The A-Train’s Pullbox

WHERE A NERD IS A GEEK… AND VICE VERSA

The Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day – Vol 2

Posted by adrianjames on June 29, 2009

The Amazing Spider-Man
Brand New Day: Volume 2

Collecting: Amazing Spider-Man #552-558

Written by: Bob Gale (The Back To The Future Trilogy) & Zeb Wells
Penciled by: Phil Jimenez, Chris Bachalo and Barry Kitson

Tagline: ”This day is already off to a lousy start… it can’t get any worse!”
– Spider-Man

Cover_552Quick Description- There’s been a string of serial murders that all have one thing in common: Spidey tracers were found on the bodies! There’s a super-powered monster known as Freak out for blood and terrorizing the city. The problem with that: defeating him just makes him stronger! Strange weather patterns dump several feet of snow onto the streets of New York. As if all that wasn’t enough, there’s also Wolverine, crazed Mayan warriors, Harry Osbourn, his girlfriend’s possible crush on Parker, and J. Johan Jameson’s bad heart.

The following is a non-spoiler review.

My Thoughts: After the much needed time away from Amazing Spider-Man, (after the conclusion of One More Day) I found myself ready to give the book another chance. You can read my review to The Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day here. Now that I’ve become accustomed to the idea of this new chapter in the Spidey-verse, Volume Two was much easier to jump into. It also makes this review shorter than usual.

There’s two storylines in this volume. First up is the Freak storyline, written by Bob Gale and Penciled by Phil Jimenez. I’m not a Jimenez fan. I don’t get all the hype about this guy. I think he looks amatuer, stiff, and cliche. I don’t like the way he draws Spider-Man most of all.

The writing, however, was excellent. The supporting cast keeps getting more and more interesting. I’m especially interested in seeing where things go with Harry’s girlfriend, as well as J. Jonah Jameson and his near death experiences.

Cover_555The first story in this volume is not the best part though. The best part is the second half of the volume. This story brought an amazing (no pun intended) new artist to my attention. Chris Bachalo. Not that he’s a new artist, he’s just new to me. But in fact he’s been drawing comics for over 20 years. Now that he’s on my radar, I’ll be picking up more of his work. His pencils on these issues is breathtaking. Its so unique. Realistic, yet stylized enough to fit in with any great fantasy story. And his coloring his own work alongside Antonio Fabela and Tim Townsends’ inks, it takes on this very bright yet Gothic look at the same time. A style you’d expect to see in the pages of an indie-book. Every panel of the second half of this volume is downright gorgeous and I can’t recommend picking up this book enough. If for no other reason than the artwork in the second story by Mr. Bachalo.

The writing was also kicked up a notch in the latter half of the volume. Zeb Wells crafted a fascinating story involving a blizzard in the spring, Mayan Warriors, a psychotic religious nut, and Wolverine! Mr. Negative continues developing in this trade and will clearly be a long term villain in this new run of The Amazing Spider-Man. I’m anxious to see where they go with his character and what his ultimate fate will be.

Despite the lackluster artwork in the first half of the book, I highly recommend picking it up for the rest of it. The writing is top notch, the artwork gets unbelievably better in the second half and you can’t really put it down very easily.

The A-Train Rates The Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day – Vol. 2 at 4 out of 5 Snow Ball Fights in April.

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The Pullbox Podcast – Episode 4 – “Turtle Power!!”

Posted by adrianjames on June 24, 2009

On this, the fourth episode of The Pullbox Podcast, Adrian & Adrian take a look at one of their favorite childhood movies: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES! Join the Adrians for a great discussion including a big screw up from episode 3, Adrian G’s wine problem, and their very first email,… EVER!! Find us on iTunes (itpc://thepullbox.podbean.com/feed) or visit The Pullbox Podcast homepage (http://thepullbox.podbean.com) to download the mp3 directly, or stream it live on the site.

