MOVIE REVIEW: Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

There's a moment near the beginning of Conan O'Brien Can't Stop when director Rodman Flender (a college buddy of Conan's) asks Conan - recently deposed as host of The Tonight Show - if he's ever thought about what would happen if he just stopped for a little while.

Conan, behind the wheel of his car, literally in motion as he answers, replies: "What does that even mean?"

In that one moment, the span of 30 seconds, you learn almost all you need to know about Conan O'Brien.

Almost, but not quite.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a documentary of frantic, almost exasperating energy. It reveals Conan O'Brien as the manic, accidental genius true believers have always seen him to be, but more than that, it reveals him to be someone who almost literally hungers for performance, for making people laugh, for getting that rush of being a delivery system for delight.

The film begins in the days after Conan has left the tonight show. He's angry, he says, sometimes more than he can believe, but he's already planning something new: The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, a cross-country journey of music, comedy and madness that will bring Team CoCo directly to the people who fought for Conan's place as host of The Tonight Show.

What follows is a whirlwind of a film that follows Conan through the highs and lows of the tour. At times he is so bursting with energy that even backup dancers half his age don't seem to be able to keep up. Other times he's so broken down from the grind of meeting and greeting and taking photos with fans and supporters that he seems ready to collapse. Maybe he is, but he keeps going anyway. Even on his days off he's still performing, doing secret shows with Jack White and performing in the talent show at his Harvard class reunion.

Why? Because it's what he does. Flender isn't out to make a film that answers the question of why Conan doesn't just take his monetary settlement from NBC and live out his days as a ginger-bearded couch potato, or why he can't simply wait six months to go back to what he was doing before on another channel. It's not about those questions. It's about a man who lives for the work he's doing.

One question the film does answer, particularly for people who have never understood the Team CoCo phenomenon, is the question of why Conan O'Brien is a star. The answer is because he never seems to feel entitled to his status, or complacent in his role as a professional goofball. He's always trying to make it better, funnier, closer to perfect. Even in moments of sheer exhaustion (and in this film, there are many), he's still pushing for more connection with his fans, better performances and bigger laughs.

But he's also very human beneath the comic varnish. The deep, roaring belly laughs that come with Conan O'Brien Can't Stop are accompanied by another side of the man, one that's frustrated, driven and even a little vulnerable. He reveals how he uses humor to express displeasure and mask discomfort, how little patience he has for being railroaded by producers and show organizers, and at times, even just how tired he gets.

But it all only adds to his allure. Just as Flender isn't interested in making a flashy documentary that seeks to answer the big questions about the motivations of a TV comedian, Conan isn't out to portray himself as an innocent lamb butchered by the network TV system. He's at work, and it's work he loves in spite of its pitfalls. Flender's film is the story of a man who's still going to work, and who never stops feeling the rush of that work. That's why Conan O'Brien can't stop.

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Moneyball'

It was at this moment that Jonah Hill decided to lose all that weight.

In the fall of 2001 Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane was in a tough spot. His team had just a lost a critical playoff game, and the Yankees and Red Sox – both teams with budgets more than double his own – were poaching away the only legitimate stars on his squad. With less than $40 million and no major talent, Beane had to, as he says in one particularly vital moment in this film, “adapt or die.”

Moneyball is a movie about baseball, but the genius of it is that – without ever really trying – it’s also a movie about everything but baseball. The true story of Billy Beane and the way he changed not only the Athletics, but professional baseball, is a gambler’s tale, a redemption story, a buddy comedy, a family drama and a chronicle of a revolution all at once. That it fits all of this into its runtime is proof enough of its importance. That it does all of it well is proof of its greatness.

The film begins with Beane (Brad Pitt) in crisis. There’s no new money at his disposal, his team of old school scouts is using the same old methods to attempt to replace his lost talent, and he’s convinced the only way is to manage the team like no one has ever thought to manage it before. The problem is he doesn’t know how.

That changes when he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young stats guru with a Yale degree in economics who advises him to rethink the way he looks for talent. Instead of looking for stars, look for runs. Instead of looking for the same talent everyone else is after, look for hidden talent that other teams shunned.

Beane and Brand begin to recruit from what Brand calls an “island of misfit toys.” Players that lack in one skill but succeed incredibly in another, players who wouldn’t look good on a baseball card or a poster, players who other teams have cast off as too old, too short, too risky. Their methods immediately begin to alienate Beane from the rest of the Athletics management, including manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and as the 2002 season begins, Beane risks his job, his future and his entire reputation.

