Movie Catch-Up

Update: I have fixed the links to a couple of the movies.

Too many books read in the past 4 weeks to do all at once. Plus I have a bit of a headache, so I'm going to keep this short & just do the movies I've seen since my last real update.

• Finding NemoI've said this before, and I'll say it again, Pixar casts their movies exactly right. "Just keep swimming."
  
• Doctor Who: RobotTom Baker's first story as the Doctor. Eccentric from the very beginning.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Magic Voyage of SinbadA Russo-Finnish version of an Arabian story. Bizarre stuff. In one scene a guy fights a bear that switches (seemingly at random) between a guy in a bear costume and an actual bear.
  
• MST3K: Master Ninja 1The first 2 episodes of a short-lived tv-series starring Lee Van Cleef & Timothy Van Patton edited together to make a "movie". Only the commentary makes it bearable.
  
• Fraggle Rock: Complete First SeasonI didn't cable in the 80s, so I had never seen this show until we got NetFlix Watch Instantly. I love it. It's one of the best children's shows I've ever seen. Looking forward to future seasons.
  
• RiffTrax: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. I have no idea what prompted anybody to make this movie. It consists of an atrocious version of "Thumbelina" padded out to 90 some minutes by adding a framing sequence of Santa Claus being stuck in Florida and telling a story to the children to attempt to help him. And at the end, a rabbit driving an old firetruck shows up to save the day. This movie makes no sense whatsoever. I think I lost sanity by watching it.
  
• Doctor Who: Carnival of MonstersThis Jon Pertwee story is quite fun, if rather disjointed.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Master Ninja 2The next two episodes.

I finally remembered to at the Saint Clair Gamers Actual Play to my sidebar. The latest session is our first In Nomine session and the first game I have run in a couple years.

That's it for now. I have the week off, so I will update books later in the week.

Back Up to Speed

When I'm not in the middle of an 800 page novel, I read more books:

75. Last of the Independents by Matt Fraction & Kieron Dwyer.
    
    Great heist comic from before Fraction hit it big at Marvel.
    
76. R.E.B.E.L.S., vol. 3: The Son and the Stars by Tony Bedard, Claude St. Aubin, et al. More space adventure fighting Starro the Conqueror. (Checked out of the library.)
    
77. Heralds by Kathryn Immonen, Tonci Zonjic, et al. This didn't really grab me. I keep hearing great things about Immonen, but her style doesn't really work for me. (Library.)
    
78. Hikaru no Go, vol. 21: Great Expectations by Yumi Hotta & Takeshi Obata. (Library.)
    
79. Casanova, vol. 1: Luxuria by Matt Fraction & Gabriel Ba.
    
    The book that turned me into a Matt Fraction fan. James Bond crossed with Jerry Cornelius as played by a young Mick Jagger. Fantastic ideas thrown about with reckless abandon. I bought the issues when Image first published them. I bought the Image collection. When Marvel's Icon imprint reprinted the issues, I bought them again. And now I bout the Icon collection. Haven't regretted one of those purchases. One of the best comics being published.
    
80. Richard Stark's Parker, bk. 1: The Hunter adapted by Darwyn Cooke.
    
    So stylish. Noir comics have never looked so good. I really need to get the second adaptation.
    
81. Madame Xanadu, vol. 3: Broken House of Cards by Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder, & Joele Jones. I guess I shouldn't complain that this series has been canceled, since I only bought the collections and not the issues, but I have to make choices about what I can afford. This is good stuff, and I'm looking forward to Wagner's next project, whatever it is.
    
82. House of Mystery, vol. 4:The Beauty of Decay by Matt Sturges, et al. While I like the short stories that appear here, I can't say the overall story has grown on me.
    
83. Essential Fantastic Four, vol. 5 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, et al. The last of the Kirby-drawn issues is collected here. I have to say the stories got less interesting after he left.
    
