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Showing posts from July, 2017

Collected Comic Review - Daredevil: Back in Black TPB Vol. 1-4 (Soule/Garney)

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Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 1 - Chinatown - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #1-5, and material from All-New, All-Different Point One (2015) #1. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 2 - Supersonic - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #6-9, and Annual #1. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 3 - Dark Art - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #10-14. Daredevil: Back in Black Vol. 4 - Identity - Collecting Daredevil (2016) #15-20. In recent weeks, I've been asked what I think about Charles Soule's current Daredevil run.  My default answer has been that I've enjoyed it.  Unfortunately, being the huge DD fan that I am, that is not only very vague, but it could also easily be interpreted as just a biased opinion.  With the release of the fourth trade paperback volume last week, I felt that this was as good a time as any to re-read the run to this point and to elaborate (as spoiler free as possible of course) as to why I have enjoyed this run as much as I have. Vol. 1-4 (Front Covers) The creati

Review - War for the Planet of the Apes

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War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), PG-13, 2h 20min - My apologies, between not getting to this movie until last Sunday, having family in town this weekend, and getting distracted by all of the SDCC news from the last couple of days, I'm just now getting around to working on my review for War for the Planet of the Apes.  War is the final installment of the reboot/prequel trilogy that began with 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes and continued with 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes . Quick disclaimer right up front: as this is the last part of a trilogy, the continuity is tightly tied to the two preceding films.  If you haven't seen those, be sure to make time to watch them first, otherwise the impact of this film will be severely diluted.  Also, as the name implies, there is a good bit of war related violence, particularly involving apes.  If you're an animal lover like my wife, you probably want to steer clear completely.  For everyone else, let'

Review - Spider-Man: Homecoming

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), PG-13, 133 minutes - Spider-Man: Homecoming has been a highly anticipated film ever since Tom Holland's Spider-Man made his Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut in last year's Captain America: Civil War when he burst onto the scene lending a hand to Iron Man's cause.  With this film we're not only getting the first solo Spider-Man film since 2014, but also the second reboot of the character on the big screen (following the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield incarnations).  It also also marks the first co-produced film between Sony and Marvel Studios after their deal to share the character's film rights (take note Fox...cough, cough...Fantastic Four...cough, cough). Peter Parker (Holland) is a sophomore in high school, and actually looks age appropriate this time around.  He and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) are your typical smart kids and social outcasts who participate in things like band and the debate team.  Peter doesn&#

Review - Baby Driver

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Baby Driver (2017), R, 113 minutes - Baby Driver is the latest film from one of my personal favorites, writer/director Edgar Wright.  Most of his previous work has fallen (primarily) into the comedy genre, but with this film he proves that he is more than capable of handling a crime/action flick. Wright gives us the story of Baby (Ansel Elgort), a good kid with amazing skills behind the wheel who has fallen in with the wrong people and now finds himself working off debt as criminal mastermind Doc's (Kevin Spacey) getaway driver of choice.  Doc never uses the same crew twice, but continually relies on Baby as the driver for all of his heists as he has never been caught.  All of Doc's heist crew members have their own eccentricities and Baby is no exception.  He's a music lover and is constantly listening to an iPod in order to drown out the Tinnitus (ringing in his ears) caused by a childhood car accident that killed both of his parents.  He even uses music as a timing

Review - Okja

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Okja (2017), TV-MA, 118 minutes - Three years ago (almost to the day), I saw a film by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho called Snowpiercer .  It instantly became one of my favorite films of 2014 and made me go back and watch some of his previous films (which I also enjoyed).  So a couple of days ago, when I discovered that his new film Okja had been released via Netflix earlier in the week, I was extremely eager to see it. This film tells the story of a little Korean girl named Mija (An Seo Hyun) and her pet super pig Okja.  "What on Earth is a super pig?" you ask?  They are a genetically engineered species designed by the Mirando Corporation to be the perfect eco-friendly livestock.  Mija and her grandfather have raised Okja on their mountain-top farm since she was four (it has now been ten years).  What Mija isn't aware of is that Okja was one of twenty six super pigs that Mirando placed in the care of farmers around the globe as part of a contest to see who cou