It may be a film about misfits, but Moneyball is loaded with top shelf talent. Director Bennett Miller (“Capote”) tackles the film with an intoxicating blend of compositions, from handheld documentary shooting to smooth, patient camerawork. I’m tired of shaky cam movies. They’re everywhere these days. But I’m also tired of movies that force a series of intricate and often unnatural compositions on the eye until the story is just background. Miller knows what his camera is doing, he knows what he wants it to do, and he- along with the brilliant cinematographer Wally Pfister – knows how to master it. It’s something a good many viewers don’t notice, but I saw it, and I was both relived and delighted.

Then there’s the screenwriting double whammy of Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and fellow Academy Award winner Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List). They’re the reason this is a baseball film that’s just as effective as a film about almost anything else. Their dialogue is pitch perfect, their pacing is smooth and their story is graceful. This is how screenwriting should be done.

But in the end it all comes down to Brad Pitt. I’ve always admired his ability to project an extraordinary naturalness into his roles, whether he’s playing a pothead or a man aging in reverse. His Billy Beane might not be the real Billy Beane, but Pitt nails this role of a former player who never found his stride trying to change the beat of the game that’s been his life. He is captivating, charming and brilliant in his simplicity. Hill matches him step for step, stepping out of his professional goofball image to reveal an actor of surprising vulnerability and range. With a sound supporting cast at their back, they carry this film, and all of the true story weight behind it drops into nothing without them.

Sports dramas – even when they’re rooted in powerful true stories – are a hit and miss game. They’re like taking that final swing on a full count with your eyes closed. Moneyball works because it’s a gamble of a movie, just like its source material was a gamble of a game. It helps that it’s a story rooted in America’s pastime, but that’s not what makes it shine. I barely know baseball, but this film reached me, and it would likely reach people who know even less about baseball than I do. Moneyball works because it’s a film about a revolution, a quiet revolution that wasn’t just about victory, but about changing minds. We need more films like this one.

COMICS: Aquaman #1

I read a lot of comics today, and if you had told me when the day started that the star book would end up being Aquaman, I would've rammed a trident through your neck (well, probably not, but I would've said you were wrong). I approached Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis' reboot of the perpetual punchline of the Justice League with a kind of cautious curiosity. I've always been intrigued by Aquaman, beyond all the jokes and seahorse riding silliness, and when it comes to breathing new life into dud characters, Geoff Johns has always been successful. I expected it to be intriguing and funny and original.

But I never expected it to be this good.

From the very first glimpse of his hero, Johns latches on to a simple but ingenious method for shattering the "Aquaman is lame" stigma. He tackles it directly, first by having his hero exhibit incredible strength (on dry land, no less) and then sitting him down in a seafood restaurant where he's first asked to clarify that whole talking to fish thing, and then grilled by a geek blogger on his status at the bottom of the Justice League totem pole. It's funny and smart and remarkably similar to every conversation you've ever had about Aquaman, but at the center is the hero himself, which drives the point home.

Aquaman, needless to say, doesn't appreciate the way the public treats him very much, and it's clear that Johns doesn't either. He's got admiration and even love for this character, and he seems to be having even more fun telling this story than he does with Green Lantern, who's become his signature character. In just a few pages he manages to break the old Aquaman mold and place the character on a path to superhero legitimacy all over again.

Then there's Ivan Reis' art. Like all of his work, it's tinged with a sense of classicism, with the books that these characters first appeared in, but it has a modern energy manifested in the glares of the hero and the rush of the action. There's nothing grounbreaking about it, but there doesn't need to be. It's a great artist at the top of his game.

It might seem like I'm trying to trick you here, like I'm heaping praise on a book that everyone's been suspicious about. But of everything Geoff Johns has done so far in The New 52 reboot, Aquaman is the clear winner. It joins Animal Man, Batman, Action Comics and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. in the top tier of these books, and it proves that, in the right hands, Aquaman can be badass.

COMICS: Batman #1

Scott Snyder did fantastic work on Swamp Thing #1, but Batman was always going to be the measuring stick for just how well he fits into the New 52 scheme. I'm a Batman geek, and have been since I was two, so it was also my measuring stick for how he fared with me.

He knocked it out of the park.

Greg Capullo's art was clean in all the right places (the polish of Wayne Manor and the Batman family in tuxedos) and dirty in all the others (Arkham Asylum), and Snyder managed to do something with his writing that I really didn't think could be done with this whole reboot thing: move Batman in what's actually a new direction (not a new version of an old one) while still rooting his story in the Dark Knight traditions I love.

