Reviews

comics reviews: popimage.com

ST. SWITHIN’S DAY by G.Morrison and P.Grist: “…is a story in four parts, each section marking a countdown to July 15th, as experienced and narrated by a nameless 19 year-old English boy. Our unnamed protagonist is depicted wandering, talking to himself, musing over the future and the countdown to finality. He claims to know the future, he knows precisely what will happen on July 15th, because he’s going to shoot British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she walks into the front doors of Hay Technical College.” more…

ARKHAM ASYLUM by G.Morrison and D.McKean: “…provide[s] the jaded and familiar pulp character of the Batman with a literary magnificence that has since been emulated and never equaled. This is done by placing the ordinary story — Our Hero enters into the Lions’ Den to exchange himself for the lamb/victim, and yet Emerges Victorious — against a tapestry of mystical symbolism, psychology, and commentary about the secret nature of the world.” more…

ALL-STAR WESTERN #10, the DC Milennium Edition: “…serves as an interesting example of the maliciousness of the serial comic format, the need to create characters that will endlessly repeat themselves until fallen ratings force a dramatic alteration or conclusion.” more…

VIOLENT CASES by N.Gaiman and D.McKean: “…does a good job of hiding the inner violence of the narrator by playing a neat trick with secret identites, notorious name-dropping, and a little stage magic. It has the trappings of a nice remembrance, a little anecdote about one boy’s brush with celebrity, an observation about the way in which that disparate worlds can intersect. But the trappings are not the heart of the work.” more…

PEDRO & ME by J.Winick: “…continues to do the work that Zamora did for all of his adult life. It is a legacy, but it is also a powerfully real story, full of casual human truths, humor, and deep love.” more…

RAYMOND CHANDLER’S PHILIP MARLOWE: THE LITTLE SISTER by M.Lark: “…is an adaptation that meets the core requirements of any successful cover song or film based upon a novel: it remains true to the original work, the original spirit and inspiration, but shows an artistic twist of the material the demonstrates that adaptation, interpretation, and personalization are artistic processes in and of themselves and worthy of acclaim and recognition.” more…

MISTER BLANK: THE EXHAUSTIVE COLLECTION by C.Hicks: “Bang. Ninjas. Bang. Giant Robots. Bang! Time Travel. BANG! Super-Powered Clones. BANG! Ancient God-Like Beings. BANG! And the hits just keep on comin’.” more…

HELLBOY: THE RIGHT HAND OF DOOM by M.Mignola: “…feels heavily grounded in history and well-steeped in folklore. There are rules to this world. Some are ancient and some are extraterrestrial, but there is a strange meshing of cultural codes that creates an internal logic of the series of tales and misadventures. And the most palpable and evocative rule is that of failure. As mentioned earlier, people die.” more…

WENDEL: ALL TOGETHER by H.Cruse: “…[shows] that the love story is universal, ordinary, and normal, whether between John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga or John Cusack and Anthony Edwards.” more…

movie reviews: the skidmore news

Kevin Smith’s CHASING AMY: “…stops his comedies in their tracks. Chasing Amy begins like the previous films, with fresh, edgy, dialogue, graphic sexual conversation, and a love of the creative metaphor. But the humor really ceases there, as the audience realizes that this film is a culmination: the immaturity of his other works needs to be left behind and his characters now need to mature, even as Smith has matured as a filmmaker.” more…

Frank Oz’s IN & OUT: “…is a great little crepe of a movie. Sure, it’s kind of flat, and it may not have much substance, but it’s sweet and fruity (I suppose that’s another pun, too) and it makes a great weekend mattinee.” more…

Vincent Gallo’s BUFFALO ’66: “…has a tired realism that is subtly humorous, and the camera work (Lance Acord) is unusual and interesting. But it is the interplay of the characters that will sink or save this film, and, unfortunately, for the most part audiences are going to find this film to be on the tedious side.” more…

Brad Anderson’s NEXT STOP WONDERLAND: “When was the last time that you walked away from a movie theater with a glow in your heart, that you had been genuinely moved and altered by the spectacle you’d just viewed? A movie that provides a cool, calm place somewhere behind your sternum? …Next Stop Wonderland is unabashedly the best original film I’ve seen in a long time.” more…

John Frankenheimer’s RONIN: “Because so much is unspoken, I get the feeling that anyone who realized, ‘Ah, there is so much that is left unsaid,’ thought that this film contained some glimmer of intelligence. It does, but does it have more than that? And the answer is: well, not really. It has a suave, mature presence… [b]ut the twist at the end is vaguely unsatisfying.” more…

Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard’s SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: “I don’t think that I’m saying that Shakespeare In Love didn’t deserve the Oscar. I was, in fact, rooting for it. But I’m not entirely sure what an Oscar is worth; I don’t know what it stands for precisely. Does it really represent some sort of cinematic achievement? Definitely not. As Dimitri pointed out to me the other day, the names of the awards lead you to the proper conclusion: Best Picture, Best Actress… It has nothing to do with absolute standards, it’s only looking at the year’s film offerings, and choosing what is the best of what’s available.” more…