of operations. And then mayhem ensues. I already knew about the Nick Fury cameo in advance, though I was surprised it came so early in the show. I thought it'd be another one of those where he shows up at the end. Not that he necessarily DOES a whole lot except talk and give Coulson the BFG (Big Freakin' Gun in Doom) to shoot at supersoldiers.
There was one part of the episode I found absolutely ridiculous. In the prior episode Ward has ejected dorky scientists Fitz and Simmons (do not ask me which is which) in an escape pod that sinks to "the bottom of the ocean." Well apparently the bottom of the ocean is as deep as a motel swimming pool because they blow the window in the pod (why does it even have a window?) and manage to swim out to the surface. From the bottom of the ocean. Without any scuba gear, just a single oxygen mask. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm not Jacques Cousteau here (which is good because he's dead) but I know you can't go to the bottom of the ocean without a vehicle. The pressure down there can crush you like a freaking grape. Even subs have a maximum depth they can go before the pressure gets too much. It's like saying they could jump out of a space shuttle and go through the atmosphere without burning up. I ain't buying it. But maybe I need to consult with Neil deGraase Tyson on this.
Besides that it was a good episode as far as this series is concerned. And now that Coulson is the head of SHIELD they have a chance to reinvent the show and maybe make it not suck as much as it did most of the year. There are still questions left unanswered like what the deal with Skye is. Has she ever shown any potential to do anything special? Was her daddy bathing in blood? Nasty. And what was that thing Coulson (and Garrett earlier) were going all A Beautiful Mind drawing? Since Avengers 2 is coming out in May, around the time when season 2 of this show should be wrapping up, do you suppose they'll use the next season to help set that up?
Probably the second most ridiculous thing is that apparently the Patton Oswalt character had an identical twin. Who are both SHIELD agents. Who both maintain out-of-the-way hiding places. Maybe they're robots? Or clones? It was kind of lame. (3/5)
By contrast the "Arrow" finale was a lot more epic in terms of action. It channels "The Dark Knight Rises" a bit as it basically involves the bad guy (Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke) and the good guy (Oliver Queen aka the [Green] Arrow) throwing down in a street fight. Oliver's army is made primarily of assassins from the League of Assassins (aka the League of Shadows from the Nolanverse) who have made a deal with Sarah (aka [Black] Canary) that means she'll have to rejoin them in exchange for their help.
The real focus of the action is between Oliver and Slade. Employing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man playbook, Slade kidnaps first Laurel and then Felicity to kill the woman Oliver loves. His confusion is understandable since Oliver has pretty much screwed every woman on the show--except his half-sister. Except Oliver cruelly used Felicity as bait to get her close enough to use the cure for the Mirakuru super-steroid on Slade. Total dick move there, brah. I liked how they intermingled flashbacks of Slade and Oliver fighting on the sinking freighter to them fighting in the present to give you an idea of how they've come full circle.
I was disappointed they didn't kill anyone, but at least they did write out a couple of characters for a little while. You know Sarah, Thea, and Slade will all reappear at some point in the future. The way they potentially killed Laurel/Sarah's dad was probably the weakest point of the episode. I mean he's saying goodbye to Sarah and then all the sudden he's like, "Ooh my tummy hurts...I'm dying!" Hurm, probably should have gotten an X-ray after being punched in the gut by a dude hopped up on super-steroids. And the second weakest moment was when they reveal that unfortunately there's more to Oliver's time away from home. Now he's in Hong Kong in Amanda Waller's clutches? WTF? Seriously, could we just end these flashbacks already? It's getting a bit ridiculous.
It'll be interesting to see where they go in season 3 after the fallout from Starling City being ravaged--again. Oliver kind of sucks at being a superhero. (4/5)
During the "Arrow" finale they had a teaser for "The Flash" which is debuting next year. Apparently "Arrow" and "Agents of SHIELD" have done well enough that 5 more comics-related series are premiering next year: The Flash and iZombie on CW, Gotham (a Batman prequel) on Fox, Agent Carter (a SHIELD prequel I think) on ABC, and Constantine (vaguely related to that lame Keanu Reeves movie that was vaguely related to the Hellblazer comic) on NBC. On top of that in 2015 Netflix begins showing new Marvel series focusing on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and some others. So now comics are taking over the small screen AND the big screen. And one even stars a woman, so that's progress. But guess which one will probably be cancelled first?
Now to try to get some page views as Briane Pagel and I were discussing on Indie Writers Monthly yesterday, here's a picture of Sean Connery in a swimsuit:
This week saw both big comic book-related TV shows, "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" and "Arrow" wrap up with their season finales. As has been the case most of the year (since I started watching it at any rate) "Arrow" was the winner in terms of superhero action. But Agents of SHIELD wasn't terrible either.
I had stopped watching Agents of SHIELD in February or so when they took a break for the Olympics or whatever, but I started watching again after "Captain America 2" came out because I heard there was a seismic shift in the show. Which there was as SHIELD crumbles in the wake of discovering Hydra has infiltrated it to its highest levels, including uptight supposedly straight-arrow Agent Grant Ward. This made the show slightly better as the team was fighting for their lives instead of the bogus X-Files ripoff crap from earlier in the season.
In the last episode Coulson and company are tracking down the evil Garrett, who's trying to make an army of supersoldiers like the cyborg assassin Deathlok. For the last couple of episodes they've been tracking him down but now they finally reach his base of operations. And then mayhem ensues. I already knew about the Nick Fury cameo in advance, though I was surprised it came so early in the show. I thought it'd be another one of those where he shows up at the end. Not that he necessarily DOES a whole lot except talk and give Coulson the BFG (Big Freakin' Gun in Doom) to shoot at supersoldiers.
There was one part of the episode I found absolutely ridiculous. In the prior episode Ward has ejected dorky scientists Fitz and Simmons (do not ask me which is which) in an escape pod that sinks to "the bottom of the ocean." Well apparently the bottom of the ocean is as deep as a motel swimming pool because they blow the window in the pod (why does it even have a window?) and manage to swim out to the surface. From the bottom of the ocean. Without any scuba gear, just a single oxygen mask. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm not Jacques Cousteau here (which is good because he's dead) but I know you can't go to the bottom of the ocean without a vehicle. The pressure down there can crush you like a freaking grape. Even subs have a maximum depth they can go before the pressure gets too much. It's like saying they could jump out of a space shuttle and go through the atmosphere without burning up. I ain't buying it. But maybe I need to consult with Neil deGraase Tyson on this.
Besides that it was a good episode as far as this series is concerned. And now that Coulson is the head of SHIELD they have a chance to reinvent the show and maybe make it not suck as much as it did most of the year. There are still questions left unanswered like what the deal with Skye is. Has she ever shown any potential to do anything special? Was her daddy bathing in blood? Nasty. And what was that thing Coulson (and Garrett earlier) were going all A Beautiful Mind drawing? Since Avengers 2 is coming out in May, around the time when season 2 of this show should be wrapping up, do you suppose they'll use the next season to help set that up?
Probably the second most ridiculous thing is that apparently the Patton Oswalt character had an identical twin. Who are both SHIELD agents. Who both maintain out-of-the-way hiding places. Maybe they're robots? Or clones? It was kind of lame. (3/5)
By contrast the "Arrow" finale was a lot more epic in terms of action. It channels "The Dark Knight Rises" a bit as it basically involves the bad guy (Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke) and the good guy (Oliver Queen aka the [Green] Arrow) throwing down in a street fight. Oliver's army is made primarily of assassins from the League of Assassins (aka the League of Shadows from the Nolanverse) who have made a deal with Sarah (aka [Black] Canary) that means she'll have to rejoin them in exchange for their help.
The real focus of the action is between Oliver and Slade. Employing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man playbook, Slade kidnaps first Laurel and then Felicity to kill the woman Oliver loves. His confusion is understandable since Oliver has pretty much screwed every woman on the show--except his half-sister. Except Oliver cruelly used Felicity as bait to get her close enough to use the cure for the Mirakuru super-steroid on Slade. Total dick move there, brah. I liked how they intermingled flashbacks of Slade and Oliver fighting on the sinking freighter to them fighting in the present to give you an idea of how they've come full circle.
