Burn After Reading (2008)

Tagline:
Intelligence is relative.

Wide Release Date:
September 12, 2008

Directed by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Written by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Produced by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Starring:
George Clooney
Frances McDormand
John Malkovich
Tilda Swinton
Richard Jenkins
Brad Pitt

Burn After Reading

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I saw this movie in the theater! It’s the only Coen brothers movie I had ever seen at the time since Raising Arizona, and in the last fifteen years I’ve seen exactly two more! Those brothers sure have made a profound impact on my life!

Not knowing what to expect going in, I liked this movie a lot. There’s also a certain two seconds involving Brad Pitt and George Clooney that’s burned in my brain forever, and for that I’m forever indebted to the Coens. Thank you, sirs.

THE 500(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The plot is all sorts of twisty and turny and, in the end, it all amounts to nothing.

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA agent who quits his job after getting demoted. He’s trying to write his memoirs. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), a doctor, is having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a U.S. Marshal.

Burn After Reading

You wanna be John Malkovich? I’ve got your John Malkovich right here buddy!

Katie’s sends copies of Osbourne’s financial records — accidentally including his memoirs — to her divorce lawyer. The lawyer’s assistant copies the files to a CD, which she accidentally leaves on the locker room floor of a gym that employs personal trainers Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Now, Linda, you see, is trying to afford her extravagant plastic surgery endeavors. When Linda finds the disc and discovers what she thinks are very sensitive CIA files and documents, she and Chad jump at the opportunity to return the disc for compensation.

After attempts to get money from the irate Osbourne Cox prove fruitless, Linda and Chad turn the disc over to the Russian embassy with hopes that they’ll get money for their information. They happen to talk to a spy for the CIA.

Since Osbourne’s all sorts of unhinged, Katie changes the locks on the house and gives keys to Harry. Harry begins cheating on Katie with Linda, whom he meets through online dating.

Linda and Chad promise the Russian embassy more government information, so Chad stakes out the Cox household until the coast is clear to steal more files from Osbourne’s computer. While sneaking around, Harry shows up and takes a shower while Chad hides in the closet. In the movie’s best single second, Harry discovers Chad in the closet and shoots him in the fucking face point-blank. Since Chad doesn’t have any identification on him, Harry assumes he’s a CIA agent. He becomes increasingly paranoid when he appears to be followed by an unknown assailant, who turns to to be his own wife’s divorce lawyer. Harry looks to Linda for support, who is also distressed about Chad’s sudden disappearance.

Burn After Reading

Something fun happens in this scene less than one second later! I promise!

Linda, believing that the Russians have abducted Chad, returns to the embassy for confrontation. It was pointless, and she is told that the disc contained nothing but garbage. Linda convinces the manager of her gym, the smitten Ted (Richard Jenkins), to sneak into the Cox residence to steal more files from Osbourne’s computer. Ring a bell? It doesn’t work. Osbourne pops into the house to retrieve some of his belongings and discovers Ted. Thinking that Ted is his wife’s affair partner, he kills him with a hatchet.

Meanwhile, after another meetup with Linda in the park, Harry learns the address where Chad was staking out before his disappearance. This freaks the fuck out of Harry, who flees the country thinking that Linda is another CIA agent.

All this information is relayed to Osbourne Cox’s former director, J.K. Simmons, who is perplexed by the pointlessness of everything that happened in the movie. He learns that Linda requested compensation to keep quiet about literally nothing, which the director agrees to out of exasperation and everyone moves on.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

Burn After Reading is better than I remember, and I loved it the first time around. I would have thought knowing the general structure of the story and remembering some basics of the plot threads would diminish the enjoyment, but the opposite happened! I got to much more appreciate nearly everyone in their roles. Such a perfectly cast movie, I can’t even decide who I liked best. Clooney’s great. Malkovich’s great. McDormand’s great. Pitt’s great. J.K. Simmons is fucking great. Richard Jenkins? Meh. Tilda Swinton? Meh.

Burn After Reading

You wanna be Frances McDormand? I’ve got your Frances McDormand right here, buddy!

The beauty of the movie is twofold. There’s the first time through, where you don’t know where anything is going. It’s not going anywhere for a while, but you just know that there’s going to be a huge payoff that ties everything together at the end! Then the end comes suddenly without the huge payoff! Then you’re like, wtf. Then you think about it and realize that everything does tie together. It all ties together beautifully! Everything that everyone does in the movie is a pointless misunderstanding of a situation caused by someone else in the movie.

