Inspired by this comments thread:
The Pantheon
Winsor McCay
George Herriman
E.C. Segar
Frank King
Harold Gray
Chester Gould
Roy Crane
Walt Kelly
Jules Feiffer
Harvey Kurtzman
Carl Barks
Charles Schulz
Jack Kirby
R. Crumb
The Far Side of Paradise
George McManus
Hal Foster
Crockett Johnson
Milt Caniff
Bill Mauldin
Will Eisner
Jack Cole
John Stanley
Otto Binder*
Saul Steinberg
Bernie Krigstein
Steve Ditko
Leonard Starr
Garry Trudeau
Expressive Esoterica
Lyonel Feininger
Billy DeBeck
Lou Fine
Lynn Ward
Floyd Gottfriedson
Fletcher Hanks
Jerry Siegel*
George Carlson
Milt Gross
C.C. Beck
Basil Wolverton
George Price
Johnny Craig
Jack Davis
Will Elder
Wally Wood
James Thurber
Stan Lee*
Fringe Benefits
Herge
Osamu Tezuka
Goscinny & Uderzo
Less Than Meets the Eye
Al Capp
Alex Toth
Al Feldstein*
Lightly Likable
Bud Fisher
Harry Tuthill
Rube Goldberg
Noel Sickles
Chic Young
Alex Raymond
Stan Drake
Mac Raboy
V.T. Hamlin
Curt Swan
Hank Ketcham
Graham Ingles
Jack Davis
Sheldon Mayer
Strained Seriousness
Burne Hogarth
Neal Adams
*working with various artists
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
My Year in Movies
I'm putting the finishing touches on my February Screening Log, but since I've now been doing these for just over a year I thought it would be a good time to share my "Top 20" list for 2009 NYC releases, which serves as a shorthand for "my year in (new) movies".
I've enjoyed putting together these monthly screening logs. For one thing, "monthly" is just about the only kind of blogging schedule I'm able to stick to. For another, making quick notes about what I've watched - even if it turns out to be nothing more than a quick star rating - works as a memory aid. Finally, it's interesting to see how my take on a movie is shaped (to a certain extent) by the other movies I saw around the same time.
Due to some big changes in my work and personal life, I don't believe I'll be able to see so many movies next year. I think it will be especially difficult for me to see things outside the house. I'll probably be making even more use of services like IFC's In Theatre/On Demand cable offerings. But I plan to keep plugging along with these Screening Logs, even if I'm watching only a handful of movies a month.
Anyway - here's my favorites of 2009:
01. Two Lovers (James Gray)
02. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
03. A Serious Man (The Coen Brothers)
04. Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo)
05. Hunger (Steve McQueen)
06. The Headless Woman (Lucretia Martel)
07. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
08. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
09. Crank: High Voltage (Neveldine/Taylor)
10. Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
11. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
12. Julia (Erick Zonca)
13. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
14. In the Loop (Armando Ianucci)
15. Taken (Pierre Morel)
16. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda)
17. Whip It (Drew Barrymore)
18. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
19. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
20. Frontier of Dawn (Philippe Garrel)
The Gray is, IMO, just about a perfect movie. My friend asked me what my favorite scene was and I listed off five of them before I had to give in and say that they're all my favorite. (Right now, though, Phoenix standing on the beach, looking out to sea, holding that glove in his hand is my "favoritest").
I kind of surprised myself by putting Inglourious Basterds in the second place. In the "ongoing" list I had been keeping throughout the year, Basterds was always solidly in the top 10, but not always in the top 5. But the movie ended up taking up a lot of my headspace and it was hands down the best, most exciting movie going experience I had all year. So #2 it is.
As for the rest of the list: it is what it is. In general, things that aren't there aren't there for a reason (although I still want to get to The Last Station before it leaves town).
As for "old" movies, my big discovery of the year was how much I like Hong Sang-soo's films. And I was truly grateful to finally see Jim Henson's "Time Piece" (thanks whoever uploaded it): what a great film!
My goal for the year ahead is to continue catching up with some of the more respected movies of the last ten years, to keep watching and re-watching John Ford movies, and to (finally) dive into Bunuel. It should be fun.
Questions and comments always appreciated.
I've enjoyed putting together these monthly screening logs. For one thing, "monthly" is just about the only kind of blogging schedule I'm able to stick to. For another, making quick notes about what I've watched - even if it turns out to be nothing more than a quick star rating - works as a memory aid. Finally, it's interesting to see how my take on a movie is shaped (to a certain extent) by the other movies I saw around the same time.
Due to some big changes in my work and personal life, I don't believe I'll be able to see so many movies next year. I think it will be especially difficult for me to see things outside the house. I'll probably be making even more use of services like IFC's In Theatre/On Demand cable offerings. But I plan to keep plugging along with these Screening Logs, even if I'm watching only a handful of movies a month.
Anyway - here's my favorites of 2009:
01. Two Lovers (James Gray)
02. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
03. A Serious Man (The Coen Brothers)
04. Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo)
05. Hunger (Steve McQueen)
06. The Headless Woman (Lucretia Martel)
07. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
08. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
09. Crank: High Voltage (Neveldine/Taylor)
10. Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
11. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
12. Julia (Erick Zonca)
13. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
14. In the Loop (Armando Ianucci)
15. Taken (Pierre Morel)
16. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda)
17. Whip It (Drew Barrymore)
18. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
19. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
20. Frontier of Dawn (Philippe Garrel)
The Gray is, IMO, just about a perfect movie. My friend asked me what my favorite scene was and I listed off five of them before I had to give in and say that they're all my favorite. (Right now, though, Phoenix standing on the beach, looking out to sea, holding that glove in his hand is my "favoritest").
I kind of surprised myself by putting Inglourious Basterds in the second place. In the "ongoing" list I had been keeping throughout the year, Basterds was always solidly in the top 10, but not always in the top 5. But the movie ended up taking up a lot of my headspace and it was hands down the best, most exciting movie going experience I had all year. So #2 it is.
As for the rest of the list: it is what it is. In general, things that aren't there aren't there for a reason (although I still want to get to The Last Station before it leaves town).
As for "old" movies, my big discovery of the year was how much I like Hong Sang-soo's films. And I was truly grateful to finally see Jim Henson's "Time Piece" (thanks whoever uploaded it): what a great film!
My goal for the year ahead is to continue catching up with some of the more respected movies of the last ten years, to keep watching and re-watching John Ford movies, and to (finally) dive into Bunuel. It should be fun.
