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matt_zimmerAlso a review for the latest episode of American Dad! and the comic book miniseries N..
Futurama "All The Way Down"
Immediately after the worst episode of the revival, we are granted the best.
And I can't overstate how good it is. It raised a lot of interesting points about the characters' existence, as well as their reality, as long as things like power outages (and Fox cancelations) hang over their heads. And yes, the simulation being threatened by being shut down repeatedly is a perfect metaphor for the cancelations.
It's Benders all the way down. I was a little bit impressed that Bender woke up with the solution with no explanation. That struck me as one of those plot points the series used to seed in the earlier episodes that they would pay off in a later one. It suggests to me that THAT Bender will later on be revealed to have been from a Universe even FURTHER up and theirs actually IS a simulation. The show literally stopped doing seeded foreshadowing from the Comedy Central episodes on. Is this the first example of them going back to longterm planning?
The opening cartoon being a game of Pong is brilliant.
Leela had the best insight over the characters wanting to learn the truth. She wants to know if they AREN'T living in a simulation. But she doesn't want to know if they ARE. That's brilliant and deep in a way the series hasn't been in years. The Direct To Video movies had a bit of that (at least Bender's Big Score did) but really huge, wonderful sci-fi ideas dealing with truthful human psychology are another thing the series stepped away from from Comedy Central onwards.
Fry and Leela affirming their love is a way for the episode to take the stand that fictional love can just be as powerful and real as real-world love. It all comes from the hearts and minds of the writers, doesn't it? A.I. hasn't taken THAT away from us just yet. Also an ironically cool allegory for the importance of the Writer's Guild and what they are fighting to be recognized for.
I have not enjoyed an episode of Futurama this much in years. I think the highest compliment I can give it is it's not just an example of great metafiction. It uses that as a sly jumping-off point for great SCIENCE FICTION. And the show deserves all the praise in the world for it.
Last week totally lost me. This week entirely won me back. What a rollercoaster. *****.
American Dad! "Productive Panic"
Bill Watterson once used Calvin to opine that the secret of modern art is figuring out who is putting on who. Clearly, as seen here, he was right. It's all a huge con. Involving dumb people.
No Toshi? Weird.
Also who is Buckle's new ladyfriend? Did he finally get out from under Shari?
Jeff and Barry's project is a WEIRD callback.
Always fun to see more Morning Mimosa.
Funny week. But bizarre. ***1/2.
N. 1 (Marvel Comics)
This comic book adaptation of Stephen King's frightening short story from "Just After Sunset" is weirdly better than the original story. I didn't see the "Mobisode" adaptation, but it's my understanding the comic covers stuff not seen in either. The prologue for instance, which is way cool, and raises a buncha questions.
King Connections: Chester's Mill from "Under The Dome".
The artwork by Alex Maleev is purely gorgeous. The people look like real people. This is what modern comic books look like? Holy cow, am I humbled.
Writer Marc Guggenheim counts the number of words in his afterword to make sure they are a big round number. Clever.
Great stuff. ****.
N. 2 (Marvel Comics)
The art is so photorealistic it's freaking me out.
We finally get N's real name (Nathan Nance) and the prologue with Norma Acker gives us a LOT of needed context too. That's estate lawyer's note at the beginning struck me as just about the most coldblooded thing I ever did read. Maybe Shakespeare's suggestion about what to do with all the lawyers was actually onto something.
This is unsettling in a way none of the other comics based on King's stuff is. I believe it is the BEST comic book adaptation of his work as well. ****1/2.
N. 3 (Marvel Comics)
Bonsaint fighting the urge to look back... and losing, very much reminds me of the Biblical story of Lot's Wife. It's temptation that leads to our damnation, even if the temptation is of a mundane, insignificant thing. And speaking as someone who suffers from OCD myself, I recognized the disorder entirely through that parable. King isn't just channeling "The Great God Pan". All throughout mythology there have been parables and fables of someone being tempted to look back causing their ruin, and what else would you call the temptation of a mundane action for no reward other than an obsessive-compulsive ritual?
I wonder how deep King thought about this when writing the story, or if he understood he didn't just tap into dark forces here. He tapped into great psychology. Which I find notable and rare because King's previous takes on psychiatry were almost always biased negatively. King has a strong fear and mistrust of head shrinkers that's made certain elements of his work more unpleasant than it would be than someone who didn't seem opposed to the idea for most of his career.
