San Diego wrap-up

(Yes, a day late, but there was a lot to cover. I'll also have a more conceptual take on it in the upcoming Las Vegas Weekly.)

Unlike some, I don't really have the fortitude (or the money) to spend four days at Comic-Con, so for the past two years I've only gone for Saturday, which is what I did this year as well. I've been refining my approach so that I have a pretty reliable system now for things like parking, carrying stuff (the benefits of bringing my own cardboard poster tube - grabbed from the office - are immeasurable), eating and so on. I've also switched gears a little as to what I buy at the con. This year I tried to take some of Rich Johnston's advice and not just get stuff that could easily be obtained elsewhere. I did, however, still print out my Amazon wishlist to take with me, and pick up four trade collections that I will get around to reading at some point (who knows when - I've still got stuff on the shelf that I bought last year): Brian Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, Rich Koslowski's The King, Adrian Tomine's Sleepwalk and the first volume of the Peter David Hulk Visionaries. Note only one superhero book in there, which I think is an admirable effort to broaden my horizons.

I also only bought two old back issues that I need to complete collections of certain books: Savage Dragon #27 (which finally fills in all the holes in my SD run) and New Warriors #63, which puts me only nine issues away from completing NW, after which I'll probably read the whole run over. It's a series that I read in bits and pieces when it first came out, but only later got interested in the idea (I have a soft spot for C-list early '90s Marvel heroes), and I picked up the bulk of the run at a ten-cent sale at my local store a few years back. I've been filling it in piecemeal since then because none of it's collected and I want to read it. I toyed briefly with trying to submit a New Warriors proposal for Marvel's ill-fated Epic initiative a while ago (as did, well, pretty much every Marvel fan my age), but now I just want to be able to read it all and enjoy, which has proven to be quite the chore. I found a copy of issue 46 (another one I need) for $15, which is ridiculous considering how not in demand later issues of the series are, and the guy told me it was all based on the condition. I'm a reader, not a collector, and since I'd probably end up devaluing the thing by reading it, I didn't bother. I can't imagine paying $15 for an individual issue of anything.

So other than that stuff, I tried to be a little adventurous. I don't carry a sketchbook and I've never understood the appeal of autographs (plus I hate talking to people), so I didn't go around meeting creators. I also can't really afford to buy art prints, but what I really do like, that I started doing last year, is getting T-shirts with art. Not advertising specific comics, just with pieces of art. I got one from the brilliant Tara McPherson, who did covers for Vertigo's lame series The Witching (her covers were the only non-lame element) and told me that she has some interior sequential stuff in the works, which would be very welcome. I think I probably made a total fool of myself while talking to her. I also met artist Ragnar (just the one name, thanks) and his wife, who are both Las Vegas natives and current Orange County residents. I did my best to sell them on the burgeoning Vegas arts scene, and bought a shirt with one of Ragnar's retro-modern drawings on it. And the last one I picked up was by artist Andrew Bawidamann, who does retro pin-up art with thick lines and thick curves, both of which I approve of.

I did get suckered in by one cool T-shirt that I sort of regret. The comic strip Unshelved had a Fight Club parody shirt called "Book Club" that I thought was amusing, and offered the shirt plus a collection of their strip for 20 bucks. I wavered and ultimately bought it, and while I still find the shirt amusing, the strip, about people working in a library, is about on par for a mediocre web comic. Oh well. Live and learn.

The other thing I tried to do this year was attend more panels, but unfortunately I seem cursed to always miss out on the panels I'd most like to see. Honestly none of Saturday's panels really grabbed me, and of the three I ended up attending, I walked out of all of them. The first was a sort of "tips on writing" talk by Mark Verheiden, writer of Superman and a producer on Battlestar Galactica. I've never read (or seen) any of his work, but a discussion of the mechanics and nuances of writing seemed like a good prospect. Unfortunately it was just a bunch of inanities like "be passionate about your work" (or at least it was for the 10 minutes I was there). I went to a panel theoretically about tips on breaking into comics that was more just a random (but occasionally amusing) conversation among the oddly chosen panelists. The one panel that sort of excited me was for Joss Whedon's upcoming Serenity movie, based on his Firefly TV show. I love Joss Whedon, and although I wasn't always crazy about Firefly, I am eagerly awaiting Serenity. I even braved waiting in line for half an hour with obsessed Whedon fans and sitting in the 6500-seat Hall H, which was bigger than most places I go to see concerts in Vegas. The description promised clips, but instead it was just a Q&A session with Whedon and the cast (so basically just Whedon). Once again, I learned the same lesson I learned at CineVegas: Q&As with self-absorbed geeks of any kind are seriously painful. I spent probably twice as much time in line as I did enduring the torture of the panel.

Slightly better was the nighttime screening of the documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore, by Dez Vylenz. It was cool to hear Moore, who's pretty stingy about giving interviews, talk extensively about his work, but the film pretty quickly veered away from Moore's work into his somewhat questionable religious and philosophical beliefs, all about ancient magick and tarot and the Kabbalah and such. It was a great illustration of the problems with later issues of Promethea. Still, it was way better than the Whedon panel.

Lastly, I grabbed a few issues of newer comics that I had been meaning to pick up or that just caught my eye:

Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril #6 (Joshua Dysart/Sal Velluto, Penny Farthing Press)
The final issue of the series was on sale early and at a discount, so I snatched it up. While I still like the retro feel and as always love Velluto's art, my complaints from the recent issues remain: The story was dragged out too much, and became way too serious. I like that Dysart tries to tackle racial issues in a sort of subtle way, but this book seems to be confused as to whether it's a serious allegory, a fun adventure story, a tribute to old superhero comics or a parody of them. I liked it well enough, but I'm not sure that I'd pick up another series. (I realize the image is of issue five, but I can't for the life of me find one of issue six. All the covers pretty much look the same anyway.)

Living in Infamy #1 (Benjamin Raab & Deric A. Hughes/Greg Kirkpatrick, Ludovico Technique)
Raab's presence as co-writer, a cover by John Cassaday and an intriguing premise (super-villains in witness protection) drove me to give this a chance. It's not bad, but it's not great; the tone is a little off, and Kirkpatrick's interior art is not nearly up to the standards set by Cassaday's cover. It tries to be both quirky (as set up by the great cover image) and serious, and the balance doesn't generally work. Still, Ludovico, a company that previously has done extra features for DVDs, clearly has some money to throw around, and this has professional production values and full color. It's a decent start. Apparently it's only available now in one shop in L.A., but should be distributed soon. Read more about it here.

The Middle Man #1 (Javier Grillo-Marxuach/Les McLaine, Viper)
I was surprised that my local store didn't have copies of this last week, since Grillo-Marxuach is a writer for Lost and Viper had a hit indie book with Dead@17. I'll have to add it to my pull list to get the rest of the mini-series, since this is an excellent debut. The plot is nothing special, but the dialogue is sharp and funny, the main character is interesting, and McLaine's art, which strikes me almost as an indie version of J. Scott Campbell, is lots of fun. Overall a very entertaining read and well worth looking out for.

Tabloia #575-576 (Chris Wisnia, Salt Peter Press)
Wisnia sent me the first three issues of his anthology series (despite the odd numbering, these are actually issues four and five) for review, and I liked his main feature, a sort of slow-burn horror story called The Lump. This wraps up The Lump, as well as features more of the back-ups starring Dick Hammer: Conservative Republican Private Investigator, Dr. DeBunko and Doris Danger. The Lump concludes in a satisfying if oblique fashion, and I think it'll probably read well in one sitting. Wisnia told me that orders were too slim to warrant publishing more issues, but he's looking into putting out a collection of The Lump, which I think would do really well somewhere like Oni (who published Wisnia's collaboration with Sam Keith, Ojo) and a collection of the monster stories, which I wasn't that crazy about but fans of old Kirby monster comics seem to like. More info available here.

