You Know Who

The Next Generation. Better captain, better crew, though the original series did have some pretty good episodes (ex. "Space Seed" and "Balance of Terror") and a lot of the early TNG episodes were stinkers ("Angel One" and "Too Short A Season" come to mind).

79. "I threw a rock at him!!!..................................................It was a big rock... "

Batman and Robin, Vol. 1 (#1-6): Broke my anti-Morrison embargo and picked this one up about a month ago. Very much a case of black and white: Ironically, I enjoyed the Frank Quitely-drawn issues a lot more than three illustrated by Philip Tan. Professor Pig is an interesting addition to the Batman rogues gallery, but my thoughts on Flamingo can best be summarized by what Damien says upon meeting him ("I was expecting menacing, not gay"). Curious to know what happens next, but neither of the next two volumes are in paperback yet. Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Vol. 1: Every bit as fun and as awesome as Chris, Dan, and Mike said it was. The art looks like a mix between the styles of David Mazzucchelli and Darwyn Cooke, yet has a voice of its own. Have already picked up the second volume. Ultimates, Vol. 1 (#1-6): Not the best thing I've read from Mark Millar, but still a solid if slow read. The team's battle with the Hulk is epic while Henry Pym does to his wife is harrowing and even more brutal. The incessant references to popular culture and public figures can be annoying and dated but a number are surprisingly prescient, such as Nick Fury expressing the desire to be played by Samuel L. Jackson. Currently midway through Volume 2. Trade paperbacks: 7

For any other Python fans out there: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13939238

Saw it yesterday also. I went in with low expectations and it was ultimately just above average for me. My main gripes are that Hal learns to master the ring too quickly and that I would have liked to have seen more of him training with Kilowog and Sinestro on Oa. I could see people either unfamiliar with the Green Lantern mythos or, on the other side of the spectrum, Hal Jordan fanboys really hating it.

Amen. Although...

My rankings: 1. Toy Story 3 2. Monsters Inc 3. Toy Story 4. Wall-E 5. Up 6. A Bug's Life 7. Toy Story 2 8. Cars 9. Finding Nemo 10. The Incredibles 11. Ratatouille I like the first eight to varying degrees but the last three I dislike.

On that note, am I the only one out there who doesn't like Finding Nemo or The Incredibles? I recognize them as competently-crafted films but they don't really do it for me.

Green Lantern vs. the Critics, Parts 1 and 2: Thought these would interest y'all. For those of you who don't follow ItsJustSomeRandomGuy's videos, Deadpool hates Green Lantern because he stole Ryan Reynolds from him.

I've listened to this episode several times but each time have had trouble deciphering what Dan said right after Mike said "What wife would call her husband 'Long Tom' in public?". What exactly did you say, Dan?

60. Get off my lawn, you damn kids. I'm gonna take a nap.

38. Saw films are the Devil, and yet there are even worse films out there.

I never said anything about there not being fear and loathing in the 60s and did not mean to imply that. I was trying to justify why there was no anti-mutant rallies or almost no anti-mutant comments made in the movie. That the movie does not show the 60s as a time of prevalent fear and loathing is something of a missed opportunity and does go against what the X-Men are about today. And I have no qualms for being less than nice to you specifically, for you called me a "dipshit" ages ago on this site. That was low.

Let's see, off the top of my head of examples of groups that were hated and feared in the 60s from around this time: -Soviet Russians -Communists (this was only a little while after the McCarthy witch hunts, can also include Cubans, Chinese, East Germans, any of the sattelite states in mid/central Europe, Vietnamese) -Black people (see: ongoing civil rights battles in the south, Black Panthers, and MLK Jr) -Counterculture hippies (by blue-collar America) Basically, yes, there is a pretty strong precedent for hating/fearing the unknown, especially in the 60s. I interpreted Ian's gripe pertaining to anti-mutant sentiment not being shown in the film, Krueger, not fear and loathing during the decade as a whole.

If the Cuban Missile Crisis is the first time in this continuity that mutants make themselves known to the public at large, then it would make sense for the whole racism aspect of the X-Men to be almost non-existent in the film (outside of Magneto fearing the future Holocaust for mutants). Why would the government and the public at large fear and hate a group of people they don't know about? As for Darwin's death, that was unfortunate not just because of the "black-hero-has-to-die-first" cliche, but because he had a cool power. It especially would have been cool if he had joined Shaw's team, since he'd be much more difficult to beat than some girl with dragonfly wings. 500th post!

An exception to that, with only two passing mentions of Batman: http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/movies/green-lantern-with-ryan-reynolds-review.html?smid=tw-nytimesmovies&seid=auto Unless this pulls a Transformers 2 and owns at the box office despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews, we can kiss any hopes of Flash and Wonder-Woman films good bye for the next ten years.

Midnight in Paris: Very good and very funny. Normally I don't care for Owen Wilson's acting, but here he was awesome.

I think I'll wait for Ian's (or Mike's) review of this movie before deciding whether or not to see it.

I will absolutely give you that. I was expecting a closer bond to develop between the two of them over a longer period of time and there were quite noticeable continuity problems in general. The biggest one that comes to mind: The movie strongly implies that Azazel is Nightcrawler's father yet Mystique is Magneto's partner for the Singer-Ratner trilogy and that relationship begins in this film.

That sums up the movie beautifully. And I think people who are rating it highly are just focusing on the Charles/Erik stuff and pretending the lack of character development for everyone else doesn't matter, or that the characters weren't actually there. As someone who rated the film highly and at the risk of sounding like an idiot, does really it matter that secondary characters like Emma Frost and Banshee lack character development?

I agree pretty much with your analysis of the film. In the moment, I loved the scene where the young Magneto goes apeshit and that scene was what hooked me, but I guess I'll have to see it again to see if the CGI was as atrocious as you said it was. As for solo shows, I think this episode was a tad short but still enjoyable. I think your solo commentary of Superman/Batman: Apokolips and your review of recent DC books as far back as Episode 95 were really good solo shows and think that reviews of that mold lend themselves solo shows better than a forty-minute run-through of a two-hour movie.

Just saw it. My thoughts...

About to see it. Hope it exceeds my middling expectations.

Off the top of my head... DC Aquaman Booster Gold Brainiac Deathstroke Harley Quinn Lex Luthor Lois Lane Martian Manhunter Wally West Wonder Woman Marvel Ant-Man Beast Doctor Doom Iron-Man J. Jonah Jameson Loki Magneto Mystique Norman Osborn The Thing (tops them all)