Three Movies, One (-ish) Book

Or, “What I did with my yesterday,” yeah.

Book: PARKER: THE HUNTER. Pretty fun; very straightforward, and cool art. Though, the night before I was up until two or three in the morning, unable to look away from the second volume of SCALPED, “Casino Boogie.” I’ve always thought that SANDMAN or Y THE LAST MAN were far and away my favorite series ever — guess Y feels more ‘series’-ish — but, I don’t know. Completely in love with SCALPED. And maybe just because all the INCIDENT AT OGLALA stuff Aaron’s having fun with is familiar, so I’m part of the in-crowd here, getting the jokes, I don’t know. but the writing, the art, all of it — cannot wait to burn through the other volumes. Many many thanks to @Mike Hance for these reads, and for:

NO MERCY, one of yesterday’s movies. Absolute best thriller I’ve seen in a long, long while. It’s . . . it’s like somebody in Korea took SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and SE7EN and OLD BOY and MAN ON FIRE and stirred them all together, still let the story be its own thing. So impressed. Can’t recommend this one enough.

ECLIPSE, the second movie of yesterday. Best of the three, for me — but then I think the third book was the strongest book, too. In it, and in this adaptation, you really want Bella to somehow choose Edward but also choose Jacob. Very well done. And, sure, I’m maybe supposed to be offended at the Indians here being the wolves — nevermind that it’s so much cooler than being a ‘pale’ vampire — but I’d argue that Meyer’s Indians-as-wolves is different from how the Indians were/are the werewolves in CHiPs that time, in that X-FILES episode with the “Trigo” Indians, etc. I mean, sure, back-when, making it where Indians were like coyotes or mountain lions or wolves made us just something to shoot on a Sunday afternoon, something to clean off the land to make it habitable, but the Indian wolves in the Twilight series, they’re not out of control, tearing helpless womens’ bodices, eating the livestock. They’re good, and in control. So, yeah, I’m sure there’s fifty ways to spin this Indian/wolf dynamic such that it’s bad for us. But I just like to see them rip through some vampires. Also, this is probably the tightest review I’ve seen of it. Too, even if you hate Twilight like’s cool to do these days, still, there’s an excellent HARRY POTTER trailer up-front this time. Had no idea DEATHLY HALLOWS was going to be coming at us in two parts. Sad and happy both, here.

Third movie, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. Has that excellent, longish fight between Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Love it. And the rest as well. I mean, it’s a WIZARD OF OZ-structured story, definitely, even self-consciously, but, all the same, I prefer it to OZ. Because it’s got lots of roundhouse kicks, etc. Very cool. And, this time, the ‘boon’ the monomyth-hero dude brings back, it actually helps, instead of’s just fun and partaking of that instant nostalgia shuffle.

And, already got tickets for tomorrow’s THE LAST AIRBENDER, which I of course still call AVATAR. And, that animated series? Quite possibly my favorite animated series ever. And, this is counting FUTURAMA, yep. What’s that, my third sacrilege of this post? Sorry. But, what I so loved about the series is that it had a story to tell, it took it this many seasons to tell it, and then it was done. I mean, LOST, say — or, HEROES — they each seemed surprised to get a second season, and had to do all these narrative gymnastics to keep the story rolling. AVATAR, though, it knew what it was the whole time, and never stuttered. And, it wasn’t afraid to be cute and funny, either. It was necessary, with all the gravity of their world-saving mission.

Also, favorite new series, by far: THE GOOD GUYS. I would watch that eight hours a day if there were enough new episodes, and I didn’t have to do other things. I dig it even more than WHITE COLLAR or BURN NOTICE or UGLY AMERICANS, I think. And, talking TV, though I got so, so sick of SAVING GRACE after the first season, still, I stayed there, and that series finale, it was good, proper. Same way 24’s was. Same way LOST’s wasn’t.

And, just cleaning out my iPhone, and realized that, as long as iPods have been able to port movies out to TVs — long as I’ve been able to, anyway — I’ve been carrying around the “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”-episode of X-FILES and the “Yesterday’s Enterprise”-episode of STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION. Just so, whenever I’m stuck in a hotel in some other state, I can plug in, be completely and absolutely happy. And of course I always have a lot of Conan stories with me as well. Which, to wrap this back up to the front of the post: my favorite graphic novel ever, ever ever ever? Kurt Busiek’s “The Frost Giant’s Daughter and Other Stories.” I mean, yeah, I’m there with and for V FOR VENDETTA, THE WATCHMEN, “A Game of You,” THE MAXX, and SECRET WARS is forever where everything starts, and I’ve been up and down and round and round with Spidey and MJ over the years, with Bruce and his long, complicated shadow, but still, there’s something so resonant about Conan turning his back on the Hyberboreans. Also, I share a birth date and a birth place (west tx) with Howard, so, you know. More than that, though, without Conan having those cool covers when I was twelve years old — this was Jordan’s Conan, mostly — then there’s a very strong chance I would have never picked up books at all.