A Perfect Getaway (2009)

I've been experimenting with my schedule some this week. Trying to find more time to read, manage projects, and do other important things. Clearly though - in regards to this blog anyway - it's been a failure, so I'm going to keep working on it.

My brother-in-law and I meant to go see District 9 tonight - all the stellar reviews finally wore me down - but it was sold out. Not sure where all the movie crowds came from on a Thursday night, but we had to pick another movie and I'm so glad we did. I'd been on the fence about A Perfect Getaway and might not have seen it otherwise.

What I said about it at the end of last month was, "This could go a couple of different ways: cool, island thriller or lame, stalker horror flick. Either one's going to have Milla Jovovich doing a little butt kicking in the tropics though, so yeah, I'm interested." And it did have Milla doing some fighting, though not as much as I hoped. More importantly, it was a cool island thriller. Beyond cool. Maybe my favorite movie of the year so far, and definitely in the top three.

I don't want too say much about it for fear of giving something away, but the premise is that Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn are on their honeymoon in Hawaii and hear that there's a serial-killing couple on the loose. Two couples in particular are the main suspects, but they aren't the only ones.

What I love about the movie is that we don't find out who the killers are right away and then spend the rest of the time watching Jovovich and Zahn try to escape them. That's what I was afraid the movie might be like. Instead, the tension from the film comes from Jovovich and Zahn's trying to figure out who the bad guys are before they become the next victims. And the incredibly smart, unbelievably entertaining script keeps you guessing - It's them! No wait, it's them! - right up until it decides that it's time for you to know.

Also... I can't say enough good things about Timothy Olyphant's performance in this thing. I won't tell you if he's a killer, but I will say that - as I was trying to figure it out - I decided that I didn't care if he was or not. I still was going to like the hell out of him.

Also also? Didn't realize until I got home that the other main suspect was played by Chris (Captain Kirk's dad; Thor) Hemsworth. Holy crap, can that guy act. Totally didn't recognize him. I can now that I'm looking at his picture...



...but he completely disappears into his role in this movie.

My only gripe about the film is that there was a slightly grainy look to it that interfered with the beauty of the scenery. There were some excellent shots, but whether they were made with cheap film or the graininess was an intentional choice, they fell short of breathtaking.

Still, the story and the performances more than made up for that minor complaint.

Five out of five island paradises.

Quotes of the (Past) Week: Seasoned by Love

I took good care of my own comics because I respected their magic pictures and stories and wanted to visit them again and again. Today they are no longer in mint condition but they do have the additional glow that all things acquire from being seasoned by love over a long period of time.
--David Apatoff, summing up my relationship to comics too.

You shouldn't be glutted with vampires: they should be a spice, not a food group.
--Neil Gaiman, on the current resurgence of the fad.

Nobody likes to feel lumped together - Minnesota and Wisconsin are probably about as close as you can get to states that are similar in the popular imagination, and if you talk about them like they're the same, you're going to get two guys beating you up - one will have a Viking helmet on and the other one will be pounding on you with a wheel of cheese.
--Linda Holmes, on the foolishness of the "Mid-America" demographic group. This also further reinforces my idea that I should have a whole separate feature called Linda Holmes Quote of the Week.

Art Show: Hulk drop ice cream!

Rime of the Ancient Mariner



By Joseph Noel Paton. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Science! Invention!



Not sure who did this one. [Poulpe Pulps]

There's something about an Aqua Velvet Man



By Zenon Jimenez. [William Travis Robison]

Creature from the Black Lagoon



By Brent Schoonover. [House of Duck]

Kim Possible



By Chris Butler.

Selene



By Grant Gould.

A Couple of Hulks



By Grant Gould.



By Paul Taylor.

Both of these were made 'specially for me. I'm gradually getting some of my original convention art scanned in.

Zatanna



By Grant Gould.

Spidey and Mary Jane



By Mike Maihack. I'm not a huge Spider-Man fan, but I love the joy on Mary Jane's face in this piece.

Rogue



By Jess Hickman. Another one from my personal accumulation.

Calling Captain Future!



Not sure who did this one either.

Phantasms



By Anthony Carpenter.

