Indy 4: Eating Crow
May 31By the time I sat down in the theater to actually see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I wasn’t really expecting the worst, as I have for months. In fact, I hoped it would be pretty good, as some of the reviews had suggested.
See, try as I might, I can only hate George Lucas to a point…I still WANT to like his movies, and wish for the best every time I watch his movies, even ones I’ve seen a thousand times. And Spielberg…well, I just passionately love the guy. Even his mistakes are fascinating to me.
So maybe it was those softened feelings, and just plain wanting to love another Indy movie. Or maybe it was being in a movie theater at 9:15 in the morning on a Monday, when I’d usually be slaving away in the cube farm, plowing the fields of bullshit for nuggets of gold.
Whatever it was, I enjoyed the living HELL out of Indiana Jones 4, and I don’t care who knows it.
Am I tasting a bit of crow as I type this? Sure. I deserve it. I’ve complained for months about a new Indy flick, in the classical hyperannoying fanboy style. I’m sure the halls of Lucasfilm, and the halls of Blogdom, have echoed with the howling of my hysterical rants.
I was wrong. No, scratch that–I was right; making a fourth Indiana Jones movie was a spectacularly awful idea. Fortunately, they managed to make a good movie out of that bad idea.
"Someone who loves you."
May 24In all the Indy 4 hooplah, one commemoration has been forgotten: the silver anniversary of Return of the Jedi.
Yep-25 years.
I plan to spin up my bootleg copy of the original laserdisc. Thus will I celebrate my birth as a geek.
JMS=Oscar Bait?!
May 20I’m just sorta stunned at the buzz that J. Michael Straczynski’s upcoming flick The Changeling is drumming up. He wrote the screenplay, based on a true story…and Clint Eastwood is directing it, with Angelina Jolie starring.
I like JMS’ writing well enough, often enough, but still–this is the Babylon 5 guy we’re talking about, right? The One More Day writer?
It’s like finding out Alex Ross will be exhibiting his paintings in the Louvre.
Four-Color Critiques #4: Love and Death
May 16Who is the greatest Marvel character?
(That’s a rhetorical question.)
Sorta depends on how you define “greatest.” Is it the character with the most appearances in print, or the best stories told about him/her? Is it the one who’s made the deepest penetration into the popular culture at large? Is it the character with the coolest powers, or the most interesting personality, or the strongest supporting cast?
For me, the greatest Marvel character is the one who best epitomizes exactly what the Marvel style of storytelling and characterization is all about. That character is Thanos.
That’s right–Thanos.
Four-Color Critiques #3: The Dude Is From Circumstances
May 09I remember an afternoon at my first job when I discovered the Dysfunctional Family Circus, a notorious early net project in which Family Circus strips were scanned and recaptioned in the most surreal, offensive, and hilarious manner imaginable.
I seriously spent hours (while at WORK, mind you, being paid poorly to attend) getting lost in the site–I had to read them all, that day, immediately. I laughed myself to tears in silence.
I had a similar experience more recently with Achewood. Busy as hell, totally uninterested in webcomics beyond Penny Arcade, and then out of nowhere–WHAM. I read about it over at J. Caleb Mozzocco’s site (if he was late to the party when he wrote about it, I’m SUPER FUCKING LATE myself). I started reading, and I never stopped. Hours upon days lost to reading and laughing myself to tears. In silence.
That’s the kind of experience Achewood is, to me–solitary, unique, and sort of astonishing.
