movie reviews, comic book reviews, music reviews, book reviews, vegan, observations, attention must be paid, a fly on the wall, photos, video, creative projects
Jamie Insalaco
chewyowl
Nurse Becky
4 Ways To Bitch Slap Your Christmas Shopping
7 Christmas Movies That Aren’t Really Christmas Movies
Black Friday: Somebody’s Coming
12 Dates of Christmas movie review
Learn Bar Tending: Whiskey & Egg Nog
Free Parking, Christmas Style
Santa Claus on the fire engine
7 Christmas Movies That Aren’t Really Christmas Movies
Eight Crazy Nights movie review
Learn Bar Tending: Dark Rum & Eggnog
Christmas Shopping on Christmas Eve
Merry Christmas!
"Psh... I'm the REAL Winter Soldier!"
Since I’ve been contributing at AComicbookBlog.com, I’ve been reviewing crap – at least for the most part. But now, I get to talk about something awesome: Winter Soldier! Ed Brubaker’s one of my favorite writers, so the fact that he’s got another book out and I get to review it is awesome.
And speaking of my favorite writers, I’ve also taken over the duties of reviewing X-Factor, written by Peter David, who I had the good fortune to interview last year.
An eight part series came out on eight president contenders, and they released Barack Obama’s issue first. What sense does that make? They knew he’d be in the general election, so why not release his issue last? I’m sure everyone’s face was red when the Sarah Palin issue came out. Anyway, I’m pretty sure they’re just quick biographies in all their fluffiness, but the Obama issue was the only one I bought.
Hells yeah - I'd vote for that!
Ha - Sarah Palin! Way to read the Tea Leaves!
I imagine that the conversation on who to put in here went something like, “Look, we can’t fit nine, so we have to draw the the line somewhere… who do you want? Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich?” I imagined someone vomited and said, “Yuck! Go with Perry, I guess. At least he has a soul… well, probably.”
If you're not wearing a tie, this pose just doesn't work. Sorry, ladies.
more Comic Book Reviews at creativejamie.com/category/comic-book-reviews/
more Election 2012 at creativejamie.com/category/election-2012/
Batman never leaves home without his gadgets – his utility belt is stocked with batarangs, grapple gun, smoke bombs… oh and the iconic Bat Spray from the 1960s Adam West movie. Oh, and, as seen in Batman and Robin, the GothCard.
"Never leave home without it." Sigh.
If you’re familiar with Spider-Man, then you already know that it’s fairly routine for someone to shout, “It’s all Spider-Man’s fault!” It’s his proverbial cross; he has to be the hero at the sacrifice of his personal life, not tell anyone he’s Spider-Man and then watch as public opinion is turned against his heroic exploits by J. Jonah Jameson (editor of the local paper), or anybody else who’s job it is via the plot to make Peter Parker’s life a living hell.
These days, Spider-Man is in The Avengers and The New Avengers (come to think of it, he’s also in The Future Foundation, which is part of the reason why no one can agree which costume he’s supposed to be wearing when, and I thought he left proper Avengers and is only in New Avengers now, yet he’s all over the annual issue, but those are rants for another day); two teams, one human spider – fine. The problem is, both Avengers books are starting to turn into Spider-Man books.
Look, I’m all for Spider-Man; he’s a fun, interesting character that’s great to have around in a team book. (I prefer just a seasoning of Spider-Man – I can’t read any of his solo books.) When you’re collecting personalities, the wise cracking, boy scout oath observing, web headed all crawler is a must for The Avengers, but the thing that’s begun to happen is both The Avengers and The New Avengers have inherited his problem.
Check out Avengers Annual 2012 and you’ll see that Wonder Man has returned. He’s going around making the case that the Avengers must disband because they do more harm than good; whether it’s property damage, civilian causalities, the death of teammates or Wonder Man got a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking, he’s sure the Avengers are to blame and the world would be better off without them. As a former Avengers himself, he knows all the dirty secrets and where all the bodies are buried. He showed up once or twice to yell at them before he started punching them in the face, but make no mistake – he took his message to the media and now people are constantly protesting the Avengers.
