Saturday, May 31, 2008

Lies Sex and the City told me: The Pearl Rabbit


Since this blog often feels like a sausage fest (thanks for keeping it real, LaurieK!), I thought I would write a review in honor of the consumerfest that is the Sex and the City movie -- read the numbers and weep, Indy -- and the lies the series has sold to millions of foaming-mouthed women across the globe. Ladies: if you are going to spend 80 bucks on something whose sole purpose is to get you off, you may be very dismayed with this pink pearl twittery thing; if you live near a sex toy store (i.e., if you don't live in Texas), go ahead in and turn one on... then clamp your fist around it.... oh, what was that? It stopped cold? Which is probably not what you want your $80 vibrator to be doing at any sort of critical moment. I've also heard from various sources that the namesake rabbit on this thing might be totally missing the mark for some women (by "the mark" I meant "the clitoris" -- guys, are you following?); I've also heard that the Erocillator is to die for (unfortunately I am without ~$180 to test this claim for myself) -- any ladies out there can back me up (or, fine -- any ladies out there at all?).

RATING: 34%

Spider-man/Human Torch: I'm With Stupid

Dan Slott was born to write Spider-man. Well, I guess every book he's ever done has been great, but his Spider-man is spot on. There's touching, realistic human drama along side a million hilarious and corny jokes. Sometimes people forget that while Peter Parker is in costume, he's sending out quips a mile a minute which is part of the allure. Anyway, now Dan Slott is one of Amazing Spider-man's writers, but (two) years ago he wrote this mini costarring webhead and his buddy the Human Torch of Fantastic Four fame. It's a terrific five issue mini, spanning the duo's entire career. Check it out if you like humor, humans, fun, excitement, etc.

RATING: 85%

Electricity Ants

Ok, they're not really called electricity ants, but these "crazy rasberry ants" that have recently invaded Houston are attracted by electricity and can seriously fuck up your computer. So that blows. I don't think I have them in my apartment, but I'm totally scared every time I see an ant now that it will eat my files. I mean, I guess I would have been annoyed before that they might be eating my peanut butter, but now my computer? And silverfish can eat my comics? And roaches can eat my dignity? Man, bugs have me totally beat.

RATING: 23%


(They eat fire ants.)

Burns BBQ

I'm no Q expert, but I take it fairly seriously, and so does Roy Burns at Burns BBQ. I got the 3 meat combo with potato salad and beans for $8.50 (why would you pay $7.50 for only 2?). It was some good Q too. The brisket was almost falling apart and you could pull the meat on the ribs right off the bone. My only issue is that I prefer the Central Texas style BBQ (typically, pecan and oak wood) over the East Texas/African-American style (hickory wood) at Burns. It's just a matter of preference, and Burns is pretty solid either way.

RATING: 74%

MacGyver

I loved this show when I was a kid. First, it's Richard Dean Anderson. Second, it might have been that I could imagine myself as MacGyver, someone who could only hope that brains can win over brawn. Third, he always carried a Swiss Army knife and duct tape.

A Swiss Army knife! Duct tape! Bad ass!

RATING: 83%

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Cyrstal Skull

By now you've probably seen this or heard it was not good, so hate to be redundant. I saw this the other day, and while it was not terrible, it was also not very good. It was a lot of fun, I'll admit, but it was one thing the other Indiana Jones movies weren't: stupid. Sure, a lot of ridiculous stuff happens in those movies (like this one), but they never felt like just plain dumb summer fun, which this one did. Anyway, one thing I never thought I'd say before this summer's movie season was done is that I liked Speed Racer a lot more than Indiana Jones, but there you have it. Sometimes you get an apple pie and sometimes somebody gives you a brick with your name carved in it, and while a brick with your name carved in it is certainly nice, apple pie is way more delicious. I don't know what I was getting at with that metaphor.

RATING: 68%

Burns Bar BQ

If you are like me and grew up with Carolina style bbq in Florida, then you might have a chip on your shoulder about Texans talking all big about Texas style bbq being the best. Well, I have to say that while I think I still prefer Carolina style on the whole, this place Burns was pretty awesome. For $7.50 you get all that food, which is two meats, beans, potato salad, and bread. I got their famous homemade links and brisket. It was delicious and if you live in Houston and don't mind driving 30 minutes out of town then check this place out unless you are some kind of vagetarian or something.