I was disappointed they didn't kill anyone, but at least they did write out a couple of characters for a little while. You know Sarah, Thea, and Slade will all reappear at some point in the future. The way they potentially killed Laurel/Sarah's dad was probably the weakest point of the episode. I mean he's saying goodbye to Sarah and then all the sudden he's like, "Ooh my tummy hurts...I'm dying!" Hurm, probably should have gotten an X-ray after being punched in the gut by a dude hopped up on super-steroids. And the second weakest moment was when they reveal that unfortunately there's more to Oliver's time away from home. Now he's in Hong Kong in Amanda Waller's clutches? WTF? Seriously, could we just end these flashbacks already? It's getting a bit ridiculous.
It'll be interesting to see where they go in season 3 after the fallout from Starling City being ravaged--again. Oliver kind of sucks at being a superhero. (4/5)
During the "Arrow" finale they had a teaser for "The Flash" which is debuting next year. Apparently "Arrow" and "Agents of SHIELD" have done well enough that 5 more comics-related series are premiering next year: The Flash and iZombie on CW, Gotham (a Batman prequel) on Fox, Agent Carter (a SHIELD prequel I think) on ABC, and Constantine (vaguely related to that lame Keanu Reeves movie that was vaguely related to the Hellblazer comic) on NBC. On top of that in 2015 Netflix begins showing new Marvel series focusing on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and some others. So now comics are taking over the small screen AND the big screen. And one even stars a woman, so that's progress. But guess which one will probably be cancelled first?
Now to try to get some page views as Briane Pagel and I were discussing on Indie Writers Monthly yesterday, here's a picture of Sean Connery in a swimsuit:
Thursday, December 26, 2013
The Ghost of Boxing Day Future
Happy Boxing Day to all those in the UK and its former territories. In America today is the day when people venture out to take back all the crap they didn't want. My relatives won't be taking back the stuff I got them because it was either A) Free from Amazon or B) A check. So there. Though I guess technically you do take the check to the bank to exchange it for cash.
Anyway, I'm writing this from the past, so I 'm just going to assume by now I've got a draft of Girl Power: League of Evil ready for initial ebook production. (I totally do!) I'll probably read it again on the Kindle one more time at least before it goes to CreateSpace for a paperback.
There's not much else to do on Boxing Day, so here's my writing year in review. 2010 was a manic year writing wise as I wrote a whole slew of books:
2011 was a down year from that pace, as is only natural:
2012 was way down for that. I didn't even write a new novel last year! The only projects were:
Then I wrote Sky Ghost: Army of the Damned, which as I wrote a blog post about didn't really turn out as I planned. In the movie business we'd say it's in "turnaround" right now. Sadly I'm not a studio so I can't hire other people to rewrite it. Though recently when I read the first new Wingman book by "Mack Maloney" (it's a pseudonym for someone I'm pretty sure isn't me--though that would be a good M Night movie) in like 15 years it did get me jazzed a little more on that idea. Amazon put the whole series on sale for Kindle so maybe I'll reread those and give this another shot. Plus my brother made this sweet-ass model of the Sky Ghost's plane:
That's something to maybe attempt in 2014.
After that I wrote the last two in the Girl Power series. The last one still feels messy to me. Again it's only natural with how sprawling the plot is. I guess for the last book in a series I like to pull out most of the stops. It's that way with the last Scarlet Knight book, the last Chances Are, the last Children of Eternity, and the last Rebirth. Because if it's the end it should be an epic conclusion! Why go down with a whimper? Plus some wag on Amazon said the first one wasn't plotted "deeply" enough. Challenge accepted, asshole!
The third book is probably the last novel but I was thinking of doing a book of short stories, each one focusing on one or two heroes of the Super Squad. Part of this idea came from reading Ian Fleming's whole Bond series (the ones he wrote, which in my mind are the only official ones) where a couple of the books are actually made of short stories, many of which have familiar titles like Quantum of Solace, View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, and everyone's favorite: Octopussy! If it works for James Bond why couldn't it work for me? So that's something else that might happen in 2014.
Though the thing is I keep telling myself I need to get away from the superhero beat. They don't hardly sell for shit. Since I made the first Girl Power book free I've given away maybe a hundred of it. By contrast I give away a hundred of Chance of a Lifetime in less than a week! Clearly from a capitalist point of view I'd do better to focus on suspense/thriller type books rather than superhero books. The only thing about superhero books is they're fun because you can do all sorts of crazy shit. I mean if you look at the comic landscape you have regular guys, noir-type guys, guys from space, guys from Norse mythology, guys with magic powers, so on and so forth. There's really no limit to what you can do. Sadly I just don't think the market is there--at least not for me. Oh well. It's not like I've spent much of the last 4 years on that...wait a minute...
Anyway, with 4 novels this year I guess you can call it a bounce-back year from 2012. We'll have to see what actually happens in 2014.
Anyway, I'm writing this from the past, so I 'm just going to assume by now I've got a draft of Girl Power: League of Evil ready for initial ebook production. (I totally do!) I'll probably read it again on the Kindle one more time at least before it goes to CreateSpace for a paperback.
There's not much else to do on Boxing Day, so here's my writing year in review. 2010 was a manic year writing wise as I wrote a whole slew of books:
- Change of Heart (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #4) (2010)
- Betrayal Begets Blood (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #5) (2010)
- Future Shock (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #6) (2010)
- Living Sacrifice (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #7) (2010)
- The Heart of Emma Earl (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #8) (2010)
- Sisterhood (Tales of the Coven #1) (2010)
- Chet Finley vs. The Machines of Fate (2010)
2011 was a down year from that pace, as is only natural:
- Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) (2011)
- The Night's Legacy (2011)
- Chance of a Lifetime (2011)
- Second Chance (2011)
- Last Chance (2011)
2012 was way down for that. I didn't even write a new novel last year! The only projects were:
- Young Family (Rewrite)
- Time Enough to Say Goodbye (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #2) (Rewrite)
- Dark Origins (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #0) (2012)
- We Are Now (co-author) (2012)
Then I wrote Sky Ghost: Army of the Damned, which as I wrote a blog post about didn't really turn out as I planned. In the movie business we'd say it's in "turnaround" right now. Sadly I'm not a studio so I can't hire other people to rewrite it. Though recently when I read the first new Wingman book by "Mack Maloney" (it's a pseudonym for someone I'm pretty sure isn't me--though that would be a good M Night movie) in like 15 years it did get me jazzed a little more on that idea. Amazon put the whole series on sale for Kindle so maybe I'll reread those and give this another shot. Plus my brother made this sweet-ass model of the Sky Ghost's plane:
 |
| Way cooler than any Sim! |
That's something to maybe attempt in 2014.
After that I wrote the last two in the Girl Power series. The last one still feels messy to me. Again it's only natural with how sprawling the plot is. I guess for the last book in a series I like to pull out most of the stops. It's that way with the last Scarlet Knight book, the last Chances Are, the last Children of Eternity, and the last Rebirth. Because if it's the end it should be an epic conclusion! Why go down with a whimper? Plus some wag on Amazon said the first one wasn't plotted "deeply" enough. Challenge accepted, asshole!
The third book is probably the last novel but I was thinking of doing a book of short stories, each one focusing on one or two heroes of the Super Squad. Part of this idea came from reading Ian Fleming's whole Bond series (the ones he wrote, which in my mind are the only official ones) where a couple of the books are actually made of short stories, many of which have familiar titles like Quantum of Solace, View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, and everyone's favorite: Octopussy! If it works for James Bond why couldn't it work for me? So that's something else that might happen in 2014.
Though the thing is I keep telling myself I need to get away from the superhero beat. They don't hardly sell for shit. Since I made the first Girl Power book free I've given away maybe a hundred of it. By contrast I give away a hundred of Chance of a Lifetime in less than a week! Clearly from a capitalist point of view I'd do better to focus on suspense/thriller type books rather than superhero books. The only thing about superhero books is they're fun because you can do all sorts of crazy shit. I mean if you look at the comic landscape you have regular guys, noir-type guys, guys from space, guys from Norse mythology, guys with magic powers, so on and so forth. There's really no limit to what you can do. Sadly I just don't think the market is there--at least not for me. Oh well. It's not like I've spent much of the last 4 years on that...wait a minute...
Anyway, with 4 novels this year I guess you can call it a bounce-back year from 2012. We'll have to see what actually happens in 2014.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Thursday Review: Agents of SHIELD vs. Almost Human
Since it just had its "fall finale" (we can thank "Lost" for introducing us to that stupid concept; before then shows didn't feel compelled to tell you they were on a break) it's time to rant about "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD."