Movies opening this week

A little late because of my trip to San Diego (more on that tomorrow). Also I completely forgot.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Deep Roy, dir. Tim Burton)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
For all of his protestations about how this was going to be closer to the book by Roald Dahl, Burton throws in a useless backstory for Willy Wonka and a lame ending as his most significant contributions to this new film version. Yes, it looks great and has that typical Burton flair, but I found it totally pointless (while also totally entertaining). It's a shame that Burton has adamently disavowed interest in pursuing a film version of the book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. At least that would be something new, and a great vehicle for Burton's talent, I think. Really, I would have rather seen him tackle any of the number of other Dahl books that have yet to be adapted for the screen, or, better yet, actually come up with something original. I guess I'll just have to hold out for Corpse Bride. (Far more interesting than the film is this recent lengthy New Yorker take on Dahl's work and its unique appeal.) Wide release

Heights (Elizabeth Banks, Glenn Close, James Marsden, Jesse Bradford, dir. Chris Terrio)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Based on a play by fellow Amherst graduate Amy Fox, so that makes me proud. If you have a low tolerance for talky movies about self-absorbed rich people, you probably won't like this, but I found enough meat on the bones in the visual style and the acting to make it an interesting enough diversion. Opened limited June 17; in Las Vegas this week

Emmy nominations

The television Academy is even more clueless about quality than the motion picture Academy, so it doesn't necessarily bother me to see overrated, mediocre stuff (Desperate Housewives) or total crap (Will & Grace) get tons of nominations. It's pretty much what I expect. At the same time, I always foolishly hold on to a sliver of hope that some good stuff will get its due, probably fueled by the recent nominations and wins for Arrested Development (which I don't even think is that great but is at least intelligent and critically acclaimed). But, for example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer never got any major nominations, nor did Freaks and Geeks, nor Felicity, etc. So I shouldn't have been hoping to see Veronica Mars plastered all over this year's nominations, but I sort of was, thinking in vain that actual consistent quality (rather than hype backed up by quickly declining quality) might be recognized. But no, it's the same old tired names and faces, for the most part, although I was pleased to see Lost do as well as it did. Do we need to encourage the already ridiculously self-congratulatory cast and crew of Desperate Housewives any more? No. Do we need to pretend that The West Wing is anything other than a shadow of its former self? No. Do we need to reward the genial but unadventurous Everybody Loves Raymond one last time? Well, okay, I guess I can let that one slide.

Some more random thoughts, both positive and negative:

- I like seeing Scrubs acknowledged, even though I don't usually watch it. It's clever and smart, like Arrested Development, but isn't smarmy or self-consciously hip, and appears to have actual characters.

- It's strange to see The 4400 nominated in the mini-series category, but probably lucky, since it'd never have a chance in the regular drama series category. Not that I think it deserves one; it's a guilty pleasure at best, but at least its appearance offers a little variety.

- As much as I have been down on Rescue Me recently, it completely deserved more than technical nominations. It's at least better than 24, which has been treading water for two seasons now.

- Boston Legal got exactly the nominations it deserved - it's a silly show, but Spader and Shatner are great, and I would be really happy to see Shatner win.

- The Lead Actress in a Comedy category is one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen: three Desperate Housewives, bland Patricia Heaton from Raymond, and Jane Kaczmarek, playing one of the most abrasive characters on one of the absolute worst shows (Malcolm in the Middle) ever to get critical acclaim and a lengthy run. Clearly there are no good lead comedic roles for women on TV.

- Almost as pathetic: the Guest Actor in a Comedy category, with four big names who showed up on Will & Grace and played "against type" as gay men. I'm sure of it, even though I didn't see any of the episodes.

- Two nominations for Desperate Housewives in the Guest Actress in a Comedy category, and neither is for Harriet Sansom Harris? What the hell?

Unlike for the Oscars, I don't have the sad compulsion to watch the Emmys, so I'll probably just tune into bits and pieces of it and then bitch about the winners the next day. It's the critic's prerogative.

[Full list of nominees here.]

New comics 7/13

Desolation Jones #2 (Warren Ellis/J.H. Williams III, DC/Wildstorm)
Only the second issue and I'm already getting confused by the twisty plot. The bimonthly schedule does not help with recall, either. At least it's not yet as bad as Planetary; I do have a general recollection of what happened in the last issue. Ellis seems to be doing a sort of Big Sleep homage while populating the story with typically Ellis-esque characters. This probably means that the plot will be so convoluted that I wouldn't be able to follow it even if I read all the issues in one sitting. I like the characters, though, who are not so typically Ellis that they don't have their own personalities, and Ellis is establishing some nice pathos for his lead, who is much more subdued than, say, Spider Jerusalem (still the most Ellis of all Ellis characters). Williams' art, with colors by Jose Villarubia, is always wonderful, and he's definitely doing something different from his Promethea work while retaining his unique style.

Fables #39 (Bill Willingham/Lan Medina, DC/Vertigo)
Willingham takes a short break from the ongoing "Homelands" story to check in with the characters back in Fabletown, and it sets a few things in motion but feels like treading water in some ways. Medina's art is more the sketchy, rushed-looking work he's recently done on District X, rather than the more detailed work he did on the early days of this title (when he was inked by Steve Leialoha). Not a bad issue, but I'm eager to get back to the main story (and Mark Buckingham's art).

Gravity #2 (Sean McKeever/Mike Norton, Marvel)
I wasn't quite as gleefully entertained with this issue as I was with the last one, maybe because the surprise of how good it is had worn off. It's still really good, though, a sweet, funny, well-written superhero story that again reminds me of Astro City but in the Marvel universe. McKeever makes nice little continuity nods but keeps everything completely accessible. He's building an interesting supporting cast, and I really hope that there is some way for this to continue as an ongoing series, or at least to see Gravity show up somewhere else (perhaps as part of a revamped New Warriors?).

New Warriors #2 (Zeb Wells/Skottie Young, Marvel)
Once again, I wonder why so many longtime Warriors fans don't like this series. This is even better than the first issue, with an entertaining and goofy done-in-one story (featuring that surefire comics villain, talking monkeys), some advancing subplots that build on the team's history, and fun dialogue with kinetic artwork. The reality TV gimmick wouldn't sustain an ongoing series, but as a mini (or a lead-in to something more permanent), it makes perfect sense for the Warriors. If Fabian Nicieza had done an arc like this in the old Warriors series, people would have loved it. Those people should be giving this book a shot.

Also out this week: Mnemovore #4, which was the latest victim of my comic shop's shipping problems, and The Middleman #1, written by Lost writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach. I'll probably pick that one up at the San Diego Comic-Con, which is where I'll be this weekend (look for a wrap-up sometime on Monday, as well as musings in my new pop culture column for Las Vegas Weekly).

Weekend viewing

All French movie edition!

Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, 2004)
This has been sitting by my TV for probably a couple of months, along with a bunch of other random indie movie screeners I brought home from work with the intention of watching eventually. But reviews, particularly Liz Penn's, spurred me to finally pop this in, and while I'm not sure it's a "juicebomb," as Penn (aka Dana Stevens) calls it, it is a nicely entertaining film that flirts with a number of cliches and doesn't give in to any of them. Ultimately, it's a another ensemble drama about self-absorbed rich people, but Jaoui has a good eye for what makes artistic people tick, and her co-writer Jean-Pierre Bacri gives a great performance as an arrogant writer who is a complete prick to everyone around him, yet still manages to remain somewhat likable.

