Pardon the Interruption

Sorry for the lag in posts lately, I have some entries that need polishing, I'll update more next week, including a review of the Great American Beer Fest going on this weekend in Denver.

Summer Movies 2011

Looking over the movies I saw this summer, I was struck by the emptiness in most of these films. But that's what summer flics are all about, so without further ado, here's a pretty vapid list, in chronological order. Oh, and these are all 2-D, the third dimension sucks.

THOR

I actually saw this twice, once with my wife Dawn on opening night (she loved it), then later with my 11 year old boy (who also loved it). I liked it the first time, and was surprised how well it held up on the second viewing. Solid characterization that was true to the source material (well, except for Jane Foster and Hawkeye), some impressive visuals, and a nice story arc for Thor compel me to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

KUNG FU PANDA 2

Kinda surprised I didn't like this one more, since I really enjoyed the first film. Gary Oldman's peacock character was fun, but other than that I found it kind of bleh.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

On the other end of the spectrum, I enjoyed this more than I expected. The story's clear, the characters have depth (well, most of them anyway). I was only disappointed in the death of a certain character near the end, but otherwise I was really into this movie. And it has Banshee! Awesome!

GREEN LANTERN

Haters gonna hate, but I thought this was fantastic, a really good introduction to the Green Lantern. I'm not going to refute every complaint I've seen online about this movie, I'll just say it was a total geek out to see GL on the screen.

BRIDESMAIDS

I liked this one, but I forgot almost everything about it half an hour after leaving the theater. Seeing the ads for the DVD release recently reminded me of how many times I laughed, but it wasn't enough to make it a really top-tier comedy for me. Plus that frickin' Wilson Phillips song really makes me ill. Here's a link to some great out-takes, Jon Hamm is pretty funny.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Loved this one, Chris Evans gave a performance that surprised me, he really evoked what I thought Steve Rogers should be like. And the Red Skull! Holding the Cosmic Cube! Total geek moment.

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Huh? Wha...? Did something happen? I think I fell asleep for a couple hours there...

Ok, that's not really fair, I didn't hate the movie, but in a summer of (mostly) empty movies, this one just seemed like the worst offender for some reason. Harrison Ford was good, but that's about all I remember.










No, I didn't see HANGOVER 2, I didn't think the first one was all that funny, and you can tell by the trailers that the sequel is just a re-hash of the first one. Plus, I liked that movie better when it was called DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?

At the Garage Sale

Thoughts on DC Reboot

I'll say right from the start that these thoughts will be semi-incomplete, because I haven't read all of the comics involved here.  In fact, I've read only one, Justice League #1. I likely won't be reading most of the new series, because I've given up comic books. Now, I'm not going cold turkey, there are still some titles I'll be picking up in trade paperback, but, as of now, my days of buying monthly comics are behind me.  I think.

Because, see...I really liked Justice League. I'm not the biggest Jim Lee fan, but I liked his artwork on this issue, and I like the writing and the characters. It was exciting. New territory, really, and there's this feeling that the book could go anywhere. That's not a feeling you get too often when you've been reading comics as long as I have, and I'll get into my thoughts on the medium at a later date. But I was impressed with JL1.

What kind of has me glad I'm walking away from the hobby (mostly) at this time is the feeling that DC won't be going far enough with their reboot of their entire universe. Their boldest steps seem to be with Superman, and their really messing with him in Grant Morrison and Rags Morales's Action, casting him as a working man's hero. I have no problem with that, I've never been a huge Superman fan, and in fact the only time I've bought any Superman titles regularly where when they killed him back in the '90's, and All-Star Superman by Morrison (him again) and Frank Quietly. But titles like Batman and Green Lantern are basically picking up where they left off, transporting their old continuity into the the new universe. Where's the fun in that? Like Bridget Fonda* says in SINGLES, if you gonna have the operation, HAVE THE OPERATION. Stop trying to have your cake and eat it too.

I admire DC for the guts it took to even attempt this, it's a bold move and I wish them luck. I just don't think it's a bold enough move. I might end up picking up some trades down the road, Action intrigues me, I really love Green Lantern, and Justice League could be good, but nothing else I've seen so far really makes me think I'll be missing out on anything if I walk away from the monthly habit.

*Ugh, less than a week in and I'm quoting Bridget Fonda.

Blogger App

Just sending this to test the new Blogger app. I don't know how useful it will be, but I suppose I can upload pics to the blog when I'm 'on the go', so to speak. Thanks to @MichaelTrader for the heads up!

What I'm Reading

Moving my way through two books right now, with several others that have been started and abandoned at various points and a couple more waiting to be read.

I'm over half-way done with Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, he of the Travel Channel's "No Reservations" fame. It's a follow-up memoir to the best-selling Kitchen Confidential, and I'm finding this book to be just as fascinating as its predecessor. I wouldn't consider myself a 'foodie' by any stretch, but his stories of his exploits around the globe in search of food, drugs, women or inner peace are giving me a desire to be a better cook.

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, is the first novel I've read of Hornby's since the classic High Fidelity, and he again touches on the familiar themes of music and love and how the two can become intricately intertwined. I'm only a few chapters in, but the book has already taken a few twists I didn't expect, and that's a good thing.

I recently finished two books by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Live From New York and Those Guys Have All the Fun. Both books are 'oral histories', and both had their merits, but I found "Live..." to be captivating, while "Those Guys..." could be a bit dry.  The former deals with that late-night institution, Saturday Night Live, the latter with ESPN.  I'm a huge SNL fan and while I've not consistently kept up with the show (I really lapsed in viewing from about 97-2004), the behind-the-scenes interviews and stories really grabbed me. Bill Murray is a favorite, and the good and bad stories about producer Lorne Michaels never failed to entertain. The authors follow-up, as I said, is a bit dry, and it frequently delves into the business side of the sports entertainment giant, to its detriment. I didn't really care about the intricacies of how some executive brokered a revolutionary cable agreement or milked money out of the NFL for a rights deal. Yawn. But the Keith Olbermann material is gold, gold I say! He really does come off as an insufferable perfectionist ass, which is one of the things that makes him great. Not a bad read, but it paled in comparison to the SNL tome.

Books I've started but haven't had the desire to finish yet: The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar, The Strange Affair of Springheel Jack by Mark Hodder, and couple others I can't be bothered to remember or seek out in the mess that is my book shelving system. Both of these seem like they'll be good books, but other things ended up supplanting them in my reading queue and I just haven't gotten back to them. Yet. But I will. I promise. Maybe.

It Begins...Again.

My friend Michael has inspired me to start up my own blog, or, more accurately, re-start my blog, since I've let it lay fallow for about 9 months. People have incubated babies in the time since I last posted.  The hard part of this will be my reticence to blah blah blah about personal facts no one gives a crap about, plus the 'l' key on my laptop keyboard is kind of hinky right now, which is a formidable obstacle to overcome.  Waaaahhhhh.