Carved in Stone: Jesse Stone TV-Movies and Why I’m Addicted to Them

13 Apr

jesse-stoneWhen I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Magnum P.I. Since I was 5 years old, I was glued to the TV watching Thomas Magnum solve cases and get in and out of trouble all over Hawaiian with his stalwart sidekicks and his badass Ferrari.  Times change, though.  While I do own one or two boxsets of seasons of the show and I’ll always stop to watch an episode if it’s on TV, you could say that eventually I want more from my protagonists and their stories.   This is where the Jesse Stone series of TV-movies comes in.  An interesting sidenote:  Around the time I was into Magnum P.I., another show began to become a popular favorite on TV:  Spencer For Hire based on the books by Robert B. Parker.   The series another private investigator (this one based in Boston) and was played by Robert Urich in the TV show.  Parker is an excellent novelist and that resonated extremely well in the adaptation that was broadcast for a brief three seasons on ABC.  So here we are in 2009 and Parker has moved on to a new character for a series of novels, Jesse Stone.  Stone is a former LAPD cop who is fired for being drunk on duty and is miraculously offered a job in the small New England town of Paradise as their new Chief of Police.  Paradise is not the sleepy town it appears, though, and while Stone’s new life sounds like it should be quiet and uneventful, he becomes involved in mob killings, cold case murder mysteries, and serial killers on holiday.  The show is nowhere near “fast-paced” and is heavily dialogue based.  In a nod to my childhood (and how this drawn out narrative comes together), Tom Selleck of Magnum P.I. is cast as Jesse Stone.  Selleck plays Stone as a quiet, broken man who has many attributes of a capable lawman but swims in booze and regret.  The compelling aspect of Stone comes in this flawed nature where if he’s not on a case, he’s drinking too much and regretting his failed marriage and lost career.  The dialogue is crisp, the plots written very tight, and the casting of supporting characters with actors such as William DeVane and Kathy Baker makes this more than a guilty pleasure and definitely great television.

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Purchased at Emerald City Comicon: Uh… Tons of Stuff…

13 Apr

twilight-zoneTwilight Zone: The Monsters Are Due on  Maple Street:  I’m a huge Twilight Zone fan.  Let’s just get that out there right now.  I own the complete series on DVD and one of my favorite episodes is “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.”  As it turns out, this is also the case for Mark Kneece and Rich Ellis who have adapted the classic episode from the original script treatment by Rod Sterling.  The art is simple and the layouts are very well done and style never dominates over the substance of Sterling’s original designs.  This is also not a shot-for-shot remake of the episode (which could have easily been a pitfall of such a project).  Kneece and Ellis create their own set-up and designs make every panel unique to their story, not the episode’s.  A solid adaptation of a truly great story.

never-769551jpgNever As Bad As You Think:  Stuart Immonen is one of my all-time favorite artists.  The man is a master of multiple styles and disciplines of sequential art.  When he worked on Adventures of Superman in the 90′s, it was all soft lines and curves.  When he tackled ShockRockets for Dark Horse, it was thicker inks and detailed action scenes.  NextWave: Agents of H.A.T.E. for Marvel allowed him to create wacky and cartoonish action scenes.  Even Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man allowed for more straight-forward superhero fare, but with a lot of attention to detail and character expression.  ”Jack-of-all-trades” does not even come close to describing.  Immonen and his wife, Kathryn, have worked on one or two projects together, but this webstrip was something special just because of the fun series of characters and quick transitions to small situational comedy moments.  A great strip-size hardcover.

noble-causesNoble Causes Archives Vol. 2:  I became a Noble Causes fan super late in the game.  I was never really a Jay Faeber fan since usually his work-for-hire jobs produced lackluster results.  His work on Marvel’s Generation X and DC’s Titans were both devoid of any real originality or passion.  When Noble Causes premeired at Image, I just plain wasn’t interested.  The thing is, I was an idiot.  All of Faeber’s independant work has been just plain awesome.  Dynamo 5, Venture, Gemini and, of course, Noble Causes.  The series follows the family of superheroes with more problems than the Kennedy’s and more drama than the X-Men.  This second “phonebook-size” volume collects the second half of the entire run of the series (the first came out last year).  It’s well worth the money and make sure you buy both volumes to get the complete story.