Romance (Catherine Breillat, 1999)
I despair for whoever is unlucky enough to be having sex with Catherine Breillat. She has the coldest, most brutal view of sex I think I have ever seen in cinema, and this movie is one long attack on both sex and romantic love. I thought Fat Girl, the only other Breillat movie I've seen, was flawed but ultimately fascinating, because it explored genuine characters that I could feel for. This is just ugly and repulsive, and I'm not talking about the sexual explicitness. A quick glance at IMDb reveals that pretty much every one of Breillat's movies tackles the same subject (the bleakness of sexual relations), and I just don't think I have the tolerance to take any more of it.

The Widow of St. Pierre (Patrice Leconte, 2000)
I became totally taken with Leconte after seeing his last two movies, The Man on the Train and Intimate Strangers. I especially loved Intimate Strangers, which was one of my favorite films of last year. This is, in certain ways, very different from those films, in that it's a period piece based on a true story and has a clear political agenda, but it also deals with what is clearly Leconte's favorite theme: Two utterly different people coming together under bizarre circumstances and connecting in an intimate but non-sexual way. Beautifully shot and wonderfully acted, especially by Juliette Binoche, this is a great film with an impossibly heartbreaking ending, and it makes me disappointed that only one of Leconte's other movies (Ridicule) is currently available on NetFlix. It's in my queue, of course.

Summer TV update

The 4400 (USA, Sundays, 9 p.m.)
This is exactly the kind of show that I wouldn't have the patience for during the regular season, but over the summer it's just good enough to keep me coming back. Last year's debut season told a fairly complete story in six episodes, so this season feels at times like the writers just unraveling threads with no clue as to where they're going to go. This week's episode hit a stride in several ways, though, with almost all of the primary characters actually present at the same event for the first time this season, and Richard and Lily's overlong on-the-run storyline finally in the past. I like that they have opened up a whole can of worms with evil baby Isabelle, and that there's a more intricate ongoing plot than just the 4400-of-the-week. A lot of the dialogue is still pretty stiff (along with the acting), and the show is far from subtle, but there's at least one exciting thing each week that makes me interested in coming back for more. Plus I still miss The X-Files.

The Closer (TNT, Mondays, 9 p.m.)
This has fast become my favorite show of the summer, and one of my favorite shows on television, period. I normally have no interest in police procedurals, but this has far more going on than crime-of-the-week stories. Honestly, the cases are not all that fascinating - I mean, they're interesting enough to hold my attention, but I doubt they're breaking any new ground when it comes to TV cop shows. What I love on this show is the characterization and dialogue, especially from Kyra Sedgwick and the great JK Simmons. There are so many little moments between Brenda and her co-workers that so perfectly bring out who they are that I really couldn't care less what criminal they are chasing this week or whether they'll catch him. It's possible the police stuff will eventually drive me away, but as long as we keep learning a little bit about these people every week, I have a feeling I won't ever get bored.

Rescue Me (FX, Tuesdays, 10 p.m.)
Unlike so many rapturous TV critics, I was a little lukewarm on this show last season. It has a lot of things going for it, but over the course of the summer I got incredibly tired of watching a group of reprehensible people doing awful things. There is not a single character on this show that I remotely like or care to see do well. So far this season has continued to be unpleasant, with the added problem that the humor is barely there anymore, and a lot of the plotlines are horribly cliched. The main redeeming factor last season was the show's unpredictability, but now we've got a stalker, a guy addicted to pain pills and a romance between co-workers, and so for they're going exactly where you'd expect. Once the grittiness (aka swear words and sex) becomes routine, there's a lot less here than some people seem to think. On the other hand, I'm still watching because there is a certain interesting truth to the characters, no matter how terrible they are as people. The writers can't write women for shit, and this is a horribly misogynistic show under the guise of "that's just how people talk," but as an exploration of the basest and most repulsive forms of male bonding, it still has a strange appeal.

New comics 7/7

House of M #3 (Brian Michael Bendis/Olivier Coipel, Marvel)
This is the issue that was going to "crack the Internet right in half"? Because Hawkeye shows up at the end? Man, how stupid is that? Not necessarily that Hawkeye shows up, because this is an alternate universe, and characters like Gwen Stacy who are dead and will, presumably, remain dead when things go back to normal, have already shown up, but that Bendis and Joe Quesada really thought this would drive fandom so crazy that it would metaphorically crack the Internet in two. I mean, the arrogance is just ridiculous. Either this is just a temporary resurrection of the character, in which case it's a needless baiting of fans, or it's a more permanent return, in which case it really cheapens the death that Bendis wrote only a few months ago. I didn't read Avengers Disassembled, so I can't say whether or not Hawkeye's death was a good story, but if Bendis has any conviction at all in what he's writing, he'd leave Hawkeye alone. That moment (and it really is just a moment) aside, this is another mediocre issue of a mediocre series that continues to be completely unexceptional. It's a decent alternate reality story with some nice art, but it doesn't make a case for its alleged overwhelming importance, and it's paced so slowly that it loses all sense of urgency.

Ocean #6 (Warren Ellis/Chris Sprouse, DC/Wildstorm)
Well, that was anticlimactic. After an extra-long wait, this finale is just confusing. There's a bunch of fighting, which is somewhat interesting, and then a bunch of stuff explodes and Ellis wastes like four pages with giant panels that show, um, stuff exploding. And then everything is somehow fine. I don't know. There was this whole build-up to how the creatures in the ocean were the savage ancestors of humanity, and then they don't even do anything. I feel like this weak ending syndrome has plagued many of Ellis' recent mini-series; they often start strongly and then peter out to nothing. This in particular was a big disappointment.

Y the Last Man #35 (Brian K. Vaughan/Goran Sudzuka, DC/Vertigo)
Vaughan has really been piling on the pathos for poor Yorick in recent issues, and in this one the supporting characters actually have to ensure him that not every woman he comes in contact with dies by naming specific characters who are still alive. The high seas story ends in a bloody fashion, and we get a potentially interesting new supporting cast member. It looks like next issue will bring back the Israeli commandos, which would be more exciting if I had a better recollection of what they did the last time they showed up.

Movies opening this week

Dark Water (Jennifer Connelly, Ariel Gade, John C. Reilly, dir. Walter Salles)
Ultimately, this J-horror remake (based on a film by Ringu director Hideo Nakata) does the same thing that all the other ones have done: It takes a creepy little girl who died a tragic death and puts her in a cold urban setting (depicted with washed-out colors) to terrorize a young woman. It's less obtuse than The Ring or The Grudge, but having a more concrete ending doesn't necessarily make for a better movie. In between the genre conventions, though, there are some pretty interesting subtextual things going on here. This is perhaps the first horror movie about the failure of modern social services. Connelly's single mother is in a bitter custody dispute with her husband in which she's not at all helped by the mediators, she has to get a crappy job so she can have health insurance, she moves into a run-down building with bad plumbing because that's all she can afford, the building owner and her lawyer both lie to her to avoid helping her, and the villain of the movie is a leak, of all things.

