LIKED
– Finally got around to seeing The Quiet Earth, the mid-80s New Zealand sci-fi movie about a guy who discovers that, as a result of a scientific experiment he worked upon, every person on Earth has disappeared. It’s flawed: needs better actors, and the tail third kinda drags a bit – but it’s still very compelling and well worth seeing if you’ve got the means. (By which I mean the internet.)
– Caught Total Wipeout, the British version of Wipeout, this week, and it’s all the dumb fun of regular Wipeout except the jokes from the host are actually clever and kind of witty!
DIDN’T LIKE
– Maybe it’s a bit harsh to say I “didn’t like” Public Enemies, because Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard are both amazing and Christian Bale quite good, and they are the bulk of the acting time in the movie – but the movie just drags. Even the gunfights are boring, and this is a movie about frigging bank robbers. How can a movie about bank robbers have boring gunfights? Well, this one does. (I’m also not a fan of the DV cinematography in this case; it sometimes makes the film look cheap.)
– People have been emailing me to ask if I’ll do a remix of Justice League: Cry For Justice, and I don’t really see the point, because this comic is so painfully bad the jokes are too obvious to bother making. This is a comic where Green Lantern demands the heroes be more “proactive” and nobody bothers to point out that he already did that, and in the process temporarily destroyed the universe, except whoops it was a giant yellow space bug controlling him or something. This is a comic where the Atom tortures a bad guy by stomping on his brain and nobody points out that his wife killed one of his closest friends by accident doing the exact same thing. This is the shittiest comic I have read in god knows how long. Ultimatum is a better comic than this, because as stupid and offensive as Ultimatum is, at least in that comic people in tights fight other people in tights. This is stupid and offensive and absolutely jack shit happens.
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Public Enemies was slow and just by the numbers.
It was like watching a History Channel Reenactment.
All the pieces were there for this to be great, on the level of Untouchables, but somewhere(possibly in the writing process) it just fell short.
The next issue of Cry for Justice should be exactly like the first one, but with different heroes. Like Booster Gold finds out that Rip Hunter clogged the toilet and flies off all determined while screaming, “JUSTIIIIICE!”
Then the Question gets angry that a vending machine won’t accept her dollar, so she smashes it and walks away all determined while screaming, “JUSTIIIIICE!”
Then I tear the comic in half, throw it in the garbage and walk off all determined while yelling, “JUSTIIIIIICE!”
yeah, I thought Cry for Justice had potential basically as a story where villains that have gotten away are actively tracked down, intead of waiting for their next plan.
Then I tear the comic in half, throw it in the garbage and walk off all determined while yelling, “JUSTIIIIIICE!”
..or.. you set up a booth next to DC at the next major comic-con with dozens of copies of Cry for Justice and a shredder, Then every ten minutes, you take a copy and shred while yelling “JUSTIIIIIICE”
Just make sure you have something to sell in-between shreddings.
Public Enemies was FUCKING AWESOME.
I only skimmed CRY FOR JUSTICE, so correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Robinson kill of not one but TWO black characters for the heroes to swear vengeance (er, I mean, “JUSTIIIICE!!!”) over?
Progress!
And yeah, Hal was acting way more like Hawkman than (not-possessed) Hal ever would, and the fact that Ollie kept mum either way only sealed the bullshit deal.
I loved the first half of THE QUIET EARTH, but thought it seriously lost its way once they introduced the other characters.
about a guy who discovers that, as a result of a scientific experiment he worked upon, every person on Earth has disappeared. It’s flawed: needs better actors
Kinda a spoiler, isn’t it?
Kinda a spoiler, isn’t it?
You never know, there could’ve been people at the beginning. Y’know, to establish that there were people, and the protagonist’s connections to them, before wiping them away.
But that does give the benefit of the doubt.
And WTF was up with that terrible dialogue?
Ollie: remember the time I lost my money and became a LIBERAL?
Really?
I thought that they were supposed to take an arm and a leg in taxes, not an arm and all of your make. Also when did Fox News start writing for DC comics?
