Yep, it's time for Culturebloggin'

BOOKS
-The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler - Having finished Yiddish Policemen's Union, I realized that as much as I love noir detective fiction, I haven't read that much. Chandler seemed like a good place to start. Now I just want to see the Altman film adaptation.

MOVIES
-Superbad - For a while now I've been claiming that my generation's definitive teen movie was, much to my dismay, American Pie. I am happy to report that Superbad has taken that title with the movie equivalent of a first-round KO. If you believe you are even remotely capable of appreciating a movie that begins with the protagonists discussing which porn site to subscribe to in college, you owe it to yourself to see this film.

TV
-Californication - I spent my formative years wanting to be Fox Mulder, so I think I'm predisposed to like this show. I can't even really do justice to the show without ruining some part of the two episodes I've watched. All I can say is that it's vulgar, over-the-top, and contagiously watchable. I'm hooked.

MUSIC
-Daft Punk, Keyspan Park, August 9. Just go read the review of the show on Fluxblog. He already described the inability to describe the concert in any meaningful way better than I could. I've also got more pictures on facebook, which I think do better justice to the show than any writing could. (The facebook link is actually a public link, so even non-facebook members should be able to see the pictures... let me know if it doesn't work.)



Okay, that's all for now. Maybe soon I'll catch up on my comic reading, but that's tough to remember.

Short and Sweet

I'm in West Virginia on really slow wireless, so I'ma keep this brief, but I wanted to update the cultureblog slightly. Mostly, I saw Bourne Ultimatum (and I have an essay on that coming soon) and finished reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. The book was really good. In typical Chabon fashion it is both an easy engaging read and a deep, complicated book. The actual writing is a pleasure to read in a way that most books are not. Usually I find long metaphors and complicated sentences distracting and contrived, but Chabon has a way with words that allows him to pull it off. About the actual story, it's a clever twist on 1940s-style detective stories. The catch is that it takes place in an alternate Alaska which is a temporary Jewish homeland. The characters all speak Yiddish and observe the Sabbath and such. Meyer Landsman, Chabon's Jewish Sam Spade character, is engaging enough on his own to justify reading the book, but every character is fascinating and the plot twists and turns like a good whodunit should. I'm a fan.

A few days ago I also went and saw a Daft Punk concert that was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. I'll post more details and some pictures soon, though all the pictures will probably be on facebook well in advance of the post.

Okay, no more for now.

Return of the Cultureblogging

I realized I haven't done one of these in a while, so here goes. Some are sort of old.

Movies

-Final Destination 3 - This was not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it has a fantastic soundtrack. Playing Love Roller Coaster right after a scene where tons of people die on a Roller Coaster? BRILLIANT.

Theater

-Beyond Glory - I actually saw this a while ago with my dad but forgot to write about it. It's a one-man show in which actor Stephen Lang plays eight different recipients of the Medal of Honor and tells their stories from their point of view. I enjoyed it and in some ways found it very moving. As a play, though, not the most memorable thing I've seen.

-Frost/Nixon - Contrast that with this one, which is easily one of the best plays I've seen in a long time. For those who don't know, Frost/Nixon is about the infamous television interviews with David Frost, a British talk show host, and Richard Nixon following his resignation. The writing, directing, and acting are all very intelligent. The two leads own their roles and the script is tight and clever. It's funny without breaking the mood and it quotes Aeschylus with a legitimate purpose. One of the things I thought was reall cool was the way the show uses a television display as its only real backdrop. It reminds the audience that Richard Nixon was a man whose career was, in many ways, defined and bookended by television.

What's also interesting about the play is the generational gap it represents. The story is one that our parents' generation is very familiar; the outcome is one they already know. For me, on the other hand, it's much more of a thriller. What will happen next? Can the less-than-legitimate journalist Frost break Nixon? I won't spoil the ending in case you, like I, aren't very well-versed in somewhat recent American history.

Music

-Squeeze w/Fountains of Wayne - I know Fountains of Wayne better than I know Squeeze, which is to say that the only Squeeze song I know (which I didn't even realize was them) is Tempted by the Fruit of Another. That said, both bands were awesome and now I need to go get a Squeeze album or two. Interestingly, the crowd was a lot older than I expected. I know Squeeze was big in the 80s, but I guess they've been sort of skipped over in this current 80s revival. The young people seem more interested in groups like New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen. Isn't there any place in the canon for a wacky rockabilly/new wave group?

