2047 - Guardians of the Galaxy

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting to the point, for me, where it’s akin to the work done in the heyday of Pixar.  And given that Disney owns both them and now Star Wars, anyone who owns stocks in the Mouse are certainly going to be happy in the upcoming years.

Like most people I didn’t know ANYTHING about Guardians of the Galaxy going into this.  And I came out wondering if this was my favourite of the Marvel side-franchises.  It is so goddamn good.  It’s the most fun I’ve had in a Marvel film, including Avengers.  It starts off with a huge gut-punch - which hit me especially hard because of personal reasons - and then it involved into something that was sweet and funny and grand.  Chris Pine is an all-star, and Bradley Cooper makes Rocket more than just a wise-talking side-kick.  

My only complaint, and this is more a big-world question than anything else.  The villain’s lair/world(?) just feels so small and empty.  He wants to destroy things, a planet, but I never really got a strong sense of why - outside of the fact that it was evil and he’s evil.  If I have a complaint with this film it’s that the villain was a pretty weak cardboard cut-out - zero personality besides ‘bad’.  So that was the weak part of the film for me - that said the rest of the ensemble is so delightfully entertaining that it doesn’t hurt the overall movie like it should.  

Keep up the good work, Marvel.  The way you weave all your properties together is such a clever way of insuring viewership - but it’s also rewarding for the audience.  Keep up the quality and I’ll keep showing up.  

Seconds

Scott Pilgrim remains one of my favorite series of all time, and so the other day when I realized that Bryan Lee O'Malley's first Pilgrim follow-up was finally out I ordered it right the hell away.  It's the story of a cook looking to fix some mistakes from her past and gets the chance do to some magic mushrooms (not to be confused with the drug).
I loved the style of this - visually it builds upon what we've seen of him before but there's an additional artistry present that shows his growth.  There's a really awesome narration technique that's playful and fun.  It's a beautiful and sweet story told with a wink, always aware that it's there to entertain.  If you like O'Malley's work from the past this will not disappoint.

Bigfoot

I really enjoyed this little coming of age story about a young man growing up right in the midst of the most humiliating experience of his life.  I really like Pascal's drawing style, and it's been interesting reading his books almost in reverse and seeing how he's progressed.  It's about a young teen in Quebec who just became a YouTube in sensation (not in a good way) and how he deals with that and a crush and life in general.  It's sweet and honest and well worth your time if you like coming of age stories in this medium.

This One Summer

This is a really sweet coming of age story about a girl away for the summer stuck between a best friend whose younger and immature, and a teenage crush with an older bad-boy, and also stuck between her parents' own personal drama.  The artwork is gorgeous and once you've blasted through the story it demands another look through just so you can soak it all up.  If you're a lover of indie comics that are heartfelt and honest, this one is a must read.

Petty Theft

I really quite enjoyed this book.  It debuted at TCAF this year (Toronto Comic Arts Festival), so I snagged a copy from Pascal himself.  It's a cute story about a comic artist who spots a beautiful woman stealing a copy of his book and shoplifts it.  Fun set-up.  It's a bit of a love-letter to the love of books.  I dug it.

2016 - X-Men: Days of Future Past

What I think is really unique about the X-Men series is how they've opened up the world, and technically done a reboot, but all the while still being able to use it with what they've done before.  This film is the ultimate bridging of everything we've seen in X-Men up to this point and it starts to put other pieces together.  Having Striker be part of the mix was great fun, as was seeing pretty much everyone from this world together in one film.  The story was strong - it was a little heavy on over-the-top action towards the end - but it also featured one of the best sequences of the entire series with Quicksilver set to Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle.  I won't ruin it for you - it's fantastic.  The film is full of fun references, including one to JFK being a mutant himself - which got a laugh (in a bad way) from the packed audience I was in.
What I most love about this instalment is that it used a classic X-Men story to find a clever way of fixing the sins made by X3 and anything else they want to tidy up.  They're now able to move forward pretty much however they want - which is really quite refreshing.  Could be the best film of the series, actually.  I dug it a lot.

Drama

I was given this to see if I thought it could be turned into something in the vein of television or film, and I have to say that it really grew on me by the end.  It's quite charming and doesn't treat the teenage characters like stereotypes, and it's actually a pretty honest and modern look at teenagers that's quite refreshing.  It revolves around the production of a highschool musical and all the inherent drama on and off stage.  If you've got a teenager that's into the arts, I highly recommend it for them, and probably even you.