Salles builds the story very slowly and mostly on atmosphere in the first half, and while people who are just looking for quick jolts might be bored, there's an interesting portrayal of urban isolation and the indifference of the city to people's suffering that really comes through strongly. It kind of peters out after a while, though, and while Connelly is excellent as always, and totally sells the fragility of a single mother trying to make life better for her child, the horror just doesn't work and the J-horror cliches are too much by the time the movie is over. Wide release

Fantastic Four (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, dir. Tim Story)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I had such low expectations for this movie that merely by not being the worst superhero movie ever it managed to pleasantly surprise me. (Check out Walter Chaw and my friend and colleague Jeannette Catsoulis for some excellently savage reviews.) Still, I'd hesitate to call it good, and turning out mediocre movies that are not as bad as they could have been is not exactly the best way for Marvel to continue its movie success. I despair for Ghost Rider. Wide release

Saving Face (Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, dir. Alice Wu)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
It's too bad that gay cinema (and, to a lesser degree, ethnic cinema) hasn't evolved to the point at which every movie about gay people (or, say, Asian-Americans) isn't expected to make a definitive statement about the culture. The best place for movies about gay people or ethnic minorities will be when they are just as varied, in quality and subject matter, as movies about straight white people. All of which is to say, this is a cute and amusing little movie, but it certainly doesn't say all there is to say about Asian-American lesbians. Not that it should have to. Opened limited May 27; in Las Vegas this week

Weekend viewing

Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)
Given how much I hated Spanglish, I guess it's a little odd that I'd want to see this. But I didn't hate As Good as It Gets (although I kind of worry that I might in hindsight if I ever saw it again), and I guess I wanted to prove to myself that Brooks doesn't just make smug movies about white liberal guilt. This is, in ways, a smug movie about white liberal guilt, but it's not nearly as condescending as Spanglish, and the expression of liberal guilt is filtered through a prism (the world of TV news) that Brooks seems to know more about. Ultimately, for all its flirtations with dealing with the changing landscape of TV news, this is a movie about a love triangle, and that's where Brooks does his best work. He's helped by great performances from Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks, and a nice balancing act by William Hurt, making his character emblematic of the problems in TV journalism while not turning him into a total asshole. I was sort of surprised to see that this had been nominated for so many Oscars, since it's a fairly safe romantic drama (although the ending gets points for defying expectations), but I guess that's the kind of thing that Academy members, then as now, really like.

The Rapture (Michael Tolkin, 1991)
This is an allegedly underrated gem that I had never heard of until its relatively recent DVD release, when I saw it praised in several places. It's got Mimi Rogers in a great performance as a hedonistic telephone operator who finds Jesus and awaits the titular spiritual event. Also David Duchovny in an awesome mullet, for whatever that's worth. Very bizarre mix of explicit sex scenes and ruminations on religion, with strange pacing and an ambivalent message. It's striking to see a film with recognizable stars and good production values that takes on religion so directly and so ambitiously, not preaching evangelism or atheism, just exploring ideas. I'm still not quite sure if it was a good movie, but it gave me a lot to think about, and approached the subject matter in a way I doubt a movie at its level would be able to today.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966)
After seeing Closer and reading all about Nichols' earlier, better dramas of sexual politics, I added both this and Carnal Knowledge to my NetFlix queue. Like Closer, this is a movie about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, although it does have more genuine character development and narrative urgency than Closer did. Still, I found a lot of it overwrought and so much of the dialogue just consists of talking in circles. By the end I found myself just exhausted, and not in a good way, although the performances are all excellent. Maybe it's the stage origins, but, like Closer, this struck me as a better acting exercise than a movie.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971)
I'm sure I've seen this movie (or various snippets of it on TV) a dozen times, but I wanted to refresh my memory before seeing the remake, even though Tim Burton stridently denies that his movie is a remake. It's interesting that this was neither a critical or commercial hit when it was first released. I can see how Roald Dahl might not have loved the changes from his book, and some of the songs are pretty unmemorable, but there's a lot of fun excitement for kids, and the underlying creepiness for adults. Everyone knows how creepy Wonka is (the scene in the office with everything cut in half always freaked me out the most as a kid), but what struck me more watching this again is how much Wonka is a dick. I mean, he jerks Charlie around the whole time, tricks him, yells at him, and then expects him to take over the whole weird candy factory with all its secret passages and Oompa Loompas and all? Kind of presumptuous, I think.

New comics 6/29

Albion #1 (Alan Moore, Leah Moore & John Reppion/Shane Okley, DC/Wildstorm)
There are more than a few parallels to Watchmen here, from Alan Moore's plotting to Dave Gibbons' cover to the reinvention of old characters from a defunct publishing company to the mixing of a modern-day story and a quaint, old-fashioned comic-within-a-comic. This is no Watchmen, however, although it's got a nice air of mystery and Oakley's angular art and the moody colors convey a cool noir feel. I think I've probably had my fill of meta-stories, though, and I don't have any fondness for (or familiarity with) these old characters.

Planetary #23 (Warren Ellis/John Cassaday, DC/Wildstorm)
Once again I have only a vague recollection of what happened in the last issue or what's going on in the overall story. I barely even recognized Ambrose Chase, who hasn't appeared for several issues (which in this series means like two years). Still, the meat of the story, which is the origin of the Drummer, is interesting and easy to follow, and Cassaday draws some great action. With Astonishing X-Men running so late, it's nice to have this to tide me over on the Cassaday art.

X-Men #172 (Peter Milligan/Salvador Larroca, Marvel)
This was the best issue in a while, as Milligan actually delves into Gambit and Rogue's relationship in an interesting way, and offers a twist that, while it was predicted by Paul O'Brien in his review of the last issue, takes the story in a more worthwhile direction that what has come before. I still don't care about the Iceman/Polaris/Havok love triangle, and the students that Milligan has introduced just seem like sub-par Morrison rip-offs, but it's enough to string me along for at least two more issues to see how this arc wraps up.

Young Avengers #5 (Allan Heinberg/Jim Cheung, Marvel)
Another all-action issue, although Heinberg gets in some romantic subplot stuff that doesn't seem too out of place. There's a nice cliffhanger ending, but I'm ready for this storyline to wrap up and to move on with the full team in place to new adventures. This is another one of those series that could have benefited from a shorter opening arc to allow for more character development and less padding.

Also out this week: Runaways #5, although my local store didn't get their copies, so I'll have to avoid finding out what the big twist I've seen hinted at online was before next week when I'll be able to pick it up.

Movies opening this week

Ladies in Lavender (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Daniel Bruhl, dir. Charles Dance)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
It seems like whenever they make one of these "let's put two legendary actors together on-screen" movies, they put all the faith in the actors and don't pay much attention to the script. There is a certain pleasure in watching Dench and Smith together on-screen, and if that's the only pleasure you're looking for, then you'll probably like this movie. The first half is dry and droll, but then it just kind of falls apart, and watching two great actors just wasn't enough for me. Opened limited Apr. 29; in Las Vegas this week

War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, dir. Steven Spielberg)
I have to admit: I am not much of a Spielberg fan. I have hazy memories of enjoying Jaws and E.T. and the Indiana Jones movies and even Hook when I was a kid, but I haven't seen any of those in a long time, and the Spielberg movies I've seen in more recent times have not done much for me. At best, they've offered some engaging escapism, but even Saving Private Ryan didn't do much to move me emotionally. I thought three of Spielberg's last four films (The Terminal, Minority Report, A.I.) were mediocre to bad, and although I liked Catch Me if You Can, it was certainly more on the mild escapist end of things.

The theme this week seems to be movies with strong first halves and weak follow-through; I thought the first hour of War of the Worlds was excellent, scary and exciting and genuinely breathtaking. Once Cruise and Fanning find themselves in a basement with Tim Robbins, though, the movie loses steam, and it never really picks its momentum back up. The ending, as widely noted in nearly every review, is a cop-out that undermines the darkness and seriousness of the rest of the film. Even so, this is the best big summer movie I've seen this year; the special effects are the best you will see anywhere and are used to augment the story, not overwhelm it. There are giant plot holes and motifs stolen from Signs and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but on the whole, this is one movie that's lived up to most of its hype. Wide release

Goodbye, cruel Real World

I will not be watching tonight's second episode of The Real World's 16th season, filmed in Austin, Texas. After watching last week's season premiere, I finally had to step back and break the cycle. I have been watching this show for half of my life. Although I lapsed a little bit in the 10th season (Back to New York), I have seen virtually every episode, of which there are 342 at the moment. I would guess that I have seen over 300 episodes of The Real World, far more than of any other show I've ever watched. I remember watching early seasons and thinking in a strange way that it would be interesting to be on The Real World, back when people sort of like me were actually on the show, and then dismissing the thought because there was no way that the show would still be on the air when I was old enough (18) to be a cast member. I'm now too old to be a cast member (the maximum age is 24) and the damn thing is still on the air.

