acid42

• Rated 5 stars

“What it is: Comedic/dramatic tale of familial loss and discovery, set to a background of modern Israel’s chaos. Its approach: very indie art film romantic comedy. |||||||| A Tel Aviv taxi driver named Koby discovers that his estranged dad may have died in a bombing incident. He is told this by a young woman who, it turns out, was his father’s lover. Their search for the father, or for proof of his death, uncovers the father’s further infidelities while simultaneously revealing Koby’s true character. So despite never actually seeing the father in all of its pages, you have a pretty clear understanding of who he is, and likewise who Koby has become. The Good: Line art as crisp as a Tintin comic., Location details, colors, and even dialogue that breathe off the page. Writing that is sparse as it is true. The entire story is a breathtaking peek into a different metropolis and a whole other culture. But still universal enough to have some relevance in a reader’s life. Ultimately, like some of the best works of art, it is a journey of self-discovery for the protagonist, recalling each reader’s own selfsame journey.”

acid42 wrote this review Tuesday, April 22 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“THE GOOD: Black and white art whose attention to detail is often astounding. Visual sequences that capture silent action dramatically. Overlapping storylines / parallels which are early attempts at non-linearity and which predate the storytelling technique of comics like Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. A brave attempt to critique history, government, dictatorships, corruption, religion and power, while mixing in the minutiae of each of these topics into the overall storyline. Sadly, though this makes author / illustrator Bryan Talbot the equivalent of comics’ Umberto Eco (master of the minutiae in literature), it doesn’t help smoothen the writing of this epic. Still, the work is clearly groundbreaking in its graphic as well as narrative techniques, and the effort alone that it to took to conceive and execute this graphic novel is worthy of mention. I just don’t know how it will make anyone’s “Top 10 Favorite Graphic Novels of All Time” list. ”

acid42 wrote this review Tuesday, April 22 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“When you grow up in a funeral home (the "fun home" of the title) with a father who treats his children like furniture and his furniture like children, what does that do to you? Allison Bechdel's graphic novel explores her father's mysterious death and equally mysterious life juxtaposed with her own coming-of-age stories. The result is a visually poetic and compellingly-written memoir of her family life that is as stark as it is touching. ”

acid42 wrote this review Wednesday, March 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Dialogue that's so sharp, it sizzles. Characters so real, you can't escape them. And teenage angst galore. The main character Enid is cynical, self-loathing, alienated, but still able to be best friends with Becky, the willing sidekick. Life, and their friendship, is about to change as the shadow of college looms over them. It's a bittersweet read. Made more poignant by Clowes' storytelling talent. His ability to draw sad sequences in a single frame wraps this coming-of-age tale together in tender twines of truth. Brilliant graphic novel.
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acid42 wrote this review Wednesday, March 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Just do it: identify a Next Action in any project. And do it. Clear your inbox, clear your to-do list, clear your cluttered workday. Without specifying one single way, Allen gives a framework in which to implement a productive workflow and it boils down to: every project has a next action, identify it, schedule it/delegate it/do it. Works wonders for cluttered people like me. It also led me to various productivity websites and freeware available on the web. The book has inspired a subculture and community of "life hackers," people on the lookout for productivity-enhancing tools and systems, which just goes to show you: 21st century people are messy and need help! ”

acid42 wrote this review Wednesday, March 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“This one's a keeper. I borrowed it from the library, actually took comprehensive notes on the book before returning it, and am now thinking I want a copy for myself. It's not just a "tactics" book (how to avoid creative blocks) but rather a "fundamentals" book (why do you need to create? What's your daily plan?) I like to think of it as the Getting Things Done book for the artist as it tackles goals, processes, freeing your thinking, centering yourself, and making meaning. Less spiritual than say, Julia Cameron, but still packs a wallop in the area of self analysis, and even better, self motivation to live a creative life. ”

acid42 wrote this review Wednesday, March 5 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“I was going to start this review by gushing, but that changed after Googling for this book and reading some of the news items related to the book and its author. But I’m getting ahead of myself. ___What the book is about: Author James Frey’s true-to-life addiction to crack, leading to a life of crime, and leading to a grueling six weeks he spent battling it (and conquering it) at a rehab center, with the aid of colorful supporting characters, among them another addict named Lilly whom he falls in love with. ___Why the book rocks: It’s written in a grim, gritty, often repetitious first-person point-of-view, but delivers a wallop with its valorous attempt at describing what infinite addiction and infinite rage are like, using finite words. ___The story pulls you into the writer’s head– you become James Frey, you feel as he felt, and experience things as he does while reading the book. And it’s a memoir– meaning it’s all true. (SUPPOSEDLY.) ___Why this book suddenly sucks: Turns out Frey embellished. A lot. Which, you know, is perfectly forgiveable because if adding on to the story aids it, then why not? Well… except for the fact that it’s touted as a non-fiction book. A memoir for goodness’ sake. And for the fact that Frey himself has said numerous times in many interviews that the book is truthful. ___Except investigative website The Smoking Gun has uncovered proof that Frey made up most of his “Criminal” career to make himself look worse than he really was. Crucial events such as his arrest in Ohio aren’t corroborated by actual records. And well, it turns out Frey was originally shopping this book around as fiction and consequently rejected by publishers numerous times, before some rewrites and a major overhaul into a “memoir” got it into Doubleday. Read The Smoking Gun’s loooong exposé on Frey here. (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html) ___The reason why it’s such a betrayal? The appeal of the book is precisely in the reader thinking “this actually happened to someone for real.” Once that thought is over-ridden by copious amounts of embellishment, it loses its zest. ___And yet. If simply for the psychological hurdles and the way Frey wrote of the addiction he was dealing with, the book still possesses a power all its own. Of course that’s if you can get past the lies.”