Reunion

This was one of the books I picked up at TCAF on the recommendation of others - I also grabbed Pascal's newest book Petty Theft and will be reading that sometime shortly.  This is self autobiographical about Pascal getting the nerve up to attend his highschool reunion.
I've passed the 10 year mark for high-school (holy shit...) and so far as I know there was no reunion - I almost feel like the age of facebook has made the whole thing moot anyway - if you want to know what people are up to it's not all that difficult these days. And if you fall out of touch with people given how easy it is to stay in touch, chances are you were never really that close to begin with.
There's a nice little character arc here, although I must admit that the character becomes quite grating towards the end - but I think that's largely intentional.  This is my first entry into the world of Pascal Girard, so I look forward to more of his work - it's quite funny in a delightfully awkward way.

Richard Stark's Parker - Vol 4: Slayground

I have to say that this is two in a row in terms of Cooke's adaptations of Parker that failed to impress me.  It's a bit saddening given that it was because of Cooke that I really took notice of the character and world.  In this edition especially the book is far superior to the graphic novel.  The novel was taught with fantastic suspense, where this one just feels like we're waiting around to see how well he get out of this scrape.  It's underwhelming, sadly.  If anyone out there reads this and loves it - please do me a favor and suss out the source material - likely available at a public library near you!

Richard Stark's Parker: Vol 3 - The Score

This might be the first time where I found the graphic novel version didn’t quite live up to my memory of the original novel - though it’s been awhile since I read it.  That said, it’s still a ton of fun.  This just felt like more of a coles note of a larger story.  It could be that I knew what was going to happen, but I found this lacked any real tension.  As always the artwork is goddamn beautiful and the writing is on par with the source material, but if you want the full breadth of this really fun story then you’re going to have to go back to the source.  I also just picked up the next graphic novel Slayground, and it’s…. thin… which worries me a bit since that’s such a great story.

I don’t meant to slag this book, I think if you’re just reading Parker in this medium then it’s just fine - but I’m a bit of a Parker nerd, so I found it just mildly disappointing.

2001 - The Amazing Spider Man 2

You can likely tell from my photo selections the aspect of the film that I'm most into.  In my defence though, the chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is solid and unique.  I'm a big fan of Emma Stone and she brought a LOT to this series.  In fact, that's the story line that absolutely worked pitch-perfect through-out this and the previous film.  Without going into spoiler details, it's a beautifully worked out love story.
I liked how this instalment dug deeper into storylines and the past.  Electro is a pretty lame villain, and Rhino (I assume this is the third film) looks to be equally lame.  Given how strong the Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker stuff is, it almost feels as if someone else is writing the scenes involved any of the villains talking - their dialogue is so on-the-nose and cliched and.... often terrible.  It doesn't ruin the film, but it pulls you out in key moments and I did have the odd eye roll.  I like the surprise of Green Goblin at the end, but he's such a big thing that it felt short changed - those we haven't seen the last of him at all, so there's that.
I think I liked this better than the first for a few reasons, and as such it's absolutely worth trying to catch while it's still in the cinema.  Enjoy!

2000 - The Amazing Spiderman

Late to the game with this one, and hoping to check out the new one tomorrow evening.  I was pretty damn impressed here.  I like the redo on the origin story.  I never truly loved Tobey Maguire in the part, and I love what they do with Andrew Garfield here - he's charismatic and nerdy in an honest way.  His chemistry with Emma Stone is pretty goddamn great as well - their first kiss scene is the kind that could go down in the history of cinema as part of the great first kisses.  The Lizard isn't a great villain, but I like the idea of using a small villain to help build set up the world for us to play in, and set the stage for things to come.  Over-all a smart fun action flick - looking forward to seeing how the world builds into the second one.

The Walking Dead (Vol 20): All Out War (part one)

In my recent nerdy googling I realize that I had missed the most recent TBP of the comic coming out (though not by much).  As per usual - SPOILERs ahead…

So this has been brewing for some time, and like Rick mentions early in the story - they’re heading into war and there will be casualties.  Although no one really major dies here (I guess my definition of major includes people that have been around for half the series or more at this point) we still feel the devastation to come.  I love Rick’s plan for taking down Negan, I love that we see Negan scrambling a bit.  Because of the twists and turns that this book takes in general you don’t feel overly confident that everything will turn out for her heroes in the end - that’s the beauty of this story - devastation happens.  Part of me would like to think that the Negan storyline won’t be this short-lived.  I’ve said this before but what I love about Negan is that he’s practical.  He’s crazy, sure, but he understands that people need to work together - his only problem is insisting that he’s the head rooster, and the things that he does to other people.  His counter-attach using Holly was brilliant and smart.  I’m excited to see how the rest of this story arc plays out.  It’s going to be a bloody end…

The Walking Dead - Vol 19: March to War

So we're in the 19th volume of an ongoing series - clearly I still read this because I love it.  If you're not caught up to here, or only watch the TV show know that HUGE SPOILERS lie ahead here.  You've been warned..