I meant money. stupid fingers
I’ve always found most Michael Mann movies to be pretty slow, so your opinion of Public Enemies was pretty much what I was expecting and why I’ll be waiting for the DVD to check it out.
imag: Not necessarily. The other actors could only appear in flashbacks to before the disaster. Kind of like The Last Man On Earth.
Holy shit! I saw The Quiet Earth when I was 10, and I couldn’t remember the name of it.
It’s fucking… well, it wasn’t great, but if you thought the first 10 minutes of 28 days later were interesting, it works really well. It has some of the understated creepiness of a Lovecraft story set someplace “Cyclopean”.
And no, saying it’s a movie about everyone on Earth disappearing isn’t a spoiler. There’s other shit going on and it’s an interesting idea, though it drags a bit in the middle until right at the end, which if I remember has a visual that I really dig. See it, it’s worth a watch.
“(I’m also not a fan of the DV cinematography in this case; it sometimes makes the film look cheap.)”
That’s a good way to put it. Some called it “documentary style” for the shaky amateurish shots, but that didn’t convey the poor execution (and probably wasn’t meant to).
Cry for Justice looked really good in theory…
Then I read the actual issue. Arg.
I think you may be missing why we like your parodies. The jokes are all well and good, but you frequently fix the damned things in the midst of the joke telling.
The best example is probably Barda’s death in your version (NOT the original) of Death of the New Gods, but there are many others. Your characters (even when they’re spouting internet porn phrases, *snickt**bub*ing, ranting about the mystic powers of My Little Pony, or singing Black-eyed peas songs to themselves) are usually more genuinely themselves than they were in their poorly-written originals. That’s why we love your parodies. The jokes are just a minor bonus.
I agree with Llelldorin. Another example with Captain America…
Marvel Comic’s attempt: “No. I’m just thinking about my pal up there kicking your butts into Next Week…”
MightyGodKing: “If equally matched, engage; if greatly inferior in number flee or perish,” Sun-Tzu. Now look up freak.”
I was just a kid the last time I saw The Quiet Earth, but I really enjoyed the ideas. Especially the ending. Sucks to be him.
I read the preview of Cry for Justice or whatever that was in the back of Secret Six and just about choked on the hypocrisy. It doesn’t help that I find Hal Jordan completely boring no matter what part of the rainbow he’s tasting on a given day.
I had a copy of The Quiet Earth on dvd – it is available. Beautiful really, a special little film.
For the scene in the church alone…. 🙂
If anyone absolutely MUST have a comedic parody of this comic…
… well, I didn’t redub the art. But I did rewrite the script. And write a list of 20 things that bug me about the story. Including the fact that two Black men (one of them gay) are the first characters to die…
http://looking2dastars.livejournal.com/123761.html
http://looking2dastars.livejournal.com/123446.html
This is twice you’ve said “This is as bad as Ultimatum” about another comic. I would love to see you tear Ultimatum a new one. Unless you’re waiting for issue 5 before you do that. In which case, carry on, citizen.
Yay for Quiet Earth, MGK! Here in NZ it tends to get played on late-night Sunday telly about twice a year; most kids of my generation have memorised the dialogue. Bruno’s confrontation with God is one of the finest moments in our cinematic history.
I do believe that Lord of the Rings has been surpassed as best thing about New Zealand ever.
Yes, what is up with Cry For Justice?
I used to think James Robinson was good. Or at the least, I found Starman and the early issues of JSA he wrote to be entertaining. I also know a lot of people praise The Golden Age which I’ve never read.
It’s like working on and writing the script for League of Extraordinary Gentleman (film version) made him suffer, I don’t know, a talent stroke or something.
The gunfights in Public Enemies reminded me of watching Civil War documentaries on A&E or The History Channel. I kept expecting a cut to some old dude in a chair talking about how his friend Johnny got shot that day. And then Morgan Freeman would explain everything, and it would have been awesome.
Instead, it was two hours of Christian Bale staring at nothing, Johnny Depp being awesome, and Marion being cute. And sometimes they went all Stormtrooper on each other.