Comic: Y: The Last Man

Y: The Last Man(2002 - 2008)

Written By: Brian K. Vaughan

Penciled By: Pia Guerra

Released By: Vertigo, a DC Imprint

Y: The Last Man is everything one could want from a comic, barring some fanatical need to see muscled-out men running around in tights. It is a very thoughtful and purpose driven story that forces one to wonder, "How would I handle things if I were the last man on earth?"

*Note* Ahead there are some spoilers, but I will try to keep it to a minimum. This book is just too good for me to feel okay in ruining it for someone else.

The mystery starts right from the first page with a female NYC police officer stating to a distressed mother that "...all of the men are dead." We are then treated to a brief glimpse into our soon to be main characters' lives by way of what happened to them right as a world-wide phenomenon occurs. All the males around the world, regardless of race, nationality, creed, or species, spontaneously bleed out and die. Yorick Brown, an unemployed illusionist, and his Capuchin monkey Ampersand suddenly find themselves in a very unique situation: they are seemingly the only ones spared their gender's grisly fate.

Without giving much away, Yorick decides to track down his girlfriend, Beth, who is currently residing in Australia. This turns out to be much harder than he could have ever guessed. Joined by a small group of companions, Yorick ventures forth into a much different world than he is accustomed to. Along the way, the group will find itself constantly at odds with each other as they press forward towards the goal of finding out what happened and if it's too late to fix it.

Eisner Award winning author Brian K. Vaughan and illustrator Pia Guerra piece together a story full of twists and turns, laughs and tears, and most importantly courage and heart. There is seldom, if ever, a time in this story's 60-issue run that left this reader bored or unsure of where the story was going. A fantastic read from start to finish. I whole-heartily recommend that everyone should at least try reading this series. I doubt that you will be disappointed.

All in all: 10 out of 10

This is definitely the book to read if you're into comics and would like a break from the usual 'Cape-and-Cowl' books.

Movie: District B13

District B13/Banlieue 13 (2004)

Directed By: Pierre Morel

Written By: Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri

Starring: David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli

District B13 is one of the most fun viewing experiences I have ever had. This movie is a stuntman driven thrill ride. (Wow, you'd think I was getting paid to give lines like that.) The only real downside for this movie is the fact that it is a stuntman driven thrill ride. The dialogue is a little strange in spots (whether this is due to the writers or the French to English translation team is a point for someone else to analyse), the story is completely fucking ludicrous and our main actor, David Belle, is about as emotive as a wooden statue. This is definitely a guilty pleasure movie. However, if you go into it knowing this, you are guaranteed a good time.

The feature starts with a text scroll letting us know the basic info that sets up the movie: the year is 2010, we are in Paris, and the French government has discovered a new way to stop crime: giant walls topped with razor wire. I will be the first to tell you that I know almost nothing about France, but something tells me that when the movie was made in 2004, the country probably wasn't 6 years out from sectioning off it's most dangerous areas. I'm also not really sure how you build a wall like that and have everyone inside that district not go running off through an unfinished area. Oh well, this is an area we are supposed to be just accepting as fact so that we can get on with the action. At it's heart this is a tale of teamwork and overcoming social stereotypes, it just happens to be told through the ass-kicking team of Leito and Damien.

The first member of our duo is Leito(David Belle). He is the owner of a project in the annexed Paris area known as B13. He seems to be a fairly good guy, considering his surroundings, as we find him emptying out several large packets of heroin into his bath tub in an effort to dispose of them. Things go from tranquil to insane in a matter of minutes when the original owners of the drugs show up to reclaim them. The bad guys, enforcers for a local crime lord, make short work of Leito's gang. Leito then proceeds to lead the baddies on a whirlwind tour of his building, inside and out, through the stunning use of parkour.

As a side note here, David Belle basically invented parkour, an urban sport-like activity that involves getting from one point to another in the most efficient and fluid way possible. Parkour will seem familiar if you have seen any of the following movies: The Transporter series, Casino Royale, The Incredible Hulk, or the video games Mirror's Edge and Assassin's Creed.

Being unable to reclaim the dope or Leito, the bad guys head back to their boss, Taha (co-writer Bibi Naceri). Not pleased with this, Taha sends them out to kidnap Leito's sister, Lola, which he feels will illicit a reaction. Almost immediately, Leito arrives and breaks his sister out of there, while simultaneously capturing Taha and another stash of drugs. Leito then proceeds to the nearest Police outpost in B13 in order to turn Taha in for his crimes only to be told that the Police are moving out of B13 and that Taha is free to go. Fearing an all out gang war on their front steps, the Commanding Officer instead locks up Leito and allows Taha to kidnap Lola again. Leito, very pissed at this turn of events, kills the lead officer before the scene ends.

We pick up 6 months later with a scene involving a different gang that runs an underground gambling establishment. This scene is a little hard to follow at first due to the odd dialogue and the ridiculous looking boss this crime family has. We quickly establish that the family has been infiltrated by an undercover cop and that the building has been surrounded by a SWAT team. Enter Undercover Super Cop, Captain Damien Tomaso. Sent in to apprehend the crime boss Carlos Montoya, Damien, after revealing himself to be a cop, quickly busts a large number of heads in a short amount of time in a scene very reminiscent of one in Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior.