...

Negan.  Everyone went on and on about The Governor, but he's got nothing on Negan.  For my money he's the most interesting character the series has ever produced, and easily one of the best villains in history.  His blend of charisma and sadism is pure delightful, as well as watching his thought pattern.  He's always surprising in good ways and bad, and he ups the stakes in major ways.  And just when I think I can't be shocked, someone like Negan comes along and does just that.  It would look as though we're gearing up for war and so it's hard to say if he'll stick around much longer - but I like the idea of it not wrapping up so easily - he'll be hard to top as a villain, and because I really do think that the series has to get around to the idea of rebuilding society, it's hard to see them all out on the run again.  The Walkers have barely been an issue for a long time in this series, and I'm fine with that.  The only thing that would satisfy me would be to see a horde come into play right in the middle of the two groups going to war - making them realize that they're not really prioritizing the real problems in this world.

This series still sees us mourning for Glen (which is the biggest and saddest death the series has had - largely just because he's been around since the beginning), but also giving us more depth to characters like Ezekiel (which was nice since he was coming off as a looney).  At first I thought Rick absolutely should have done what he did - seized the day, but I'm glad it worked out the way it did - upping the ante.  I'm super excited for the next trade to come out in the summer.  I want this series to go on forever, but I want them to keep it fresh.  I question if they'll ever be so bold as to kill Rick off (not that I need/want him to go).  I just have a hard time seeing this world go on without Rick and/or Carl.  Kirkman has stated he's got up to issue 300 roughly sketched out - which means at least another twenty of these trades or so.  Can't wait to see where he takes us.

1939 - Thor: The Dark World

I have to be deadly honest here.  This is the first of the Marvel films that I've been 'meh' on.  And it was especially disappointing because the first Thor was so goddamn good, and I expected very little from it (maybe why I liked it so much).  In some ways I think that they just attempted to do too much, be too big.  We don't need every single Marvel film to be about saving the entire world - do the stakes really need to be THAT high every single time?  The more sci-fi the films get the less interesting they are.  And I'm not down on sci-fi films, I think the problem is that they found a way to really ground the early films in this series, but now that all the fantasy elements are in place it just muddles it a bit.  I liked that Iron Man had to deal with that to some extent though.  I don't know, I guess, for me, I just think they can do so much more with simplicity and don't give themselves enough credit for that.  It's the small moments in these kinds of films that really speak volumes - and this one had no small moments.  Shame, really.  It was nice to have Portman integrated into the plot in a much stronger way though.  I should end with saying that I didn't hate the film - I just didn't really enjoy it all that much, and it's one that I likely won't find myself revisiting.

The Walking Dead: Vol 18 - What Comes Next

It goes without saying, we're eight-teen trades into this series, so I'm going to spoil some stuff in this little mini-review - and if it's this far in you don't need my recommend to buy it :)
So hear we are in the post-Glen world, and our heroes are devastated.  I need to go back and remind myself what happened to Maggie 'cause I swear she's not here, but I also don't remember something happening to her last time...
We're deep into the Negan storyline, and Kirkman has done a good job so far of showing why he's different from the Governor - first of all - he's pretty damn charismatic.  He's the kind of villain that's really enjoyable to spend time with because he seems to have a code, fucked up as it is, and seems to be, as he states, "a reasonable fucking guy".  He's also created a trade network - or more like a stealing network - which is what you'd have to do in a situation like this.  I'd like to think this will go down differently than it did with our last big bad of the series.  It almost has to.  This book was a bit of a calm before the storm - and through Carl we got a good glimpse into the world of Negan and how that all works.  And we got to meet King Ezekial - which is all kinds of bizarre and awesome.  And now it's a long-ass wait until the next trade comes out, and the series is back.  Alas...

1871 - Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I've seen this film a few times, and I always think that distance will make me like it more - but I can't separate it from the books as much as I would like.  Here's the thing - I dig this film - I appreciate what a visual feast it is, I like the tone.  The cast is a who's who of a lot of my favourite actors.  My beef is the heart of it.  It's…. missing.  The big difference between this and the comic is that the comic takes place over the course of, I believe, two years.  This takes place in, maybe a week or so.  So the story is richer in the book and more about how hard it is to be in a relationship.  And I like Mary Elizabeth Winstead as an actor, but she plays Ramona Flowers as far too indifferent to make me invest in any way in the relationship.  

