Let's beat these fools!

Out today on DVD --

-- 'nuff said!

But I feel like I am possibly one step further along in the process.

Rex Mundi is a cool series of graphic novels. From Wikipedia:

The series is a quest for the Holy Grail told as a murder mystery. It is set in the year 1933, in an alternate history Europe, where magic is real, feudalism persisted, and the Protestant Reformation was crushed by a still politically powerful Roman Catholic Church.

Enough said!

I love this show. And I can't wait for the final season.

Bryan Talbot is one of my favorite authors and illustrators, and he is considered to be one of the leading figures in the British comics scene. His graphic novel The Tale of One Bad Rat is perhaps the best place to start, though the subject matter is quite heavy, dealing with sexual abuse. The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is a challenging read, but it is generally credited as being the first British graphic novel. Its sequel, Heart of Empire, is a far superior read, combining the intricate storytelling of One Bad Rat with the sprawling nature of Arkwright.

His masterpiece, though, is Alice in Sunderland. An enormous work, it combines every medium available to create something that mixes history, sociology, mystery, narrative, and the absurd. It is, by far, the greatest achivement in comics that I have seen.

Mr. Talbot's newest book, Grandville, was released this past Tuesday. Check 'em out.

College football starts tomorrow, and the Texas Longhorns have their first game this Saturday night against the University of Louisiana-Monroe. Expectations are extremely high this year, so we'll see what happens. I can't wait to watch the game. Hopefully, Colt McCoy and the gang can get it done this year.

Hook 'em!

. . . was good. Ignore what you might have heard -- this is not 'Jewish revenge porn'. The critics who have suggested as much have, in my (ahem) humble opinion, missed the point.

New Transatlantic, out October 27th.

*excited*

At the top of my list of "Favorite Recent Television Shows That Were Cancelled Way Too Soon" are only two shows. One is the brilliant Arrested Development, which ran for three seasons and will now continue on in a movie.

The other is Pushing Daisies. Bryan Fuller's third series (following Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me) is a hilarious, ironic, and very clever comedy. Amazon.com's Kira Canny says,

"Pushing Daisies is many things at once: detective show, romantic comedy, whimsical fantasy and above all, a story about a guy who bakes pies and has the ability to bring dead people back to life. Somehow all of these things come together to make one of the most enjoyable, funny and bittersweet shows to come along in a long time."

It was cancelled after only two seasons, but apparently will live on in a 12-issue comic book.

The second season comes out on DVD and BluRay today.

This Friday, I'm heading to Topsail Beach, North Carolina with Anne and her family. We're driving, so I'll get to see parts of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina as well, states I've never seen. I can't wait to go, but I've got so much to do before then -- it seems like a really far way off. Also, I've been nasty sick for the last week or so, but I think I'm finally to the tail-end of that. Beach house, here I come!

And with it comes new music! The four albums I'm eagerly awaiting are, clockwise from the upper left, Black Clouds and Silver Linings from Dream Theater, Wilco (The Album) from Wilco, Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimo Vomini from Secret Chiefs 3: Traditionalists, and Octahedron from Mars Volta. June looks to be a lot of fun!

Mouse Guard #6 out today!!!!

Yay!

Seattle is a really cool city, and Anne and I had a lot of fun. I got back late Monday night and, after tooling around on the interwebs, found out that The Criterion Collection had announced their upcoming releases for August.

Lo and behold, one of my favorite movies ever, The Last Days of Disco by Whit Stillman is finally getting a proper release on DVD. Stillman's other films include Metropolitan and the awesome Barcelona. Also, he's finally going to direct another film, though this will be the first he directs from someone else's script. He's adapting the novel Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley.

Exciting times for fans of Stillman.

The progressive rock supergroup, Transatlantic, is apparently reforming. Exciting and totally unexpected news on a blah Monday.

Another of my favorite directors is George Lucas. This might surprise some people, having seen my previous posts, but those who know experimental film (and me) will understand how Lucas fits in perfectly with the other directors.

My favorite film of his is THX 1138, but I'm a big fan of all his work. He's produced a lot of different things, but his directorial credits are actually few. THX was followed by American Graffiti and Star Wars: A New Hope, and he didn't direct again until the Star Wars prequels (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith). Many have relegated him to irrelevancy, but I disagree. Certainly, the newer Star Wars films have their flaws, yet to view them in a different light than the original trilogy is both unfair and impossible. All six movies form a giant narrative, and I doubt anyone could have pulled off this feat of cinema in a better or more entertaining way.

However, I'm excited that Lucas is moving on. In addition to a couple of TV shows and movies he's producing, he has stated that he will return to directing small, experimental films, similar to THX 1138.

I cannot wait.

Because of my studies in German, I've seen a lot of German films. My favorite German director is Volker Schlöndorff, the master of the adaptation. He has directed a number of American productions, such as Death of a Salesman, The Handmaid's Tale, and Palmetto, but his earlier films gained him more acclaim (Die Blechtrommel [The Tin Drum], Der Fangschuß [Coup de grâce], and Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum [The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum]). He's still directing films, releasing almost one every year, but he receives very little attention compared to the other directors who were part of the New German Cinema movement of the 1960s. Cineastes are likely familiar with Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, or Rainer Werner Fassbinder -- huge figures in this movement.

In my opinion, Schlöndorff beats all of them out. Go see his movies.