strongman1Strongman:  Strongman is by far the single best grab I made while at Emerald City.  Created by newcomers Charles Soule and Allan Gladfelter, Strongman follows the tale of fallen Luchador warrior, Tigre, as he must overcome his doubts and failures that have left him a shell of his former self to take down the corruption sweeping his neighborhood.  The writing is tight and the characters are well-developed.  Soule manages to evoke emotion and create very well done pacing with his writing.  Gladfelter meets him with solid panel layouts and very well done action scenes and expressions for the characters.  The layouts are tight and the panels show an almost cinematic quality especially in the flashbacks to Tigre and his cohorts “better days.”  We’re treated to rich and fun characters, an intriguing story, and some really great art from new talent.  All in all, my favorite book of the show.

1tikijpgTiki Joe Mysteries:  This book from cartoonist Mark Murphy is just plain fun.  Classic 1959 Las Vegas pulp crime setting with the adventures of Joe Halliday and his former WWII soldier friends as they solve cases that cross their pathes at Tiki Joe’s Restaurant.  It’s solid story-telling that reads like an old Rat Pack movie (in fact, it’s obviously cast as such when you look at the characters) and Murphy’s art has developed nicely from his House of Java days.  Well wroth picking up.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Expendable

10 Apr

sylvesterstallonejpgThere’s a movie filming right now that I’m more excited about than anything.  This movie does not have giant transforming robots in it.  It does not have costumed heroes and is not based on a graphic novel.  It will not be an Oscar contender or a sleeper hit.  It does not have a hot soundtrack or witty banter that makes me want to write.   No, this movie… this amazing movie that has not even been completed yet… is The Expendables and it will rock you.  Haven’t heard of it?  Don’t worry.  It’s understandable.  This one is a little under the radar (but there’s no reason it should be).  It happens to be the new movie from writer/director/actor/action god Sylvester Stallone.  Yeah, yeah.  I know what you’re thinking.  ”Isn’t he dead?”  Well, maybe that’s not what you’re thinking.  What you’re thinking is probably something not too flattering.  Me, personally?  I’ve been a Stallone fan since I was a kid.  Nighthawks, Cop Land, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, F.I.S.T., Tango & Cash… and oh yeah, Rocky and First Blood.  So what’s so exciting about The Expendables?  It’s Stallone writing and directing again after his last two moments of awesome, Rambo and Rocky Balboa.  What else?  The cast.  The Expendables stars Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundren, Danny Trejo, Eric Roberts, and Terry Crews.  We’re talking the best in the business and they’re given a simple, straight-forward action movie where they get to be badasses and take on bad guys and save the fuckin’ day.  Let’s face it:  This is a lost art of movie-making.  We’ve become obsessed that our action movies have some sort of relevance.  There must be wire-work and innovative gunfights and death-defying stunts that make us “oohhh” and “ahhh” and directors imported from Russia and China and plots ripped off of Japanese and Korean horror movies… The American action movie will hopefully still be alive and well come 2010 and I hope, nay, I pray that The Expendables meets my lofty expectations.  I hope we get Stallone with outrunning fireballs and Jet Li moving faster than the camera and Jason Statham mouthing off pithy one-liners and Dolph Lundren telling someone, “I must break you.”  Fingers crossed, rabbits feet in hand, four-leaf clover in my pocket… Here’s hoping.

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Blind Buys and Recommendations: Sentinels: Books 1-4