RATING: 87%

Mind Reading Computers

Well there goes the planet.

(Yes I get all of my news from Hotmail's logout page.)

RATING: 26%

Friday, May 30, 2008

Brighten The Corners by Pavement

Just in case anyone wants to blame me for blindly following Pavement...I think this album really sucks. I told someone the other day that at some time or another one of the Pavement albums has been a favorite, but that was a lie. In reality I just forgot this even counts as an album. Somehow it snapped in half in the CD case I carry in my car and I've never bothered to replace it. That's the only time that's ever happened, and I imagine that's because God hates this CD too.

RATING: 25%

Glenn's Review of Slanted And Enchanted

The Riverdales = 74%
Pavement = 76%

That sucks Glenn.







RATING: 10%

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Marvel Team Up Vol 1: The Golden Child

I know that I can be excused for liking a terrible book when I was eleven, but I have to say that when Marvel Team Up was being published when I was twenty-five, I kind of liked it a lot, but now rereading it it turns out it was also not especially good. The premise is various Marvel heroes team up to fight bad guys. I have to respect it for using a lot of the Marvel Universe, which many books don't, but it loses points for having awful dialogue and having Spider-man be in practically every issue. Hey, I like Spider-man, but does Batman show up in every DC... well, I guess that's a bad example. Anyway, I guess it's a mediocre book that has pretty art so what do you want, a medal?

RATING: 54%

Darkhawk Issues 1-9

When I was a kid, Darkhawk was the first new superhero book I ever bought. Until then, I was buying mainly Star Trek comics and the occasional Spider-man book. But with issue 5, I was hooked. He looked so great, and he was kind of flawed when he was his regular high school self, Chris Powell. Little did I realize that a) the book was really terrible, and b) he was a ripoff of Spider-man/Peter Parker anyway. However, all these years later I have a soft spot for the character, and still love to see him pop up every now and then. Basically, Darkhawk is powered by this alien amulet that whenever Chris Powell touches it and wants to become Darkhawk WHAMMO! he does. There's a lot of interdimensional nonsense that I can't get into right now because it's ludicrous. Anyway, long story short, I love Darkhawk but the first 9 issues of his comic sucked, and so did the other 41 to be fair.

RATING: 32%

the 8 songs from Weezer's Red album that were leaked and I downloaded on the internets


With a few exceptions (Everybody Get Dangerous-> the only thing dangerous about this is how much it sucks), this is the best I've heard from Weezer in a long damn time. And I fucking love it. Can't wait to hear the whole album. Yumyumnumnummmm...it is about fucking time.

Also, how cool is that cover art?

Rating: 79%

UPDATE: Over time I have come to hate this album. And Rivers Cuomo is a pretentious douchebag.

New Rating: 36%

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Abstinence Only Sex Education

(Sorry for the break - I was in Illinois/Missouri for a week)

As I logged out of Hotmail today, I saw a news feed on MSN about whether abstinence only sex education is the way to go or not. Well, in case you are from a civilized place and have never heard of that, abstinence only sex education is the kind of sex ed in which kids are told sex is bad, condoms never work, and if you have sex you'll get pregnant and AIDS. Going to school in Lake City, Florida, that is the kind of sex ed I received. Now, I'd like to think I'm an intelligent person, so I was able to dismiss all that as stupid. However, I don't really know if I would call most of Columbia High's students intelligent. Kids are going to have sex. That's all there is to it. So if you're being told that condoms never work (specifically, I was told they fail 80% of the time), why would you bother wearing one? Which might be why so many girls in my graduating class were pregnant or got pregnant soon after high school. Anyway, it never hurts to tell people the truth, vaguely Christian based government. Take it from me, an expert on teaching because I was a teacher.

RATING: 4%

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Metropolis

#81 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Uh oh, I might be almost totally blowing my foreign films wad right here in the second installment of my top 100 movies. Whoops! I never claimed to have any authority or multiculturalism. Anyway, this movie's great, everybody knows it, even 80 years later. Also, there's totally nudity in it just in case you thought that maybe in the twenties women didn't have nipples like I used to think.

RATING: 84%

AI: Artificial Intelligence

#82 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

This movie gets a bad rap for some reason, but I think that apart from a couple of what I like to call "John Williams is too emotional" moments, this movie is pretty great. Everybody says it would be better without the "sappy" ending thousands of years in the future, but to me that's just SPOILER the machine fulfilling its programming to its fullest extent. There's no real emotion there. Starting with Saving Private Ryan I think Spielberg really entered the best phase of his career. Even though I hated War of the Worlds, it still had a bunch of terrifically terrifying scenes.