Yes, in this story King's psychiatrist Bonsaint is a failure. But as N's daughter notes, he tried. And was damned for having tried and winds up later cursing N's name via misspelled diary entries.
I love the part of his counting the number of words in each journal entry, and I loved that in the short story too. King obviously did a TON of research on OCD to understand how mundane many of our rituals actually are. I never suffered from THAT one, but I've done stuff as equally pointless (if not quite so detail-oriented). Folks with OCD are often good at math for this reason. I'm not, and after reading this, I consider that a blessing.
King's short story was already pretty amazing. But the comic is so great because it clearly lays out to the reader how and WHY it is so with context we were not allowed in the original story. I disagree with the notion that it is impossible for an adaptation to improve on the source material. Strongly. But with perhaps the exception of "Stand By Me" being better than the overrated "The Body" (which I haven't seen in a long time so I could be wrong), both miniseries and movie versions of "IT" (which barely count in my mind since "IT" was a terrible book to begin with), and hell, "Silver Bullet" (I'll give the movie that one over "Cycle Of The Werewolf" unconditionally, but it WAS also written by King), there aren't a ton of King adaptations better than King's books. Certainly this is the only comic book adaptation that is. It's pretty amazing. *****.
N. 4 (Marvel Comics)
This is the only issue with a parental advisory and it deserves it.
The end of the novel is ambiguous and makes the reader uncomfortably fear the worst. The end of the comic goes a bit beyond its timeframe and confirms the worst DID happen. And yet, as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean the danger has passed, or that the damage has finished / been entirely contained. The shocking horrible ending is the worst case scenario. But it might not be over. Seriously. How does Charlie picture the police crime scene is gonna wind up? Possibly didn't think that all the way through.
I have taken shots at a LOT of fiction whenever a mass shooting is portrayed. It's not entertaining, and spoils whatever enjoyment I had been having in a given movie or TV show. For some reason, the horror of the scene in comic book form isn't necessarily lessened, but it's tolerable. And maybe even more frightening in some respects because a bit of it is left up to my imagination. But I have nothing but good things to say about this specific horrible ending.
Best King comic book adaptation ever. What a shocker. *****.
Futurama "All The Way Down"
Immediately after the worst episode of the revival, we are granted the best.
And I can't overstate how good it is. It raised a lot of interesting points about the characters' existence, as well as their reality, as long as things like power outages (and Fox cancelations) hang over their heads. And yes, the simulation being threatened by being shut down repeatedly is a perfect metaphor for the cancelations.
It's Benders all the way down. I was a little bit impressed that Bender woke up with the solution with no explanation. That struck me as one of those plot points the series used to seed in the earlier episodes that they would pay off in a later one. It suggests to me that THAT Bender will later on be revealed to have been from a Universe even FURTHER up and theirs actually IS a simulation. The show literally stopped doing seeded foreshadowing from the Comedy Central episodes on. Is this the first example of them going back to longterm planning?
The opening cartoon being a game of Pong is brilliant.
Leela had the best insight over the characters wanting to learn the truth. She wants to know if they AREN'T living in a simulation. But she doesn't want to know if they ARE. That's brilliant and deep in a way the series hasn't been in years. The Direct To Video movies had a bit of that (at least Bender's Big Score did) but really huge, wonderful sci-fi ideas dealing with truthful human psychology are another thing the series stepped away from from Comedy Central onwards.
Fry and Leela affirming their love is a way for the episode to take the stand that fictional love can just be as powerful and real as real-world love. It all comes from the hearts and minds of the writers, doesn't it? A.I. hasn't taken THAT away from us just yet. Also an ironically cool allegory for the importance of the Writer's Guild and what they are fighting to be recognized for.
I have not enjoyed an episode of Futurama this much in years. I think the highest compliment I can give it is it's not just an example of great metafiction. It uses that as a sly jumping-off point for great SCIENCE FICTION. And the show deserves all the praise in the world for it.
Last week totally lost me. This week entirely won me back. What a rollercoaster. *****.
American Dad! "Productive Panic"
Bill Watterson once used Calvin to opine that the secret of modern art is figuring out who is putting on who. Clearly, as seen here, he was right. It's all a huge con. Involving dumb people.
No Toshi? Weird.
Also who is Buckle's new ladyfriend? Did he finally get out from under Shari?
