Sunday, October 24, 2010

A Sunday Review

This week's movie was The Batman vs. Dracula from 2005. We watched the series when it aired, but somehow missed seeing this little gem. Seeing the Penguin making jokes at both Dracula and Batman's expense was fun. And Joker as a vampire is even scarier than this version already was. Yikes. Lots of cool extras on the DVD that we watched after the movie. There were many little pieces on the acts of creation that go into a movie like this.



DCBS
Here are reviews of the DCBS comic book shipment that arrived this week, of books originally released Oct 6th and 13th:
  • Brightest Day #11 - Plenty of Aquaman here to keep me happy. More like this!
  • JSA All-Stars #11 - Hrm. Not really sure about it.
  • Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #3 - Nicely resolved at the end, not at all how I expected it to be resolved.

  • Green Lantern #58 - This whole Green Lantern thing isn't even close to being over, is it?
  • Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #3 - Lots of talking.
  • Untold Tales of Blackest Night #1 - Some good stuff in here, some annoying stuff, and just some stuff.
  • Justice Society of America 80 Page Giant 2010 - Wow, some good stuff in here. I was particularly pleased with the Cyclone story and the origin of Obsidian.
  • Knight & Squire #1 - Very strange, very amusing.
  • Northlanders #33 - Still don't like the main characters, which makes it hard to care about their fate.
  • Tiny Titans/Little Archie #1 - Steve Grundy!!! WAH! Love this book!



My library book this week was Ranger's Apprentice Book Eight: The Kings of Clonmel by John Flanagan. Eight books in, and the series gets more interesting. There's a tiny bit of formula in the stories, but each one differs enough in both details and settings to make it work. And this book builds on previous hints and comments. I suspect there's a lot more life to this series, and I know there's at least one more book because this one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Good popcorn reading, and certainly something that young adults would enjoy.



Agatha Christie this week was The Mirror Crack'd, also published as The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side from 1962. Miss Marple is getting older and needs something to perk her up, and just in time a murder comes along for her to unravel. I actually had this one almost entirely figured out early, but wasn't sure enough of my facts to be certain. I was happy when the reveal happened, because for once I had it almost completely right. Yeah, I missed a little of the motive, but that was it. I feel this is a classic sort of mystery with the standard hidden identities, obvious motives, and clues dropped on the reader early and in quantity. A regular Christie story, but be careful as it reveals details about an earlier Marple story in it.



1 comments:

Garrett said...

I finally got around to reading Christie's "Curtain", Poirot's last mystery, a month or two back. Cool story.