My review of the first episode basically boiled down to "Meh. It could get better." It really hasn't. I still watch it either live or On Demand but it doesn't really hold my attention. Tuesday's episode I was reading Marvel comics while the show was on.
I guess the problem is for me this show is hollow. The longer it goes on the more I wonder why it exists. The only answer is that after the success of "The Avengers" Marvel and its Disney masters thought it'd be great to have a show they could use to help advertise the new movies and keep people remembering the older ones. It seems like the kind of thing where suits in board rooms had some meetings and decided they wanted a TV show and then called Joss Whedon in and told him to make it happen, followed by handing him a big bag of money with a dollar sign on it.
The thought that hit me is essentially what Whedon did was try to take the overall dynamic of "Firefly" and apply it to a bunch of recycled "X-Files" scripts. I mean if you think about it they fly around from place-to-place, only in a C-17 instead of a space freighter. If you want you can even compare roles from Firefly to SHIELD like so:
Coulson = Mal, the leader
May = Zoe, the tough chick
Ward = Jayne, the tough guy
Nerdy Scientist (Girl) = Kaylee, the upbeat tech person
Nerdy Scientist (Boy) = Simon, the dorky but brilliant doctor
Hacker chick = River, the wild card no one trusts
(Sadly there is no Wash, Inara, or Shepherd. Maybe that's what they need!)
The problem is first of all Coulson is no Mal. In pretty much every way possible. The second is "Firefly" was a sci-fi Western. The same dynamic doesn't work in an X-Files/Men in Black setting. Both the X-Files and Men in Black boiled the cast down to just two people who played off each other, which worked. With Agents of SHIELD it just feels most of the time like a lot of the characters are extraneous. Do we need two tough people? Do we need essentially 3 science geeks who can't do much else? No. And Fitz/Simmons are so damned cutesy (even their names) that I want to punch them in the face. And while I compared the Hacker to River Tam in a way she's more the Wesley Crusher of the show, the civilian who's in way over her head and was probably intended to lend the perspective of an ordinary people.
I guess it all boils down to it's a soulless concoction made of shopworn parts and stitched together into a Frankenstein monster that lumbers around for an hour every Tuesday.
Contrasting this is Fox's "Almost Human" which I've really enjoyed since its premiere. "Almost Human" isn't really a new idea. Basically it's the old buddy cop formula applied in a different way. In this case it's like if John McLane were partnered with Commander Data. But you know what, it works!
While we often like to complain about formulaic approaches, let's face it, those formulas exist because when they're done right they work. By not trying to reinvent the formula and only changing the variables, "Almost Human" manages to be fun and endearingly old-fashioned with just enough freshness so you aren't bored. And sometimes that's all you want out of a show, no puzzles or conspiracies or weighty universal questions of existence that are inadequately solved. It's just two cops busting some punks, only one of the cops happens to be an android and the punks usually have some neat sci-fi-y gimmicks.
I only have two somewhat sexist complaints about the show. First they probably could have found a better actress than Minka Kelly, like pretty much anyone. Second, the captain needs a new hairstyle. I realized on Monday's episode what she makes me think of: the pig people from that "Twilight Zone" episode "Eye of the Beholder" where the woman's face is wrapped in bandages so you think she must be hideous but really she's hot and everyone else is a bunch of pig-nosed freaks. Basically she reminds me of the pig-nosed freaks largely because of her hair. I know, it's weird, but I'm just saying.
Anyway, the reason why "Almost Human" works and "Agents of SHIELD" doesn't in my mind is "Almost Human" knows what it is and what it's trying to do. Whereas I don't really know what the hell "Agents of SHIELD" wants to accomplish. I'm not sure Joss Whedon and company even know what the hell they're trying to do.
Sometimes when I've gotten stuck on a story that's the question I ask myself: what the hell do you want to do? What's this story ABOUT? I don't mean about in terms of a plot description; I mean in terms of message--what are you trying to SAY? Maybe in its hiatus Whedon and company can figure that out. If all they want is a 60-minute infomercial for Marvel movies then there are probably better, less expensive ways to do it.
That is all.
My review of the first episode basically boiled down to "Meh. It could get better." It really hasn't. I still watch it either live or On Demand but it doesn't really hold my attention. Tuesday's episode I was reading Marvel comics while the show was on.
I guess the problem is for me this show is hollow. The longer it goes on the more I wonder why it exists. The only answer is that after the success of "The Avengers" Marvel and its Disney masters thought it'd be great to have a show they could use to help advertise the new movies and keep people remembering the older ones. It seems like the kind of thing where suits in board rooms had some meetings and decided they wanted a TV show and then called Joss Whedon in and told him to make it happen, followed by handing him a big bag of money with a dollar sign on it.
The thought that hit me is essentially what Whedon did was try to take the overall dynamic of "Firefly" and apply it to a bunch of recycled "X-Files" scripts. I mean if you think about it they fly around from place-to-place, only in a C-17 instead of a space freighter. If you want you can even compare roles from Firefly to SHIELD like so:
Coulson = Mal, the leader
May = Zoe, the tough chick
Ward = Jayne, the tough guy
Nerdy Scientist (Girl) = Kaylee, the upbeat tech person
Nerdy Scientist (Boy) = Simon, the dorky but brilliant doctor
Hacker chick = River, the wild card no one trusts
(Sadly there is no Wash, Inara, or Shepherd. Maybe that's what they need!)
The problem is first of all Coulson is no Mal. In pretty much every way possible. The second is "Firefly" was a sci-fi Western. The same dynamic doesn't work in an X-Files/Men in Black setting. Both the X-Files and Men in Black boiled the cast down to just two people who played off each other, which worked. With Agents of SHIELD it just feels most of the time like a lot of the characters are extraneous. Do we need two tough people? Do we need essentially 3 science geeks who can't do much else? No. And Fitz/Simmons are so damned cutesy (even their names) that I want to punch them in the face. And while I compared the Hacker to River Tam in a way she's more the Wesley Crusher of the show, the civilian who's in way over her head and was probably intended to lend the perspective of an ordinary people.
I guess it all boils down to it's a soulless concoction made of shopworn parts and stitched together into a Frankenstein monster that lumbers around for an hour every Tuesday.
Contrasting this is Fox's "Almost Human" which I've really enjoyed since its premiere. "Almost Human" isn't really a new idea. Basically it's the old buddy cop formula applied in a different way. In this case it's like if John McLane were partnered with Commander Data. But you know what, it works!
While we often like to complain about formulaic approaches, let's face it, those formulas exist because when they're done right they work. By not trying to reinvent the formula and only changing the variables, "Almost Human" manages to be fun and endearingly old-fashioned with just enough freshness so you aren't bored. And sometimes that's all you want out of a show, no puzzles or conspiracies or weighty universal questions of existence that are inadequately solved. It's just two cops busting some punks, only one of the cops happens to be an android and the punks usually have some neat sci-fi-y gimmicks.
I only have two somewhat sexist complaints about the show. First they probably could have found a better actress than Minka Kelly, like pretty much anyone. Second, the captain needs a new hairstyle. I realized on Monday's episode what she makes me think of: the pig people from that "Twilight Zone" episode "Eye of the Beholder" where the woman's face is wrapped in bandages so you think she must be hideous but really she's hot and everyone else is a bunch of pig-nosed freaks. Basically she reminds me of the pig-nosed freaks largely because of her hair. I know, it's weird, but I'm just saying.
Anyway, the reason why "Almost Human" works and "Agents of SHIELD" doesn't in my mind is "Almost Human" knows what it is and what it's trying to do. Whereas I don't really know what the hell "Agents of SHIELD" wants to accomplish. I'm not sure Joss Whedon and company even know what the hell they're trying to do.
Sometimes when I've gotten stuck on a story that's the question I ask myself: what the hell do you want to do? What's this story ABOUT? I don't mean about in terms of a plot description; I mean in terms of message--what are you trying to SAY? Maybe in its hiatus Whedon and company can figure that out. If all they want is a 60-minute infomercial for Marvel movies then there are probably better, less expensive ways to do it.
That is all.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Thursday Review: Last Action Hero
In case you never watched it, much of the movie serves as a satire of action movies, especially the cop action movies like Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, and the like. In the "real" world a kid named Danny loves the Jack Slater action movie franchise. At an old theater he gets a sneak peek at the latest one (Jack Slater IV) along with a supposedly magic ticket. The ticket actually is magic and transports Danny into the movie, where he lands in Slater's backseat during a car chase with some villains. From there the satire begins with the loud rock music, the car jumping obstacles and smashing through stuff without a scratch, and the car driving perfectly straight while Slater turns around in his seat to shoot his gun.