He begins to get it right from the very start by making Gotham City into a character in its own right. It always has been, of course, but it's a concept that artists have always owned more than writers. This time Capullo and Snyder share it, and drive the point home.

Snyder is doing here what Matt Fraction did over on Invincible Iron Man. He's using Bruce Wayne's billions to their fullest advantage, putting Batman in charge of bold new technology and giving Gotham's favorite son a chance to be the public face of change. It's a melding of private and public justice, and the beginning of a hero truly taking on the world. Whether these two things will intersect more deeply as the series wears on is anybody's guess, but Snyder clearly has some very deep ambitions for the title.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Batman #1 is that is truly does live up to its hype (an area where more than a few DC titles have failed in the last four weeks). I wanted a Batman that I could really dig into, and I got one, and that's the best thing about this. It's just a thin monthly issue, but it feels like the start of something great.

BOOK REVIEW: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

A Monster Calls was meant to be the final work of award-winning children’s author Siobhan Dowd, who died in 2007 at the age of 47 of breast cancer. She began the book, and Patrick Ness, author of the blockbuster Chaos Walking trilogy, finished it. The result is a gorgeous, imaginative, heartbreaking novel that’s both a tribute to and celebration of Dowd’s work, and a herald of Ness’ continued presence as a force in children’s literature.

Conor’s life is hard. His mother is very sick, his father left them a long time ago, and even though he remains optimistic, things don’t seem to be improving. His mother’s illness makes things harder in school, where he’s alternately pitied and bullied, and his grandmother, the only functioning adult in his life, is cold and practical and difficult to talk to.

Things get even stranger when a monster begins to visit Conor at night. The monster shares stories with him, stories supposedly about justice, about the right thing, but Conor remains skeptical. He’s both frightened and intrigued by the monster’s power, by the idea of what the monster could do if it decided to invade his life.

The novel jumps between Conor’s nighttime conversations with the monster and his daytime struggles with his family, and as his mother gets worse, Conor begins to hope for a miracle, even as fear grips him from all sides. Woven through it all are metaphors of loss, death, resurrection, hope and healing, highlighted by gorgeous and grim illustrations by Jim Kay.

It’s a fitting story to be labeled Dowd’s final. She lived with the illness that would take her life during her most productive years as a writer, and it weighed on her mind every day. A Monster Calls is an attempt to take the constant shadow of terminal illness and weave it into something fantastic and imaginative. It’s as potent as any of her completed work, and it’s made all the more potent by Ness, who writes with all the intensity and magic that made his Chaos Walking novels so powerful.

In an era when shallow paranormal polish seems to dominate books for young readers, A Monster Calls is a reminder of just how powerful children’s literature can be when the tale is told well and told with heart. It’s among the most heartwrending, beautiful books you’ll read all year, and it will stay with you every night for weeks.

COMICS: Buffy Season Nine #1

The first thing you notice about the first issue of Buffy Season Nine, the Joss Whedon scripted "Freefall," is that there are no punches thrown.

You might expect to see Buffy back where she belongs, patrolling among the gravestones for a vamp to dust, but instead you find her throwing a party with her new roommates, inviting her old friends (many of whom are changed forever by the events of Season Eight) to see her new life and, most importantly, trying to start over. It's the absolute opposite of the epic, cosmic way the Season Eight ended, and it's the perfect start to a different kind of Buffy story.

All the elements are still in place for something big to happen, including more than a few subtle hints of something big lurking in the shadows and lying in wait for the Slayer. The characters we love are present - Xander, Willow, Dawn and Spike - but they're all dealing with a new kind of universe. It's a magic-less universe in which they're all learning to live without something, and it gives Whedon a chance to showcase more than just the unlimited budget of comics.

Buffy Season Nine #1 rivets you to its page with the classic Whedon-style dialogue that made you fall in love with the characters in the first place. With almost no supernatural elements at his disposal (something he imposed on himself), Whedon immerses his characters in everyday drama, relishing the chance to let the soap opera qualities of Buffy shine through for a change. The art of longtime Buffy artist Georges Jeanty ties it all together, making a seamless transition into a new era for the series.

It might sound boring, but it's not. Buffy Season Nine opens with a bang; it's just a different kind of bang. It's the start of something different, but a something different that's also rooted in many of the concepts of the television series. Whedon proves once again that he knows what he's doing. All that's left is to follow.

