Scott Pilgrim vs. the Blog Entry

For those of you who don't know me in my precious little real life, I was highly anticipating the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. After having a lot of initial doubts about the casting of Michael Cera in the title role I firmly get to stick it in my craw or whatever that expression is because he was genius. Once the trailer came out, I was basically drooling for the movie to come out. It didn't disappoint. I've seen it. Twice, natch.

Blogs are of course writing about how good it is but how the box office numbers don't necessarily reflect this. In fact, they really really don't. Which is a shame, because it's a high budget movie that basically found an artistic indie director (I will always kind of think of him as that Memento guy) and this film was supposed to be his first mainstream success. But people aren't getting it and it's being (largely) written off as a "youth" movie with no attention span. I think people have forgotten that first and foremost, movies are really there to be entertaining. More than that, Scott Pilgrim the film takes all the best things from the graphic novels (there's a lot of inside references that support the text if you give it a read, despite the fact that movie deviates from them in a lot of clever ways) and makes it accessible to a wider audience than just your average comic book nerd. It's sad that people aren't giving this movie a chance. Sad enough to make me write a blog entry about. Sad enough to go see the movie again a third (and possibly fourth) time.

Also, shout out to Michelle (my very own Envy Adams) who sent me the movie poster through the mail. It's hanging above my computer, and you basically can't escape it no matter where you go in my apartment. I also bought the soundtrack. And I want to buy the score (especially for the 'Roxy' track). Obsession can be a sick, sick thing.

Scott Pilgrim movie aside, I am now picking up a few more comics monthly. While I still have yet to read Simonson's Birds of Prey series (which is getting ridiculous; I have 4 issues in my 'comixbox' at home [it's like a 'mother box' but cooler]), I did catch up on both Winick's Red Hood miniseries which I'm oddly liking a lot and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer one-shot that just came out focusing on of all people Riley Finn. For those of you who don't know, Riley was an oft-hated character who dated Buffy after Angel did. This sort of sealed his fate; no one ever really liked him (except maybe some of the writers. I'm talking to YOU, Marti Noxon!). Ultimately, that's kind of sad because he became much more interested in the 5th Season of the show. He kind of realizes Buffy's drifting away from him, she's not realizing it, and he doesn't really like her friends. He became this weirdo loner character, and eventually leaves mid-season when, let's face it, they ran out of things to do with him. Marc Blucas was both sexy and heartbreaking; I was actually kind of sad when he left Buffy; his send-off was much better and worked better story-wise than when Seth Green had left the show over a year earlier. Anyway, that's Riley. He came back once and was married to some hootchy that everyone just had to love because of how badass and cool she was. Horrible character, in my opinion, who I constantly come up with "how she died after the show ended" scenarios in my head for. True fans of Buffy will agree with me. She sucked.

Jane Espenson, much beloved writer of episodes like Earshot and Triangle to name just a few, penned this single one-shot from Dark Horse focusing on why Riley mysteriously appears as a bad guy (then a good guy) in the ongoing Buffy series. It's sad, because with so much going on, Riley definitely faded into the background during the ongoing series. Is he even still alive? I don't even think the let us know. Anyway, Jane wrote a Jonathan Levinson book awhile back that was genius, so it's no surprise that her Riley issue is really, really strong here. She made me care about his marriage. What? I hated that chick! But here, it's like they are an old married couple who happen to be awesome super spies that are let's face it, never really going to get to retire. They are trying to talk about kids, but like while disarming warheads. Fun stuff like that. The issue is just kind of a back and forth between Riley and Mrs. Riley (her name is Sam. SAM! That is so dumb! It's like she's a dude!) talking about him helping Buffy out, their relationship, etc. But it works. I enjoyed it enough to say it's probably going to be one of my favorite issues of the whole series, maybe seconded only to Harmony's issue where she becomes a reality TV star.

There's also some stuff about Angel talking to the forgotten character of Whistler that's nice but that I really didn't care about. The single panel shots featuring the Twilight design though are nice. I really, really love his mask and overall trenchcoat look. Karl Moline drew the issue (he also drew the Frey crossover in the ongoing) and his work is top-notch here. He obviously had time to really do it up. Anyway, I promised some rants on single issues I read, so thar ya go. I'm inspired to geek out over comics by going through back issues of the 4th Letter, which now appears in my blog links to the left side of the screen. I already have chosen Gavok as my favorite writer there. So many good comic nerd points are made on that blog, I can't even begin to describe how much I love it. Oh yeah, you should also go see Scott Pilgrim. Right now he's vs. the Box Office, and he needs your help to touch the back of their knees.