Review: Let Me In with spoilers

So, I went to see Let Me In this weekend under protest. Kinda sort of. My wife and I were going to see The Town instead but Fandango had the wrong times listed on their site for my local theater.

I had many reservations about seeing this film as Let the Right One In was my favorite movie of 2008, neck and neck with Iron Man and when I saw a remake was being made, I cringed. After seeing it, I had very strong opinions about Let Me In so now's your last chance to turn back as here be the spoilers.

However, it does stay as true to the original as American movie making will allow. Little things like altering the lead character names, changing Abby's prey from bar patrons to people who live in the apartment complex don’t affect the original story one way or another. There are a few scenes of CGI which are out of place, unneeded and almost laughable.

And speaking of American movie making, those who do they think we are stupid. I’ve known this for a long time, but this movie REALLY cements it for me.

Did you need to have it beaten over your head that Let the Right One In took place in the 80’s? Well Let Me In does so at every turn. Also, in lieu of actual character development, they just give characters hobbies and such. Like Abby is into puzzles and Owen likes “Now and Laters” (a candy I know of vaguely). Is there any reason for this other than lazy script writing? Not really. The argument could be made it’s the Rubik’s Cube that begins their friendship, but it wasn’t needed in the original. They were both just lonely people.

Also, Abby’s ‘father’ very obviously started out as a young boy, much like Owen who gave up his whole life for Abby. They really go the extra mile in Let Me In to make sure you know this. One scene is very subtle and touching, the other is the movie equivalent of hitting you in the face with a brick.

Lastly, you know the big visual reveal that Abby is a boy? I knew they wouldn’t show it in Let Me In so instead Abby says dozens of times that she is a boy. Would it have been more powerful if we saw what was shown Let the Right One In? Probably.

All in all, it was a good movie experience that I liked slightly less because of my love for the original. Definitely check it out as it does not appear to be long for the theaters, coming in seventh at the box office this weekend. Or even better, check out Let the Right One In through Netflix Instaqueue.

SIEGE #1 - my review and thoughts

Sorry no podcast in a while. Holidays and other things have delayed the Gang from getting together. Maybe one day we'll get back on the same page.

Several months ago, based on the hints of Molecule Man being the big bad behind Norman Osborn's latest craziness, I picked up Dark Avengers #11. I'm a HUGE fan of Brian Michael Bendis, whether it be Sam & Twtch, Alias among other things. However, somewhere around the mid-40's issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, something changed.

His writing didn't feel the same and many stories fell into one or all of the following
categories:

• the dialoge felt the same for everyone. Peter Parker and Luke Cage should not speak the same way as Captain America and vice versa.
  
• what many people call "decompression" I call "stretching the story to sell a trade."
  Geoff Johns has stated publicly that when writing the Avengers, he was told to make stories longer, allegedly for that very reason.
  

Even with this against him, I really dug Dark Avengers #11! Based on this alone, I picked up all the past issues of Dark Avengers less the Utopia crossover nonsense and dug that as well!

Was I getting back into Marvel's big events? Apparently so! SIEGE was coming! The return of Captain America, Iron Man and Thor in the Avengers! The end of Norman's run of lunacy! I was on board and excited for a Marvel event after the mess that was House of M and the delays and continuity snafus of Civil War drove me away completely.

So, what did I think of Siege #1? Well, before the story itself, there are a myriad of shipping and technical issues to address, so spoilers ahoy!:

• This story takes place before the events in Invincible Iron Man. I don't read it, so there is no explanation as to why Tony is laid up in bed being worked on by Donald Blake.
  
• This story ALSO takes place before the end of Captain America: Reborn, adding to the multiple list of Bendis penned issues that blow the end of Ed Brubaker's story.
  
• The big war room log in the back is printed wrong. The first page is re-printed on the third page. You can find the correction on Marvel's website, but c'mon guys, the event "Seven Years in the Making" MAY need a bit of closer attention.
  

