Nathan's Movie Reviews

 Wonder Woman: The True Amazon  by Jill Thompson I had always heard about this graphic novel retelling the Themyscira young adult origins of Wonder Woman that was supposed to be very friendly to new readers. I was in a Wonder Woman mood after reading Absolute Wonder Woman, so I took a chance. The positives are the art. Jill Thompson is a very good painter and all of the illustrations are fantastic and reall give this comic more of a storybook quality. The redesigns of Wonder Woman and the rest of the Amazons are great and really unique. Unfortunately, thats where the positives end because this story by Jill Thompson leaves something to be desired. The twist is that this Diana grew up to be spoiled and then becoming Wonder Woman is how she learns to be better by saving and helping humanity. I don't really have a problem with that story arc, but the problem is with how its presented.Diana is so unlikeable and her ego results in some very bad things happening to her fellow Amazon...

Absolute Wonder Woman  # 1-14  by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman, Mattia De Iulis, and Matias Bergara       Well, this was something. I have always liked the idea of Wonder Woman and I know what some of her best stories and comic runs are but if  I was asked to name how many Wonder Woman stories I have actually read  it would only be about five. I don't know why Wonder Woman is a little unapproachable for me. Maybe its the fact that a lot of writers don't know what to do with her or that everytime she's had an event comic it has been some of the worst of all time (Amazons Attack or War of the Gods). Hell, even DC doesn't know what do with her as she is the part of DC's trinity (along with Batman and Superman) but she gets the least amount of attention. Basically, you only write Wonder Woman if you're forced to or if you have a damn good pitch. Thankfully for Absolute Wonder Woman Kelly Thompson has one.     Absolute Wonder Woman is on...

 DC's Absolute Line: Is it Worth the Hype?      It seems that in my absence from really seriously reading any new comics at all  that DC has created the Absolute line of titles which has seemed to take things by storm. It has created a sales juggernaut with titles like Absolute Batam and Absolute Wonder Woman bringing in new legions of fans and getting people genuinely excited about the state of current DC comics which hadn't really happened since DC Rebirth almost a decade ago in 2016. So as someone who has a tangential understanding of them and how the characters are different from their main universe counterparts I want to ask the question... are these new absolute takes on classic characters really shaking things up? Or are these just slightly different and edgier takes on the characters? I want to find out. So, I plan on reading all the current issues that are out for each of the titles. So thats 14 issues of Absolute Batman and Wonder Woman, 13 of Absolute...

  The Tom King Retrospective/ Why I'm Largely Done With Comics      Superhero comics have always meant a lot to me. I'll never forget finding some DC and Marvel trade paperbacks at my local library and falling in love. I had seen the heroes on tv in some of the best cartoon shows of all time, but the world of comics was something else entirely. I have been collecting comics since 2014 and I have done deep dives and discovered so many great stories, characters  and creators. 10 years on though and I feel very different about it. I don't have any drive or passion for comics or for any comics that are coming out right now. This could be just burn out that can come when one naturally overdoes a hobby, but if feels like something more. I feel that I have read almost everything that I wanted to in the field of mainstream American superhero comics. After almost 10 years of collecting I'm throwing in the towel and cutting way back. I am still reading some every now and ...

 Love Everlasting   (2021) Written by Tom King Drawn by Elsa Charretier      The first in my ongoing Tom King reappraisal is one of his most recent series. I wanted to pick this, because a lot of my previous disdain had to do with King's reinventions and reinterpretations of superheroes. So what did I think of the first independent thing I'd read from him and my first review in this series? It is... ok. The concept is really great. A woman is forced to fall in love with new people in new time periods/scenarios only for the romances to fall apart tragically and a mysterious person to kill the woman and reset the loop. The time periods and scenarios are all sends up of classic romance comics tropes which is done really well. The artwork by Charretier is very classic looking, almost Darwyn Cooke-esque. The biggest problem for me is that despite the great premise and artwork, overall the book just wasn't that fun to read. The repetitive cycle establishes the un...

  Tom King      I read a lot of comics and have a lot of favorite writers and artists. I even have some creators that I don't care for. Without a doubt one of the more recent examples is Tom King. He started writing independent series at Vertigo like Sheriff of Babylon, but he really exploded onto the scene after writing the 12 issue maxi series Vision at Marvel. From there he went to DC to work on Batman, and lesser known characters like Mister Miracle and Adam Strange.      My familiarity with Tom's work was down to hearing about how awful his Batman run was. I have not read any of the 85 issues he wrote for the character, but I think that he had some interesting ideas for the character that ultimately fell apart in execution. Something that I would could say the same thing for his 12 issues on Mister Miracle, which I have read all of. There are a lot of great character ideas and storytelling devices in that series to explore the troubled trauma of M...

 Mildred Pierce (1945)         Generally Approved for Audiences    1 hr. 51 min             Directed by: Michael Curtiz Starring: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden & Ann Blyth      I can't believe that I haven't reviewed a film noir flick yet, since I am a big fan of the genre, but here we are. For the uninitiated, film noir is a genre of crime pictures that existed from the 40s to the late 50s. Most often they are typified and parodied as those movies with are hard drinking private eyes narrate every single thing and are dealing with a treacherous dame, with hard hitting jazz music drowning out everything. This idea is so firm in the public consciousness, despite the fact most classic noirs exist in stark contrast to this. The perfect example of this is Mildred Pierce. If you are looking for private eyes, cliched characters and jazz music then I'm afraid that you'll walk away disappoi...

  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) Rated PG-13                 2hr 34min Directed by James Mangold Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridger and Mads Mikkelsen                         I had the absolute privilege of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen last month. It's always been a favorite movie of mine ever since the first time I saw it when I was 13 years old and home sick. The movie was unlike anything I'd ever seen and instantly made me forget being sick, and I was reminded of all this when watching Raiders again. I hadn't seen it in almost a decade and I had forgotten just how good it was. The script, characters, action, cinematography and direction were all perfect, but those were all just window dressing. The real joy was the kind of magic and pure entertainment that the film had.              I bring all o...

  Twin Peaks (2017) Directed by David Lynch     I'm going to be honest here, I'm not actually sure what to say. David Lynch's work is very personal and hard for me to explain in words just what I like about it so much, and Twin Peaks 2017 might be the hardest. Still I am going to do my best. Twin Peaks is an 18 episode continuation and conclusion to most (if not all) of the major plot points of the Twin Peaks universe.  This is basically an 18 hour long movie broken up into hour long episodes and just like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, I feel like even the most ardent Peaks fan needs to know some things from going in to the new show. First, while this is a continuation of the original show, thew tone is very different and the world is different too. 25 years has passed in our world between the two series (the original 90s one and 2017) and it has for the people of Twin Peaks too. The characters have changed (some predictably and others very unexpectedly) and the wo...