Shmee.Me

April 10, 2015April 10, 2015

Ride In An ATLAS!

Well I read another free book from Amazon, but this time it was a Sci-Fi space combat novel, so pretty much like every other book I read. The book in question was ATLAS by Isaac Hooke. I know every space combat novel steals from Starship Troopers, but this one even featured the Navy MOTHS (the guys that get to pilot the ATLAS mechs) fighting bugs (crabs attached to slugs to be more specific). Now if you are going to copy from a book, you may as well copy from the best, so at least once this book got going the action was good, but everything else was just okay.

I usually try and write three hundred words in my reviews, but I think the above paragraph was I all needed. It was an okay book about guys shooting stuff that I didn’t have to pay for thanks to the Amazon Lending Library. So if you have Amazon Prime and want a quick read, you could do worse, but you can also do a lot better.

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015

Shmee Takes A Trip With The Suicide Squad!

One of the more successful New 52 re-launches was the Suicide Squad. The Suicide Squad has been gaining a lot of fans lately with their involvement in the hit show Arrow, and the announcement of a big screen adaptation being led by Will Smith. That is all fine and dandy, but how is the new(ish) comic book? I have read volume one of the trade paper backs and it is pretty good!

For those of you that don’t know, the Suicide Squad is made up of a bunch of supervillains who are trying to work off their sentences by working for the Government. This team is ran by Amanda Waller, and headed up by Deadshot. Though the fan favorite of the group is no doubt Harley Quinn. The rest of the group rotates … or dies. The Suicide Squad name is no joke.

I love the action this book portrays. There is almost never a downbeat. While it is go go go all the time, they still manage to work in quite a bit of character development, so you do care about this rag-tag group. This book explores the strange and abusive relationship of Harley and the Joker, and the PTSD and family life (or lack their of) of Deadshot, and it is quite gripping.

What I didn’t like is that they thought they needed to make Amanda Waller and Harley sexier. Harley was always dressed to impress Mr. J, but now she just looks like an odd street walker, and Waller who was always known for being 300 pounds and not caring what she looked like is now some sort of business suit supermodel. Their characters still come through strong, but it is just a shame that DC thought these character redesigns where necessary, especially when Waller and Harley were fan favorites anyway.

I liked this book, and I will be reading more of the trade paper backs (unless a comic book store moves close to me so I can get monthlies). People have been hard on the New 52, but I have liked a lot of what I have read, I think a lot of people just don’t like change, and while it was mean of DC to just throw away decades worth of back story, the comics for what they are, are still pretty good.

April 8, 2015

Arrested Development Season 5 Coming Soon!

Well after two years of speculation it looks like they are getting ready to start filming Arrested Development season 5! Brain Grazer let the news slip on Bill Simmons’ podcast at SXSW. Not only that but it is going to be seventeen episodes long! That is two extra episodes! I can’t wait, sure season four had its flaws, but I am pretty sure they are all fixable, and the end of the season ended on a cliff hanger, so I need to know what happens to everyone.

There was no date given on when we should expect these episodes to show up, but if they already have them all written, it can’t be long now. Here is hoping we have more Arrested Development in early 2016!

April 7, 2015May 21, 2019

The Paladin loved that dog

John Wick. In the post-Matrix Keanu Reeves era it is perhaps his best film. The story is simple, man loses his wife, wife gives man a dog, punk kills dog, man cuts a swath of death and destruction across New York avenging his dog. The concept itself it pretty funny, but in the little time we have with the dog the directors, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, make you the audience actually love the dog too and you wouldn’t mind taking a baseball bat to the entitle Iosef (Alfie Allen).

More than the excellently scripted fight scenes, dialog that plays to Keanu “Whoa!” Reeve’s strengths, and a plethora of exceptional character actors from Ian McShane to John Leguizamo, the thing that really stood out to me was the style and weight to the world this movie was taking place in. The Continental is this world within a world, a hotel and club for hitmen and assassins with its own rules and currency. You get a sense of John Wick’s deep history in this world as he walks the halls so easily, yet he feels very foreign because he doesn’t really want to be there.

For a brief time John Wick was 100% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes (it eventually settled at 83%) which should tell you this movie is something special. It’s the revenge movie with heart, style, and substance that doesn’t come around very often. If you missed it in the theaters, like a lot of people did, you can rent it on Amazon or pick it up at a RedBox and join me in my morning for the dog.

Why? Why the dog?!

April 6, 2015April 6, 2015

iZombie Is The CW’s Other Comic Book Show!

iZombie, the CW’s new show loosely based off the Vertigo comic book of the same name, has been on the air for a few weeks, and I have been remiss in my duties by not telling you if you should be watching it or not. Though after watching the first couple of episodes, I am not sure if I can answer that for you. The cast is good, and it is definitely charming, but it is still feeling a little too much like a standard police procedural.

The show follows Olivia (Rose McIver) who was once a promising young physician, but after being turned in to a zombie has taken a job as a mortician so she will have constant access to her new favorite treat, brains. Something interesting happens when she eats a person’s brain, she can see parts of their memories, and use some of their abilities. Like for instance speak a foreign language that the deceased used to know. This ability has made her quite useful to the local police.

The writers have set the show up well, and they have made the cast believable, but it still kind of seems like just another cop show. A show about an undead crime solving mortician should be anything but ordinary. Though it is still in the early going, so the show may still be finding its footing. I will give the writers a few more chances to make this world a little more fun.

The cast is pretty good. Rose McIver makes Olivia “Liv” quite charming, and you really feel for her unfortunate fate. Her medical examiner buddy Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti played by Rahul Kohli keeps the show from getting too heavy, and he provides a good deal of the humor. Malcolm Goodwin’s Clive Babinaux a Seattle police detective that is bad at his job is less interesting, but maybe the show will turn him around.

I want to like this show, and it has moments I think it is going to escape its procedural trappings, but so far it hasn’t. I am still willing to give it more time because I think the premise could be a lot of fun, but we will see if the CW is willing to deal with the low ratings long enough for it to find itself, or if iZombie will shamble off the air. For now I think it is still worth a watch, just to see if you like the concept. There are definitely worse things on TV.