RATING: 86%

In The Heat Of The Night

#83 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Worth it just for the part where the black detective slaps the taste out of the rich old white man's mouth. Ha!

RATING: 87%

Deliverance

#84 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

It's a pretty strong movie despite having the subtlety of a cute baby kitten being thrown through a plate glass window. Yeah, it's about masculinity's definition, and how urbanization is raping the wilderness. Get it? Because an urbanite gets raped by a wildman. Well, it's still good, just based on the characters and tension. I never really get why the message of movies is so important to people, anyway. Like what, it's supposed to be Mister Rogers or some shit? I just want to see realistic people shoot arrows at hillbillies. Is that so much to ask?

RATING: 85%

Speed Racer

I knew when I read the overwhelmingly negative reviews for this that it was something I had to see. Not because I wanted to go to the theater and mock it, but because there was some odd tone about all the reviews; they hated it, but acknowledged that it was like nothing they had seen before. That was a serious red flag for me. So I convinced my friends Mike and Lisa to go see it with me, and I've got to say it was like no other experience I've had in the theater. It was totally ridiculous in every way, but it was just a real blast to watch. The plot is ludicrous, so I won't bother summing it up (basically, race), but I have never seen so many colors and such an exuberance for filmmaking in a movie before. I can't recommend that you watch this enough, just as long as you are willing to let yourself fully accept the world of the movie as it begins.

RATING: 82%

Friday, May 16, 2008

The Lone Wolf And Cub Series

#85 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

This is the first "multiple movie" entry I'm giving, but there are a few more coming up. These are basically samurai revenge movies with a lot of bad assery and fighting, and some really beautiful direction. The story involves a samurai, Ogami Itto, who was framed for some bullshit and has to go on the run with his three year old son. If you like movies that kick lots of ass, then these six films might just be for you. If you are scared, though, you can probably get "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" on DVD by now.

RATING: 87%

Clockers

#86 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

In high school I used to like movies that were really super stylized, which means I liked a lot of Spike Lee and Oliver Stone movies. Looking back, some of those were stupid movies to like (U-Turn), but this one holds up, even if since then there have been a billion movies about how much dealing crack sucks. I was going to be a crack dealer myself until I saw this movie. Also in high school my favorite actor was Delroy Lindo. What happened to that guy?

RATING: 87%

The Monster Squad

#87 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

This was one of the central movies of my childhood. Basically a bunch of kids fights and defeats Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and the Gill Man. Oops. Spoilers. Also, this movie demonstrates the late 80s early 90s trend of having an end credits rap song that summarizes the whole movie in case you forgot. See Ghostbusters II. Just kidding. That piece of crap is not on my list.

RATING: 83%

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Punisher: In The Beginning

I'm conflicted about enjoying The Punisher. On one hand, he mercilessly kills criminals with no trial in horribly brutal ways, which I am against. On the other hand, Garth Ennis' run on this book has been fucking amazing. Seriously, this is one of the books I look forward to every month, and it sucks that he's leaving in a few issues. Garth Ennis is known for writing The Preacher, a comic I read the first trade of and liked, but then never finished reading because I had a job or something. It kicked a lot of ass, so this was a great fit for him. This was the first explicit content Punisher ever, and I have to say there are a lot of f-bombs (by which I mean the word fuck) and a lot of people getting graphically murdered, but the Punisher is a pretty amazing badass in it so why don't you buy it and tell 'em Glenn sent you.

RATING: 82%

Marvel: Civil War

Comic book companies know exactly how to get stupid nerds to buy comics. Just make a big fuss about a mini-series, tie every major book into the events interrupting their main stories, and claim that something big will definitely happen as a result (usually a lie). Well, this stupid nerd falls for it every time, and the awful Marvel: Civil War story was no exception. Basically what happened was some superheroes accidentally cause the destruction of an elementary school, so the government decides that anybody with powers must register with the government, train, and be on a governmental payroll to fight crime. Well, some heroes, led by Captain America, said "Fuck that!" and others led by Iron Man, said "No, do not fuck that actually that is a good idea." So they fought in weird ways for what seemed like a hundred issues (just kidding: with the amount of splash pages in these prestige format books the seven issues seemed like three, tops), and then the bad guys (Iron Man's side) won. Then Captain America got killed. Spoilers. This book sucks the end.