Comics

Um, I don't even know... This is why I should write these more frequently. But I'll try.

-Avengers Forever - A ragtag group of Avengers are plucked from throughout time to save the universe from Destruction. Kang the conqueror guest stars, and he never fails to entertain. It doesn't hurt that it's written by Kurt Busiek, who is consistently great.

-Sentinel - Loser high school student with a knack for engineering discovers a broken-down sentinel (read: giant robot) and helps it repair itself. Along the way he makes new friends and learns about honesty and responsibility. This one's written by Sean McKeever, who also writes Spider-man Loves Mary Jane, which I love.

-Spider-man Loves Mary Jane, vol 1. - This actually also collects the two Mary Jane miniseries that came before the monthly SM<3MJ book. Think The OC meets Spider-man with wonderful anime-inspired art that still manages to look fresh and American. What's not to like?

-Spider-man: Blue - Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, both of Heroes fame though this was way before that, take on Spider-man and tell the story of his earliest romantic encounters with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane. Noticing a trend here?

-Ultimate Spider-man - I've read pretty much the entire series, and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. Bendis really has a knack for Peter Parker's voice, even though it's very different than the way he writes the same character (albeit older) in New Avengers. In many ways this reminds me of Spider-man Loves Mary Jane because of its focus on high school drama rather than just the fighting, but it's a slightly more well-round account and the ultimate universe is fun to explore, because it's so different from the Marvel universe you know.

-Ultimate X-men - This was good, but I didn't dig it as much as Spider-man.

-Blaze of Glory and Apache Skies - Two rough and tumble stories about the Western characters in Marvel's stable (if you'll pardon the pun). I love westerns so I really enjoyed these, even if Blaze of Glory is almost the same story as the Magnificent Seven.

-Bits of Stan Lee and Frank Miller's runs on Daredevil - There's a reason these guys get the props they do. Both are great.

-Fear Agent - One of the cool things I get to do is look at submissions that artists and writers send us. Fear Agent was one of these. It's a story about an alcoholic intergalactic exterminator who also happens to be the last remaining member of the most badass military organization to ever exist on Earth. Some of the other books in writer Rick Remender's submission didn't really do it for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed Fear Agent. His drunken, Samuel Clemens-quoting protagonist is endearing, as is the general tone reminiscent of Star Wars if it were told from the perspective of one of Han Solo's sketchier friends.

Man, this used to be so much easier when I could just list everything. I didn't realize how far behind I was. I'll do more later.

Culturebloggin' again

I realized I've been very bad about the cultureblogging lately, but lemme see what I remember.

TV:

Don't know if I've mentioned it but I've been watching Flight of the Conchords on HBO. It's about these two guys from New Zealand who are in a band and living in New York. They go about their lives trying to make it and mostly failing. Every now and then they break into absurd parody songs in various styles. The season starts off a bit slow, but the episodes have gotten progressively funnier. The newest one had Jake and me almost falling out of our chairs. TV-links it... trust me.

COMICS:

-The Astonishing X-men #1-18 - This is the X-men series Joss Whedon has been writing. Basically, it makes you acutely aware of the fact that Joss Whedon was born to write X-men comics. I've generally found X-men comics these days unreadable as there are too many characters and the plots are too convoluted. Whedon brings it back to only a few core X-men: Beast, Wolverine, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, and a character whose entrance is too great for me to ruin in this silly blog. Whedon reminds us that ultimately, X-men is about a bunch of people struggling with everything that people struggle with plus strange mutant powers that sometimes seem more like curses. I would argue that even people who don't like comics will like this one.

-52 Volume 1 - I've been saying how terrible I find a lot of DC stuff lately, but this one is great. And not just because one of the guys I work for was the editor before he left DC. It's a mystery story, with four or five mysteries going on at once, and the pacing is flawless. I can't wait for volume 2, even knowing that it'll eventually all lead to Countdown, which I can't stand.

-Batman: Year 100 - Batman + Blade Runner + 1984 = Awesome. It's totally sci-fi, but also one of the most realistic takes on Batman that I've seen. Paul Pope just nails it from the totally realistic batsuit to the "huff" speech bubbles he gives Batman after he beats up the badguys. Bonus points for making the whole thing about how Batman's real power is his myth rather than anything he actually does.