Don’t forget to send an email to pullboxpodcast@gmail.com

Show Notes:
The A-Train’s Pullbox – http://thepullbox.net
The Pullbox Podcast – http://thepullbox.podbean.com
The Pullbox Forums – http://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2//index.php?showforum=285
Lost In Chaos – http://www.myspace.com/lostinchaosmusic
MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/pullboxpodcast
ComicSpace – http://www.comicspace.com/The_Pullbox_Podcast

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Theme” (Jazz Style) Performed By: David Choi (http://www.youtube.com/user/davidchoimusic)

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New Site Address

Posted by adrianjames on June 16, 2009

You can now visit The A-Train’s Pullbox by going to http://thepullbox.net

A much easier web-address; shorter and easier to remember. Update your favorites.

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What Movie Should We Discuss in Episode 4?

Posted by adrianjames on June 9, 2009

Vote now on which film you want to hear us talk about on the next episode of The Pullbox Podcast!!

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The Pullbox Podcast – Episode 3 – “Three’s Company”

Posted by adrianjames on June 9, 2009

The third episode to the Pullbox Podcast is up and ready for download. In this episode we discuss three films. They are X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, and Terminator Salvation. We include heavy spoilers for all three films so please listen with caution.

You can subscribe to our feed through iTunes, or visit The Pullbox Podcast Website directly and stream it or download it there.

For show notes: Visit The Pullbox Podcast Website.

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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Posted by literarybug on June 9, 2009

Hello again, LiteraryBug here. As my next review contribution to the Pullbox I have decided to share my thoughts on the film adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. (Spoiler-Free)

the girl who leapt through time The Girl Who Leapt Through Time tells the story of Makoto Konno, an ordinary high school girl having a really bad day. Her luck, however, takes a most grateful turn for the better as Makoto suddenly discovers she has the ability to jump back in time. 

I was a little nervous about watching this anime because anything with time travel usually leaves me with a huge headache and tangled questions.  Fortunately that was not the case here. I wasn’t confused once.

Writers Yasutaka Tsutsui (novel) and Satoko Okudera (screenplay) developed the story so that none of the time travel was confusing, but it was always fun. In their version of time travel, Makoto literally leaps back in time arriving in a not-so-graceful body roll. It never failed to pull a chuckle out of me as I started to wonder how Makoto never got a head injury from all the times she would roll into things. 

The pace of the story itself never felt rushed, which can be a difficult thing to do with time travel. It can  be all too easy to rush into the climax of the story, the “Everything has gone wrong” moments, but Tsutsui and Okudera kept their control and developed the story as it would happen realistically. We see Makoto’s confusion and denial of her ability progress into excitement and confidence and then slowly creep into desperation and anxiety. None of it felt slow, fast, or out of place; and that not only enhanced the experience of watching the film, but it also helps the viewer develop a connection to the characters.

Because the focus of the story lies in Makoto’s time traveling, there is ironically not a lot of time to develop the backgrounds of the characters to the audience. The writers and director  (Mamoru Hosoda) can only show a peek into Makoto’s ordinary life before focusing on how it changes into anything but. This can pose as a problem because the main goal of any writer to get their audience to believe in the characters and care for them. After all, if the audience doesn’t care for the characters, it doesn’t matter what the adventure is, it will always fall flat.

Watching the film it didn’t feel like I’ve known the characters all my life, but Tsutsui and Okudera did make me care for them. They are just ordinary kids and so when things start to go wrong, you feel it. I found myself yelling at the screen as things went from bad to worse. To top it off in a nice fantasy bow, Tsutsui and Okudera gave us a surprising twist! Honestly I didn’t see it coming. 

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was a great watch. The only flaw in the film were a few shots, such as close-ups for example, that lasted much longer than they needed to; but the story and the characters saved it. It’s definitely a film I’d want in my anime collection.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 4 out of 5 stars.

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Terminator Salvation – Review

Posted by adrianjames on May 30, 2009

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin, Helena Bonham Carter, Common
Written By: John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
Directed by: McG

movie-poster-01Synopsis: The year is 2018. Judgment Day has come and gone. The war between Skynet and the Resistant is in full swing. John Connor is not yet the leader of the resistance but has established a reputation. Marcus Wright has been in a coma for a long time and awakens in a time he’s unfamiliar with, in the middle of a war he didn’t know was happening. He meets Kyle Reese and John Connor, and may be Connor’s best chance at defeating Skynet. But can Wright be trusted? Is he one of us? One of them? Or something else?

