Shmee.Me

April 14, 2015April 14, 2015

Aquaman Gets The Comic Book He Deserves

For one reason or another Aquaman has always been thought of as a joke. I guess it has something to do with his water based powers, or maybe it was his terrible representation in the old Super Friends cartoon, but whatever the case besides being able to control fish, he is super strong, can jump long distances, and has a weapon that can pretty much destroy anything. Despite all this people still look down on him, and that is what Geoff Johns and crew address in Aquaman’s New 52 re-launch. Even as a fan of Green Lantern, I have to say Aquaman may be Johns’ best work.

In this book Aquaman (Arthur Curry) has given up ruling the sea kingdom of Atlantis, and he and Mera (don’t call her Aquawoman) decide to instead protect the coastline from harm. The humans in the area misunderstand him, and they think of him as a looser in the superhero community even though he is regularly saving their lives. He is constantly the butt of their jokes. While this gets on Mera’s nerves, Aquaman does his best to let it go and still do what is right.

I love that Aquaman continues to be a hero even though people don’t really like him that much. It is easy to rescue people when they love you, but to save them even though they mock you is another thing entirely. It was smart of Johns to bring that real world aspect in to the book. It just makes Aquaman that much more relatable. Here he is saving the day, but people are still not giving him the respect he deserves. I think we all feel that way sometimes, and I hope that we deal with it as well as Arthur Curry.

I have heard that Aquaman was the best New 52 comic book, and after reading the first trade paper back I can see why. It looks great, and it tells a great story about an underappreciated hero. I hope that he is given the respect he deserves in the upcoming Justice League movies, so that he will thought of as more than just the guy that can talk to fish in the future.

April 13, 2015April 13, 2015

The True Cost Of Going Clear!

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the HBO documentary Going Clear by Alex Gibney. It is based off the book with the same title by Lawrence Wright. I have watched quite a few horror films in my day, but this documentary about a “religion” truly terrified me. There is a reason it is one of 2015’s must watch films.

The film presents a brief outline of how Scientology came in to existence, and some background info about its founder L. Ron Hubbard, but the real meaty parts of this film are the first hand accounts of its former members. Their descriptions of abuse and harassment are gripping and horrifying. It is hard to believe that these people didn’t leave earlier, but it seems once the church has its grips in you it is hard to get out.

I used to think that Scientology was simply full of harmless weirdoes, but now I know that it is large and dangerous organization that wants to exploit it members for every penny they have, and if they put up any resistance, they are abused and harassed in to submission. Meanwhile they keep a few key celebrities very happy, so they can put an attractive front on the church. That way outside people don’t dig too deep, they just see Tom Cruise. It should be mentioned that the Church of Scientology refutes all this, but it kind of has to.

Now I have to give Alex Gibney a lot of credit, if this movie was purely an information dump it wouldn’t be as good, so his direction keeps this film moving humming along. It doesn’t drag at all, and that is hard to pull off for a documentary. Though I am sure that his job was made easier with all the research done by Lawrence Wright. Wright says in the film that he did not start looking in to Scientology to do an exposé at first, but that he just wanted to see what Scientology was all about. Once he started to hear the stories and find the truth, he was just blown away.

I don’t watch a lot of documentaries, but movies like Going Clear remind that I should. The good ones inform and entertain like no other medium can. I hope this film can loosen the grip that Scientology has on it members, so they can get out of the church’s exploitive system. Going Clear should be on your short list of films to watch this year.

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!