The second time through — as is the case with this particular viewing that I’m writing about now — you know what’s going to happen. You spend less time focused on the payoff and more time focused on how these people are comically bumbling their way through matters that they are in no way equipped to handle properly. Linda thinks she can blackmail the CIA into a payout and she indirectly kills two co-workers who agree to help. Harry spends the whole movie deeply paranoid. Osbourne spends most of his scenes hollerin’. It’s a work of art, is what it is.

I think, overall, the storytelling and they everything weaves into each other — with everything ultimate pointless — is simply brilliant. It’s the kind of story I’d like to write some day.

TOPIC 2 — Writing a Story

Burn After Reading has the kind of story I’d like to write some day! I’m trying to write a book and it’s slow-going, but the concept revolves around about 40 characters who go about their day. It’s not an ordinary day. Some characters interact with multiple characters as the day goes on, and I’d like to create a story that takes advantage of this kind of intricate weaving of character interaction without being too dense and hard to follow. This sounds impossible, right? I’ve roughed out about three chapters and nobody in the story has really even talked to anyone yet!

This movie only has six or seven characters and I’m sure the Coens had to spend a lot of time at the drawing board trying to see how everything could fit together. I think that’s the difference between people who like Burn After Reading and people who don’t. The former appreciates the nimble storytelling. The latter are frustrated because nothing mattered.

But hey, I’m not going to psychoanalyze the two different types of Burn After Reading viewers! It’s just that the latter are wrong!

Burn After Reading

Pictured: The two different types of Burn After Reading viewers.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

According to costume designer Mary Zophres, even cheap suits look good on Brad Pitt. Thus, for the scene where his character Chad wears a cheap suit, she dressed Pitt in a suit with a purposefully bad and ill-fitting cut and a horrid-looking wool tie.
Okay, so you’re Brad Pitt. That don’t impress me much (oh oh ohh-ohh).

Tilda Swinton modeled her character’s hairdo after Edna Krabappel’s from The Simpsons (1989).
John Malkovich modeled his character’s after Homer.

“Wink.”

It was George Clooney’s idea that his character wear a gold chain, thinking it would make him look ordinary and a bit old-fashioned.
Not one person watched Burn After Reading and mused upon George Clooney’s ordinary, old-fashioned gold chain. They mostly mused upon his handmade dildo chair.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Oh hell yeah. You get a great, but pointless story and everyone’s on top of their acting game.

Hey, I forgot. I was going to muse upon the significance of the movie title. Perhaps on one level it means to literally destroy classified documents, i.e. relevant to Osbourne’s disc. Perhaps on another level the audience is burned after finishing the movie! Perhaps on a third level I’m an idiot and I need to stop writing. Goodbye, everybody!

Burn After Reading

Bonus Malkovich! This shit never gets old.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10 – “Validator”

* Part 4 of 5 of The Last White Event storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10 – “Validator”! In the previous installment, Nightmask (Adam, whatever you want to call him) speaks with Ex Nihilo and Abyss about his and Kevin Connor’s changes. Turns out it’s not them that changed, it’s Earth! Ex Nihilo is attempting to turn Earth into a fully sentient entity! Bwahahaha!

I think this was stopped anyway by Kevin Connor blowing up a weird brain-thing that was growing on a Croatian beach. Captain America decides Kevin is too dangerous for Earth, so they’re going to figure out what to do with this dork soon enough. I’m all for launching him out of a cannon into the sun, but a man can dream.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10 [June, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Validator”

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10

Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is a real place and not some goofy made-up place, is the location for the beginning of Issue #10! A couple of officers of some sort of organization look upon their dead friend hunched against a rock, blood all over the side of his face.

“Can we transport him back to the carrier?” asks one.
“I’m worried about degredation,” says the other.

One sticks a plug into the dead one’s brain, hoping to record an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond based on his memories. “Why did you do it, Agent Michaud?” asks the other officer vaguely, who is revealed to be Commander Maria Hill. “What did you see in there?”

Eight hours ago, the Avengers have docked their jet onto another bigger jet and are getting briefed by Hill. There’s a lot going on at once, so bear with her: Shit is going down like bananas, son. All this space pod flingin’ from Ex Nihilo has really gummed up Earth’s works. Kobe, Chhatarpir, Split, all those places have been quarantined. Regina and Perth, however, are being taken care of by their respective governments, so we expect that to get abso-fucking-lutely mishandled royally.

Oh wait, it’s already been mishandled! Ha! Before they go into detail to the de facto dumbass leader of the Avengers, Captain ‘Murrica, it needs to be reiterated that the whole situation is CLASSIFIED and any WHISTLEBLOWING could lead to SEVEN MONTHS unclogging the MANY S.H.I.E.L.D. TOILETS. Understand?