Questions and comments always appreciated.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Screening Log: October
Jerichow (Christian Petzold, 2008) (v) *** - An exploration of the nuances and biases of viewer identification, in stripped-down B-movie drag. It would all be a bit too clinical, academic, and even pedantic, if it weren't for Himli Sözer's performance, which gives the movie an emotional depth to match its intellectual ambitions.
Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008) (v) *** - If I had more free time for writing, I'd try to turn my thoughts on this and on 35 Shots of Rum into a longer post. For now though, all I have is a question: is there any other major director who had as narrow focus in terms of themes and subject matter as Yasujiro Ozu?
Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952) (v) **
Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, 2008) **** - My thoughts on this movie still are nowhere near fully-formed: I've been mulling it over since I saw it earlier this week and moments from it are haunting my waking life. Right now second only to Two Lovers as my film of the year.
Europa (Lars von Trier, 1991) (v) *** - I'm glad I finally caught up with this movie, which would make an interesting double bill with Inglourious Basterds. I've liked every von Trier movie I've seen, but, until now, I've managed to miss most of the "major" ones.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, 1975) (v) (r) *****
Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin, 1999) (v) (r) **
E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982) (v) (r) *** - I used to say I preferred this to Spielberg's "later, stodgier, darker" work, but, on revisitation, the movie (or at least the first half) was creakier and stiffer than I remembered. Too often good, lively business - like the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons - stops dead for poetry-of-suburbia image-making. The young actors are all good - they're very cute and funny - but they seem to be trapped by Spielberg's compositions in a way that the more seasoned actors in Close Encounters and Jaws aren't. It isn't until everything is in place and things start to move that the movie starts working. (I had a similar problem with Ratatouille, and, watching E.T. this time I kept thinking "Pixar avant la lettre" - sharing Pixar's movies' usual problem of having a strong half and a weak half). I don't mean it as (much of) a dig to say that Spielberg makes a better action filmmaker than he does a poet. The chase on the bicycles at the end of the film is a masterful sequence: built off of a particular kind of suburban sub-development geography, it's rousing, suspenseful, and expressive of the characters (exactly how great action movies should work). The kids on bikes riding down those terraced hills? That's real poetry.
The Curse of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) (v) ****
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) (v) ***** - To my shame as a cinephile, this is the first time I've watched City Lights from start to finish, though I've seen numerous excerpts from it over the years. I'm now inspired to come with a aphorism along the lines of: "An excerpt from a truly great movie will only mislead you as to the nature of its greatness."
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, 2008) ****
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) (v) (r) ***** - 50 years later, Rear Window is still more audacious, more formally daring than just about any of the "entertainments" that have come out of Hollywood since.
Year One (Harold Ramis, 2009) (v) ** - Everything here feels tossed off (some scenes just end, there's very little in the way of elaborate gag-building), which is a little disappointing coming from the director of Groundhog Day and vacation, but turns out to be the perfect approach to this kind of movie. I generally don't like to praise movies (especially comedies) for their low ambitions, but I thought this was enjoyably old fashioned and down to earth in its approach to its "high concept".
The Signal (David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry , 2007) (v) * - Neat idea, hobbled by inconsistent/uneven execution.
High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958) (v) *** - There's a mini-genre of movies that I like to think of as "The Kids Aren't Alright" movies that includes, well, Kids, River's Edge, and, going somewhat farther afield All About Lily Chou Chou and Afterschool. High School Confidential is, if not the "best" of them, then, at least, my favorite.
Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2009) * - Not a "real scary" movie, but, rather, a "fun scary" movie that is clever enough to get you to do most of its work for it. The ending is a misjudgment and the movie overall is no big deal, but it is made with thought and is a more than worthy diversion. The subtext - about finding out about the true extent of your romantic partner's psychological/emotional baggage only after you move in with them - gives the movie a little more substance, but it isn't explored or developed as similar material is in movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Brood.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) (v) ** - I'm sure someone has already written an article/essay explaining exactly why we shouldn't lump these "New Romanian Cinema" movies together, because each director has their own style, concerns, but, from where I'm standing, they have enough in common in terms of what questions they're interested in (namely those about how personal life is shaped political systems) and how they go about answering those questions (through a symbol-heavy, realist approach to dramatic "everyday" events) that I'm comfortable talking about them as a group and comparing one against the others. In this case, though I liked Lazarescu, it's my least favorite of the RNC movies I've seen so far, because the symbolism here feels just a bit too generic - the specificity dissolves as the movie goes on and it turns into a more general anti-bureaucratic satire, rather than one that is rooted to its time and place.
Genesis of a Meal (Luc Moullet, 1978) (v) **** - Funny and insightful throughout, but the last movement - where he engages in self-reflection/analysis - really takes the movie to a deeper level: complicating what we've seen, but also clarifying the dilemma of what it means to be a good global citizen.
Anatomy of a Relationship (Luc Moullet, 1976) (v) **** - Moullet continues to impress. I described this to a friend as a Woody Allen movie for grown-ups, which really isn't fair to Woody. Maybe a better way to put it would have been: a Woody Allen movie that doesn't have to play by the rules of American commercial cinema.
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955) (v) *** - I thought it was somewhat appropriate that I watched this right after Capitalism.
Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) * - The first half of the movie is as good as anything Moore has done, with many black comic WTF? moments. Not coincidentally, Moore stays in the background during this part. He steps to the fore in the second half, and the movie takes a turn for the worse. His schtick is simply uninspired: he seems to be going through the motions (and the low level employees he's dealing with also seem to be going through the motions), which takes the edge off the righteous anger that has been building up. There are other problems, too (deliberately obscuring the difference between an economic system and a political system, glossing over Obama's role in the push for the bank bailouts), but it's the half-assed nature of his stunt that does the movie in.
Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette, 2009) *** - A work of a master: not a masterpiece, but a statement or summing up, not unlike A Prairie Home Companion.
Afterschool (Antonio Campos, 2008) (v) ** - When a film is this well made and this thoughtful, does it matter that it isn't very "likable"? That it keeps its distance and discourages the usual kind of emotional connection/response to its characters? I'd say that it probably shouldn't. Still, this works better when Campas seems to be observing (all the stuff with the kids) than when he seems to be making a point (a lot of the stuff with the adults). And speaking of making a point: I think reading the movie purely for its "message" does it a disservice. Moment-to-moment what's onscreen is too complicated, too unresolved, to be reduced in that way.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007) (v) *** - More on the theme "the personal is political" from the "New Romanian Cinema". For some reason, watching this movie - which I really loved - reminded me of a movie I don't much care for: Y Tu Mama Tambien. Maybe because I imagine that the relationship between the two friends here will fall apart like that of the two friends in Mama (even though there's really no other similarities between the pairs)? My favorite scene here is her conversation with her boyfriend following the extremely awkward dinner party.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates, 2009) *** - Truly magical.
