Eric Shanower and Skottie Young’s new adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (Marvel Comics, 8 issues) is a joy. Shanower has long been affiliated with Oz, adapting the various books into comics and illustrating L. Frank Baum’s novels. Here, he writes a faithful version of the first story, not as it has become enshrined in our collective memories through the movie, but as Baum originally penned the tale in the beginning of the twentieth century.

As good as Shanower’s script is, it is artist Skottie Young who really shines. His Dorothy and his Oz are revelations. Dorothy doesn’t so much follow the Yellow Brick Road as sail above it, her exuberant embodiment of late-frontier America perfectly captured by the artist’s confident line. Oz appears both beautiful and slightly dangerous, a place that could easily provide the lighted match the Scarecrow so fears. And little Toto is the perfect dog companion – cartoonish, but not too cartoonish, able to hold his own with Young’s versions of Munchkins and good and evil witches.

Only the first issue has been published so far, but Marvel’s Oz looks to be a hit. The big question is should readers buy it monthly or wait for the inevitable hardback and paperback collections that will do more justice to the work? Many fans doubtless will do both. A great all-ages effort from Marvel Comics.

If you’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, you know the concept of a corrupt computer isn’t new. The idea is takent to absurd twenty-first century levels in Eagle Eye, newly released on DVD.

I just can’t buy a super-computer — even one that acts like the big sister of Hall 9000 — that controls every aspect of modern life, from traffic signals to mall security cameras, cell phones to bank ATMs. My wife says I’m too picky and it’s just a movie, but I argue that techno-thrillers, even those set in some near-future Never Never Land, must be believeable or the whole house of cards collapses. Besides, the whole thing quickly becomes an excuse to watch Shia LaBeouf (above) and Michelle Monaghan run and drive and crash and run some more. Director D.J. Caruso uses lots of MTV-style fast cuts to keep the viewer squinting perpetually at the screen, trying to figure out who is in the shot and what the hell is happening.

Save your money. This one isn’t even worth a rental.

Spotted in a retail store on Jan. 1, 2009 — Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs and Cadbury Creme Eggs. Only 98 more shopping days until Easter!

 One thing I’ve been doing over the holidays (in addition to lots of reading) is catching up on various movies I missed in the theaters.

The first of these is Russell Crowe’s turn as Captain Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, adapted from the novels of Patrick O’Brian. I haven’t read any of the books, but the movie is superb, providing a sense of what extended travels aboard a seafaring military ship must have been like. It is also a character study in friendship, bravery and duty without sacrificing the high seas action that packs in audiences. My wife commented that the constant rocking motion of the ship made her seasick, and what better testimony to authenticity can you ask for?
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Here is my last print column of 2008, published Dec. 31 in The Alliance Review.

Change is hard, which is why we wait until the end of the year to think about making it.

When U.S. citizens consider change, too often we look to elected leaders when we should instead look in the mirror. It sounds as trite as a Michael Jackson song, but it’s true.

As we ring down the curtain on ‘08 and prepare to bring it up on ‘09, here are five things we need to stop and five things we need to start. I don’t like calling them resolutions, which has become code for something we abandon Jan. 5.
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Most news reports about the 25 films announced today for inclusion in the National Film Registry focused on The Terminator and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature “I’ll be back” line. I remember seeing the film in theaters twice (a rarity for me) when it was first released in 1984. I liked — and like — it a lot, more than either sequel. Word on the street is that Christian Bale of Dark Knight fame will star in a new Terminator sequel in 2009. The beauty of time travel in movies is it can create any number of paradoxes and endless sequel-milking.

But the movie on the newest Registry list that I’m most excited about isn’t Terminator. Instead, it’s the one starring the gentleman seen (or not seen) above: The Invisible Man. Made by Universal Studios in 1933, it starred Claude Rains (later of Casablanca fame) and was directed by James Whale, who had done the honors on Universal’s Frankenstein. It’s a great movie, and having it named to the latest Library of Congress list gives me an excuse to put it into rotation on my ever-growing list of movies I plan to watch again.

Space Ghost & Dino Boy is a two-disc collection of the classic 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoons, airing long before Space Ghost became a joke of sorts on Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast To Coast and before DC Comics attempted to revive the character by making him super serious and relevant.

No, this is the original Space Ghost, who turns invisible, flies around in his Phantom Cruiser, and spends most of his time rescuing youthful companions Jan and Jace and their pet monkey, Blip. The character designs by comic-book legend Alex Toth (whose name rhymes with “both” and not “Roth”) stand the test of time; the character looks cool as hell, sailing about in all his transparent glory and shouting “Spa-a-a-a-ce Gho-o-o-ost” as he swoops down on the bad guys.
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Somewhere between the ultra-campy Batman TV series of the 1960s and the super-serious Caped Crusader from this year’s Dark Knight film is the hero portrayed in the new Cartoon Network Series, Brave and the Bold. This isn’t the jokey Adam West version, and it’s not the emo, self-tortured Christian Bale version either. Instead, it’s more like the Batman I grew up — serious, but not so much that he can’t smile occasionally. The character design looks like it was lifted from Dick Sprang, an incredible artist who drafted a highly stylized Batman and emphasized props like giant pennies, dinosaurs, and the like.

Like the old Brave and the Bold comic book, the new animated series teams Batman with a different guest star for each installment. This week, it was Plastic Man. The writers tweaked Plas’s origin a bit to fit him in the Batman continuity, but otherwise this is Jack Cole’s rubbery creation brought to life via animation. The show gave Plas a good character arc, too, taking him from greedy criminal to selfless savior in just thirty minutes, less if you don’t count the commercials. The villain of the week was Gorilla Grodd, whose secret base was on an island of dinosaurs, giving Batman and Plastic Man plenty to keep them occupied.

I liked the episode well enough to have the DVR record future installments. This is a Batman that we don’t see much these days — certainly not in the latest big-budget motion picture and almost never in the monthly comics — but one that is just as valid as the tortured, driven version that has supplanted all other interpretations.

Santa dropped a copy of Kung Fu Panda in my daughter’s stocking. This is a movie that looked uninspired in its previews, especially when I saw that Jack Black voiced the lead character. (He was miscast in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which wasn’t his fault but is something I still hold against him.) So I stayed away.

I shouldn’t have. Turns out it’s a good little movie. Black is great as the titular hero, an overweight bear working in his father’s noodle shop who dreams of being a kung-fu superstar. Dustin Hoffman voices the Master, a diminutive rat who doesn’t want to train the panda in the martial arts. While I miss traditional, hand-drawn animation, the computerized art here is breathtaking in its clarity, and it suits the story well. (I wonder if we’ll ever see another “classic” animated theatrical effort from any studio again. Probably not.)

The movie was a pleasant surprise. I give it two panda paws up.

It’s hard to work up too much distaste for a movie that runs only 61 minutes. Unlike two and two-and-a-half hour films, these quickies don’t waste too much of one’s time, and are actually only about fifteen minutes longer than an episode of your average television drama if you subtract the commercials.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I kinda/sorta like Captive Wild Woman (1943), a Universal horror entry I watched for the first time this week. John Carradine plays a doctor who puts the glands of a woman into the body of a female ape, causing the creature to change into a dark-complexioned beauty played by Aquanetta. The poster above shows both the ape and Aquanetta, which is impossible as they are one and the same. (The name Aquanetta reminds me of hairspray. Do they still make Aquanet?)
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