84. Showcase Presents Teen Titans, vol. 1 by Bob Haney & Nick Cardy. Once again, a middle-aged man's attempts to write teen slang of the 60s is vastly amusing.

Starting off movies with one I forgot last week.

• The Color of MagicWow. Amazing job of translating the first two Discworld books onto the screen. Great casting (including Sean Astin & Tim Curry) and wonderful visual effects (the Luggage looked great). Kind of blown away by this. Makes me want to see more adaptations. Hogfatheris also available, but that's a Christmas story, so I think it'll have to wait.
  
• Speed RacerThe most visually overloaded movie I've ever seen. Unlike anything else anybody else has done. And unfortunately, since it didn't make a ton of money, we're unlikely to see its like again. Full of heart and fun. The Wachowski's really explored what could be done with green screen, but they did so with a story that contains not a single ounce of cynicism. I adore this movie.
  
• The King's SpeechTeena & I wanted to see this before, but scheduling didn't work. The Oscar wins mean that it's showing more often now, and we took advantage of that. Excellent movie, with some fantastic performances.

The podcast this week is This American Life. If you listen to NPR, you probably already know all about it. And if you don't, check out the site. It's a good show.

Finished that Novel

72. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
    
    I had been holding off on reading this series until Martin finished (or, possibly, died), but with an HBO series coming up this spring, I decided to start reading these massive books.
    Wow.
    Teena and my friends have recommended this series, but that did not prepare me for how gripping the book is. I loved it, and I want to plunge straight into the next book, but I have a bunch of books from the library I should be getting to, not to mention a big stack of unread graphic novels. Also, I don't want to run through this series too fast when it could be a long time before volume 5 is published. But I will definitely be reading more soon (although I think I will hold off on A Feast for Crows until after A Dance with Dragons is published).
    
73. Black Jack, vol.12 by Osamu Tezuka. Yet another volume of this medical manga. (Checked out of the library.)
    
74. Atlas: Return of the Three Dimensional Man by Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman, et al. The final volume of one of the best comics Marvel has published in recent years. Parker was doing all sorts of interesting things with super-heroes in this, but not enough super-hero fans are interested in innovation.

Next week, I should have read more books than I have in the past few weeks.

Did watch a couple of movies:

• The Last Lovecraft: Relic of CthulhuThis was the highlight of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival a couple of years ago. Humorous, but with some heart, and surprisingly good special effects. Glad it's finally available on DVD.
  
• WhiteoutI loved the graphic novel this is based on, but I just didn't find this adaptation engaging. Admittedly, I am still infatuated with my iPad and was playing with it while watching the movie, but I don't think that's all. There's nothing specific I can point to, but it's just not that gripping.

The podcast this week is one that I am participating in: The Saint Clair Gamers Actual Play Podcast. My role-playing group has started recording some of our sessions, and Michael (our host and the guy who GMs most often) has started putting them up. Right now we are playing The Armitage Files campaign for Trail of Cthulhu. We are three sessions in, and it looks like we'll be playing for quite a while. I haven't listened to more than a snippet because I don't like listening to recordings of my own voice, but we are having fun playing the game. Give it a listen & let us know what you think.

Three Day Weekend Means a Monday Post

Still reading that novel, so it's another light week.

68. Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 24 by Hiroum Arakawa. Penultimate volume. It looks like the ending is going to wind up more satisfying than the anime version's. (Checked out of the library.)
    
69. Star Trek: Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne. Events during the original series, from the Romulans' point of view. (Library.)
    
70. Showcase Presents: Aquaman, vol. 3 by Bob Haney & Nick Cardy.
    
    These comics don't make a hell of a lot of sense, but they are fun.
    
71. Superman/Batman: Saga of the Super Sons by Bob Haney & Dick Dillin. There is almost nothing more amusing than middle aged comics writers trying to capture teen "lingo" from the 60s and 70s.