I'm absolutely sure that I'm too hard on this film, 'cause it's a shitload of fun - but there was a heart to the books that really spoke to me and my own experience with relationships - and mores than the awesome fights and quirk, that's what I wanted this film to nail.  Alas.  It's still a ball of fun, and a beautiful shout-out to Toronto.  If you haven't seen it you should just because there's almost nothing else like it.

1823 - Watchmen (Director's Visual Commentary)

I got the bluray of this for xmas this year and on it is a pretty insane, in-depth visual commentary thing.  Some people panned this film - I loved it.  I thought that Zack Snyder did a pretty kick-ass job of adapting something that's so personal and epic to so many people.  I think he got the heart of it right and that's the main thing.  I prefer his ending to the ending in the comic as it's far more integrated into the actual story itself.  Sorry for you purists - but the squid was kind of stupid - let's be honest.
If you want the kind of experience that really rips a movie into pieces and shows you behind the curtain, this is exactly the kind of thing you'll love.  Although it made me want to revisit the film on it's own - which I'll try to do sooner rather than later. 

The Walking Dead: 17 - Something To Fear

I'm a little behind on this bad-boy and some NINNY online ruined something in it for me, but here I am.  And in the good faith I like to put forth - because we're so far along in this comic series there will be SPOILERS AHEAD.  It's amazing.  Read it.  That is all.

So the last book left us on what was probably the most optimistic note the book has ever taken, there was a real sense of hope.  And it was the job of this book to take that hope and crush it.  Not only crush it, but smash it's head in until it was unrecognizable - which is exactly what happened, horrifically to a character that's been around the series for a very very very long time.  In a series filled with devastating deaths this one might be the worst - and sadly I didn't really get to experience it fresh since I knew it was coming.  Alas!

I love where this story is heading.  I was getting worried that we were getting to a point where I didn't know what other tricks Kirkman could pull out of his bag, and this just shows how much left there is to explore in his world and it excites me to no end.  I love that the comic and the series exist in such unique parallels and they play off each other, but don't force themselves into each other.  My only complaint that, as fast as it does come out, that it doesn't come out even faster.

Keep it coming Robert Kirkman, I'll be right here waiting for it.

1779: The Walking Dead: season 3 (part 1)

I think it's safe to say that this first half of season three has been as sigh of relief to anyone who was on the wavering fence of this series.  Much like the comic that inspired it, this show has finally shown it's tremendous balls and made no bones about it - it will kill the shit out of anyone and everyone as it sees fit.  In the comic version I believe that Rick and/or Carl will always be safe.  In the television series… I just don't know.  The comic clearly has Grimes as their main protagonist, but the series feels more like an ensemble than anything.  I love the feeling that anything can and will happen.  I loved watching this first-half-finale because I was actually really tense, worried about these characters that I, apparently, have grown quite attached to! 

So that's it for the spoiler-free half of this review - in short if you like good television and love zombies, I'm amazed you're not already watching this.

SPOILERS BELOW

This thing has been a roller-coaster ride.  I love the energy, I loved Rick's descent into madness.  I loved how they killed off T-Dog just to give away the suspense of killing Lori.  Lori is a character I never really cared about, but her death made me cry like a little girl - mostly because of the way that Carl and Rick reacted - and the absolutely horrible thing that Carl had to do to help with her passing.  That poor little bad-ass. 
I love that this series no longer feels like it's wasting time.  Originally I thought we'd be at the prison for two seasons, but I wouldn't be surprised if the prison was the back-drop for season 3 alone.  I can't imagine the Governor's retribution being dragged out much further than the second half of the season - but we shall see.  If this is true then next season I want the entire thing to be on-the-road.  No home to call their own - completely fucked.  Thats a terrible thing to want, but there it is. 
The Governor was a really great slow burn - and I love that we've gotten to see the transformation a bit - the fight with Michonne (spelling, sorry) at the end of the season was pretty goddamn great.  And how about putting Merle and Darryl against each other?  (part of me thinks it's all part of the plan, though, to get Merle to infiltrate the group - have Darryl vouch for him that he was kicked out of Woodbury - it's pretty smart, if you ask me - and what wonderful drama we can get out of Merle reuniting with the group that left him stuck up on the roof). 
We've got two months off until the show comes back, and that's a hell of a shame.  Luckily the new book comes out in a few days :)