Happy Rob Roy Day!

Today's Sir Walter Scott's birthday. He was born in 1771.

In lieu of a big helping of haggis, I'm celebrating by trying not to weave any tangled webs today.

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I'm as surprised as anyone, but I really liked GI Joe, and that's even with raised expectations. I tried - really hard - to go into it with zero expectations, but I kept hearing from so many people who were surprisingly entertained by it. I couldn't help but get my hopes up a little. And - shocker - I wasn't disappointed.

Yes, Snake Eye's mouth is goofy to the point of distraction, but that's my biggest complaint about the movie. Keep in mind that I've got only a passing familiarity with these characters so I don't care at all about how much was changed from the cartoon or the comics. What I was impressed by is that just about every character was thought-out with an interesting backstory, that I cared about those characters, that the overall plot made sense, and that the special effects were believable.

One of my problems with other versions of GI Joe has always been that the cast is so large. They'll give the most attention to a few favorites, but there are all of these supporting characters that we're supposed to know and care about too. That's not an issue in the movie. The cast is small enough that we can keep track of everyone, but large enough that the story's able to stay constantly exciting by moving around between groups. We'll spend a little time with Duke and Ripcord, and just when that's starting to get old we'll skip to Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Then to the Baroness and Destro. Then to Ripcord and Scarlett. Then to General Hawk and the US government. Then back to Duke and the Baroness. I love that kind of storytelling anyway and GI Joe pulls it off really well.

Minor spoilers below

One of the reasons it pulls it off is because so many characters have previous connections to each other. Again, I don't know or care how accurate this is to the other media interpretations, but I like that Duke used to date Baroness, that Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow have been rivals since childhood (which sounds like a cliché, but is pulled off by some nice acting from the kids in the flashback scenes), and others that would be pretty huge spoilers if I mentioned them.

One bit I do know from some of the comics is that Snake Eyes and Scarlett are a couple in that medium. That's totally changed in the movie and all for the better I think. The little I know about Scarlett makes me think that she's too strong a character to find a deep enough connection with a guy who never talks. Her dating him has always felt like fan-pandering to me. Let's take everyone's favorite Joe and hook him up with the hot girl on the team whether it makes sense or not.

In the movie, there's a shot of her leaning against him in a very familiar way during a briefing, but there's no other hint that they've ever had a real relationship. The shot feels like a gentle homage to the comics (and there are lots of nice homages like that: "Knowing is half the battle," "Yo, Joe!," etc.), but her love interest in the film is Ripcord.

I have to say that I'm genetically pre-conditioned not to like Marlan Wayans (except for Mo' Money; that was hilarious), but he was remarkably not-annoying in GI Joe. There were times when I just about reached my threshold for tolerating him, but then they'd switch over to a scene with Baroness and I was okay.



Anyway, I didn't mind at all that Scarlett warmed up to Ripcord by the end. I still can't imagine her having a serious relationship with him, but her flirting with him is a heck of a lot more believable than her dating Snake Eyes.

The plot of the movie is simple, as light, summer fare should be. Compare it to Transformers 2, which made no sense outside of a stream-of-consciousness connecting of confusing action sequences. The problem with Transformers 2 is that you can't pull at a plot thread without the whole movie falling apart in your hands. I'm not going to say that GI Joe is the most tightly put-together story I've ever seen, but it's simplicity makes it pretty bullet proof. There's a bad guy who's created a devastating weapon for the US and now he wants to steal it back so that he can use it in his own world-conquering schemes. An elite, global task force has to stop him. Gunfights, car chases, martial arts, and underwater dogfights in personal submarines ensue. And Stephen Sommers actually spent some money making it look good instead of like a cheap video game. What's not to like?

"Rocket suits," I heard someone say from the back. Well, you're wrong. Despite their getting a lot of attention in the trailers, the rocket suits are only there for one scene and they're pretty awesome in it.

Four out of five undersea headquarters.

Airborn: The 200-Page Check-In (or, Why I Should Learn to Stick to the 100-Page Rule)

So I broke my 100-page rule on Airborn and kept reading even though I didn't think it was all that captivating. After all, there were pirates and an island shipwreck coming, so I hoped it would get better. Besides, I didn't have anything else to read.