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10

If I so much as hear ONE COMPLAINT I’m turning this car around.

Yes, they understand.

OK good. Sit back and relax, grab some popcorn, here’s a video for y’all:

“DEPARTMENT H MISSION LOGS: 044399-978.

EVENT SITE: REGINA

LAT: 50 DEGREES, 24 MINUTES

LONG: 104 DEGREES, 37 MINUTES”

Boooo-o-o-o-orrriing! This video sucks! Where are the guns and titties?!

The mission video goes on to relay the primary mission objective (Secure Event Site) and the agents tasked with the mission (Wendigo, Validator, Kingdom, and Boxx) and the threat level (Black) and the entertainment after the mission (Jeff Dunham stand-up comedy).

The mission clock starts when they leap majestically off of their ship! Four minutes in, they see no life signs in Regina. The population of Regina is/was 203,975, which is what I just Googled give or take a decade of explosive population growth! Jonathan Hickman did his homework!

At 23 minutes in, they see some stuff. At 42 minutes in, they see some other stuff. Mostly just those space pods. I’m wondering what’s taking so long to engage with these space pods? Are they playing Angry Birds are their phones?! Ha! 2013!

At 1.5 hours in, things start getting blown up and Wendigo gets a hole ripped out of his chest for some reason.

At 2.5 hours in, a weird biodome closes over the survivors. They are verily trapped!

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10

Help me, mysterious metal eyeball!

The survivors start getting hella attacked by hostile lifeforms. The dome becomes a fiery inferno of biblical proportions! You remember that part in the Bible with all the fires in the biodomes, right? It’s just like that!

Then the transmission ends. Video over. Jeff Dunham still got paid for showing up.

S.H.I.E.L.D. says that all happened a month ago, which the Avengers find inexcusible! Why wait this long to do anything? What is this, the government??? S.H.I.E.L.D. claims they spent that time trying to get into the dome by bombing it and using wire cutters and even asking it very nicely to open up. Nothing worked. So now the Avengers are here to hump the dome into submission.

Since this was eight hours ago, Agent Michaud is still alive and he’s able to tell the Avengers that he tried digging under the dome to set a big ol’ bomb to blow up the Earth to get into the dome. It didn’t work. The dome extends into the ground, forming a perfect sphere of isolation, loneliness, and really angry bug creatures. Now the Avengers are here to hump the dome into submission. I believe we’ve already covered this.

Eden is able to get in there. I don’t remember who Eden is or what he does, but he obviously has dome-breaching capabilities. Beautiful! Agent Michaud wants to go too so he can die for no reason, so that’s happening.

An hour later, a ragtag mini team of Avengers get beamed down to the ruins of Regina in order to hump their way into the dome. Just outside the city, they find a little Gollum-like hobbit thing with a large stick who points them into a specific direction.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10

Translation: The bathroom’s this way.

Captain America, with his endless fountain of wisdom, decides to follow the creepy little creature. “Let’s go,” he says wisely. The group gets followed by a large gaggle of creepy little creatures. They all point to a very large pit filled with glowing lava-like liquid. “Hey! I think something’s moving in there!” yells Nameless Avenger Member #4.

A shape emerges from the pool.

“It’s Validator.”

It’s Validator. She looks like a mime. She raises her hand and starts speaking the Builders’ language. Probably asking what these honkies are up to.

She then whispers in Michaud’s ear…

Later, the group waits in the desolation for S.H.I.E.L.D. to pick them up. Michaud asks Captain America if he’s going to tell anyone what he saw. He says no, and then asks Michaud the same question. He claims that he has a chip in his head that records video – no audio – and the department is going to review it. And they’re going to ask questions. And…

“Robert…” says Wolverine to Michaud. “What did she say?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michaud responds before pulling out a gun and blasting his head wide open.

Everyone is STUNNED! STUNNED!

So now, after reviewing the footage on Michaud’s chip, there was nothing to see but that episode where Ray Romano and Brad Garrett get made fun of by Peter Boyle. Maria Hill got nothing from debriefing the Avengers, those sluts. They went to Regina and found nothing Regina-like anymore. The end.

“Do you believe them?”

“No. I think they were holding something back. But they’ve left, and I’m not much for chasing air.”

Ha. OK. Just let the Avengers leave suspiciously. Nice commanding, Commander.

Agent Porter is holding something back from Maria Hill, as it turns out! Tables have turned, lol lol. Roll that beautiful bean footage:

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #10

Just a big stash of VHS tapes!