I said there wasn't much. A few movies this week:

• Doctor Who: Silver NemesisThe 25th anniversary story, featuring Cybermen. I'm not quite as enamored of the hints at the Doctor's mysterious (and sinister?) past as I was when I first saw the stories from this period, but I still enjoy them.
  
• Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-ChiangNow, this story still stands up. The fourth Doctor and Leela in Victorian London. And it doesn't feel padded, as so many of the 6-part stories from this era did.
  
• Oscar(tm) nominated animated shorts Fun stuff, especially The Lost Thing, which Teena says feels just like the book.

Since it's another short week, here's another podcast I enjoy: In honor of my finishing Showcase Presents Aquaman, vol. 3, the choice this week is Tom vs. Aquaman, which is available at that site or through iTunes.

Tom reads old comics and recaps them for you, bringing out all the absurdities and unintentional subtext. He has previously covered the Justice League and the Flash. He's been doing this for a while now, and he just keeps getting better. I especially like how Tom gives a rich inner life to Topo, Aquaman's octopus sidekick.

Each episode is short, running about 10-15 minutes, and he usually posts two or three episodes a week.

Light Week

I started a long novel this past week, so this entry and the next couple are going to be fairly light.

61. Secret Six: Cats in the Cradle by Gail Simone, John Ostrander, & Jim Calafiore. Latest collection of this series about super-villains. Awful people doing awful things in an awfully entertaining way.
    
62. The Question: Pipeline by Greg Rucka & Cully Hamner.
    
    Rucka excels at crime stories. While we are unlikely to see much more of this version of the Question (at least from Rucka), I am glad to have this.
    
63. Hikaru no Go, vol. 20: The Young Lions by Yumi Hotta & Takeshi Obata. I'll see this through to the end, but the more I read, the more I think the series should have ended when the character Sai faded away. (Literally. He's a ghost.) (Checked out of the library.)
    
64. Doom Patrol, vol. 1: We Who Are about to Die by Keith Giffen, Matthew Clark, & Justiniano. The latest incarnation of this team. Pretty good, but I think it suffers from super-hero comics's inability to let characters stay dead. Also, it suffers by comparison to Grant Morrison's run from the late 80s and early 90s. (Library.)
    
65. Love and Capes, vol. 1: Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Tom Zahler. Enjoyed the second volume so much that I picked up a used copy of the first.
    
66. Too Much Crazy by Tom Tomorrow.
    
    Political cartoons from mid-2008 to early 2010. Nice to be reminded that there are other liberals out there. (Library.)
    
67. Fractured Fables by various. Anthology of reinterpreted fairy tales & fables. Pretty good, but nothing really stood out. (Library.)

Just a couple of movies this week:

• Doctor Who: The AztecsEarly story, from when they were still doing historical stories without fantastic elements (other than the Tardis). Interesting to see more of the first Doctor.
  
• The Secret of KellsAbsolutely beautiful animation, and a great story as well.

Since it is a light week, I think it's time to inaugurate a feature I've been thinking about for quite a while now, in which I discuss the podcasts to which I listen. You may have noticed that when I picked a new format for the blog, I added a list of podcasts to my sidebar. First up is CogKNITive, A Knitting & Psychology Podcast by Dr. Gemma.

While I learned to knit in college, and I made a stab at learning to crochet about a year and a half ago, I have to admit that the knitting, crocheting, and spinning parts of the podcast do not interest me. However, the other parts are great. In each episode Gemma discusses a life strategy, something she really likes, and how psychology intersects with her life. These parts make the podcast worth listening to even if you have no interest in the fiber arts.

Episodes tend to be weekly and around half an hour, although lately they've been more sporadic & longer. The show is available through iTunes as "CogKNITive podcast" or from http://drgemma.libsyn.com.

(Full disclosure: Gemma is a friend from college. But my recommendation of her podcast is not nepotism. She has led an interesting life, and her podcast reflects that.)