If you flip through a few pages of New Avengers #20, you’ll see that Norman Osborn is back and, like he previously threatened, he’s making life hell for the New Avengers and doing his best to smear them in public, setting up yet another round of protests from a city that would be nothing but a smoking crater without them.
You know, like during the Fear Itself miniseries, when Manhattan was turned into a smoking crater.
I’d guess that this is happening because both books are penned by Brian Michael Bendis, who has written a ton of Spider-Man comics in his time. Also, both the Wonder Man and Norman Osborn stories are very similar: they both assemble a team of super powered beings to fight the Avengers, they both work on damaging the Avengers reputations and they both are really starting to piss me off as they do the same thing as one another!
Knock it the hell off!
Since I saw the first teaser for The Dark Knight Rises, I can’t help but speculate about the plot. Today, I lay it all down for you based on my comic book knowledge, what’s in the trailers and other clues. If you read on, there’s a chance I spoil the movie for you – you’ve been warned!
My favorite Thai restaurant is expecting a fairly large dinner party tonight. Eleven people probably nets a pretty sizable check, right? Well, I have my doubts about whether or not they’ll actually show up given that the reservation was made by the Last Son of Krypton.
“Kent, eleven?” That is pretty awesome.
I love comic books and I think they can be adapted for children, but there is a line.
I grew up on all sorts of violent media: He-Man, Thundercats, Transformers, GI Joe… if I was watching it, someone was getting punched in the face. Of course, I also loved comic books (and still do), but adapting this sort of thing to a story book is tricky. The biggest stumbling block is that story books are generally the sort of thing that, for this particular age group, are a shared experience between parents and children, and it doesn’t need to be an uncomfortable experience.
GETTING IT WRONG:
Captain America, The First Avenger: The Great Escape
This novelization of the movie of the same name only encapsulates one scene – when Cap finds out that his best friend from home, Bucky, has been captured by the Nazis. (I know the ‘N’ word doesn’t get tossed around a lot in the movie, but that’s what they are… and, if you think about it, they’re sorta Super Nazis!) Just look at this page:
When I show this to people, they don’t even read the entire page before they look up and say, “This is ridiculous,” or “Is this real? Did you photoshop this?” Do you want to explain to your kid what a casualty list is? I think not. I love Captain America and he’s a great role model for kids (although fictional characters shouldn’t really be role models for kids), but this is going too far.
Star Wars: The Story of Darth Vader
Because the kids have got to learn about Darth Vader somehow, right? Better that it comes from you and they don’t pick it up on the streets. That way, when they have to confront Darth Vader in their daily lives, it’ll be in its proper context. Stuff like this:
"Proper context THIS!"
Children’s literature needs more images like this. Remember kids, train yourself to let go of all that you fear to lose, or you’ll end up like THIS! THIS!!!
GETTING IT RIGHT:
DC Super Friends: Heroes United
Ah, here we go:
See, this is how it’s done – get together with Aqua Man and go tubing! Hooray!!
I’m not sensitive and I don’t have kids, but some of this stuff is too much. Often, I find that we insulate kids too much from experiences that would help them grow (modern playgrounds are a good example of this), but the fall of Anakin Skywalker probably doesn’t need to get added to the story book shelf.
The fourth in a series of comic book movies to debut this year, Captain America The First Avenger stands just a little bit taller than the rest, and there are a ton of reasons why, but I’m not going to bother listing the short comings of Green Lantern, Thor or X-Men First Class again. As the saying used to go, “Let’s rap with Cap!”
First off, as a life long Captain America fan, I’m still shocked anyone showed up to watch this movie. Much to my surprise, people know who Captain America is! I saw this at the local mall multiplex on Sunday night with a packed house, featuring many folks in Captain America t-shirts, including the ladies. I never expected this, and it fascinated to the point where I almost asked folks if I could photograph them as this seemed to unlikely to be real. But, I got it now: people know who Captain America is – duly noted. (Or, they are big fans of Dunkin Donuts.)
