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The Surreal Structure of the Shaolin
I watched The 36th Chamber of the Shaolin and had lots of lengthy thoughts about it’s structure in relation to modern action movies [more]
Portraits in Alienated British Youth Circa 1989-90, Part Nine: Out Of His Depth
As part five of Garth Ennis and Warren Pleece’s True Faith opens, we find our young protagonist, Nigel Gibson, well and truly out of his depth as lunatic (by most people’s standards, at any rate)… [more]
A Tribute to James Horner
Probably the reason why many of us know the name James Horner is because he wrote the soundtracks to some of the films of our formative years. The public at large remembers him from Titanic… [more]
Weird Worlds: The Minor Mainstream Works of Steve Gerber, Part 2 – Mister Miracle
Though Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle ostensibly ran for 6 years (1971-1977), the series produced only 25 issues. Between #18, Kirby’s final issue, and #19, there is a 3 year gap. It is a testament to… [more]
A Brief Appreciation of Comics Lettering
If comics are “Just words and pictures,” then lettering is what allows those two elements to blend into a cohesive whole. Lettering can be artful, it can serve story purpose, it can be decorative, it… [more]
My Nakama Left Me With a Smile: Hannibal Season Two Episode Three
The murders on this episode of Hannibal revolve around technicalities. The episode opens on a seated Hannibal, discussing Will Graham’s admission of forgiveness. Hannibal seems almost visually shaken as he parses out this newly developing… [more]
Project Greenlight: A Glimpse into a Bygone Era
Even though only fifteen years separates us now from the early 2000s, in terms of the production of film and TV, and the general media landscape, it seems like a lifetime in the past. In… [more]
The Golden Age of American Film Criticism, Part 2
That generation of film critics became my unofficial college professors. If you needed me in those days, you could usually find me in the basement of the university library, sprawled on the dusty concrete floor reading old movie reviews. [more]
An Exploration of the Scientific Accuracy on Orphan Black
Science fiction, even at its most absurdly whimsical and farfetched, is never easy to produce. Some stories contain fictional elements so preposterous that all scientific credulity is lost. Others make the opposite mistake, and fill… [more]
Them Dancing Bones: On Alice
There’s something delightful about a film that manages to create visuals you couldn’t have imagined. In a largely visual medium, one where, especially nowadays, the corner-most vestiges of anyone’s mind can be played across a… [more]
John Byrne Adeptly Extends Star Trek Universe in IDW’s New Visions
Comic books usually begin with stories. Then there are, of course, a wide variety of approaches to the art that illustrates the books. One approach that ran its course in the late 1970s and early… [more]
Jurassic World: A Good Idea Destroyed by the Studio System
I had a more complicated reaction to Jurassic World than I expected to. A lot of people seem to be writing off the film as another run-of-the-mill blockbuster unworthy of strong opinions in either direction.… [more]
“Leng. We’re All on Leng”: Alan Moore’s Providence and the Cthulhu Mythos
A while back I discussed just what it was that defines the sense of the Lovecraftian. At that time I spoke of Alan Moore’s The Courtyard and Neonomicon and their contrast to the perhaps less… [more]
Who Will Save Us Now?: Dirty Realistic Fiction, Grim and Gritty Superhero Comic Books, and the Legacy of 1986—Part 3
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility! In the quarter of a century since these books came out, the American comic book landscape has changed dramatically. Whereas once upon a time, superhero comic books were made… [more]
Who Will Save Us Now?: Dirty Realistic Fiction, Grim and Gritty Superhero Comic Books, and the Legacy of 1986—Part 2
All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative! I read—and loved—The Dark Knight Returns when I was in the 7th grade, about three… [more]
Who Will Save Us Now?: Dirty Realistic Fiction, Grim and Gritty Superhero Comic Books, and the Legacy of 1986—Part 1
Great Krypton! In the fall of 1987, my father gave me 75 cents to purchase issue 595 of Action Comics, the comic book that started my collection. I had read comic books before, but hadn’t… [more]
He Left Us His Broken Heart: Hannibal Season Three Episode Two
The hypocrisy of network TV is immediately obvious in this week’s episode of Hannibal as a subtly censored version of Botticelli’s Primavera fades into a macabre reimagining of the painting. Then later when a mangled… [more]
Roger Ebert and the Golden Age of American Film Criticism, Part 1
Roger Ebert loved his hometown, his college, his newspaper, his friends, his lovers, and his travels. Like most great writers, he doesn’t explain so much as he inspires. [more]
Tsuburaya and Honda’s Last Charge: Destroy All Monsters
There was another big number coming down Toho’s pipe shortly after they’d celebrated their anniversary. Their next kaiju film would be the twentieth they had directed, something worthy of celebration. However the celebration was to… [more]
An Empire of Crime: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
I’d only ever seen one Fritz Lang movie prior to watching The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, and that was the film he directed immediately before The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, M. Other than being a… [more]
Weird Worlds: The Minor Mainstream Works of Steve Gerber, Part 1 – Dr. Fate
When I first started my comics blog in 2008, the first post I made was a brief obituary and tribute to Steve Gerber. I think it serves as a nice introduction to the project upon… [more]
Ethics Become Aesthetics: Hannibal Season Three Episode One
Hannibal’s season two finale was a catastrophic cliff hanger that saw almost every single protagonist bleeding out on the floor, life fading. The first thing we see in season three is a series of elegantly… [more]
Star Trek III and PTSD
“The Enterprise feels like a house with all the children gone,” Admiral James T. Kirk intones in his first scene in Star Trek III, the darkest and in some ways most heartfelt of all the… [more]
“If it Ain’t Broke …”: Revisionist Missteps in Batman: Earth One
Three weeks ago, while discussing the Superman: Earth One series of graphic novels, I mentioned in passing that I “didn’t care” for the Earth One Batman series. Now as far as Internet critiques go, saying… [more]
Metal Monsters: Tsuburaya Returns to Kong
1967 was a big year for Toho. Not because of the introduction of Godzilla’s son, but because it was their thirty-fifth anniversary. Eiji Tsuburaya and Ishirō Honda reunited to work on their penultimate collaboration for… [more]