‘Strip Search’ Review: Season 1, Episode 1 “Artists Assemble” And Episode 2 “Fax Machine”
It’s a reality show for comic book artists. Whodathunk?
You’ll remember that last year, Penny Arcade launched a massive Kickstarter campaign to remove ads from their site and fund a bunch of new side projects that removing those ads allowed time for. It didn’t quite go according to plan, but the biggest product to come out of their half-million dollar haul was a new reality show called Strip Search in place of a fourth season of Penny Arcade TV. (I had a feeling they’d run out of material for their own show in good time.) The show is here, so what do we make of the first two episodes, which I’ve included below?
New ‘Iron Man 3’ Trailer Arrives, Finally Convinces Me To See It [VIDEO]
![New ‘Iron Man 3’ Trailer Arrives, Finally Convinces Me To See It [VIDEO]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/IronMan3Trailer.jpg "New ‘Iron Man 3’ Trailer Arrives, Finally Convinces Me To See It [VIDEO]")
“I’m just gonna get a gyro or something. Anyone want anything?”
I don’t know guys, that last Iron Man 3 trailer was pretty weird. Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin drawl was a weird way to narrate the trailer, we saw Stark’s mansion blow up yet again, and it just, tonally, didn’t sit well with me. Fast forward to today when a much grander trailer is available to fill in some of those gaps left behind by that first look.
Mystery Key Update: Received Another Clue and Solved the Mystery!
What does this clue mean!?!?
About a week ago we received a package in the mail with no return address and no postmark. In this package was a white box wrapped in a yellow bow. Inside that box was a key on a chain. A necklace as it turns out. There was nothing else, no note and not even a clue that told me if this was related to a game or something else. I immediately thought it was for a game, but I ruled that out when I received our next mysterious package. Read the rest of this article…
21 and Over Review: See It Drunk
So screenwriting duo Scott Moore and Jon Lucas make their directorial debut with 21 and Over. Their previous work includes The Hangover and The Change-Up so it doesn’t take much in the way of imagination to predict what the film is like. Yes, 21 and Over is a retread of the same raunchy comedy we’ve seen countless times before, but there are enough laughs here to make the movie almost worthwhile.
Jack the Giant Slayer Review: Is This the Best Bryan Singer Can Do?
Is there any surer way to piss away a big budget than by handing control of a tent-pole movie over to Bryan Singer? Mind you, I’m not questioning Singer’s ability to generate a profit for studios; I’m more baffled by how the man can employ hundreds of millions of dollars to such generic effect. Singer’s latest flick, Jack the Giant Slayer, stolidly adheres to the definition of generic. Despite having access to a reported $200 million budget, Singer has created a movie where the CGI looks like CGI, the sets look like movie sets, the costumes look like costumes, and the props look like props. Everything about Jack the Giant Slayer is overly polished and lacking in any sort of charm or character.
‘Side By Side’ Review: Keanu Reeves Explains The Death Of Film
Woah.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been twelve years since Star Wars: Episode II was the first movie to be shot entirely on high-definition digital cameras, ones that were still physically monstrous in proportion with footage dumped to large tapes. Of course, while it wasn’t shown digitally in many theaters at the time, camera manufacturers and digital projectors have come down in price thanks to names like RED, Sony, and Arri who have helped make filmmaking, end-to-end, an almost entirely digital process. Side By Side, a new documentary produced by and starring Keanu Reeves, goes through the paces of interviewing dozens of industry professionals, from iconic directors like Scorsese, Cameron, Lucas, and Nolan to cinematographers and color timers, through which we learn that, yep, film is pretty much dead.
Snitch Review: Good Concept, Bad Execution
Snitch could have been a great film if the filmmakers behind it had either a) turned it into a straight-up action movie or b) tried to create a present day companion piece to other gritty crime movies like Donnie Brasco or State of Grace. Instead, writer/director Ric Roman Waugh attempts to steer a middle course, and the result is a middling film. Because Snitch can’t decide whether it wants to be drama or an action flick, it doesn’t work as either.
Dark Skies Review: The Death of the American Dream
Great horror movies tend to be about more than monsters and demons. Invasion of the Body Snatchers tackled American paranoia in the wake of the Red Scare. The original Nightmare on Elm Street was one of the earliest movies to acknowledge the then growing trend of divorce. The Shining, depending on whom you ask, is about alcoholism, writer’s block, white man’s burden or some combination of the three. Many of the great horror movies contain rich subtext. Scott Stewart’s Dark Skies may not be a great horror movie, but it’s a surprisingly competent film that’s almost as ambitious as any of the movies I just listed. Why do I say that? Because in writing and directing Dark Skies, Scott Stewart didn’t just set out to make a disposable alien abduction movie, he set out to chronicle the death of the American dream.
‘Breaking Bad’ Review: The Rise (And Fall?) Of Walter White
Buy the RV. We start tomorrow.
No one would shut up about how great Breaking Bad is. They’d never quantify it, because in retrospect, I suppose that lures too many spoilers. I knew of the show, but my only exposure came from friends or a behind-the-scenes special they shot for the pilot, involving a not-bald Bryan Cranston stumbling around their RV meth lab in a green shirt and his whities, cracking jokes about how fun the shoot was. On that alone, I didn’t ever want to see the show. I eventually caved and took the red pill (or blue crystal, depending on who you ask) and got sucked in something deep, mainlining the series in less than a week. With a full eight episodes left to go in the entire run, it seems premature to rate the whole effort, so I’ll save a score until later this summer when those have finally aired. In the meantime, let’s talk about Breaking Bad. There will be major spoilers, so if you haven’t caught up yet, you should.
Bully Review: What’s Your Solution?
Every documentary needs to have a reason for existing. A documentary should shine a light on a prescient issue, offer a solution to an existing problem, or at the very least, tell a compelling story. Bully doesn’t really do any of these things. At best it’s a well-intentioned picture that anecdotally looks at the issue of school bullying and then offers up an anemic solution.
