A Nerd Reviews

Too long, too long, too long.

 Oh, and it was too long.

In the movie theater, watching it for the first time, Dark Knight was really entertaining. I do remember my bladder begging to differ sometime around the Gordon v. Dent scene, but that sort of added to the tension at the time.

But watching it a second time, with out the glitzy big screen, I was very disappointed. I was more forgiving the first time. But, after raving about the movie to my parents, I was awfully embarrassed to have to sit through the movie a second time and beg their forgiveness.

What happened to the Joker after Batman jumps out of the Harvey Dent fundraiser to save Rachael? Did he just hang about and schmooze? Or did he torture and humiliate a bunch of people while looking for Harvey? Or did he just give up and call it a night?

I guess the audience was supposed to assume the later, but, come on!

And all those scenes with the cell phone sonar-unnecessary. It felt like an obvious set-up for a video game.

And didn’t it feel preachy? Like a bunch of bumper stickers and just-say-no ads strung together with explosions in between?

Outside of the please-suspend-your-disbelief moments (everything involving the police and the Joker, the dogs v. batman-the-martial-arts-trained-unarmed-combat-specialist, the chase scene where Dent’s in custody and the Joker apparently PLANS on being captured) there were also those we’re-just-not-going-to-explain-ourselves moments-like the fundraiser where Bruce takes out Dent just as Gordon’s learning about the DNA on the card…and then leaving the Joker in a room full of Gotham’s most powerful while lounging with Rachael, the fingerprint constructed with bullet fragments-REALLY?-and disappearing reappearing Dent coin-did Batman pull it from Rachael’s body and put it next to Dent to GENTLY let him know Rachael was dead?

It’s not very surprising that today’s 100 most searched words include several variations of Thanksgiving, Thanks giving, and Turkey.

But why is Paris Hilton still interesting?

Or Britney Spears for that matter?

Aren’t people tired of these girls yet?
I know, I know, as long as boobs and any other type of naked is involved, they’ll never get old.

Other top searches today: MP3, wiki, skin, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Eminem, mapquest, American Idol, Tsunami, Greenland, Brooke Burke, Playboy, Myspace, The Shield, Cooking, Recipes, Batman, Bat Man, Dark Knight, treatment, and a variety of curse words, diseases, and mispellings.

I was surprised that Black Friday or Blackfriday deals didn’t make it on the list.

Wolves at the Gate 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, “Wolves at the Gate,” was written by neither Joss Whedon nor Brian K. Vaughn (who wrote the Faith story arc) and the story-telling is the poorer for it.

The story was okay, but it wasn’t what I hoped for.

The tragedy was done well enough but there were moments where it seemed writer, Drew Goddard, tried to awkwardly parody the story and its characters, and while Joss Whedon has successfully done this, most notably in Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, episode seven, “Once More, With Feeling,” Drew Goddard takes interesting ideas and set-ups from previous issues and turns them into setups for frivolous gags.  Some of them work, most of them do not.

I’ve heard plenty of people say they enjoyed the battle in Tokyo between Dawn and the giant robot built by the Japanese vampires, Mecha Dawn.  Pretty funny in summary; pretty lame in execution.

Xander’s new girlfriend is murdered shortly after their first kiss.  The actual murder scene and the first page of the comic following, were done very well and it was touching.  And then, Mecha Dawn and her amazing ability to point out the obvious while battling Dawn: “I’m a teenage girl.”  “I like blue jeans and irony.”

This could have been funny, but it was out of place.

And so is the character, Andrew.  He never quite belonged, and that was a nice set-up for comedy, but he’s just annoying in this issue.

I don’t want a touching, almost-heartbreaking moments followed by a fanboy and his trite one-liners, or a deus ex machina.  Both remove you from the story; both ruin a moment.
  

Agent 355: Taking a closer look at Shakespearean references

Agent 355, the secret agent of the Culper Ring assigned to protect Yorick Brown, the titular character of Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man.

