I Didn't Try Terribly Hard

As you may have noticed, there was no movie update on Sunday. On with the books.

117. Closer by Antony Johnston & Mike Norton, with Lynne Buckley. Ghost story with science.
     
118. The Punisher, Vol. 5: The Slavers by Garth Ennis & Leandro Fernandez. Ennis's Punisher stories are pretty damn formulaic: despicable people do something awful, and the Punisher kills them. But they're entertaining. (Checked out of the library.)
     
119. PvP, vol. 4: PvP Goes Bananas! by Scott Kurtz. The latest collection of the comic book that reprints the webcomic. Not exactly highbrow or high art, but amusing enough.

And that's it for the books that I have finished since last Saturday. Looks like I've got time to get to those movies.

• American Splendor. Paul Giamatti does a fantastic job as Harvey Pekar, alternative comics' greatest curmudgeon.
  
• The Land of the Lost: The Complete First Season. I had fond memories of this show from when I was a kid, but I was worried the reality wouldn't hold up to my recollections. In a way, I was right to worry. The show is terrible. But it's terrible in an entertaining way. The acting is atrocious, and the special effects seem laughable now, particularly the hand puppets used for close-ups on the dinosaurs. But there is something there. The show has some really interesting ideas, which is scarcely surprising considering some of the people who wrote for it: Ben Bova, Norman Spinrad, Theodore Sturgeon, and Larry Niven all worked with David Gerrold, who was the script editor. Who knew; big name science fiction writers contributed to a Saturday morning kids' show.
  
• Casino Royale. There was no question about it: we had to get this on DVD. Damn good movie.
  
• Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. Eh. Not great, but fun.