I just re-signed up after 1.5 years of being off. If y'all are on there, you can add me. I'm on as ringwood comics at gmail dot com.

Labels: PSA

I make my picks for the upcoming Oscars, and announce the OSCAR OSCAR REVOLUTION Giveaway, complete with fabulous prizes.

Inquire within.

Labels: radio free id

Discussing the animated sequence in Kill Bill Volume 1, Roger Ebert said “The animated sequence, which gets us to Tokyo and supplies the backstory of O-Ren, is sneaky in the way it allows Tarantino to deal with material that might, in live action, seem too real for his stylized universe. [...] The scene works in animated long shot; in live action closeup, it would get the movie an NC-17.” His point is well-received in Persepolis, an animated film about an Iranian girl’s formative years spent in revolutionary Iran, then throughout western Europe, then eventual return from exile. On a surface level the style of animation is cartoonish and even childlike, not the mode in which you might suspect Serious Business could be conducted. The movie uses these expectations well, like a trojan horse. Almost before you’re aware of it, what seems like a perceptive if light coming-of-age tale takes on tremendous power. You may find yourself crying, and wondering why.

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Labels: movies

With U2 3D, one gets the feeling that someone somewhere has finally figured out what that technology brings to the table that no one else’s does. You may have been to a concert before. You may even have been to a U2 concert before. But, short of being a band member, you have never seen a U2 concert like this before – not even if you saw Rattle and Hum, which when paired with this would be an instructive lesson in what the 90’s, and middle age, did to U2… and what U2 did to them.

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Labels: movies

I spelunk the depths of the IMDB message boards to see if there's anything of value to be found.


There's not.

Labels: movies, radio free id, redirection

A lot of comics (and movies, and books) try to capture the sensibility of Los Angeles. There’s the sprawl, the disconnect from one place to another, the endless, relentless sun, but there’s more, too: the psychology of LA is that of a place built on image, which is not quite the same thing as superficiality. There’s depth to be found in the world of image manipulation.

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Labels: comics, popsyn

So what do you do if you need a lot of money very soon and no one will hire you because of your criminal record? How about when your only help is a friend so dense he may actually be functionally retarded? Maybe you’re out of ideas until you stumble into a ghetto church on first Sunday, a church in the midst of a successful capital campaign. And maybe the idea lands in your lap, as if by Divine Providence: Rob the church.

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Labels: movies

CGI special effects, Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, and more, at the other site.

Labels: movies, redirection

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of demand for space stories anymore. What was “the final frontier” a scant 40 years ago is now an afterthought in the mind of pop culture. Now, certainly, there are a lot of stories about being in space, or that use space travel as a metaphor for something else, but the unadulterated wonder at the very idea of breaking free of the Earth’s pull to see what lays beyond… that storytelling tradition, brief as it may have been in the grand scheme of things, is mostly gone. These days, to find anything of that sort in comics, you have to turn to a Warren Ellis or a Larry Young. Astronaut Dad, published by Silent Devil Inc., brings writer David Hopkins and artist Brent Schoonover into their ranks.

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Labels: comics, popsyn

The 11 Best Movies of 2007.

Labels: movies, redirection