Agent 355’s name is never revealed, but- *SPOILER*

-in issue #58, 355 whispers her name to Yorick (after both Yorick and 355 (three-fifty) express their mutual affection for each other).  355 then reminds Yorick that she mentioned to him earlier that her real name was old fasioned and corny.  When Yorick starts to tell 355 that he thinks her name is perfect, she collapses after being shot in the head by Alter (Yedida) Ts’elon, the leader of an Israeli military mission to capture Yorick.

So, Yorick finally realizes his true love only to have her murdered and the readers’ are finally presented with a situation were 355’s real name could be revealed, only to have both moments blown away by Alter (go ahead and hate me for that pun, I deserve it).

So, what was 355’s name?

On the cover of issue #58, 355 is shown making the peace symbol.  In issue #60, Yorick visits a tree where the word “Peace” has been carved below the number 355.

So, was Agent 355’s name, Peace?

I hope not, but probably.

As corny as it would be, I would have enjoyed entertaining the idea that 355’s real name was Viola.  This would have added another Shakespearean reference.  From Twelfth Night, Viola is shipwrecked and loses contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes dead.  She then poses as Cesario, a young man working as a page for the man she ultimately falls in love with while serving him as an employee and a close confidant.

Then again, maybe it would have been more appropriate for Yorick to have been named Sebastian and Hero named Viola.  For, just as Beth, Yorick’s first love, winds up in a relationship with Hero, so Sebastian winds up with Olivia (who thought herself in love with Viola).

Who watches the Watchmen? 

So, I watched the Watchmen trailer and it’s promising.

The characters and the clips shown in the trailer are almost identical to some of the pages in the comic…so, again, promising. 

But Zach Snyder, the director of Watchmen, was a professional director of commercials before he ventured to film.  I expect a good trailer from someone who’s learned to film the best parts of the product in order to get optimum interest.  Remember how good the trailer for 300 was?

What I can’t predict is how Zach Snyder’s interpretation of an Alan Moore comic will turn out…Hollywood has a pretty poor history of translating Alan Moore’s stories to film (with the exception of V for Vendetta, which was filmed as more of an Alan Moore idea, than an Alan Moore story). 

I know Alan Moore always has his name taken off the a project once it goes to Hollywood, and I don’t know if it’s before or after he’s seen a script.  But after seeing what the film industry’s done to his works, it’s probably wiser to preemtively run from any association.  Look at The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  That was an amazing graphic novel and an amazingly awful movie.  Swamp Thing was Alan Moore’s, but the movie wasn’t anything like the books.  From Hell, actually, may have all been Heather Graham’s fault.

I guess I can’t blame everything on the directors and studios.  As much as I usually love Frank Miller’s stuff (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, etc…) I read bits of his 300 comic, and the dialogue and story is just as dumbed down as it was in the movie.  The comic was just as much about the visuals as the movie was, so, for what Zach Snyder was given to work with for 300, I guess he did a pretty good job.

I’m curious to see what Zach Snyder can do with a story from an extraordinarily intelligent author.  Will he make the cut in the time consuming visuals in order to allow the time consuming dialogue and plot?

There are a lot of layers to Watchmen and I’m afraid of what will be sacrificed.  I doubt they’ll trim some of the gratuitous action for story…not when a director and cinematographer have a chance to show off and get paid for it.

But, I have hopes.

The Dark Knight 

Christopher Nolan has finally given comic book fans the Batman movie we’ve been waiting for.  This isn’t just an excellent comic book to movie, like Iron Man, it’s an excellent movie in it’s own right and it’s the first batman movie to thoughtfully and sucessfully incorperate several different writers’ interpretations of Batman: Frank Miller, Alex Ross, Alan Moore, etc.

In the first twenty minutes of the movie, there was even a reference to one of my favorite Alex Ross works:

Will Heath Ledger be nominated for an Oscar?  Probably.