Well, I've bought Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys since then and made it through the pirates and the wreck. There are still 300 unread pages to Airborn, but I'm done with it. The pirates were exciting, but the shipwreck was not. In fact, calling it a shipwreck is an exaggeration.

It's more of a forced landing on an uncharted island where no one's really all that concerned about being there for very long. It's pretty much taken for granted that they'll be underway again as soon as they make repairs, so everything feels very controlled and safe. There's no danger or excitement to any of it. In fact, the whole episode feels like nothing more than an excuse for Matt and Kate to explore the island and discover a skeleton that matches the description of Grandpa's mysterious creature.

I like Oppel's description of the island with its lush greeness and abundant bird life, but Kate's reaction to the skeleton is hard to swallow. Rather than going back to the airship for help and securing a dozen witnesses to the find, Kate swears Matt to secrecy, saying that she's afraid the captain will "send some of the crew to come and collect the bones, and then it'll be taken from me."

Kate's major concern now isn't that her grandfather is vindicated, but that she get the credit for the find. That rubs me the wrong way for a couple of reasons. First is because the ship's captain has been consistently portrayed as a fair man. Kate may not get that, but Matt certainly does. He adores the captain, but he immediately caves to Kate's suspicions and doesn't defend the captain in any more than a cursory way.

The bigger reason that Kate's reaction irks me is that up until now her entire character has been built around her love for her grandfather and her desire to see that he has a positive legacy. Even that's been barely enough reason to like her since we've never seen her and her grandfather together. All that we know about their relationship is what she's told Matt, so we have no emotional investment in seeing her succeed in her quest.

And now, even if we've decided to accept her quest anyway and just try to go with it, her motivation changes so suddenly - it's all about her recognition and glory now - that I couldn't care less who learns about the skeleton or what happens to it. And since I'm now at the 200-page mark, it's as good a time as any to put the book down and move on to a secret organization that assassinates evil-doers.

Writing is Hard: 12 Steps to Getting Published

Pimp My Novel has a wonderful list of things you have to do to get your novel published. If only they were as easy as they sound. When it comes to my novel, I'm still not done with Step 1.

Difficult as they are though, it's a great list because it sets some realistic expectations for aspiring authors. I'm linking to it from here because I'm definitely going to want to refer to it again later.

The Atheist

This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs is a look at Phil Hester's The Atheist.

I had dinner recently with someone and I mentioned that I was reading The Atheist. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “There was some controversy about that title, wasn’t there?” I don’t remember the controversy itself, but I do remember an interview or something in which Phil Hester felt the need to explain the name of his book. He does it again in the introduction to the collected volume. What’s surprising, I think, is that it’s not conservative religious people who were complaining this time.

Hester writes, “I thought The Atheist was a snappy, if somewhat jarring, hook of a title. It seemed to perfectly describe Mr. Sharpe’s uncompromising brand of skeptical thinking and just plain old sounded cool. Of course, I should have considered that this title might cause readers to infer the book would have some stance, pro or con, on the atheist world view, and that some atheists would take offense at their views being fodder for a horror comic book.” He also says that he’s dropping the title on any potential future volumes.

I bring this up because I remember being jarred by the title when the first issue came out. I remember wondering whether the book would take a stance on atheism and whether it would be pro or con. This was one of the first books I read where Hester was writing but not illustrating it, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I also remember reading it and being relieved that atheism really wasn’t what the book was about at all.

Click here for the rest.

C2E2 plans. I haz them.

The website for the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo is up and running. Tickets are available and you can get early bird prices until September 1. They're also accepting requests for Artist Alley tables.

Nothing yet about press registration, so this post is mostly a reminder for me to keep watching for that.

What’s So Cool About the Sub-Mariner? Part Three

Almost everyone agrees that Marvel’s Sub-Mariner (aka Namor) is more successful than DC’s Aquaman. Using their early Silver Age stories as reference, I’m trying to figure out why that is. Part One. Part Two.



First of all, I'm sorry about not posting all week. Yuck. Trying to get caught up from last weekend got the best of me, so I'm gonna do some double-posting over this weekend make up for it.