I hate the thought of reminiscing about the good old days - and it's not like The Real World was ever particularly brilliant in the first place - but the show has seriously declined in recent years, thanks to a number of factors. The cast members on the show are now of a generation who (like me) grew up watching The Real World. They know what is expected of them and how best to maximize their airtime. MTV, in turn, has encouraged the attention-grabbing antics by putting them all on-air. It's a vicious cycle. Where the show once cast a mix of superficial and thoughtful young people, people with their own independent lives and goals in life, it now casts almost exclusively hard-partying, empty-headed, sexually predatory people who look like models. The show quarantines the cast, not allowing them access to TV or most outside sources of information, and having them all work together in the same place rather than pursue their own interests. The Real World was, most likely, never strictly "real," but it has become less and less so as time has passed.

The sameness is only emphasized by MTV's greed in producing more than the standard 22 episodes per season, and, in recent years, airing two seasons of the show in one year. This is the show's 16th season but only its 13th year on the air. The last few installments have increasingly focused on the cast members going out every night and getting drunk, hooking up with each other and fighting excessively. The Austin season premiere was a microcosm of the last few seasons, with the roommates getting drunk at bars, getting into fights, hooking up and having a run-in with the cops, all in a single episode. The shallow nature of recent cast members and the show's own fame have worked to create an atmosphere in which residents of whatever city the show invades constantly harass cast members whenever they're in public, and security has to follow roommates whenever they're out on the town.

The days are long gone when former Real World-ers went on to become cultural critics (New York's Kevin Powell), comic book creators (San Francisco's Judd Winick) or even respectable actresses (London's Jacinda Barrett). Nowadays the most common career for a Real World alum is as a professional reality show participant, appearing over and over on the endless Real World/Road Rules challenges or, like Las Vegas's Trishelle, on various other demeaning reality show ventures. It may have been a product of MTV, but The Real World was once a genuine reflection of the lives and struggles of college and post-college age young people in America. These days it's only a distorted reflection of itself, and it's time for me to finally look away.

Weekend viewing

Mad Hot Ballroom (Marilyn Agrelo, 2005)
I think I have a fundamental flaw when it comes to my ability to appreciate this movie: I hate children. Since almost the entire appeal of this documentary is in the cuteness of the pre-adolescent children learning ballroom dancing, I was very much underwhelmed. Agrelo skirts some socio-economic issues but doesn't delve too deeply into them, and she doesn't create the kind of suspense or build up the distinctive characters of a movie like Spellbound. Very few of the kids were given enough screen time to be individually memorable, and I couldn't tell which of the three schools Agrelo follows we were seeing at a given time until two of them were eliminated from the competition. Yes, it's cute, and mildly amusing, but not much more so than a newsmagazine segment, and not quite worthy of all its glowing reviews.

It's Alive (Larry Cohen, 1974)
This strikes me as very much in step with the kind of movies David Cronenberg was making in the 1970s, although Cohen has a much more B-movie, whatever works, camp sort of style. But like Cronenberg's 70s work (Shivers, Rabid, especially The Brood), this film (about a killer mutant infant) deals with the horrors of being betrayed by one's own flesh, and the kind of awful things that modern medicine can wreak on an unsuspecting populace. Cohen is known for being campy (the only other movie of his I've seen is The Stuff, about killer mutant ice cream), but this is surprisingly grim and straightforward. The effects are obviously cheap, but Cohen hides that by showing only glimpses of the monster. It's actually sort of slow for a horror movie, and not all that scary, but it deals with some fairly complex themes that are ahead of its time (those Cronenberg movies actually all came later).

New comics 6/22

Astro City: The Dark Age #1 (Kurt Busiek/Brent Anderson, DC/Wildstorm)
Busiek starts an epic Astro City story, 16 issues broken up into four four-issue chapters, about a dark time in the city's history in the 1970s. It's much less optimistic than most of Busiek's AC stories, and it seems that has turned some people off, but to me it's only natural that Busiek would approach this sort of material eventually, and there's still the sense of awe and wonder that his AC stories have. He takes a look at how that awe and wonder has a darker flipside, though, and after the relatively sunny Local Heroes mini, I think this is an interesting direction to take.

Dream Police #1 (J. Michael Straczynski/Mike Deodato, Marvel/Icon)
Wow, was this ever terrible. I didn't really know what to expect from this issue - I didn't even know when I picked it up whether it was an ongoing series or a mini or what (it's actually just a one-shot), and while I've liked some of Straczynski's work (Midnight Nation), I've had little interest in most of his Marvel stuff. The concept here is that a pair of hard-boiled cops (one is called Joe Thursday, har har) patrol the "dreamscape," regulating problems in people's dreams. It seems like an okay idea, but Straczynski goes with this weird deadpan comedy approach that does not work in the slightest. The story is just a bunch of terrible groan-worthy jokes that are all dream-related, and it just goes on and on forever. The deadpan tone gets old after a few pages, and the concept is played out even quicker. Deodato's dark, moody art, while very nice, is completely wrong for the book's tone. As a six- or eight-page short in an anthology, this might have been amusing enough, but as a longer than full-length comic, it's seriously painful to read.

House of M #2 (Brian Michael Bendis/Olivier Coipel, Marvel)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...I'll probably buy the rest of your stupid mini-series. Yes, I am a total sucker for reading this, since yet again this issue offers nothing you couldn't glean from the previews or solicitation copy. In the new Marvel universe, mutants are in charge, and Bendis takes a tour of this alternate reality, showing what familiar characters are up to in their new situations. It's amusing enough (as long as you're familiar with a large number of Marvel characters), but I've read tons of similar alternate-world stories that pretty much accomplish the same thing. The last couple of pages finally get to what is presumably the engine that will drive the story - Wolverine figures out that something is not right - but at this point we are a quarter of the way through the series and still in the set-up phase. This whole event has been a huge disappointment.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #1 (Mike Carey/Glenn Fabry, DC/Vertigo)
I never would have picked this up if it hadn't come from the DC publicity office. I've never read Gaiman's original Neverwhere novel, and I only read American Gods because I got a free copy when I worked at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I thought Gods was mediocre, and Gaiman has never really done much for me. This issue, the first of a nine-issue series adapting Neverwhere, sets up a shadow world of fantasy in London, pretty much a standard sort of thing I'd expect from Gaiman. Carey struggles with adapting the novel to comics, using way too many narrative captions to just dump info, and if I really cared about the story I'd probably be better off just reading the novel anyway.

Noble Causes #11 (Jay Faerber/Fran Bueno, Image)
Just after I complained last issue that the alien adventure plotline was dragging on way too long, Faerber manages to tie it to the body-swap plotline and throw in some revelations about Gaia in the process. A very satisfying issue, plus the awful Opposites Attack back-up strip mercifully comes to an end, and Faerber promises more NC content in future issues. The plans for the upcoming storylines that he describes in the letters page also sound very promising. I'm excited for what's coming up.

