"The Survivalist" is the ultimate low budget movie: simple, quiet and sparse, but always engaging and tense

A movie that perfectly captures what a low budget filmmaking should be all about. Show little, hint at a lot, and don't have your characters say much at all. Director Stephen Fingleton does a great job at maximizing his resources to create an intense and suspenseful movie in which, for the most part, we only see three main characters. I can count the lines of dialogue that are spoken on two hands, maybe, yet the movie is never boring, dull or uninteresting. The scene in the grassy field, in which the main character (Martin McCann) attempts to save a woman from a maniacal rapist, is executed as perfectly as can be, especially the crane camera POV. There is a lot of similarity to the movie The Road, and this, in a way, feels like a sequel of sorts, but with different characters. I really hope future filmmakers, who are bound to shoe-string budgets, take a look at this movie and see how one can get the most of out their cast, their script and their location. Very well done.
A

"Long John Silver: Lady Vivian Hastings" is a throwback to old-school pirates and treasure hunters

There are few modern pirate comics out there, and even fewer that are any good.  Well, enter Long John Silver Part 1: Lady Vivian Hastings, a rousing sea adventure tale of pirates and seamen looking for untold riches in deep within the Amazon.  Illustrated by Mathieu Lauffray with just the right touch of realism and an exaggerated style reminiscent of caricature, this work captures the nuances and details of the nineteenth century world of high seas and dangerous men looking to betray one another at a moment's notice in order to ensure their life's financial security.  It is an imaginative and ambitious work, for both man and child alike.

The writer Xavier Dorison (he is assisted in this aspect by the artist Lauffray) creates characters who are memorable as they are the archetypal symbols of this genre: the under-sexed but bored vixen, Lady Vivian Hastings, a woman who decides to take matters into her own hands and head down to the Amazon after her husband's Guyanacapac expedition; Dr. Livesey, her advisor, who, being aware that Lady Hastings is pregnant with child, tries to dissuade her from going, but to no avail; and of course, there's the titular one-legged character, Long John Silver himself, that timeless product of Robert Louis Stevenson's imagination from Treasure Island, a man grander than adventure itself, still living in this alternate universe, and ready to sail wild and distant oceans in order to gain long lost riches.

The colors and the artwork are grand and joyous, fluctuating from bright reds all the way to dark blacks, without ever giving us an unsatisfactory image.  This world that Lauffray and Dorison have created is full of nostalgia for fans of the classic Hollywood pirate movies of the 1930s and 40s.  Yet this particular Long John Silver epic is more about deception, greed and damnation as a result of moral corruption than it is about seamen wearing eyepatches and swashbuckling each other while hanging on chandeliers and such.  It is a sea faring, treasure seeking adventure for those who still long for such tales without ever leaving their couch.
A-

Nichols' "Midnight Special" is too mysterious and pretentious, lacks conviction

Part E.T., part Starman, but all a tale of run-and-pursuit involving a boy who may or may not be a supernatural creature from another dimension. Not many answers are given to us, mostly questions are raised, and the characters are mostly compassionate people who care for one another, but sadly, they don't seem to have an agenda worth giving a damn about. Michael Shannon is one of the most fascinating actors out there, and he has a face that can speak volumes, without ever having to say a word, but the climax of this movie, albeit confusing, just leaves us feeling... nothing, really. Jeff Nichols' last movie, Mud, is much closer to a masterpiece than this one is; heck, I'd even watch Take Shelter again before I'd sit through this again. It's almost too pretentious for its own good, which would be ok to some degree if it was emotional or engaging, but alas... it ain't. Bummer.
C+

"Black Mirror" is Batman's dark and twisted nightmare into the dark and depraved human mind

For someone who doesn't follow the Batman serial regularly, I was very surprised to find that the Batman in Black Mirror isn't actually Bruce Wayne.  Instead, it's Dick Grayson, the alter ego of the original Robin. In physical appearance and general build - and taking into consideration the slight nuances in different artists' style - Grayson doesn't really look much different from Wayne.  In fact, had they not specified early that it's him wearing the caped crusader's outfit, I would've believed him to be none other than the heir to Wayne enterprises.

Black Mirror is a relatively dark Batman tale.  It contains mad villains and hallucinatory drugs, brutal murders and even more horrific revelations.  Commissioner Gordon, that reliable and trustworthy Batman ally, practically shares the center stage here, and confronts the past and present of his somewhat psychopathic son, James.  James' childhood was marred by odd events during which some people around him were harmed in disturbing ways that his family could never quite understand.  With Batman's help, Gordon will, at along last, face his son, and try to confront the demon within him.  Through it all, Grayson will fight various foes, both internal and external, all the while realizing how heavy the cape really is of the justice moderator in Gotham's darkest alleys.

Artists Jock and Francesco Francavilla's Gotham in Black Mirror is dark, ominous, and always breathtaking to look at in all its different shades and various hues of red, black and green.  They create a world of the Dark Knight at once threatening and glorious: it's like an amusement park for psychopathic and homicidal children in adult bodies.  Writer Scott Snyder, who's written his share of dark and mysterious stories about deeply disturbed men (his one-shot serial killer tale Severed is a uniquely underrated gem), fuses many twisted villains into this story, such as Dealer, Roy Blount (a.k.a. Peter Pan Killer) and Roadrunner, to name just a few.  Black Mirror incorporates two-part and three-part episodes into its whole, and they are: Skeleton Cases, Lost Boys, Hungry City, My Dark Architect, Skeleton Key and The Face in the Glass.