Loki used Norman's craziness to convince him to attack Asgard (currently hovering above the mid west) due to an orchestrated event to make it look like Volstagg EDIT: thanks DJ! (one of the Warriors Three) blew up a full football stadium.

Bendis addresses in an interview on CBR here that Loki's idea is to make it seem like the events of Civil war all over again, so don't be claiming HE'S unoriginal, Loki is!

Loki then goes to Balder, who is somehow in charge of Asgard (again, I didn't read Thor so I'm not sure why Odin's not in charge) that he tried to stop Norman from attacking to no avail. Which I think is what happens in 90% of every Loki story as well. I can buy Norman falling for this, he's CRAZY! But this would be the umpteenth time the Asgardians have fallen for Loki's same exact plan.

Also, I have a bone to pick with this "Seven Years in the Making" the ads for Siege likes to make mention of. I defy anyone to draw lines of comparison to the events of House of M to not only this storyline, but any storyline! Even the head muckity muck of Marvel (which actually sounds cool to me) Joe Quesada in this issues can only draw the lines that:

• House of M is the first time Bendis has worked with Olivier Coipel
  
• and Scarlet Witch caused Disassembled
  

The "No More Mutants" garbage is just that. Mutants that lost powers have them back, there has been a New X-Men book with TONS of new characters and there some new red-headed savior mutant child floating around the pages of Cable. So yeah, "No More Mutants" my foot!

So the story itself feels a bit light and I already have the feeling to get the REAL story, you're going to have to read all the other tie-in books as well. I planned on sticking with Dark Avengers and maybe checking out New Avengers but so far, I'm having my doubts about getting back into these Marvel events.

Paranormal Activity

Ah, Paranormal Activity the little horror film that (hopefully) could. At this point, with cover stories on MSNBC, AOL, NPR, etc. many of you know about it, but have not seen it due to it's very limited release. As of today, it is on six screens with ten more added this weekend.

There is a more afoot at www.Eventful.com/ParanormalActivity where YOU can demand that it comes to your hometown and if they get one million requests (currently at 400,000) the movie will open nationwide.

I have seen it, making the trip to State College last weekend with questionable characters and I'm NOT going to spoil anything. This is one of those films every horror movie fan should see. There are comparisons to be made to the Blair Witch Project and other "found footage " movies, but this one is very well done.

All of this got me thinking, though. Paramount/Dreamworks, the distributors of Paranormal Activity, have been sitting on this film for over two years. Many studios fail miserably in releasing horror films either at the wrong time (August), the wrong way (PG-13) or against established properties (the Saw films).

The Saw movies have dominated Halloween weekend for the last five years with films of varying quality. Usually passable to not so good. Other studios have tried to compete directly or counter program against Saw, but all attempts have failed.

So far.

If Paranormal Activity was released cold against Saw VI, it would probably be dead on arrival. However, by doing this slow roll out, building the hype machine and THEN coincidentally getting just enough requests to release it nationwide the same weekend as Saw VI, it might just stand a chance. I for one am hoping it does.

Three Guys from Nowhere - Episode Six

A bit late, which seems to be my MO of late. This week, lots of Disney buying Marvel talk and we (Todd, DJ and I) discuss the first six issues of Wednesday Comics. Someone one the Reign in Hell tpb (congrats Rob!) but we have more things to give away!

Go to the site, http://threeguysfromnowhere.podbean.com or download the show

right here or get it from iTunes. You know how to do that if you do. Also, email us at ThreeGuysFromNowhere@gmail.com with thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc.

...and Still Reading

Still plowing through yesterday's books with a few stragglers left to read. I had to break this up into TWO entries, as they are both kinda long and deal with two entirely different subjects.

Blackest Night #1: Great kick off to this HUGE event. Ivan Reis's art looked really nice and so far, even for the uninitiated, there's a LOT of information in this book, but it's not overwhelming.

Amazing Spider-Man #599: A bit late and the THREE different artists really reflect this. Was it worth is? I really dug the resolution between Harry and Norman but I feel like we've been here before.