On top of the 49 minutes of footage, they also found an additional 327 hours! Isn’t that hilarious? Some of it was from 30 years ago. Some of it is from decades in the future. We see a montage of each Avenger changing slightly. An extra piece of armor here. Extra feathery wings there. Hulk with, like, a beard or something. There’s a vision of Michaud raising his gun to stop Validator, but he gets vaporized into a pile of skeleton bones!

The last bit of footage is Validator pulling Michaud in to tell him something…

Meanwhile, the Avengers all talk amongst themselves as they leave on their jet. And by “talk amongst themselves” I mean “barely talk about anything” like they don’t want to relive any of the event.

When asked why Michaud shot himself in the fucking head, Wolverine is like “he thought it was for the best”.

“He did what someone does when keeping a secret is worth more than their life.”

Anyway, there’s this whole thing where Validator is apparently Michaud’s daughter and here were her words to him:

“The System is now online.”

Final Thoughts

They sure are building up to this mysterious system-like system, like it’s the Internet and it’s all important and a matter of life or death or something actually worth something. BUT I DON’T BUY IT.

This is all obviously bigger than the Avengers, who are used to punching bad guys in the face. Maybe they should sit this one out.


Click here to ridicule this post!

East of West, Issue #35 – “Things Fathers Do with Their Sons”

* Part 6 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #35 – “Things Fathers Do With Their Sons”! In the previous installment, in a nutshell, Archibald and his Confederacy do a massive attack on Xiaolian Mao’s palace and reduces the People’s Republic armies down to nothing.

Xiaolian is still alive, and her meager resistance team will still stand by her side.

I predict that Xiaolian’s little army will thoroughly fuck up Archibald’s shit. He’s winning the battles, but he’s going to handily lose the war. Take that to the spank bank.

East of West, Issue #35 [November, 2017]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Things Fathers Do with Their Sons”

East of West, Issue #35

“If you choose, choose now. Or soon that decision will be taken from you.“

So what could possible happen next, you ask? Well, the Three Horsemen walk along an empty plain toward a hidden sniper. They’re all excited that they can feel the violence and the impending doom in the air. Like when the air is all misty and/or foggy? Except with doom.

“I think we’re running out of time,” says the yellow one. Famine, right? The skeleton. War agrees that shit’s coming up very quickly. “This should be our time, but we’re rudderless and without purpose. Adrift on a bloody sea.”

Conquest is extremely optimistic, but he’s also the one that has the biggest boner for war. Even War’s boner isn’t as boney for war, and he’s War! “We need to find the boy, Babylon, and serve him.”

Serve him what? A steak sandwich? I could use one right now for sure.

“I’m not so sure,” War mumbles.

“I am.” Conquest smiles smugly. “Mankind is waiting for him. And he is waiting for us.”

Do you know what else is waiting for you, Bluey? A fucking shot in the mouth.

East of West, Issue #35

Oh dear. That’s going to sting for about a day.

The bullets keep flying.

“What the hell?” Conquest says, surprised and missing a tooth out of his blue head. “Someone shot me!”

War tells him that his missing tooth makes him look like an idiot. I agree, but he looked like an idiot anyway. For the most part, the bullets seem to be bouncing off these mopes. Conquest whips out an enormous sword, whips it around with all his might, and slices it into the ground toward the location of the shooter. The makeshift bunker explodes into nothing, the shooter starts hobbling away.

“No, no… There’s not going to be any running tonight… There’s not going to be an escape… Not for any of you. Because you’re right where you wanted to be. You made a choice… And these are the consequences.”

Conquest pulls out a 900-ft whip and flings it toward the assailant, wrapping it around his neck. In one quick motion, Conquest pulls the fucker right to himself. Neck buldging, tongue a-floppin’, the gunner starts begging all while the whip chokes the breath out of him.

The Three Horsemen give the guy their best autistic sociopathic child stares and tell him that there’s no begging, no pleading, no praying. No mercy, no forgiveness. “You have earned what is coming to you,” War says.

AND WHAT MIGHT THAT BE? I DUNNO!

“Here’s what I know to be true: Before it all comes crashing down, the people will wake up. It will just be too late to do anything about it.”

East of West, Issue #35

Balloon’s gonna sit this one out, Chatty Cathy.

What’s up with Death and Son? Palling around, that’s what’s up. Death rides his robot horse. Babylon rides his giant piggy.