Jeff and Barry's project is a WEIRD callback.
Always fun to see more Morning Mimosa.
Funny week. But bizarre. ***1/2.
N. 1 (Marvel Comics)
This comic book adaptation of Stephen King's frightening short story from "Just After Sunset" is weirdly better than the original story. I didn't see the "Mobisode" adaptation, but it's my understanding the comic covers stuff not seen in either. The prologue for instance, which is way cool, and raises a buncha questions.
King Connections: Chester's Mill from "Under The Dome".
The artwork by Alex Maleev is purely gorgeous. The people look like real people. This is what modern comic books look like? Holy cow, am I humbled.
Writer Marc Guggenheim counts the number of words in his afterword to make sure they are a big round number. Clever.
Great stuff. ****.
N. 2 (Marvel Comics)
The art is so photorealistic it's freaking me out.
We finally get N's real name (Nathan Nance) and the prologue with Norma Acker gives us a LOT of needed context too. That's estate lawyer's note at the beginning struck me as just about the most coldblooded thing I ever did read. Maybe Shakespeare's suggestion about what to do with all the lawyers was actually onto something.
This is unsettling in a way none of the other comics based on King's stuff is. I believe it is the BEST comic book adaptation of his work as well. ****1/2.
N. 3 (Marvel Comics)
Bonsaint fighting the urge to look back... and losing, very much reminds me of the Biblical story of Lot's Wife. It's temptation that leads to our damnation, even if the temptation is of a mundane, insignificant thing. And speaking as someone who suffers from OCD myself, I recognized the disorder entirely through that parable. King isn't just channeling "The Great God Pan". All throughout mythology there have been parables and fables of someone being tempted to look back causing their ruin, and what else would you call the temptation of a mundane action for no reward other than an obsessive-compulsive ritual?
I wonder how deep King thought about this when writing the story, or if he understood he didn't just tap into dark forces here. He tapped into great psychology. Which I find notable and rare because King's previous takes on psychiatry were almost always biased negatively. King has a strong fear and mistrust of head shrinkers that's made certain elements of his work more unpleasant than it would be than someone who didn't seem opposed to the idea for most of his career.
Yes, in this story King's psychiatrist Bonsaint is a failure. But as N's daughter notes, he tried. And was damned for having tried and winds up later cursing N's name via misspelled diary entries.
I love the part of his counting the number of words in each journal entry, and I loved that in the short story too. King obviously did a TON of research on OCD to understand how mundane many of our rituals actually are. I never suffered from THAT one, but I've done stuff as equally pointless (if not quite so detail-oriented). Folks with OCD are often good at math for this reason. I'm not, and after reading this, I consider that a blessing.
King's short story was already pretty amazing. But the comic is so great because it clearly lays out to the reader how and WHY it is so with context we were not allowed in the original story. I disagree with the notion that it is impossible for an adaptation to improve on the source material. Strongly. But with perhaps the exception of "Stand By Me" being better than the overrated "The Body" (which I haven't seen in a long time so I could be wrong), both miniseries and movie versions of "IT" (which barely count in my mind since "IT" was a terrible book to begin with), and hell, "Silver Bullet" (I'll give the movie that one over "Cycle Of The Werewolf" unconditionally, but it WAS also written by King), there aren't a ton of King adaptations better than King's books. Certainly this is the only comic book adaptation that is. It's pretty amazing. *****.
N. 4 (Marvel Comics)
This is the only issue with a parental advisory and it deserves it.
The end of the novel is ambiguous and makes the reader uncomfortably fear the worst. The end of the comic goes a bit beyond its timeframe and confirms the worst DID happen. And yet, as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't mean the danger has passed, or that the damage has finished / been entirely contained. The shocking horrible ending is the worst case scenario. But it might not be over. Seriously. How does Charlie picture the police crime scene is gonna wind up? Possibly didn't think that all the way through.
I have taken shots at a LOT of fiction whenever a mass shooting is portrayed. It's not entertaining, and spoils whatever enjoyment I had been having in a given movie or TV show. For some reason, the horror of the scene in comic book form isn't necessarily lessened, but it's tolerable. And maybe even more frightening in some respects because a bit of it is left up to my imagination. But I have nothing but good things to say about this specific horrible ending.
Best King comic book adaptation ever. What a shocker. *****.
