Dagwood saves the day

I've been pointing out the disastrous results when Beetle Bailey tries to be hip to what the kids are doing nowadays (mostly technology.) The problem is the creative team doesn't know enough about a new technology to make fun of it; they think that simply mentioning it will be hilarious.

This made today's Blondie doubly hilarious. Dagwood takes his first Uber ride; this could have been a mess if the Beetle Bailey team had done this, but Dagwood saves the day by (literally) pulling the punch line out of his back pocket. I didn't see it coming, yet it's totally in his character.

And I laughed.

Lost classic review: 1st Issue Special #9 Doctor Fate

Joe Kubert cover is just the beginning of  the issue's great art.

When all the golden age DC characters were getting reboots in the late-50s, early 60s, Dr. Fate was somehow left behind. Sure he got a couple of Showcase outings (teamed up with Hour-Man!), but for the most part, he was relegated to the JLA- JSA team-ups.

The first great attempt to establish him as an A-lister would be in the mid-70s First Issue Special by Marty Pasko and Walt Simonson. Not quite a reboot, but Pasko and Simonson redefined him for the next 40 years.

First the art, yeah, Murphy Anderson was good for the Showcase issues, but holy crap, Simonson's work here is a revelation.We had never seen him this way. Simonson has always said Kirby was a big inspiration on him. I don't see it in the faces or bodies, but like Kirby he has a gift for making the characters look like they're jumping off the page. Instead of the shading lines on Fate's helmet that had been done historically, Simonson keeps the helmet clean, and it's striking. In the old books, if he cast a spell, usually lightning bolts would emanate from his fingers, here, it's magic symbols forming geometric patterns. The attention to detail even extends to the characters' word balloons, each character's word ballon has a unique shape. It's just amazing.

The story keeps up and obviously inspired the art. An old foe (like ancient-Egyptian mummy old) returns from the dead to kill Fate to impress his god. Havoc ensues. Meanwhile, Kent Nelson's wife Inza overcomes her superhero wife fatigue to help him (and the mage inhabiting his body) independently from him. For perhaps the first time, Inza is not a hostage.

It's just beautifully drawn and wonderfully written, and makes me wish it was picked up as an ongoing series with this creative team.

Beetle Bailey's futile search for relevance ... again

In the Beetle Bailey writers' room.

"Let's do a joke for the kids."
"Yeah, I know, we'll have a joke about the YouTube."
"Yeah, kids today like the YouTube."
"What's the YouTube?"
"Um, I think the kids today use it to prank one another."
"OK, I got it, Lt. Fuzz will get pranked on the YouTube, and the punchline will be, "You've been pranked on the YouTube!"
"Good one, let's hit the golf course!"

Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home (no spoilers)

After the heavy, epic Avengers: Endgame, we get the lighter Far From Home, and it's a welcome change in mood.

After a quick and clever explainer of life in the Marvel Universe after "Endgame," we learn Peter Parker just wants to go to Europe on his class trip and leave super-heroing behind. but Nick Fury, and some inter-dimensional monsters have other plans.

He gets help from Jake Gylanhaal's Mysterio, an inter dimensional super-hero whom they hint could fill Iron Man's rocket-laden boots.

As the class goes from European destination to destination, it brings to mind "If it's Tuesday, it Must be Belgium," and other silly-Americans-in-foreign-country movies. Only with superheroes.

Meanwhile, poor Peter has to battle monsters while working up the courage to tell classmate MJ what he feels about her.  There should be some kind of award for Tom Holland, his Peter Parker might be the closest depiction to the character in the comics; he's not a super-hero, he's a kid whose immense powers are tempered by a teenage mindset. The most important thing for him isn't fighting the monster, it's kissing the girl! And he carries this believably.

I was a little disappointed in the beginning at the absence of a bad guy. He's just going to beat up monsters? But a villain comes along soon enough and makes up for his earlier absence.

The film ends with mid-credit and post-credits sequences. The latter is kind of confusing, but the former is a must-watch which made the audience I saw the film with go crazy.

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Film Review: Booksmart

On the last day of high school, two overachievers find out the party-crazy classmates they've looked down upon for years are going to top universities also. The more daring of the two convinces her bff that they have to cram four years of partying into one night to make up for the time they spent studying.

I usually complain when plots are very simple, but the characters are so endearing, the dialogue is so laugh-out-loud funny ... and raunchy ...and the pacing is so relentless, that you can't help but get sucked in.

I saw bits of the party sequence from "Sixteen Candles" and a lot of "American Graffiti," as the teens hit their coming-of-age moment with some hard truths. The ensemble cast could have been stereotypes but the more we get to know them, the more we want to get to know them.

The highlights are Beanie Feldstein as the class president who wonders why her inauguration wasn't celebrated as wildly as the last day of school, and Billie Lourde's ubiquitous, maniac space cadet. My favorite joke is when the girls start speaking in Chinese because of course they speak Chinese.

This is what "Bridesmaids" should have been, raunchy, smart and fun instead of cheap diarrhea jokes.

TV Review: Reef Break

"Reef Break" is a throwback to the light, breezy TV detective shows of the 70s where the detective is loaded with personality, may have a shady past, and is much better at police work than the actual police.

This isn 't a bad thing. Poppy Montgomery has a lot of personality as a surfer/ former smuggler who becomes an under-the-radar fixer for the governor of Reef Break, an island paradise she once, and now, calls home. Not really believable, but just enjoy the scenery and relax.

It's a mixture of "It Takes a Thief," and "Magnum PI". The pilot had twists and turns I saw coming, but hey, it's summer, you want something to go down like a cool Pina colada.

Review: Murder Mystery

As a big fan of the "Thin Man" films, I always thought it was a lost opportunity that they never sent Nick and Nora Charles to Europe. The first film was set in New York, the second in San Francisco, the third ... back to New York.

Noooo.

The third film was the chance to make "The Thin Man in London," or "The Thin Man in Paris." These would have been a much-needed boost to a film series whose producers thought giving them a baby was the boost they needed.

Adam Sandler is a police officer who takes wife Jennifer Aniston to Europe on a long-promised honeymoon. The blue collar couple get invited on a yacht where we meet some eccentric soon-to-be murder suspects as well as the nasty soon-to-be murder victim. This has all the elements of a Thin Man film (and a bunch of Agatha Christie mysteries), and though Adam Sandler plays a rough-around-the-edges police detective, Jennifer Aniston does a good job filling in for Myrna Loy. It's been years since "Friends," and I've forgotten how she can make any line very funny.

The pair eventually get framed for the murder (don't think about it too hard) and while on the run comically bicker as they try to find the real killer.  It's light and breezy and as a screwball comedy is just as good as any from the 1940s.

We get the added bonus of location shooting in Monaco and Lake Como and it's all very Hollywood.

Its only false notes happen in the beginning when Sandler schemes to keep his wife from finding out he didn't get a promotion. This is a plot you'd see on "The Honeymooners" and hasn't aged well. The other misfire is the totally gratuitous chase scene tacked on the end.

We may never see the "Thin Man" reboot I've been hoping for, but until then, this is very close.