Serenity, Volume 3: The Shepherd's Tale

Somehow, I have repeatedly forgotten over the last several months that I read this and was able to write about it. But that's not a knock against the comic itself, it's just one of those weird things that happens. The only disappointment about finally learning Book's backstory all these years later is that it doesn't take that many pages to do. In the end, his secrets aren't all that secretive, the kind of things that  most people wouldn't talk about, but they aren't world-shaking revelations either. Zack Whedon's script makes the way the story is told more interesting than the story itself, using a very familiar technique to turn a man's life story into an intriguing plot with many twists and turns. It's told backwards, starting around when he's with the Serenity's crew and jumping back years at a time, revealing his time with the Alliance and the earlier events that led to it. There's not much to it that you haven't seen before in science fiction stories, but just seeing how it all works into what the show set up and just spending a bit more time in the Firefly setting is always fun. It's not the best value for money, just based on page count, that you'll find in the world of comics, but I can't imagine many fans thinking it's not worth checking out.

Serenity, Volume 2: Better Days

Better Days is the second and most recent comic series released in the Firefly universe, taking place before the first, and telling more of a stand-alone story. It feels more or less like a normal episode of the series, as it should being penned by two of its writers. It's a little bloodier than the show, but you can get away with that on paper. Conrad's art is on the same attractive level, and the story rushes by pretty quickly, again leaving it feeling a bit too short. It's a fun heist story with a few detours and connections to things like the war and a few more hints at an obscure subplot with Inara, making it feel a little meatier than it would have been. It's another situation where it's really just some more laughs and excitement for fans of the series, although it's probably friendlier to new people than the first volume. There's a third series supposedly coming soon that will finally reveal Book's backstory, and that's something I'm very interested in reading.

Serenity, Volume 1: Those Left Behind

Having recently watched Firefly again and finding it remains one of my favorite series ever despite its tragic brevity, I decided to read the comics based in the universe, the first volume of which ties directly into the Serenity film which ends the story. The trade paperbacks are a bit thin for my tastes, but they do provide some solid content at any rate. Brett Matthews has worked with Whedon on a bunch of his stuff, and wrote the script for this himself, although they both made the story. It should probably only be read by people already familiar with the characters and setting, and I could see it working as either a preview to the movie or a way to fill in some gaps after seeing it.

The comic itself basically plays like an episode of the series, with some decent action scenes and returning familiar faces to accompany the standard plot and uniquely flavored dialogue. The art by Will Conrad is pretty good too. He doesn't perfectly nail all the actors' faces, but they're fully recognizable, and he can handle the different demands of a unique western/sci-fi hybrid setting like Firefly's pretty well. The color work really helps everything pop, too. It's a little too short to be a really meaty story and would only be an average episode (although the standard for a Firefly episode is very high), but definitely worth checking out for fans.

300

Another Frank Miller comic very faithfully adapted into a movie. I'm not sure it was the best choice for conversion, since the highlight is definitely the art, not the story, but they ended up making an entertaining film anyway. What I found interesting is that most of the elements from the movie I didn't like didn't really show up in the comic. The contrived subplot with the evil senator, the laughable sexuality, they're not there. What is there is all the interesting war imagery and clever dialogue, with it becoming apparent that the movie's greatest contribution was having Gerard Butler shout "This is Sparta!" instead of just saying it before kicking that fool into the pit. It's a very tight story, pretty different from most comics I've read.

And the focus really is the way it looks and not how it's written. As you can guess from the wide cover, it's not in the normal scope, with each page being double wide and filled with beautifully drawn and painted images. Miller can still tend to get a little lazy when he has a lot to draw in one panel, but it's mostly all really good and iconic pencil work, and Lynn Varley's colors just make it even better. It's pretty obvious that they weren't going for historical accuracy, just a visually interesting, different sort of comic book. It definitely worked well, even without Zach Snyder's cool use of slow motion.

Sin City

Remember a while ago when I said I'd read the Frank Miller comics those popular movies were based on? Yeah, well I did it. Sin City's not quite a continuous storyline, but a bunch of interconnected tales that can be pretty easily pieced together through well-placed evidence into something resembling a coherent universe. It's been collected in seven volumes, six of which are fairly meaty yarns and the other being a collection of smaller ones of various length. One of the things I really liked from the movie and which carries through into the comics, which should happen since the film was an extremely close adaptation, is the clever writing. It's a good mix of Film Noir and more contemporary style, and the dialogue is always pitch-perfect without ever having to be vulgar. Plot twists are pretty common, and they're rarely surprising, but they do enough to keep it fresh while the various hard-nosed protagonists beat the crap out of everybody they meet.

A couple of problems I did have were with the art and depiction of women. You can see from his other work that Miller knows how to draw and create good compositions, but that ability isn't always expressed here. The black and white, with splashes of color being integrated more as it goes on, is an interesting look, and makes creating some unique and very creative scenes possible. But it looks like Miller might have rushed a lot through certain parts, because the drawings themselves are often quite messy and it can be difficult to tell what's going on when people are getting killed. It just works sometimes a lot better than others. With women, I'm not complaining about the fact that nearly every female character is a stripper or prostitute and that they're all heavily sexualized and drawn like they're naked even when they aren't. Sin City is a bad place and none of the male characters are great role models either. And while he goes out of his way to draw naked women, Miller doesn't shy away from drawing naked men either. What bothers me is how boring the women are. They all look the same, with the same face and perfect body, unless their purpose is to be old and fat, and rarely have a personality as interesting as the male characters, whether they're heroes or villains. Sin City's an interesting and innovative comic, but it didn't amaze me, although I can't say how much of that is from already knowing half of the bigger stories from the movie.