From there Danny joins Slater in hunting down a gangster and his main assassin Benedict who has one eye and uses a variety of trick glass eyes in the other. Benedict is a lot smarter than his boss and figures out Danny is not of his world. He eventually steals the ticket and uses it to cross over into "reality" which is a pretty awesome place for a movie villain because the good guys aren't guaranteed to win. That's where the movie applies the satire the other direction as Jack Slater follows Benedict and has to adapt to not having unlimited ammo and actually suffering pain when he punches something--and (most horrifying of all) classical music.
As much as I enjoy the movie the drawback for me has always been that at times it got a little too cutesy. Like it (accurately) points out how there's not a single homely woman in Jack's world but then takes it to extremes by having most of them dress like hookers. Or the cartoon cat Whiskers who's a detective at the station. Just showing the cat the first time was a funny gag, a little send-up of Roger Rabbit in a way of combining animation with actual film, but having the cat show up later as part of the action was a bit much. On the other side in the end sequence there gets to be a bit too much winking when Jack Slater meets Arnold Schwarzenegger and so forth--something that sadly Ocean's Twelve did not learn from about a decade later.
This was probably the John Carter of its time, a movie that got hamstrung mostly by poor management. Like John Carter the end product isn't as bad as some people would make it seem. At least it's never seemed that way to me. But then I prefer a movie that tries an ambitious concept and doesn't entirely succeed over one that plays it safe all the way. It's why I like other movies like Darkman and Pacific Rim that were not huge successes at the box office. In this case the ambitious part was making sort of a meta-movie with a movie-within-a-movie and sometimes crossing with other movies on top of that when Benedict fetches The Ripper from Jack Slater III and the ticket inadvertently summons Death from The Seventh Seal (played by Ian MacKellan in his pre-Gandalf/Magneto days). If it hadn't gotten so over-the-top in its satire it would have been even better.
Like the AV Club reviewer I wouldn't agree with critics who complained that neither "reality" in the movie is actual reality. That Danny's world isn't exactly our world (because our world doesn't have magic tickets--so far as I know) wasn't really the point. The point was for Jack to enter a world where his world's rules no longer applied to see if he could overcome that, if he could be a hero outside of his scripted reality. It's something I do in the 5th Scarlet Knight book when Agnes the witch is drawn into a parallel universe without magic and has to overcome that handicap.
Where I disagree from the AV Club review is when they say all Danny learns is that magic is real. In the same way that Jack has to overcome his handicaps to be a hero in the "real" world, Danny has to find his courage to be a hero. Early in the movie Danny's apartment is robbed and while he briefly considers trying to fight back in the end he just ends up cowering in a bathroom. As well it's pretty clear that he spends most of his free time in a dark movie theater, usually by himself. Contrast that to the end when he has to help Jack stop Benedict on the rooftop and then get Jack back into his movie universe to save his life. Presumably then after the movie Danny might not spend so much time in the movie theater hiding from real life.
So see there are a lot of hidden depths here that a lot of people never bother to contemplate in large part because the movie was deemed a failure and therefore it must suck. Just like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you shouldn't judge a movie by its box office receipts. As Jack Slater would say that's a "Big Mistake."
Appropriately the Box Office Blitz playoffs begin tomorrow!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thursday Review: Mercury Falls
Happy Thanksgiving, pilgrims. This book was originally self-pubbed and then for some reason Amazon bought the rights to put under their imprint. Maybe Amazon could show me some love like that?
Mercury Falls
by Robert Kroese
(4/5 stars)
When you write a humorous story about scheming angels and the
Apocalypse, you're just asking to be compared to "Good Omens" by Terry
Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. And going against the combined talents of
two great humorists like that, it's not going to go very well for you.
Still, "Mercury Falls" at least manages to be a fun read.
When the story begins, Christine is a reporter for The Banner, a Christian magazine, despite that she's not much of a Christian. She lucked into the job after writing a news story about a doomsday cult and since then she's had to traipse around the country, profiling other doomsday cults who are inevitably wrong about the date of the world ending.
But after getting some new linoleum installed in her breakfast nook--which is a crucial plot point--she takes an assignment to Israel, where tensions are heating up in the middle east near a little place known as Armageddon. After nearly being killed in a rocket attack, Christine finds a strange attache case and eventually finds her way to another cult leader who calls himself Mercury.
Mercury is an angel, but he's closer to the Joker than any of the angels you might remember from the Bible. Really all Mercury wants is to sit on the sidelines and wait for the world to end, but when Christine shows up, he gets dragged into all the plotting and scheming between Heaven and Hell.
The rest of the story follows Christine and Mercury as they try to stop the Apocalypse, or at least make it less destructive. There are the annoying "Dogma"-like moments of characters having to explain Biblical things, though not to the extent that pretty much destroyed that Kevin Smith movie. Also unlike that movie it doesn't focus solely on Catholic dogma, so that a reader from any Western faith (or lack thereof) can follow along. Since there's really not much talk about Jesus or the Messiah, Jews or Muslims as well as Christians should be able to read it. Whether you're offended or not depends on how seriously you take your beliefs.
This is clearly not a book for the true believers, as it makes light of both Heaven and Hell. The writing is nothing special, but the author does manage to make it entertaining enough that it doesn't drag along. You probably aren't going to get any spiritual enlightenment from reading it, but it's not a bad time either.
Though of course if you haven't read it, "Good Omens" is a much better use of your money.
That is all.
Mercury Falls
by Robert Kroese
(4/5 stars)
When the story begins, Christine is a reporter for The Banner, a Christian magazine, despite that she's not much of a Christian. She lucked into the job after writing a news story about a doomsday cult and since then she's had to traipse around the country, profiling other doomsday cults who are inevitably wrong about the date of the world ending.
But after getting some new linoleum installed in her breakfast nook--which is a crucial plot point--she takes an assignment to Israel, where tensions are heating up in the middle east near a little place known as Armageddon. After nearly being killed in a rocket attack, Christine finds a strange attache case and eventually finds her way to another cult leader who calls himself Mercury.
Mercury is an angel, but he's closer to the Joker than any of the angels you might remember from the Bible. Really all Mercury wants is to sit on the sidelines and wait for the world to end, but when Christine shows up, he gets dragged into all the plotting and scheming between Heaven and Hell.
The rest of the story follows Christine and Mercury as they try to stop the Apocalypse, or at least make it less destructive. There are the annoying "Dogma"-like moments of characters having to explain Biblical things, though not to the extent that pretty much destroyed that Kevin Smith movie. Also unlike that movie it doesn't focus solely on Catholic dogma, so that a reader from any Western faith (or lack thereof) can follow along. Since there's really not much talk about Jesus or the Messiah, Jews or Muslims as well as Christians should be able to read it. Whether you're offended or not depends on how seriously you take your beliefs.
This is clearly not a book for the true believers, as it makes light of both Heaven and Hell. The writing is nothing special, but the author does manage to make it entertaining enough that it doesn't drag along. You probably aren't going to get any spiritual enlightenment from reading it, but it's not a bad time either.
Though of course if you haven't read it, "Good Omens" is a much better use of your money.
That is all.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Thursday Review: Where You Belong
You may not remember but before I was the guy who wrote all those superhero books you don't care about, I was the guy who wrote this awesome book about gay marriage, which you also probably don't care about. This is my review of my magna opus a year after I finished it the first time. You can still buy it for all ebook formats and in paperback through CreateSpace. Anyway, it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm celebrating myself.
Where You Belong
by Patrick Dilloway
(5/5 stars)
It's been about a year since I finished writing and editing this book--and from the look of it I should have done at least one more edit. I figured that would be enough time to get a little perspective on the story since it wouldn't be so fresh in my mind. It's good to see that after a year I still like t. Maybe after five years that will be different, though I doubt it.
I set out to write something in the style of John Irving novels like The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules and generally I think I succeeded, though not as well as though books of course. If you're so inclined you can also compare it to Great Expectations, The Adventures of Augie March, or Forrest Gump.