COMICS: Batwoman #1

I think J. H. Williams could illustrate a boy band biography and I'd buy it. The man has a gift. His panels are dreamy, nonlinear trips that somehow wind up making perfect sense. His world is gorgeous yet filled with monsters. He just gets it right, and it all seems to fit with Batwoman.

Williams returns to Kate Kane's crimefighting career as artist and co-writer of the new Batwoman solo title, working alongside writer W. Haden Blackman to craft a first issue that - while not particularly ambitious - is among the more beautifully crafted things in DC's relaunch so far.

Drawing on the events of the Batwoman: Elegy arc, the book begins with Kate Kane estranged from her father and mentoring her cousin Bette (the former Flamebird) in the ways of female vigilantism. The pair leap through Gotham, fighting low-rent hoods for the sake of Bette's training, but all the while Batwoman is on the hunt for clues in the case of a mysterious female spectre that seems to be abducting kids and drowning them, and a certain shadowy ops group is on the hunt for the Batwoman.

Williams' art is the star of the show. That might not be deliberate, but it's true. It just screams out at you to be stared at. As with his past Batwoman work, he constructs elaborate full-page spreads that swirl and swoop through panels like no other art in mainstream comics. His characters look simultaneously real and magical, like they're being seen through some kind of fantastic veil.

As far as the story, it works, but it feels in places like Williams and Blackman are trying to cram too many things into one issue. Kane's issues with her father, training her cousin and trying to solve a deadly case are all given as much time as possible, and it feels like if just one of them could have been played down, the story would've been much more immersive. As it is, it feels like a sampler of what's to come, which might work out, but at this point it's hard to tell.

Despite that, Batwoman #1 comes out at the higher end of DC's relaunch material. Brilliantly drawn, well-scripted and, though shakily plotted, good enough to make you want to keep reading.

COMICS: Green Lantern #1

Geoff Johns is the Green Lantern guy. He has been for a while (seven years or so), and he's been the guy responsible for returning Hal Jordan and the Lantern Corps to the land of ambition and cosmic scope. Green Lantern #1 isn't the best thing he's ever done with the Corps (that would probably be Sinestro Corps War), but it maintains the same ambition, energy and pace of all his work with the character, and that makes it more than worth reading.

One of the interesting things about DC's whole New 52 relaunch is getting to see where each writer chooses to start the character up. Some opt to begin at the very, very beginning, others take the in medias res approach. Which way they shift says a lot about how they feel about the character, and what kind of story they want to tell. For Johns, who's basically owned the Lantern universe for a while now, it's about starting with major drama in the rearview mirror and forging a new path forward.

Hal Jordan was a Green Lantern, but when we meet him he's just a guy trying to pay his bills. His old nemesis Sinestro, on the other hand, is being invited back into the Lantern Corps by the Guardians of the Universe after trying unsuccessfully to wipe them out. The Guardians (most of them, anyway) are insistent that he is needed back in the Corps, and he is insistent that Hal Jordan must also return. Why, we don't know.

It's not exactly inventive for Johns to place the Green Lantern title's two most famous faces side by side once again, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that it feels like he's trying something here, like he's got the ambition to reach for a new direction. Who knows where it's headed at this point, but it's the reach that counts. Longtime Green Lantern artist and Johns collaborator Doug Mahnke keeps the look of the universe in line with Johns' past triumphs on the title, delivering solid cosmic visions that heighten the sense of energy in the title.

Though his Justice League #1 writing was underwhelming (some readers would say I put that mildly), Johns proves here that when it comes to Green Lantern, he still seems to know what he's doing. It's not groundbreaking or world-changing, but it's enough to make you want issue 2.

BOOK REVIEW: 'Life Itself: A Memoir' by Roger Ebert

Since losing his ability to speak after cancer-related surgeries in 2007, Roger Ebert’s writing has become his voice. His online presence has swelled to include more than just film reviews. His blog, where he writes about everything from politics to celebrity encounters to his daily life, receives millions of hits. He doesn’t talk, but he communicates like never before.

Life Itself is in many ways the result of this new paradigm. It’s not a linear autobiographical recollection, but rather a series of interconnected vignettes that in some way help define Ebert’s life, work and outlook. Reading it, I’m reminded of why he’s America’s greatest film critic. It’s not because of his expertise or insight, though that’s always been a part of it. It’s because he writes with his soul. A Roger Ebert film review is always genuine, witty and focused on what the film does, not what it is. Every page of Life Itself is infused with the same kind of wit, the same energy, the same wisdom and candor that have made Roger Ebert one of the great cultural commentators of his time.

