Book Review: Norse Mythology

Here was everything I knew about Norse Mythology last month in a nutshell.

You've got Thor and Loki and Ordin... (mostly gleaned from The Mighty Thor comic from Marvel), Odin is the dad, Thor and Loki are brothers, and although Thor isn't that bright, he's pretty straightforward, and although Loki is pretty much a big liar, every once in a while he does something good.

There are Ice Giants (again, Marvel Comics)

There's a terrifying Squirrel (shown best in the comic series The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl - also a Marvel comic)...

J.R.R. Tolkein used a bunch of Norse Mythology when creating Middle Earth.

....and, yup.  That's about it.

So when I read Neil Gaiman's latest, Norse Mythology, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.  What I got was a pretty nifty overview of the topic, from creation myths straight through to Ragnarok - the end of times for the Norse gods.

The stories are all quite readable, a lot of fun, and educational in a way I wasn't expecting.  It definitely left me interested in finding out more, which for a book of this type, is pretty much the goal.

A great read!

Things I've Noticed: The Avengers is pretty awesome

I took the day off today to hang out with my wife, get a couple doctors appointments out of the way and finally check out The Avengers in theatres.


For the three of you who haven't got around to seeing it yet - go for it!  The movie was a lot of fun, filled with both humour and action, and if you've taken the time in the last few years to see the Iron Man, Thor, Captain America or Hulk films, this is the payoff.


We saw the film in 2D, and honestly, I prefer the brightness you get there as compared to the dimmer colours that come with the "benefit" of 3D (also I have pretty bad eyes so all I get from 3D is a bad head-ache).


Over the years I've read a bunch of Marvel comics, but have to admit that I don't actually know the identity of the character in the end bit, but even without that knowledge, we had a great time.


So there you go - like with pretty much everyone else, I found the film to be a lot of fun, and will probably add it to my collection when it hits DVD.

Things I've Noticed: Budgetting for Summer 2012 is tricky

So here we are at the beginning of the 2012 Summer Blockbuster season, a day before The Avengers opens (and hopefully will not be considered this years Green Lantern - btw, for anyone who decided to start watching genre movies with that one, I humbly apologize) and I'm thinking exactly what we all are...


How best can I work my entertainment budget this summer?


Yup - as  parent/blogger/video-game enthusiast/reader/film buff/couch potato/Grad Student/husband, I simply cannot see every movie/book/game that comes my way.  In fact, as grad school is pretty pricy I have to cut down from the nearly ten movies I saw last year from Thor to Fright Night.  


I think I'm going to try and get down to four movie theatre trips this blockbuster season.


Yup.  Four.


That doesn't mean I won't see more than four, it does mean (B-Day movies with kids immediately comes to mind, or my BFF Mike dragging me to see Men In Black III, quietly hoping I'll forget the irreparable harm that MIB II did to me, and that I've held him responsible ever since).  It mostly just means that most of these movies will have to wait for DVD for me to check them out.


Which four do you ask?  That's actually a kind of tricky question... Tell you what I'll get back to you next week with my finalists.


Good news for my TV watching followers however, this summer is looking up for my TV-on-DVD viewing.  After enjoying The Wire with my wife last summer, I'm thinking I'm going to give a try to The Shield this summer.

Things I've Noticed: 2011 was a good year for genre

Happy New Years Everyone (a little early, but my next post would be a little late).

As we move towards the end of 2011, rather than looking forward to the new genre films and stories of 2012, I want to take a quick moment and look back at my favourite stuff from 2011.

In Fantasy, 2011 was definitely the year of Game of Thrones, from those with the cash to get HBO I heard a lot of great things about the series, but I'll have to wait until it's available on DVD to make a judgement of my own. Personally I'll always think of 2011 Fantasy as the year of Thor, whether in the comic series I read in the spring, or in the motion picture. In addition, a special mention for Bill Willingham's Peter & Max, a tie-in novel to his comic book series Fables which I loved, and surprisingly a nod to the Gallager Pub trilogy of romance novels by Nora Roberts that I read for one of my book clubs (romance is definitely not a genre of choice for me) and totally fell in love with.

In Horror, 2011 was my year to understand the remimagining of slasher films that has kept horror in the cinema for the last decade. Looking at the books I most enjoyed, Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash, and a number of non-fiction works about the genre definitely stood out, and in movies my favourite two were both horror comedies, Fright Night and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.