Movies opening this week

Bewitched (Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Michael Caine, dir. Nora Ephron)
I have a serious love for the old Bewitched TV show, which I watched all the time on Nick at Nite when I was a kid. I think Samantha Stephens was a big part of my sexual awakening; I'm writing an essay on her sexual allure for next week's Las Vegas Weekly. I've been watching old episodes of the show on DVD and on TV Land to prepare for the essay, and while the show certainly isn't brilliant and often comes across as dated, it does have a fairly sophisticated wit at times, and a complex take on gender politics in its own way. Not so this movie, which is a blah Ephron romantic comedy dressed up with a few bits of magic and an annoyingly convoluted meta premise. I suppose Ephron deserves credit for trying something other than a straight translation of the TV show, but the show-within-a-movie format only opens up a bunch of plot holes. Kidman and Ferrell (basically playing a slight variation on his Anchorman "arrogant asshole celebrity who gets anything he wants" persona) have less than no chemistry, and Ephron totally misses what made the core relationship on the show work, which was that Darrin and Samantha were married and were partners. As TV adaptations go, it could have been worse (and it's better than Kidman's last "comedy," The Stepford Wives), but it still misses the mark. Wide release

Land of the Dead (Simon Baker, Asia Argento, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, dir. George A. Romero)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I hope I don't get any hate mail on this one like I did on Batman Begins and Revenge of the Sith. Romero fans are another subculture who can be very, um, vocal. And I am definitely a Romero fan, which is why I was so disappointed in how generic and pedestrian this movie is. I love Night of the Living Dead, I love Dawn of the Dead, I like Day of the Dead. I like zombie movies. And as a zombie movie, this is okay. It's got some good gore and a couple of decent scares. But it's totally sterilized, and I think a lot of people are just nostalgic for the (admittedly great) things that Romero used to do when they give this a good review. Wide release

Weekend viewing

Well, actually pre-CineVegas viewing, but I'm only now getting around to writing about it.

California Split (Robert Altman, 1974)
Since the last Altman movie I watched was 3 Women, I was kind of relieved that this is more of the kind of Altman movie I expect. Not that it's formulaic, but it's got the character-driven focus, overlapping, loose dialogue and naturalistic acting I've come to expect from an Altman movie. It's also really, really good, and a shame that it's not considered among Altman's masterpieces. Elliott Gould and George Segal are excellent as a pair of degenerate gamblers who, well, gamble degenerately. There's not much in the way of plot, but the characters are drawn so perfectly, and Gould and Segal (who've become sitcom caricatures in their late careers) are so excellent at capturing the characters that the movie is touching and fascinating even when (especially when, really) nothing happens.

Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
Godard's second movie, and you can see a lot of what would later lead to themes in movies like Breathless and My Life to Live. The political subject matter kept it out of French theaters for three years, but what was more interesting to me was the volatile relationship between the main characters, a mercurial criminal and a sensitive, needy woman (sound familiar?). Also contains the famous quote "Cinema is truth 24 times a second." It's always strange to hear something in context that you've read so many times before out of context.

CineVegas wrap-up

This was my third year covering the festival, and I managed to see 16 movies in nine days, five more than I saw last year. Of course, there were still plenty of movies that I missed out on, including ones that were intriguing but I just couldn't fit into my schedule, and others that I heard buzz on and would have liked to see but I was already committed to movies I agreed to review in advance. Overall, the festival gets bigger every year, and it's heartening in a town like this to see almost every screening completely packed, and tons of people walking around with locals passes or tickets that they bought rather than just filmmakers, press and sponsors. At the same time, the increased popularity means that some screenings were very hard to get into. I got in line an hour before showtime on a number of popular screenings, many of which only showed one time. I think one of the problems is that the festival is in this in-between phase where it's not yet popular enough to attract an audience based solely on the movies it premieres, so the organizers make deals with distributors to show popular movies from other festivals, but then those deals probably don't allow for more than one showing.

I was disappointed that the best movies I saw - The Aristocrats, Hustle & Flow, Murderball - were all those aforementioned festival favorites that all have distribution already. I'm glad I saw them, and it's good to have them in the festival, but I could see them all when they're released in Vegas over the next couple of months. What I'd really love to see at a festival like this is random obscure movies that are good that I'd never see otherwise. But most of the premieres and movies without distribution that I saw were either bad or mediocre at best. The most interesting was Buy It Now, a strange combination of pseudo-documentary and traditional narrative, whose first half was amazingly good and whose second half just kind of ruined what came before it. Still, the overall effect was a little underwhelming, and none of the other smaller films came even close to that level of quality. I think I might have just picked the wrong movies to review - I heard buzz about a number of smaller movies that I didn't get to see - and next year I should maybe strike a better balance between seeing unknown films and ones that I've heard things about but could catch later in regular release.

I was also disappointed that Standing Still and Vegas Baby, the two films that were produced by local production company Insomnia Entertainment, were so terrible. Unlike most local filmmakers, Insomnia has real financial backers and professional movie people, and they were able to attract some actual mid-level name actors for their two movies and afford pretty high production values. But both movies are poorly written and sloppily edited, and Vegas Baby in particular is just awful, a slapdash juvenile comedy that looks like something you'd find in the cut-out bin at Blockbuster. It's unfortunate that essentially the one local production company with enough money and experience to make real movies with a chance of national distribution is turning out such uninspired crap. After writing negative reviews of both movies, I got an irate e-mail from the head of the company and producer of both movies, calling me "another jealous reporter" and "just a very small time local writer who obviously has some serious jealously [sic] issues." Like nearly everyone who writes me hate mail about a review, he accused me of knowing nothing about movies and being jealous of people who make them. Sadly, his e-mail was about as original as his films.

I learned this year that staying for post-film Q&A sessions is always a bad idea. Toward the beginning of the festival I left before the Q&As because I had to get to another movie quickly or I just thought the film was bad and didn't care what the director had to say about it. But I made the mistake of sticking around for the Q&A for Buy It Now, and after two or three questions I couldn't take it anymore. The kinds of people who ask questions at these things end up telling their entire life story or spending three mintues formulating some obscure question designed to show off how erudite they are that the director then can't even answer. It's painful. Even the awards presentations that I went to - one for Christopher Walken and one for Wim Wenders - were pretty much wastes of time, as the discussions were mostly awkward and unilluminating. Of course I skipped any and all parties and again affirmed my philosophy that I just want to watch movies and not talk to anybody.

On the positive side, one of my favorite films from last year's festival and winner of the Grand Jury Prize, The Talent Given Us, is finally getting a limited release. It opened in New York this week and will be heading to other cities eventually, although there is no word whether it will open in Vegas yet. Roger Ebert just raved about it on his show this week (although Roeper gave it a thumbs down), and it seems to be getting mostly positive reviews. More than anything else, I think, the commercial and critical success of a movie that premiered at CineVegas and won its Grand Jury Prize will help bring legitimacy to the festival.

New comics 6/15

Cable & Deadpool #16 (Fabian Nicieza/Patrick Zircher, Marvel)
This is a sort of placeholder issue before next issue's House of M crossover, with Deadpool traveling to some random alternate realities to look for Cable and...not finding him. Not a whole lot going on here, but still manages to be fairly entertaining.

Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril #4-5 (Joshua Dysart/Sal Velluto, Penny-Farthing Press)
I missed the fourth issue when it came out, so I caught up with both issues this week. It's still a fun, old-fashioned superhero story, but I'm starting to think that six issues was too long for this story. The plot definitely drags here, and Dysart is starting to lose my interest. It gets bogged down in too much seriousness, and once again I look at the parody ads in the back and think that they should have added some of that sense of humor to the story. The central character remains interesting in that he's insecure in his abilities as a hero, and Velluto's art is great as always. I'm just definitely ready for the wrap-up next issue.

Ex Machina #12 (Brian K. Vaughan/Tony Harris, DC/Vertigo)
Vaughan starts the new storyline off well, with a mysterious new villain who has ties to Mitchell's past. I like the way that Vaughan has made Mitchell unique in a world without superheroes, so I'm a little wary of his introducing another super-powered character, but this looks like the start of another involving mystery. The politics sort of take a back seat in this issue, and the idea of the mayor serving jury duty seems to have less potential than legalizing gay marriage, but next issue promises to amp things up a little.