Key:
(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.
Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)
No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon
Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008) (v) *** - If I had more free time for writing, I'd try to turn my thoughts on this and on 35 Shots of Rum into a longer post. For now though, all I have is a question: is there any other major director who had as narrow focus in terms of themes and subject matter as Yasujiro Ozu?
Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952) (v) **
Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, 2008) **** - My thoughts on this movie still are nowhere near fully-formed: I've been mulling it over since I saw it earlier this week and moments from it are haunting my waking life. Right now second only to Two Lovers as my film of the year.
Europa (Lars von Trier, 1991) (v) *** - I'm glad I finally caught up with this movie, which would make an interesting double bill with Inglourious Basterds. I've liked every von Trier movie I've seen, but, until now, I've managed to miss most of the "major" ones.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, 1975) (v) (r) *****
Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin, 1999) (v) (r) **
E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982) (v) (r) *** - I used to say I preferred this to Spielberg's "later, stodgier, darker" work, but, on revisitation, the movie (or at least the first half) was creakier and stiffer than I remembered. Too often good, lively business - like the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons - stops dead for poetry-of-suburbia image-making. The young actors are all good - they're very cute and funny - but they seem to be trapped by Spielberg's compositions in a way that the more seasoned actors in Close Encounters and Jaws aren't. It isn't until everything is in place and things start to move that the movie starts working. (I had a similar problem with Ratatouille, and, watching E.T. this time I kept thinking "Pixar avant la lettre" - sharing Pixar's movies' usual problem of having a strong half and a weak half). I don't mean it as (much of) a dig to say that Spielberg makes a better action filmmaker than he does a poet. The chase on the bicycles at the end of the film is a masterful sequence: built off of a particular kind of suburban sub-development geography, it's rousing, suspenseful, and expressive of the characters (exactly how great action movies should work). The kids on bikes riding down those terraced hills? That's real poetry.
The Curse of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) (v) ****
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) (v) ***** - To my shame as a cinephile, this is the first time I've watched City Lights from start to finish, though I've seen numerous excerpts from it over the years. I'm now inspired to come with a aphorism along the lines of: "An excerpt from a truly great movie will only mislead you as to the nature of its greatness."
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, 2008) ****
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) (v) (r) ***** - 50 years later, Rear Window is still more audacious, more formally daring than just about any of the "entertainments" that have come out of Hollywood since.
Year One (Harold Ramis, 2009) (v) ** - Everything here feels tossed off (some scenes just end, there's very little in the way of elaborate gag-building), which is a little disappointing coming from the director of Groundhog Day and vacation, but turns out to be the perfect approach to this kind of movie. I generally don't like to praise movies (especially comedies) for their low ambitions, but I thought this was enjoyably old fashioned and down to earth in its approach to its "high concept".
The Signal (David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry , 2007) (v) * - Neat idea, hobbled by inconsistent/uneven execution.
High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958) (v) *** - There's a mini-genre of movies that I like to think of as "The Kids Aren't Alright" movies that includes, well, Kids, River's Edge, and, going somewhat farther afield All About Lily Chou Chou and Afterschool. High School Confidential is, if not the "best" of them, then, at least, my favorite.
Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2009) * - Not a "real scary" movie, but, rather, a "fun scary" movie that is clever enough to get you to do most of its work for it. The ending is a misjudgment and the movie overall is no big deal, but it is made with thought and is a more than worthy diversion. The subtext - about finding out about the true extent of your romantic partner's psychological/emotional baggage only after you move in with them - gives the movie a little more substance, but it isn't explored or developed as similar material is in movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Brood.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) (v) ** - I'm sure someone has already written an article/essay explaining exactly why we shouldn't lump these "New Romanian Cinema" movies together, because each director has their own style, concerns, but, from where I'm standing, they have enough in common in terms of what questions they're interested in (namely those about how personal life is shaped political systems) and how they go about answering those questions (through a symbol-heavy, realist approach to dramatic "everyday" events) that I'm comfortable talking about them as a group and comparing one against the others. In this case, though I liked Lazarescu, it's my least favorite of the RNC movies I've seen so far, because the symbolism here feels just a bit too generic - the specificity dissolves as the movie goes on and it turns into a more general anti-bureaucratic satire, rather than one that is rooted to its time and place.
Genesis of a Meal (Luc Moullet, 1978) (v) **** - Funny and insightful throughout, but the last movement - where he engages in self-reflection/analysis - really takes the movie to a deeper level: complicating what we've seen, but also clarifying the dilemma of what it means to be a good global citizen.
Anatomy of a Relationship (Luc Moullet, 1976) (v) **** - Moullet continues to impress. I described this to a friend as a Woody Allen movie for grown-ups, which really isn't fair to Woody. Maybe a better way to put it would have been: a Woody Allen movie that doesn't have to play by the rules of American commercial cinema.
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955) (v) *** - I thought it was somewhat appropriate that I watched this right after Capitalism.
Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) * - The first half of the movie is as good as anything Moore has done, with many black comic WTF? moments. Not coincidentally, Moore stays in the background during this part. He steps to the fore in the second half, and the movie takes a turn for the worse. His schtick is simply uninspired: he seems to be going through the motions (and the low level employees he's dealing with also seem to be going through the motions), which takes the edge off the righteous anger that has been building up. There are other problems, too (deliberately obscuring the difference between an economic system and a political system, glossing over Obama's role in the push for the bank bailouts), but it's the half-assed nature of his stunt that does the movie in.
Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette, 2009) *** - A work of a master: not a masterpiece, but a statement or summing up, not unlike A Prairie Home Companion.
