Each Thursday (or Friday, since some weeks we seem to be running behind on everything), Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line.
Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we?
October 17, 2003
Book of the Week:
by Branford W. Wright. Wright perceived a hole in scholarship and so he proceeded to fill it. What did he
feel was getting short shrift? Comics. So he takes you through the comic book industry all the way up to the present day,
discussing how various topics and issues are engaged through a medium that normally doesn't get a lot of serious attention.
As interesting as it is well written, a serious comic fan might learn a few things.
Audiobook of the Week:
by Edith Hahn Beer & Susan Dworkin, performed by Barbara Rosenblat. When you hear the premise for this--a Jewish
woman fakes an identity to stay alive in the middle of the Third Reich and winds up the wife of a member of the Nazi Party--you
can pretty much figure you're going to get a fairly amazing story. Couple it with Rosenblat's performance of the first
person memoir and you've got something that you're going to be listening to in the parking lot because you don't want to
turn off the car. A definite must-listen from Jewish Contemporary Classics.
Graphic Novel of the Week:
by Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano. Everybody's celebrating Endless Nights as Neil's return to the Sandman
after X number of years--which, of course, is all marketing, and does a disservice to this one shot which paired him with
art god Amano (and made him a hot prospect for American comics). Not everybody could make up a bit of Japanese mythology
out of whole cloth and everyone buy into it. Nice tale of Morpheus with incredible artwork.
Comic Book of The Week:
Smax #3
by Alan Moore & Xander Cannon. Jeff wants to get the hell out of Dodge, but Robyn's convinced that a quest for Jeff to have
a rematch with the dragon Morningbright is just the ticket. Sadly for Jeff, all signs (and I mean all of them) point
just that way. Rarely do you ever see a book that's equal parts hilarious and equal parts harsh. Christ only knows where
this is going, but if this is all I'm going to get of Top 10, keep bringing it. Worth getting, if nothing else, to
see the "Boy Who Died." Sick, sick.
DVD Boxed Set of the Week:
. Want to get a little bit freaky? MGM can help you. Three discs and seventeen episodes, comprising the entire second season of this show,
should suffice. Featuring some scribing by Harlan Ellison ("Demon With a Glass Hand," anyone?), not to mention more
name actors than you can shake a stick at (Shatner, Nimoy, Eddie Albert, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall), it's a weekend's worth
of good eating.
This Side of the Pond DVD of the Week:
. We've all been there: it's three in the morning, and you're watching some terrible cheeseball movie from the
50s because you made the mistake of flipping to that channel...and then not moving. You're trapped. Well, this film not
only feels your pain...but mocks it. A series of crazed skits that is a classic of that mad subgenre, this edition from
Universal comes complete with deleted scenes and outtakes. Worth several guffaws.
Documentary of the Week:
Orson Welles: The One-Man Band.
Showtime brings you a documentary, narrated by Peter Bogdanovich, which covers the life of the actor/director. Not only do
you get coverage from stem to stern, so to speak, but you also get a priceless look at all the Welles projects that were
never completed. Any fan of the man will want to turn over and check this out--click to go to Showtime's website and look
for times when it's being shown again.
CD of the Week:
. Ultimate? Well, this compilation from UTV comes close. From the usual suspects anyone would expect on the
thing, like Junior Murvin's "Police and Thieves" and the original "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, to songs which
I personally hadn't heard before like Toots & The Maytals' "54-46 Was My Number", which opens the disc--it's a truly solid
representation of the genre and perfect for first-timers. I'm a little surprisd that Bob Marley himself doesn't make an
appearance, but c'est la guerre.