Sunday, November 01, 2009

Random Book, Random Passage #10
Not sure how to handle this one? Comic books and graphic novels will prove tricky, me without my scanner set up. Here's a fuzzy photo and all caps quoting from Los Bros Hernandez's House of Raging Women (Vol. 5 of the Complete Love and Rockets).

"BUT TO MY SURPRISE, SHARPE IS A REAL GENTLEMAN! AS HE'S ABOUT TO WIPE HIS SOPPING BROW HE NOTICES ME IN THE AISLE SEAT AND STOPS HIMSELF IN MID-MOTION AS NOT TO DRIP SWEAT IN MY BEER. MY FAITH IN HUMANITY IS RESTORED ... FOR THE MOMENT."

Not positive but I think these Fantagraphics editions of Love and Rockets were my first foray into comic book anthologies/graphic novels. I had beat old paperback collections of newspaper comics (Peanuts, B.C., Andy Capp) that were passed down to me, but I was never a comic book guy. I am more today in my late 30s than I ever was as a kid, oddly enough, and that's still not very much.

Labels: Books, comics

19:36 cdogzilla

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Top Ten Gypsy Curses in Film and Television « Cinematropolis: Seeing the trailer for Drag Me to Hell got me thinking, "it's been a while since we've seen the gypsy curse in action." I started wracking my brain trying to think of other examples, but the only other ones I could remember were Angel, the gypsy fortune teller machine in Big, and Lon Chaney's Wolfman. Yet, the gypsy curse seems like such a famous device it must be more common. That's when I went searching and found the Cinematropolis link, which arose from the same prompting. Aside from King's Thinner, which I'd forgotten, I don't think I'd even so much as heard of the other references. (I'm not convinced the X-Files one is accurate and am years removed from having watched and episode of The Simpsons.) There must be other notable gypsy curses, perhaps in comic books, that I'm forgetting? For some reason Abbott & Costello keeps coming to mind, but dang if I can recall why. Maybe there was a gypsy in A&C Meet Frankenstein?

Labels: comics, Lists, movies, TV

14:19 cdogzilla

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

What is your Hapax legomenon? Well, don't tell me, because then it wouldn't be anymore. I think I'll say it just this once so the definition of the thing and the thing will be the same thing. That's handy. (Saw this at Dinosaur Comics which doesn't seem to have a permalink until the next comic is up.)

Labels: comics

12:22 cdogzilla

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Gold-Titanium Alloy Man
Does whatever a Gold-Titanium Alloy pig can ... d'oh!

I like Robert Downey Jr. I liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I think I've liked him in other things, so why is it I can only call to mind his supporting roles in US Marshalls (bleh) and True Believer? I keep wanting to say he was great in The Grifters and Grosse Pointe Blanke -- and then I remember that was John Cusack. Anyways, he was a great Tony Stark here: charming, sharp, and just this side of dissolute. (Keep in mind, I've never read an Iron Man comic in my life, so whether he's Comic Book Guy's Tony Stark is beyond my ken.)

Iron Man delivers superhero/comic book fun that left me hoping the planned trilogy comes to pass -- with Favreau at the helm of all three. I liked Batman Begins, it was my last 'favorite comic book movie', but I'm really not looking forward to the sequel. I'm just not that goth, I guess. I like the bold primary colors comics more than the brooding I'm-so-dark-I'm-cool genre calculated to appeal to the NIN set. Those less dark superhero movies have been a mixed bag to this point: Superman Returns, Daredevil, Ang Lee's Hulk, Raimi's Spider-Man movies, the X-Men movies -- there's some wild inconsistency there. Hammy to stilted acting (Maguire the former, any X-(wo)man the latter, Affleck both), distractingly awful CGI, ludicrously overstuffed/semi-coherent stories, there's been something fundamentally wrong with all of them. While each of those movies had elements I liked, none of them have held up particularly well for me. The first two Spideys would be best of that lot. [Update: A day later, I find myself thinking, "How could those Afghan soldiers have been stupid enough to let Stark build the Iron Man 1.0 suit right under their noses when he was supposed to be building them missiles? Instead of watching on grainy video monitors wondering what he was up to ('Maybe he made some modifications?' one asks another) they could've asked him directly and made him show progress.) Of course, I wondered the same thing during the movie, but I stopped wondering as I got caught up in the tension of getting the suit built in time, etc. I think it would be hard to sit through that a second time.]

Downey wasn't the only actor doing fine work in this movie. Jeff "The Dude" Bridges was great as Downey's mentor and (obligatory spoiler alert, if needed) ultimate nemesis. I didn't even recognize him at first with that bald dome-full beard look. Are his meaty, arms dealing paws in this movie the same hands that balanced White Russians so delicately in The Big Lebowski? None of the performances here were so one-dimensionally bad that they distracted me from the flow of the movie. Can't say that about many (any?) other superhero movie.

I like too that Iron Man isn't as powerful as the Hulk and Superman. You don't find yourself wondering things like "Could he really pick up a whole continent like that? Wouldn't it break in half in the middle, or the weight of the whole continent focused where he's standing cause the part of the earth's crust he's standing on to sink?" And the suit has that Gundam/Mech appeal that satisfies the tech/gadget lover in me much more than Batman's token nod.

Summing up: Iron Man delivers the Saturday matinee summer action movie goods.
More reviews: KcM spot-on | HND nails Downey's turn | WAW has more RDJr gushing.

Labels: comics, movies

16:35 cdogzilla

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Peanuts Manga
For example:

Labels: comics

10:47 cdogzilla

Friday, June 08, 2007

Weird Science

Labels: comics, science

22:36 cdogzilla