Afterschool (Antonio Campos, 2008) (v) ** - When a film is this well made and this thoughtful, does it matter that it isn't very "likable"? That it keeps its distance and discourages the usual kind of emotional connection/response to its characters? I'd say that it probably shouldn't. Still, this works better when Campas seems to be observing (all the stuff with the kids) than when he seems to be making a point (a lot of the stuff with the adults). And speaking of making a point: I think reading the movie purely for its "message" does it a disservice. Moment-to-moment what's onscreen is too complicated, too unresolved, to be reduced in that way.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007) (v) *** - More on the theme "the personal is political" from the "New Romanian Cinema". For some reason, watching this movie - which I really loved - reminded me of a movie I don't much care for: Y Tu Mama Tambien. Maybe because I imagine that the relationship between the two friends here will fall apart like that of the two friends in Mama (even though there's really no other similarities between the pairs)? My favorite scene here is her conversation with her boyfriend following the extremely awkward dinner party.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates, 2009) *** - Truly magical.
Key:
(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.
Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)
No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Top 9 as of 9/9/09
1. Two Lovers (James Gray)
2. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
4. Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
5. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
6. Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
7. Public Enemies (Michael Mann)
8. You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
9. World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)
Number 10, right now, would be a tie between Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski) and Coraline (Henry Selick).
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Ten RPGs I'd Like to Be Playing...
I'm having lots of fun playing in some Old School D&D games and running a few sessions of Spirit of the Century (Flash Gordon-flavored), but here are a few more games I'd like to add to the rotation...
1. The Burning Wheel - One of my all-time favorites! I don't get to play it nearly enough as I'd like.
2. Sorcerer - Ditto!
3. Agon - I've wanted to play this for a while now - the competitive aspect is really appealing.
4. 3:16 - I feel guilty that I haven't played this yet.
5. Spione - Not really an RPG, but close enough for the purposes of this blog post. I haven't played this since it was actually published (and the playtest version I used has been changed significantly, I believe).
6. D&D: Carcosa - I'm not quite sure what I would do with this - probably try to run the introductory adventure in the new issue of Fight On!
7. In a Wicked Age - This looks very, very neat, and its quick start/no prep nature makes it more attractive an option than most of the other games on this list.
8. Some Jeepform stuff - This is probably the "least likely to be actually played" of all the entries on the list, but I'm really interested in giving this a try.
9. Dirty Secrets - I love, love, love crime fiction, and this game actually looks like it delivers.
10. D&D 4th Edition - I go back and forth on this: right now though it is very tempting!
1. The Burning Wheel - One of my all-time favorites! I don't get to play it nearly enough as I'd like.
2. Sorcerer - Ditto!
3. Agon - I've wanted to play this for a while now - the competitive aspect is really appealing.
4. 3:16 - I feel guilty that I haven't played this yet.
5. Spione - Not really an RPG, but close enough for the purposes of this blog post. I haven't played this since it was actually published (and the playtest version I used has been changed significantly, I believe).
6. D&D: Carcosa - I'm not quite sure what I would do with this - probably try to run the introductory adventure in the new issue of Fight On!
7. In a Wicked Age - This looks very, very neat, and its quick start/no prep nature makes it more attractive an option than most of the other games on this list.
8. Some Jeepform stuff - This is probably the "least likely to be actually played" of all the entries on the list, but I'm really interested in giving this a try.
9. Dirty Secrets - I love, love, love crime fiction, and this game actually looks like it delivers.
10. D&D 4th Edition - I go back and forth on this: right now though it is very tempting!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Forager's 2008 Big List of Stuff
I usually don't get around to finalizing my annual "Best" lists until after I've had a chance to catch up with all of the year's releases. Going by past experience, that means my 2008 Best lists wouldn't be ready until May 2009.
Here's something different for this year: a big, fruit salad list of my favorite arts/culture stuff from 2008* that I've seen/read/experienced in 2008.
I wanted to annotate each of the entries, but I also wanted to make sure I posted this before I went on my Christmas vacation - so there are some "blanks" here that I might come back to fill in later.
No music here, because I've mostly given up on listening to new releases, although I did like the Coldplay album quite a bit. No novels here because I'm a couple of years behind there, too. No a(r/l)t comix either, for the same reasons: I'm always playing catch up!
I'm on Christmas vacation now, so I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to respond, but questions and comments are always appreciated.
1. Lost Season 4 - In certain RPG circles there's a recurring debate that goes something like this:
On the one side, you have people saying that Star Wars is cool because of all the spaceships, aliens, and powers, so an RPG about Star Wars needs rules for all of the cool spaceships, aliens, and powers. On the other side, you have people saying that Star Wars is compelling because of its underlying dramatic and thematic concerns, so an RPG about Star Wars needs rules to help address these dramatic and thematic concerns. People on this side of the debate tend to dismiss all the powers, spaceships, and aliens as "mere color"- i.e. trappings that you could get rid of and still have something that was Star Wars-like (i.e. something that had the same kind of pulpy feel and mythic reach).
I take a middle ground: Star Wars is compelling and cool because of the virtuous cycle set up between its unique sci-fi trappings (the specific spaceships, powers, and aliens) and its thematic concerns. I think all of the best fantasy and sci-fi manages to find this kind of "sweet spot" where the "rules" of the mythos (i.e., how the Force works, how the Republic is organized politically, etc.) creatively constrain and shape the action and themes.
Sometime during it's second season I started describing Lost as a series that moment-for-moment was one of the most entertaining shows on television, but on a larger, "seasonal" scale was extremely unsatisfying. In other words, they couldn't find that sweet spot. All the little bits and pieces worked, but they didn't seem like they added up to anything and it was frustrating because it seemed like they were supposed to add up to something. In his piece on the Season 4 finale, Sean argued that getting too concerned about the big picture was, perhaps, not the best way to watch this show. But it's hard not to get caught up in all the details of the Lost mythos, since they're interwoven so completely into the action. Anyway, I think it wasn't until the end of Season 3 and (especially) the entirety of Season 4 that the Lost team perfected the balance between micro and macro: moment-to-moment the show was as strong as ever and the slowly but steadily emerging outlines of the "big picture" helped to ground these moments and give them greater thematic resonance because of the way they fit into the mosaic of the mythos.
2. Profit motive and the whispering wind - I want to write something of my own, but for now read this.
3. Cartooning class with Matthew Thurber - Taking this course was definitely one of the best decisions I made all year. Matt is a very good teacher and the class was laid back and a lot of fun. Plus, I learned a lot and even ended up getting to make my own minicomic. I've been a comics/cartoons fan for just about as long as I can remember, but the last time I ever really tried to draw a comic was back when I was in the third grade. What's interesting to me as a guy who spends a decent percentage of his spare time thinking about/writing about comics is how much insight making even a pretty basic minicomic gave me into comics in general. It was an eye-opening experience. Like - I love that part in Donald Phelps' essay on Gould's Dick Tracy where he talks about the way Gould uses blacks, but it wasn't until I tried (and failed) to get a similar effect that I was able to grasp exactly what Gould had achieved.