4 Apr

sentinelsposterjpg3One of the first comics I was exposed to as a kid was the New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.  I was in a small bookstore on the Oregon Coast and stumbled upon a black-and-white collection of the New Teen Titans first batch of issues reprinted in a format the size of a paperback novel.  I read it cover to cover in no time flat and then continued to read it for the rest of the summer I bought it.  I fell in love with these characters that I’d never heard of (except Robin, obviously).  I can’t tell you what about this comic struck me as something so compelling, but I can hazard a guess:  Every kid wants to be a super-hero.  The Titans were different, though.  They were teenagers reluctantly dealing with the legacies that were thrust upon them.  In a world that naturally accepted the concept of super-human protectors, they still had to prove themselves as true heroes due to their age and inexperience and that made them twice as formidable.  It’s this charming concept that infuses the pages of a little book that I ordered based solely on the cover and Previews description:  ”Years ago the superhero team, SENTINELS, disappeared. Now their children have taken their place and get pulled into the mystery of what truly happened to them.”  Between this and some of the posted preview pages (and a whole graphic novel packed with extras for $14.95), I placed the Diamond Order number on my list and waited the three months for it to arrive.  Sentinels Book 1: Footsteps was a thrill to read not because it was the best graphic novel I’d ever read (for all its merits, it wasn’t earth-shattering), but because it reminded me of those old New Teen Titans comics I’d grown up on.  That level of nostalgia alone was enough for me to keep an eye out for the subsequent books in the series.  Book 2: Masks, Book 3: Echoes, and Book 4: Hope were all just as good and as the characters developed and went through the trials laid before them as legacy heroes of the greatest super-hero team of their world, I kept wanting to know what happened next for these wayward 20-somethings.  Where New Teen Titans captured the angst of having to prove yourself as a teenager, Sentinels showed the “quarter life crisis” through the eyes of a super-hero.  The fact that these books are completely independently published by Drumfish Productions is an even greater feat for such a title.  Just like the characters they created, Rich Bernatovech and Luciano Vecchio set out a goal and met it: they brought their characters’ saga to the masses and told the complete story arc of their creations.  That’s as admirable as saving the world from the forces of evil, if you ask me.

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Coming Attractions: Public Enemies

1 Apr

One of my all-time favorite films is Heat by Michael Mann.   Never before had a I seen such a truly amazing rendering of the “cops and robbers” dynamic of the crime film done in such a fair and balanced way to both sides.  Al Pacino as Lt. Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro as Neil McCauley, expert thief; Here you had two of the greatest living actors of screen playing two extremely intense and driven characters on a collision course with each other.  Honestly, as the movie approached it’s incredibly tense finale, Mann’s careful plotting and direction leaves the audience on the edge of their seat for who will come out on top: the thief or the cop.  I’m hoping that we get treated to that level of crafstmenship with the forth-coming film from Mann for this summer, Public Enemies.  The film will follow John Dillinger as he, at the height of his infamy as one of America’s greatest bank robbers, is hunted by Special Agent Melvin Purvis of the FBI.  Johnny Depp plays Dillinger and Christian Bale plays Purvis.  I’m not sure how this movie can be disappointing when you have Batman vs. Capt. Jack Sparrow at the direction of the master of cops and robbers films.

Synopsis:  In the action-thriller Public Enemies, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard in the incredible and true story of legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Depp)the charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids made him the number one target of J. Edgar Hoovers fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale), and a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public. No one could stop Dillinger. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyonefrom his girlfriend Billie Frechette (Cotillard) to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression.

But while the adventures of Dillinger’s ganglater including the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) thrilled many, Hoover (Billy Crudup) hit on the idea of exploiting the outlaw’s capture as a way to elevate his Bureau of Investigation into the national police force that became the FBI. He made Dillinger America’s first Public Enemy Number One. Hoover sent in Purvis, the dashing “Clark Gable of the FBI”. However, Dillinger and his gang outwitted and outgunned Purvis’ men in wild chases and shootouts. Only after importing a crew of Western ex-lawmen (newly baptized as agents) who were real gunfighters and orchestrating epic betrayals from the infamous “Lady in Red” to the Chicago crime boss Frank Nittiwere Purvis and the FBI able to close in on Dillinger.

