Comicsgirl

Garth Franklin reviews it here. This is one of the most thoughtful and even-handed reviews of the movie I’ve read so far.

I am not going to be running out to see Watchmen. I enjoyed seeing the trailer and I think it’s kind of cool it got made, but I just can’t find the energy to care about it right now. And anyway, I think I pretty much spent my movie-going budget for the year seeing Coraline twice.

I really liked this from Franklin’s review:

More admirable than engaging, this is a dense work filled with so many layers both historical and intellectual that its deeper meanings are almost impossible to truly capture on a single viewing (making reviewing it under such conditions a daunting prospect). Yet like its most colorful character Rorschach, the no compromise mentality which fuses comic book pulp with existential overtones will ostracize it from reaching beyond a limited but hardcore set who will exalt it as the new standard.

Because that’s basically how I feel about Alan Moore’s work overall. So at least the movie is faithful in that respect.

NANA Buy at Amazon

I, much like everyone else, totally love the manga series NANA. Honestly: How could you not love it? It’s beautiful girls, pretty boys, life, love and rock ‘n’ roll. I bought the first volume, read it, promptly bought the next two, and continued along that path until I caught up. Now, I am doomed to the fate of waiting for each new volume out every two months from Viz.

Movie adaptations of comics are usually uneven, no matter what the comic is. While they may have things in common, they are still two different mediums of storytelling. Still, I wanted to see the adaptation of NANA.

It did not disappoint.

I don’t know how they did it, but the casting is nearly perfect. Mika Nakashima brings a sweet toughness to Nana O. and Aoi Miyazaki is perpetually cheerful as Nana K. They are the characters from the comic. Hiroki Narimiya is a little bit more of a goof than the Nobu in the manga, but Tomoki Maruyama inhabits the ultra-cool Yasu in an almost impossible way.

The details that went into this adaptation are also amazing — the 707 apartment and stairwell are pulled straight from the manga and the awesomely cool wardrobe is dead-on to the the often preposteous clothes the characters wear in the comic.

So the movie gets all of those things right. But how it is?

I liked it quite a bit.

Both the lead actresses capture this vulnerability of being a young twentysomething. They are women who are just figuring out who they are. While boys come and go in their lives, it’s most definitely about our two Nanas finding themselves and growing in their friendship with each other. Nana O. is aloof and Nana K. is constantly sunny. They find what the other lacks in each other.

The music is also delightful. Nana O.’s band, the Black Stones, plays a poppy form of rock. It’s catchy and definitely something I can understand people falling in love with. Rival band Trapnest is halfway between speed metal and J-pop, which is pretty much how I imagined they sounded from reading the manga. I’m glad the music works well since this is a story about music. It may not be something I want to listen to all the time, but in the context of the movie, it works well.

The movie seems to go through about midway of volume 5 (at least in the Viz releases) but it’s a good place to end this story. I know there’s a second movie, but I liked where it left these characters, even though I know there’s heartbreak to come.

This is probably one of the better movie adaptations of a comic I’ve ever seen. It managed to touch the same emotions the manga does. I think it would work on its own, without knowledge of the comic itself.

(I know that Viz is planning on releasing the anime of NANA this year, and I can’t wait. I really can’t get enough of it.)

OK, so it was personal to about 10,000 of his Twitter followers, but look, I can pretend.

This is his favorite trailer for Coraline:

I was very grumbly and ambivalent on this movie at first — mostly because it wasn’t going to be my vision of Coraline (it’s probably the book of Neil Gaiman’s I most related to) but then I was won over by how awesome it looks. I am very excited to see it.

(And I will, one day soon, review P. Craig Russell’s comic version of it. When I remember what pile of books it is in.)

And he probably says it better than anyone else I’ve read on this subject.

Here’s the summary — Avatar: The Last Airbender is a cartoon that, while ostensibly for children, is much loved by many adult types who enjoy awesome animation. It draws a lot on Asian culture and mythology, but it’s always handled well. It’s a rich, beautiful show with a diverse cast of characters, none of whom I’d really describe as being “white.”

M. Night Shyamalan, who I wouldn’t describe as being “white” either is directing the live-action version.

The cast of which is full of white people, including Jesse McCartney.

So yeah, people are upset because this is ridiculous. I can’t imagine it’s that hard to find one or two Asians to put in the cast (and someone who’s not Jesse McCartney for Prince Zuko).

While out of the handful of main characters on the show, only two were voiced by Asian actors (the late, the great Mako as Uncle Iroh and Dante Basco as Prince Zuko), there were plenty of guest star turns by Asian actors, including the omnipresent James Hong and the godlike George Takei as well as plenty of others — Takayo Fischer, George Cheung, Sab Shimono and Jennie Kwan, to name a few — that had recurring or extended roles on the show. The show always felt lovely an inclusive to me.

I think everyone should be able to recognize themselves in the media that they like. The Last Airbender live-action movie just took that chance away from a lot of people.

(Link taken from The Beat.)

Image of Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender because she’s angry. Yes, she’s always angry, but it works.

/Film reports that Angela Robinson is looking into continuing D.E.B.S. in comic-book form.

I’m not exactly sure if I made it through the entirety of D.E.B.S., which is kind of sad, because a movie based around the concept of “lesbians spies in school girl outfits” should be a winner. It’s not a terrible movie but I think the ideas are more fun than the execution of them. I’m going to guess the short-film version of it is better.

But I think it would actually work well as a comic series. The inherent campiness of the plot would work well in the medium and I think some of the problems with the movie (uneven performances, for instance) won’t be present in the series. I’d like to see this happen — I can just imagine the fun manga-inspired art that this title would have.

(The all-knowing Wikipedia informs me that director Angela Robinson drew D.E.B.S. comics while in college, which doesn’t surprise me. It just seems like a natural fit.)

The /film article also mentions a possible Veronica Mars comic series. I really like this medium-jumping. I think comics and TV series have a lot in common — they’re both serial and can tell larger, longer stories, but also need to be entertaining on their own.