The Good, the Bad (but no ugly)

[janradder]

Thanks goes out to snurri for lending me his trades of Darwyn Cooke's DC:  The New Frontier, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 which I read yesterday.  It's a really good story that bridges the Golden Age of DC with the Silver Age while blending in McCarthyism and the idealism of the early 60's.  it has great prehistoric monsters and alien-type life forms worthy of a Gardner Fox story  as the art evokes the pencils of  Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky and Curt Swan while at the same time creating it's own original retro-look.  Interestingly enough, it really captured the essence of the comic geek talk snurri and I had regarding the differences between Marvel and DC superheros.  While the Marvel heros are flawed characters who struggle with having super powers thrust upon them, the DC heros tend to be heroic because that is what's expected of them.  The book really epitomized that quality, in a good way.

Later, haddayr and I watched the original  version of The Thomas Crown Affair.  My god, was that an utter piece of crap which was kind of surprising given the cast (Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway as the leads who were perfectly dreadful and directed by Norman Jewison who was even worse).  The only good thing about it was the fact that I got an amazing shoulder and neck rub while we watched.  Afterwards, knowing the movie was remade of few years ago (which I have not seen), I had to wonder -- who in their right mind would watch that horrible dreck and then say, "Wow, what garbage!  Let's remake it!"?

Comments

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it!

I think my favorite part, aside from the prelude with the Losers, was J'onn J'onnz's storyline. Either that or Wonder Woman's socialist tendencies. And yeah, it kinda does exemplify the heroes-for-the-sake-of-heroism view, now that you mention it.

I'm surprised to hear that the original "Thomas Crown Affair" was so bad. I actually liked the remake a lot, but I may have been influenced by the fact that Rene Russo was so damn sexy in it . . .

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I think there were maybe ten scenes in the movie where the character was supposed to laugh and he gives this fake laugh and you can almost see Jewison off camera saying, "louder, louder!" so they do it louder and more intensely and then you start to get seriously creeped out because it is SO fake and SO loud (but the point is that it's supposed to be a normal laugh. Also, there is a horrible scene or Steve McQueen in a glider circling while a Wicker Man type spoken song about circles is played. God awful stuff -- the remake may very well be good but not the original.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

The 2nd movie was enjoyable....

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought it had gotten some decent reviews which was why when I saw the original was on TV, we watched it thinking we'd enjoy it.

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

I fell in love with the art in The New Frontier though the story was kind of shrug-worthy.

Lordie... TCA, where to start? Endless glider shots and a dinner scene that makes Steve McQueen look like a knuckle-dragging neanderthal.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I really liked the story for New Frontier but then I'm a sucker for hero stories.

That glider scene -- man! What the hell was that song supposed to be (if you call it that)? And the fake laughs? Yeesh. How about the chess match? (I would have loved it if when McQueen says, "Let's play another game" instead of grabbing Faye Dunaway he pulls out another board game and exclaims, "Parcheesi!") You're right, there are so many things wrong with that movie it really is hard to pick just one thing.

[rsheslin.livejournal.com]

Maybe the sequel was the result of someone watching it and thinking, "Hell, I can do better with the story than that!"

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Could be -- I just don't know why anyone would even want to bother.