Epinions Recent Reviews for xgollum

One word: Boring

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 00:06:32 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - A good friend of mine bought me this book on impulse from Costco, saying that he'd heard something good about it. The dust jacket talks about finding codes hidden in books and tracking a historical mystery. The author photo is terrible, and she looks...

The curse of J.J. Abrams

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:24:57 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - So this is how making a TV show works. You have an idea. You set up this idea at a studio or a channel, and you and a couple of people sit down and write every script for that season. As the seasons progress, you write less and less of the scripts...

An excellent tale of low class employment

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:56:43 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - Ben Cheever isn't hurting for money. While he isn't scandalously wealthy, he is in the tier of society that means he rubs elbows with celebrities at cocktail parties in New York. So needless to say, he isn't in this for the money. As he describes in the...

The best British sitcom in history

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:40:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I'm writing this review of this product in particular because I have not rented or viewed the DVD set under which the other 'complete' Black Adder series have been reviewed. Black Adder was an innovative comedy series, produced, in the British...

One Woman's Life: Witty, crazy and fascinating

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 21:00:28 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I have not read Sarah Gilman's previous book, Kiss My Tiara, but apparently it's something of a landmark for women of my generation. They have all read it, apparently, so I'm going to have to track that down next, just to keep up. Because I have to...

Life on the wrong side of the law

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 16:13:49 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I have rarely read a comic that took as much advantage of an M rating as this one. Needless, random acts of violence, ruthless bad language and not a drop of morality. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. Wesley Gibson is a sad sack everyman. He...

The Mediocre Four

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:35:16 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I'm just gonna say right now that Marvel and Fox were fighting a losing battle with this one from the beginning. While there have been some great and not-so-great comic book movies of late, there have certainly been a lot of them, and by now it kind of...

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Sun, 3 Jul 2005 21:29:57 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" is, in fact, the proper title of this book. It is not just Red Dwarf: The Novel, although that might as well be the title. It would be equally accurate. And even though the title comes up nowhere inside the book, I...

All of Kellerman's strengths

Sun, 3 Jul 2005 17:37:03 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - After writing my last review on Jonathan Kellerman's The Clinic (h
ttp://www.epinions.com/content
_186345688708)
you might have thought I was done with the guy. But I think his only problem is that he is trying to pump...

All of Kellerman's problems all at once

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:21:57 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I've read a great many of Jonathan Kellerman's books, most of them in his child psychologist Alex Delaware series. I got this one on tape for no particular reason other than it is one of his titles that I haven't read, and it was available. I...

An lovely book, just not much of a mystery

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 17:53:01 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I bought this out of a Goodwill bin for $0.25. I got my money's worth and much more, I just didn't get what I thought I was buying. The text on the back of this book makes you believe that you're buying Grisham's take on the serial killer novel...

A truly original book

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 17:28:58 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - Ben Elton, British comedy giant, has a fascinating side career as a novelist. His works are always interesting, and worth considering, and are often surprisingly NOT funny. In much of his comedy writing (often with Richard Curtis, who made Four...

Matt Wagner's Trinity: A masterpiece?

Thu, 9 Jun 2005 20:52:39 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - At first glance, this trade paperback collection of Matt Wagner's Trinity has it all. But does it really? Matt Wagner is the Eisner winning creator of Mage. He also created Grendel, and has worked on other titles, but is not as prolific or as...

Tries hard, but fails on every front

Thu, 9 Jun 2005 19:38:03 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I got Skeletons by Kate Wilhelm, as a book on tape from the library. And I got it because the San Francisco Examiner said she is the best suspense writer in America today. According to the blurb, this was from their review of this book. I haven't read...

Well received, highly praised...and kinda boring

Mon, 6 Jun 2005 18:34:39 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - H.E.R.O. is yet another revamped title. After Neil Gaiman took the obscure Sandman character and built a whole new mythology around him, comics since the 90's until now have been much more based around successfully rebuilding, redesigning and...

An outsider's view of the inside

Sun, 5 Jun 2005 18:21:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - Brian Michael Bendis, once the darling of the indie comic community with his gritty urban crime work (Jinx, Torso) has since become an everpresent powerhouse, writing several titles at once, handling numerous storylines, and managing to be funny in one...

A flawed and ugly read

Sat, 4 Jun 2005 21:23:48 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - John Constantine is a character that has floated around the outskirts of the DC Vertigo universe for quite a while. Neil Gaiman had him pop up in Sandman occasionally. He is in some of Alan Moore's comics. DC finally gave him a home with Hellblazer,...

Queer and here. Get used to it?

Sat, 4 Jun 2005 18:36:06 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - The Rawhide Kid was a hero initially cooked up as a spinoff of the popular program Rawhide. He was then resurrected by Stan Lee in the 60's, and he lasted until 1979. Since then he's appeared in short runs and in other comics, but hasn't had his own...

Justice dispensed with a .45

Fri, 27 May 2005 14:52:08 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - The title of this review is a quote right from the book. It sounds silly, overblown, cheesy, and taken on it's own, it is. Taken in context as one man's thoughts as he reaches the end of his tether and decides to go vigilante, it captures the essence...

A failed attempt

Mon, 23 May 2005 02:00:55 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I don't know where this came from. I love Brian Michael Bendis, and have enjoyed every comic he's written. Even when he's not on top of his game (see my review here: h
ttp://www.epinions.com/content
_179160518276)
I...

A strange, strange movie

Sun, 22 May 2005 01:57:23 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I'll tell you right now, so far as rating this puppy goes, I'm terribly torn. While the performances were top notch from beginning to end, the movie felt like it was just going in a big circle. The surprises all had to do with the subject matter and...

A giant ripoff of an excellent property

Sun, 22 May 2005 01:26:41 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - This is a review of the Venom trade paperback titled Shiver, which is the comic pictured, not the one listed in the title. It is volume one of the series in which Run is second and Twist is third. Venom: Shiver is not listed, so I figured this was...

Dead to Rights II for PlayStation 2: If this were a movie, I would want my money back

Sun, 15 May 2005 22:32:32 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - Soon after (too soon, some would say) the success of Max Payne, came another 'cop on the edge' action/dramatic game. That game was the first Dead to Rights. Just like Max Payne, the game involved two fisted gun action, a credible story line, fun game...

A noble experiment in comickery

Fri, 13 May 2005 21:24:48 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - I never think about it too much, but I'm a Marvel kinda guy. The double initial thing (Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, etc) bugs the crap out of me, but I'll blame Stan Lee for that and keep my complaints to myself. I'd passed this comic buy at the...

Audacious, Hellacious, and falling short of the mark

Thu, 5 May 2005 00:33:08 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author xgollum - The first three paragraphs of this review will be posted with all of my James Ellroy reviews, as it is pertinent to all of them. Ellroy's books always involve several common elements, and if you've read his biography, My Dark Places, you'll certainly...