Die Hard: Year One #1 cover

People always ask me, “Mike, why do you read those crappy indie comics?” or “There’s a comic book based off of that TV Show/Movie?” and every time, I give those people the middle finger. Mind you, I do realize these are my friends I’m flipping off but nevertheless, this comic is one of those ‘crappy indie comics’ that I read: Die Hard: Year One. But to my surprise, this comic is anything but crap; it’s fantastic.

With writer Howard Chaykin and artist Stephen Thompson, this comic surprised me at how well put together it was. I mean, when someone thinks of a prequel to a movie in a comic book form, all hope becomes lost for it because, in all seriousness, how many good comic books have been released that were in relation to a hit blockbuster series (here in the US that is)? I can’t say I know of any.

And here we have Die Hard: Year One #1. Let me explain why this comic was so great after the break. (pseudo-spoilers abound)

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Watchmen Movie Poster

As the fates would have it, I was fortunate enough to get some advance screening passes to see Watchmen from my LCS (thanks, Tardy’s, I love you guys!). So, myself, Mike Rapin and some friends went off to view the movie with all the hype surrounding it. Personally, I went in with some pretty low expectations. Yeah, I was really excited for it. How could you not anticipate seeing one of the greatest graphic novels of all time come to life? Yet, I was skeptical that it would really work, like most fans. Despite my low expectations, I really wanted to love it. I really wanted it to be amazing. Oddly enough, when I left the theater, I wanted really badly to hate it. There was so much wrong with it. Yet, my overall reaction was that it was a great film. That said, this is going to be a full review, so I’ll break down the good, the bad and tell you why despite my love, this movie is going to have a lot of trouble finding an audience.

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My Bloody Valentine 3D was the first Horror movie in awhile that I’ve seen and just had fun throughout the whole movie and why that is you as, it didn’t insist upon itself. Not once did I have to look for the hidden meaning or deal with over the top artistic death scenes; it was just a fun slasher flick that didn’t try to present itself as anything else.

The movie opens ten years ago; six miners are trapped in mine 5, when the rescue crew arrives they find five of them have been slaughtered while the 6^th is in a coma. A year passes and it’s Valentine’s Day. Our Murderous villain awakes just in time to slaughter most of the hospital employees and a gaggle of horny teenagers down at the local mine. Thankfully a few survive after being rescued by the sheriff and the maniac is shot down OR so we think.

Ten years pass and our survivors of the Bloody Valentine’s Day Massacre have gone on with their lives. The mad rush of impending death resulted in Sarah and Axel (Kerr Smith;of Dawson’s Creek & Jaime King;Sin City, General Muse) falling in love, while Sarah’s high school love & owner of said mines, Tom Haringer (Jensen Ackles; Supernatural), mysteriously arrives back in town to finally sell the mines. Needless to say madness ensues as soon as he arrives; after all, it has been ten years almost to the day since the last incident.

My Bloody Valentine 3D doesn’t promise to be anything more than it is; a horror flick that has the gimmick of being shot in magical 3 dimensional glory. I bet if we took that away it would be just another tragic horror flick with a pretty cast that nobody would really see, but let me tell you, this was the first time in a long time I actually enjoyed the rush of a horror film. Sure the acting is stale at points and Kerr Smith has a southern accent that fades off & on, but what it lacks in consistency MVB makes up with style.

Who couldn’t be impressed at half of a girl’s bloody head is falling of the base of a shovel towards you?

That’s normal…right?

I went and saw The Spirit on Saturday. Yes, I saw it despite the terrible reviews and horrendous score on Rotten Tomatoes (because I trust the collective movie reviewers over individual reviewers and it was at 17% when I left to see the movie).

It is now about 23 hours after seeing that movie (as I write this) and my views of the film have not changed.

I knew before going into the movie that it was going to be outrageous, we all knew that. I knew there’d be a huge Sin City feel to it that we all wanted but still didn’t want to see. I knew that this was Frank Miller‘s first solo movie as a writer and director. I knew that Miller’s previous movies written for the screen were Robocop 2 and 3–both I didn’t see but have heard were terrible.

So I went into this movie with pretty low expectations, I’m not going to lie. But despite all of the badness The Spirit had from everyone else I saw the film and, well, I kind of liked it.

**spoilers abound**

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I’d like to invite you all to join Mr. Peabody and me as we hop into the Wayback machine and go all the way back to 2006. It’s January, and I keep hearing about this upcoming film from the Wachowski brothers, directed by their former A.D. (assistant director) and now-puppet James McTeigue. I had been crushed by the Matrix sequels, but still remembered the first installment with devout love, and the news that Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman were the leads only made me want to see it more. However, I don’t like seeing adapted films without reading the book it’s based on (unless it’s just a comic film in general in which case there’s no definitive novel anyway), so I bummed a copy from a friend. So, in 2006, I, for the first time, sat down and read a graphic novel.

V For Vendetta was a deep, complex, question-raising novel that shattered my preconceived notions of comic books and was the first concrete step in getting me into comics. Even to someone who A) had never read more than a few single issues in grocery store newsstands and B) has never understood art and how to interpret paintings/sculptures/etc., I knew that David Lloyd’s art was beautiful and telling, capable of conveying emotions even on a guy who is always wearing a fucking mask. I realized for the first time that comic books–always derided for being for dumb kids who need pictures to read–could tell a story in a way that no novel ever could. It doesn’t make one type of literature superior or inferior to another; it simply means that the method in which comics are moved forward is entirely unique to that medium.

**an outpouring of spoilery venom after the jump**

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I was sitting at my apartment today when I saw a tweet from none other than Warren Ellis which contained a link to a clip from Comic Con ’08 that contained a fight scene from the upcoming movie The Spirit. The fight was between our hero, The Spirit/Denny Colt, and the antagonist in the story: The Octopus. Played respectively by Gabriel Macht and Samuel L. Jackson, the fight was utterly outrageous; hundreds of punches, smashes with concrete blocks and toilets are all over the place. It’s completely hilarious. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but from the clip it seemed to be that way.

Now, I don’t know if this was how Will Eisner had originally written the series, or if any other writer, wrote the story in a “Oh my god, this is effing outrageous” type of way, but wow, this clip just made think: is Frank Miller making a comedy?

More ranting and the clip after the break.

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Tonight, I decided that I to watch Wanted with a couple of friends. Let me tell you, I was looking forward to this all day. I absolutely loved the Wanted comics. I devoured them in the course of about 2 hours one Saturday afternoon. Nevertheless, when I saw the previews, I thought “hell yes, this looks badass”. I knew, like I know going into any comic book movie or movie based on a book, that the story was not going follow exactly along with the original source material. But that is usually ok. It is usually at least in the spirit of the original material and that makes it ok usually. Wanted, however, is not that case. Simply put: It fucking sucked. Now let me tell you why.

First, there is no reason for this movie to even be called Wanted because it has absolutely nothing to do with the comic. Other than keeping the same character names (I can’t even say they kept the same characters, because none of them are anything like their comic book equivalents) and some of the same scenes, the movie is nothing like the comic. For starters, the comic book is not about a group of assassins who have some weird super gun powers. The comic is about super-villains who defeat all the superheroes and become extremely powerful. Why change that? Did they think that people wouldn’t go see a movie about super-villains? I mean, people don’t have a problem seeing other comic book movies about superheroes, so where does the difference lie? They also kept all of the somewhat cool scenes and cut all of the awesome parts of the story that really made the book. None of the sex was in the movie. None of the remorselessness killings were in the movie. And I really missed the whole concept of the rival super-villain groups (especially the part when the go to the meeting of the 5 families).

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