Unlike previous Batman classics such as The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Arkham Asylum and The Haunted Knight, Black Mirror presents us with a different character in the caped crusader's place, but it never once disappoints by the absence of Bruce Wayne himself.  Dick Grayson may not be the original Dark Knight, but he is as dedicated and committed to fighting evil and upholding justice in Gotham that Wayne himself would be extremely proud of his protege.  Besides, I take comfort in knowing that there are now two men capable of instilling fear and panic into Gotham's criminals, just in case one of them feels like taking the night off once in a while.
B

"The Boss" is McCarthy at her meanest and sadly, unfunniest movie yet :(

A lousy comedy about an otherwise funny woman (Melissa McCarthy) who is just too mean and bitchy to be likable at all. The thing is, none of her abhorrent character traits would really matter if the movie was actually funny, but sadly, for the most part, it isn't. I laughed out loud maybe twice, but a 90 minute-plus running time should really grant its audience more entertainment than that. It also took me a while to realize this, but McCarthy's husband, Ben Falcone, is the director here, as he was with her last stinker, Tammy. If McCarthy wants to start making better movies, perhaps she should give the directing reigns to people who have experience with this genre, and not merely giving her husband a chance to prove just how little talent he possesses for the craft. We can only hope she will make a better directing choice for her next movie.
D+

"Descender: Vol 1 Tin Stars" is sci-fi at its most intelligent and daring

Tim-21 isn't your average boy.  For one, he is surprisingly intelligent, and capable of processing tons of information in mere seconds.  He is also very considerate, compassionate, and can empathize with those he cares about.  When he wakes up from a 10-year long sleep and realizes that everyone he knows is dead, he realizes that the world he's known is no longer that peaceful haven it once was.  Such are the growing pains of a young android robot.

In Descender Vol 1: Tin Stars, writer Jeff Lemire and illustrator Dustin Nguyen create an ominous and colorful futuristic world, brimming with technological advancements far removed from our own, and they at once capture our imagination and attention.  Evoking (and perhaps having somewhat been inspired by) such movies and TV series as A.I., Battlestar Galactica, 28 Weeks Later and even Prometheus, Descender intelligently presents us with a conflict between man and machine in a most fascinating way yet.  Tim-21 happens to have the same codex in his mechanically designed robot DNA as the mysterious alien robots who destroyed most of the Earth's population a decade earlier. With the aid of Doctor Jin Quon and the red headed Telsa (her hair is literally RED), Tim-21 will try to figure out the meaning of the aforementioned Harvester Attacks, and how he fits into it all.

Nguyen's artwork is murky, giving it a look of a faded time and place, and this style, something that often dooms other comics, works well here.  The countless bounty hunters and assassins, who roam the universal landscape in the world he and Lemire have created, looking for remaining androids and robots in order to capture and destroy them, are as ruthless and cold as any paid killers we've had in American comic landscape recently, and this includes Saga's The Will.  The journey of little Tim-21, kind of an updated and improved version of Pinocchio, will put him in the middle of a scuffle between his saviors - Quon and Telsa - and virtually everyone else who wants to see him exterminated.

Descender is everything that good comics should be: engaging, smart and visionary. Lemire's characters resemble real people rather than paper thin characters, and their quest feels like an honest, grand one.  If this first Trade Paperback is any indication, this should be a very interesting sci-fi epic to follow in the months and years to come.  Here's hoping the ideas and storylines remain just as fresh and fascinating as they have been so far.
A

"Pretty Deadly: Vol 1 The Shrike" is a mythical, mystic trip into the Wild West underworld

The blind man, Fox, is wise, or at least he seems to be.  Wearing a blindfold to cover his eyes, he goes from town to town, with a little girl, Sissy, who wears a vulture costume and has mismatching colored eyes (one is brown, the other blue), and he tells the story of Death and how He came to love, and even create an offspring.  The Wild West where these characters exist - an with what other creatures and beings they co-exist - is a mythical land of the fantastical and supernatural, even mystical, but also of the ultra-violent and brutal.  It is a place resembling nightmares rather than dreams, a setting even the Sandman himself might find a bit harsh to survive in.

Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick incorporates plenty of poetical, lyrical and even folklore elements into her fantasy Western.  Each episode/monthly issue begins with a conversation between two animals, one of which is a rabbit, living or dead, and often they end in a barrage of violence.  Artist Emma Rios' illustrations are colorful and even sexually graphic, but often confusing: it is sometimes hard to tell whether the characters she's drawing are fighting or dancing with each other.  When Death's daughter, Ginny, finally decides to take her vengeance against those she's been set on killing, the resulting climax is bound to leave readers scratching their heads, rather than getting any closure on everything they've read so far.

Pretty Deadly Vol 1: The Shrike is an ambitious comic, to be sure, but perhaps it is too full of its own grand ideas about life and death, about love and loss, to be much of an entertainment as a result.  It also suffers from murky and muddy artwork, which is unclear and confusing more often than not.  Its characters are stuff of legend rather than flesh and blood, and their quests are grand in scope and myth, leaving the impression of Shakespearean tragic heroes rather than heroines we can identify with.  I certainly will remember much of what I read and saw in this story for a long time to come.  The thing is, I may not want to read it again anytime soon.
C+