Like those, Where You Belong is the story of a man's epic journey through life--much of it unwillingly. Frost Devereaux never had anything like a normal upbringing. His parents conceived him in a one-night stand during a blizzard and then were wed in a shotgun wedding sans an actual shotgun. Frost's mother hates the man who knocked her up enough that she forces him to live in a barn on her property, from which he is essentially a stranger to his own son. It's not much of a surprise then that when Frost's mother dies in a traffic accident and Frost's face is badly burned, his father takes off to leave him in the care of an inattentive aunt.
From there Frost might have grown up as an isolated lunatic if not for the arrival of redheaded twins from Boston: Frankie and Frank Maguire. They establish the pecking order early on where Frankie is the boss, her brother plotting behind the scenes, and Frost the loyal sidekick to them both. This pecking order remains for the next thirty years of Frost's life.
Much as Frost would like a nice, normal life, it remains tantalizingly out of reach. Or if he does find a moment of happiness it's soon pulled away. His friendship with Frankie lasts through elementary school, but the forces of puberty soon prompt Frankie to leave him behind. He turns to Frank and they head off to an elite private school in upstate New York, but Frank soon has other plans that don't involve Frost. In college, Frost finds a new friend in his roommate Peter, a Trekkie who searches the skies for signs of extraterrestrial life. This budding friendship is soon brought to an end in tragic fashion.
From there Frost ends up in an artist's colony in New Mexico before Frankie returns to his life. Again he thinks he has happiness in his grasp only for it to be snatched away. Heartbroken, Frost finds comfort with Frank only to find he's not that different from his twin.
Maybe this description makes the story sound depressing, but really it's not. Through it all Frost, like most of us, maintains a sense of optimism that someday things are going to work out. And maybe they will. You'll just have to read to find out.
What I like most about the book in reading it a year later is that Frost remains consistent throughout. Some people have described him as passive and he is, with good cause. Never having a stable existence, not to mention a facial deformity, he is an outcast. So it really makes sense--at least to me--that he takes on the sidekick role in order not to alienate those willing to be his friends. Not to mention characters like Frankie and Frank are naturally overpowering and domineering. For the most part these characters and Fate in general move Frost around like the feather in Forrest Gump. It's only near the end where he maybe starts to take control of his own destiny. Still, he remains consistent throughout the book.
For that matter, so do Frankie and Frank. As I said earlier, their pecking order remains in place throughout the thirty years covered by the book. Frankie remains passionate, with her heart on her sleeve while Frank remains a calculating schemer. Because love is blind, Frost never understands that the Maguire twins are more alike than he thinks and generally not good for him until it's much too late. Not to say they're bad people so much as just bad for him.
The downside of writing a book like this that goes from pre-conception to early middle age is that you have a lot of ground to cover. Unless you make the book 2000 pages long, inevitably things get skipped or glossed over. In the first draft I had trouble with dwelling too long on Frost's early years, so that things had to be sped up a little. I think not too much has been lost and so it's still an effective portrait of a man who like many of us is searching for a home.
That is all.
Where You Belong
by Patrick Dilloway
(5/5 stars)
I set out to write something in the style of John Irving novels like The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules and generally I think I succeeded, though not as well as though books of course. If you're so inclined you can also compare it to Great Expectations, The Adventures of Augie March, or Forrest Gump.
Like those, Where You Belong is the story of a man's epic journey through life--much of it unwillingly. Frost Devereaux never had anything like a normal upbringing. His parents conceived him in a one-night stand during a blizzard and then were wed in a shotgun wedding sans an actual shotgun. Frost's mother hates the man who knocked her up enough that she forces him to live in a barn on her property, from which he is essentially a stranger to his own son. It's not much of a surprise then that when Frost's mother dies in a traffic accident and Frost's face is badly burned, his father takes off to leave him in the care of an inattentive aunt.
From there Frost might have grown up as an isolated lunatic if not for the arrival of redheaded twins from Boston: Frankie and Frank Maguire. They establish the pecking order early on where Frankie is the boss, her brother plotting behind the scenes, and Frost the loyal sidekick to them both. This pecking order remains for the next thirty years of Frost's life.
Much as Frost would like a nice, normal life, it remains tantalizingly out of reach. Or if he does find a moment of happiness it's soon pulled away. His friendship with Frankie lasts through elementary school, but the forces of puberty soon prompt Frankie to leave him behind. He turns to Frank and they head off to an elite private school in upstate New York, but Frank soon has other plans that don't involve Frost. In college, Frost finds a new friend in his roommate Peter, a Trekkie who searches the skies for signs of extraterrestrial life. This budding friendship is soon brought to an end in tragic fashion.
From there Frost ends up in an artist's colony in New Mexico before Frankie returns to his life. Again he thinks he has happiness in his grasp only for it to be snatched away. Heartbroken, Frost finds comfort with Frank only to find he's not that different from his twin.
Maybe this description makes the story sound depressing, but really it's not. Through it all Frost, like most of us, maintains a sense of optimism that someday things are going to work out. And maybe they will. You'll just have to read to find out.
What I like most about the book in reading it a year later is that Frost remains consistent throughout. Some people have described him as passive and he is, with good cause. Never having a stable existence, not to mention a facial deformity, he is an outcast. So it really makes sense--at least to me--that he takes on the sidekick role in order not to alienate those willing to be his friends. Not to mention characters like Frankie and Frank are naturally overpowering and domineering. For the most part these characters and Fate in general move Frost around like the feather in Forrest Gump. It's only near the end where he maybe starts to take control of his own destiny. Still, he remains consistent throughout the book.
For that matter, so do Frankie and Frank. As I said earlier, their pecking order remains in place throughout the thirty years covered by the book. Frankie remains passionate, with her heart on her sleeve while Frank remains a calculating schemer. Because love is blind, Frost never understands that the Maguire twins are more alike than he thinks and generally not good for him until it's much too late. Not to say they're bad people so much as just bad for him.
The downside of writing a book like this that goes from pre-conception to early middle age is that you have a lot of ground to cover. Unless you make the book 2000 pages long, inevitably things get skipped or glossed over. In the first draft I had trouble with dwelling too long on Frost's early years, so that things had to be sped up a little. I think not too much has been lost and so it's still an effective portrait of a man who like many of us is searching for a home.
That is all.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Thursday Review: Werewolves in their Youth
This one sounds appropriate for Halloween two weeks ago but the werewolves are figurative. Though every Republican asshole who talks about rape and abortion should read the one story.
Werewolves in Their Youth: Stories by Michael Chabon
(5/5 stars)
This is a superior collection of stories to Chabon's earlier "Model World". While the first half of that collection all seemed like carbon copies of each other, "Werewolves"--though each story centers around a marriage that has either fallen apart or is in the process of falling apart--has enough variety that reading all the stories back-to-back does not become tedious.
"Son of the Wolfman", where a woman who has been having trouble conceiving with her husband is raped and impreganated by another man, is the most memorable story because of the issues it deals with. All the other stories are good as well--I won't go into describing each and every one. "The Black Mill" is an interesting little horror yarn, but it's pretty tame by today's standards. I'd suggest Chabon stick with the genre he knows best.
There's not a lot to pick on with this collection of stories. The writing is flawless, the characters are all unique oddballs, and the stories are all interesting. One thing I grew tired of was the constant description of what every room looks like and every person is wearing. A lot of description can add to the atmosphere of the scene and such, but going into what everyone is wearing is irrelevant and becomes tedious after a while.
Anyway, "Werewolves" is howlingly good collection of stories (thank you, I'll be here all week) that I would recommend over "Model World". But I still prefer his novels.
Werewolves in Their Youth: Stories by Michael Chabon
(5/5 stars)
"Son of the Wolfman", where a woman who has been having trouble conceiving with her husband is raped and impreganated by another man, is the most memorable story because of the issues it deals with. All the other stories are good as well--I won't go into describing each and every one. "The Black Mill" is an interesting little horror yarn, but it's pretty tame by today's standards. I'd suggest Chabon stick with the genre he knows best.
There's not a lot to pick on with this collection of stories. The writing is flawless, the characters are all unique oddballs, and the stories are all interesting. One thing I grew tired of was the constant description of what every room looks like and every person is wearing. A lot of description can add to the atmosphere of the scene and such, but going into what everyone is wearing is irrelevant and becomes tedious after a while.
Anyway, "Werewolves" is howlingly good collection of stories (thank you, I'll be here all week) that I would recommend over "Model World". But I still prefer his novels.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Thursday Review: Book Report 2013
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| Just 2 of 200 books I read this year! |
My sister would be quick to point out that a lot of these books are shorter. Some like Rusty's "My Killbot Buddy" are probably 20 pages or so. And there are quite a few graphic novels too. But hey, if it's on there as a book, then it's a book. So there. Of course some books weren't on there and I had to add them--looking at Briane Pagel and Tony Laplume--so I could get credit for them.
