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Ian ChantFeatures
Fast Food TVThe Next Iron Chef is not a show about cooking. It is a show about people freaking out; cooking just happens to be what they’re doing while they’re freaking out. [6 November 2009] TV Is Dead! Long Live TV!Network TV will more likely than not remain the pagan idol of the American living room, and continue to produce the shows that most people watch on their laptops and handsets for the foreseeable future. [21 October 2009] Fear of a Mouse Planet: What Disney’s Acquisition of Marvel Means for the House of IdeasThe fears of a Disney planet are fears that these characters we cherish will be tinkered with or even taken away from us. [8 September 2009] Build to Suit: Guillermo del Toro and the Mythology of HellboyThe mythology of the Hellboy films is, to use del Toro's own apt description, “…a jazz riff on what the comic book is”. [24 August 2009] We’re Coming to Get You, BarbraThe real monsters in Night of the Living Dead are the hobgoblins we face every day: jealousy, selfishness, anger, lies, rage, and simple misunderstandings. [30 October 2008] Stark Reality: A Different Hero for Different TimesBucking the trend of an outsider given an opportunity to overcome ordinariness, millionaire Tony Stark (Iron Man) seems like the least sympathetic of heroes. But his all-too-familiar flaws reveal a more than heroic depth of character, and he offers readers an entirely different form of escapism. [3 September 2008] Reviews
The Least of TheseFor the three years of it’s operation, the T. Don Hutto detention center put a face of family togetherness on the harsh immigration policies of the Bush administration. [22 October 2009] 
TraffikFilm after film has borrowed the structure of this epic British miniseries, but few have used it to effect achieved by the original Traffik. [2 October 2009] 
RazorjackThere’s simply not enough room to build the story that Higgins wants to tell in just a couple of issues. [15 September 2009] 
The Shape of the WorldThe history of cartography is, in a close to literal sense, the history of the entire world, and it is this fact that finds this documentary covering an amount of territory that is ultimately too big. [30 August 2009] 
A Family MatterAdmittedly, it is probably not his finest work, but A Family Matter a worthy representation of a genre that Eisner pioneered. [20 August 2009] 
The Haunting in ConnecticutTo say that The Haunting in Connecticut borrows liberally from the textbook for Haunted House Movie 101 is giving it undue credit. It cribs unabashedly from a host of movies before it. [5 August 2009] 
The IT Crowd: The Complete Second SeasonWhether they’re playing office golf or experiencing close calls with German cannibals, the cast turns crippling awkwardness and social ineptitude into brilliantly executed, almost surreal comedy. [28 July 2009] 
Low MoonFeaturing tawdry sex, alien abductions, existential crises, betrayal, and a hundred and one different varieties of murder, this is a book that pretty much has it all. [23 July 2009] 
Punisher: Year OneThis collection proves that not all artistic relics warrant being unearthed. [9 July 2009] 
The Town That WasAs far as landscapes are concerned, Centralia, Pennsylvania is about as close as one is likely to come to Hell on Earth. [15 June 2009] 
The Devil’s TombDirect-to-DVD train wrecks occasionally reveal a film that is so bad that it’s almost beautiful – this is not one of those films. [14 June 2009] 
The Restless ConscienceThis film’s limited appeal may see it destined mostly for enforced appreciation in college classrooms throughout the land. [8 June 2009] 
Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the StreetWarren Ellis’ violent, vicious, hilarious and horrifying vision of the future remains entrenched in a bleak and amoral future, where human beings are vat cloned as fast food livestock, media buys include subliminal bombs that buy ad space in your dreams and Star Trek style replicators are operated by AI addicted to cybernetic drugs. [4 June 2009] 
American Jesus: ChosenAmerican Jesus is most notable for what it says about the relationship of comics and films in the future. [7 May 2009] 
Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean PainleveThe varying styles range from meditative monochrome fantasies that wouldn’t be out of place in a Cocteau retrospective to surrealist inspired, almost hallucinatory ballets of movement and color. [6 May 2009] 
Dodes’ka-DenKurosawa’s camera turns an intense, voyeuristic gaze on the residents of the junkyard that is at once sympathetic and unflinching. [8 April 2009] 
KasparIn this latest imagining of a tale that has been explored by artists from Werner Herzog to Harlan Ellison, Canadian artist Diane Obomsawin crafts a strangely charming account of Kaspar Hauser, the prototypical feral child. [26 March 2009] 
Cat DancersThis comes off seeming less concerned with the story it’s telling than with the person who is telling it. [24 March 2009] 
Shadows (Criterion Collection)Comfortable in its own small place, this John Cassavetes film is a picture of peoples’ lives that slides in and out of the story without sentimentality or spectacle. [18 March 2009] 
American Experience: The Trials of J. Robert OppenheimerOppenheimer’s inability to influence people would come to haunt him, and shape the nuclear policy of the world in ways that still reverberate through today’s headlines. [6 March 2009] 
Parade (with fireworks)An entertaining and enlightening slice of history that is both personal and political, exploring the subtle battles between family members and the louder ones between ideologies. [19 February 2009] 
Tales from the Darkside: The First SeasonLike slap bracelets, Sunny Delight, Hypercolor t-shirts and pro wrestling, this horror anthology series has aged poorly. [11 February 2009] 
Primal FearStrobe lights and shaky cameras are more comical than intimidating, inducing cringes for all the wrong reasons. [8 February 2009] 
Transhuman #1-4The scientific aspects of making a new humanity aren’t as important to Hickman as the societal ones, and it is here that Transhuman lands it strongest punches. [8 January 2009] 
The Cult of the Suicide Bomber 2Little time is left to address the circumstances that drive so many to take innocents with them to this grisly and violent end. [5 January 2009] 
Re-CycleAt least there's a looking glass world of washed out colors, broken windows and squealing hinges. [10 December 2008] BlogsChannel Surfing: Strahan on Football: A Video Interview with Michael Strahan [20 November 2009]Graphically Speaking: The House of Mouse’s House of Ideas [31 August 2009] |
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