A frightening fantasy film about a horrible, lawless, far off land called Mexico.

What? It’s real. Oy vey!

It’s movies like this that will guilt me into giving up my seat to every tired looking immigrant I see on the subway.

Northlanders 17 is one of my favorite one-shot comics of all time. It’s actually the one that got me all into Northlanders in the first place.

It has no plot – simply a description of two Vikings in the middle of an honor fight to the death. The detailed narration that comes along with it is a perfect snapshot of the Viking culture that is at the heart elsewhere in Brian Wood’s stories. It is simple and perfect and Vasilis Lolos’ artwork is absolutely mesmerizing in its subtlety.

Anyone who thinks comics can’t be high art needs to take a look at this. (You can see much of it here if you don’t believe me.)

18-19 tells the story of a trio of women who must step up and defend themselves against some horrible Christians and 20 brings back our favorite Sven of Orkney, now hidden up in the Faroe Islands, letting his legend grow so strong some knuckleheads dare to try and kill him for glory.

Issue 21 begins an 8-issue arc. More on that as it completes.

I am just as surprised as you are to learn that Fringe comics are good.

I would say that this 6 issue arc is actually more fun than many of the episodes.

It is, at heart, a prequel, with a young Walter Bishop meeting and working with a young William Bell. (As this was all done before the casting coup, the Comics’ Bell looks nothing like Leonard Nimoy – nor is he the appropriate age, but that’s okay.)

You get to watch Bish & Belly do all sorts of wacky stuff in their Harvard lab – like go back in time to fight Hitler!!!

Each issue also comes with a smaller, tag story that is just a little bit of “Pattern” spookiness.

Issue 6 is the only one set “now” and its last panel is Agent Dunham knocking on Bishop’s hospital door. Fun stuff.

It really holds up.

And is incredibly offensive to women, Dwarfs, woodland animals. . .you name it!

No new ideas. The holodeck is not a new idea. Nor is downloaded, post-human immortality. And the CGI looks pretty shoddy.

I hope the series improves on the pilot DVD.

In the build-up to 2012 I could no longer live with myself knowing I’d never seen Deep Impact.

It isn’t bad – well, yeah, I guess it is a little bad – but it gets points for trying.

The problem, and I believe filmmakers (other than Emmerich) are starting to realize this, is that the cast of a thousand formula can never be taken seriously. Deep Impact tries to be serious, and works up until the Astronauts show up. Then it is a total mess. Kerry Douglas Dye would never allow a screenplay so messy to leave his apartment.

Everyone loves this movie but me.

Imagine The Big Sleep but ten times more confusing but one tenth as charming.

Plot, plot, plot gets shoved in your face – then everything gets explained, but then re-explained for real. The end.

And no Humphrey Bogart. In fact, no characters at all to really care about – just a racing, baffling plot. Okay, a cute dog.

Maybe when the American producers remake it (as is supposedly happening) they’ll whip it into some shape. As it stands, it is confusing, fast and French enough to trick people into thinking it is art. In fact, it makes no sense.

Even by the standards of bad, cast of a thousand stars disaster pics this is a joke.

Odd is that Neame made so many great films – even a descent cast of a thousand stars disaster pic! (Juggernaut.)

Well, Henry Fonda, Martin Landau, Natalie Wood, Sean Connery, Karl Malden and others face a big rock. Then they all swim in chocolate milk. The Swarm kicks its ass.

The early shorts are great for a historical perspective but, alas, they are a bit of a bore.

Things don’t get cookin’ til 1989’s Knick Knack (the one with the SnoGlobe.)

Even though I’ve never seen Cars, I found myself greatly enjoying the Cars-short Mater and the Ghost Light, but that may have just been because it was 1 AM and I was getting giddy.

Taken and (see above) For The Birds kick a whole lot of ass, too.

Look forward to Vol II – the cloud short from Up is pretty fantastic.