My sister would also whine that reading my own books is "cheating." I don't ever understand that. If I'm reading the book why should it matter if I wrote it or not? Believe it or not, I don't have my books memorized, especially those I wrote like 15 years ago. I'd also point out it actually takes longer to read one of my own books because I have to stop to add notes when I find a typo or something like that. Some of my own books I read more than once to edit them, which would mean technically I've read more than 200 at this point. It occurred to me that she probably thinks my books aren't real books, not like all those trashy romances she reads; those are real books.
Besides the graphic novels and my own books, most of what I read this year came from Amazon sales. I hardly ever paid more than $3.99 for a book. I think the only ones I did were because I had a gift card. Most of the James Bond ones I rented for free off Amazon. What annoys me is that Amazon lets me rent as many movies as I want with my Prime membership but I get one measly book a month. The Bond books are all less than 300 pages so they only take a couple of days, which means I spend about 3 weeks of the month not able to rent anything when I'd like to. I wish Amazon would lighten up on this policy and let me borrow a few more a month if I so choose, but then I suppose they'd have to add more to their KDP pot.
Given the nature of Amazon's sales you'll note that I read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke and Kurt Vonnegut. I guess the royalties on those were pretty cheap so that they were frequently on sale. Which was fine with me. I'd wanted to read more Vonnegut and I had been interested in some Clarke. IMHO, Clarke is OK but not great. If you read enough of them they start to get a same-y feel to them. In his short stories especially he seemed fascinated with apocalyptic scenarios where the Earth (or another planet) is either dying or already dead. His Tales of the White Hart is one of the best ones because many of the stories are pretty funny, as are some of the moments between stories when pub patrons are giving each other the business over their stories; imagine "Cheers" only if they were all scientists and/or inventors.
To tally it up then the authors I read the most this year were:
- P.T. Dilloway (14, plus more under aliases) (narcissist)
- Arthur C. Clarke (7)
- Ian Fleming (7)
- Kurt Vonnegut (5)
- William Shatner (5)
And the leader for graphic novels was Laplume's favorite Grant Morrison with 8.
I'll probably read 2 more Flemings and I have a couple more Vonneguts on my Kindle to maybe read between now and December 31.
Definitely a lot of old timey stuff in there.
The average score was 4.06 stars, it's 3.92 stars without all my books that I give 5 stars since who else will? There were only 3 I gave 1 star:
- Ultimate Comics Captain America Aaron, Jason
- The Price of Fear (Darkman, #2) Boyll, Randall
- Accidents Waiting to Happen Wood, Simon
So any whiny author who wants to complain what a jerk I am for not loving their book, there you go. One book has 0 stars but I think I forgot to rate it when I marked it finished, so it doesn't count. I'll explain why I didn't like the Captain America one in this month's Comics Recap. The Darkman was just awful. It seriously seemed the author had never watched the movie. Or maybe watched it once. He didn't seem to really understand the characters at all. The depiction of Robert G. Durant wearing flashy pimp suits was all wrong and there's no way Darkman would dress up like the mortal enemy who ruined his life just for a little stroll around town. C'mon man! I think even in 1994 when I was 16 I could have wrote a better Darkman book. The other one was just really dumb. It was the kind of book where everyone in it was so stupid you wished they would all die. The hitman especially was ridiculous. Like I said in my Goodreads review, the point of a hitman is to kill someone quickly and quietly. You don't do that by menacing your target for weeks like Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear." Idiot.
As for the best, I'll pick three you probably haven't heard of and are not by me or people I know to avoid hurt feelings.
Transmigration McIntosh, J.T.
Being a huge narcissist, I think I liked this because I saw a lot of myself in the story. By that I mean the author approached this subject pretty much as I would have. It's about a guy who finds as he's dying that he can leap into the mind of someone nearby. The cool thing to me is McIntosh doesn't shy away from gender issues as the first person the guy leaps into is a mentally-challenged girl. Later he leaps into a young guy, a middle-aged guy, an old guy, a girl who was a student of his, and a little boy. So really, like me he didn't do it the boring way of just having him leap into guys about his own age. Since this was written in the 60s it was probably risque to think of a guy sharing a mind with a girl. I suppose I couldn't help liking an author who also used fake initials and probably hardly anyone had heard of.
Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain Martinez, A. Lee
What I liked about this book is that Martinez sets it in an old-timey Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-type universe where there are aliens pretty much on every planet of our system. Emperor Mollusk is from Neptune but rules the Earth. Not in the way a despot might rule it either. That's the other thing I liked is that Mollusk is clever and while also narcissistic, he doesn't let that become a liability for him the way comic book villains and the like do. He's a smart villain who in the context of the story is the hero. Basically if you combine "Megamind" with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" this is what you'd get.
Big Maria Shaw, Johnny
This is one of those I picked up on a sale on Amazon and wasn't sure if it'd be good or not. It was a lot better than I expected. Basically three losers in a desert town that made me think of "My Name is Earl" set out to find buried treasure on a weapons test range. Needless to say that creates problems. What I liked is that it's funny but at the same time the characters aren't all cutous. By the end of the book they really have formed a bond despite their differences in age and race. It's not necessarily a touchy-feely Hallmark or Lifetime movie but you are rooting for the characters.
Now then here's the complete list, which Blogger will probably make look like crap.
| # | Title | Author l-f | My Rating | Date Read |
| 1 | Up So Down | Pagel, Briane | 5 | 1/8/2013 |
| 2 | Change of Heart (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #4) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 1/12/2013 |
| 3 | Batman: Arkham Asylum | Morrison, Grant | 4 | 1/14/2013 |
| 4 | Betrayal Begets Blood (Tales of the Scarlet Knight 5) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 1/22/2013 |
