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So today was the day my spring semester grades posted, I finished the semester with B’s; all B’s. Not to bad, can’t say that I’m neither happy nor disappointed, considering the fact that I was hoping for two A’s in one class, and expecting two C’s in another; I guess I came out even. Even though seeing A’s on my transcript always brings a smile to my face, C’s on there create an equally but opposing frown.
Went on a graphic novel shopping spree of sorts the last two days, I purchased the first two volumes of Ex Machina and volume one of 100 Bullets. So far, I’ve completed the first volume of Ex and started the first two chapters of volume two and 100.
I’m thoroughly enjoying Ex Machina, for those of you unaware. Ex Machina tells the story of a superhero turned politician, after he found himself useless during 9/11 he decides he can make a bigger contribution by being an official instead of maintaining the status quo. The book is written by Brian K Vaughan, probably one of top five comic writers out there today. He’s currently a writer on Lost, he’s written independently owned comics like Y: The Last Man and the graphic novel Pride of Baghdad, and more commercial work like Ultimate X-Men and Batman. Anyone who knows anything about Vaughan’s work is that he is most effective writing his own characters. His characters and stories seem to be much more intelligent and engaging when he’s not forced to play in the sandbox. Same can be said of Ex Machina which won best new series when it came out years ago. The art is drawn by Tony Harris whose work I was never quite familiar with, but someone I will keep an eye out for. His work resembles a more toned down J.H. Williams III, as he is capable of drawing are typically clean and controlled, but is able to draw some pretty outstanding action sequences as well. The first story arc is your typical origin story, times two. Telling the story about how he gets into office, as well as how he got his powers to becoming The Great Machine. The first story is pretty sound, Vaughan writes smart dialogue, and an interesting story that covers interesting ground. The characters he creates for this world are all well developed and you care for them, even if most of them don’t fight crime or have super powers. My one complaint coming from a certain sub-plot that takes center stage at the end, I felt the build up and the mystery were well put together, only to have a conclusion that I felt betrayed the characters and was an excuse to use certain characters again for similar stories. Again, I haven’t read the series past volume one, so we’ll see.
Saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night at the first showing at the Texas Station. Now I must say, I never really cared for Indiana Jones, in fact, before yesterday when me and Francis had an Indy marathon to catch up on the films, I had a hard time remembering what was part of each movie. Regardless, even with the collaboration of Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford. My expectations for this film was low, seeing as big pairings like these hardly ever work, and anything with the words exciting, innovative, and different, go out the window when you know that George Lucas had a hand in developing the story. I was not disappointed, the film is quite bland and formulaic, the problem with these films both summer and Spielberg films in general is that it’s really hard to root for the main characters. There really is no fear behind the danger they’re in. Even minor characters like Karen Allen and even to a bolder extent Shia Labeouf’s character, you never really worry that these characters are not going to make it out okay, and instead they are simply going through the motions of your typical summer film. Having said that, I did find the film... Slightly amusing, I suppose the plot of aliens (Yes, motherfucking aliens) kind of kept me engaged, as I kept wondering when all the KGB agents were going to turn into little green men and Indy would have to fight them off with his whip, as they fired their ray guns at him… No such scene happened though. The film does use some CGI and to great effect there were some memorable scenes where the CGI was on display, but all in all, I found Indiana Jones to be a pretty average film.
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