The French Dispatch (2021)

Tagline:
All grand beauties withhold their deepest secrets.

Wide Release Date:
October 22, 2021

Directed by:
Wes Anderson
Screenplay by:
Wes Anderson
Story by:
Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, Jason Schwartzman
Produced by:
Wes Anderson, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson

Starring:
Owen Wilson
Benicio del Toro
Tony Revolori
Adrien Brody
Tilda Swinton
Bob Balaban
Henry Winkler
Léa Seydoux
Frances McDormand
Timothée Chalamet
Lyna Khoudri
Christoph Waltz
Rupert Friend
Jeffrey Wright
Liev Schreiber
Mathieu Amalric
Stephen Park
Willem Dafoe
Edward Norton
Saoirse Ronan
Bill Murray
Elisabeth Moss
Jason Schwartzman
Fisher Stevens
Anjelica Huston

The French Dispatch

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I’ve seen many Wes Anderson movies, but I haven’t yet seen The French Dispatch. These are literally my only pregame thoughts, so here we go.

THE 600(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray) is the editor-in-chief of a New Yorker-type magazine called The French Dispatch in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. After dying of a heart attack, his will stipulates an immediately ceasing of the publication following one last issue. The issue contains four stories, and we will see them now!

The Cycling Reporter
Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson in a stupid hat) gives a very brief description of Ennui-sur-Blasé, including its past and how it compares to its present. Consider me ennuied and blaséed.

The French Dispatch

The subway system will take you to all the shittiest hat stores Ennui-sur-Blasé has to offer!

The Concrete Masterpiece
Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro) is in prison for murder. J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) presents a lecture at an art gallery that is celebrating Rosenthaler’s prison paintings. They’re entirely unrecognizably abstract nude pieces of Simone (Léa Seydoux), a prison guard with whom Rosenthaler has formed a romantic relationship.

Julien Cadazio (Adrien Brody) is in prison for tax evasion. A RESPECTABLE ART DEALER, Cadazio is enchanted by one of these paintings and buys it. After getting out of the joint, Cadazio displays it and Rosenthaler becomes the newest It Girl in the art world! Finding it difficult to follow with new inspiration, Rosenthal falls into a deep depression until Simone convinces him to involve himself in a long-term project. He doesn’t have paintings to release to the public for three years.

Cadazio becomes frustrated with the lack of progress. He, his family, and a large group of other artists bribe their way into the prison and discover a concrete wall of Rosenthaler’s new artwork. A riot breaks out during the reveal, which Rosenthal helps stop. Subsequently, he is released on probation. Simone, with all the money she earns for being involved with the projects, also leaves the prison. The two stay in touch via correspondence, but they never see each other again.

The French Dispatch

Point me in the direction of Halle Berry, I wanna give her a big ol’ smooch.

Revisions to a Manifesto
This convoluted story involves a “Chessboard Revolution” where a group of young kids communicate to the police via chess. It regards boys’ access to the girls’ dormitories. Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) reports on the revolution, led by Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet). The revolution snowballs into a uprising of titanic proportions! For some reason! Mostly because a student named Mitch-Mitch (Mohamed Belhadjine) got conscripted into the military.

Krementz starts a romance with Zeffirelli and helps him write his manifesto. Zeffirelli bickers over the manifesto with a girl named Juliette (Lyna Khoudri). Juliette is in love with Zeffirelli, which initially makes Krementz jealous but she gets over it.

Eventually, Zeffirelli dies while repairing a pirate radio tower. He becomes a martyr for the revolution. His story becomes a play production. Wes Anderson loves play productions!

The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner
Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright) speaks to a talk show host (Liev Schreiber) about a private dinner with the Ennui police commissioner, or The Commissaire (Mathieu Amalric). During the dinner, the Commissaire’s son, Gigi (Winston Ait Hellal), is kidnapped for ransom. The kidnapper’s interests involve the release of a man known as The Abacus (Willem Dafoe), who is held prisoner at police headquarters for doing the accounting for various criminal syndicates.

Gigi, at the kidnappers’ hideout, is able to send a Morse code message to have the Commissaire’s private chef, Lt. Nescaffier (Stephen Park), come cook for all of them. He poisons the radishes and all die except for Gigi and the head kidnapper honcho The Chauffer (Edward Norton). The Chauffer drives off with Gigi and starts an animated (literally) police chase action sequence. Gigi escapes through the sunroof. The Abacus gets some food too because everyone forgot about him.

The French Dispatch

If I had to express my experience in the private dining room of the police commissioner in one word, sir, it would be “food”.

The Epilogue
The staff of the French Dispatch work together to finalize the last issue of the publication. They honor Arthur Howitzer, Jr. in a final obituary.

See, wasn’t that a lot of plot? Jesus Christ, I’m tired.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — Wes Anderson Has Out-Wes Andersoned Himself!

Wes Anderson’s bag of tricks weighs roughly seven tons, and he pulled out everything he had for The French Dispatch. This movie is packed to the brim with visually stunning cinematography. Every single shot had an immaculately-placed camera. Every single camera movement was perfectly coordinated. Every single scene, every single shot, every single still was loaded with nuance and Easter eggs and references. And the colors! Oh, the colors! Even all the black-and-white scenes were colorful! They weren’t really, but you know what I mean, man.

In fact, it was so fucking visually stunning that it was distracting. I was so overloaded with fancy-schmancy artsy-fartsy scenery that I barely had time to process a lot of the (quick) French subtitles. Especially during the “Revisions to a Manifesto” story, which was already a convoluted mess of chess-related rebellion. Is this because I’m STUPID? Yeah, like a fox! Or, more likely, ol’ Wes wanted to pack as much as he could into every second of film.

The French Dispatch

Who does Wes Anderson think he is? Laurin McCracken? Please!

My brain was just a whirlwind of shapes and blinking lights and funny camera angles and Benicio del Toro’s beard. I was laughing during “The Cycling Reporter.” I was charmed by “The Concrete Masterpiece.” I was starting to get antsy during “Revisions to a Manifesto.” By the time I got to “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” I was exhausted. I can’t believe this movie is less than two hours long. The French Dispatch felt like eating a brick of fudge in one sitting.