Death asks his boy which way he wants to go. Not a hard decision. Just a matter o’ turnin’ right or left. East or west. Spit it out, son. Let’s get on with it. And Babylon crunches the numbers and analyzes his options like Young Sheldon, possibly annoying his big, white father. Every decision matters! This is why Babylon and Balloon spent so much time running simulations! “’Cause bad decisions will get you killed every time, and let me tell you, Dad, I’ve died around one point seven million times. It is definitely not cool.”

When Death asks him what the hell he means by that, Babylon explains that Balloon taught the child how to survive. Death thinks this is weird, being Death and all. Balloon says that going east is 16.3% more safe than going west, based on weather and rocks and bugs and stalling airplanes and viruses and Republicans. Babylon’s feelin’ lucky tonight, though! Let’s go west!

Later, Death teaches his son how to skip some stones in the lake. Balloon tells the kid to consider kinematics and vector angles and all sorts of other nerdy factors. Babylon deliberately throws his rock right at a fish with a WAK. Balloon praises his effort. Death is exasperated.

Death takes this opportunity to teach the boy fishing, since we’ve moved on to dead fish and the like!

“And we just stand here and wait?”

“Yep. Practicin’ patience until we a get a… nibble.”

Death gets one hooked almost immediately. After putting a ton of strain into reeling it in, it’s the size of a chub. “Good news is we got all day, son.”

I think all this is so family friendly that it’s making me “laugh” and “grin”. In fact, the smiles will keep on going, because Babylon’s got a joke to tell!

East of West, Issue #35

A touching Kodak moment :>

Balloon interrupts the laugh fest by being a downer about the spot they picked. Saying there’s more fish over there *points with no fingers*. Death is good where he is, but Babylon wants to actually eat for once so he moseys over to the better spot. While behind a rock, blocked from Death’s view, there’s a sudden ZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZ of electricity. Death panics, runs over and discovers… Balloon zapping fish after fish dead in quick succession. “Look Dad!” Babylon yells happily, raising up two enormous fish with each hand. “I have defeated all the fish. Tonight we eat like kings!”

Babylon asks Death to help him carry all these fish back to camp. Death stares quite despondently. “… Sure.”

Two weeks of trekking pass, and our two favorite White Characters happen upon some exposed underground ruins. Death calls it a monument to the impermanence of man. Perhaps a giant flood washed out the city, and when the water receded all that was left were the half-collapsed buildings. Perhaps it was a plague? Maybe it was some vengeful god. “BUT ALL OF THAT IS WRONG,” Death says. “What happened here was much worse.”

Oh boy. Aliens? Space aliens?

Babylon thinks Death is crazy bones, because from his point of view the desolate, crumbling ruins looks like an awesome carnival! “I’m going to go see if I can find some cool stuff,” he says, running through a hole in the side of one of the old buildings. Death grimaces, annoyed.

Babylon observes what looks to him like a teddy bear. “It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

It’s a human skull. “I just love it,” he continues. “Can I keep it?”

“What?”

Death looks at his happy son and just stares silently. I bet dollars to donuts that Death is going to give this kid the boot and move on with his own damn lonesome self. After 35 issues, he’s going to learn that he hates his kid! LOL!

Later that night, while Babylon is asleep with his new skull, Death sits and looks on in the far distance.

“So…” he looks to Balloon. “Is he really asleep?”

“I understand your trepidation, Death. Babylon is more than capable of achieving a dormant regenerative state without lapsing into unconsciousness.”

“And?”

“And yes. He is asleep.”

“So he won’t hear us talkin’? Not a word that’s bein’ said?”

“No. He will not. Is there something on your mind, Horseman?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with him?”

Relationships are tensing up! Death has noticed that he doesn’t see the world for how it is. That something’s wrong with the way his eyes are hooked up. Balloon agrees, but argues that Babylon sees something better: What it can be. How it should be. What he can make it.

East of West, Issue #35

Balloon’s gettin’ the business from the Grim Reaper Cowboy.

One week later, Death catches word from his and Xiaolian’s one-way walkie-talkie. Xiaolian’s army is going to march off to war, or what’s left of it. Death drops to his knees. “Your mother… she’s in peril.”

“…We should help her, Dad.”

“Don’t worry, son. Nothin’ in this world… And nothin’ from any other could stop me from doin’ that.”

Death gets that famous angry grimace of his back on his mug.

“It’s time for you to see what your old man is made of.”

Final Thoughts

This was a real bottle episode, for sure. Not much more progresses in the relationship between Death and Babylon besides “kid’s weird”.

And now Death is going to fight the good fight. Or the bad fight. Or whatever. Gray areas and all that!