| 5 | TekWar | Shatner, William | 4 | 1/25/2013 |
| 6 | TekLords | Shatner, William | 4 | 1/31/2013 |
| 7 | TekLab | Shatner, William | 4 | 2/6/2013 |
| 8 | Future Shock (Tales of the Scarlet Knight, #6) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 2/9/2013 |
| 9 | Tek Vengeance | Shatner, William | 4 | 2/13/2013 |
| 10 | Living Sacrifice (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #7) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 2/13/2013 |
| 11 | Tek Secret | Shatner, William | 4 | 2/16/2013 |
| 12 | The Con Man (87th Precinct, #4) | McBain, Ed | 2 | 2/20/2013 |
| 13 | The New Deadwardians | Abnett, Dan | 4 | 2/20/2013 |
| 14 | Letters to Psyche | Almazan, Sandra Ulbrich | 5 | 2/20/2013 |
| 15 | The Heart of Emma Earl (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #8) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 2/20/2013 |
| 16 | ThunderSnow | Borgne, Cindy | 5 | 2/21/2013 |
| 17 | A Drop of the Hard Stuff (Matthew Scudder #17) | Block, Lawrence | 3 | 2/23/2013 |
| 18 | Chance of a Lifetime (Chances Are #1) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 2/23/2013 |
| 19 | Blackcollar | Zahn, Timothy | 3 | 2/28/2013 |
| 20 | Second Chance (Chances Are #2) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 2/28/2013 |
| 21 | Last Chance (Chances Are #3) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 3/2/2013 |
| 22 | The Backlash Mission | Zahn, Timothy | 3 | 3/4/2013 |
| 23 | Wicked Game | Johnson, Tiny | 4 | 3/4/2013 |
| 24 | Twinned Universes (Catalyst Chronicles, #2) | Almazan, Sandra Ulbrich | 5 | 3/6/2013 |
| 25 | Human Sacrifices Other Tales | Johnson, Tiny | 5 | 3/6/2013 |
| 26 | Blood Sacrifices The Curse of Tabla Diabla | Johnson, Tiny | 5 | 3/7/2013 |
| 27 | Perfect Worlds: The Stone of Change | Johnson, Tiny | 5 | 3/8/2013 |
| 28 | Batman and Robin, Vol. 1: Batman Reborn | Morrison, Grant | 5 | 3/8/2013 |
| 29 | Batman and Robin, Vol. 3: Batman and Robin Must Die! | Morrison, Grant | 4 | 3/9/2013 |
| 30 | Batman and Robin, Vol. 2: Batman vs. Robin | Morrison, Grant | 5 | 3/9/2013 |
| 31 | Visionary of Peace (Vallar Series Book 2) | Borgne, Cindy | 5 | 3/10/2013 |
| 32 | The Backworlds (Book 1) | Pax, M. | 5 | 3/10/2013 |
| 33 | Dead Links | Mitchell, Nigel G. | 5 | 3/11/2013 |
| 34 | Eve Eden vs. the Blood Sucking Vampires (Bedeviled, #2) | Korb, Suz | 5 | 3/12/2013 |
| 35 | Women of Foxwick (The Foxwick Chronicles) | Reich, Cherie | 5 | 3/12/2013 |
| 36 | Dioscuri | Thoma, Chrystalla | 5 | 3/13/2013 |
| 37 | Whores: not intended to be a factual account of the gender war | Wilson, Nicolas | 5 | 3/13/2013 |
| 38 | The Spur - Loki's Rock | Ellis, Mark | 4 | 3/15/2013 |
| 39 | The Unforgetting | Mounfield, Jenny | 4 | 3/15/2013 |
| 40 | Protector (Anniversary of the Veil, #1) | Smythe, Vanna | 4 | 3/15/2013 |
| 41 | Batman Incorporated, Vol. 1 | Morrison, Grant | 4 | 3/16/2013 |
| 42 | Deadeye Dick | Vonnegut, Kurt | 5 | 3/16/2013 |
| 43 | Mother Night | Vonnegut, Kurt | 5 | 3/17/2013 |
| 44 | Casino Royale | Fleming, Ian | 4 | 3/18/2013 |
| 45 | The Pleasure of My Company | Martin, Steve | 4 | 3/19/2013 |
| 46 | Ubik | Dick, Philip K. | 5 | 3/19/2013 |
| 47 | A Coming of Age | Zahn, Timothy | 3 | 3/20/2013 |
| 48 | Brave New World | Huxley, Aldous | 4 | 3/21/2013 |
| 49 | Mercury Rises | Kroese, Robert | 2 | 3/22/2013 |
| 50 | We Are Now - Flash Fiction Collection | Craven, Sean | 5 | 3/22/2013 |
| 51 | Passion Blue | Strauss, Victoria | 3 | 3/23/2013 |
| 52 | The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter #1) | Pötzsch, Oliver | 2 | 3/24/2013 |
| 53 | Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 2: Knightquest (New Edition) | Dixon, Chuck | 4 | 3/25/2013 |
| 54 | Fahrenheit 451 | Bradbury, Ray | 5 | 3/25/2013 |
| 55 | Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1; Wool, #1-5) | Howey, Hugh | 3 | 3/27/2013 |
| 56 | Nate in Venice | Russo, Richard | 3 | 3/28/2013 |
| 57 | Moby-Dick | Melville, Herman | 2 | 3/29/2013 |
| 58 | Spinneret | Zahn, Timothy | 3 | 4/2/2013 |
| 59 | First Contact (Rebirth #1) | Filler, Eric | 4 | 4/3/2013 |
| 60 | The Savior (Rebirth #2) | Filler, Eric | 4 | 4/5/2013 |
| 61 | The Baby Blue Rip-Off | Collins, Max Allan | 4 | 4/7/2013 |
| 62 | The Final Battle (Rebirth #3) | Filler, Eric | 4 | 4/7/2013 |
| 63 | Snuff (Discworld, #39) | Pratchett, Terry | 4 | 4/10/2013 |
| 64 | The Shrinking Man | Matheson, Richard | 5 | 4/11/2013 |
| 65 | Small Town Hero | Stank, Jessica | 4 | 4/13/2013 |
| 66 | Crisis on Infinite Earths | Wolfman, Marv | 4 | 4/14/2013 |
| 67 | Vampire Pond | Swanson, Peter Joseph | 4 | 4/16/2013 |
| 68 | ALLIANCE | Stank, Jessica | 4 | 4/18/2013 |
| 69 | American Goddesses | Henry, Gary R. | 3 | 4/19/2013 |
| 70 | Cypress Lake | Basara, Joe | 4 | 4/23/2013 |
| 71 | Project Mayhem (Mouldwarp Press Presents) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 4/23/2013 |
| 72 | Yoshimi and the Shadow Clan (Yoshimi Trilogy) | Laplume, Tony | 4 | 4/25/2013 |
| 73 | Tales from the White Hart (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: Short Stories) | Clarke, Arthur C. | 5 | 4/26/2013 |
| 74 | Perfect Worlds Part 2: Game of Hearts | Johnson, Tiny | 5 | 4/26/2013 |
| 75 | Sale Day at C Mart | Basara, Joe | 5 | 4/30/2013 |
| 76 | The Death of Ivan Ilych | Tolstoy, Leo | 5 | 5/1/2013 |
| 77 | Infinite Crisis | Johns, Geoff | 4 | 5/2/2013 |
| 78 | Sidekick Misadventures of the new Scarlet Knight | Sungenis, Pab | 4 | 5/2/2013 |
| 79 | Superhero (An Action Thriller) | Methos, Victor | 4 | 5/6/2013 |
| 80 | Ham on Rye | Bukowski, Charles | 5 | 5/8/2013 |
| 81 | Chet Finley vs. The Machines of Fate | Filler, Eric | 5 | 5/8/2013 |
| 82 | Sinai | Smethurst, William | 4 | 5/14/2013 |
| 83 | The Evil That Men Do | Leon, Andrew | 5 | 5/14/2013 |
| 84 | Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain | Martinez, A. Lee | 5 | 5/16/2013 |
| 85 | Liberation Front | Madden, Paul L. | 5 | 5/20/2013 |
| 86 | Going Home | Carl, Rusty | 5 | 5/22/2013 |
| 87 | JLA, Vol. 2: American Dreams | Morrison, Grant | 4 | 5/29/2013 |
| 88 | JLA, Vol. 1: New World Order | Morrison, Grant | 5 | 5/29/2013 |
| 89 | Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin | Johns, Geoff | 5 | 5/30/2013 |
| 90 | The Cloak of Shrouded Men: Escapades of the Eidolon, Cotton Colinaude | Laplume, Tony | 3 | 6/3/2013 |
| 91 | The Leading Men | Madden, Paul L. | 5 | 6/4/2013 |
| 92 | Expedition To Earth | Clarke, Arthur C. | 5 | 6/5/2013 |
| 93 | Flying Saucers | Mitchell, Nigel G. | 5 | 6/6/2013 |
| 94 | Graffiti Grandma | Barney, Jo | 4 | 6/7/2013 |
| 95 | The Naked World | Madden, Paul L. | 4 | 6/11/2013 |
| 96 | Deadfolk | Williams, Charlie | 3 | 6/12/2013 |
| 97 | The Gravy Train | Lender, David | 4 | 6/13/2013 |
| 98 | Superman for All Seasons | Loeb, Jeph | 5 | 6/13/2013 |
| 99 | Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity | Wagner, Matt | 5 | 6/14/2013 |