That’s kind of a compliment, though. I’m impressed. Some of the shots really cracked me up, like del Toro chasing Adrien Brody down in his wheelchair while Brody threw aluminum pans at him, or Owen Wilson falling down the subway stairwell on his shitty hipster bicycle! Splitting my sides! I particularly loved the “still shots” where the camera slid from scene to scene showing objects hovering with the actors struggling to stay frozen in time. Bob Balaban was all like *wiggle*.

So what’s my fucking problem overall? Besides the visuals making up for some of the tedium of the stories, there were so many, many, many damn characters in this thing that I didn’t have time to connect to a single one of them. Not one. Not Léa Seydoux as Simone the prison guard, not Edward Norton as the kidnapper, not Lyna Khoudri as the student revolutionary, not even Toheeb Jimoh as Cadet #1 (although I do like his work in Ted Lasso). If one of the points of a Wes Anderson movie is to empathize with an underdog or a sad-sack, then this movie fails hard.

I was also hoping that we would be spending more time in the actual magazine office and getting to know Arthur Howitzer, Jr. as a likely, invariably sad-sack Editor-in-Chief, but instead we were presented with the final issue of the magazine itself as the movie’s main character. It’s a clever and interesting movie structure, but maybe that’s not what I wanted. Maybe I wanted more Bill Murray!

TOPIC 2 — Timothée Chalamet’s Mustache

That is all.

The French Dispatch

Did two balding caterpillars fornicate under your nose, my good man?

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

In casting Timothée Chalamet as Zeffirelli, Wes Anderson told GQ, “I never had the inconvenience of ever thinking of anybody else for this role even for a second.” The role was written specifically for him.
Once again, an entire movie in the garbage if one actor declined a role. Timothée Chalamet in a coma? There goes $25 million! Talk about pressure. Stay out of comas, young Hollywood!

Atypical for a movie poster, the ensemble cast is grouped by storylines rather than billing.
Also atypical for a movie poster that the ensemble cast makes up approximately 480 members, or roughly six symphony orchestras.

All of the cast explained that working on this movie was the most exhilarating, challenging, and fun they ever had with any movie, since every scene they did was done with as much improvisation as possible, but also with a well-written script.
Translation: This movie was super fun because Wes Anderson spent thousands of hours slaving over a script and everyone just said what they wanted to anyway.

The film received a 9-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.
Ah, the Cannes Film Festival audience robots were stuck in a loop again, I see.

The French Dispatch

I was ERRONEOUSLY told that there would be crying in this room.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

You know what? Yes. As much of a mental overload The French Dispatch is, stretching the runtime of the movie by 400,000,000,000 minutes like the event horizon of a black hole, there’s a 100% chance that I’ll see this again. As much as I thought I didn’t really enjoy it, this movie has been on my mind since I watched it. I’m willing to assume that subsequent viewings will only make the movie better, so I’m willing to give Wes the benefit of the doubt this time. Thin ice, pal. I hope you stepped it up with Asteroid City.

(He didn’t.)


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Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13 – “Crushed (Part 1)”

* Part 1 of 3 of the Crushed storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13 – “Crushed (Part 1)”! In the previous standalone installment, Loki travels to Jersey City to try scoping out the local high school for signs of spies friendly with the Inventor! What ends up happening is that he feeds kids a bunch of truth serum during a Valentine’s Day dance! Woozle wuzzle!

That’s really it. The real storyline starts here, baby. Buckle up! Kamala Khan’s gonna stick a giant fist up your butt.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13 [May, 2015]
Written by: G. Willow Wilson
“Crushed (Part 1)”

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13

New Attilan. Hudson River. New Jersey. You can see the big eyesore that is the Statue of Liberty. “So it’s been a great few weeks. The Inventor is out of the picture, I managed to get an A- in Social Studies – and I kept this Viking magician dude named Loki from ruining a school dance.”

Such is the life of your average mild-mannered teenage girl! Kamala Khan is now training with some giant, blue, spiky, three-eyed beast at the local Inhuman gym. Honing the old fighting skills just in case she has to stick a giant fist up your butt. I mean, you keep bringing that up. Maybe you want it?

Queen Medusa sits aside with Lockjaw, Kamala’s giant dog-like Inhmuan dog creature, while robots with lasers chase Kamala around the room. Medusa worries that the rise of the many new Inhumans from the Terrigen Mists is going to result in shitty human beings using their powers for Bad. This is basically an X-Men thing, right?

I remember back in one of the old issues, I don’t remember which one anymore, that the Inhuman Powers That Be wanted Kamala to live with them on the Inhuman Island Resort with all the other rejects. Medusa says it’s safer here with all the giant laser robots. I’m not so sure!

Later that day on Grove Street, home of the Khans, Kamala stumbles home looking like she just outran robots for seventeen hours. Under the guise of “jogging”, no less, which is not something teenage nerds usually do with their spare time. I would be suspicious if I were Ammi or Abu instead of not suspicious like they seem to be. “I still don’t like the idea of you running around in the street, puffing and sweating. It’s not decent,” says Ammi. Then she tells her daughter to sit the fuck down and have breakfast before their visitors arrive. Aunty Bushra and Uncle Irfan! From Houston! They have a son named Kamran who is about Kamala’s age, so they’re going to grope inappropriately in about six pages for sure.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13

Yeah, where he will major in nose-pickin’.

Kamala glumly slouches at the table. She doesn’t want to hang out with some nose-picking creep. She’s supposed to meet Bruno and Nakia at the arcade later so they can shake down little kids for quarters. Abu says “fuck you” and tells her tough shit. So Kamala glumly storms off to her room and gets ready for company. “Early admission to MIT. One day, Ammi is going to parade these kinds of guys through the living room, hoping to extract a marriage proposal.” Sounds good to me, I’ll marry some MIT nerd for his money. I’ll do it right now if you want.

Kamala glumly descends the stairs where a conversation with the new arrivals is already in play. Apparently, these people aren’t really related. They’re just called “Aunty” and “Uncle” for thrills and spills, so it’s completely ok that Kamala takes one look at this sexy kid, who mentions loving World of Battlecraft, and she just about throws her underwear at him. Not so glum anymore, are we?

“Hi. You must be Kamala,” he says, looking like a stunning hunk of man. Kamala blushes profusely. “Did you just say ‘World of Battlecraft’? What faction do you play? Which class?” she effuses dorkily. He says he plays a minotaur wizard. They hit it off before Abu can even tell his orgasming daughter to sit down. It’s a match made in heaven.