4. The revival of Last Year at Marienbad at Film Forum - What a difference a print makes! Fred Camper, one of my favorite film critics, always emphasizes that if you've only seen a movie on video, you haven't really seen it. After having first seen Last Year at Marienbad, years ago, on a pretty lousy VHS tape, watching it on a beautiful print at the Film Forum was a revelation. On video, the image was cramped and fuzzy. The subtitles were barely readable and incomplete: I could comprehend French well enough to know that stuff was left out, but not enough to follow the twisty-turny narration. At the Film Forum, everything was clear. This is a beautiful, clever movie - and it's also pretty funny.
5. The Fold - A funny, super smart erotic, sci-fi thriller webseries (co-written and produced by my friends Ray and Polly, but I'd recommend . Erotic, not so much because it's made to turn you on (although it might), but because, unlike most fiction, it acknowledges that the part of us given to erotic fantasizing isn't completely compartmentalized from the rest our lives. It's filled with lots of smart, sci-fi-ish observations about the way Web 2.0 has affected our sense of the border between public and private life and how that, in turn, has affected those fantasies.
6. Burn After Reading - I wrote about this movie already, here.
7. Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Great Job Season 3 - I've written a little bit about Tim and Eric before, here. This season of their show had some of their funniest moments, but it's also probably their most inaccessible body of work, in that it's more self-referential than ever, more focused on exploring its own little world. This has a downside - guests and bits trotted out seemingly as "fanservice" - but it also allows for stuff like the "Jim and Derrick" episode, one of the best takes on MTV-style youth culture since Beavis and Butthead.
8. Wall-E - I like that A.O. Scott has to qualify his praise of Milk as being the best live action mainstream American movie he saw all year.
9. Slam Dunk Vol. 1 - I've gotten back into reading manga, but on most of the series I'm following I'm waaaaay behind. Slam Dunk is the only "new" manga I've started and Vol. 1 is the only manga I've read that was actually released this year. So this was the first year ever that the bulk of my comics-reading enjoyment came from manga, so I'll Slam Dunk stand in for all of the stuff I read and enjoyed.
10. Jason Statham - Almost singlehandedly keeping the action movie alive.
11. The "Brand New Day" and Beyond Era of The Amazing Spider-Man - I read some comics that I thought were better than these and a few comics that I enjoyed more, but I really dig what the writing/editorial team is doing with this book. Which is, as I've written before, trying to elaborate and expand on the John Romita/Stan Lee run without straying too far from what makes the character and concept work. In theory, I'm all for wild and woolly super-hero comics that make no sense to outsiders and I genuinely like those idiosyncrasies of super-hero comics that get filed off when they get turned into super-hero movies, but, in practice, the decisions made by the Spidey Team have led to better super-hero comics (in just about any way you want to define "better") than the weirder/more ambitious ones made by the folks over at DC or in Marvel's "Event Department".
Anyway, this has gotten me back in the comic store on a weekly basis, something I couldn't have imagined happening at this time last year.
12. Rambo - I want to write about this movie, but don't have time to do it justice right now. I'll just say that I think this movie is a kind of inversion of Saving Private Ryan, esp. in terms of how salvation relates to warfare and in terms of how it addresses the question "what good can come of the kind of mechanized violence that rips people to shreds". It's The Wild Bunch for the new millennium. (And this reminds me that I still need to see JCVD.)
13. The Happening - I wrote about this a couple of times.
14. Black Summer by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp - I wrote about this comic already, here. I'm not as into their follow-up, No Heroes - it's #0 issue was really great, the next two issues were a bit of a let down - but I still think Ryp is one of the few guys drawing super-hero comics who'd be worth following no matter who was doing the writing. Frank Quitely would be one of the others. Luckily, they both tend to work with guys who know how to write these kinds of things.
15. All of the classic comic strip collections that I hope to either get as Christmas gifts or get for myself with any B&N gift cards I might recieve - Kind of cheating since these aren't things I've actually read. But it definitely makes me very happy that there's the distinct possibility that I'll be able to spend New Year's Eve pouring over that Scorchy Smith collection.
*More or less: I always allow for some wiggle room.
Here's something different for this year: a big, fruit salad list of my favorite arts/culture stuff from 2008* that I've seen/read/experienced in 2008.
I wanted to annotate each of the entries, but I also wanted to make sure I posted this before I went on my Christmas vacation - so there are some "blanks" here that I might come back to fill in later.
No music here, because I've mostly given up on listening to new releases, although I did like the Coldplay album quite a bit. No novels here because I'm a couple of years behind there, too. No a(r/l)t comix either, for the same reasons: I'm always playing catch up!
I'm on Christmas vacation now, so I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to respond, but questions and comments are always appreciated.
1. Lost Season 4 - In certain RPG circles there's a recurring debate that goes something like this:
On the one side, you have people saying that Star Wars is cool because of all the spaceships, aliens, and powers, so an RPG about Star Wars needs rules for all of the cool spaceships, aliens, and powers. On the other side, you have people saying that Star Wars is compelling because of its underlying dramatic and thematic concerns, so an RPG about Star Wars needs rules to help address these dramatic and thematic concerns. People on this side of the debate tend to dismiss all the powers, spaceships, and aliens as "mere color"- i.e. trappings that you could get rid of and still have something that was Star Wars-like (i.e. something that had the same kind of pulpy feel and mythic reach).
I take a middle ground: Star Wars is compelling and cool because of the virtuous cycle set up between its unique sci-fi trappings (the specific spaceships, powers, and aliens) and its thematic concerns. I think all of the best fantasy and sci-fi manages to find this kind of "sweet spot" where the "rules" of the mythos (i.e., how the Force works, how the Republic is organized politically, etc.) creatively constrain and shape the action and themes.
Sometime during it's second season I started describing Lost as a series that moment-for-moment was one of the most entertaining shows on television, but on a larger, "seasonal" scale was extremely unsatisfying. In other words, they couldn't find that sweet spot. All the little bits and pieces worked, but they didn't seem like they added up to anything and it was frustrating because it seemed like they were supposed to add up to something. In his piece on the Season 4 finale, Sean argued that getting too concerned about the big picture was, perhaps, not the best way to watch this show. But it's hard not to get caught up in all the details of the Lost mythos, since they're interwoven so completely into the action. Anyway, I think it wasn't until the end of Season 3 and (especially) the entirety of Season 4 that the Lost team perfected the balance between micro and macro: moment-to-moment the show was as strong as ever and the slowly but steadily emerging outlines of the "big picture" helped to ground these moments and give them greater thematic resonance because of the way they fit into the mosaic of the mythos.