Does his performance deserve a nomination?  Definitely.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie and Ledger’s performance had a lot to do that. 

But I think the media’s obsession with Ledger’s death has distracted from the movie’s other great performances.

Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of Harvey Dent/Two Face, was also wonderful.  You watch him rise, you watch him fall, and it’s done so well, that it felt like a character study in a Shakespearean tragedy.

I honestly wondered if the movie would end like a Shakespearean tragedy; with everyone dead, and only a few the wiser for it.  But the story was so tightly put together, and the characters so well portrayed, I didn’t care how it ended.  I was fascinated and entertained, and I hope everyone else will be too.

Casanova by Matt Fraction

It took me a while to really get into this book.  But, a quarter of the way through the trade, I’m really enjoying it.

 If James Bond was a narsasist…wait…

It’s James Bond meets Robert Heinlein

 Buy Matt Fraction’s Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Casanova-1-Luxuria/dp/1582408971/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216478617&sr=1-5

I will see The Dark Knight, and I will see it today.

And if I see The Dark Knight, I will also see the trailer for Watchmen.  Up until today, I avoided watching the Watchmen trailer up.  Because I love the books and the stills from the movie looked promising (shot frame for frame like the comic) and I don’t want to get my expectations too high.  Like with 300.  It looked so cool in the trailers, but the director was a professional commercial director, so I should have expected a great trailer and have stayed appropriately impartial.  But, for all the historical information available, the dialogue was lame, and the so was the movie-for me, anyway.  I know plenty of people will disagree.  

Oh, and then poor Alan Moore’s books have such a shitty history of being massacred by Hollywood, so, I have little hope for Watchmen.

Hellboy wasn’t a great movie and neither is Hellboy II.  That’s not saying you can’t enjoy either movie.

I just have high expectations for Guillermo del Toro and perhaps it’s unfair that I expect more than I’m offered in the trailers, because if Hellboy and Hellboy II came from, say, Uwe Boll, I’d have stood up in my seat and applauded.

These are the movies Mr. Boll has continually tried and failed to make.  Big action, big budget, over-the-top movies with stylized dialogue.  And sometimes that’s all I want, which is, unfortunately, why I’ve seen some of Uwe Boll’s movies.  But, where Guillermo de Toro succeeds, and Uwe Boll’s consistently fails, is in the establishing and sustaining of a consistent style of dialogue.  Mr. Boll sets up silly worlds, with silly characters, and silly dialogue, and then throws a scene filmed to look serious in the middle of all the silliness.  And you just don’t care.  Not only do you not care, but it pulls you out of the film and draws attention to how bad the thing is as a whole.

And this is where Guillermo del Toro does things right…most of the time.  He leaves the audience with the over-the-top world, the big action and silly dialogue, and doesn’t stop the entertainment to expect you to care about the unrealistic characters.  Well, unless his intention was that the audience care about the forced, awkward-to-watch love story between Hellboy and Liz-which may have been the worst part of the movie.

 But, at least he didn’t force a boob shot into the awkward mess…Uwe.

It’s Brian K. Vaughn’s birthday (July 17, 2008)!  For those of you who don’t know Mr. Vaughn’s work, he’s one of the best authors relatively new to my reading list.  If you don’t read comic books, Mr. Vaughn was a writer/co-producer for Lost.  Are you familiar with the television show, Lost?  Well, you’re missing out…and, evidentially, so am I (but I’ve added it to my Netflix).

More importantly, he’s also written for DC and Marvel and his best stuff is on DC’s Vertigo imprint, which is marketed mostly toward teens and young adults, like myself.

Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise and Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man were the best two series of comic books I read this year.

So, happy birthday, Mr. Vaughn.

Happy Birthday.

Y: The Last Man Vol1: Unmanned 

Written by Brian K. Vaughan; Art by Pia Guerra and José Marzá, Jr.; Painted Cover by J.G. Jones