MOVIES:

Well, I just saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I liked it. None of the Harry Potter movies are really completely self-sufficient, but I thought the acting was fantastic and it was directed with a certain artistry. The plot was streamlined not just to get all the key plot points in but with an eye toward thematic cohesion, and that counts for something in my book.

One thing I thought was interesting is the way they choose to portray wand combat. It's not a very easy thing to make visually stimulating, so the big battle scene at the end alternates between all sorts of influences. One moment Sirius and Harry are fighting Deatheaters and the camera moves back for a wide shot; it's suddenly a fencing battle with the characters moving like they're thrusting and parrying. Next thing you know Voldemort and Dumbledore are facing off in a room full of columns, which are chipped by stray blasts just like those columns from the Matrix. The wands have become machine guns. It seems a little bit all over the place, but I think it works. Magic should be a mishmash of all different sorts of combat, so the scene feels right, at least in my opinion.

culturebloggin'

We interrupt this Bonnaroo stuf to write down the cultural stuff I can recall:

COMICS:

-Secret War - Not my favorite Marvel book, but it was painted rather than drawn and thus is very beautiful. Also, it's sort of important for those who want to understand what's going on in the Marvel Universe right now.
-Young Avengers - Another one of those "so much better than you'd think" books. The characters are really well done and feel like real teenagers. It deals with things like race and sexuality while still having kickass fight scenes with Kang the Conqueror. What more could you want?
-Marvel Zombies - Hilarious. It's worth it simply because The Hulk eats a bunch of flesh and then turns back into Bruce Banner only to have his stomach rip open because he ate too much food.
-Planet Hulk - So maybe the story of Hulk being imprisoned on a foreign planet, then becoming a gladiator, then rebelling and becoming the emperor isn't the most original thing ever written, but it's told well enough that you won't notice. It's the Hulk story that actually gives the Hulk something worthwhile to do. It's kinda sweet. (That's an understatement.)

MOVIES:

-Transformers - I saw it at 10:30 AM this morning. It was both the dumbest movie ever made and the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Culture Blogging again

Um, this is bad news. I'm starting to lose track of the culture I'm ingesting. Wow, that sounds really snobby when I actually put it into words that way. But it's easier than listing everything that I'm looking at. I mean, it just started as "I'm gonna make a list of all the books I read for a year. And also the movies I see. And also the comics I read. And I guess I might as well throw in concerts too. And TV shows... is that even reasonable?" And, well, here we are. Let's see what I can remember.

MOVIES:

I finally saw one! Woo!
-Ocean's Thirteen. While not at all life-changing, this was exactly what I wanted it to be. Fun, funny, pretty.. but I'm sure you know all that. What I'd like to mention is the music. David Holmes has been providing music for the Ocean's movies since the first one--wait, lemme check and make sure he did this one too... okay, he did. So yeah, I think he's one of the poster children for composers that really add a lot to movies without anyone knowing. I bought a copy of the Ocean's Twelve soundtrack and still listen to it a lot. His music is a really brilliant combination of effortless cool and complicated rhythms. He blends jazz and electronic into a music that feels simultaneously retro and futuristic. My point is, he really captures the feel of the films. I think a more traditional score would really ruin the whole thing.
Conclusion: If you haven't seen the movie or are planning on seeing it again, pay a little attention to the music. Trust me, it's worth.

COMICS:

Wow, let me see what I can remember...
-Ed Brubaker's complete run of Captain America up to and past the infamous death issue. It's really fantastic. Brubaker eschews the superhero feel for something a bit grittier, but not in a Punisher sort of way. Brubaker reimagines the Captain America comic as more akin to a supr-hero version of 24. It's less "There's a robot rampaging through Manhattan!" and more "A mysterious bad guy has gotten a hold of the Cosmic Cube. We have to get it back before he levels Manhattan!" There are twists within twists, super cliffhangers, and they manage to break one of the cardinal rules of the Marvel Universe without really offending any of the die-hard fans. Not that it means much to most of my readers, presumably, but that's a pretty big deal. Good stuff.