They talk about eating gyros and running through dungeons while cranking the volume on old, shitty Bollywood movies. The rest of the room frowns all confused-like. Right away, Kamran discusses wanting to hit the local FYE-type Marvel Comics equivalent entertainment store and check out some DVDs of old, shitty Bollywood movies. Would the fair Kamala like to join him on this romantic excursion?

Abu says absolutely not! Two young children of opposite sexes out together alone? There could be fucking! Bring your lazy, degenerate brother with you Kamala. He loves being shiftless out in public! Abu is extremely uneasy about this, but gives in because he’s big and fat and can’t chase them down the street even if he really wanted to.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13

The word “woot” is really showing your age, G. Willow Wilson.

A couple of hours later, on Newark Ave., three kids are just kidding around, you know? Kamran and Kamala chat it up while Aamir looks like he wants to find a dark corner and jerk off sadly. It turns out these two have a whole lot in common! Kamala’s eyes are larger than I’ve ever seen them, pupils dilated like she’s tripping balls! They slowly start moving their hands toward each other’s as they walk… Kamala is so excited to feel the infatuation… then Aamir butts up right between them. “Maintain a three-foot gap at all times, please, and thank you,” he says smirking. Kamala loses her fucking shit, dude. “When a man and a woman are alone together, the third is Shaytan!” he continues smugly. Just because Aamir doesn’t get any pussy doesn’t mean he gets to cockblock the innocent! What a jerk.

Suddenly, a large BOOM is heard in the distance! Someone has landed roughly onto the street, crumbling the road. “ANARCHY IN THE 201” screams a lady who is surrounded by blue bolts of electricity. “Stay out of my way, or you’re gonna get a kilowatt right to the head! Jersey City is under new management!”

Then this new villain hops along the sidewalk, blowing up chunks of concrete with each landing. Kamran helps the fallen Aamir up, and they both notice that Kamala has disappeared! Oh snap! I wonder where she—oh look there’s Ms. Marvel out of nowhere.

“Here’s how it’s gonna be, people,” declares Anarchy Girl. “This is the beginning of a new age – an age when we stop living by rules made by lesser minds for lesser beings. You can call me ‘Kaboom.’ Stay down, or you’re gonna get a kilowatt of right to the head!” she repeats.

Ms. Marvel is like NOT SO FAST, SUCKA and belts out some tough girl shit. Kaboom has heard of Ms. Marvel, but Ms. Marvel has never heard of Kaboom. Upper hand goes to Ms. Marvel already!

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13

Behold, my glowing ball of electricity! I can charge so many iPhones with this!

While Kaboom revs up her energy ball, Ms. Marvel grows her fist to the size of Kansas and punches Kaboom right in the abdomen, sending her flying. Kaboom gets salty like a pretzel! “You wanna waste your time defending this subspecies from itself? Fine.” To this, Ms. Marvel is incredulous! SUB-species?? Humans are at least a step up above millipedes!

They fight a bit, and Ms. Marvel continues having the upper hand. All like “THIS IS MY TURF” and “BEAT IT”. Kaboom tells Ms. Marvel that the Inhumans will be taking over the planet soon for the better. Ms. Marvel gapes at this and wonders how Queen Medusa would ever let some bitch like Kaboom go around Jersey City terrorizing the human subspecies. Those poor animals.

Kaboom had an inkling that Ms. Marvel was one of the Inhumans. Well, face the facts, sister: Medusa ain’t the only one in charge! Some of them are cool. Some of them are nerds. A lot of them are nerds, actually, but it’s the cool ones that are gonna get shit done around here.

“I don’t understand,” says Ms. Marvel.

“Very soon, you will,” responds Kaboom. Then she shoves an energy ball directly into Ms. Marvels unprotected face, sending her into epileptic seizures that burns holes into her brain, rendering her in a vegetative state forever! Then she gets up off the ground and brushes herself off a bit.

Then she really fists her good.

Ms. Marvel (Vol. 3), Issue #13

Nothing that irreparable blunt force trauma to the brain and spinal cord won’t fix!

And while Kaboom goes flying, knocked out cold, Ms. Marvel stares in horror at what she has just done. She basically killed the lady. While the crowd rushes up to Kaboom to tend her to near-decapitation, Ms. Marvel panics and runs the fuck away. “Just when I was starting to get comfortable with the idea of being Inhuman… I found out that even aliens have their fanatical extremists.”

Kamran watches as the Marvelous Ms. Marvel books it down an alley.

“Kamala!” screeches Aamir. “Wave if you can see me! KAMALA!”

Kamala waves when she can see him. Flapping like a bird, actually. Aamir rushes over to give her a hug, but she’s still shaken over punching a woman into a coma. Kamran requests a moment alone with Kamala if possible, but Aamir goes “THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT, YOU CANNOT SPEND 45 NANOSECONDS ALONE WITH A FEMALE” but Kamran pulls Kamala down an alley anyway.

“Listen — I’ve had a great time today, and… and because of that, I think there’s something you should know.”

This is where Kamala will start getting dick pics.

“I saw you. In the alley. Just now.”

Well shit.

Kamala starts stammering, trying to explain herself, trying to insist that she didn’t ask for the powers and she didn’t know what to do and now she’s Inhuman and arrrrrgghhh, TEENAGE YEARS! Am I right?

Kamran turns his head into a weird swirly water thing.

“It’s okay. I am too.”

An Inhuman, that is. Sorry, he didn’t specify.

Final Thoughts

Oh boy, the hot young love interest has superpowers too. I hope their respective abilities won’t get in the way of their extremely taboo lovemaking on the hallway floor next to Ammi and Abu’s bedroom (where no sex happens at all ever, of course).


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East of West, Issue #37 – “Alignment of the Stars

* Part 8 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #37 – “Alignment of the Stars”! In the previous installment, the Endless Nation officially takes control of the Union, and the young rebellious girl is like “I WILL NEVER, EVER BACK DOWN” at first and then is like “ok I’ll back down”. So begins the final days of the Prophet.

Meanwhile, Death receives a message from Xiaolian that war is afoot, and with the help of his trusty little geeky son, they’re going to help her with every fiber of their being.