Deadpool #12: Bullseye using his smarts? Deadpool being Deadpool? I liked this issue as it did not have tons of the triple internal dialogue that Daniel Way likes to use. And CLIFFHANGER ENDING!

Batman: Street of Gotham #2: the weakest of the new Batman Reborn stuff that I'm reading. I'll check it out for a bit longer for the Manhunter back up.

Walking Dead #63: A bit more is revealed about who is stalking the group and, to no surprise, it's for nefarious means. Also, you get Chew #1 for FREE. Get it for that alone!

Action Comics #879: The weakest of the current Superman books and I just wasn't feeling how the Captain Atom back up second feature fits into the grand scheme of things.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1: We get the back story of Saint Walker and Mongul's son (the current Mongul) as well as our first glimpse of the Indigo Tribe in action but at $3.99, it felt a bit light.

What I Read 04/16/09

Tiny Titans #15 - Always a fun read by Baltazar and Franco. The Tiny Terror Titans debut! The beginning of a crossover with Shazam? Stay tuned!


Walking Dead #60 – Nothing like reading these two back to back. Such a gruesome issue for the first few parts. There is nothing more entertaining and depressing all at the same time.


Amazing Spider-Man #591 – I’ve been collecting Spidey for as long as I can remember, going back at least 20 years when I bought issues with my paper route money. There’s been rough patches over the last few years, but it’s back on track of late. My only ultra-nerd/nit picking deal with this last arc is I don’t like the way Barry Kitson’s art is being colored. Other than that, it’s great!


Action Comics #876 - While there is no Superman in the Superman books for a while, the stories are still great. The first between Ursa and ‘Nightwing’ was really awesome and Ursa’s inner monologue during it was cool. Easy come easy go, eh?


Vigilante # 5 - Part two of the Deathtrap crossover with the Titans books. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t care about Vigilante’s involvement in this. I can only hope that the end of this story brings Deathstroke back as the numero uno Titans villain. However, with the current disarray for writers on Titans books, I am not filled with hope.


More to come after I read more!

What I Read - Week of 04/08/09

Superman: World of New Krypton #2 – Good issue, digging Pete Woods’ art, after seeing him rising through the ranks. People complain about the “silliness” of the Kryptonians costumes, but it’s no more ridiculous than anything else in comics.


Titans #12 – written by McKeever, regardless of what prior solicts said. A good enough issue as part of the Deathtrap crossover. The scenes of Joey’s decent into madness were well done but I’m not a fan of the way Beast Boy is drawn. He just looks odd.


Deadpool: Suicide Kings #1 – Screw Wolverine Art Appreciation month, it’s a mini-Wade Wilson love month! Two weeks ago, we had the Game$ of Death Annual, last week was the next part of the crossover with Thunderbolts and this week is the first issue of a mini-series. I will buy it to help keep Deadpool prominent and this was fun. The new take on Wade’s insanity started by Daniel Way has really grown on me.


Wolverine: Weapon X #1 – With 10 Wolvie books this month, plus the twenty plus cover appearances, it may be difficult to sift through it all and find something good. This now third monthly has a great creative team (Jason Aaron and Ron Garney) but the story is nothing we haven’t seen before. Someone’s creating an ARMY of Wolverines, I can only guess to populate more books. I have faith that Aaron can make it all interesting. This also has a preview of a new Ghost Rider story planned for August, supposedly the end of Aaron’s run on the book.


Green Lantern # 39 – We don’t have the Orange Lantern oath yet, but Sinestro is still on the loose, Hal is half green and half blue and the Guardians appear to have been the main reason for all the problems in the universe. We plug along towards Blackest Night.


Captain Britain and MI13 #12 – Dracula’s war against England continues as we see more of his plan and armies unfold. Gotta say, this is a great book and can’t wait to see how Dracula falls.