Click here to ridicule this post!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1 – “Chapter One: Crime”

* Part 1 of 13 of the Batman: The Long Halloween limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1 – “Chapter One: Crime”!

I’ve been putting this one off for only one reason: thirteen issues is a lot to get through. I may break this up into a few chunks depending on how much momentum I find myself chugging along with. But, I’m looking forward to this! It’s supposed to be one of the best Batman stories of all time. And, unlike ”one of the best Superman stories of all time”, I expect this one to be actually good.

No more preamble! There’s a long-ass Halloween to experience.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1 [December, 1996]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter One: Crime”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

“I believe in Gotham City,” says a rather dapper, intimidating man. “I only came here tonight out of respect for my parents, who… knew your family…”

This rather, intimidating man is none other than Bruce Wayne! You may know him! The party is lavish, a veritable who’s-who of distinguished guests and snobby up-turned noses. Carmine “The Roman” Falcone throws a wedding for his nephew even though he tried to kill him recently. Hypocrisy at its finest! The mafia is funny that way sometimes.

Carmine Falcone would like Bruce’s assistance in bringing business to Gotham. Bruce isn’t going to work with scum. Putrid little scum. Falcone kisses a rose. “That’s disappointing,” he says, then shoots Bruce Wayne dead with a gun. The end.

“Life is made up of little disappointments, Mr. Falcone,” Bruce lectures. “It’s what makes what we do so… challenging.” And he walks the fuck out of the room.

Falcone’s right-hand man, Milos, suggests… er… “encourages” Bruce to make the right decision. Falcone disapproves, although his blessing would be nice…

Bruce eavesdrops outside the door like somebody’s bratty sister. Alberto Falcone, the Oxford graduate of the family and the “good son”, asks if Bruce needs any help. He eyeballs Bruce like he’s a nasty, food poisoning-inducing shrimp cocktail.

Returning to the party, decides it’s time start dancing with some of the more well-dressed broads of the evening. He catches Selina “Catwoman” Kyle’s eye and they do some freak dancing on the floor! Writhing and squirming and playing hella Twister without a mat.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

Alice Cooper, you lookin’ fine, sir!

Johnny Viti, the groom, looks like a big bowl cut dumb guy. His mom calls him over to inquire about the handsome dancing dude, and Johnny knows who he is. Why, that’s Wayne Bruce! Or something to that effect. “Ya want I should make him say hello or something, Momma?” the big galoot asks. Momma looks intrigued, to say the least. Perhaps a bit of a girl boner has been popped?

Alberto talks to Carmine about wanting to get involved to help him out, but Carmine grabs his cheeks endearingly and tells him to butt out. He should be chasing after pretty girls and having a wedding of his own! Not getting involved in illegitimate business and/or Bruce Wayne’s affairs! Silly old boy!

Milos interrupts the father/son bonding. Harvey Dent has been spotted on the parking garage security camera. He’s busy scribbling license plate numbers on a pad, lamenting his evening away from home with a cool bottle of Duff beer and a fan blowing on his sweaty, sweat brow.

It looks like someone cracks him in the head with a bat, bitching about his meddling. The assailant even threatens his wife! Next thing he knows, he’s coming to and seeing Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle helping him up. “I hope I didn’t spoil your evening,” Bruce says without irony. Do these two dudes like each other? I’m not up to speed on my Harvey Dent.

Dent tells them to bugger off. Bruce is suspicious of Harvey’s intentions. Then they kiss each other goodnight.

“Friend of yours?” Selina asks later.

“I’ve… contributed to his campaign for District Attorney. I believe in Harvey Dent.”

“In this city, that’s saying something.”

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

Sorry Selina, but boy do you bore the shit out of me.

When Selina asks if he’s got plans for the rest of the evening, Bruce makes a big point to make a fake yawn and proclaim his exhaustion. Turning in the for the evening sounds like a capital idea! Heh heh. “Your loss,” she says, leaving and looking for some other poor sap to bone.

Meanwhile, Police Captain Jim “Gary Oldman” Gordon is spending another long night in the office apologizing to his wife for his raging workaholicism. Dent bursts into his office and asks for a drink. He looks like he’s been sat on by seven elephants. Gordon tut-tuts at Dent for sneaking around the parking garage at a mafia wedding like a doofus.

Man, that Falcone family! How are we ever gonna bring them down! They’re tough and they got guns, man! GUNS!

Good thing Gordon knows a guy. A real batlike individual. Rugged as he is nimble. It will truly be a sight to behold, this batlike guy thwarting the biggest crime family in Gotham City! Too bad it’ll take 13 issues!

