Into the Longbox

I saw this movie weeks ago and yet I haven't even written down my thoughts on it. I can assure you that I blocked out most of this movie in my mind, so this review will be short. So congrats reader, you won't have to deal with me rambling on and on. So, Venom. Where do I even begin with this movie? I went in expecting it to be bad. It met those expectations and exceeded them. Oh wait, that makes it sound good. What I mean to say is, it was worse than I thought. This movie is bad, in case I wasn't clear. I didn't want this movie to exist and despite the easter eggs they leave, I do not want a sequel to this. It felt like a late 90's to early 00's bad action movie. With the budget of a modern movie. It tries to toe the line between serious drama, horror, action and low brow comedy and it really fails at all of them. In this movie, it is hard to root for Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). You are told he is a great reporter, but in what you see, he is not. Then we w...

So. After the first season, I said I wanted nothing else to do with this show. Don't believe me, here's my post . That first season was awful. Then those antics carried into "The Defenders". When Danny Rand showed up in ONE episode of Luke Cage this year, I felt that maybe they got it right. Then this show just kind of showed up out of nowhere. It's weird, but there was not the press that we have seen from all the other Netflix shows, so I thought it was weird that this just appeared. I watched the entire season and I can safely say, I really liked this season. I can't believe those words are coming out of my mouth, especially after I wrote off anything related to this show. They fixed just about all the problems I had with the first season. I will take it a step further and say that there was a change in this season that I HOPE carries over into the other Netflix shows. For the first time, a Marvel Netflix series (excluding the Defenders) was ten episo...

Recently, my fiancee asked me what my favorite comic book was. I had to think and realized I didn't have an immediate answer. With as many comic books as I own and have read over the years, I could not think of what I would qualify as my favorite comic book. When I thought a little MORE, as is my way, I couldn't just settle on one book. I had to pick five. Usually I'm more decisive, but here, I narrowed it down to five, that have their own reasons. Don't read anything into the order of how I talk about these, but below is my list. I've decided that I will write about my memories of these books and what I thought. Then I will re-read them and give my reaction to that, to see if my memories of these books are still held with such high regard. I hope I don't ruin them... Fantastic Four #348 (Marvel) My Memory: This was an issue I read early on in my budding comic book nerdiness. Ironically, it is a Fantastic Four book that barely stars the Fantastic Four....

There seems to be an abundance of riches these past few years as far as comic book shows go. I can count at least nine comic book series I have watched. JUST THIS YEAR! Thankfully with each new show that comes out, they all have something fresh to offer. This is what I felt about Cloak and Dagger. Look, I know this will sound like I have said this about a lot of things on this blog, but it is true. I've been a Cloak and Dagger fan for years. Unlike the other characters I have talked about loving before, I can't even determine when I started to like these two. I'm not even going to quantify it. I say all that to set up that I was looking forward to this show. This might be a minor complaint, but it is something I am noticing with more of these shows. There is a definite slow burn that is happening. Since it's not serialized television, you have a long running arc that goes throughout the season. What I had worried about here is that this show was a super hero show...

They're back!! I know it has been a few weeks since this book came out, but I needed to talk about it before I completely forgot. I've documented many times on this here blog that I am a huge Fantastic Four fan. Well, as of two weeks ago, they are now officially back in the Marvel Universe! After a lengthy hiatus, they returned in Fantastic Four #1. The book continued the exploits of Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, which is a thread that has been running over in Marvel 2 In One . The reason I wanted to talk about this book is that it is rare these days that I genuinely feel something from a comic book. I've become jaded and cynical. Not much truly moves me. This issue did for a number of reasons. At least with this first issue, writer Dan Slott has lovingly acknowledged the past of the Fantastic Four while keeping an eye on the future. In what was one of the more shocking developments, Ben Grimm proposed to Alicia Masters! How has this not happened?! All the stuff the...

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but to the surprise of no one, I watched another Marvel Netflix show. This time it was season two of Luke Cage. Honestly, I liked this season more than the first. This show wasn't perfect and it had a few flaws. However, they were a lot less glaring for me than the first season. If we want to get REALLY specific, I hated Diamondback. Hated him. He's gone, so that makes this season infinitely better. Enough with this conversation, let's get into my review. As usual, I will try to avoid spoilers, but I'm not human. They MAY happen. To start off, what I really liked was the villain for most of the season. The villain this time around is John McIver, a.k.a. "Bushmaster". Here we have a compelling villain with an understandable motivation. He is coming after Mariah Dillard and Harlem just happens to be the collateral damage. First of all, I loved the portrayal of him by actor, Mustafa Shakir. I've never seen him in a...

