Stay-At-Home Theater: TRUE GRIT, 2010 version/re-make. While I like the original with John Wayne, I thought this was the better movie. Very well done. It just feels and looks more authentic, and a truer reflection of the times (including the awkward style of speaking, but not in those days). Great acting throughout. FOUR AND ONE-HALF STARS.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Recommended: My FAVORITE COMICS OF 2020
By Mike Clarke, Writer/Editor for POP CULTURE PODIUM
Please don't mistake this for a best of the year list. During 2020, I reviewed a decent number of issues (909, to be exact) but I don't feel right about proclaiming anything as "the best" unless I read them all (just not possible anymore). There is some overlap here, as some books were published in 2019 but the story arc completed in 2020, or I didn't read the full series until 2020.
It was a great year for comics. There were so many high quality books I decided not to limit my list to a specific number. These are simply the books I enjoyed the most in 2020 and give them my heartiest recommendation. Fortunately, almost all of these are available now (or soon in 2021) in trade paperback or hardcover editions. Here they are, listed alphabetically and not in any particular order of preference.
How many from this list have you read? What are your favorites of 2020?
MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020
ARTEMIS AND THE ASSASSIN (Aftershock)
A WALK THROUGH HELL COMPLETE COLLECTION (Aftershock)
BILLIONAIRE ISLAND (Ahoy)
DAPHNE BYRNE (DC/Hill House)
DEAD DAY (Aftershock)
THE DOLLHOUSE FAMILY (DC/Hill House)
GOODNIGHT, PARADISE (TKO)
INVISIBLE KINGDOM (Dark Horse)
LONELY RECEIVER (Aftershock)
ONCE AND FUTURE, VOLUME 1 (Boom)
OUTER DARKNESS, VOL. 1: EACH OTHER'S THROATS (Image)
PANDEMICA (IDW)
STILETTO (Lion Forge)
UNDONE BY BLOOD SHADOW OF A WANTED MAN (Aftershock)
HONORABLE MENTION
FINGER GUNS (Vault)
FIREPOWER, VOLUME 1: PRELUDE (Image)
GODDAMNED: THE VIRGIN BRIDES (Image)
JOIN THE FUTURE (Aftershock)
KILLADELPHIA (Image)
LUDOCRATS (Image)
VLAD DRACUL (Scout)
THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR: DEATH OF DAREDEVIL (Marvel)
ROAD OF BONES (IDW)
FAVORITE ONE-SHOT ISSUES:
NEGAN LIVES (Image)
OTHER HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE, BOOK ONE (DC)
SUB-MARINER: MARVEL SNAPSHOTS (Marvel)
RE-VISITED AND RECOMMENDED These are older books that I read again during 2020, and loved them just as much the second or third time around.
AMERICAN JESUS, BOOK ONE (Image)
BATMAN: EARTH ONE, VOLUME 1 (DC)
THE BEAUTY, VOLUME 1 (Image)
BONE PARISH: VOLUME 1, 2, 3 (Boom)
THE BROTHERS DRACUL (Aftershock)
DOOMSDAY CLOCK, VOLUME 1 (DC)
HARBINGER RENEGADE, VOLUME 1 (Valiant)
LOCKE & KEY: WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT (IDW)
REPLICA, BOOK ONE (Aftershock)
SAGA: VOLUME 1, 2 (IMAGE)
THE WICKED AND THE DIVINE, BOOK ONE (Image)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Cr...
Music Favorites 1961-1970 #43: The 1966-1969 version of FLEETWOOD
MAC 1 of 5
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Black Christmas - Movie Review
Stay-At-Home Theater: BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019 version) on HBO.
I'm all in favor of "girl-power" horror movies where the victim strikes back and wins out against the monster/s. HALLOWEEN comes to mind. BLACK CHRISTMAS belongs in the same category, although the movie just isn't good. The social message overwhelms the story, and the fear isn't there.
I let this movie reviewer rant about it - - while I agree with many of his opinions, I didn't hate it as much as he did. TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS.
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Book Review: DARK TOWERS by David Enrich
DARK TOWERS; DEUTSCHE BANK, DONALD TRUMP, AND AN EPIC TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION by David Enrich (Custom House, February 2020) Hardcover, 448 pages. ISBN # 0062878816 /9789962878816
Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .
A searing exposé of the most scandalous bank in the world, including its shadowy ties to Donald Trump’s business empire.