-The New Avengers. There's a reason Brian Michael Bendis is the most famous comic book writer who isn't Joss Whedon or Stephen King: His dialogue and characterization is just brilliant. His New Avengers really revitalizes the whole idea of the Avengers. The team, which some people have seen as absurd (What? Luke Cage?), works so much better than you'd expect it to and the interactions between the teammates really drive the series. Plus, he writes perfect Spider-man dialogue. They just took a radical direction, in which any of the heroes could be a shape-shifting alien spy. It's like The Thing only with super-heroes!
(Full Disclosure: I <3 The Thing, as a concept even more than the actual movie, even though the movie is excellent. In high school I really wanted to play a full-immersion game based on The Thing where people just carried on with their normal lives. You know... I have a lot of time on my hands today so I think I'll post about it later.)

-Thor: Blood Oath. This was cool, don't have much to say though.

-The Thing: Idol of Millions. Ditto.

-Iron Man: Hypervelocity. Get this: Iron Man builds a new suit capable of uploading his personality in case he should die. He promptly gets attacked and winds up in a coma. The newly sentient Iron Man suit freaks out, goes on the run, and starts upgrading itself to process things at computer speed rather than human speed, while simultaneously fighting off an entire SHIELD helicarrier and a sexy virus that's implanted herself in his consciousness. Its six issues are absolutely crazy, fast-paced (thus the title), and bizarre. Cyberpunk is most certainly not dead.

-Bullet Points. In an alternate universe, an assassin kills the scientist behind Captain America's super-serum a day earlier, as well as his body guard, a certain Ben Parker. This results in a totally backwards Marvel Universe in which Steve Rogers is Iron Man, Reed Richards is the grizzled head of SHIELD, and Peter Parker turns into the Hulk and saves the world from Galactus through sheer anger (and of course, his love of Aunt May). Pretty cool stuff, and I really enjoyed the art by Tommy Lee Edwards (I say that like I know who he is, other than that he did the art to Bullet Points).

Um, I think that might be it, besides random new issues of series I've been following and stuff. I'll add anything else I can think of.

(real) BOOKS:

I finally finished The Children of Hurin, the new Tolkien book. It definitely isn't as good The Lord of the Rings, or The Hobbit, but it has a elegant simplicity to it. That's not to say it isn't simple, but it's not epic and complex in the same way that Lord of the Rings is. It's more character-centric. I do think it would make an excellent movie though. Hmm, now who would play Turin?

TV:

-Last week's episode of Entourage was simply amazing. That's all.

Okay, that's it for now. I didn't do music, cause I'm going to do a seperate Bonnaroo post... well, with any luck I'll do a Bonnaroo post, especially since the New York Times did a blog about it that I Found thoroughly underwhelming despite the nice pictures of the bands that are far better than most of mine.

Adieu for now!

more on the culture-blogging... hope nobody minds that I'm basically using my blog just for reviews of comics I've been reading/

COMICS:
-Thunderbolts... yes, all 114 or so issues. I'd recommend it to anybody with a passing interest in comic books. Though it has its ups and downs like all series that have been running for that long, its premise (villains trying to be heroes) never gets old and neither does its infatuation with weird no-name third-rate villains. It's a lot of fun.
-The first volume of She-hulk. This is better than it ought to be, simply because superhero law is really amusing. Can a ghost summoned by Dr. Strange testify in his own murder trial? What happens when a villain sues a superhero who left him in a full body cast? Is it okay to use comic books as legal precedent? Comic books don't have enough wackiness these days, but this one still does.
-The Sentry: Reborn. Here's the pitch: What if Superman were a paranoid schizophrenic with agoraphobia? The book is kind of a cross between Superman and Memento. Good stuff. Kinda gave me a headache though...

One of these days I'll write a real entry

I read a LOT of comics, okay?

Also:

COMICS:
(This time including commentary for my favorite/only commenter... HI MAX!)


-The complete run of Alias.
Not to be confused with the TV show of the same name. I'd highly recommend this one to anybody. It's about a mediocre superheroine who decided she wasn't cut out for superheroics and became a private eye. So basically she goes around solving weird mysteries, having guy problems, trying to sort out her fucked-up life, and swearing heavily. It's pretty awesome, and self-contained too.

-World War III.
Wow, DC's latest stuff is really leaving me unimpressed. That is, except some random Superman stuff I've read recently. They have Kurt Busiek writing it, and he's really good with hugely powerful heroes. He focuses on the stuff that makes them human, but still manages to write in some kickass fight scenes.
But yeah, World War III turns out to be some dude nobody who hasn't been following 52 cares about killing some random b-list superheroes while Martian Manhunter contemplates. YAWN.