I will be honest. When this movie was first announced, just like with the first movie, I thought this was a reach by Marvel. Be honest, who really cares about Ant-Man? Even if he is being portrayed by the charming, Paul Rudd. Well, I ended up liking the first movie more than I thought I would. I am happy to report that I liked this movie even more. There are a number of things I think this movie did better to correct the problems of the first. Most importantly, there is not a mustache twirling villain in this movie. Ghost, who we can say is the main antagonist, is not so much a villain as someone that is in a terrible circumstance. He/She will do anything to correct that. The motivations are crystal clear and he/she is a sympathetic character. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is still a sometimes bumbling Ant-Man, but I think he has more heart in this movie. You can see that reflected in the relationship with his daughter, which is really sweet. He means well, but keeps messing things up ...

Before I say anything else, if you have not read "X-Men: Gold" #30, do not read on. If you have or have no idea why I am making this post, join me! As is my way, I only really post my random comic book thoughts if something significant has happened. I don't want to oversell it, but this is that kind of post. In X-Men: Gold #30, we were SUPPOSED to get the marriage between Kitty Pryde and Colossus. For long time X-Men fans, this is a relationship that has been off and on for about thirty years. It's one of those marriages that you figured would have happened already by now and only made sense when it finally did. Instead, Marvel gives us a weird swerve where they do NOT get married. Instead, we get Rogue and Gambit?! Although this relationship is not as old as Kitty and Colossus, it has had it's up and downs as well. This relationship is the epitome of 90's X-Men comics. I mean, it made it into the cartoon! They were characters in X-Men vs. Street Fighter...

I saw this movie a few weeks ago and I have to confess, I really liked it. In my opinion, this is a movie that did not need to happen. With that being said, it was really fun. After watching the initial trailers, I was not sold on Alden Ehrenreich playing Solo. However, he grew on me. Donald Glover is definitely a great choice as Lando. He attempted the cadence at times of a Billy Dee Williams, but I don't think he needed to. If his whole character is boiled down to his speech pattern, maybe there is something wrong with the character. Also, over the years, I've become a real fan of Woody Harrelson. He's fantastic in this movie. Anyways, here is my short review of this movie. Like I said above, it was a lot of fun. It is essentially a heist movie that has a couple of twists and turns. To be honest, it didn't feel like Star Wars and that was a good thing. There were no lightsaber battles. There was no mention of the force. You just have regular dudes and shades ...

I had to check and saw that we JUST had a Deadpool movie two years ago. With that being said, I don't think it had an adverse effect on the quality of this movie. I loved this movie. I think the first one was better because it had to work with a smaller budget and felt fresher. This movie also delivered on the process of the ending credits sequence in the first movie by having Cable appear. What is evident with the addition of Cable and the opening scene is that this movie had a lot more of a budget to play around with. It is definitely more special effects driven. We get an awesome James Bond like opening credits scene. What makes this more awesome (and I didn't realize this when we watched it) is that it was sung by Celine Deon. That's a pretty big pull, Ryan Reynolds. More props to him. My lady pointed out something that opened my eyes. In this movie, Deadpool seems less like a mean spirited a-hole and more of a sympathetic character. To say why would be a spoil...

I finally finished this a few weeks ago. I'll elaborate more, as is my way, but I have to say this. I didn't like this season. At all. It made me truly appreciate how great Killgrave was as a villain in the first season. I won't leave you with just that bit. I'll try to keep from any spoilers. The biggest crime of this season is that it was boring. What I want from Jessica Jones is a story about a very good Private Investigator as she solves mysteries. This is the show that would greatly benefit from being a procedural and not serialized tv. At the end of the day, we just haven't seen enough of Jessica Jones doing a lot of investigation before that goes out the window for the main plot. Now you may be feeling this is an unfair assessment, but that is the lasting impression I get. With that being said, let's go into this season. I feel like this show wasted all the good will it earned from the first season and the Defenders. The characters have unsatis...