Ebert journeys through his childhood in Illinois, to his school days and early friends and finally to his work at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he received the film critic job without ever asking or hoping for it. Readers expecting a “this is how I got famous” path won’t find it. Ebert isn’t interested in why everyone reads what he writes. What he tries to do instead is chart his path of deep immersion in the movies through the people who helped immerse him. Chapters are devoted to towering figures of cinema that he’s had the privilege of rubbing shoulders with: John Wayne, Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese. He writes about what these people taught him, what they mean to him, how they helped him understand the movies.

He writes with love about the great film critic Pauline Kael and how her work influenced his own. He writes about his father. He writes about his partner and brother in arms, the great Gene Siskel. He writes about his wife, Chaz, about love and loss and the cancer that warped his face and took his voice.

But it never feels like navel gazing.

Life Itself is an adventure of a book by a truly great writer who proves once and for all that his chops go far beyond the realm of thumbs up and thumbs down. Ebert may not have ever set out to tell his story this way, but his voice is louder than ever.

Life Itself is available September 13 in bookstores everywhere.


Advance Reading Copy courtesy of Grand Central Publishing

'Midnight in Paris' a film of pure enchantment

Owen Wilson doesn't know that he's in Leonardo DiCaprio's dream-crime right now.

The cinema of Woody Allen has always been a slight form of fantasy for me to begin with. His films about New York intellectuals grappling with neuroses and romantic entanglements under Manhattan’s watchful gaze, or Americans rushing through European adventures that challenge their understanding of life, always feel to me a little like depictions of another world. And in a way, I suppose they are.

Allen has always flirted with fantasy in his films, even the ones deeply rooted in real human experience. From the animated sequence and the flash backs of Annie Hall to the fictional characters coming to live in Deconstructing Harry, he’s never been afraid to let his work take off, however briefly, into the realm of the fantastic.

Midnight in Paris is the purest form of this blending of fantasy and reality yet. In one of his most vital and energetic films, Allen takes his archetypal protagonist – a guy who often wishes his reality would alter – and quite literally drops him in another time and place. The result is a charming, imaginative and surprisingly warm film by one of America’s most distinguished directors.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is, like many other Allen leading men, a guy uncomfortable with his life. He’s a successful screenwriter but he’d rather write his novel about a guy who works in a nostalgia shop. He’s engaged to the beautiful but often shallow Inez (Rachel McAdams), but while she keeps shopping for the perfect Malibu home, he’d rather have an attic apartment in Paris. He lives in 2010, but he longs to be a part of the legendary “Lost Generation” of the 1920s.

Gil’s desire to live a life other than his own seems to reach its peak when he and Inez travel to Paris with her uptight, wealthy parents (played hilariously by Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller). Inez wants to shop for obscenely expensive furniture with her mother and visit museums with her arrogant and often pedantic friend Paul (Michael Sheen), who’s so sure of how smart he is that he’ll even argue with tour guides.

Gil would rather romanticize about Paris in the rain than indulge in his fiance’s tourist clichés. One night after dinner, he wanders off and gets lost on a deserted Parisian street. A little drunk, he sits down on some steps as the clock strikes midnight, and suddenly a car that looks like it’s from another time pulls up, and some people invite him to get in and go to a party.

Improbably, Gil gets in, and even more improbably suddenly finds himself drinking with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill) and listening to the grand and cocksure declarations of Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll). He thinks he’s cracking up, but the next night it happens again, and the next night, and Gil finds himself rubbing shoulders with an extraordinary cast of characters including Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo) and Picasso’s lover, an enchanting young woman named Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

Gil’s world becomes all about his second life, and as it does he sees even more things wrong with his first. He’s falling for Adriana while Inez becomes more distant. He’s giving his manuscript to Stein to read while his practical working life seems to fade. He’s in love with his strange new world, and he’s in love with the life he could have there.

Allen is no stranger to making films about men who’ve had to compromise, and who often wish for some sort of ideal existence that’s just out of reach.  With Midnight in Paris he brings those ideals to life and then pokes holes in them, a literal spin on always wanting what we can’t have and always thinking that the Golden Age has long since passed us by. It’s a film about learning to make the most of the present, but rarely has such a message been conveyed with such vitality and humor.

Wilson shines as the in over his head dreamer. He fits into the Allen movie machine nicely, carrying the film and somehow managing to keep his presence vital even as the screen is packed with stars. McAdams is convincingly nasty, but not in a hateful way, and the supporting cast revel in their chance to portray icons. Everyone in this film is having fun, and it’s particularly evident in the smaller moments, as when Adrien Brody (as Salvador Dali) savors the chance to say the word “rhinoceros.”