My Thoughts (spoiler free):

Alright… I had huge expectations for this film. I’ve been waiting for it all year. The trailers filled me with the same excitement the WATCHMEN and THE DARK KNIGHT trailers filled me with. And since X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE was comparable to last year’s THE INCREDIBLE HULK, (although Incredible Hulk was much better), and STAR TREK was this year’s IRON MAN… I was really holding out hope that TERMINATOR SALVATION would be this year’s THE DARK KNIGHT.

Those expectations were way too high. Luckily for me I waited quite a while after the movie premiered before watching it. By the time I saw it, mostly everyone I knew who saw it told me it was terrible…

“Christian Bale’s worst movie.”
“Plot holes everywhere!”
“Bad Performances.”
“Too many Matrix-Like-Elements.”
“McG’s a horrible director!”

…and I could go on. So as you can imagine, at this point before watching the movie my expectations went WAY down. I mean, it’s been running at a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s pretty horrible. Add to all that the fact that STAR TREK was pretty much flawless and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

So now that I’ve officially seen it, how was it? Well, I can sum it all up by saying: Its far from perfect, but its not the horrible film people have made it out to be.

JohnAndMarcusI’ll try to even out the positives with the negatives as best as I can here. We’ll start with Common. Who in the heck thought that Common was a good enough actor to be in a Terminator film? He’s not. He’s not good enough to be in anything. Every line that guy said yanked me straight out of the movie. Conversely, the rest of the cast was pretty good. Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin, and Helena Bonham Carter were all very good in each of their roles. In fact, the chemistry and dynamic between Bale and Worthington was pretty great. You really bought it. And Worthington totally pulled off his task of standing up to Bale on screen.

Then there’s the editing. There was something about it that seemed off to me. McG put a little too much “music video” into this movie. Some bad cuts, coupled with some cheesy transitions, and a mediocre credit sequence that gave us, not one, but two title cards and TWO mentions of McG as director. Why? I don’t know. Maybe its ego. On the flipside, the opening credits, albeit mediocre as mentioned, were a nice nod to the original Terminator movie’s opening credits. And despite the editing problems, the special effects and action sequences were very well done.

KyleReeseThe story has its problems in some spots. The ending seemed a bit rushed and anti-climactic. I suppose its better than the original ending, but even though the original ending was bad, at least it was ambitious and epic. This one just seemed like the best they could do on short notice. I do, however, enjoy the Marcus Wright storyline, as well as the Kyle Reese element.

I especially enjoyed seeing the impact of John Connor on the resistance, even before he’s officially the leader. This film has some problems, and McG was the wrong director for it. But the fact is, it takes the franchise seriously, unlike Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. And it’s deep seeded in Terminator mythology. You’ve got the creation of the T-800 (Arnold’s model), great throwbacks to the original two movies, including the location and nature of the final battle, and, of course, some classic Terminator lines.

The score was okay. Nothing to write home about. But good enough for a cool action flick. I wish there was a little more use of the Terminator theme but otherwise its pretty good.

The fact is, this is not Christian Bale’s worse movie. I’d position REIGN OF FIRE and HARSH TIMES lower on the list than TERMINATOR SALVATION. And I enjoyed those two films to a certain extent too. And I’d definitely say SALVATION is better than RISE OF THE MACHINES.  Its ultimate undoing was McG. In the hands of another director, it may have ended up much better.

blairIts definitely a movie you have to watch at least once. And watching it in the theatre is recommended, if for no other reason than the action and special effects. Its not THE DARK KNIGHT. Its not even THE INCREDIBLE HULK. But its definitely not CATWOMAN or ELEKTRA either. Also, for the record: There is nothing Matrix-like in this movie. Its the opposite. There are Terminator-like elements in The Matrix. Remember, Terminator came first. And here’s hoping the deleted nude scene with Moon Bloodgood is on the DVD because that would REALLY move the movie up a couple of notches.

… I’m kidding.

… Sort of.

The A-Train’s TERMINATOR SALVATION Rating: 3 out of 5 machine guns.

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