Hollywood Movies Stink Up a Recent Flight for Me

Being a newish dad, I don't watch the sheer amount of movies I did when I was younger. So I either make sure most of what I see is award-worthy or at the other end of the spectrum and completely brain-dead fun.

Apparently, I'm not missing much out of Hollywood these days. And unfortunately, I only hit the mark of my requirements for three of the movies I watched on a recent really long flight.

Pathetically, the film that met those requirements was Bad Teacher. And when that is the pick of your film marathon, it inspires a big "oh boy."

That said, my expectations were low, and Bad Teacher was actually pretty enjoyable. Cameron Diaz was back near her It's a Shame About Mary level of hilarity, Jason Segal (see The Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) seems to be can't-miss these days, and Justin Timberlake was sufficient. Perhaps I was delirious towards the end of said long flight, but it seemed to actually be a pretty decent statement on the quality of many of our schools and some of the superficialities of our society in general.

Where the allure of the latest film version of the classic novel Jane Eyre lies, I don't know. I just didn't get the boring BBC production of this one. I think the main problem was that leads Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender had no dramatic range whatsoever, despite the next-big-thing status of each. This is one of the few movies I've seen lately that was almost routinely adored by critics but shrugged off by me.

But the movie I was really disappointed by was Super 8. It seemed like this would be Stand By Me-like, with a bunch of unproven kids steering a Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams (of Lost) production. It starts promisingly, and then a massive train explosion that the group witnesses seems like it will take the story in interesting directions. But then it dragged so slowly towards a completely forgettable conclusion that badly wanted to be E.T. but was more like a SyFy Channel show that gets cancelled after the pilot. I can't begin to understand what Hollywood was thinking with Super 8.

Bad Teacher: *** out of ***** stars
Jane Eyre: ** out of ***** stars
Super 8: *1/2 out of ***** stars

Morning Glories Takes the Teen Mystery Graphic Novel Genre to a New Level

As I mentioned recently, I've discovered that graphic novels are the perfect answer for a person who doesn't have as much time to enjoy reading as many great stories as he used to (you know, parenthood).

Speaking of great stories, the last graphic novel I finished was Morning Glories Volume One: For a Better Future, from Image Comics. One of the first things I look for in a graphic novel is compelling cover art. This one, at first glance, looks like a simple prep-school story for adults, which in itself can often be a winning formula.

But what really got me more interested was that the characters looked slightly off, mysterious, and puzzling. The lack of description about what this story is all about added to the intrigue.

As one reviewer at Amazon notes, this is Lost meets The Breakfast Club. Six celebrated kids, who happen to all have the same birthday, arrive at a prestigious prep school. On the first day, the teachers and students set about trying to kill them and generally make their lives hell. There is also a monster that sweeps in with no rhyme or reason to stick his hands through the brains of random people at random times.

The interesting thing is that this doesn't appear to be yet-another teenage vampire tale. Through the first volume, I have no idea what it's about. But it's a page turner, and the characters are built so strongly and with just the right of scheming against each other that I'll definitely return to read subsequent volumes of this mysterious thrill ride.

**** out of ***** stars (with the right to give this more or fewer stars based on how the next chapters pan out)