Movie Update 2: 2007 In Theaters

Here's what I went to see so far this year, in chronological order.

Ghost Rider


This was a stupid movie, but the people making it knew that, and they benefited because of it. It never takes itself too seriously. It's not exactly campy, it just has the right tone to it. I like Nicolas Cage a lot, I just think he's had a really weird career. He always plays odd characters, and he's rarely spectacular, but usually plays his part well and enjoyably. He makes a lot of bad movies, but it's hard to care because he makes just enough good movies to keep you on his side.

The visual effects are decent, but yet again, we have a super hero/comic book movie that has nice looking action scenes that don't have enough action. The transformation from actor into flaming skull head is well done thanks to the computer effects and Nick's acting, but once he's changed he just drives around quickly on his motorcycle and gets in very short battles with half-baked demonic enemies. They aren't that interesting as foes, and they don't get a chance to make a case for themselves because they get dispatched within moments of confronting the hero. The final bad guy makes more of a stand, but the way he's defeated is still a cop-out. The X-Men and Spider-Man movies are still the only series in this decade's wave of super-hero movies to have decent fights in them. Ghost Rider is enjoyable, but definitely a few rungs below the better stuff Marvel has done in film.

300


I think I should read some Frank Miller comics if they're really as interesting as the movies based on them. I thought Sin City was awesome, and 300 is just as visually interesting. I have to wonder how much of it is Frank's source material and how much is Zack Snyder's direction. Regardless of how good a comic is, putting something to film is different. I don't think Snyder's a bad director, but his remake of Dawn of the Dead, while decent, wasn't nearly this good looking. Considering that all of the sets are digitally constructed and a lot of the beauty comes from slow motion, it's possible neither are chiefly responsible for the look of the movie.

It starts off slow, but once it gets to the battle scenes, 300 really takes off. It gets made fun of, but it uses quick transitions between slow and quick motion to great effect. It adds a lot of style to the fights, and they're a ton of fun to watch. The movie is really bloody too, filled with detailed decapitations and cartoony blood spray. The movie itself is a little contrived plot-wise, but it's a satisfying backdrop for the violence.

Grindhouse


What's interesting is how different the two main features of Grindhouse are while still maintaining the tone and atmosphere they were going for. Planet Terror is a ridiculous, over the top zombie movie filled with guns, gore, disgusting bodily functions, and horror cliches. Robert Rodriguez doesn't make brilliant movies, but he is noteworthy for how cheaply, quickly, and well he puts together his productions. His part is funny and action-packed, and his trailer segment, Machete, with Danny Trejo, is comic gold.

Death Proof is much slower paced and scaled back, but still very entertaining. The first half seems kind of pointless, as it spends a lot of time developing characters that just get killed. It's fairly enjoyable as it's happening, since Quentin Tarantino still knows how to write good dialog, but you kind of wonder afterwards why it was there. The second half starts similarly, with a bunch of girls talking about nothing, but gets better when Kurt Russel tries to do his vehicular manslaughter thing again. It's easy when you do it like he did the first time, but a little harder when two of the three girls in the car are professional stunt people. It leads into a long car chase, that's still a little quiet compared to Planet Terror, but quite good in its own right. It comes to an end a little abruptly, but it's still funny how it happens. Combining the two features with the scratchy film, hilarious fake trailers, and missing real jokes, and Grindhouse is a very fun, long experience at the movies.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters


I was curious how the makers of a show that lives off of random absurdity would stretch that into a full length movie, and it turns out, they just made a long episode. Aqua Teen was always weird, but it was funny because the characters were well acted and had a lot of good lines, so it really isn't that hard to translate. All of the most popular recurring characters return, and none of them feel wasted. There are also some funny new additions, particularly a pair of government agents who seem convinced their enemies are invisible. The movie does a good job of finally explaining the origin of the characters which is hinted at in the show's background and end credits, and while it gets convoluted, it's for comedic effect.

The best part of the movie is the beginning, where movie theater food items sing a song about how you should act at the theater. It doesn't sound great, but believe me, it's hilarious. The makers finally had free reign to have the characters say and do anything they want, and there's plenty of great stuff there without going overboard. The movie works, it's funny, and you should see it if you like the characters. It has a pretty good soundtrack too. If you do see it, make sure to stay after the end credits.

Best of 2006 Redux: V For Vendetta

I somehow forgot about this movie when making my list of the best movies from last year, and it definitely would have made the cut. I guess that's what happens when you make a list over a year since that year began.

Anyway, V is yet another movie based on a comic book. The writer came out publicly against the film, and I'm not sure why. It may not be quite as good, but it maintains the spirit of the book while updating it for the modern age. Hugo Weaving proves he can be more than a good villain, as he expertly speaks the poetic lines and manages to make a character interesting without the use of his face. The movie's evil fascist regime obviously has some parallels to Bush's administration, and the fact that some of them noticed it shows they did what they wanted. It's a smart action movie that has a good story and doesn't rely on violence, which makes the superb final fight a complete bonus. It's one of the best stylized pieces of choreographed combat I've seen in a while. A well done movie with a strong message.