Culturewatch

I think I've given up on trying to successfully write down all the comics I've been reading. There're just too many, but here we go:

COMICS:
-Thunderbolts (a good portion of the first year)
-Spider-man: The Other
-Batman: The Long Halloween
-Blade: Undead Again
-Every issue of the The Irredeemable Ant-Man
-Various current Marvel comics dealing with the death of Captain America and the Initiative.
-Kingdom Come
-Spider-man Loves Mary Jane, Vol. 3
-Most of the Stan Lee meets... 65th Anniversary series.
-A ton of old Doctor Strange Comics
-The complete run of Spectacular Spider-man

Also, I read the first two issues of DC's new Countdown series, which I thoroughly disliked. There's too much going on, and it's too focused on characters that I've never heard of before. This wouldn't be a problem except that they don't introduce the characters particularly well. You have to have been following along for the past year or so to have any hope of understanding the story. Again, this wouldn't be the problem if they weren't the first two issues of a brand new series. A reader should be able to pick up a new series and be able to follow it from the start. Hell, Spider-man mentions his origin in almost every single issue. So I dunno, trying to keep track of all the different alternate universe Robins and Joker's daughter and such makes my head hurt.

Movie-wise, it's just one lonely entry...

MOVIES:
-Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

I actually really enjoyed Pirates 3. Granted, it was way too long, and the plot was utterly incoherent (hey, remember that Calypso story with no payoff?) but it was silly fun summer entertainment. Still doesn't match up to the first one, though... not even close.

Weekend Update

It's hard to keep a steady blog when you've got a roughly 60 hour work-week, but I'm gonna try. So I present you with two random thoughts:

-If I ever make a Silver Surfer movie, I'd like to have the band M83 do the music.

-The Fuse channel has a show called "Pants Off Dance Off", which is exactly what you'd think it is... and no, that link is not exactly safe for work. This is why flipping through digital cable's channels at 1:00am is kind of dangerous.

And continuing with my culture blog, I'm back home and have started work at Marvel, which means lots of movies and comics.

TV:
Just the newest Entourage and Heroes. Need to catch up on Scrubs.

MOVIES:
-The Descent (Which still freaks me out, even if its scares were occasionally a bit cheap.)
-Brick (which I found somewhat overrated and kind of pretentious.)
-Executive Decision (which still kicks just as much ass as it did when I was 12.)

COMICS (I know these titles won't mean anything to most people besides Max, but this is partially for me):
-Everything related to Marvel's recent Civil War story arc and what's happened since then.
-The House of M.
-Thor: The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill.
-Marvels (Which I'd actually recommend even to non-comic book fans because the art is beautiful and the story is decidedly non-standard super-hero stuff.)
-Spider-Woman: The Origin.
-Doctor Strange: The Oath.
I'm sure they're more but I can't really remember right now. I read a lot of comics at work, y'know.

BOOKS:
Still just trudging though The Children of Húrin.

Well, that's all for now.

Cultureblogging 3

Since last we spoke, I finally finished James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon and also saw Spider-man 3 (as if that weren't expected). There will probably be a full entry devoted to Spider-man tonight when I'm "studying" but I'm at work right now so I don't want to write a long post.

Coming up on my list:
This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin and the new Tolkien book, THe Children of Hurin. Woo! Go reading on the subway!

Cultureblogging, Pt. 2

Yesterday...


COMIC BOOKS:
-Justice, Vol. 1, 2 by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and Doug Braithwaite.

BOOKS:
-

Keeping Track of Culture

So I've decided to start a list, specifically a list of all the "cultural units" (for lack of a better term) that I come into contact with. What that means is just that I'm gonna start making a list of all the books I read, movies and TV shows I watch, concerts I attend, etc. I'm kind of on the fence about music... I think I'm going to use albums but not songs. Songs are just too ubiquitous to be doable. Anyway, the plan is to do it for a year, starting now. So, without further ado, here we go (starting a couple of weeks ago, so I actually have things to list):

COMIC BOOKS:
-Astro City: Life in the Big City
-Fables, Vol. 1
-DMZ: On the Ground

TV SHOWS:
-Drive (though it's apparently been canceled already...)
-Firefly (I've been re-watching it)
-Battlestar Galactica (finishing up season two, which will complete the whole series)

MOVIES:
-Grindhouse

MUSIC:
-LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver

I think that's all for now.