Immediately after completing this particular assignment, he is assigned a new mission that will be taking him into the heart of B13. It seems that an armored car, carrying a new "clean" bomb, just happened to be traveling past B13 and was hijacked and taken through the border crossing, finding itself in Taha's capitalistic hands. Unfortunately, the bomb has been activated and only 24 hours remain until the nuke goes off and wipes out B13. Damien has been chosen to go into B13 to retrieve the bomb and save the day, only this time he'll need a partner. His superiors decide to partner him up with convicted cop killer Leito, who will be acting as his guide. The only issue seems to be that they didn't really mention any of this to Leito, which leads to a lot of trust issues. Without ruining the rest of the story, a lot of asses are kicked and we are treated to a lot more insanely fun parkour action.

Bottom line is, Luc Besson has only further cemented himself as one of the best action movie makers of the last decade with this one. Now with several classics like La Femme Nikita and Leon(The Professional) and newer, higher budget extravaganzas like The Transporter movies and Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon, I can only see things getting better from Besson.

All in all: 8.5 out of 10

Definitely worth watching if you like insane stunts and kick-ass action, or if you are looking for a flick that will allow you to retain your manhood while confidently stating "Why yes, I do watch foreign films."

Movie: Blue Sunshine

Blue Sunshine (1976)

Written and Directed by: Jeff Lieberman

Starring: Zalman King and Deborah Winters

Blue Sunshine is a fair step away from being a cinematic classic, but it is not entirely without it's demerits. The movie raises a few too many questions than it provides answers for and tends to think that it is a bit more important than it really is, but what it lacks in plot it makes up for with a fresh(for the time) concept and a reasonably paced story of a man on a mission.

The movie revolves around a wincing man-child named Jerry Zipkin(Zalman King). Zipkin, or as he is occasionally referred to "Zippo", is your typical "everyman" type character except for the fact he has no job, no means of supporting himself, and only seems to be friends with successful people. I suppose we can overlook this due to the fact that it allows him to spend the duration of the movie looking for clues related to the titular substance Blue Sunshine without us having to wonder why no one seems to realize that they haven't seen him in days and his friends have no problem breaking laws to help him despite having no damn reason to. Also, if the actor's name, Zalman King, strikes a bell for you, but your sure you've never seen him before, then I would be willing to bet that you had Showtime during the mid-90's. Zalman King would go on to do almost nothing for the next 15 years until a little show he wrote, directed, produced, and occasionally starred in called Red Shoe Diaries. That's right, our movie's hero is the guy that brought us one of televisions longest running softcore porn series. Huzzah!

In a way, it kind of surprises me that King never quite caught on as a leading man. Much like Bruce Campbell, he is a fair actor, delivering his lines with the right amount of intensity(usually) and only occasionally looking like he can't remember what his next line is. Plus, he is the spiting image of Michael Douglas. Seriously, put a beard on him and he looks like Douglas in The China Syndrome. Speaking of look-a-likes, our other main character is Alicia Sweeney, Zipline's girlfriend/wife/neighbour(it's never really explained that clearly), as portrayed by Deborah Winters. I spent a good portion of the movie sure that I'd seen her somewhere else. Then I placed it: Dee Wallace. These two could be sisters, which leads me to believe that our Director Jeff Lieberman really wanted Keller from Streets of San Francisco and Nettie from The Stepford Wives, but these two were all he could afford.

Anyway, on with the story. Blue Sunshine is a movie about drugs and their dangerous side-effects, which basically makes this a 90-minute PSA of the Reefer Madness variety. Zipper and his lady friend begin the movie attending a little house party. It seems pretty normal with the exception of some guy that thinks he is Rodan(of Godzilla fame) and everyone's best friend Frannie(a guy) preforming the laziest Frank Sinatra bit ever. During a particularly showy move, Frannie takes one of the audience into his arms and lays one on her. Not feeling that to be appropriate, the unnamed girl's unnamed man goes to pull Frannie off her by the hair, for some reason. To everyone's horror, Frannie's hair pulls right off like a really bad piece. Suddenly non-responsive and wild eyed, Frannie makes a line for the door and disappears into the night. Everyone decides to split up and look for him, with the exception of a few women who decide to stay at the house and wait for Frannie to show back up and murder them. Because that's what he does. Apparently losing your hair makes you kill people. The first one to find him is Zipwad. After a lackluster fight, they end up squaring off in the middle of the road. Zap ends the fight by throwing Frannie out in front of a passing semi. The drivers chase off our guy only leading the cops to believe that Zipling was the crazy S.O.B. that just killed 3 girls and someone that everyone already saw go crazy.

Events like this keep the movie going towards the end. Zip Pliskin shows up at a new leads house just in time for them to flip out or just too late and they are already dead. Through the course of everything though, we learn that all the victims have two things in common: they all went to the same college and they all had the same dealer. Turns out that Blue Sunshine was a specialized form of LSD that their dealer cooked up that has a time release side-effect of making you lose your hair and proceed to go bat-shit murder crazy after a 10 year grace period. The movie makes no attempt to explain how the BS(*snicker*) LSD was different, how or who made it, what happens to the dealer(who is now running for Congress by the way), or how to tell whose taken it, apart from assuming that anyone who was at Stanford in 1967 is about to go berserk. It does, however, mention that 255 tabs of the stuff are still unaccounted for. Why such a specific number? You mean to tell me no one bothered to keep track of who made it or who it was sold to, but they apparently kept records on how much of the stuff was left after the big summer selling push? Oh well, I guess this is what you have to deal with when you watch a movie made by the man who created the focus of one of my favorite MST3K episodes:Squirm!

All in all: 7 out of 10

Worth watching if you like your movies halfway between Scanners and The Fugitive.