RATING: 37%

Collection II by The Misfits

Well, what can I say about this album that I didn't already say about The Riverdales and The Ramones a few reviews back? Everybody knows and loves/hates The Misfits. I don't know why I didn't listen to them back in high school when I was obsessed with horror movies, because a doo-whoppy punk band crooning about murder probably would have fit right into my sort of schtick. Anyway, Last Caress is a great song, sure the lyrics are horrible, but it makes it kind of funny because it's somewhat beautiful.

RATING: 70%

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Blackheads



Blackheads are pretty fun because there is a lot of pus and other weird gnome-type things hiding behind the little black door of it.

But, if you're very picky, you'll end up scarring your face because they are so fun to squeeze.

Rating: G9+%

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Raging Bull

#88 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

When making a "Top 100" list, it's important to throw a couple of curves into the mix that people might not see coming. For instance, I'm putting this little known film by M. Scorsese on the list. This might astonish you for some reason.

RATING: 89%

Poltergeist

#89 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Is it wrong of me to have two Tobe Hooper movies on my top 100 list but only one Clint Eastwood movie? This movie's no "Texas Chain Saw," but it's still pretty scary. Also, I kind of would like to see a ghost some day, but not in my own home. So if any of my friends knowingly have a haunted house or apartment you'd better invite me over already. Unless it makes your fried chicken all maggotty like in this movie. That doesn't sound like a very fun kind of ghost.

RATING: 88%

American Graffiti

#90 in Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

This movie is so much fun to watch, and has about a billionty classic scenes (old harpers'? Wolfman Jack?) Sometimes, I kind of wish George Lucas never made Star Wars so that he could have taken his career in a direction of movies based more on character. But then we wouldn't have lightsabers and shit like that. So never mind.

RATING: 87%

Monday, May 12, 2008

Mila Vigdorova




Mila Vigdorova is the best tango dancer I have ever danced with. Only because she is a nice person and comes down from Olympus a couple times per night was I able to dance with her. I also sang "Maria" from West Side Story in front of the entire milonga (tango dance party), which gave me an in.

When you walk with Mila in a close embrace, you can feel every muscle of hers adjusting to yours and complimenting you as you land your foot. Few things in the world are as simple and lovely. Every step you take is the best step of your life.

Rating: 368%

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Agent X (Complete Run)

Agent X was a series that ran for 15 issues a few years ago. There was a bit of a "mystery" as to who Agent X really was, but since it started as soon as Deadpool ended, kept the entire creative team and supporting cast, it was pretty obvious it was going to be Deadpool somehow. 10 of the 15 issues were written by Gail Simone, who has never written a subpar comic in her life (although to be fair I heard her Wonder Woman wasn't great), and her issues are terrific. The five filler issues are kind of weak, but I guess two thirds of a series being good isn't half bad. This isn't collected in trade, so you'll have to track down individual issues, so get crackin!

RATING: 69%

Ramones by The Ramones

One of the reasons I like stupid punk bands is because a) they are fun, and b) they sound like oldies sometimes. Well, those aren't great reasons I guess, but there isn't much more to say about this debut album by the Ramones. It's a great and fun little album. The songs are simple, but they're catchy in not a bad way.

RATING: 72%

Riverdales by The Riverdales

One of the reasons I like stupid punk bands is because a) they are fun, and b) they sound like oldies sometimes. Well, those aren't great reasons I guess, but there isn't much more to say about this debut album by the Riverdales. It's a great and fun little album. The songs are simple, but they're catchy in not a bad way.


RATING: 74%

My First Review: 100% = 98%

Thank you Glenn for letting me become a reviewer. My first review is on 100%.

Personally, I think things shouldn't be rated on that scale. I prefer 368%.

So many different sects have fought and died over 100%. Let's give ourselves a break.

100% of people go to heaven?

100% of people want to go to heaven?

100% of everything is everything?

Let's be real. The universe shouldn't be based on 10. Let's go with those dudes in olden times who were base 12 or 9 or 6 or 3.

Let's hear it for 3.14159...%

Getting Up Early

Getting up early is kind of a double edged sword, except one edge is good. Well, maybe I should say it's like a regular sword, but instead of just a dull side it has a side that is made of chocolate or money. Anyhow, I like getting up early because I love the way morning feels more than any other part of the day, but I don't like getting up early because I love sleeping late. Well, maybe next year when I have a 9-5 sort of job I'll think differently.

