document.write("League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2.6. The last of the League. Mr. Hyde turns out to be the most interesting character of this series. It's sort of a shame that Moore's ended the series, which was vastly fun. Maybe he'll write about the earlier incarnation of the League, with Lemuel Gulliver, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Doctor Syn, Fanny Hill, and Natty Bumppo?
")
document.write("The New Yorkers. Mixed media is often, well, a mixed bag, and this very-loosely-hung-together show was no exception. Stuff we liked: Ben Katchor's comics, narrated by Bill Irwin; a video by Douglas Aitken set to a languid cello-and-voice rendition of the VU's ''Heroin''; and two films (with music by Michael Gordon) by Bill Morrison -- one (City Walk) a trip through Brooklyn and into Manhattan (yes, Debbie, that was the Manhattan Bridge) as seen through a xerox machine, the other (Light is Calling) a gorgeous and haunting screening of a silent movie on decaying nitrate film (see pic below).
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document.write("1602 (nos. 1-3). What if the Marvelverse had happened in Europe in 1602? Gaiman is clearly having fun with this, although I really did need the annotations to understand who some of the (for me) more obscure Marvel characters' analogues were.
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document.write("Shichinin no samurai. I can't believe I'd never seen Kurosawa's masterpiece. Simply amazing in every frame.
")
document.write("D.O.A. (1950): Frank Bigelow: I want to report a murder.
Homicide Captain: Sit down. Where was this murder committed?
Frank Bigelow: San Francisco, last night.
Homicide Captain: Who was murdered?
Frank Bigelow: I was.
")
document.write("The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. Fewer of his 'what does it mean to be human' stories, and a suprising number about the power of celebrity and advertising. There's a particularly hilarious story about time-travellers who go back to the 20th C to infiltrate a 'pre-cog' convention -- which is of course a convention of sci-fi writers. Would make a great script for those in on the joke.
")
document.write("Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Fourth Season. This season was better than we remembered. Favorite eps: Hush, Wild at Heart, Superstar, New Moon Rising, Primeval, Restless.
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document.write("The Sandman: Endless Nights. Gaiman finally returns to the Endless -- each one gets their own story. A bit uneven, but Death and Desire get the best ones, IMHO.
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document.write("Diva. I forgot just how 80's-strange this French opera-romance-thriller was. Was Dominique Pinon in every French movie ever made?
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document.write("Domicile conjugal. Antoine Doinel, still charming.
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document.write("About a Boy. Rather liked it. But did they have to give everyone a mate at the end? That felt rather false, and I wondered if the book ends the same way. Oh, and now I have ''Santa's Super Sleigh'' stuck in my head.
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document.write("All the President's Men. Actually, kind of a boring history lesson. We decided this would be one of the worst movies to see if you didn't understand English. But there is that cool dual-focus lens shot.
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document.write("Detour (1945). Ulmer did film noir on the cheap. But how can you lose with Ann Savage in the cast? Rodriguez could even learn a thing or two about cheap movie tricks.
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