Release Date:  July 1st, 2009

{The song in the trailer is “Ten Million Slaves” by Otis Taylor}

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Purchased on Wednesday: Anna Mercury: The Cutter, Daredevil: Lady Bullseye

30 Mar

annamercury2jpg1Anna Mercury: The Cutter:  Warren Ellis knows what he likes to write.  There is never any real surprise to the voice and direction of a Warren Ellis title.  Whether he’s doing work-for-hire comics for Marvel or original material for Avatar or Image, Ellis has, over his many years in the comics industry, created a style of science fiction and adventure comics that always entertaining (if you like Warren Ellis, that is).  Anna Mercury is no exception.  The story follows the title character, an interdimensional secret agent and seditionist, as she must stop warring factions in a parallel dimension from essentially killing each other off.  The story is pretty brief and the character development is sparse, but, again, if you enjoy the standard that Ellis sets down for his books, then you’ll find a lot to enjoy in Anna Mercury.  The art chores are handled by Facundo Percio and while some panels leave something to be desired, Percio really does try to get as much action and movement into his story-telling.

dd_ladybullseye_tpb-755304jpg2Daredevil: Lady Bullseye:  I wish Ed Brubaker could write Daredevil forever.  I say that with all sincerity.  Under his, Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano’s guiding hands, Daredevil went from a comic I just enjoyed reading to what felt like the best TV show out there.  Each issue was crafted like an episode as opposed to the previously drawn out story-telling that Bendis had instilled (I loved Bendis’ run, don’t get me wrong).  The Lady Bullseye story arc is no exception.  Brubaker takes a character idea that sounds uninspired and cheesecake and instead comes up with a three-dimensional villain (with a secret identity) that seeks to destroy Daredevil and rule the secret organization of the Hand.   Brubaker has added a supporting cast of some of the coolest (and underused) characters at Marvel with Dakota North, The Black Tarantula, Iron Fist and the White Tiger backing Daredevil up in this arc and the coming issues.   The only downside with the book (and it’s by no means a real negative) is that it leads into the next promising arc of the series instead of wrapping up a resolution.  Again, I’m not complaining since I’m in this title for the long haul of Brubaker’s run (which is apparently winding down soon), but it should be clarified that there is more awesome to come.

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Why I Like Bad Movies: Death Race

29 Mar

death-race-posterRemakes are a tricky beast.  No one really wants them to be made.  If there was a large fanbase for a previously released film that could justify a cult following, there would an equally large enough demographic of people who were just fine with the old movie and didn’t need to see it recast, reshot, and re… somethinged.  I’ve watched this happen dozens of times with dozens of movies and every time there’s some vocal section of fandom that are calling for the heads of those who have “raped our childhood” with their careless and butchering remake of a “heartfelt classic.”   Personally, I don’t see the problem.  If they ever made a remake of, say, Escape from New York, I’d just go watch it, roll my eyes, and then go home and watch my remastered DVD version.  It’s the studio’s money.  Let them blow it on whatever they want.  No one is forcing you to watch their crap.

This brings me to a film that I kind of adore for its sheer disregard for all things logical, realistic, and well-crafted.  We’re talking about Death Race.  A very loose remake of the cult classic, Death Race 2000, the updated version stars Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson as prisoners of the Terminal Island Penitentiary that are forced to compete in the world’s highest-rated televised sports program, Death Race.  The characters are paper-thin, the cast (which includes the actual talents of Joan Allen and Ian McShane) is forced to recite stilted and awkward dialogue, and the physics of the action scenes defies all known reason.  This is, of course, Why I Like Bad Movies.   We follow Statham’s character of Jensen Ames, framed for the murder of his wife and sentenced to life in prison, as the crooked warden of Terminal Island (Allen) offers him the role of Frankenstein, a fan favorite celebrity in the game, as a way out of jail.  Ames begrudgingly accepts and gets wrapped up in the chaos and violence that is the Death Race with prisoners piloting suped up cars armed to the teeth with firepower and armor for the chance at freedom.  There are no twists that are unpredictable and no action scenes that can be described as “subtle,” but this movie really does manage to satisfy all of the needs of a true action movie junkie.  Director Paul W.S. Anderson has a ton of great “bad” movies under his belt with Soldier, Resident Evil, and Event Horizon topping the list and he adds Death Race with a childish fervor of action and sly wink at the standards of “quality.”

Whether it’s Statham spewing punchy one-liners with his unbelievably hot (and I mean that as, “she’s way too hot to be believable”) co-pilot, the action scenes that combine NASCAR and the Road Warrior, or completely throwaway character of Machine Gun Joe for Tyrese to play, Death Race fires on all cylinders (I had to use a pun) of truly great awful movie making.  It’s another reason Why I Like Bad Movies.

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