Steve Rogers: "My metabolism burns four times faster than a normal persons, so I can eat this crap."
As a big time Cap fan, you might say I’m biased toward liking this movie no matter what, but I would argue that I am uniquely positioned to hate this movie in a way that most people are not, but this Cap movie caninot be denied. (This Cap movie is a star spangled piece of ASS!) Captain America is a solid movie with good flow, which is largely due to the efforts of Chris Evans as Cap, the rest of the actors in the movie, and (for the most part) quality story telling and editing.
This movie is charming as hell. I can’t remember the last time someone blended action and comedy together so well – and it’s not like this is a Lethal Weapon movie or something; there are no sax riffs to tell the audience “Hey! That was a joke!” But the real charm comes from the actors and the characters they play, especially the earnest manner in which Chris Evans plays Steve Rogers.
You know what this movie has a lot of? Montages. Now that’s not a bad thing – even Rocky had a montage. But Captain America has one too many… and they might have gotten away with that last one if it was a done a bit better – how hard is it to put together a montage of Captain America punching Nazis in the face? Harder than I thought, I guess. They could have replaced that last montage with this scene from the video game – its vastly superior. But the USO montage was great, and so was the song that accompanied it. And after that part of the movie was over and he was able to get out of the spandex, Captain America could declare with pride, “Don’t worry – I’ve knocked out Adolf Hitler over 200 times.”
"I think the girls only know the one song... but I'll see what I can do."
Tommy Lee Jones is awesome in this movie. That goes without saying – can you think of a movie he’s bad in? “Batman Forever.” Bullshit! The movie might be campy and silly, but Tommy Lee Jones cannot be denied. I thought he was going to be in the movie for five minutes, giving the speech we saw him give in the trailer, but it’s for real – Tommy Lee Jones is all over this flick – a nice surprise.
You know what this movie didn’t have that these movies almost always have? A damsel in distress. Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) didn’t need any saving – she was too busy shooting Nazi spies in the head! After Thor, this was a refreshing change. and in many ways, Peggy is Steve’s equal.
I was very happy with Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of the Red Skull, except I thought they could have gone with a bit darker red – more maroon, less candy apple – but that’s just me. Stanley Tucci was wonderful as Dr. Abraham Erskine, who joined Mr. Weaving in doing that great movie accent, the “I’m from a part of Europe where they don’t speak English but isn’t it easy to understand me?” sort of thing that people do in movies to convey that they’re not Americans. Like Evans, Atwell and Jones, Tucci and Weaving really brought a lot to their roles and the movie as a whole.
The music in this movie is horrendous! It defies explanation; in fact, I’ll go as far to say that the music was worse than the score from X-Men First Class. This was a big movie and it need a big score, but what we got were boring, tired themes that just didn’t do anything for me upon the first hearing and then gradually got on my nerves until I wanted to scream. It’s that bad. I guess John Williams was unavailable.
"That guy is only wearing underwear - in the snow!"
My biggest gripe with the movie was the first few minutes – starting in the present day was a total bummer. Did they need to tell the audience what was going to happen at the end of the movie right at the beginning? I assure you that we have the patience to wait two hours to find out what’s going to happen at the end of the movie! (They did this in Thor, too, although that was just the beginning of the second act – but still, very annoying.) Anyway, I really wanted to see Captain America frozen in ice… and I really wanted the Avengers to find him a the beginning of their movie, but I guess that meant we would have had to ask the audience to deal with an ending where Captain America is dead, and the producers didn’t want to do that. Still, finding Steve Rogers after 70 years should be a bigger deal for everyone – including Steve.
The final battle could have been a bit more dramatic, and I think the audience probably had a hard time figuring out what the hell happened to the Red Skull and why it happened… I’m not sure myself. Did he get sucked up into one of the nine realms? Or is that the thing from Thor… the ice chest thingy… or is it actually the Cosmic Cube, and he’s trapped inside? I have no idea, but I’m betting we find out sooner or later.