On a rainy Sunday in 2014, a senior executive at Deutsche Bank was found hanging in his London apartment. Bill Broeksmit had helped build the 150-year-old financial institution into a global colossus, and his sudden death was a mystery, made more so by the bank’s efforts to deter investigation. Broeksmit, it turned out, was a man who knew too much.
In Dark Towers, award-winning journalist David Enrich reveals the truth about Deutsche Bank and its epic path of devastation. Tracing the bank’s history back to its propping up of a default-prone American developer in the 1880s, helping the Nazis build Auschwitz, and wooing Eastern Bloc authoritarians, he shows how in the 1990s, via a succession of hard-charging executives, Deutsche made a fateful decision to pursue Wall Street riches, often at the expense of ethics and the law.
Soon, the bank was manipulating markets, violating international sanctions to aid terrorist regimes, scamming investors, defrauding regulators, and laundering money for Russian oligarchs.
Ever desperate for an American foothold, Deutsche also started doing business with a self-promoting real estate magnate nearly every other bank in the world deemed too dangerous to touch: Donald Trump. Over the next twenty years, Deutsche executives loaned billions to Trump, the Kushner family, and an array of scandal-tarred clients, including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Dark Towers is the never-before-told saga of how Deutsche Bank became the global face of financial recklessness and criminality—the corporate equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. It is also the story of a man who was consumed by fear of what he’d seen at the bank—and his son’s obsessive search for the secrets he kept.
My Four-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
David Enrich did an incredible job of investigation to complete this story after multiple interviews with various sources (most of them insiders, and many unidentified per their request). Deutsche Bank has to rank in the Top Five All-Time Corrupt Banks. I felt squeamish after reading of many of their unscrupulous practices - - that's how immoral and greedy they were and still are
.
In spite of all the scandalous financial deals that Deutsche has been found guilty of and fined billions of dollars - - they deserve to be dismantled. I'm sure there will be more to come out. Here's hoping Trump has to answer for some of the crap he pulled with the assistance and financial backing of Deutsche funneling Russian money to him.
Enrich divides the book into two sections. The first part covers the history of Deutsche bank and all the bad deals and shady arrangements it participated in decade by decade. The second part explains the role of Val Broeksmit in uncovering the evidence against Deutsche that caused his stepfather (a former senior executive at Deutsche) to commit suicide, and how that information led to major revelations regarding the reckless financial deals and criminality imbued within Deutsche.
Aiding the Nazis party, authoritarians, laundering money for Russian oligarchs, financing Jeffrey Epstein's sex offenses, the Trump family, the Kushner family, and others. Here's hoping President-Elect Biden will reinstate the former regulations that the Trump administration loosened up, and renew tighter regulations on large banks and Wall Street.
An important book, and a commendable piece of investigative journalism.
Birds of Prey - Funniest Moments
Stay-At-Home Theater: BIRDS OF PREY AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN (or something like that) on HBO. While this has its' moments, I'm so glad I didn't spend money to see this in a theater. The fight scenes are inventive and choreographed well. There are parts that made me laugh. The storyline was kind of plodding for a two-hour movie that at times seemed like a cartoon. I'd rather watch the DC Universe Harley Quinn adult cartoon series than this - - maybe because I only have to endure 30 minutes at one sitting. TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS.
Year-End Final Releases From AFTERSHOCK, 2021 News
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Other Voices: Another Opinion On I BREATHED A BODY #1
Review by RUN THE COMICS 5K's Matt Lowder . . . . .
I BREATHED A BODY (Aftershock Comics, January 2021 release) Writer: Zac Thompson. Artist: Andy MacDonald. Colors: Triona Farrell. Letters: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.
I’m fascinated by sociology and technology’s fusion with our interactions. The evolving cultural vocabulary online continues to be a marvelously horrific, equalizing, and homogenizing force.
I BREATHED A BODY is a very unique fusion between horror and societal concepts. There's great set-up here.
Anne Steward has made a career out of polishing and marketing an internet personality teenager named Mylo. She's been successful behind the curtain, and now she wants equity in the MyCena social media empire she helped grow.
It’s like a Black Mirror episode. It’s timely, honest, authentic, and it’s pitch-perfect if you enjoy this kind of thing.
By page six, it became abundantly clear that the writer expertly understands the picture he’s painting about the impact and reach of viral videos, and the callousness of corporations that profit from manufactured sensationalism.
The contents of this issue are more nuanced and less gory than the cover leads on. The final two or three pages are among the most memorable I’ve read this year. Issue #1 hits shelves in January. ComicHub it, people. RATING: FOUR OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE STARS.
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