Pop Culture

On comics and other pop culture topics, including archived Comic Book Commentary posts from 2005-2007.

Read more about the article Review: The Incredible Hulk

Review: The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk

I skipped The Incredible Hulk in theaters because I was fully expecting to be disappointed, but my son really wanted to see it and Iron Man was unexpectedly good, so we picked up the DVD and I was pleasantly surprised.

Ed Norton isn’t as dynamic an actor as Robert Downey, Jr., unlikely to carry a blockbuster superhero movie on his own shoulders, but he brings the right level of intensity to the Hulk’s conflicted alter ego, Bruce Banner, that combined with some precision casting — and, according to several rumors seemingly backed up by many of the DVD’s bonus features*, exerting influence far beyond his own character — makes for a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Tim Roth and William Hurt shine in their roles, and Liv Tyler manages to escape the confines of the cliché “female interest” as she and writer Zak Penn (who takes an impressive step forward from Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand) make her character work as the emotional centerpiece of the story.

It’s a well-paced action movie with just the right dash of drama — many of the deleted scenes featuring psychiatrist Dr. Samson are deservedly so — and the CGI Hulk and Abomination are even more impressive than last year’s Transformers triumph, especially their final battle which is arguably the best balls-to-the-wall fight scene put to film in recent years.

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Read more about the article Apology Unnecessary

Apology Unnecessary

The K Chronicles: Tales From the Campaign Trail
The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

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Read more about the article The Most Fantastic Genre

The Most Fantastic Genre

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZGqSRtDbEw]

PopCultureShock posted this great little clip about the new Blue Beetle — Mexican-American Jaime Reyes — and Junot Diaz’ Oscar Wao, wherein Diaz notes:

“The most fantastic genre can’t keep up, or refuses to keep up, with how much our country has changed. And so people can dream about aliens, and they can dream about all sorts of things and magical rings, but they can’t dream about brown and black people being protagonists, you know?  It’s remarkable.”

Diversity in comics remains a tough slog — Firestorm was cancelled, Blue Beetle doesn’t sell very well and what ever happened to the much-hyped lesbian Batwoman series? — and the DC Universe has historically been much whiter than Marvel’s, but the first two years of Blue Beetle proved that minority superheroes could carry a series — from a quality perspective, at least — as long as the writer and artist focused on telling good, entertaining stories.

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Read more about the article Things to Do

Things to Do

Montclair Honeybee Fest
Originally uploaded by bloomfieldguy

Last night, we were suprised to hear the sound of jazz music coming through our front window, at first thinking our neighbor might be having a party, then realizing it was LIVE music from a concert going on in Watsessing Park. According to the Essex County website, it was the Carrie Jackson Quartet, performing as part of the 2008 Essex County Free SummerMusic Concert Series, which I only know because I Googled it this morning out of curiosity.

Last month’s Dionne Warwick concert in Brookdale Park, which I first heard about the night of while having dinner at Vinnie’s, was part of the same series and while I wouldn’t have attended that one, it was a little disappointing to find out about last night’s as it was happening because we would have probably shaken the Sandy Hook sand out of our Neat Sheet, grabbed a couple of chairs and walked over to check it out. I don’t recall seeing any promotion for the concert series in The Star-Ledger (which I pick up sporadically), or Bloomfield Life (which I pick up weekly), or Baristanet (which I check daily), or even a flyer stapled to a telephone pole somewhere between the Park and the train station, but maybe I just missed it?

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Read more about the article Bloomfield Cyclist Assaulted by NYPD Rookie

Bloomfield Cyclist Assaulted by NYPD Rookie

The cyclist in the middle of the latest NYPD controversy is Christopher Long of Bloomfield, NJ, who is a lot more Zen than I’d be considering the cop is clearly an outright liar and thug:

“I’m really sorry, but I’m not talking to the press,” Christopher Long, 29, said as he manned an organic fruits-and-vegetables stand at the Union Square farmers market.

“There are charges against me, and I don’t want anything to affect my case,” said Long, who had two large scabs on his knees from the body block.

Long, of New Jersey, was charged with assault and resisting arrest after the cop insisted the cyclist had tried to run him over in a Critical Mass rally Friday in Times Square.

A dramatic video starkly contradicted rookie Officer Patrick Pogan‘s statements. It shows the 22-year-old cop running toward Long and slamming him to the sidewalk.

Pogan, a former high school football lineman, has been stripped of his gun and badge while the incident is investigated.

Police sources have said the charges against Long would likely be dropped.

Long will “get over it and he’s not the type of guy to hold a grudge,” said Justin Ford, 25, a bike courier and a friend of Long’s, but Long’s lawyer said he may sue.

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Read more about the article Cory Booker: Hero?

Cory Booker: Hero?

Cory Booker at StoryCorps Griot launch by jsmooth995
Despite my previous reflexive defense of East Orange, I’ll admit to buying in to the some of the negative perceptions of Newark, and was originally going to post a link to a great article on Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker that I just got around to reading in last month’s Esquire (with the inane Mike Myers on the cover), but when I went to their site to get the link, I was suprised to come across a scathing letter from Booker, ripping the article’s author Scott Raab a new one.
While I thought the article was a well-written bit of hero worship, it does go a bit overboard in comparing Booker to Will Smith’s character in I Am Legend, effectively casting Newark as a blighted dead zone with little hope of recovery, pretty much what I believed it to be despite knowing better. In his letter, Booker takes Raab to task on a number of points, particularly his narrow focus on the ills plaguing the largest city in New Jersey while ignoring the strides made in the past couple of years — of which he cites numerous examples — but perhaps more impressively, I appreciated his lengthy rebuttal of the idea that he is some lone hero facing insurmountable odds:

Continue ReadingCory Booker: Hero?

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