For those of you with a full, active life, the biggest departure from Captain America lore was Bucky Barnes’ character, to where he’s from to how he dies (not to mention what he wears); the only thing they kept from the comics was his close relationship with Steve – but that’s OK. I think shifting Bucky’s death to the second act was a necessary cinematic thing to bring Steve to his lowest point. If they didn’t choose this route, they probably would have gone with a falling out with Peggy, and that could have been disastrous for this film – it would have given the romantic sub plot too much importance. I’m all for love, but, you know… winning World War II is probably more important than falling in love.
Captain America: The First Avenger is the best action movie I can think of that has three montages, but hey, even Scarface has a montage. This movie has something for everybody: comedy, action, romance, adventure, fantasy and sci-fi – all rolled up into one Nazi punching, montaging, joke cracking good time of a movie. I recommend you check it out!
If you’re not familiar with the X-Men movies from the previous decade (the three gay rights allegory films: X-Men from 2000, X2 from 2003 and X-Men: The Last Stand from 2006, or, as I like to call it, X3: What happened to Nightcrawler?), don’t worry about it – you can easily sit down and watch X-Men: First Class (equal rights allegory) without any trouble.
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t have any problem with allegory; and, aside from X3: The Search For A Plot That Feels True Without A Ton Of Tacked On BS, I like the X-Men movies, and this newest prequel installment is no exception. Sure, it confuses 1962 with other years that starts with 196 in an attempt to put more women in little skirts, but whatever.
spoiler alert!
Summary: Like the first X-Men movie, we start at a Concentration Camp and see Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto discover his power, and is subsequently experimented on by Dr. Schmidt/Sebastian Shaw, who kills Erik’s mother in an attempt to motivate him. Next, we meet Charles Xavier, who takes in the homeless young Raven/Mystique as a fellow mutant. Then we time cut to 1962 and see Erik hunting Shaw to avenge his mother and the torture he suffered while Charles is finishing his PHD with Raven, who is along for the ride in England. Moira MacTaggert, a CIA agent, discovers Shaw’s plan to pressure US officials to install American missiles in Turkey, which she is unable to stop. MacTaggert also discovers there are mutants involved and enlists Xavier to help, who reveals himself as a mutant and agrees to help the CIA track down Shaw. Their first attempt at apprehending Shaw is a defeat, but they do meet Erik, who is also on Shaw’s trail, and they realize they’re going to need more mutants to help them take down Shaw, who has his own mutant team. Oliver Platt (who’s character seems to have no name and who cares, because he dies quickly anyway) introduces the still forming team to Hank McCoy/Beast, who himself is also a mutant and builds Cerebro, a tool Charles can use to find more mutants, which he does: Sean Cassidy/Banshee, Armando Muñoz/Darwin, Alex Summers/Havok and Angel Salvadore – who are all fairly useless and underdeveloped, but not as underdeveloped as Shaw’s cast of flunkies. Anywho, in Shaw’s final masterstroke to instigate a nuclear war that will clear the way for mutant kind to take over the earth, he has forced the Russians to instigate the Cuban missile crisis. A showdown between the mutant teams keeps the missiles from crossing the line and averts nuclear war, but when both Russia and the US decide they are better off killing off the mutants (a power they can’t control), they mutants are torn between fighting for their place in society and killing those that would kill them. They go their separate ways, some siding with Erik and others staying with Charles.
There was a lot to like about this movie; I’ve heard some argue that it’s difficult to decide whether you’re supposed to identify with Erik’s philosophy of militant resistance against those that would oppress mutants and Charles’ philosophy of working together, but I don’t think you have to choose, because depending on the situation, they’re both right. It’s easy to see Charles’ point about it being wrong to kill, but on the other hand, Shaw is a Nazi mass murdering fuck head, so FUCK SHAW! Push the Nazi coin through his head again, just to make sure he’s dead! Hell, separate his head from his body, Deadpool style!
The movie has an easy, likable way about it, with great performances and directing, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this is the best of the X-Men movies, including Origins: Wolverine. Sure, it would have been nice to get to know Banshee, Havok, Angel and Darwin better, but I guess they were introduced too late in the movie for there to be that much development for those characters. And really, the only black mutant in the movie dies shortly after he’s introduced? And he’s Darwin; can’t he adapt to survive anything? Whatever. They should have dressed him in one of those red shirts from Star Trek.