2. Profit motive and the whispering wind - I want to write something of my own, but for now read this.
3. Cartooning class with Matthew Thurber - Taking this course was definitely one of the best decisions I made all year. Matt is a very good teacher and the class was laid back and a lot of fun. Plus, I learned a lot and even ended up getting to make my own minicomic. I've been a comics/cartoons fan for just about as long as I can remember, but the last time I ever really tried to draw a comic was back when I was in the third grade. What's interesting to me as a guy who spends a decent percentage of his spare time thinking about/writing about comics is how much insight making even a pretty basic minicomic gave me into comics in general. It was an eye-opening experience. Like - I love that part in Donald Phelps' essay on Gould's Dick Tracy where he talks about the way Gould uses blacks, but it wasn't until I tried (and failed) to get a similar effect that I was able to grasp exactly what Gould had achieved.
4. The revival of Last Year at Marienbad at Film Forum - What a difference a print makes! Fred Camper, one of my favorite film critics, always emphasizes that if you've only seen a movie on video, you haven't really seen it. After having first seen Last Year at Marienbad, years ago, on a pretty lousy VHS tape, watching it on a beautiful print at the Film Forum was a revelation. On video, the image was cramped and fuzzy. The subtitles were barely readable and incomplete: I could comprehend French well enough to know that stuff was left out, but not enough to follow the twisty-turny narration. At the Film Forum, everything was clear. This is a beautiful, clever movie - and it's also pretty funny.
5. The Fold - A funny, super smart erotic, sci-fi thriller webseries (co-written and produced by my friends Ray and Polly, but I'd recommend . Erotic, not so much because it's made to turn you on (although it might), but because, unlike most fiction, it acknowledges that the part of us given to erotic fantasizing isn't completely compartmentalized from the rest our lives. It's filled with lots of smart, sci-fi-ish observations about the way Web 2.0 has affected our sense of the border between public and private life and how that, in turn, has affected those fantasies.
6. Burn After Reading - I wrote about this movie already, here.
7. Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Great Job Season 3 - I've written a little bit about Tim and Eric before, here. This season of their show had some of their funniest moments, but it's also probably their most inaccessible body of work, in that it's more self-referential than ever, more focused on exploring its own little world. This has a downside - guests and bits trotted out seemingly as "fanservice" - but it also allows for stuff like the "Jim and Derrick" episode, one of the best takes on MTV-style youth culture since Beavis and Butthead.
8. Wall-E - I like that A.O. Scott has to qualify his praise of Milk as being the best live action mainstream American movie he saw all year.
9. Slam Dunk Vol. 1 - I've gotten back into reading manga, but on most of the series I'm following I'm waaaaay behind. Slam Dunk is the only "new" manga I've started and Vol. 1 is the only manga I've read that was actually released this year. So this was the first year ever that the bulk of my comics-reading enjoyment came from manga, so I'll Slam Dunk stand in for all of the stuff I read and enjoyed.
10. Jason Statham - Almost singlehandedly keeping the action movie alive.
11. The "Brand New Day" and Beyond Era of The Amazing Spider-Man - I read some comics that I thought were better than these and a few comics that I enjoyed more, but I really dig what the writing/editorial team is doing with this book. Which is, as I've written before, trying to elaborate and expand on the John Romita/Stan Lee run without straying too far from what makes the character and concept work. In theory, I'm all for wild and woolly super-hero comics that make no sense to outsiders and I genuinely like those idiosyncrasies of super-hero comics that get filed off when they get turned into super-hero movies, but, in practice, the decisions made by the Spidey Team have led to better super-hero comics (in just about any way you want to define "better") than the weirder/more ambitious ones made by the folks over at DC or in Marvel's "Event Department".
Anyway, this has gotten me back in the comic store on a weekly basis, something I couldn't have imagined happening at this time last year.
12. Rambo - I want to write about this movie, but don't have time to do it justice right now. I'll just say that I think this movie is a kind of inversion of Saving Private Ryan, esp. in terms of how salvation relates to warfare and in terms of how it addresses the question "what good can come of the kind of mechanized violence that rips people to shreds". It's The Wild Bunch for the new millennium. (And this reminds me that I still need to see JCVD.)
13. The Happening - I wrote about this a couple of times.
14. Black Summer by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp - I wrote about this comic already, here. I'm not as into their follow-up, No Heroes - it's #0 issue was really great, the next two issues were a bit of a let down - but I still think Ryp is one of the few guys drawing super-hero comics who'd be worth following no matter who was doing the writing. Frank Quitely would be one of the others. Luckily, they both tend to work with guys who know how to write these kinds of things.
15. All of the classic comic strip collections that I hope to either get as Christmas gifts or get for myself with any B&N gift cards I might recieve - Kind of cheating since these aren't things I've actually read. But it definitely makes me very happy that there's the distinct possibility that I'll be able to spend New Year's Eve pouring over that Scorchy Smith collection.
*More or less: I always allow for some wiggle room.
Monday, November 3, 2008
5 Best Comic Book Series I'm Reading at the Moment
1. Promethea (1st time, about 12 issues in): I read the first issues of all of the original ABC books, but Top Ten was the only one that hooked me in. I eventually caught up with all of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (except for The Black Dossier) and a lot of Tom Strong and Tomorrow Stories, but kept putting off reading Promethea. I decided to give it another chance because (a) the series is praised to high heaven by the likes of Jog and (b) the TPB collections are available at the library.
So far, I think it's pretty great and I'd like to say that I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided way-back-when that it wasn't for me, except that I remember almost exactly what I was thinking: that turning into a super-hero by composing and writing a poem was an extremely lame idea. That's really the only bit that stuck with me, though: I had completely forgotten all the pulp sci-fi trappings - no memories of the Five Swell Guys, for instance - and the book's sense of humor - like the stuff about the MPD mayor).
While a lot of this reads like a lecture, what makes it work, IMO, is that Moore and J.H. Williams III make the lecture work as comics. If I have one complaint it's that in a TPB collection it's harder to read some of the two-page spreads: they really need to be laid flat to be properly appreciated.