We’re sort of at the home stretch here. 80% finished. What new possibilities await at THIS turn? One can only imagine! (george costanza drapes himself in velvet is not a bad guess)

East of West, Issue #37 [May, 2018]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Alignment of the Stars”

East of West, Issue #37

Archibald shot Thomas’s dog. He’s worse for wear himself. Thomas struggles to get up, huffing and puffing, then injects his neck with a needle of sort of fluid (semen). He pants and huffs and pants and huffs and, after fashioning a crude burial sight for his little robot dog, he zooms away on his hoverbike.

Obviously, Archibald thought Thomas was dead. Archibald thought wrong.

“I asked for mercy, I settled for justice, now all that remains is revenge.”

“If I am not vengeance, then I am nothing.”

Later, a severely wounded Thomas heads back his Hunter outpost. The outpost is warned that they have a single rider coming their way, full throttle and slightly erratic. LIKE MY PENIS HA HAAA!!

Thomas arrives, flumps to the ground, and is immediately cared for by whatever the equivalent of EMS is here in the good ol’ East of West. One of them calls Thomas’ condition “terminal”. Three gunshot wounds, only one exit wound. Gonna lose that leg.

“Hrrnnnnnn,” Thomas is heard to groan in a very hushed voice. “Sons of bitches killed my dog.”

A week later, Thomas is alive but quite infirmed.

Then he awakes with a start.

East of West, Issue #37

I’m missing the new Frasier!

Scrambling to get his pants over his shiny new metal leg – and his boots – Thomas hobbles out of his room and into the hallway where a member of staff tells him “hurrrrrr shouldn’t you be in bed???”

No, send him an ambulance. He’s leaving. Tout suite.

Fuck that. Thomas pushes every bitch-ass that gets in his away and boards his own ambulance. He’s got some mofos to ruin, baby.

At the Atlas (the bar place where one-eye worked and died and also it has that big globe thing), the Three Lone Horsemen take their leave and get ready to board their own vehicle when Thomas shows up for a little talky-talky.

“I’m lookin’ for an information brokerage called the Atlas. Is this it?” Thomas asks.

“Do we look like fucking tour guides?” responds War. Ahh, War. Always looking for a battle, so to speak.

“…Yeah,” Thomas fires back all gruff and intimidating. “Yeah, you do. And not much else. Don’t be here when I come back out.” And in he strolls. Conquest wants to knife him, but War respects the cut of this man’s jib and, if anything, he wants to wish him luck due to his murderous spirit! Famine is like “Okay…” because Famine is Switzerland.

Thomas sees all the dead, skeletonized bodies on the floor and lets out a heart “Hrmpt!” He takes a swig of some old liquor left on the bar and then jabs a finger into the globe hologram in the center of the room. “Show me Chosen.”

He gets an eyeful of Chosen.

East of West, Issue #37

Hrmpt! The 45th President of the United States! Donald Hrmpt!

Thomas pokes fun at LeVay’s manner of death (eaten by unicorns). He settles upon John Freeman VIII of the New Orleans Monarchy or whatever. He sees on the screen that the Kingdom had purchased the Union, which happened so long ago that I didn’t even remember that. Thomas sees a weapons purchase and the trail leads to a shipment sent to… an unauthorized location. Data deleted. Looks to me like Washington, D.C. “Gotcha,” he says.

Gotcha indeed. Not sure what this is leading to yet, but I never pretended to be very smart!

Thomas tracks this to Doma Lux’s bald Widowmaker love buddy, who is tinkering with the undercarriage of a van-like vehicle. She hears crunching of twigs and leaves in the distance, then bolts out from under the van. And cocks her gun. “Okay. Enough! If you’re trying to sneak up on me, you should’ve started making less noise two minutes ago!”

The Hunter comes out with his hands up. Claims he’s been watching her for twenty minutes, then says he’s here because he’s been following the gold.

“You hear that?” Widowmaker yells behind her. “This gimpy old man just asked me to shoot him. Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

Lux recognizes this guy, and has her own gun trained at him. Once Thomas grimaces and says he’s hunting the Chosen, Lux drops her gun and invites him into their humble little shack.

East of West, Issue #37

YEAH, do you have any pork rinds to go with this beer???

A chit-chat ensues. Lux lays out everything she knows: LeVay needed weapons to quell the rebellion. Freeman helped a fellow Chosen, presumably, behind his fatherly king’s back. BUT, since Lux was working for the other side, she did some of her own raiding and pillaging of the Kingdom.

“So why’d you quit the great game?” Thomas asks while Lux pops open a beer for him. Lux was good at manipulating all sides and having fun with it, sure. It felt powerful. Then she realized she was just another pawn on a giant chessboard. “I thought I mattered…”

No further questions, your honor! Thanks a bunch, chickee.

“So… you’re going to just march into the Kingdom and beat the prince to death with your bare hands? That’s your plan?” asks the silent-but-deadly Widowmaker.

“You gotta better idea?”

“Yeah,” she responds, opening a cabinet full of gold bars. “I do.”

Later still, at the guns and ammo shoppe, an unidentified customer who is then identified roughly 1.5 panels later as Thomas, drops a bag full of gold bars on the counter. Lock and load, baby! Time to go prince-huntin’!

Final Thoughts

Short and sweet, that’s how I like ‘em. See you next time when Thomas accidentally shoots off his other leg!


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The Final Roundup – 2023

Goodbye 2023
What? March is too late to post a 2023 retrospective list on all the albums I listened to but didn’t review? Go fuck yourself! Here are my one-sentence reviews!

Aetherian – At Storm’s Edge
Woefully unoriginal and fairly uninteresting melodic death metal from… Greece, which is actually kinda cool.

Afterbirth – In but Not of
Harsh vocals that sound like piggy snorts over a wide range of experimental sonic textures and explorations!

Agriculture – Agriculture
An interesting mix of aggressive blackgaze, heavy traditional metal shredding, and even some squeaky saxophone here and there.

Anachronism – Meanders
Slabs of dissonant death metal that I didn’t spend enough time with, but don’t really want to either!

…and Oceans – As in Gardens, So in Tombs
…and Oceans has lost their way since their exciting industrial black metal beginnings, now they just sound dull and lifeless.

Andrea Orlando – La Scienza delle Stagioni
Pleasant piano-based prog rock from Italy, but it’s too damn long and too damn uninteresting for how too damn long it is.