G.L.A. #3 (Dan Slott/Paul Pelletier, Marvel)
It seems like Slott is just getting started on establishing some long-term plotlines, but the series wraps up next issue. With its fun sense of humor and love for obscure bits of the Marvel universe, this would make for a great ongoing series, but I think it's selling dismally, so my guess is next issue is the last we'll see of these characters for a while.

Mnemovore #3 (Hans Rodionoff & Ray Fawkes/Mike Huddleston, DC/Vertigo)
Rodionoff and Fawkes have progressed from vaguely creepy things happening to some full-blown weird shit, and it mostly works, although they're getting to the point where they need to explain what's going on or it's all going to fall apart. Less scary now that there's more action, but still intriguing.

Powers #11 (Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Avon Oeming, Marvel/Icon)
Bendis has really written himself into a corner with this issue, as he notes on the letters page. I like that while a lot of the first volume was all about Walker, this volume is turning out to be all about Pilgrim, and given how extensively we explored Walker's angst, it's nice to see her getting her due. I am a little concerned as to where Bendis is going with this storyline and that he's making Pilgrim into such a dark character that she won't be fun to read about anymore, but if there's one thing this book has always done, it's shake things up, so I imagine this will all lead to something interesting in the end. The pacing in this issue is padded to the max and perfect fodder for Bendis-haters, but I thought that the series of wordless pages did a good job of conveying the depth of Pilgrim's pit of anger.

Vimanarama #3 (Grant Morrison/Philip Bond, DC/Vertigo)
With this concluding chapter coming a few months late, the story has lost a bit of steam, and Morrison once again seems lost in a sea of his own weird ideas. At the same time, he manages to make the central love story grounded and real, and the best scenes are between Ali and Sofia when they just have little conversations. Bond admirably illustrates all the weird shit that Morrison comes up with, and unlike Seaguy I wasn't completely lost at the end, but ultimately this series doesn't come close to the power of something like We3.

Movies opening this week

Batman Begins (Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, dir. Christopher Nolan)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I am definitely in the minority in not liking this one, which is surprising to me. Not so much that having a negative opinion is the minority - this is the kind of movie that is so dour and self-important that critics starved for substance are bound to take it seriously - but that I have that opinion in the first place. This was probably the summer movie I was most looking forward to, being a comic book fan, a Chris Nolan (or at least Memento) fan and a fan of previous Batman movies (the Tim Burton ones). The trailers looked great to me. But I came away disappointed. It's not horrible, and I suppose you have to applaud a movie like this for being ambitious enough to take itself seriously at all, but it's so concerned with realism and respectability that it ends up being mind-numbingly dull. I much prefer a movie like Spider-Man 2, which manages to be both fun and meaningful, often within the same beat. Wide release

Kontroll (Sandor Csanyi, Zoltan Mucsi, Csaba Pindroch, dir. Nimrod Antal)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
A definite style-over-substance sort of deal, but what style. Like a Hungarian version of a David Fincher film, only more obtuse (but in a good way). Much more satisfying than Batman Begins. Opened limited Apr. 1; in Las Vegas this week

New comics 6/8

Fables #38 (Bill Willingham/Mark Buckingham, DC/Vertigo)
Buckingham really shines in this issue with his depiction of the capital city of the Homelands. It's got amazing detail and appropriate epic scope. We get another step closer to finding out who the Adversary is, and the seemingly invincible Boy Blue finally meets his match. Another excellent issue.

Gravity #1 (Sean McKeever/Mike Norton, Marvel)
Marvel launches another great teen book, this one focusing on a novice superhero in New York City. It doesn't have the innovative premise of Runaways or the ties to established characters of Young Avengers, but it's firmly grounded in the Marvel universe, making nice use of former New Warrior Rage (the New Warriors are everywhere this week) and the general superhero atmosphere of Marvel New York. It reminds me strongly of Kurt Busiek's Astro City, but not in a rip-off way; it just has the same grounded tone mixed with a sense of wonder and anchored by a likeable main character. Norton's art is clean and bright, perfect for this traditional superhero style. A really good beginning.

New Warriors #1 (Zeb Wells/Skottie Young, Marvel)
I imagine that a lot of hardcore New Warriors fans are upset about this book (they're probably much more pleased with Rage's appearance in Gravity). It does make some serious changes to the concept and look of the characters, but at the same time Wells does a good job writing them consistently with how they've been portrayed in the past, and even making nods to Warriors continuity. While I enjoyed the original Warriors series and I love the concept of a team of C-list teen heroes, I'm not such a purist that I didn't like Jay Faerber's revival a few years ago, or that I can't like this new series. Wells puts the Warriors on a reality TV show where they help people around the country, and Young's kinetic, graffiti-influenced style has the characters looking like they've never looked before. At the same time, Wells knows how silly his concept is, and uses that as part of the plot. The Warriors are suspicious of Night Thrasher's motives for putting them on TV, and it seems like there is more than meets the eye here. Young's style is different, sure, but he uses classic designs for most of the characters, and the Warriors were theoretically always about youth anyway. On top of that, the issue is funny and tells a complete done-in-one story. Hardcore fans can scoff, but it's a pretty good return for the Warriors as far as I'm concerned.

The Pulse #9 (Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Lark, Marvel)
I am so bored with this book. This issue, the Secret War crossover finally wraps up, we learn absolutely nothing of interest, Bendis continues to turn Jessica into a helpless whiner, demonstrates how much better she was in Alias when he could use swear words, and writes Wolverine way out of character (or so it seemed to me). Next issue? A House of M crossover. That's five straight issues of crossover. I'm pretty sure House of M only lasts one issue, but if the next storyline isn't fantastic, I'm done.

X-Men #171 (Peter Milligan/Salvador Larroca, Marvel)
I said I would drop this book if Milligan's first story arc wasn't any good, and it wasn't, really, but I'm still here. And now this issue is all about the overwrought romantic tensions that Chuck Austen created and that I totally don't care about, plus introduces a lame new femme fatale character with the awful name Foxx (Milligan must love X's; there's also a new character in this issue named Onyxx). Still, Larroca's art is always nice, and Milligan is a better writer than Chris Claremont, and with Astonishing X-Men on such an erratic schedule, this is really the only monthly X-Men fix I get. I should drop it, but I might stick around a little while longer.

CineVegas

Today is the first day of the CineVegas film festival, which I'll be spending the next nine days covering exhaustively for Las Vegas Weekly. You can check out all my reviews as they are written (as well as those from other LVW contributors) here, and I'll try to post an update or two on the general festivities, what's good, what's interesting, and so on. This is as close to Sundance as we get here in Vegas, and it's actually grown to be a respectable festival. Dennis Hopper is the official figurehead, and actually shows up at many of the screenings. Other celebrities make appearances, and this year includes a few exclusive events that are worth notice, including the world premiere of Land of the Dead, and awards presentations to George Romero, Nicolas Cage, Samantha Morton, Christopher Walken, Wim Wenders and Ann-Margret. I'll probably be dead by the time the thing is over, but it should be a good time.