Finally in Science Fiction I found a lot in comic book series that totally amazed me; Starman by James Robinson may perhaps sit as my favourite superhero comic to date, and a series I just started in December Elephantmen by Richard Starkings was a stand out as a wonderfully drawn and intriguing look at a future in which human-animal hybrids are raised to be warriors. Although they came out earlier, 2011 was the year I read The Hunger Games series and out of new stories, Stephen King's 11/22/63 was a personal favourite as well. Also Dead Space gives me hopes for the sub-genre of Zombies in Space.

So there you go, my 2011 in genre stories, television and film. Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog and I'll see you all next year.

Bookmonkey

Movie Review: Thor

So my family just got back from taking my wife out to her Mother's Day film pic - Thor, directed by Kenneth Brannagh.

First of all, let me state that my wife is pretty awesome for wanting to go see this movie, although to be fair I'm sure it was for the eye candy more than it was to see the Mighty Thor in action.

The movie itself was a lot of fun, think of a lot of high action and drama - like a soap opera of the Gods mixed with some good old fashion fight sequences. I was also impressed by all of the fish-out-of-water humour reflecting Thor's interaction with regular folk on Earth.

I was also pretty happy with the cameo by an upcoming Avenger and thought the music (by Patrick Doyle) was outstanding. In the end the film was well-acted (especially by Chris Hemsworth as the lead), had a nice story and was a lot of fun. Also it used many ideas and concepts I enjoyed in both the Simonson and Straczynski (who co-wrote the story) runs.

I heartily recommend it.

Book Review: Thor by J. Michael Straczynski

As we are getting closer to summer movie season, I'm continuing my prep-work on movies I'd like to see. Basically my thinking goes like this - if I take the time to read whatever book the story was originally adapted from, I am a little more justified in paying theatre costs to see the movie when it first comes out, rather than having to wait for it to be released on DVD.

Case in point - Thor. Last month I read my local library's entire collection of the Walter Simonson run from the '80s - to be clear, this wasn't the entire run, just what my library had (volumes 1-3 of 5), remember the point is that I invest time, not $$$ into research to justify to myself whether or not I should see something in theatres.

Anyway, this month I read my library's collection of the J. Michael Straczynski run on Thor (and yes, this was the entire run).

So here we go - a quick caveat: my only background is the various trailers for the new film, the first three volumes of the Walter Simonson run, and whatever I gleaned from that little Thor-crazed kid in Adventures in Babysitting.

Apparently sometime between the Simonson run and now (Straczynski's storyline was published from July 2007 to November 2009) Thor has died, also there was some sort of Civil War between Super heroes - I actually tried to understand what the heck was going on with Civil War as I was reading Peter David's Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man at the time and the only thing this massive plot seemed to do was wreck the story line I was currently interested in.

Back to Thor: after having a chat with his past alter-ego, Dr. Donald Blake (who disappeared during the Simonson run), Thor returns to an Asgard-less earth and goes about re-creating his godlike home in the middle of the Oklahoma plains. This gives us a lot of culture-clash story lines as the good folks who already live there begin to make nice with the new neighbours Thor keeps showing up with (Thor is magically restoring the other Asgardians around the globe). The early issues include a quick denouncement of the Civil War storyline (Thor beats up a much-deserving Tony Stark) and a wonderful romantic sub-plot involving an Asgardian and a short-order cook named Bill.

These comics were a lot of fun, and although I have very little context for them, I felt the story moved at a nice pace and kept me interested. The artwork, by the way, was fantastic across the board, this was some of the most incredible comic art I've seen this year (the only better I can think of is the stuff in Batwoman: Elegy).

If you have time to check these issues out, definitely go for it. The series was a lot of fun and continues to get me excited for the upcoming film.

Bookmonkey's Top 5 Films to see in Summer 2011

Superheroes. This summer sure can’t seem to get enough of them and I’ve got to admit I’m feeling in the mood for some super-heroic films myself, hopefully I’ll try not to limit myself to only one sub-genre, but let’s see what’s coming out.

As with previous lists I’m trying to avoid listing the films I’ll probably see due to my kids, like the final Harry Potter Film or possibly Spy Kids 4 (oh, who am I kidding, I’m a big Robert Rodriguez fan at heart) or my BFF Mike (I think if I skipped Green Lantern it may irreparably damage our friendship) or the ones I’ll see but only if they are playing nearby (like August’s Don’t be afraid of the Dark, co-written and produced by Guillermo Del Toro).