Whew.
I only have a few other complaints about X-Men: First Class:
The Music is boring
It’s repetitive – the same theme is used over and over, and it’s not a great theme. It makes the theme from the new Batman movies sound like a thoughtful masterpiece – need I say more? I guess everybody can’t be John Williams.
The Bad Guys Aren’t Well Developed
So for bad guys, we’ve got Sebastian Shaw (aka Dr. Schmidt… same last name as the Red Skull, Johan Schmidt… their both Nazis… hmm…), who is pretty two dimensional; Emma Frost, whose ever present rack I did not find intimidating (not to mention the fact that January Jones isn’t the world’s greatest actor) and two other guys… the red one who teleports and one who makes tornadoes… didn’t catch their names. Thanks to the internet, I know they’re Azazel and Riptide, but whatever – I guess they’re just mutant bodyguards who don’t necessarily need to be fleshed out. I would, however, have liked to have learned how Shaw and Frost got together, and why everyone is so loyal to Shaw in the first place. And what is the purpose of the Hellfire Club? Pretty sure that was important in the comics.
Azazel could Have Teleported Them Out Of There Before the Missiles Hit
Just saying… He didn’t have any problem teleporting the group away after the conflict was resolved… aw the hell with it! Oh, and when Magneto stopped all of the missiles, did anyone else think back to Ian McKellen in the very first X-Men, when he took control of all of the cops’ guns and warned Charles, “I don’t think I can stop them all!” in reference to firing all the guns at once and catching the bullets… again, just sayin’.
For all my complaining, this movie has a lot going for it. Charles and Erik have an interesting Martin Luther King and Malcom X sort of thing going, which is interesting to watch develop about the movie. Essentially, they’re the only two characters who really matter (well, Mystic matters as much), and the movie is really a nice character story about how two guys meet, bond, and grow apart, with some nice action thrown in. Good directing, good dialogue, good overall story telling – X-men First Class is worth seeing for comic book and movie fans alike.
Imagine you’re in charge of choosing the basic story for the Green Lantern movie. It’s a daunting task; after all, the first Green Lantern appeared in All-American Comics issue #16 in July of 1940 – I’m not trying to up my nerd credit (and yes, I get that the first Green Lantern from the Golden Age of comic books was quite different than the second Silver Age Green Lantern), but I just want to point out that there are decades worth of stories a screenplay could be based on – not to mention multiple Green Lanterns to choose from. As for me, I’m a John Stewart kind of guy, but that’s not the reason why I’m going to have such a hard time saying good things about this movie.
In fact, I very much enjoyed Green Lantern: First Flight, proving that I can enjoy Hal Jordan as GL, and I assumed, right up until the end, that we’d get a very similar movie… and I guess we did… sort of. But rather than a straight forward movie, I felt that instead, the producers assembled every possible idea, plot thread and character available, tossed them in a hat in an attempt to pick one – and instead, picked ALL OF THEM. Let’s see if I can weave my way through this unnecessarily complicated mess of bizarre execution and choices of what should have been a simple story about how a guy becomes an intergalactic cop, but instead is the story of a guy at odds with a girl he loves (?), at odds with a guy who is the main competition for said girl (and neither of them know about it?), but also has issues with is father’s accidental death… forget it, I give up.
Hal Jordan (and his daddy issues)
Ryan Reynolds pulls off the roll, but he’s severely limited in his ability to use his Reynolds-ness by a script that just doesn’t give him any opportunities to do much of anything. I guess he’s traumatized by his father’s death, which we got to witness in the most awkward of flashbacks in cinematic history, but although the movie constantly references it, they never really explain his feelings on it. And for a movie called Green Lantern, uhm, he doesn’t fly around a lot and do Green Lantern stuff. This was the sort of movie that needed that Superman montage of scenes where he flies around, stops jewel bandits, robbers on boats and gets cats out of trees – this wasn’t Iron Man, where we were enjoying the story and didn’t need Iron Man to blow stuff up every five minutes. I also don’t get why the Green Lantern outfits needed to be all digital and moving… that really added something to the movie… ugh.