Ten years and Eighteen Films later, we now have Infinity War. This is the culmination of everything they've done and what I love about it is it seems like this was the plan all along. To the surprise of no one, I saw this movie twice over opening weekend. Then I had a great conversation with all my friends about it. Still, I needed a few more days to fully decompress and get my feelings right. Oh, I've spent two small paragraphs without saying how I felt about the movie. I loved it. This was like a big comic book crossover, brought to life on the big screen. Gun to my head, in all honesty, it would be forth on my personal favorite Marvel films list. This isn't a bad thing, I just liked my three movies better. For the curious, that ranking is Black Panther, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. What impressed me about this movie is that it accomplished two things that can be difficult. It felt like there were real consequences to what was ha...

I initially meant to talk about Hulu's Runaway series months ago when it ended. This one slipped through the cracks and not due to anything with the show. Sometimes life gets in the way. I want to start off by saying I really enjoyed this show. Almost more so than some of the Netflix Marvel shows. I think by being in LA and not in grim and gritty New York, the atmosphere was just so different. I think the fact that it was about a bunch of teenagers and not maladjusted adults helped too. It has been a long time since I read the first volume of the Runaways comic, but this show felt pretty faithful to that. This series was a fresh concept when it came out and still feels fresh here. If there was any difference between this and the comic book series, I think the parents get more fleshed out here. In the comics they were basically mustache twirling villains. Here, they all have their own motivations and we get to see those played out. They did a really good job with the young ...

Alright, Alright. So you've heard my whining pleas as I wistfully pined for the days of yesteryear. Nothing gets more yesteryear than the Fantastic Four. After Marvel was teasing this "Fresh Start" (ugh) initiative they are doing with their comic line, they spent days teasing what was coming. Then today, they announced that the Fantastic Four are coming back ! I couldn't be more happy! Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. Even better, they get a really good creative team. We get writer Dan Slott, fresh off his ten plus year run on Spider-man and Sara Pichelli on art. If they can sustain this, that's a pretty good team. I hope this book doesn't fall into the double booking scheduling that Marvel/DC seems to be doing right now. I'm not going to lie, I really wanted Chip Zdarsky to get that shot at writing this book after the great work he has been putting in on Marvel 2-In-One.. Since he signed an exclusive with Marvel, maybe they have other plans fo...

Now that I have seen this movie three times within the last seven days, I think I have formed enough of an opinion to actually write about it. You may have seen this everywhere else already, but I want to echo that same sentiment. This movie is a big deal for me and black people alike. There has never been a big, blockbuster super hero movie like this with a black cast this large. What's even better, is that in this movie, the characters are not all cookie cutter stereotypes that you find in most black characters in film. This in and of itself is also very refreshing. It is great to see black characters as being fully capable and smart. As I think about it, this is a movie that I am immensely proud of. It's a movie that I can happily recommend to people because it is also a pretty good movie in it's own right. It is a celebration of black excellence. As I alluded to above, we get positive portrayals of black people here which is counter to what you normally see on ...

Can we not just use a door like gentleman? It's not often I get moved by a comic. I'm not made of stone, but I can get emotional. Will I admit to crying? Never! Then there is Marvel-Two-In-One, Marvel's new series that is a return to the series of yesteryear. In that original iteration, it was all about Ben Grimm (The Thing) teaming up with random super heroes, kind of like Spider-Man was doing over in Marvel Team-Up. I've admitted on this blog before that Ben Grimm is in my personal  top five  favorite Marvel characters. Number two in fact. So I was super excited for this book to come out. It also helps that Jim Cheung is on art duties for these first two issues, who is one of my favorites. Anyways, there are only two issues out and it has made me YEARN for a new Fantastic Four comic. In summary, Ben seeks out Johnny Storm, who has been having a rough time of it ever since Reed, Sue, Johnny and Valeria disappeared into obscurity. These first two issues are heav...

Well, I completely failed my resolution from last year's best of post. I said I would get this up sooner, but instead it took me longer. Life goals people. You need to have them.  Anyways, 2017 is gone and in the books. DC continued it’s resurgence and Marvel has begun to flounder. My books still skew towards the Marvel side, but that is supplemented with DC and Independent books, so I am still getting my variety. The volume of books I buy have certainly gone up since Marvel and DC have become obsessed with the double shipping of most of their titles. On the DC side, it isn’t as bad since most of their books are $2.99. Marvel on the other hand wants to stick to their $3.99 cover price and I can’t remember the last time they were below that number as an average. I'll have a full rant about how I really feel about double shipping later in the year.  Without further ado, here is my review of 2017. Dearly Departed (The Comics I dropped this year) Before I get into...