Andrew Hung – Deliverance
Interesting musical ideas marred by earnestly overdramatic singing and lyrics, and I wish this guy would go back to his Fuck Buttons project.

Animal Collective – Isn’t It Now?
America’s most overrated indie rock band of all time comes through with what seems like a collection of Time Skiffs B-sides, but there are occasional moments of brilliance.

Antrisch – EXPEDITION II: Die Passage
Black metal, nothing more, nothing less.

The Armed – Perfect Saviors
The Armed are weird, and they made a weird alt rock album, and I’m fine with it if you are.

Ars Moriendi – Lorsque les coeurs s’assèchent
Kind of this mild, black/doom metal project that took me a while to get into due to its relative slowness and monotone dynamics, but it’s kinda cool I guess.

Avey Tare – 7s
Hey, the guy from Animal Collective who isn’t Panda Bear makes a lot of aimless music that nobody cares about!

Baroness – STONE
Baroness sounds like power metal Queens of the Stone Age now?!?!

bdrmm – I Don’t Know
I’m torn, because on one hand bdrmm incorporates many varied influences into their shoegaze sound (ambient, dream pop, synth rock, and dance), but on the other hand I’d rather listen to My Bloody Valentine.

boygenius – the record
Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus are certainly three musicians.

Brutalismus 3000 – ULTRAKUNST
Hyperactive Berlin techno that reminds me a bit of Crystal Castles at times, and when’s the last time you heard about Crystal fucking Castles?

Bully – Lucky for You
Bully’s Alicia Bognanno takes pop punk, riot grrrls it up back to the ’90s, and spits it right in your fucking face.

Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific
If you’re looking for chunky, old school death metal with no frills or bells and whistles, then you can always count on Cannibal Corpse to deliver as chunk-style as you want it.

Carnosus – Visions of Infinihility
Twisty technical death metal that doesn’t get too lost in wankery or sterility (unlike yours truly, thank you, and good night).

Chai – CHAI
I heard that Chai is breaking up because they’re making no money on their project, which is a shame because their albums are all pretty groovy keen.

Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean – Obsession Destruction
This ruthless slab of claustrophobic, sludgy goodness should have been in my Top 25 list had I gotten to it sooner.

Cherry Glazerr – I Don’t Want You Anymore
Sleepy throwback shoegaze-y indie pop that misses the mark on, you know, being interesting.

The Circle – Of Awakening
Doomy metal with just the right vocal style to keep it from being a complete dirgy slog, but I still won’t be listening to this much.

Convocation – No Dawn for the Caliginous Night
Not only do I have really sweet, emotionally resonant funeral doom metal album on my hands (which is saying a lot as someone who is not too fond of the genre), but I got to learn the word “caliginous” (look it up yourself, damnit).

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level
There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and consistent Deerhoof albums.

Deposed King – One Man’s Grief
Prog rock with a electronic/trip-hop backbone, which is definitely not something you hear everyday and deserves that big ol’ green circle.

Disguised Malignance – Entering the Gateways
Old school Morbid Angel-esque death metal with cool riffs, but it’s not anything you haven’t heard from a million bands already.

DJ Danifox – Anseidade
I don’t know, man, I can’t get behind a guy who calls himself “Danifox” and not being really named “Dani Fox”, because that would rule.

DJ Gigola – Fluid Meditations
Less talky more singy, I don’t need a new age therapy session.

Dødheimsgard – Black Medium Current
I really, really, really wanted to like this more than I did, but the band has done better and a lot of the album felt like filler.

Downfall of Gaia – Silhouettes of Disgust
Post-metal, death doom, a little bit of crust punk, lots of bleak riffage, and a Hello Kitty tote bag.

Dying Fetus – Make Them Beg for Death
Oh, hey, it’s another Dying Fetus album.

Enslaved – Heimdal
Enslaved, I love you, but you’re not doing anything new or interesting with your sound anymore.

FaithXtractor – Contempt for a Failed Dimension
Hard-hitting death metal that proves, once and for all, that Faith X Tractor = Fun!

feeble little horse – Girl with Fish
Noisy, dreamy, chaotic, restrained, a whole bunch of stuff while staying tight and satisfying like a [censored]!

Feist – Multitudes
Yo, I think Feist is kind of boring, so why did I listen to this?

Fires in the Distance – Air Not Meant for Us
Fires in the Distance made melodic death metal that actually has hooks, what a concept!

Forest Swords – Bolted
This collection of atmospheric electro-industrial will be the soundtrack to Metroid Prime 7 in the year 2061!

Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Data Doom
A great band to turn to if you’re not satisfied with Osees putting out only 17 albums per year.

Frozen Crown – Call of the North
Giada Etro is cute (important) and has a killer voice (more important), but… man… it’s power metal.

Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination
The synths that make this death metal feel “frozen” and/or “dominated” by “glaciars” are too few and and far between to get that type of atmosphere, but it’s otherwise pretty cool.

Gazelle Twin – Black Dog
I call this one “ethereal lady noises” and she peaked with her second album Unflesh.

Geese – 3D Country
This record is kind of a mess, but it is fun in its own right and at least they seem to be a band who is willing to try something radically different as the years go by.

Glasser – Crux
Shiny and shimmery, subdued and delicate, positively Björky!

Gravesend – Gowanus Death Stomp
Frenetic grindcore that begins with the sound of flies buzzing and ends with the sound of flies buzzing and also me hitting replay on my 1979 Sony Walkman TPS-L2, son.

Guided by Voices – La La Land
Look, describing a Guided by Voices album is an exercise in trying not to repeat oneself, so let me just say that this is a good album and we can continue.

Guided by Voices – Welshpool Frillies
Whoops, déjà vu!

Hasard – Malivore
This one-man avantgarde black metal project is so mind-twisting and chaotic that, if this were a rollercoaster, you’d be dead in seconds!

Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags
Tight, relentless blackened speed metal with no filler and lots of the opposite of filler, and there’s even an accordion at one point!

The Hold Steady – The Price of Progress
Nine albums in, and I’ll never get tired of Craig Finn’s blue collar Bruce Springsteen-esque storytelling, even if I don’t even understand or resonate with half of it.

Holy Wave – Five of Cups
“Holy Wave”, more like “Holy Fucking Shit” is this a dull album.

