Posted on 19 June 2009

Harold Ramis has worked in comedy a long time, and his career has taken many directions. With his work on the Ghostbusters (1984) script and his straight-man performance in the film, he managed to allow Bill Murray room to move and riff within the confines of a visual effects-heavy summer blockbuster. As for the meticulously crafted classic Groundhog Day (1993), I hesitate to call any movie “perfect,” but it comes close. But then there were phoned-in hits like Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002) that seemed too tightly wound and too slavishly dependent on plot to be very funny.
Ramis’ new film Year One, on the other hand, comes closer to the spirit of his directorial debut Caddyshack (1980). I’m not saying it’s quite as funny or as brilliant, but it’s in the same spirit. It cares thankfully little about its plot or its character arcs, or historical accuracy; it’s a bit flabby and careless, but it’s also gleefully stupid, and it has the ability to knock you off guard and make you giggle helplessly.
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Sony, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
Continue reading Review: Year One
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Posted on 18 June 2009
San Diego ComicCon is almost upon us, and you know what that means — stormtrooper costumes. Lots and lots of them. The white-armored villains have become so prevalent at every geek gathering that they hardly attract much notice, so they’ve had to get creative. Nowadays, you see Imperial Stormtroopers breaking rank and adding all kinds of weird and wonderful things to their standard issue armor, and becoming something weirdly meta in the process. Some of them, like the Elvis Stormtrooper, have become con celebrities in their own right (he’s even got
his own website, where he’s reached a Kirk Lazarus level of crossover) and you can barely escape a con without a photo of them.
Galactic Binder has collected ten of the best stormtrooper crossovers they’ve seen. Seeing so many gathered in one place suggests that costumed Stormtroopers are becoming so ubiquitous that they’ll soon attract as little attention as a plain Stormtrooper. Hell, maybe ordinary troopers will become so rare that spotting one will be like seeing a unicorn in the wild …
So, check out the gallery below, and tell us your favorite. I’ll echo Galactic Binder and give a special gold star to the samurai stormtrooper for going full circle by referencing Kurosawa.
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Lists, Other Festivals, ComicCon, WonderCon, Fan Made
Permalink | Email this | Comments