RATING: 50%

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls


#91 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

A really insane movie directed by Russ Meyer and written by Roger Motherfucking Ebert. I'm not being profane, that's actually his middle name. It's hard and boring to describe the plot, but somebody gets beheaded to the 20th Century Fox Fanfare. Need I say more? Also, it has the line "Taste the black semen of my vengeance."

RATING: 85%

No Country For Old Men

#92 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

(I should say that until we get to the top 10, the movies aren't in order, because that would just take a million years to rank them).

I didn't want to put too many recent movies on this list, because I've always been a proponent of waiting a while to let a movie's impact sink in, but this one is amazing. It's a great sort of chase movie for most of it, but if it wasn't for a moment 90% in which the narrative totally shifts and it leaves typical movie territory, then it wouldn't be as great as it is. I took out United 93 from my old myspace version of this list, because even though that movie is extremely well made, I can't picture myself ever watching it again for the rest of my life.

RATING: 91%

Unforgiven

#93 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

I don't know if Eastwood made the definitive western here, and there are certainly westerns I like a lot more, but I guess you can say that nobody has felt the need to even try to make a great western since this movie fifteen years ago. Also, it's weird that even though I'd call Eastwood one of the best living directors, this is the only movie of his that made my top 100 list.

RATING: 89%

Some Like It Hot

#94 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

This movie's really hilarious. I also appreciate a comedy that goes out on a short punchline rather than trying to wrap everything up. Don't give the audience a chance to stop laughing, I always say. And obviously you should all listen to me if you're going to make a comedy movie, because I'm some kind of expert. PS - Tony Curtis makes a pretty cute woman.

RATING: 86%

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Happy birthday to Glenn!

Here's a little belated birthday gift for everyone's favorite reviewer and poet, Glenn.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Solaris (American Version)

#95 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Don't get your britches in a bunch. I have the original on this list, too. Anyway, don't tell the Man Patrol about this, but I've cried on more than one occasion watching this version of the movie.

RATING: 86%

Pulp Fiction

#96 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

I guess this is a no-brainer. Should I feel bad about putting most of Tarantino's movies on this list? Well, I don't, so there. Of the three movies of his I'm tossing up here, I think I like this one the least. What are the other two, you might ask? Well, find out by coming back and reading blogs over the next little while. Hint: It's not boring ass Reservoir Dogs.

RATING: 86%

Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

#97 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Look, I gotta say, this is way better than Last Crusade, and if you disagree then you're deluding yourself. Last Crusade is just a copy of Raiders with Sean Connery. This has chilled monkey brains and non stop action. What more can you want? PS - There are zero Sean Connery movies on my top 100 list.

RATING: 86%

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Flatliners

(This is absolutely not on my top 100 list, I just got it through Netflix).

I have been a Joel Schumacher apologist for a long time. I like many of his movies, and don't hate his terrible ones (Batman And Robin) as much as everybody else, but this movie is fucking awful. It centers around five douchebag medical students in Abandoned Building City who want to see what death is like, so they "flatline" while everybody is around and can bring them back. Well, guess what, spooky stuff happens, and all of that is ok, but the writing is just godawful. Also, these are med school students, and yet every one of them lives in a huge ass urban loft apartment with multiple floors and 20 ft ceilings. In conclusion, here is my summary of this movie: Yell Yell Yell Yell Yell Die Yell Yell Yell Die Yell Yell Yell Yell Die Yell Hooray.

RATING: 21%

Creepshow

#98 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

I guess I can't explain this one except that in my mind it is way better than Casablanca and Dracula. Both no shows on my list. Really, there isn't a horror movie that is more fun to watch than Creepshow. Plus, Leslie Neilson in a dramatic (sort of) role. And Stephen King in a starring role. Ok, maybe that's not a selling point. But he does get covered in moss.

RATING: 86%

Terminator 2

#99 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Probably one of the best action movies ever, and all of the chase stuff still holds up. See? You don't need people doing somersaults off of walls and shit to entertain people. And you don't need to go into slow motion every time something exciting happens. Why do people do that, anyway? It's total action bullshit. Like that's exciting? A bullet flying across the screen at 1 mile an hour? Kind of makes you wish John Woo was never born.