War of Kings: Ascension #1 – Abnett and Lanning again take another “forgotten” 90’s hero (Nova) and give him the cosmic makeover. They are such a great writing team and do a much better job with Darkhawk than the C.B. Cebulski (writer of the previous miniseries) does.

I saw Watchmen and have an opinion

So the day has finally arrived. The unfilmable comic book has made it's big screen debut. Judging by the early numbers and media hype, most of you have already seen it so to say "Spoilers Ahoy!" would be moot.

I am a huge fan of the Watchmen comic/trade/graphic novel. When it came out in the early 80's I was very naive and did not read it until some ten years later. This work, arguably, changed comics since. From the way they are written to the way we read and interpret them, it has never been the same since.

Now, was Watchmen the movie the same genre changing experience? Sadly, no. That doesn't make it a BAD movie, just a flawed, almost imperfect movie.

As mentioned above, I love the Watchmen in it's original format. It was even the book that I used to trick my wife into reading comics. So the original source material holds a very near and dear place in my heart. I knew there would be changes going in and tryed my hardest to avoid them leading up to seeing the film. The changes made in the movie, while necessary, were almost maddening at time.

Not to detail them all here, which I could as that's the type of nerd I am, just some of the main ones:

• the cut of the newsstand characters is very understandable, as well as the "Tales of the Black Freighter." This is movie that must appeal to not only me and my ilk, but our friends/relatives/co-workers who only know Spider-Man, Superman and Batman. Which leads me to...
  
• The action scenes were almost over violent for the sake of violent. I love seeing a gory slasher film or the latest Tony Jaa chop socky flick. I just don't want them in my Watchmen
  
• The moving of dialog from one character to another or addition/removal of a character to a scene. With the essential "new" ending, I think it would have made sense to keep Dr. Manhattan in the scene where the riot is quelled before the Keane Act flashback. Or why was it changed to Dan telling Ozymandias about the Mask Killer instead of Rorschach? Or the added scene of Dan attacking Ozymandias after Rorschach leaves us at the end? They were trying to re-create the comic on the screen, so why such subtle changes?
  
• Hollis Mason and his eventual fate. What, in the movie he didn't have one? Then why bother introducing him?
  
• Nite Owl - leave your goggles on or off. Stop messing with them!
  
• The flash of light as Nite Owl and Rorschach approach Ozymandias hideout. Did we need that beat over head of what was up?
  
• I don't see why aliens would not have accomplished the same effect as using Dr. Manhattan as the scapegoat. It worked for the movie and could have worked in the comic as well, but still, I guess that was more of a pacing issue.
  

The above issues would have you believe I did not like this movie. Quite contrary, I did, it's just not the same feel as the original story. It was made to be every other superhero story, which it's not. Watchmen is better than that. So, for me reading habits, I'll take Watchmen over pretty much any Iron Man story, but if I'm going to watch a comic book movie, Iron Man wins.

And lastly, regarding the "Big Blue Wang." If YOU had the powers Dr. Manhattan had, wouldn't you add a little length? He was no bodybuilder before the accident and he was just shredded after! He’s still a man after all.

Definitely check it out and see for yourself.

Best of What I Read This Week

Daredevil # 116 "Return of the King: Prologue"

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Artist: David Aja

Daredevil has been on of Marvel's best books (to varying degrees) for the last 10 plus years. With writers varying from Karl Kesel, Joe Kelly, Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis and now Ed Brubaker, outside of a few scattered issues, has been a great read, even with the changes in tone from writer to writer.

When Ed Brubaker took the book over with issue #82 of this run, things have been going non-stop since. The run started with Matt Murdock in prison and his identity as Daredevil being known to the public. That story (collected in the trade the Devil in Cell Block D) is very good and highly recommended to anyone, whether you like Daredevil or not.

This issue is a continuation of past threads set up for the Kingpin. He has left the US and is living abroad, trying to escape his past life. There are many scenes where "the Kingpin" is referred to as a separate entity, almost like when Bruce Banner and the Hulk are treated as different people.