Horrendous – Ontological Mysterium
Horrendous gets proggy and occasionally psychedelic, and I’m here for it until I get bored and move onto some other proggy, psychedelic death metal band that also rules.

HOUSE OF ALL – HOUSE OF ALL
If I wanted to listen to The Fall, then I’d listen to The Fall, and not HOUSE OF ALL, which, admittedly, rhymes.

James Holden – Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
BLEEP BLEEP BLOOP BLOOP BLEEP-A-BLOOP, IT’S GENIUS, GREEN DOT IT IS

Jarhead Fertilizer – Carceal
Obnoxiously all over the place; maybe your nu-metal-loving 13-year-old nephew will love it.

Jeff Rosenstock – HELLMODE
Although Rosenstock’s flavor of punk skirts very close to emocore from time to time, the melodies are strong!

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES
Between JPEGMAFIA’s blearing, harsh electronics and Danny Brown’s flow, consider the hoes sufficiently scared.

Kate NV – WOW
This woman is pretty and that does her a whole bunch of favors, but her brand of cutesy electronic pop is fun too, I swear I’m not just saying that because she’s very pretty (which she is).

KEN mode – VOID
KEN mode hit so hard and are so loud and proud that they should probably rename themselves BARBIE mode, you feel me?

Krigsgrav – Fires in the Fall
The seventh album begets the sum of all their parts — black metal, melodeath, doom, post-metal — but the final product is as lackluster as it is overlong.

L’Rain – I Killed Your Dog
A veritable collage of moody soundscapes and genre-bending

Leiþa – Reue
Unfortunately, I don’t find much about this black metal album interesting except that the band’s name as a “þ” in it.

M83 – Fantasy
M83 makes music for hopeless virgins, and I haven’t been a hopeless virgin since high school; booyah, virgins.

Malokarpatan – Vertumnus Caesar
Trad metal and black metal at the same time, and folk traditions from their native Slovakia, AND it rules?!?!

Mānbryne – Interregnum: O pr​ó​bie wiary i jarzmie zw​ą​tpienia
Searing, hoarse-throated, invigorating black metal that’ll put hair on your pubes.

Mandy, Indiana – i’ve seen a way
Noisy electronic/indie rock that’s more like a collage of sounds than an album of songs, but they are glorious sounds!

Marnie Stern – The Comeback Kid
The queen of virtuosic noise-math rock guitar is back, baby, and she still sounds like she’s making music specially for late 2000’s Pitchfork writers!

Maruja – Knocknarea
Post-hardcore with a saxophone, and too bad it’s only 22 minutes long.

Mega Bog – End of Everything
Catchy and unsettling synth pop in the vein of Vanishing Twin or Virginia Wing or Jenny Hval, and they’re all good, so this is good too!

Mephorash – Krystl-Ah
Slow, boring, boring, boring, slow, boring, and slow, and boring.

Mike Keneally – The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat
Sorry Mike, I love you unconditionally but this album is a big, fat miss.

Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
The Album Is Uninteresting and So Is She

Mudhoney – Plastic Eternity
lol mudhoney

MUN SING – Inflatable Gravestone
Deconstructed, slippery club music that is equal parts chaotic and emotionally resonant, which is hard to pull off well.

Nation of Language – Strange Discipline
Minimalist synth pop that really does sound like a modern take on minimal wave, proving once again that you just need to rehash old music to make good new music!

Ne Obliviscaris – Exul
Ne Obliviscaris always brings a pleasant listen, if you accept the definition of “pleasant” as “clean vocals over harsh vocals with some kickass violin”!

Night Crowned – Tales
Furious blackened melodeath with some occasional folk influences to keep things interesting.

Nightmarer – Deformity Adrift
Chunky, slightly dissonant technical death metal with plenty of mood shifts and atmosphere, me likey.

Non Est Deus – Legacy
Bleak atmospheric black metal with a burly edge that tops last year’s Impious just by being even bleaker and burlier!

The Ocean – Holocene
The Ocean Collective has been neutered, everyone, so no need to listen to them anymore I guess.

October Tide – The Cancer Pledge
Another deathy doomy offering from Stockholm’s favorite band with both a month and a laundry detergent in its name.

Omnerod – The Amensal Rise
These Belgians made one of the coolest progressive death metal albums I have ever heard, and it would have been a serious contender for Album of the Year if I had gotten to this sooner.

Omnivortex – Circulate
Sometimes it sounds like Obscura / And sometimes it sounds like Porcupine Tree / But it always sounds / It always sounds good to me!

Onheil – In Black Ashes
I’m not exactly sure what this metal album is trying to be — melodeath, thrash, maybe even a little black — but it lacks dynamics and flavor and I’ll never listen to this again.

Overmono – Good Lies
Is it hip hop, is it electronic music, is it UK bass, is it Christian rock??????

Oxbow – Love’s Holiday
What the hell, Eugene S. Robinson, this sounds like some milquetoast indie rock instead of a crazy motherfucker yelping noises into a microphone, booooooo!

Pangaea – Changing Channels
DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE!!

Parannoul – After the Magic
If you ask me, this is the South Korean answer to 100 gecs (a question that no one asked).

Pere Ubu – Trouble on Big Beat Street
Pere Ubu stopped being charming and interesting decades ago, but it’s nice to know that David Thomas is still yelping out lyrics with his weird child molester voice.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets – Fronzoli
This album is like Ty Segall playing guitar for Thee Oh Sees and trying to sound like both the White Stripes and the Strokes while I slip into a coma.

PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying
An exotic, ethereal experience that’s unlike anything PJ Harvey has released before, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it.

Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…
Hang it up, Josh Homme, you’re finished, you’re through, you’re history, you’re done, goodbye.

Rorcal – Silence
“Silence” is a poor way to describe this palatable, raspy, chaotic mess of hardcore sludge metal, but maybe you just need to hit the pause button or something.

RVG – Brain Worms
It’s like Real Estate and the Clash had a miserable Australian baby!

Sacred Outcry – Towers of Gold
Pitch-perfect power metal hearkening back to the ’90s golden age of power metal, which is usually not my jam, but it’s that good, my friends.

Saturnus – The Storm Within
I’m sure this is a fucking fantastic album, but I don’t like doom metal that much so I give it whopping RED and move on while everyone yells at me.

