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The Sopranos: Guy Walks Into A Psychiatrist’s Office…

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Darren

Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist’s Office gets the second season of The Sopranos off to a strong start. We’re immediately informed that time has elapsed and that everything has sorted itself out. We get a montage to assure us that it’s business as usual, and the early part of the episode features Tony tying off the last possible lose end in the feud between himself and Junior. However, there’s also a sense that things are changing, both in the lives of our characters and also in the way the show is structured.

The first season of the show is a damn fine piece of television, but it’s also somewhat misleading. It’s a beautifully structured thirteen-episode mob epic which manages to satisfactorily tie up all its loose ends by the time the credits role on I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano. It’s understandable that so many people were frustrated by the show’s non-resolution after the first season wrapped up so elegantly.

With the success of that first season, there’s a sense of earned confidence to Guy Walks Into a Psychiatrist’s Office, as if Chase feels like he has a bit more freedom to work with in telling his great American novel.

Something’s not quite right here…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: al pacino, Christopher, Christopher Moltisanti, frank sinatra, hbo, james gandolfini, Janice Soprano, Melfi, Nobody Knows Anything, Paulie, Psychiatrist's Office, Seventeen, Silvio Dante, Soprano, Television, Tony, Tony Award, Tony Soprano, United States | Leave a comment »

The Sopranos: I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano (Review)

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Darren

From pretty much the opening scene, I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano begins wrapping up loose ends with a ruthless efficiency. Jimmy, the rat identified in Nobody Knows Anything, is murdered less than five minutes into the episode. All the various plot threads seeded throughout the show’s first year come to a head. The feud between Junior and Tony is resolved. The FBI swoop in. Tony and Melfi talk it out and figure out exactly what their relationship is. Even Artie’s restaurant becomes a focal point, providing a direct link back to the very first episode.

For all the talk of randomness and inconsistency in The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti, everything here seems to come a full circle. It’s absolutely stunningly executed, and one of the best things that can be said about I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano (and one of the best things that could be said about any piece of television drama ever) is the fact that it feels so much deeper and richer than its runtime. We know that it’s an hour-long, but it really feels so much meatier and more substantial than that.

It’s a beautiful culmination to a year’s worth of television.

Lights out…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amnesia, Carjacking, Carmela Soprano, David Chase, hbo, james gandolfini, Jennifer Melfi, Livia, Melfi, New Jersey, Nobody Knows Anything, Paulie, Soprano, Tony, Tony Soprano, United States | Leave a comment »

Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost’s Run on X-Force – X-Necrosha (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Wolverine later in the month, we’re taking a look at some classic X-Men and Wolverine comics every Monday, Wednesday and Friday here. I’m also writing a series of reviews of the classic X-Men television show at comicbuzz every weekday, so feel free to check those out.

I have a bit of a soft-spot for Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost’s X-Force. It’s nowhere near as good as Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force, and I’m not even sure that it’s good comics. However, it does capture the mood of the X-Men comics between House of M and Second Coming remarkably well.

Being frank, I think that the editorial direction of the X-Men line between House of M and Second Coming was a disaster. In fact, the work of Kieron Gillen on Uncanny X-Men and Jason Aaron on Wolverine & The X-Men following Schism demonstrates that the franchise spent six long years running in a gigantic circle to get back to where Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men had left it.

However, Yost and Kyle’s X-Force captures the mood of the line a lot better than Ed Brubaker or Matt Fraction’s work on Uncanny X-Men, willing to embrace the cynically and nihilitistically nineties vibe of the entire line.

Country of the dead…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Bastion, business, Christopher Yost, Craig Kyle, joss whedon, magneto, marvel, Necrosha, new mutants, Recreation, retrospective, Rick Remender, Selene, spider man, uncanny x-men, United States, wolverine, x-force | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Frances Ha

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Darren

Frances Ha is Noah Baumbach’s tribute to early Woody Allen. Shot in black-and-white and set mostly in New York (although with two brief adventures elsewhere), the film seems like a genuinely affectionate homage to one of the greatest comedians to work in film. However, Frances Ha can’t help but feel like a pale imitation of a master filmmaker. Frances Ha is occasionally charming and clever, but it suffers from too much pretension. It lacks the strange charm of Allen’s best work, the sense of empathy the director can generate for his listless and often self-absorbed leads.

The biggest problem with Frances Ha is that it feels like a knock-off of a much stronger director.

Out in the cold…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Allen, film, Francis, Francis Ha, French New Wave, Greta Gerwig, Movie, new york, Noah Baumbach, non-review review, r eview, Squid & The Whale, United States, Woody Allen | 2 Comments »

Civil War: X-Men (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Darren

Ugh. There’s nothing like Civil War: X-Men to remind you just how unkind the middle part of the last decade was to Marvel’s merry mutants. It’s a soulless cash-in the worst sense of the word, a four-issue miniseries branded with the title of the gigantic universe-spanning crossover that was going on at the moment. One would imagine that the whole Civil War crossover would provide a multitude of compelling storytelling opportunities for the X-Men as a franchise.