But back to Namor: so far his coolness in comparison to Aquaman comes down to three things: the undersea world Namor comes from (which is filled with stranger creatures and stronger drama than Aquaman’s), his relationship with Susan Storm (giving his character an arc to develop over a series of adventures), and his ability to be powerful outside of water (so that he’s not limited solely to underwater exploits).

We last saw Namor in Fantastic Four #6. At the end of that issue he returned to the sea, still hurting over not being able to find his people thanks to humans, but unwilling to continue his war of vengeance against the surface world and risk hurting Sue. This is still his emotional state when we next see him in Fantastic Four #9. He catches a news report – he’s apparently restored power to his ruined city and had the cable hooked back up – saying that the Fantastic Four has gone broke. Reed’s been playing the stock market and not doing a very good job at it, so the team’s going to have to sell everything to cover their debts and split up. Seeing this as an opportunity to win Sue over, Namor develops a plan.



It’s not a very good plan though. In fact, it’s a little embarrassing. Rather than let the group split up and then try to approach Sue when Reed’s not around, Namor comes up with a cockamamie scheme that involves his buying a Hollywood movie studio. He knows where a lot of sunken treasure is hidden, so he starts SM Studios and offers the FF roles in his first film. The three men are naturally distrustful, but Sue’s impressed with Namor’s powerful confidence. Having no other options to save their team though, the fellas come around and agree to make the picture.

Namor’s master plan is to put the three men into deadly situations under the pretext that they’re filming stunts. His overconfidence gets him into trouble though and he leaves Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch alone with their perils, sure that they’ll be defeated. He decides to fight the Thing himself though and for a while it looks like they’re evenly matched, which is pretty much what we’ve seen the last couple of times these two have fought.

In these early issues of Fantastic Four though, the Thing would occasionally transform back into Ben Grimm as a result of some of the testing that Mr. Fantastic was doing to try to cure him. Unfortunately, that happens during the fight with Namor and Ben goes down.



Thinking that he’s defeated all three men, Namor returns to Sue and lets her in on his plan. Now that they’re out of the way, he wants her to marry him. Sue, on the other hand, lets Namor in on how stupid he’s been. If he had come to her truthfully and peacefully she would have considered his offer. She tells him that by attacking her teammates he’s fighting her as well.

They tussle briefly after that, but it’s not clear what the stakes are. Sue’s fighting for the honor of her team, but it’s hard to tell what Namor wants if he wins. I choose to believe – because it’s getting clearer that his feelings for Sue are genuine – that he doesn’t intend to force her to marry him. Rather, I think that his arrogance is once again getting in the way and that he can’t let a challenge go. When she declares that they’re enemies, he retaliates by acting like one.

During their fight, Namor once again shows that he’s got the same abilities as certain sea creatures. He tries his electric eel power on her like he did against Doctor Doom in issue #6, but when that doesn’t work he uses the radar-like senses of deep-sea, cave-dwelling fish to spot and capture the invisible Sue.



Fortunately for Sue, the rest of the FF show up just in time and triple-team Namor. They almost have him when Sue throws herself between him and them. She hates seeing them gang up on one person, but she also tells Namor that she expects him to uphold his end of their contract. He says that he will and that their movie will be produced and that they will get paid. He then returns to the sea once more as Sue rubs it in to Reed that Namor went to all this trouble because he loves her. Man, they’ve got a weird relationship.

Next week: Namor in the hands of... the Puppet Master!

Grading Aquaman: Justice League of America #4-6

Continuing our look at Aquaman’s membership in the Justice League of America in order to document how he contributed (or didn’t) to the cases the JLA took in its early years. Is his perceived ineptness actually just perception? Or is it fact?

Justice League of America #4: “Doom of the Star Diamond”

The Case: A space hero named Carthan is caught by bad guys and exiled to Earth. They set up a convoluted trap that will destroy everyone on Earth if he tries to leave, and some kind of contrived mumbo jumbo prevents his asking the Justice League for help. Seriously? Gardner Fox went to insane lengths to come up with plots and motivations that make absolutely no sense. Carthan pretends to be a super-villain so that the Justice League will think the traps are a weapon and figure out how to disarm them for him.