acid42 wrote this review Monday, October 8 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“American symbologist Robert Langdon wakes up early one morning and is enlisted to help solve a murder that occured halfway around the globe– a murder that shows clues that a centuries-old secret Satanist sect called the Illuminati are apparently alive and well, and planning the downfall of the Catholic Church. Turns out that the person murdered was a scientist who was able to recreate the Big Bang on a sub-molecular scale, and was thus able to create matter and anti-matter from the collision of particles. Except someone has murdered the scientist, broken into his lab and stolen a cannister of anti-matter which is a dangerous substance, as dangerous as nuclear material and the cannister stolen is enough to level an entire city. Somehow the cannister appears somewhere in the Vatican city, and is set to go off at midnight of the same day.

And what’s going on in the Vatican at the same time? Why the papal enclave where cardinals from all over the world gather to vote on the next pope! The catch is that 4 of the top choices for pope have been kidnapped and one cardinal will be murdered by the Illuminati assassin every hour starting at 8 PM. It is Robert Langdon’s task to hunt down the locations of the cardinals through the use of ancient clues in the Vatican archives relating to the Illuminati, and to therefore save not only the city but also the church from destruction.

My comment: It’s pretty implausible. While there are a few scientific facts in the story, there is also a whole lot of fiction. The book is obviously aimed at being turned into cinema, so maybe the need to provide a more realistic backdrop was unnecessary?

The action sequences are daft to say the least, with the main protagonist making many many illogical choices and a few intuitive ones that quite literally save the day.

Characters are flat and lack substance. The female character (daughter of the murdered scientist) doesn’t seem to add anything to the story except a poorly-conceived romantic angle and of course, providing the assasin with a final kidnap victim.

And yet, and yet. The plot was what kept me going. Well-written plot-heavy books are addictive to say the least. The only real bummer is a last-minute plot twist at the very end which made me want to screech in anger. How could the writer do that? Without revealing the ending, all I can say is that author Dan Brown suddenly turned an action-packed thriller into an episode of Days Of Our Lives. Boo!!! Bad ending!!! Fun read in the middle though.”

acid42 wrote this review Friday, August 10 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Let’s get this out of the way first: I watched the animated AKIRA before I ever laid eyes on the actual manga that inspired it. And was blown away by the animation and the themes of teenage rebellion, power and greed. Though, understandably, there seemed to be a lot of loose ends and a lack of characterization in the struggle to remake the story from comics to film. Still, it blew me away.

And so I finally read the entire epic manga over the course of the past week, slowly at first, drinking in the gorgeously detailed line art, and the complex plotlines, and then frantically near the end, wanting to find how it all played out. And boy, does the film suffer in comparison. (Admittedly, any film adaptation of a story that is 3000+ pages in length will never live up to the original.)

What author/artist Katsuhiro Otomo has done is to create a world not that distant from our own, where scientific experiments have led to children possessing earth-shattering powers, in some insane scheme to evolve the human to the next step. The boy named Akira is the summation of the experiments, and his power actually led to the 3rd World War. Many years later, Tetsuo, a rebellious teenager whose latent power manifests itself suudenly, reawakens Akira from a cryogenic chamber and the power is loosed upon Neo-Tokyo. The rest of the story is the battle to stop power-mad Tetsuo from wrecking the world.

If you thought the Spider-Man movies successfully handled the themes of corruption and power, then you will love how AKIRA takes it one step further. The mutated children are able to tap into the energy “stream” of the universe and use it. But when Tetsuo’s hubris and substance- abusive personality comes into the picture, his power only heightens his ego, tainting his usage of the energy and later his own body.

What you get here are complex story lines coupled with detailed art. And characters that come alive because there is enough space to flesh out their back stories. Some of the most beautiful panels in the manga are the page-wide city destruction sequences (of which there are many), where skyscrapers crumple like paper, and explosions blind the eye. An engaging read, and truly a classic graphic novel, in any language.
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acid42 wrote this review Tuesday, July 31 2007. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 1 stars

“Rock band Dystopia make it big! Finally a world tour! Lead singer in a shambles! Songwriter guitarist unappreciated! Other band members in a funk! Their manager, doing dirty deals in order to bring the band higher still. Their opening act DJ obsesses over prostitutes. Groupies! Alcohol! Email correspondence to make the book seem cool! And everyone doing drugs. And then there are the murders. And the people who get away with it. True to their name, Dystopia rise fast and are on a quick downward spiral back down to the pits because of ego, hubris and a hedonism matching their appetites to make music. So-so writing. Brainless read. Bad behavior, atrocious values. Not recommended for kids. But if you like backstabbers and junkies, then this one's for you. ”

acid42 wrote this review Thursday, July 26 2007. ( reply | permalink )