RATING: 85%

Citizen Kane

#100 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Yeah yeah, it's great, everybody knows it. Seriously, though, if you watched this movie and didn't know anything about it or when it was shot, you'd think it was made in the late sixties or seventies, and the black and white was just a gimmick. I mean, the camera work is terrific. I hate it when people say things were ahead of their time, because it seems easy, but damn, Gina, this was ahead of its time.

RATING: 85%

(I'm reposting my top 100 movies one by one until we get to the top, since nobody reads my myspace blog anymore)

Slanted And Enchanted by Pavement

Slanted and Enchanted is Pavement's first album, and it's a pretty great start. Now I have always felt a little guilty that I never listened to Pavement when I was in high school, because they would have been right up my alley. I guess I never bought one of their albums because the cover of Wowee Zowee looked stupid to me. Well my bad. Anyway, this one is kind of garagey noise punk, but gentle.

RATING: 76%

Mr. Show

Mr. Show was a sketch comedy show that ran for four years in the 90s on HBO, so they could say things like "fuck," "shit," and "counterculture." It starred comedians David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, and had a lot of pre-fame appearances by Jack Black and Sarah Silverman if you like those whackos. Also the voice of Spongebob was a regular cast member. The sketches are mostly hilarious with only a few duds, and one of my favorite aspects of the show was that every sketch ran into each other like in the old Monty Python show. So go Netflix it or buy it why don't ya, or check these out first.

RATING: 83%

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Iron Man

Well I have to say that this was probably one of the top four comic book movies of all time, next to X-Men 2 (I refuse to say X2), Spider-man 2, and Superman. People who maybe aren't quite as large a geek as me were always like "Oh man, I can't believe they cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, this movie will blow," but many of us knew this was genius. In the comics, Tony Stark is a womanizing alcoholic douchebag, so the casting was perfect. Anyway, this was great in addition to Robert Downey Jr. because it had so much respect for the source material, and it actually seems like Marvel is working to create a movie universe filled with their heroes. And there was a lot of stuff getting blown up real good which didn't hurt.

RATING: 83%

Doom Patrol: Musclebound

The problem with Grant Morrison as a writer is that although he is great, he usually only goes about 10 issues on a book tops before everything stops making sense. New X-Men is the longest run he's ever done and stayed coherent, but by the last three storylines (Fantomex, Xorn/Magneto, weird future I don't even know what???) the book was far out there. His current run on Batman didn't even go three issues before it stopped making sense. Anyway, he's a great writer, and I pretty much pick up anything he writes without thinking about it, but I think in all of history the best book ever for Grant Morrison was Doom Patrol. Doom Patrol is a group of weird outcast superheroes, and when Grant Morrison picked up the book in the late 80s he made them even weirder, including Robotman (just a dude's brain in a robot body, but he was always there), an ape face little girl with powerful imaginary friends, Crazy Jane, a woman whose multiple personalities each have a different power, and Danny The Street, a living street who could take them anywhere. From issue one of his run it was just totally bizarre, and this trade is no different. The thing is that the bizarreness was always expected, and is part of the allure of the book even, which makes Morrison's writing perfect. In this collection there are two main stories - the first involves a secret government plot to rid the world of imagination which is thwarted when guest star Flex Mentallo turns the pentagon into a circle, and the second story has the evil (?) Brotherhood Of Dada stealing Albert Hoffman's bicycle which has the power to send everybody on an acid trip, which the Doom Patrol must stop. Well, this review stopped making sense I think and also is way long, which probably gives you a good idea of Grant Morrison as a writer, so check it out if you like to be totally freaked.

RATING: 76%

Othello Suite by Elliot Goldenthal

You guys probably know Elliot Goldenthal for his composing of the hit scores to such movies as Titus, Frida, Interview With The Vampire, and Batman And Robin. I've always liked Elliot Goldenthal's film music, because it's loud and raucous and he uses a lot of brass, but the problem is that every movie score he does sounds pretty much the same. Well, a lot of composers are like that (cough James Horner cough), but then I was in the store one day in my youth and saw this ballet that he had composed and decided to pick it up for shits and pretentiousness. While it is definitely Elliot Goldenthal, it is everything good about his film scores without the confines and brevity of film tracks. It's epic in scope, but still maintains the loud circus quality of his work that I love so much, so hooray for this.

RATING: 79%