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen in top form, taking his second favorite city (after New York, of course) and painting it in seductive tones of fantasy, love and nighttime dreaming. His iconic dialogue style melds with soft and beautiful camerawork by the great Darius Khondji to create something lush and magnificently life-affirming. More than four decades after he began making movies, Allen is still capable of greatness, and Midnight in Paris is destined to be listed among the very best of his films.

COMICS: Justice League International #1

Team books are always hard to start. It's not an enviable task. You've got to convincingly introduce a host of characters, give them all some sense of identity and then give them something to fight, and you've got to do it all in less than 30 pages.

Justice League International #1 comes a week after Geoff Johns and Jim Lee led into DC's "New 52" with a mediocre Justice League #1 that groaned under the weight of high expectations and too much ambition crammed into a very small space. Dan Jurgens - the DC Comics veteran most famous for writing and drawing the Death of Superman story - and fellow veteran artist Aaron Lopresti, manage to get their book off the ground with a little less trouble, but they do it by sacrificing their opening pages to exposition hell.

In response to the rise of the Justice League of America as an independent organization of superheroes, the United Nations decides it needs its own team of heroes, one that it can control both from a public relations and tactical standpoint. Andre Briggs, the U.N.'s Intelligence Director, brings his superhero team proposal before the U.N. Global Security Group, who will make the final decision. He proposes a number of intriguing choices (among them Plastic Man, Green Arrow and Blue Beetle) for the team's lineup that are shot down for various reasons. His proposal that Batman come on board is also shot down, but the rest of his prospective superhero squad is approved. The new Justice League International will be led by the image conscious, cocky Booster Gold, and will include Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Rocket Red (Gavril Ivanovich), Fire, Ice, Godiva and August General in Iron (because, you know, every superhero team worth its salt needs a Chinese superhero with iron skin).

The team sets up in the Hall of Justice amid public protest, and is almost immediately handed their first mission: find a missing U.N. Research Team that's gone missing in South America. Despite U. N. objections, Batman stows away for the trip (because he's Batman, and he can sneak in anywhere he wants) and pilots the jet into the jungle while Booster Gold begins to cope with the pressures of being a leader.

The biggest problem with this book is that the first five pages are basically a board meeting. Briggs has a teleconference with Global Security Group members, and the images of each of the JLI heroes flash on screen like a high school yearbook. When the team is finally picked, the reader knows their faces (the point of the whole exercise), but might be too bored to want to carry on.

If you do make it past the brief slogging introduction, Justice League International #1 turns into a solid first issue, and sees the JLI taking on monsters in the jungle as they try to figure out what's happened to the missing scientists. It's a set up for an adventure book, but Jurgens is also weaving in bigger elements. Batman is poking his nose in, probably just as much to screw with authority as to mentor any of the JLI members. Booster Gold is trying to balance his own ego and his need to keep control of his team. The team itself is experiencing a number of language barriers (most of them quite funny, actually), and the political implications of a superhero team sanctioned by the governments of the world are already beginning to rumble in the background.

Jurgens strikes a fun tone for the first issue, hitting enough strong comic notes to overshadow some heavy handed, rushed plotting. He's also clearly aware of the fertile ground this book has beneath it, and the issue ends with the promise of something bigger up ahead. Lopresti's art also strikes the right tone. His work is bright, clean, classic superhero pencilling, just what you want from a straight-up hero team title.

Justice League International has a lot going for it, even if it does get off to a bit of a rocky start. It's got a few cracks showing, but it's also got the promise to turn into something bigger.

COMICS: Action Comics #1

When DC unveiled Rags Morales' (excellent) cover for Action Comics #1, more than a few readers saw it as a cheap attempt to freshen up the Man of Steel by simply dressing him down. Gone were the iconic tights and the bright red boots, and in their place was the lower body gear of a farm boy from Smallville. For some fans, they may as well have put him in some pre-distressed Abercrombie denim with holes in the knees.

What Action Comics #1 actually reveals when you sit down to read it is that the jeans are only the beginning. This is not the noble, statuesque Man of Tomorrow who hovers above Metropolis like a square-jawed, blue-eyed Christ. This is a new hero fighting as much to find his own way as to deliver justice, tearing through Metropolis at the ground level with all the cocksure determination of a high school quarterback. This is Grant Morrison exploring Superman's infant stage, and the result is an energetic, bold new comic by one of DC's most imaginative creators.

