The mind which plunges into Surrealism, relives with burning excitement the best part of childhood

[kali921]

So is it just me or is Yahoo flipping out and sending every single e-mail, regardless of the originating address, into everyone's spam folders? And also prompting for passwords over and over again? And ignoring the fact that all the legitimate e-mails I'm getting have addresses that already exist in my Yahoo address book? And ALSO ignoring the

Comments

[goneformofman]

Are you reading BATMAN AND ROBIN? I'm one of the few who was already enjoying his Batman work, but BATMAN AND ROBIN? Fuck yeah.

[kali921]

Why would I read Batman and Robin? I don't give a crap about Quitely and I can't stand Damien - he's a waste of page space. Unless Batman and Robin involves Dick making Damien go sit in a corner for the rest of DC continuity, no.

[thehefner]

I really, really didn't want to like B&R, but god help me, I really dug issue # 2, which came out today. It helps that the first page was:

[kali921]

I do like that page - mostly because Dick's face isn't a moon. But wow, you think Quitely does dynamic layouts and can actually lay out a scene? Look at how soul-deadening his work on the Authority book was - I don't think of him as an artist that can do anything but talking heads in static poses with irritatingly flat backgrounds.

Looking at this page of Dick - AHAHAHA. Look at how EVERYTHING droops - look at the bottom of Dick's cape, his hair, everything is pulled downwards. If that's deliberate, it's a nice little touch to convey how utterly dejected he is in a metanarrative (it's also a bit manipulative), but if it's not intentional, it's hilarious because it works.

That Supes-rescues-the-goth-girl page was beautiful to me, but not because of Quitely's pencils - it was beautiful because of the colors and the words.

[thehefner]

Don't feel so bad about missing the WATCHMEN cut. It's not even the full, *final* cut! We won't get that until Fall. This is just an extended version, most notably containing Hollis' death (reports I've heard say it's rightly powerful, and that its exclusion from the theatrical cut was a crime).

I'm not even going to bother checking out this "Director's Cut," knowing that I'll see what it contains--and much, much more!--when the final DVD extended edition comes out, the one that will include THE BLACK FREIGHTER as well. I don't think this Director's Cut even does that! I want my five hour version of WATCHMEN, stat!

[kali921]

I won't miss it if I can watch it streamed live from Comic Con. I'll be definitely seeing the definitive five-hour version, too, although you're obviously much more bully on Snyder's interpretation than I am. I'll be curious to see what Snyder did with Under the Hood. If the five hour version involves more Snyderized gore, well, no, I don't see the point.

The more I've thought about the film the more I've grown to accept and even like some things that Snyder did, and it's undoubtedly an engaging and absorbing film visually (and, of course, JEH knocked it out of the ballpark as Rorschach), but I think Snyder missed far more than he nailed. When the audience laughs derisively at your smex scene, a scene that's supposed to be illustrative of a primal and powerful connection between two lonely and screwed up people, you're incompetent as a director.

[thehefner]

I just want to get a full, solid, final opinion on the film either way. Until I see all that he really had to offer, I just can't bring myself to do that, and it bugs me.

That said, oh yes, yes, if you can rent UNDER THE HOOD, do. Some might say it's the better WATCHMEN movie than the actual film itself. I'll certainly agree that it restores a great deal of the down-to-earth humanity that the theatrical cut lost.

As for the smex scene, hell, I have to wonder if we were supposed to laugh. If that was Snyder's intention, but audience members didn't realize he was being ironic. I sometimes wonder if the ironic humor of the original book isn't sometimes lost in everyone's desire to hold it up as some holy tome (myself included). Also, I love that song, esp. the original Leonard Cohen version. I was laughing at that scene, but I felt like I was laughing with Snyder. There's no way to take Moore's oh-so-subtle symbolism of the fire spray ejaculation and not giggle, IMO.

[kali921]

If that was Snyder's intention, but audience members didn't realize he was being ironic.Possibly, but to be quite honest, I don't think that Snyder is frankly capable of that kind of sophistication. From the way the scene was shot, particularly at the beginning with Laurie's face right as she starts to approach Dan, it was obvious to me that Snyder wanted us to be swept up in the fact that she was overwhelmed by the fact that they'd just gone out and defied the law and rescued people and gotten back into the game blah blah blah and that Snyder wanted us to see how desperate -- in every sense of the word -- both of them were to somehow both acknowledge and seal their rite of passage back into professional vigilantism. But towards the end, it just...was clinical, sterile, devoid of that very human connection that he seemingly wanted to show. It was like really, really bad pr0nz. And god, Dan kept his EYES CLOSED? Ewww, how very distancing. Okay, yeah, maybe Dan keeps his eyes closed because it's been so long and he's still

[sdelmonte]

1. Thanks for confirming that Yahoo is all messed up. I send out e-mail press releases, and was wondering why I got that odd error message with all the Yahoo addresses in our database. I will now look into this at CNET and the like.

2. I too loved B&R 2, but I was a fan of the previous Morrison Bat-series. What's interesting is that I only liked B&R 1. This issue is a lot less Weird and lot more readable.

3. I am still convinced that Morrison and BKV are the same person, and that Morrison just does a really good American accent.

4. I think that JMS also quit because he lost patience with Marvel over OMD but was too much of a mensch to leave the hordes of Thor fans in the lurch. The event fatigue, added to his growing DC schedule, was the last straw but OMD broke the writer's back months ago.

[kali921]

3. I am still convinced that Morrison and BKV are the same person, and that Morrison just does a really good American accent.

Brilliant! Why has that never occurred to me??

4. I think that JMS also quit because he lost patience with Marvel over OMD but was too much of a mensch to leave the hordes of Thor fans in the lurch. The event fatigue, added to his growing DC schedule, was the last straw but OMD broke the writer's back months ago.

I must admit to being shocked when JMS was announced for Thor - I thought that he'd never work with Marvel again after the clusterviolation of OMD. It's sad to see him go, though; his work at Marvel has been mixed, obviously, but SS: Requiem made me want to forgive him almost everything.

[lienne]

Kip Russell, Peewee, and the Mother Thing

That is the best thing.

Although you declined to enumerate the most important character in the picture: Oscar! I ♥ that spacesuit.

[kali921]

A terrible lapse of judgment, I agree. *burns with shame* I deserve no less than a hundred lashes!

[lienne]

It is okay. I forgive you, because you are awesome. <333

[kali921]

Now I really, REALLY want to read the books all over again. Ah, it reminds me of childhood and just discovering the joys of YA SF. *sigh*

[neo_prodigy]

Straczynski was the only reason I read Thor and I was actually into the story. I got the feeling that he was building up to something epic.

Oh well scratch one more comic off of my reading list.

[kali921]

Oh, I agree - I think he was building towards something huge, something worthy of the Asgardians. Now we'll never get to see it unless Marvel's already got another writer set to take JMS' story ideas for Thor and try to execute them.