Back at the wedding, both Selina and Bruce had noticed an unattended safe in the building. Selina, as Catwoman, attempts to pilfer its contents. Bruce, as Batman, is onto her. And these two are so stupid that they don’t know and can’t tell each other’s identities. This isn’t the first time they’re meeting up in this penthouse, and it surely won’t be the last either. Especially with all the sex that’s going to happen!

“My business here this evening does not involve you,” Batman rasps.

“Funny…” Catwoman hisses. “I don’t believe you.”

They fight a little bit before a group of men enter the room and start shooting around. “Take them down!” one says. They do not get taken down. The masked ones escape while the unmasked ones are rendered neutral.

“In my own home. Where my children sleep. On my nephew’s wedding day!” The scary face of Carmine Falcone emerges from the gunsmoke. Three horrible incompetent muscleheads, including Milos, are lying supine on the floor. Milos’ only explanation is that Batman, and indeed Catwoman, were on the premises.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

Oh shit! A guy in tights? A woman in leather? And you didn’t videotape their sexual indulgences???

Entering the room is the cackling Salvatore “The Boss” Maroni, who is Carmine’s chief rival for the control of Gotham City. You could slice bread with his widow’s peak.

“Milos, get Mr. Maroni a drink.” Carmine Falcone grits his teeth. “The rest of you, spread the word. One million dollars for either of them. The bat or the cat.”

Batman and Catwoman, meanwhile, have taken their fight outside. She taunts and hoots and hollers while he all but yells “stop it, waahh, nooooo” at her japes.

“Catwoman, what were you doing at Falcone’s?”

“Nope. That would be telling. And the last thing I would want to do… is make it easy for you.”

She slips away right in front of him. Foiled again! And then, without even a moment’s break, that danged Bat-signal illuminates the night sky. Stupid Gordon. Get a cellphone.

Dent is waiting up on the roof with Gordon. They discuss their similarly shitty marriages. “Suppose we wait here all night and he doesn’t show up?” Dent hazards impatiently. And, of course, just like he was waiting under the eaves for 45 minutes waiting for his cue, Batman shows up all like “you rang?”

Batman surmises correctly, because he’s fucking Bruce Wayne and he was a the fucking party, that Harvey Dent has been working on the Roman case. Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, in case you, the reading audience, are having a hard time following my 3rd-grade-reading-level blog.

“I’ve got files full of ‘unsolved’ robberies – hijackings – murders with his name all over them,” Dent frowns. “His money will buy the witnesses. The cops. The judges. In what way is the Roman not above the law?” Sounds like he is to me. Lots of rich people are above the law, right? I would mention a certain ex-president, but he’s not actually rich. lmao

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

A threeway is in the mix tonight, gentlemen. *wink*

“I want to be clear on this,” says Gordon. “In our… zeal… to bring Falcone to justice. I’ll let you bend the rules, but we cannot break them. Otherwise, how are we different from him?”

“Of course,” responds Dent with a big ol’ puss on his face.

Batman just stares and frowns. After being pressed, he finally agrees (but he won’t actually make good on it, obviously, because he’s an asshole).

And suddenly, like a poof, the hero is gone.

“You know, there was a time… when I suspected you were Batman,” Gordon says to Dent.

“Sorry. I’m quite happy with who I am,” responds Dent with an air of somebody who hates himself.

They find a copy of the Roman’s ledger on the roof out of nowhere. Batman must have left it behind. It has all sorts of dates and dollars and numbers on it. Someone smarter could figure out this ancient cipher! As it stands, though, we’ll get back to it another time.

Later, Bruce Wayne is at his monthly Board meeting of the Gotham City Bank. He’s livid as a rattlesnake in heat, I tell you whut. “Everyone in this room knows where the Falcone family comes from! Gambling, rackateering, drugs! For us to even consider doing business with them–”

Yeah yeah yeah yeah. The guy arguing with Bruce, curly blond pinstripe suit Richard Daniel, says that he’s making some wild accusations about the family! How dare you! His monocle is falling in his wine glass as we speak and breathe! Why, the family deals with importing/exporting of Italian shoes and nothing more!

Some other guy agrees with Richard. Business is business, and they could use Falcone’s business. Bruce insists that the Falcones just want to launder their dirty money. He walks away STEADFAST in his resolve!

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

BORING! Where are the funnies??

Later, at Richard Daniel’s lavish mansion, a particularly dark-cowled individual breaks into the property and warns the guy to keep Falcone’s money out of the bank. Next thing you know, the papers show Richard Daniel resigning and Bruce Wayne stepping in to head the Gotham City Bank. AWFULLY SUSPICIOUS, WOULDN’T YOU SAY?!