We don't know when the issue begins how long Superman has been in town, but clearly it hasn't been long. He's still trying to make a name for himself among Metropolis' less savory characters, the police are still trying to figure him out, and somewhere in the shadows Lex Luthor is still learning his weaknesses.

Morrison also makes it clear that Superman simply hasn't been Superman for long. Like the Siegel and Shuster version of the late 1930s, this Man of Steel doesn't fly, but leaps. His strength is monumental but far from unlimited. His body is tough, but definitely not invulnerable. This Superman is still incubating, both physically and emotionally, just as his alter ego Clark Kent is still trying to find his way. He's a reporter, we learn, but he's not yet working with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. He's also living in a less than luxurious situation where he's struggling to pay the rent. It's an all around transition phase.

Morrison has a knack for carefully constructing stories and then structuring them to look like chaotic frenzies of action and intrigue. Action Comics #1 is dominated by chase scenes, close calls, and moments of real danger for the young Man of Steel. It's also punctuated by a number of visually and emotionally important symbols. Superman grabs a corporate crook from a skyscraper penthouse and then leaps to the street below, literally bringing the man down to the level of the commoner. He glares at villains with heat vision one minute, then smiles as he scopes out the internal organs of a Metropolis cop (to let him know he's got a bad ulcer he should get looked at).

What's most brilliant about these moments is how they show a Superman in the making. He's cocky, he's clumsy and he's even a little mischievous, but the nobility that so defines the mature version of the character is there in a rough form, waiting to be sculpted into something big and grand and immortal.

This is all highlighted, enhanced and driven home by Morales' crisp, bright art. His Superman is a working class hero with a twinkle in his eye, still reveling in the reach of his powers, but with a layer of uncertainty lurking underneath that red and yellow insignia. That Morrison understands this, and makes us understand it, is almost a given. That Morales is able to drive it home with nearly every pencil stroke is a gift.

Action Comics #1 is first and foremost just a damn fine comic book, but it's made more important because it shows the work of creators who took the marketing phrase "The New 52" seriously. While other writers seem to be using the mantle simply as a chance to start over with the same old dynamic and no continuity burdens on their shoulders, Morrison and Morales are here to present something innovative, something fresh and bright and full of promise. Action Comics is one issue old, and it's already proving to be a sign that great work can come from this reboot.

'Our Idiot Brother,' a comedy with refreshing heart

Paul Rudd in the role he was born for: Slacker Jesus

Comedies like Our Idiot Brother seem to come as a reaction to ultra-raunchy blockbusters like The Hangover Part II. It’s a film that still works to cater to adults through its language, plot and thematic concerns, but it attacks from a different, more mature angle. There’s nothing wrong with raunch (What was wrong with The Hangover Part II had nothing to do with it being gross and everything to do with it being bad.), but sometimes adults like to see an adult comedy that’s less about the extravagant vulgarities of adulthood and more about the struggles of it.

Paul Rudd is the idiot brother of the film’s title, a lazy but good-natured guy named Ned who gets suckered into selling pot to a cop and winds up in jail for a few months. When he gets out, he finds that his organic farmer girlfriend has dumped him, leaving him without a place to stay. He turns, of course, to his family, largely to his three sisters, each of whom have problems of their own to deal with. Nat (Zooey Deschanel) is a bisexual aspiring comedian struggling to commit to her girlfriend (Rashida Jones). Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) is a reporter looking for her big break. And Liz (Emily Mortimer) is holding a family together while her uptight documentarian husband (Steve Coogan) seems to be losing interest.

Each of the sisters take their turn with Ned, offering him a place to stay and a chance to earn a little money. He, in turn, seems to be ruining their lives, not so much through laziness and freeloading as through a very uncomplicated sense of honesty.

What begins as a comedy about the foibles of sibling relationships gradually evolves very nearly into a full-fledged, very moving drama with a few comedic elements. Ned is never portrayed as a buffoon, but rather as a very simple guy who just wants to get along with everyone. He doesn’t fit in Miranda’s corporate political sphere, or Nat’s pansexual communes or even Liz’s domestic struggles. He doesn’t see the world their way. This is the source of much of the film’s comedy, but more importantly it’s the source of its heart. “Our Idiot Brother” starts out looking and feeling like every other slacker comedy you’ve ever seen, and ends up something much more.

The flick is filled with stellar acting talent, but Rudd truly carries this one. Until Our Idiot Brother, nearly all of his starring roles were as the straight man (see Dinner for Schmucks and I Love You, Man), but he embraces the opportunity to be the odd duck in a group of people all far too wrapped up in the “real world.” His instant likeability is used to its fullest, and even against acting titans like Deschanel and Mortimer, he manages to own every scene.