Here they are, in order of release, my top five must list for theatre viewing this summer:

Thor: Here’s the thing about Thor, I started out wanting to see this movie simply because it’s directed by Kenneth Brannagh. Then I actually checked out some Thor comics (the ‘80s stuff by Simonson and the more recent run by Straczynski), and you know what, this movie just looks really fun. I’m hoping I won’t have to eat my words in a couple weeks, but for right now, I’m really excited about this movie.

Super 8: After seeing the first actual trailer, this movie looks like a nice throw-back to Close Encounters, but made by the guy who did the recent Star Trek reboot I liked so much. It looks like exactly the kind of alien-related fun I’m into.

X-Men: First Class: Here’s the thing, I just spent my last few months watching The Avengers, and one of the things that The Avengers helped influence was the Hellfire Club and specifically Emma Frost in the X-Men universe, both things that are going to be in the next film, add to that the movie has Nicolas Hoult, who I liked a lot in About a Boy and was really impressed by in Skins, and you’ve got a movie I’m going to be checking out.

Captain America: The First Avenger: I love the idea of setting a superhero movie in the Second World War. One of my favourite sub-genres of speculative fiction is alternate histories, so the idea of adding superheroes to a war movie seems like a really great cross-genre idea for me.

Fright Night: I loved the original of this, and in a way that makes me both excited and in fear for how this movie is going to go down. The original was both funny and scary, and the fact that this film will have previous Doctor Who David Tennant in it (doing the Roddy McDowall role from the original) has got me pretty intrigued into what this film will end up looking like.

Genre Character of the Week: Thor

Okay Okay, I’ll admit it, I was just talking about Thor last week and as that was the case what on Earth can I say about the guy less than a week later? Well let me tell you.

First of all – having now read the second Thor Visionaries collection, I’m beginning to feel that Thor is more a romance than an action story. Thor #357 ends with the Asgardian God being bewitched by a love potion used on him by an enchantress, and then one of my favourite teasers for the next issue I’ve come across in comics:

Is THOR becoming a ROMANCE COMIC? Has Marvel’s fabulous rock-em, sock-em book denigrated into nothing more than puerile SOAP OPERA? Will kissing become the rule rather than the exception? Is nothing sacred? Don’t hold your breath!! And don’t miss our next issue! => When Dalliance Was in Flower

Here’s the thing about Thor – the guy is a romantic at heart, he loves humans (and not as playthings) and he is as close to an innocent as I’ve come across in super-hero comics. The guy seems pretty willing to understand virtually anyone’s story, and although this makes him gullible more than a few times, his faith in humanity is kind of heart warming. Plus the guy has a pretty incredible code of ethics – more than once he lays his life on the line as a moral decision, rather than out of desperation because, you guessed it, it’s the right thing to do.

Seriously, as a hero, this guy is pretty old school, and that’s awesome.

Thing's Ive Notived: Thor circa 1983 is pretty awesome

So the movie Thor is coming out in a couple months and as I'm a guy who likes to do a little background research I decided to read some Thor comics. Rather than starting with the Stan Lee stuff from the '60s however, I decided to start with Walter Simonson's run which began in 1983 (Also it was one of the only Thor comics my library had).

Here's what I knew about Thor before cracking the cover 1) The guy is a god, 2) He has a magic hammer, 3) That little girl in Adventures in Babysitting loved him.

Three pages in and here's what I knew. 1) Thor has (had) an alter-ego named Donald Blake, 2) When Blake struck his cane against the ground he became Thor, 3) Nick Fury didn't always look like Samuel L. Jackson, 4) Nick Fury has a flying car 4) Nick Fury has a giant Floating Aircraft Carrier 5) ALIENS ARE ATTACKING!!! Here's the thing about these first 11 issues of Thor - stuff is happening all over the place, from Alien ivaders to demon invasions and even a fight with Faeries.

Thor seems to cross over into every genre possible and kicks butt wherever he goes. Simonson follows multiple characters (Thor, Odin, Loki, Beta Ray Bill, Baldur, Lorelai, etc.) to create a very dense storyline and by switching back and forth between these characters plotlines you get non-stop character development and cliffhangers. I've still got a couple Simonson collections to go, and my library does have the J. Michael Straczynski run as well, but I've got to say if the film has anything like the Simonson stuff I'm reading, it will be pretty awesome.