Aquaman, Attack!: Aquaman and Flash go after one of the weapons in Australia. Flash pushes Aquaman there in a giant seashell, but it’s not as demeaning as it is when Martian Manhunter or Green Lantern have to transport him across water. Aquaman shouldn’t be able to swim as fast as the Flash can run.

Carthan’s machine is causing Australia to sink into the ocean, so the Flash runs really fast around the entire continent to keep the waves back. While he’s doing that, Aquaman searches the ocean floor for the machine. He finds it with the help of some fish, but can’t get near it due to its built-in “repelling ray.” He has some sea creatures construct a seaweed net to get the machine to the surface, but still can’t turn it off. Fortunately, Flash is then able to counter-balance the repelling ray with his own super-speed vibrations, giving Aquaman the opportunity to flip the power switch. It’s actually a nice bit of teamwork.

Once the three traps are turned off Carthan has some explaining to do – and brand-new JLA member Green Arrow gets to prove his worth by rescuing the whole team from one last device gone wrong (the Star Diamond from the title) – but it’s not that hard for the team to wrap things up.

Aquaman’s Participation Grade: B



Justice League of America #5: “When Gravity Went Wild”

The Case: Green Arrow is accused of helping a band of super-villains escape the JLA. The critical JLA members recount recent events to an impartial jury consisting of Superman, Batman, and Snapper Carr. Afterwards, Green Arrow is allowed to tell his side of the story. The title of the story comes from a brief event in which the villains use an anti-gravity ray to capture the JLA.

Aquaman, Attack!: Aquaman relates the story in which he, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern tried to round up recent prison escapees Electric Man, escape artist Monty Moran, and the Puppet Master. While they’re flying in search of the villainous trio, Electric Man somehow uses lightning to turn the jet stream into a mid-air, whitewater river that of course plummets immediately to Earth. Aquaman saves his overwhelmed companions by grabbing hold of them and swimming against the current of rushing water. He can’t keep them aloft, but he manages to slow their fall enough that they survive it.

He’s not much good for the rest of the search and it’s Green Lantern who ultimately captures all the bad guys (with important groundwork laid by Green Arrow, whose actions of course were misunderstood), but GL never would’ve been able to do it had Aquaman not saved his life.

Aquaman’s Participation Grade: B



Justice League of America #6: “The Wheel of Misfortune”

The Case: Professor Fortune creates a machine that changes people’s luck. In order to keep the JLA from interfering in his fortune-hunting schemes, he gives them bad luck while giving himself good luck. He’s smart enough though to avoid suspicion by turning the bad luck device on them just as they’re breaking some traditional superstition.

Aquaman, Attack!: The Professor zaps Aquaman with the bad luck machine just as Aquaman’s recovering a cursed opal from a shipwreck. Just as Aquaman’s leaving the wreck, a hatch falls shut on him and knocks him out.

He and the others deny being superstitious, but acknowledge that they’ve all had unlucky things happen to them lately. In the absence of any real case, they open up some fan mail and decide to help a couple of people who’ve written to them. Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern investigate a seaside museum that’s being plagued by a series of robberies committed by an invisible thief.

Aquaman asks the local sea life to alert him if anyone approaches the museum from that way, then returns to keep company with Green Lantern and the museum’s curator as Wonder Woman keeps an eye on the building from the sky. The culprit gets past Wonder Woman and the fish, but is found out thanks to a trap that Green Lantern’s laid. Now that she knows where to look, Wonder Woman catches him in her lasso.

While all this is going on, Professor Fortune happens to discover where the thief’s been hiding his loot and steals it all for himself. The three heroes see him getting in his car with the goods and give chase, but after an extra dose of the bad-luck ray the heroes are overcome by the carbon monoxide in the Professor’s car exhaust. He also manages to capture Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Green Arrow who go looking for their missing friends. Martian Manhunter saves the day since the bad-luck ray only works on humans and doesn’t affect him. He was only pretending to be affected so that the Professor would lead him to the rest of the heroes.

Aquaman’s Participation Grade: D