Non-review round-up
2007-07-13 | Filed under Anime, Books, Comics, Movies, TV |
I used to try to write reviews regularly. I hated it. Nonfiction takes forever, even when it’s a review rather than criticism. (Yes, there’s a difference. No, I’ve never written anything I consider to be criticism.) But a quick opinion, and maybe a random tangent? I can manage that. Welcome to Web 2.0.
Transformers: There were giant fighting robots, things always kept moving, and there were surprisingly few plot holes, considering. I was never into Transformers as a kid—I should have been, just like I should have been into Voltron, but somehow things just never clicked—so I was of course in a whispered consultation with a very enthusiastic Larry. A lot of “Is that one from the show?” and “What’s that one’s name?” (which he tolerated very well after it became clear that I was enjoying myself and not making the snide comments I oft do).
The Wizard of Oz: Obviously I watched the movie many times in my childhood, when it would come on TV every year and you’d make popcorn and watch with your family. One of my friends somehow missed out on that, so we sat him down and made him watch. It is surreal to go back and view it. There’s definitely something missing, a patina applied by nostalgia…even my warped kind of nostalgia. When I was in first or second grade, the Oz books were bedtime reading, so I knew the real Oz was quite different from the Judy Garland version. To a certain extent I held this against the movie (in much the same way that I was very mad at Clash of the Titans and The Neverending Story for a very long time). But there is still something about the movie the whole family watched—and the knowledge that all your friends were at home with their families watching at the same time.
I need to watch Return to Oz again. It didn’t bother with the details, either, but it got the spirit right. At least, in my memory it got the spirit right. I should also read the books again—it’s creeping up to twenty years since I read any of the later books, even longer since I read the Baum books. I was recently(ish) given a copy of The Wizard of Oz; it’s been sitting on top of a bookcase. Maybe it’s time to read it again.
Master Keaton: One of our bedtime anime series. Its episodic nature makes it a bit uneven, but the randomness can be quite charming.
Jeremiah: Another bedtime series. It’s been missing about as often as it’s been hitting, and some of the misses are really painful. But a post-apocalyptic Theo Huxtable is inherently amusing.
Rescue Me: Our third bedtime series from the past month or two, featuring many fucked up characters and a reminder that Denis Leary can in fact act when he wants to.
The Lark’s Lament: Alan Gordon books make me happy. I am not quite sure why (I mean, I know why I enjoy them, but can’t isolate the “x” factor that makes them comfort books; it’s not like I grew up with them or anything) but I just go with it.
The Confession: Definitely dodged the second book slump; must add number three to the TBR pile when it gets a little lower. Bridge of Sighs was perfectly readable, but often with an asterisk. (The kind of asterisk you get when the “sorry, not buying it” and “okay, why didn’t this guy die like a hundred and fifty pages ago?” sort of thoughts pop up as you’re reading—but don’t make you consider not reading.) No real asterisk problem here.
The Damned: Much fun, nicely articulating the theme ingredients of gangsters and demons. It’s also another reminder to grab more Oni Press books—in the Long Long Ago, in the Before Time, when Daniel Bishop was writing comic reviews for Shred, he recommended a bunch of Oni titles, and so far I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve picked up from them.
This also marks the first time I’ve ordered anything from a comic shop. Mainly this is a matter of logistics. I didn’t start reading comics per se until college (kicked off by Good Omens inspired thoughts of “So maybe I should read something by Terry Pratchett’s co-author” and a Sandman paperback dropped off at my door in sympathy for a broken foot), and then I’d just bum the occasional book from someone else. As a grown up, I’ve been able to find some comics in bookstores, and the rest have been available through Amazon. (Note that I’ll always go for trade paperbacks. I’d much rather curl up and read the whole story—or at least a significant chunk of it—than get a quick taste and have to wait. I go bonkers quite easily in that sort of situation. The last time I got single issues of anything is when Girl Genius first came out, and that didn’t really count initially since we started off with a pile of three or four, and I never was happy as a subscriber even though the issues were all snazzy. Well, okay, there’s also Order of the Stick…but that’s not so much a case of reading single issues as procrastinating at work.)
I have felt periodically that I should support the independents in general. There’s a comic shop, Showcase, close to my alma mater. I rarely entered as an undergrad and as a grown up, I hardly entered any more regularly, because the hours were not great for people with grown up jobs, and there were other stores in various malls. But at May Day a couple of friends said they really, actively liked the shop in Bryn Mawr, and the hours are now more friendly. So I have now declared it my official comic shop, and I am quite pleased that they managed to get this book faster than my default plan of using Amazon.
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CotT becuase of the myth??
I keep confusing jeremiah with jerhico which I guess isn’t totally surprising.
I read the book (and most of the series) long before I ever saw the movie, but I’ve always just treated them as two separate things. It’s really the only way I like movies based on books.
Also, I love Showcase. They’re also good people to chat with (Mike’s become a friend and nearly came to May Day this year, but we’d kept him in Rock hanging out too late the night before).
I almost asked “So, who’s Mike?” at Showcase, but then I decided that would be a little weird. Admittedly, I expect comic shop staffers to have lots of exposure to people who are differently socialized, but still, no reason to make the poor guy wonder if he’s being stalked by weird Mawrter alums.
I was seriously into Greek mythology beginning around grade 5, a year or so after I (repeatedly) saw Clash of the Titans. I’m pretty much over it. Same goes for The Neverending Story (which, in fairness, would’ve been nigh unto impossible to adapt, and just doing the first 20% is not, in and of itself, a terrible choice). Those were just movies I watched a lot, whereas The Wizard of Oz had the whole family gathering ceremony associated with it (for that matter, so did reading the book), so it was a little easier for me to make the distinction.
In my early teens, I saw Blade Runner and later read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. They’re both so good, and so dramatically different, that they served as a very good illustration of “the book is the book and the movie is the movie.” I now judge movies as movies, and separately as adaptations. (For the most part. V for Vendetta’s a notable recent failure…but looking back, I don’t think I would’ve been longing for Moore’s dystopia if the movie’s Grand Conspiracy hadn’t been so boring and unconvincing.)
Haha. To my knowledge, Mike is the only Black guy who works at Showcase, but I could be wrong.
In that case, he’s presumably the guy I talked to the first time I was in there.