Screaming Females – Desire Pathway
My brother-in-law looks like Marissa Paternoster, and Screaming Females has certainly put out better albums than this.

Serpent of Old – Ensemble Under the Dark Sun
More like Serpent of Shit, lol lol, no really this is all right.

Shame – Food for Worms
Shame sounding like a second-rate Parquet Courts or Titus Andronicus, and it’s disappointing I tell you whut.

Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden
I get Pain of Salvation vibes from this album, and the only band who’s allowed to be Pain of Salvation is Pain of Salvation as far as I’m concerned.

Slow Pulp – Yard
Easygoing and twangy indie rock that reminds me of Mitski, and I’m not too big on Mitski.

Slowdive – everything is alive
Slowdive does what they do best: make summery, timeless shoegaze for your sensitive earholes.

Sodomisery – Mazzaroth
Listen, I could list a litany of influencers for Sodomisery but I’d be here all day, so I’ll instead just say that this album is Good™ and move on.

Sparks – The Girl Is Crying in her Latte
I absolutely adore Sparks but the electronic noises on this album are pretty fucking grating, sorry.

Squid – O Monolith
Squid’s 2021 debut was so good, and this is just so not good, and I’m literally crying about it right now.

Stortregn – Finitude
This tech death album is so all over the place that there’s a flamenco passage in the middle of a song for no reason at all!

Sulphur Aeon – Seven Crowns and Seven Seals
The usual melodic-lite death metal stalwarts seem a little more subdued this time around, eschewing roiling riffs in favor of even-keeled atmosphere, or something to that effect idk.

Swans – The Beggar
Clearly the golden era of 2-hour Swans albums was the 2010s, because The Beggar has all the bloat without any of the magic.

Sweeping Promises- Good Living Is Coming for You
Everything from the energy, instrumentation, singing, and production makes this sound like retro female-fronted new wave, which is ENTIRELY my jam and it should be yours too.

Sylosis – A Sign of Things to Come
Crispy metallic hardcore with just the right amount of bleak atmosphere to this guy (me) happy (enough).

Teenage Waitress – Your Cuckoo
Indie rock at its most cloying, its most saccharine, and its most ironically twee, and its most I’m-not-listening-to-this-anymore.

Teeth of the Sea – Hive
This is post-rock for people who don’t like post-rock, and I really don’t like post-rock so I barely tolerate this.

The Telescopes – Of Tomorrow
This is my first time hearing the Telescopes and I barely like what I hear, so maybe the earlier stuff is better!

Tennis – Pollen
Lifeless, simplistic indie pop that only stirs your imagination if you’re some dumb animal like a dog or a moose or something.

Thantifaxath – Hive Mind Necrosis
Bendy, twisty, turny, scary black metal with symphonic elements and dangerous-sounding vocals, eek!

To the Grave – Director’s Cuts
Deathcore that relies more on death and less on core, pummeling your ass into a gooey paste of submission.

Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit
Tomb Mold cleans it up a little for their fourth release, presenting old school death metal with progressive elements, post-metal vibes, and even some surf rock here and there.

Tribunal – The Weight of Remembrance
Man, I don’t even like doom metal that much so why am I bothering?

Truth Club – Running from the Chase
Lackadaisical and mumbly pseudo-post-punk like Ought but it’s more irritating and less melodious.

The Tubs – Dead Meat
Overly-sunny jangle pop with a guy who sounds like the Big Big Train vocalist, and it all makes me feel uncomfortable and it makes me feel like I’m suffocating and I don’t know why.

U.S. Girls – Bless This Mess
Some occasional interesting moments, but yeah, this soulful sophisti-pop isn’t for me.

Vertebra Atlantis – A Dialogue for the Eeriest Sublime
Not as immediately interesting as Vertebra Atlantis’ fantastic debut, but it’s not without its grandiose bombast and oppressive atmosphere.

Victory over the Sun – Dance You Monster to My Soft Song!
An avantgarde black metal project, completely performed and managed by a single American woman, that is so loaded with excellent and diverse Sigh-levels of musical ideas it’ll make your head spin like a top and flop right off your neck.

Vvon Dogma I – The Kvlt of Glitch
Over-digitalized “metal” with wannabe Cynic-type synthetic vocals and insipid unoriginality, and I was expecting to like the shit out of this because I clearly love insipid unoriginality.

Warcrab – The Howling Silence
Sludgy death metal that exemplifies the genre’s occasional ability to be engaging and rockin’ instead of… well… sludgy.

Wata Igarashi – Agartha
Dance music that’s very repetitive in a “this album is already way too long” kind of way.

Water from Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed
Off-kilter electronic slacker noise pop that oozes along at the speed of whatever the fuck, and I like it.

Wayfarer – American Gothic
The perfect album title to compliment the twangy, old West black metal that Wayfarer is so fucking good at playing.

Wednesday – Rat Saw God
Sort of like a more aggressive Ratboys — and there’s even “rat” in the album title — which can only be a good thing in my ears.

Wormhole – Almost Human
Yeeeaaahh, gimme some o’ dat chunky, br00tal death metal, right in the veins, right there, right there, there it is.

Xoth – Exogalactic
Lovecraftian science fiction channeled through a death metal / black metal / thrash metal prism, so get grandma in the room for this one!

Yaeji – With a Hammer
What if Satomi Matsuzaki from Deerhoof got rappy with it?

yeule – softscars
Another one of those Björky weirdo pop artists, except this one is from Singapore instead of Iceland which, if I’m not mistaken, is 900,000 miles away from one another.

Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy
Lose yourself in the funky gospel and never return, you asshole.

Youth Lagoon – Heaven Is a Junkyard
Stay away from the lagoon, it’s boring in there.


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Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 – “Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”

* Part 4 of 13 of the Batman: The Long Halloween limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 – “Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”! In the previous installment, the Joker gets involved now! All like “THERE’S ONLY ROOM FOR ONE WEIRD ASSHOLE IN THIS TOWN” and looking to put a stop to all these holiday serial killings.

Christmas brings another death: Salvatore Maroni’s righthand man. How many more people have to die before justice is served?

My guess is *counts issues* nine more people.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4 [March, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Four: New Year’s Eve”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

“New Year’s Eve in Gotham City. Time to ring in the new year!” Joker exclaims, brandishing his 10,000 teeth. He has killed a co-pilot, a navigator, and a stewardess for no reason, since he steals a bi-plane that only holds one. He flies off to do some more lovely damage!