And I guess that's as good as an analogy as it gets. Wilson Fisk is afraid of the Kingpin returning and the storm he brings. Brubaker and Aja do such a good job of conveying how Fisk feels about this and really pulls you into the story. A very compelling and heartbreaking story.

Best of What I Read This Week

Nova # 22 "The Rapture"

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Artist: Andrea DeVito

Two weeks in a row, the Marvel cosmic stuff hits it out of the park.

Many people I speak to just can't get into Nova stating that it's the poor man's Green Lantern Corps. And at it's core (*rimshot*) it is. The last several issues has focused on other Nova Corps members than Richard Rider (the star of the book), but this issue in particular, is a recruitment drive, based on the events of issue 21 (no spoilers here, go out and buy it!).

And while similarities can be drawn towards Green Lantern, Nova is definitely it's own animal. Worldmind (the "brain" of the Nova Corps) is recruiting thousands of new members and some may say there is a more sinister motive to it all. This issue focuses on both sides of the coin, the reactions of the new members and those who are not and further explanation of what Worldmind is up to.

This issue does a great job of not only rewarding those who have been following Nova since the beginning of this current run, but also if this is your first issue of the book.

DVD Documentary Review: Heckler

I'm a huge fan of documentaries. Whether it be things I love (Word Wars) things I have no interest in (Air Guitar Nation) or things that will chill you to the bone (the Bridge) I can't get enough of them.

Over the weekend, I watched Heckler. The premise as explained to me was comedians dealings with hecklers over the years. Based on this I was very excited to watch it.

However, while a good idea for a documentary, too many of the scenes were fake or staged, almost bordering on pathetic. There are several scenes of Jamie Kennedy (the host of sorts) bombing on stage that are very obviously not real. There were scenes of another comic (whose name escapes me) where they took scenes of his actual stand up and edited in separate scenes of him getting the better of said hecklers. These scenes are very poorly edited it, as evident by the lighting and angles used. Very poor film work.

When these incidents are compared to scenes of actual comics (Bill Hicks, Andrew Dice Clay, Bill Maher and others) dealing with actual hecklers, it made the ‘staged’ scenes seem even more fake and the phony scenes took away from the specialness of the real scenes.

Then, like half way through, the focus changes from the stand up aspect to film and internet critics. I think by focusing on just the stand up end of things, they could have made a very compelling film. Instead, by half the doc focusing on essentially the bashing of movie critics and the internet as a whole, it ends up uneven and unsatisfying.

Recommendation to avoid.

Best of What I Read This Week

Guardians of the Galaxy # 10


Last issue, Jack Flagg proclaimed "I hate this cosmic stuff" and two years ago, I was in the same camp. I just never could get into or care about any Marvel or DC cosmic stuff. Gimmie Daredevil fighting ninjas or Superman smashing robots on earth and I was all set.

After much online lauding, I tried some of the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning cosmic stuff, starting with Annihilation and fell in love with it. I realized regardless of where it's happening, good characterization is good characterization.

One of the main folks I gravitated to was Peter Quill (aka Star Lord). Just a regular guy with no powers doing his best in a world populated by Thanoses and Silver Surfers. Currently, he's the disposed leaders of the Guardians of the Galaxy and this issue has Mr. Quill and the aforementioned Jack Flagg fending off an attack from Blastaar, the ruler of the Negative Zone.

See, back in Civil War (remember that?), Tony Stark and Reed Richards built a prison in Negative Zone to place any unregistered heroes and villains. With Secret Invasion said and done, it's mostly populated by villains. By taking over said prison gives Blastaar a direct pipeline to Earth, which is a VERY bad thing. The rest of the Guardians are on their way to help, but will they get there in time?

This issue also continues the build towards the next big cosmic event, War of Kings. It makes me very happy that these group of events are a) written by the same group to keep things coherent, b) don't crossover into forty books and c) is a very enjoyable read. If you read this and Nova (also written by Abnett and Lanning) you can get a great entry for the Marvel cosmic world.