After all, these are superheroes whose entire schtick is based around being hated and feared by the world they try to protect. You’d imagine that they’d have a few choice words for all the superheroes finding themselves suddenly confronted by the idea that the public isn’t too keen on people with superpowers just wandering around. Instead, we get a messy jumble of a plot that doesn’t make sense on its own terms, let alone as an attempt to contextualise the involvement of the X-Men in Marvel’s Civil War crossover.

Back in black…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, Autos, Avenger, avengers, brian michael bendis, captain america, Civil War, Cleveland, cyclops, emma frost, Leather, marvel, marvel comics, marvel universe, Recreation, Rick Remender, spider man, superman, United States, wolverine | 5 Comments »

Watch! Spike Lee’s Oldboy Trailer!

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Darren

If you haven’t watched the original Oldboy, you should really do so now. I’m not as head-over-heels in love with it as most, but it’s a stunningly powerful piece of film making, “visceral” in the strongest sense of the word. After years of trying to get the film off the ground, the American remake is incoming. I remember when there was gossip about a Steven Spielberg and Will Smith version, which it’s hard to imagine working anywhere near as effectively as the original. The team of Spike Lee and Josh Brolin, on the other hand, looks more likely to deliver something as twisted and bold as Pan Chan-wook’s original.

Anyway, the trailer’s below. So have a look and let me know what you think.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Filmmaking, josh brolin, Oldboy, Park Chan-wook, Spike Lee, steven spielberg, United States, will smith | Leave a comment »

The Sopranos: A Hit is a Hit (Review)

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Darren

A Hit is a Hit works a lot better than Boca, despite the fact that it’s structurally quite similar. It introduces a bunch of new characters and concepts to the series which don’t really extend beyond the episode in question. Massive G never appears again, and the pending lawsuit he threatens is never discussed in any later episode. It’s a light stand-alone tale coming towards the end of a season which has dedicated so much time and effort to building a full-formed world.

However, A Hit is a Hit doesn’t feel completely disposable. Part of that is down to the wonderful B-plot in which Tony finds himself struggling for acceptance among more the more reputable members of his neighbourhood, but it’s also down to the fact that the main plot feels like develops the themes of The Sopranos a lot better than Boca did, and that Christopher’s character arc feels like a logical progression rather than simply “an issue of the week.”

Ain’t that a shot in the head?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: alec baldwin, arts, Beatles, Carmela, Carmela Soprano, David Chase, Emmy Award, godfather, hollywood, Italian American, james gandolfini, Mafia, Programs, Soprano, Television, Tony, Tony Soprano, United States | Leave a comment »

Ultimate Comics: Divided We Fall, United We Stand – X-Men (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Darren

I actually like the scope of Divided We Fall. It’s a big universe-altering event spanning Marvel’s three Ultimate Universe titles, but it isn’t so granular or so tightly-wound that the three books are tripping over one another. Each of the three books involved tell their own side of the story. Each can be read independently, with no real dependence on the other two. There’s a sense that the creators involved are being allowed a reasonable degree of creative freedom, and that Brian Wood is crafting his own X-Men epic that doesn’t exist simply to tie into the headline-making decision to bump Captain America up to superhero-in-chief over in Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

In a weird way, for a book in the middle of a gigantic crossover, Wood’s Ultimate Comics: X-Men feels like it’s seeking a fresh start, like it’s kicking off a new chapter, and relishing the status quo shattering crossover as an excuse to just get on with it.

Mutant Pryde…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: brian michael bendis, Brian Wood, Business and Economy, captain america, Fury, history, Kansas, Kansas City Star, mark millar, marvel, Moscow, State Line Road, ultimate comics spider-man, ultimate universe, United States | Leave a comment »

Civil War: Wolverine (Review)

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Darren

A lot of the recent big Marvel events, stretching from Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Disassembled through to at least Avengers vs. X-Men, can be read as commentaries on post-9/11 America. In particular, they focus on questions the relationship between the power and trust held by various authorities, and how those are earned or abused. Perhaps Civil War was the most overt of these, with the conflict in the comic coming down to the clash between the demands of liberty and security.

So, I suppose, at least Marc Guggenheim’s Wolverine tie-in to the event is explicit about what it’s trying to do. It’s any even more explicit 9/11 parable, casting the famous mutant as an investigator looking for his own kind of justice in the wake of a horrifying terror attack.

Talk about seeing eye-to-eye…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Alternative, American Civil War, brian michael bendis, Civil War, Gulf War, Health, history, Human-Growth-Hormone, iraq, Life Extension, List of comic book drugs, luke cage, Marc Guggenheim, marvel comics, Shopping, United States, wolverine, world war ii | 2 Comments »

Watch! Only God Forgives UK Trailer!

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Darren

Only God Forgives is just about my most anticipated movie of the year. Drive was my favourite film of 2011, so the re-teaming of director Nicholas Winding Refn and lead Ryan Gosling immediately piques my interest. Coupled with the power of the premise and the beauty of the clips we’ve seen so far, it’s very hard not to get too excited about the film. Luckily, it’s only a month away from release in the UK and Ireland. That’s not too long, and to tide us over, here’s the latest beautiful-looking UK trailer.