Dan

This could be the most Earth-2.net sentence ever typed.

Victory is mine!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005): A movie this well-cast and this good-looking really ought to be a lot more involving. I'm not sure a film version of the book could ever possibly be satisfying, as virtually all of its humor and its ideas are driven by the language (the BBC series, which hewed closer to the original radio series, worked a lot better, coughDaveandIancoughcough). The stuff that's added really doesn't work, as it doesn't feel like the rest of the work and is generally not as funny. With that said, Martin Freeman, Mos Def, and Stephen Fry are all perfect in their roles, and Zooey Deschanel goes above and beyond in trying to make Trillian in any way interesting. While I love Sam Rockwell, he's trying a little too hard here. Visually, it's gorgeous. It's a weird mix of huge and splashy alongside "we're back in a tiny studio in Television Centre" and it somehow works. There's definitely some enjoyment to be had here, but it tends to be a little flat. It just feels like a bunch of actors reading lines from a famous nerd book. The fact that they obviously thought they were going to go on to make The Restaurant at the End of the Universe doesn't help.

Spinal Tap, but barely.

Fatigue has to be setting in. By the time 2017 is over, we'll have had GOTG 2, Spider-Man, and Thor in theaters, SHIELD and Inhumans on TV, and Iron Fist, Defenders, and Punisher on Netflix. That's not even taking into account Legion, Runaways, and whatever the hell else is also out there with Marvel's name slapped on it. It's too much.

Viewing figures do not appear to have been great.

They're talking to Taiki Waitita (Thor: Ragnarok) to direct.

The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus, vol. 3: collects The Amazing Spider-Man #68-104. This is a really interesting collection. It's really hard to explain or to point to exactly when or how it happens, but over the course of three years' worth of comics (1968-1971), this goes from a very Silver Age Marvel comic to a very Bronze Age one. Some of it's the art - John Romita kicks things off and it's all very classic, old school Spidey. About halfway through he begins inking over Gil Kane's pencils, and that stuff is outstanding. By the end, Romita's been replaced by Frank Giacoia, so what we're getting is pretty much pure 70s Kane. Further, Stan Lee handed the keys over to Roy Thomas (who by this time had already grown out of his "trying to sound just like Stan" phase) after a hundred issues, and it feels like a completely different book after that; where things started with the obligatory campus demonstrations and fights with gangsters in suits in nighttime abandoned warehouses, they end with daylight car chases with giant 70s autos driven by guys in leisure suit jackets, with a side order of Thomas' obsession with making sure there were lots of references to pulp heroes and movie serials. The stories themselves are pretty good. The volume kicks off with a storyline revolving around a stolen ancient tablet that goes on for a then-unheard-of eight months, and while it's still pretty quickly paced and you could read an individual issue all by itself and get a lot out of it, this feels fairly modern. We get the Maggia, the Prowler, Doctor Octopus, the Lizard more than once, the Iceman, and a brief attempt to turn the Black Widow into a female version of Spidey (although this did introduce her classic catsuit, ditching the "Russian femme fatale in fishnets" look she'd worn throughout the 1960s). Furthermore, this has the three non-Code drug issues, which are, remarkably, nowhere near as hamfisted and preachy as you'd think they'd have been. Throw in the death of Captain Stacy and "Holy shit, Spidey's got six arms now" and you've got a very eventful and well-remembered run of comics. Also, it's just weird to see the cover dress change from the 60s corner box to the "Marvel Comics Group" banner at the top mid-collection.

Ant-Man: This movie gets a little more fun every time I see it.

I finally caught this and enjoyed the hell out of it. I was a little too old to be all that into the original (it was my younger brothers' jam), but I do remember thinking it was good. This was funnier, with a much goofier sensibility, and the voice cast is phenomenal.

I thought it looked really good (Jon Favreau did his usual good job). It was sold as a straight-up comedy, but what we got was a first season TNG episode with a little more humor, most of which was very unfunny. Pilots are generally rough, and I'm going to give it another shot, but at some point Fox is going to have to say "no" to MacFarlane.

Reality Bites, where it turns out that a movie written by a 23-year-old about herself and her friends is precisely as infuriating as you think it's going to be.

69 is far too young.

JSA: The Golden Age Deluxe Edition: collects The Golden Age (1993) #1-4. This is an Elseworlds story that's not a million miles away from Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier, except it focuses on Golden Age heroes rather than Silver Age ones, and also it is bleak as fuck. After the war, whatever heroes haven't retired are driven away by the HUAC, go crazy, have personal lives that go completely to hell, and/or fall victim to a sinister mad science conspiracy of epic movie serial proportions. And overall, this is quite good. Written by James Robinson back when that was generally a good thing, his love of the era shines through even as he puts a dark and angry spin on it. This is also some of the best artwork Paul Smith ever produced; I love looking at these pages. Also, except for the fact that it's a hardcover and the paper quality is very high, there's nothing deluxe about this edition. There's no backmatter at all here, save a foreword by Howard Chaykin.

I feel like I should like Westworld a lot more than I do. Everything about it seems like it was grown in a lab specifically to be my favorite show ever, and it's not bad at all, but I'm nowhere near as into it as I want to be.

I've run into that, and I don't use iTunes.

This wasn't bad. While it's a smidge wackier than the pilot was, it's still considerably less over-the-top than The Tick usually is, and it's kind of a weird feel. The cast is uniformly excellent; I fully expected Serafinowicz and Haley to kick ass, and they do, but Yara Martinez is really doing terrific work here, and Alan Tudyk once again shows that he is the best at playing snarky AI characters. The important thing, though, is that Serafinowicz is pitch-perfect in his delivery and frequently even sounds like Warburton. Still, while the Warburton series ind of drove home that The Tick as originally presented - a hugely wacky, insane cartoon - could only work so far as live action, the fact that this is so toned down makes it not feel quite right. (There are also a fair number of F-bombs being tossed, which I normally would barely even notice, but feels really weird coming from this property.) It's funny and I hope we get more, but it did take a few episodes for me to settle into it.

Holy shit. David Tennant had to cancel on Wizard World, and anticipating the ensuing shitstorm from fans who bought VIP packages, they went a little nuts trying to calm things down.

I just got notes back regarding the Arisia panel descriptions I wrote earlier this month. In that weird space between "yes, these are good and valid notes and will improve things" and HOW FUCKING DARE YOU MY WORDS ARE PERFECT I haven't been edited in a while, apparently.

Well, FUCK. Goodfellas. No, Singin' in the Rain. No, wait, Goodfellas. Aargh.

Also, every miniseries should have a scene where Scott Glenn says "The immortal Iron Fist is still a thundering dumbass."

Ganthet?

"I am Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist! It remains my sworn and sacred duty to defend the city of K'un Lun! I thrust my fist into the molten heart of the dragon and -" "Yes, thank you, but could you just tell me if you want fries with that or not?"

The kid's mom?

Yeah, this was good but not all-time classic. The team-up aspect was a lot of fun; Cox, Ritter and (especially) Colter are all in great form and their interactions are really good. Jones is again the weak link, but this time the show is fully aware of what a whiny, entitled dipshit Danny is (unlike on his own show) and he gets called out a lot. Like, a lot. As for supporting cast, for every Colleen Wing or Stick who contributes a lot to the story, there's a Karen Page or Trish Walker where you wonder why they brought the actor back in at all. The story itself is not awesome. I'm so sick of the Hand. Sigourney Weaver does her best but isn't given much to work with, and I counted at least two "We're not so different" speeches in this thing. However, the character work was enough for me to generally enjoy this, and at eight episodes it doesn't overstay its welcome. A full season would have been a huge mistake.