Mark Millar movies and comics can be highly concerning and dangerous entities. There is an odd status where Millar chooses for his work to appeal to the hate in the audience while simultaneously judging them for liking it. Kickass for example was unrelentingly aggressive towards the people watching the movie and reading the comic. The nerd protagonist was a horrible person with almost no redeeming qualities beyond a skewed view of justice coupled with a penchant for violence. While some of his choices can be seen as Millar sticking to the pulpy roots of comics, there is a point where that adherence to old styles of violence, sexism and racism feels infuriatingly backwards. That is why it came as a surprise that Kingsman: The Secret Service (based on The Secret Service by Millar and Dave Gibbons) is a spy movie that does a fantastic job at avoiding the hatefulness of the genre that Millar’s work commonly holds. Instead we are reintroduced to that original Millar who grew up at the feet of Grant Morrison with a love for comics. This is the Millar that could write decent characters, craft a fun plot and still have some good over the top action. Kingsman: The Secret Service has the better Millar at the heart, or at least some very strong adaption work thanks to writer and director Matthew Vaughn (X-men: First Class, Kickass and Stardust).
Category: Reviews
Horrible Bosses 2: The Horrible Bosses Gaze Into You
Horrible Bosses 2 is the kind of sequel that takes characters people generally liked the first time out, hands them to a new creative team, and then fails to make anything worthwhile narratively, neglecting to tell actual jokes or to make the characters endearing. Gone are the bumbling and mostly innocent knuckleheads from Horrible Bosses, replaced with stunted, pale imitations. The gang Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) proceed to bumble around committing actual offenses, played off as jokes, while struggling to commit an actual crime for the right reasons.
Let’s Be Cops
I was a bit disappointed that the early screening of Let’s Be Cops didn’t have the same type of social marketing hashtag that The Purge: Anarchy had. For The Purge, they wanted viewers of the early movie screening to tweet what they’d do #IfThePurgeWasReal. Let’s Be Cops wasn’t afforded the same benefit. There was no “#WhatIfWeLetsBeCops, possibly out of fear, because most of those ideas that would be tweeted out might be better than the actual ideas within Let’s Be Cops. Where Pixar very often describes throwing away complete story idea to try and attain some real and original, Let’s Be Cops feels more like it was scraping at the bottom of the barrel wasting an excellent premise and cast.
The Wolf of Wall Street: Howling At The Gates
Powered by a dangerous intellect, a dash of sardonism and the ability to get away with crimes of any and all calibers, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street, Mr. Peabody, is one of the most shocking characters to enter the silver screen in decades. The film follows the irascible Mr. Peabody as he adopts Sherman, played by a very off sounding Jonah Hill, as they help to shape the course of the world, fight several government organizations, and in a shocking twist, are praised for bringing the world safely back from a near-collapse that they actually caused.
Knuckleheads #4 Review: Hangover Cure
Written by Brian Winkeler
Art by Robert Wilson IV
Colors by Jordan Boyd
Letters by Thomas Mauer
As a fan of horrible breakfasts, I can empathize with Trevor in the newest issue of Knuckleheads which overall, I enjoyed more than the first three, which is always a good sign. If you recall, he said casually linking back that earlier article, the first arc of issues was good but it felt tied to the past, like it was just telling the first story over again to get it done with, needed some more splash and action. And here we get less action but we get a whole bunch of splash along with a side order of heart disease in about 20 years if we don’t start exercising more and eating better.
What We Ultimately Lose From The End Of The Ultimate Universe
So the Ultimate Universe is ending – theoretically – with Cataclysm. I mean they have Galactus there (instead of Gah Lak Tus) and he’s going to eat the planet. But for people who lost track of the universe I figured I’d go over what has been happening since the reboot (because that’s what I spent my weekend doing thanks to Marvel Unlimited and other sources).
The Darke Files: KFC Buffet
I’ve been a fan of the Trashford Files because I to enjoy eating food that is horrible. In fact I will vehemently admit that I take pleasure out of it – my taste buds are wired so that the last unadulterated tomato, grown glistening on the vine, natural, pure and ripe was like a flavorless mound. I’ve forced friends into late night visits to White Castle and Rally’s – benefits afforded by my residence within the Buckeye State. For the past 7 years though, I have been blessed to live near the golden demographic for fast food. Those people who represent all niches that the fast food companies desire. I’ve seen new foods early, I’ve seen foods that never were introduced to the greater world. And being on the cusp of the midwest proper I’ve seen restaurants pander to worlds exotic for I live in The Darke County (Ohio).
Marvel Season One: Spider-man and The Avengers
I haven’t touched a lot of the old school comics before when it comes to Marvel and DC (and those I’ve read are because of SuperMOOC). So when the opportunity came via the library system to check out the Marvel Season One books – the updated origin graphic novels retelling the origin stories of some of the better known heroes I was game.
I really picked up the titles in order of interested and was able to touch the first few pretty quickly so the reviews are in that order as opposed to some kind of chronological one. This time I checked out Spider-man and The Avengers.
Marvel Season One: Fantastic Four and Daredevil
I haven’t touched a lot of the old school comics before when it comes to Marvel and DC (and those I’ve read are because of SuperMOOC). So when the opportunity came via the library system to check out the Marvel Season One books – the updated origin graphic novels retelling the origin stories of some of the better known heroes I was game.
I really picked up the titles in order of interested and was able to touch the first few pretty quickly so the reviews are in that order as opposed to some kind of chronological one. This time I checked out Fantastic Four and Daredevil.
Marvel Season One: Ant-Man and Hulk
I haven’t touched a lot of the old school comics before when it comes to Marvel and DC (and those I’ve read are because of SuperMOOC). So when the opportunity came via the library system to check out the Marvel Season One books – the updated origin graphic novels retelling the origin stories of some of the better known heroes I was game.
I really picked up the titles in order of interested and was able to touch the first few pretty quickly so the reviews are in that order as opposed to some kind of chronological one.