Our Idiot Brother isn’t the funniest film of the year, or the happiest, but it is among the most genuine. This is a movie that finds its stride not in its laughs, but in its relationships. It’s a rare feat for a comedy, particularly in a world where most funny pictures bank on nudity and profanity. While it’s not perfect, Our Idiot Brother is a reminder of where comedies can go when they reach for something beyond laughs and hit the mark.

COMICS: Justice League #1

Let's clear the air, kids. The New 52 is happening. Pull your heads out of the sand. We're still here. The world didn't end, the multiverse didn't collapse all over our nerdy little skulls and comics are still alive and well (well...surviving, anyway). I've held off talking or writing about DC's companywide reboot for most of the last three months simply because I didn't understand why there was such a big debate to be had. It's not like such things haven't happened before (on some scale or another). And yes, they're renumbering and that's a little odd to think about for characters that have been around for more than 70 years, but come on...we know where things stand.

DC is trying something in an effort to reinvigorate their business, and many comics fans are crying foul. They're saying "This is just a stunt. Why don't you guys just try telling good stories?" For many DC fans (myself included), the good stories were already there, but DC wanted to push in another direction and wrap up a few new readers, and that's fine. This is comics, after all. We can always just pretend it didn't happen later.

But now it's over. The first issue of The New 52 is here, 51 more will follow in the next four weeks, we will read them, discuss them and get on with our lives. The reboot is upon us. All that's left is to talk about the work.

And now...to the work.

Justice League #1 is the center of this New 52 universe DC is rolling out. It's a logical place for it to stand. All of the DC blockbuster characters are gathered in its pages, giving its creative more opportunities for storytelling on a grand scale. It's the All-Star squad, and in an effort to further project a blockbuster image on it, DC put it in the hands of two of their creative superstars. Jim Lee, possibly the most famous comics artist of the last 20 years, not only drew the issue, but also redesigned the costumes of each of the League's members. Geoff Johns, who revived Green Lantern and The Flash for DC and has a played a major editorial role in most of the company's recent major event books, helms the book from the scripting side. It's a Dream Team of sorts, they've got the world's biggest heroes and a massive battleground to work with. This is what they're pitching:

It begins "Five Years Ago." So, we're starting the first issue of a supposedly new universe with a flashback? It's not explained, but hopefully it'll merit something more than just a tedious timeline issue. Batman is fighting a bizarre alien threat in Gotham City when Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) shows up to help. The two have never met, and spend much of the issue debating who should handle the situation and discussing the overall situation with superheroes in this new universe.

In the universe Lee and Johns are introducing us to, the world still lives in fear and misunderstanding of superheroes. The heroes themselves haven't yet crossed over into each other's territory (Lantern wasn't even sure Batman was real) and they know next to nothing about each other's powers and abilities at this point. It's essentially a blank slate fully populated with demigods. Not a bad start.

The problem is the issue basically goes almost nowhere. Apart from what amounts to a cameo appearance (that will pay off next issue, to be fair) by Superman at the end, it's just Batman and Lantern chasing down aliens and arguing with each other. This wouldn't really be a problem, except that the cover also includes Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. So, we don't get to see a big, cool Ocean's 11 style roundup of the powers that be. We're starting off slower. Fine.

Most of the book is action, fight scene after fight scene, flights and hurdles across the cityscape and alien threats wreaking havoc. That's cool, but this is where we come to the problem of Jim Lee drawing it. He's a legendary artist, but his panels just feel too crowded. I'm not talking just about the number of people walking through them, either, or their size. It seems crowded with too many pencil lines, too many strokes, too many needless overdetails. This is thanks in part to the costume redesigns. Superman and Batman both seem to have a number of odd lines running through their suits. Whether these are for aerodynamic purposes or for armor or what, we don't know (though why Superman would need armor is a mystery). They're just there, these weird little crevices that seem to serve little purpose. It's just too busy, and it makes some of Lee's more elegant art (like his work in Batman: Hush, for example) seem like a distant memory.

Yet despite all of this, despite everything that feels overly hyped and underwhelming about this comic, I came away with a sense of deep anticipation for what's next. Johns and Lee have set the right tone, against all odds, and if only because the issue is too short (this is a massive reboot; we couldn't have added a few pages?). It makes you want to keep reading, and that is, after all, the point. The New 52 is here, and it's rolling forward now. All that's left is to get on board.