Carol Ferris (and her daddy issues)
Blake Lively… I wouldn’t say she can’t act – that’s not a fair thing to say. Her character is written poorly and her dialogue is awful. “You have the power to overcome fear.” Seriously? Who wrote that? Who thought that was OK? Any speech any character gives in this movie sucks. And what exactly ended Carol and Hal’s relationship? And how long ago could that have been? Carol looks like she’s 22. And her relationship with her dad is… weird.
Hector Hammond (and his daddy issues)
Peter Sarsgaard is, like Ryan Reynolds, totally underutilized and under developed. And the character design is hilarious; this just isn’t the sort of character that translates to the screen. Didn’t anyone tell the producers that film is a visual medium and this was never going to look good? And the confrontation between Hector and Hal at the end of the movie sucks. It takes about 5 seconds for Hal to outwit him. And, for good measure, Hector kills his father in the second act of the film.
Senator Hammond (a dad)
So Tim Robbins plays Senator Hammond in this movie… I guess he’s a US Senator? I guess he’s on the Armed Services Committee? I guess. It’s Tim effing Robbins! Couldn’t they have found something better for him to do? It’s City of Ember all over again!
Sinestro
Mark Strong gave his usual attention commanding performance – he was one of the few big actors that was well cast, if under utilized. They did recycle that shot of him from that speech he gave near the middle of the movie: “Lanterns, we face an unprecedented danger… it seems that a giant calamari with the head of one of The Guardians is wandering the galaxy, devouring worlds! It makes Galactus sound like… I don’t know… the Nazis. Let’s go with the Nazis.” You know, the part where he raises his arms? Its in the trailer. Anyway, they used that shot again at the end of the movie. (Lazy!) It would have been nice to see him in action at Hal’s side once before he goes bad (as the credits so unnecessarily teased with no explanation whatsoever), so they could have established a bond… maybe they’ll squeeze it into the sequel. Whatever.
Sinestro... with arms wide open. (Twice.)
Doctor Waller (and her unnecessary family issues)
Angela Bassett is in this movie – it’s not your fault if you didn’t notice – and we see her family get killed via weird flashback. He inclusion seemed unnecessary; I felt like they were introducing her (like many other characters) so they wouldn’t have to do introductions in a future Green Lantern/DC Comics movie. Historically, I like this character a lot, but we just didn’t get much here. Her inclusion in the movie is a microcosm of the entire flick itself – underdeveloped and probably unnecessary.
The Guardians (who are daddies themselves, sort of)
So weird dudes with big heads run the Green Lantern Corps. Obviously. Their behavior was weird, their decision making process… half ass. Their decision to make Sinestro the fear ring seemed to be based on the idea that they couldn’t make a sequel without the yellow ring.
The Yellow Calamari Looking Thing (Parallax)
Again, didn’t anyone tell the producers that film is a visual medium and this was never going to look good? I don’t know much about Green Lantern, but was Parallax necessary? And like Hector, Hal didn’t have much trouble dispatching him, despite the immense ass kicking he gave to other Green Lanterns in just seconds.
Green Lantern is at a 26% from the critics and at 55% from the fans on Rotten Tomatoes, but I think reality lies in between – it’s not unwatchable, but I wouldn’t recommend that anyone run out and see it. (By the way, I saw it in 2D rather than 3D – the movie didn’t look like it was worth the extra money, and I stand by that decision.) If you want to see a movie about Green Lantern, I recommend you go rent Green Lantern: First Flight… from where ever you can rent movies from nowadays.
Speculating on the plot of Dark Knight Rises
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review
5 Reasons I Loved The Muppets – a movie review
Newt Gingrich: “To the moon, Alice!”
South Carolina Tea Party Doesn’t Like Ron Paul
My Five Favorite Things About Mitt Romney (sarcasm)