Movies opening this week

High Tension (Cécile de France, Maiwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, dir. Alexandre Aja)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I find it interesting that relatively few reviews of this movie seem to be mentioning its obvious homophobic subtext. Granted, I have mostly skimmed blurbs on Rotten Tomatoes, not perused every review, but to me it came across so strongly that there was no way I could ignore it. Maybe it's because it comes out with the plot twist at the end, or maybe people just don't see it. I don't know. It really bothered me, though, because until that twist (which also sort of invalidates a lot of the action and just plain doesn't make sense), I thought this movie was great, exactly the kind of horror movie I wish we had more of. It was simple and brutal, not overburdened with plot, and very exciting. The middle part still has those strengths, but the end left me so conflicted that I'm still not sure whether to recommend the film or not. Wide release

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, dir. Doug Liman)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
This seems to be shaping up to be a love-it-or-hate-it film, and I'm definitely in the love it camp. This is probably the funniest and sexiest movie I've seen in a long time, and while the plot holes are massive, the story gets the basic things it needs to do done right. Some people are seeing it as a suburban satire or a critique of consumerist culture; Karina Longworth at Cinematical called it "almost Bunuelian," and Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly offered this great assessment: "The film reckons that it's only by trashing the paradigm (and literally blowing up the McMansion) that we'll finally start seeing the other person for who they really are." I think they may be overstating it a bit, but any movie that allows for those kinds of freewheeling interpretations and is still giddily entertaining must be doing something right. Wide release

I am huge in Canada

For the last couple of months, I have been appearing weekly on the Charles Adler radio show, a Canadian talk show based in Winnipeg and airing on the radio station CJOB. Once again showing the strange power of the internet, Adler's producer, who is originally from Las Vegas, found a two-year-old story I wrote about stops on I-15 between Los Angeles and Vegas and asked me to come on the show to talk about it (why people in Canada care about roadside stops in the California desert, I'm not quite sure). Apparently my appearance went over well, and I told the producer I'd be happy to come on again if they ever needed any expertise on Vegas. I also mentioned that I was a movie critic, but I figured that if they wanted a movie critic, there must be someone at whatever local papers they have in Winnipeg.

Apparently not, since they had me on the following week, and every week since, to talk about new releases. I am highly amused to be a fixture on "Manitoba's Information Superstation," and somewhat horrified to find that people are actually paying attention to me and remembering what I've said from week to week. A few weeks ago I ended up taking calls from annoyed (but polite; remember, they are Canadian) Star Wars fans. It's all very surreal, especially sitting on the phone at my desk in Vegas and sometimes forgetting that I am being broadcast to all of greater Manitoba. I'm usually on at 3:30 Eastern/12:30 Pacific on Fridays, and if you're so inclined, you can listen to the show here.

Weekend viewing

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)
After I reviewed Layer Cake, a co-worker insisted I see this movie, which, if I were a more responsible critic and had the luxury of not doing 9789086 other things besides movie reviews, I would have done before reviewing Layer Cake. I did have a general familiarity with Ritchie's signature style - I saw his second movie, Snatch, which was basically a remake of this one with a bigger budget and more famous actors - and, truthfully, Layer Cake really does forge its own path. Anyway, on its own this is an entertaining little film, although not the masterpiece that some seemed to think it was when it first came out. It's very Pulp Fiction, with its wise-cracking gangsters and circuitous plot and vintage soundtrack, but not in a bad way. It's more light-hearted than Pulp Fiction, and it doesn't leave as much of a lasting impression, but I found it thoroughly entertaining.

Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano, 1993)
I didn't know quite what to expect from this movie, and it surprised me in the way that it played with gangster movie conventions. A good third of the movie is set at a seaside house where a bunch of gangsters lay low, just hanging out on the beach, goofing off, playing frisbee and so on. It's a strange contrast with the extreme violence of the beginning and the end. Takeshi manages to insert a good amount of pathos into his lead character (whom he plays himself), with very little dialogue or exposition. The plot was pretty much incomprehensible to me, and I don't think I quite got the alleged beauty of Takeshi's work, but it was an interesting change of pace.

New comics 6/2

House of M #1 (Brian Michael Bendis/Olivier Coipel, Marvel)
Yeah, I'm a sucker. Despite the rapidly declining quality of Bendis's still not finished crossover mini-series Secret War, I have a weakness for big epic crossovers and I even was a little excited about picking this up. Sadly, it's as mediocre as you might imagine, and the first issue accomplishes nothing that you didn't already know was going to happen from the advance interviews. The X-Men and the Avengers get together to decide what to do with the Scarlet Witch, she thinks they plan to kill her and she alters reality to make everything different. This is all set-up, but since it's eight issues I hope that some interesting stuff will happen in the future, and I am enough of a Marvel fan that I want to read this to know what important changes are happening in the Marvel universe. If this were the first issue of Infinite Crisis and were this underwhelming, I probably wouldn't read the rest, since I'm not as dedicated to DC continuity. But it's not, so I'll keep spending the money, and hope that Coipel's appropriately grandiose art and Bendis's certain continuity nods (including, apparently, to the conclusion of the current Astonishing X-Men storyline which hasn't, um, concluded yet) and sharp dialogue are enough to make it worthwhile.

Noble Causes #10 (Jay Faerber/Fran Bueno, Image)
Thank goodness the horrible back-up strip is concluding next issue and Faerber is bringing back the NC flashbacks to replace it. I like how he takes the body-switch plot and resolves it while opening a whole other can of worms; he really is getting to the point where subplots can gestate for a long time and then birth other plots. That said, the space expedition storyline has gone on way too long and really needs to reach some sort of point before I completely lose interest.

Y The Last Man #34 (Brian K. Vaughan/Goran Sudzuka, DC/Vertigo)
I like that after last issue's twist ending, Vaughan goes on and complicates things even more, to the point at which you're not really sure who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this issue. This storyline doesn't have the urgency of the last one, but it's an interesting and suspenseful tale that's obviously taking us into a whole new world (that is, Australia) for the main cast.

Movies opening this week

3-Iron (Lee Sun-yeong, Jae Hee, Kwon Hyuk-ho, dir. Kim Ki-duk)
I loved about the first two thirds of this movie, and then toward the end it lost my interest a little. The two leads are silent almost the entire film, and Kim and the actors do an amazing job of conveying all sorts of complex emotions just with looks and gestures. The first half, with Jae as a drifter who sneaks into people's houses and does their laundry, takes pictures of himself and fixes household items, is mesmerizing, even more so when he meets Lee's damaged housewife and they form an unspoken bond. When Kim gets into metaphysics in the latter part of the film, it loses some of its simple beauty, but remains a poetic and haunting movie, very much worth seeing. Opened limited Apr. 29; in Las Vegas this week

Cinderella Man (Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, dir. Ron Howard)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Sometimes I wonder if I am too hard on films like this for being predictable and sentimental, because they are, in their own ways, effective at what they do. David Edelstein gives a good defense of liking this movie in spite of its overwhelming schmaltziness, and while I respect his opinion, I still come to the conclusion that no, I am not being too hard on this movie. Films that are accorded this much prestige and Oscar attention should be more daring and demanding. Even Million Dollar Baby, which I thought was horribly overrated, took more risks and did more interesting things. Wide release

Layer Cake (Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney, George Harris, dir. Matthew Vaughn)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
It's sort of a bummer that Vaughn dropped out of directing the next X-Men movie. Not because Layer Cake is all that good (it's not), but because a) he at least has an interesting style and a feel for acting and characters, and b) the supposed top candidates to replace him are Brett Ratner and John Moore, two ultra-generic Hollywood hacks who will turn the franchise into bland action claptrap (most likely). In the meantime, this is a mediocre crime flick that people will forget in a year or two, but it passes the time well enough. Opened limited May 13; in Las Vegas this week

Lords of Dogtown (Emile Hirsch, John Robinson, Victor Rasuk, dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
I haven't seen Stacy Peralta's documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, which inspired this movie (it's in my NetFlix queue), but from everything I've heard it's much better. Hardwicke shoots some great skateboarding scenes, and, as in her debut film, Thirteen, I like her colorful visual style and flair for atmosphere (it's no surprise she started her career as a production designer), but the script is seriously lacking. The characters are all barely sketched out, and there's no central conflict or story. When Peralta (who wrote this film as well) tries to bring one in, it rings false, and the characters are so thin that it's hard to care about what happens to them. I do have to give props to Heath Ledger for his awesome Val Kilmer impression as the skate shop owner who sponsors the kids. He has a great future as an under-appreciated character actor. Wide release