Batman rides up in his Batmobile (car with “BATMAN” decals) to try to catch up with Joker before he does any more harm to the “fine” people of Gotham City. “He is bent on using his deadly Joker gas on the crowd that gathers in Gotham Square at midnight. Something in his deranged mind can’t handle what Holiday is doing to this city. The Joker has proclaimed: ‘The town isn’t big enough for two homicidal maniacs.’”

Batman spots the plane and aims his grappling hook! Sounds dangerous! Don’t try this one at home kids, leave those bi-planes be. He has his car on autopilot and he’s riding the roof like a goddamned surfboard. Gotta stop the Joker before the clock strikes midnight, Marty! We’ve got to get you back to the future!

In the office of Harvey Dent, our favorite District Attorney is burning the candle at both ends. His assistant Vernon, who looks like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, or perhaps Milo from Descendents, knocks on his door. Dent tells Vernon that he’ll never get ahead burning the candle at both ends! “It’s New Year’s Eve, son. Time to go home and kiss the wife and hope that next year is better than this one’s been.”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

But sir! *pushes glasses up* Sir! I have all these damning McDonald’s receipts! Sir! The Roman is bribing Wayne with Big Macs! Siiiiiirrrrr…!

Dent stops in his tracks once Vernon tells him about the Roman/Bruce Wayne connection. “Unfortunately,” Dent says, rifling through the file, “Bruce Wayne seems to have known about this for some time…”

Oh noes, my friends. Dent’s going to have some harsh words with America’s Favorite Lazy Millionaire Playboy Slugabout Beef Injection. Meanwhile, Batman is flipping around town following the plane. Joker is slamming his console, complaining that the plane isn’t flying right. It’s going right into the Twin Towers, actually. This wasn’t supposed to be the trajectory at all! Booo!

Ah, that’s why. Batman is on top of the plane adding an extra four million pounds of weight to the ballast. Batman gets right in the Joker’s face: “Put this plane down. Now.”

Joker ain’t scared. “Maybe later. Right now I’ve got work to do.”

Well, that was fun everyone! But now I– hey, wait a minute! Arrrgh, that Joker doesn’t have real work to do! It’s just a ruse to poison people with laughing gas. I’m onto your tricks, you maniacal ol’ so-and-so.

Joker dips the plane down and causes Batman to almost roll off completely. He grabs a wing, yelling and screaming like a chimp in heat.

It’s almost midnight in Gotham Harbor where Salvatore Maroni and Carmine Falcone are sharing a celebration of another fine year down the fucking tubes. “Carmine, we’ve been rivals a long time. And you always came out on top. But if we don’t find a way to put a stop to this ‘Holiday’ business – this new year is gonna be our last year.”

Falcone does seem concerned. Always coming out on top, you know, but the rub here is that Holiday seems to only be going after Falcone’s family. Falcone’s men. Falcone’s harem of Thai ladyboys. “There doesn’t seem to be any blood on your side of the table,” he says to Maroni, narrowing his beady little Italian eyeballs. Maroni is getting this gist of Falone’s insinuations, because Maroni ain’t a dumb guy. Not really, I guess. Seems dumb to me; maybe that’s why he always comes out on the bottom!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

I’M SO WASTED. BLAHHAUHABABHAB.

Carmine wonders where his shitty, do-gooder son Alberto ran off to. This makes Carla look pissy for a second for reasons I don’t know, possibly because Carmine still has a son and Carla doesn’t have a son anymore. “I saw him on deck earlier,” she says, walking away saltily.

Mr. Falcone looks around at the room full of backstabbers and yes-men all around him. “If it weren’t for Alberto there’d be nobody I could trust…” he thinks.

Alberto’s gonna stab his dad in the neck with a lobster fork.

Uh oh. Uh oh. Uh oh. Carla goes out for a smoke and sees something… unclear… happening to Alberto. Alberto… I think… plummets off the side of the ship… maybe. Carla looks at… what sorta looks like… blood in the water… I guess?

I think the point is that Alberto is dead, so yet another Falcone loss. Maroni’s gonna get his dick twisted into a pretzel for sure now.

Harvey Dent returns home to his smiling, kind wife. There’s a surprise in the othe room. Oh boy! You’re going to love this, Harvey! No, it’s not a new car or a Nintendo Switch. It’s Jim Gordon and his frustrated wife!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

Happy New Year, bitches! Wooooo!!!

Harvey Dent miserably walks into the kitchen. Jim Gordon excuses himself and follows our favorite District Attorney while Barbara talks about having their niece babysit their kid. Gilda is like “it… it must be nice… having kids… and all.” Gilda complains that Harvey’s been pulling long hours at work, infringing on their quality fucking time. Anyway, the two of them clink glasses to a better new year.

Harvey stands in front of his open refrigerator. Gordon comes into the kitchen looking like someone murdered his dog in front of his other dog. “What’s happened, Harvey?” he asks. Even his mustache is frowning. “We need to talk, Jim. We need to talk about Bruce Wayne.”

Ugh, not that guy. Not America’s Favorite Lazy Millionaire Playboy Slugabout Meat Punk.

Batman and Joker are fighting on the plane. The plane which hasn’t crashed into a single building yet against all odds. Joker doesn’t know why Batman is so mad at him! He’s trying to Holiday too, after all. By killing loads of people, of course. One of them has bound to be Holiday, right? Batman’s cape gets caught in the propellor, shredding it to… well… shreds.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #4

I thought you’d never ask, handsome!

Batman starts wringing Joker’s neck out of, I’m guessing, extreme sexual frustration. Midnight strikes. Batman pulls Joker along the rope of his grappling hook and the plane plunges into the ocean. He stands on the clock tower frowning triumphantly while Joker dangles unconsciously.

“The New Year. One where the promise I made to my parents… the promise to rid this city of the evil that took their lives… might finally be within reach.”

Final Thoughts

Wowzers! That Joker is plumb evil! Killing an entire square of people! That’s so mean!

This issue was anticlimactic. We didn’t even get to see the square of people, like it never existed. We didn’t even know for sure that Joker was packin’ gas. This was a let down! I wanted to see more blood!

Oh well.


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