The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

Tom Spurgeon on what comics have or haven’t become.
“And screw the 1987 mentality that comics = fantasy genre. If Comic-Con is going to have shit that’s not comics, there’s no reason I can think of it shouldn’t be a Tom Wolfe lecture as opposed to another panel hyping a movie about teenage werewolves. Why not? [...]

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Jim Emerson from Scanners:
Like so many things in life, brand spankin’ new movies hold a magical appeal… at least until you see them. Afterwards, even if you really liked the picture, it loses some of the luster it had only a couple hours ago when it was still something to look forward to. Now that [...]

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Glenn Kenny at The Auteurs Notebook on his mood going into a viewing of The Dark Knight:
Because, trust me, as I made my way to the screening I was feeling well and truly sick of superhero movies. I’m not a guy—or for that matter a critic—who believes or has ever believed in genre hierarchies, but [...]

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From Leo Robson at The Guardian:
The death of criticism, frequently announced in recent months, has prompted numerous autopsies but few acts of mourning. There has been more energy expended on blaming the blog than defending the victim, the implication being that while everyone is aware that criticism has long existed, no-one cares much for it [...]

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It is true that most western critics have been bought by the Hollywood studios, whether they like it or not. This does not mean that they are compelled to give the latest blockbuster a good review, but they are forced to give it more space in line with the publicity the film receives elsewhere.
Ronald Bergen [...]

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I love how Matt Wagner is still building on the story of Grendel and Hunter Rose, even using what looks to be little throwaway ideas presented in short, seemingly inconsequential stories.  From an interview on Newsarama:
” Also, in point of fact, this wasn’t the first time that I’d featured this demon in a Hunter story…if [...]

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From Kehr’s own blog:
There’s an awful lot of typing going on out there, and not a whole lot of writing.

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Dave Carter @ Yet Another Comic Blog:
I long ago accepted the fact that I’ll never read every prose novel I want to read. I guess I’ll have to accept the same thing about comics.
Sigh.

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Stephen Whitty @ NJ.com:
A writer, though, can’t really be a writer unless someone reads him — or a good critic if his critiques don’t turn, eventually, into a conversation.

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The day after the Oscars and the feeling that the top movies this year were too depressing, Wells writes this at Hollywood Elsewhere:
“movies are not supposed to be pills that you take to feel better. They’re not travelling carnivals with elephants and jugglers. They’re supposed to be aesthetic journeys and emotional hikes that get us [...]

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From Glenn Kenny’s “In The Company of Glenn” blog:
It occurs to me that this, finally, is what pop culture journalism is about; the denial of everything it once praised, the chewing up and spitting out of everything it once pretended to digest, the better to always appear hip, up-to-date, relevant.

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From the latest Answer Man:
However, the critic’s job is not to reflect public opinion. If that’s all he does, the public is the ventriloquist and the critic is the dummy.
Technorati Tags: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, Answer Man

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From CBR:
However, how would a parent feel when they had to explain to their kid that Spider-Man just got divorced from his wife? How would that headline read across the AP or on USA today? The same can be said with an annulment. Sure, divorce is a reality of life, but Peter Parker and Spider-Man [...]

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From the Rolling Stones’ article The Death of High Fidelity:
“God is in the details. But there are no details anymore.”

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From Gillen’s blog:
“Scott Pilgrim remains the Optic Nerve for people who are a little too aware of how ridiculous they are.”
Amen, brother. Amen.

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From Dana Steven’s article “The Cannes- winning film that you’ll probably never see”
I used to be a cinephile. Now, I’m a movie critic. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving movies—the day that unlikely eventuality ever comes to pass, I hope I’ll have the good sense to quit. But a professional reviewer is, as it were, [...]

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I didn’t even know these things were still being produced and now that I’m reading the blogs on it, I think I just want to pretend that the VMA’s ended when R.E.M. did a harsh performance of Drive back in the early nineties.
Summing up what my feelings probably would have been, Josh Tyrangiel [...]

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the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the [...]

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Ebert on The Transformers:
It’s goofy fun with a lot of stuff that blows up real good, and it has the grace not only to realize how preposterous it is, but to make that into an asset.
Technorati Tags: SCTV, Roger Ebert, The Transformers

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From Ebert’s review of Ocean’s 13
The genius of the past decays remorselessly into the routine of the present…

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