2. All-Star Squadron (re-reading, 3 issues in): I don't know if this is my favorite Roy Thomas comic, but it is the first "favorite Roy Thomas" comic I ever had.
I really like that it isn't decompressed! I know it has become pretty common for old-school comics fans to complain about the lack of story/plot in newer super-hero comics, but it wasn't until I started re-reading this series that I realized my problem with decompression wasn't just that it spreads out 22 pages worth of story over six issues - I now think it also leads to lazier comics. I mean, in All-Star Squadron you have a large team of super-heroes, you have big fight scenes, and you have a fair amount of exposition/backstory/positioning to get across. But because you don't have all the space in the world, the individual panels take on a lot more weight. It becomes much more important to get as much expressiveness out of each panel as possible, while still avoiding having the compositions becoming too cluttered, muddied, or incomprehensible. It can be refreshing for creators to work without restraints, but I think "compression" was one of those constraints that spurred creativity rather than reigned it in.
I also like Roy Thomas' project here, in general. Talk about working within constraints: I can't think of anything else quite like this, except for Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck comics. Rosa's work is an interesting comparison, IMO, because the Barks work Rosa is drawing from is among the greatest American comics ever made, while Thomas is working with far more uneven source material. In a sense, this puts All-Star Squadron in the better position vis a vis its "original" than Life and Times: Rosa's work ends up being a footnote - albeit a beautifully done footnote - to Barks', while All-Star Squadron is interesting and worthwhile for completely different reasons than the original Justice Society stories in All-Star Comics. The pleasure of those stories for me is in their anarchic, anything goes nature and primitive, circus-spectacle art. The pleasure of All-Star Squadron is in (a) watching Thomas put his stories together like a "negative" puzzle - i.e. he has to try to fit things in to the empty narrative spaces left by the original comics and (b) how Thomas more consciously weaves real world WWII-era history into the fiction.
3. Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan's The Question (re-reading, 3 issues in): Inspired by 52, I went back to these comics. Would it surprise anyone here if I said I think they're much better than anything done with the character in 52? For one thing, O'Neil doesn't write him just like another masked vigilante. O'Neil walks the tightrope of giving the character a distinct personality without having it turn into (merely) a unique shtick. I like O'Neil's approach in general: he has genuine old-school pulp roots, which sets him apart, IMO, from a lot of the other guys writing super-hero books. (I'd like to do a longer compare/contrast essay on this series vs. Miller's Daredevil, which makes use of a lot of the same pulp tropes but uses them in a more superficial manner).
4. The Walking Dead (1st time, 13 issues in): Good stuff! Not sure why I waited so long to read these comics, but I'm glad I now have a bunch of them to read all at once. I eventually would like to write a longer, essay-style appreciation, that would talk about (among other things) the importance of the various places in which the survivors take refuge and how I think Kirkman (and his collaborators) are thinking like classical Hollywood filmmakers in this regard.
5. The Boys (1st time, 13 or so issues in): Okay, so it isn't as good as Brat Pack. It isn't as good as Ennis' various Punisher comics. I haven't read enough Transmetropolitan to know if it's not as good as that. And I don't even think Robertson's work is as good here as it was on his Wolverine run. Still - I think this comic has something that a lot of the other nudge-nudge, wink-wink "takes"on super-hero comics don't, which is a raunchy, nasty spirit and a refusal to play both sides of the fence. I.e. there isn't much in the way of "traditional super-hero comics pleasures" here, as opposed to something like Nextwave or X-Static. (And, so far at least, the jokes don't revolve around how goofy various super-hero tropes seem if you think about them in "real world" terms). This is last on this list for a reason: I'm less sure of this one, both in terms of being less sure I'll be sticking around for the long haul and less sure that I won't look back on even these issues less fondly in a year from now. But right now this is (a) a nice corrective to the "straight" super-hero stuff I'm reading (I wish the Boys would pay a visit to Bendis' New Avengers) and (b) a nice way to get a regular Garth Ennis fix.
So far, I think it's pretty great and I'd like to say that I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided way-back-when that it wasn't for me, except that I remember almost exactly what I was thinking: that turning into a super-hero by composing and writing a poem was an extremely lame idea. That's really the only bit that stuck with me, though: I had completely forgotten all the pulp sci-fi trappings - no memories of the Five Swell Guys, for instance - and the book's sense of humor - like the stuff about the MPD mayor).
While a lot of this reads like a lecture, what makes it work, IMO, is that Moore and J.H. Williams III make the lecture work as comics. If I have one complaint it's that in a TPB collection it's harder to read some of the two-page spreads: they really need to be laid flat to be properly appreciated.
2. All-Star Squadron (re-reading, 3 issues in): I don't know if this is my favorite Roy Thomas comic, but it is the first "favorite Roy Thomas" comic I ever had.
I really like that it isn't decompressed! I know it has become pretty common for old-school comics fans to complain about the lack of story/plot in newer super-hero comics, but it wasn't until I started re-reading this series that I realized my problem with decompression wasn't just that it spreads out 22 pages worth of story over six issues - I now think it also leads to lazier comics. I mean, in All-Star Squadron you have a large team of super-heroes, you have big fight scenes, and you have a fair amount of exposition/backstory/positioning to get across. But because you don't have all the space in the world, the individual panels take on a lot more weight. It becomes much more important to get as much expressiveness out of each panel as possible, while still avoiding having the compositions becoming too cluttered, muddied, or incomprehensible. It can be refreshing for creators to work without restraints, but I think "compression" was one of those constraints that spurred creativity rather than reigned it in.
I also like Roy Thomas' project here, in general. Talk about working within constraints: I can't think of anything else quite like this, except for Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck comics. Rosa's work is an interesting comparison, IMO, because the Barks work Rosa is drawing from is among the greatest American comics ever made, while Thomas is working with far more uneven source material. In a sense, this puts All-Star Squadron in the better position vis a vis its "original" than Life and Times: Rosa's work ends up being a footnote - albeit a beautifully done footnote - to Barks', while All-Star Squadron is interesting and worthwhile for completely different reasons than the original Justice Society stories in All-Star Comics. The pleasure of those stories for me is in their anarchic, anything goes nature and primitive, circus-spectacle art. The pleasure of All-Star Squadron is in (a) watching Thomas put his stories together like a "negative" puzzle - i.e. he has to try to fit things in to the empty narrative spaces left by the original comics and (b) how Thomas more consciously weaves real world WWII-era history into the fiction.
3. Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan's The Question (re-reading, 3 issues in): Inspired by 52, I went back to these comics. Would it surprise anyone here if I said I think they're much better than anything done with the character in 52? For one thing, O'Neil doesn't write him just like another masked vigilante. O'Neil walks the tightrope of giving the character a distinct personality without having it turn into (merely) a unique shtick. I like O'Neil's approach in general: he has genuine old-school pulp roots, which sets him apart, IMO, from a lot of the other guys writing super-hero books. (I'd like to do a longer compare/contrast essay on this series vs. Miller's Daredevil, which makes use of a lot of the same pulp tropes but uses them in a more superficial manner).
4. The Walking Dead (1st time, 13 issues in): Good stuff! Not sure why I waited so long to read these comics, but I'm glad I now have a bunch of them to read all at once. I eventually would like to write a longer, essay-style appreciation, that would talk about (among other things) the importance of the various places in which the survivors take refuge and how I think Kirkman (and his collaborators) are thinking like classical Hollywood filmmakers in this regard.
5. The Boys (1st time, 13 or so issues in): Okay, so it isn't as good as Brat Pack. It isn't as good as Ennis' various Punisher comics. I haven't read enough Transmetropolitan to know if it's not as good as that. And I don't even think Robertson's work is as good here as it was on his Wolverine run. Still - I think this comic has something that a lot of the other nudge-nudge, wink-wink "takes"on super-hero comics don't, which is a raunchy, nasty spirit and a refusal to play both sides of the fence. I.e. there isn't much in the way of "traditional super-hero comics pleasures" here, as opposed to something like Nextwave or X-Static. (And, so far at least, the jokes don't revolve around how goofy various super-hero tropes seem if you think about them in "real world" terms). This is last on this list for a reason: I'm less sure of this one, both in terms of being less sure I'll be sticking around for the long haul and less sure that I won't look back on even these issues less fondly in a year from now. But right now this is (a) a nice corrective to the "straight" super-hero stuff I'm reading (I wish the Boys would pay a visit to Bendis' New Avengers) and (b) a nice way to get a regular Garth Ennis fix.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
For Sean, 21 shows off the top of my head that are better than The Wire...
I mean, I like The Wire, but...
1. Fawlty Towers
2. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
3. Charlie Rose
4. The Twilight Zone
5. Twin Peaks
6. The Muppet Show
7. Star Trek
8. Dragnet
9. The Simpsons
10. The Sopranos
11. Wiseguy
12. The X-Files
13. Cheers
14. The Larry Sanders Show
15. Arrested Development
16. Prime Suspect
17. Deadwood
18. South Park
19. Dr. Who
20. Firefly
21. Blake's 7
Given enough time I could come up with a list of, probably, 100 shows that I think are about as good as The Wire, starting with Seinfeld, The Irish R.M., Fraiser, Inside Winston Cup (when Allen Bestwick was the host), King of the Hill...
1. Fawlty Towers
2. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
3. Charlie Rose
4. The Twilight Zone
5. Twin Peaks
6. The Muppet Show
7. Star Trek
8. Dragnet
9. The Simpsons
10. The Sopranos
11. Wiseguy
12. The X-Files
13. Cheers
14. The Larry Sanders Show
15. Arrested Development
16. Prime Suspect
17. Deadwood
18. South Park
19. Dr. Who
20. Firefly
21. Blake's 7
Given enough time I could come up with a list of, probably, 100 shows that I think are about as good as The Wire, starting with Seinfeld, The Irish R.M., Fraiser, Inside Winston Cup (when Allen Bestwick was the host), King of the Hill...
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Days Late, Dollars Short: 50 Scary Movies
For the last few weeks, I had been reading Stephen King and Clive Barker short stories, watching movies like The Innocents and 28 Weeks Later, and generally getting into the mood for Halloween, but I wasn't able to conjure up a suitably thematic blog post.
Instead, I'm just going to rip off Sean Collins (my apologies, Sean), which will also provide a good excuse for me to play around with posting a bunch of images (that's the fun part).
So...
My 50 Favorite Creepy, Scary, and/or Spooky Movies
1. Blow Out
2. Vertigo
3. Shadow of a Doubt
4. Blue Velvet
5. The Exorcist
6. Martin
7. The Night of the Hunter
8. The Innocents
9. The Birds
10. The Saragossa Manuscript
11. Videodrome
12. Deliverance
13. 28 Weeks Later
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
15. Audition
16. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
17. Alien
18. Frankenstein
19. The Fury
20. 28 Days Later
21. Jaws
22. Rosemary's Baby
23. The Thing
24. Bedlam
25. M
26. The Descent
27. Ugetsu
28. Suspiria
29. Night of the Living Dead
30. War of the Worlds (2005)
31. Aliens
32. The Stepfather
33. Scanners
34. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
35. The Dark Half
36. Manhunter
37. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
38. I Walked with a Zombie
39. The Vanishing
40. Evil Dead II
41. Tenebre
42. The Dead Zone
43. The Evil Dead
44. Scrooged
45. Bram Stoker's Dracula
46. Dead Alive
47. Day of the Dead
48. The Frighteners
49. Re-animator
50. The Shining
Instead, I'm just going to rip off Sean Collins (my apologies, Sean), which will also provide a good excuse for me to play around with posting a bunch of images (that's the fun part).
So...
My 50 Favorite Creepy, Scary, and/or Spooky Movies
1. Blow Out
2. Vertigo
3. Shadow of a Doubt
4. Blue Velvet
5. The Exorcist
6. Martin
7. The Night of the Hunter
8. The Innocents
9. The Birds
10. The Saragossa Manuscript
11. Videodrome
12. Deliverance
13. 28 Weeks Later
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
15. Audition
16. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
17. Alien
18. Frankenstein
19. The Fury
20. 28 Days Later
21. Jaws
22. Rosemary's Baby
23. The Thing
24. Bedlam
25. M
26. The Descent
27. Ugetsu
28. Suspiria
29. Night of the Living Dead
30. War of the Worlds (2005)
31. Aliens
32. The Stepfather
33. Scanners
34. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
35. The Dark Half
36. Manhunter
37. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
38. I Walked with a Zombie
39. The Vanishing
40. Evil Dead II
41. Tenebre
42. The Dead Zone
43. The Evil Dead
44. Scrooged
45. Bram Stoker's Dracula
46. Dead Alive
47. Day of the Dead
48. The Frighteners
49. Re-animator
50. The Shining
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