| 100 | Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol. 2 | Azzarello, Brian | 4 | 6/15/2013 |
| 101 | Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol. 1 | Azzarello, Brian | 5 | 6/15/2013 |
| 102 | Once Bitten | Leather, Stephen | 3 | 6/17/2013 |
| 103 | The Best Light | Madden, Paul L. | 5 | 6/17/2013 |
| 104 | Starfire: A Vince Lombard Story | Lee, Mike | 3 | 6/19/2013 |
| 105 | Higher Power | Lachance, Claire | 4 | 6/19/2013 |
| 106 | A Necessary Innocence | Filler, Eric | 5 | 6/23/2013 |
| 107 | Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim #1) | Kadrey, Richard | 4 | 6/24/2013 |
| 108 | The Turning | Barwell, Mark | 2 | 6/26/2013 |
| 109 | Doctor No | Fleming, Ian | 4 | 6/28/2013 |
| 110 | Goldfinger | Fleming, Ian | 4 | 7/3/2013 |
| 111 | The Last Conquest | Filler, Eric | 5 | 7/3/2013 |
| 112 | Captain America, Vol. 2 | Brubaker, Ed | 4 | 7/4/2013 |
| 113 | Captain America, Vol. 1 | Brubaker, Ed | 4 | 7/4/2013 |
| 114 | Hit Me | Block, Lawrence | 4 | 7/8/2013 |
| 115 | Perfect Worlds Part 3: Secret of the Stone | Johnson, Tiny | 5 | 7/8/2013 |
| 116 | Captain America, Vol. 3 | Brubaker, Ed | 3 | 7/9/2013 |
| 117 | Captain America, Vol. 4 | Brubaker, Ed | 5 | 7/9/2013 |
| 118 | The Year of the Jackpot | Heinlein, Robert A. | 4 | 7/10/2013 |
| 119 | Who Goes There? | Jr., John W. Campbell | 4 | 7/10/2013 |
| 120 | Gun, With Occasional Music | Lethem, Jonathan | 5 | 7/10/2013 |
| 121 | The Songs Of Distant Earth | Clarke, Arthur C. | 3 | 7/12/2013 |
| 122 | From Russia With Love | Fleming, Ian | 3 | 7/12/2013 |
| 123 | Fates Worse Than Death | Vonnegut, Kurt | 5 | 7/16/2013 |
| 124 | Raylan (Raylan Givens, #3) | Leonard, Elmore | 2 | 7/17/2013 |
| 125 | Big Maria | Shaw, Johnny | 5 | 7/19/2013 |
| 126 | The Pain Scale | Dilts, Tyler | 2 | 7/24/2013 |
| 127 | Getting Off: A Novel of Sex and Violence (Hard Case Crime #69) | Block, Lawrence | 5 | 7/25/2013 |
| 128 | Miss Otis regrets. And other short stories | Moitzi, Dieter | 4 | 7/26/2013 |
| 129 | Reach for Tomorrow | Clarke, Arthur C. | 3 | 7/27/2013 |
| 130 | Girl Power | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 7/28/2013 |
| 131 | 2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1) | Clarke, Arthur C. | 4 | 7/29/2013 |
| 132 | A Drink Before the War (Kenzie & Gennaro #1) | Lehane, Dennis | 4 | 8/1/2013 |
| 133 | Flashpoint | Johns, Geoff | 4 | 8/2/2013 |
| 134 | The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk | Pak, Greg | 4 | 8/3/2013 |
| 135 | The Incredible Hulk: Prelude To Planet Hulk | Way, Daniel | 4 | 8/3/2013 |
| 136 | World War Hulk | Pak, Greg | 3 | 8/4/2013 |
| 137 | World War Hulk: The Incredible Hercules | Pak, Greg | 4 | 8/4/2013 |
| 138 | The Fort | Davis, Aric | 4 | 8/5/2013 |
| 139 | Live and Let Die | Fleming, Ian | 4 | 8/7/2013 |
| 140 | Lost Horizon | Hilton, James | 0 | 8/8/2013 |
| 141 | POWERED | Young, Cheyanne | 5 | 8/10/2013 |
| 142 | The Hangman (Darkman, #1) | Boyll, Randall | 3 | 8/11/2013 |
| 143 | The Avengers, Vol. 1 | Bendis, Brian Michael | 3 | 8/13/2013 |
| 144 | Something Wicked This Way Comes | Bradbury, Ray | 5 | 8/13/2013 |
| 145 | The Sex Gates (Sex Gates, #1) | Bain, Darrell | 2 | 8/15/2013 |
| 146 | Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Volume 1 | Bendis, Brian Michael | 5 | 8/18/2013 |
| 147 | Childhood's End | Clarke, Arthur C. | 3 | 8/20/2013 |
| 148 | Transmigration | McIntosh, J.T. | 5 | 8/21/2013 |
| 149 | Factotum | Bukowski, Charles | 4 | 8/23/2013 |
| 150 | Temporary Anne | Pagel, Briane | 5 | 8/28/2013 |
| 151 | Women | Bukowski, Charles | 3 | 8/30/2013 |
| 152 | Hitter | Guarino, Daryn | 4 | 9/4/2013 |
| 153 | Solaris | Lem, Stanisław | 4 | 9/6/2013 |
| 154 | Captain America: Winter Soldier, Volume 2 | Brubaker, Ed | 4 | 9/8/2013 |
| 155 | New X-Men, Vol. 1: E is for Extinction | Morrison, Grant | 4 | 9/8/2013 |
| 156 | The Confessions of Max Tivoli | Greer, Andrew Sean | 4 | 9/10/2013 |
| 157 | Moonraker | Fleming, Ian | 3 | 9/12/2013 |
| 158 | The Man in the High Castle | Dick, Philip K. | 4 | 9/13/2013 |
| 159 | The Price of Fear (Darkman, #2) | Boyll, Randall | 1 | 9/15/2013 |
| 160 | The Gods of Hell (Darkman, #3) | Boyll, Randall | 3 | 9/18/2013 |
| 161 | Overdraft: The Orion Offensive | Miller, John Jackson | 3 | 9/18/2013 |
| 162 | Flight from Rebirth | McIntosh, J.T. | 5 | 9/19/2013 |
| 163 | In the Face of Death (Darkman, #4) | Boyll, Randall | 3 | 9/22/2013 |
| 164 | Justice: Volume 2 | Krueger, Jim | 4 | 9/22/2013 |
| 165 | Justice, Vol. 1 | Krueger, Jim | 4 | 9/22/2013 |
| 166 | Justice: Volume 3 | Krueger, Jim | 5 | 9/23/2013 |
| 167 | My Killbot Buddy | Carl, Rusty | 5 | 9/24/2013 |
| 168 | Jailbird | Vonnegut, Kurt | 5 | 9/24/2013 |
| 169 | The Sisters Brothers | deWitt, Patrick | 4 | 9/26/2013 |
| 170 | Pull Yourself Together | Glavinic, Thomas | 5 | 9/28/2013 |
| 171 | Batman: Hush | Loeb, Jeph | 4 | 9/29/2013 |
| 172 | Lex Luthor: Man of Steel | Azzarello, Brian | 5 | 9/29/2013 |
| 173 | The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning | Helgason, HallgrÃmur | 3 | 9/30/2013 |
| 174 | Accidents Waiting to Happen | Wood, Simon | 1 | 10/1/2013 |
| 175 | Earthlight | Clarke, Arthur C. | 3 | 10/2/2013 |
| 176 | Slapstick | Vonnegut, Kurt | 4 | 10/2/2013 |
| 177 | Diamonds are Forever | Fleming, Ian | 4 | 10/4/2013 |
| 178 | Sweet Tooth | McEwan, Ian | 2 | 10/6/2013 |
| 179 | Pulp | Bukowski, Charles | 4 | 10/7/2013 |
| 180 | Civil War | Millar, Mark | 5 | 10/7/2013 |
| 181 | Fear | Hubbard, L. Ron | 4 | 10/8/2013 |
| 182 | Fool | Dillen, Frederick G. | 4 | 10/9/2013 |
| 183 | The Whole Bloody Affair (Yoshimi Trilogy) | Laplume, Tony | 4 | 10/10/2013 |
| 184 | The Specialists | Block, Lawrence | 4 | 10/11/2013 |
| 185 | Make Room! Make Room! | Harrison, Harry | 4 | 10/11/2013 |
| 186 | The Status Civilization | Sheckley, Robert | 4 | 10/14/2013 |
| 187 | Canada | Ford, Richard | 4 | 10/17/2013 |
| 188 | The Impostors (Girl Power #2) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 10/19/2013 |
| 189 | Ultimate Comics Captain America | Aaron, Jason | 1 | 10/20/2013 |
| 190 | Justice League of America, Vol. 1: World's Most Dangerous | Johns, Geoff | 3 | 10/20/2013 |
| 191 | Marvel Universe vs. the Avengers | Maberry, Jonathan | 3 | 10/20/2013 |
| 192 | Avengers Assemble Volume 1 | Bendis, Brian Michael | 4 | 10/20/2013 |
| 193 | Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine | Maberry, Jonathan | 4 | 10/20/2013 |
| 194 | Marvel Universe Vs. the Punisher | Maberry, Jonathan | 4 | 10/20/2013 |
| 195 | Blood Makes Noise | Widen, Gregory | 3 | 10/22/2013 |
| 196 | Sisterhood (Tales of the Coven) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 10/22/2013 |
| 197 | Breakfast at Tiffany's | Capote, Truman | 5 | 10/24/2013 |
| 198 | Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 10/26/2013 |
| 199 | Wayne of Gotham | Hickman, Tracy | 3 | 10/29/2013 |
| 200 | Star Shepherd | Dilloway, P.T. | 5 | 10/29/2013 |
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