In August, one month later, Falcone is livid that no bank in town will take his money ever since Richard Daniel resigned. He and Maroni “The Boss” Springsteen are collaborating on the problem. The other crime families, those in Chicago and New York, they’re looking at Falcone sideways. Something seems fishy in their eyes and it’s not their lovely fish casserole banquets! I can assure you.

Alberto Falcone chimes in to say that there might be a way, but he gets cut off immediately. Here’s an idea: get Johnny back from his goddamn two-month honeymoon! Falcone needs that kid NOW!

In September, a rather happy-looking Richard Daniel is taking his lovely lady for a night on the town. They muse about spending their autumn in Paris when Johnny Viti guns that fucker down right in front of everyone.

Meanwhile, to lighten the mood, Jim Gordon is angrily scrubbing dishes in his house. Perhaps now that the dog days of summer are over, the family can go on vacation and–

RING RING! Phone’s for you, Mustache. Mafia crime in the city. Call Harvey Dent ASAP. No vacation for you.

Harvey Dent’s wife takes the call. Richard Daniel has been murdered in cold blood.

Someone guns down Johnny while he’s in the tub.

“Two shots to the head,” Dent says, making a weird bucktoothed grimace. “You ask me, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“District Attorney Dent!” Gordon points a fat, sweaty finger at the man. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk coming from you – either publically or privately.”

Batman is there too. They go over the hard facts: a .22 caliber handgun was left at the scene. It was missing a serial number, it had no prints, and it was a gun disguised as a flower disguised as a gun. Who has the CAHONES to whack Johnny Viti?? Perhaps Maroni? Perhaps JOHNNY VITI! No, wait, he’s dead. Um…

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

I would’ve left this sausage party too ASAP.

After wondering if Carla Viti would whack off her own son, Batman leaves to follow this flimsy lead. Elsewhere, Catwoman is on the roof wondering where Batman is going AT THIS HOUR? It’s the hour of the wolf, and I don’t want to die! And furthermore, w–

“I was wondering where you’ve been,” Batman says to Catwoman, sizing her up.

“In case you haven’t heard, Falcone has a million-dollar bounty on my head.”

“Mine, too.”

“Yes, well, I’m not you.”

Sounds like a fun dick-measuring contest, but we need to get down to brass tacks here! Batman knew that Catwoman would be skulking around spying on the lot of them. Why? What does she want? “I don’t want to help,” she says. “But, I might be able to be helpful.”

She gets all up in his face, purring and hacking up hairballs. Then she… whispers… sweet nothings… into his ear holes…

It’s now Halloween night. Batman and Dent are quietly manuevering through what looks like a warehouse following Catwoman’s lead. “Follow the money. That’s how Catwoman began. Seems Falcone hasn’t been able to launder his money for a while now. He’s been forced to STOCKPILE it.” And lo’, there are neat building-sized stacks of money all over the place. Millions upon millions upon millions of dollars. Billions, even! Perhaps trillions. It seems like too much money. It’s an ungodly amount of money. It looks fake. This fake-ass money is just comic book money. Ain’t real. Case closed.

Let’s light it on fire now.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #1

Dirty money burns more quickly!

“Somewhere in the city, The Roman isn’t laughing anymore.”

We end with Harvey Dent returning to his house, smiling at all the children outside trick-or-treating. His wife smiles at him. He smiles back. It’s been a good day. Oh, there’s a package in the mail? Sounds good, honey. Let’s just open it!

His house blows up.

Final Thoughts

Is there where he becomes Mr. Two-Face? Ol’ Two Faces? Double Trouble, Face-Style? Oh boy! Good stuff so far, let’s keep this train moving or else my name isn’t Falcone Maroni. Or something to that effect.


Click here to ridicule this post!

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9 – “Star Bound”

* Part 3 of 5 of The Last White Event storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9 – “Star Bound”! In the previous installment, there was one kid left after the college got destroyed and his name is Kevin Connor. He is the Starband, and he has the ability to destroy planets! But now’s not the time for that cockamamie malarkey. The Superflow of the Universe has crashed and now communications are down and now the machine is broken which means the universe is broken and now Kevin and Nightmask have a lot of work ahead of them. It’s supremely dumb and I’m hoping this will resolve itself into something not dumb.

Oh yeah, Nightmask drags Kevin to Mars, his birthplanet, where Ex Nihilo is still hanging out. Daddy dearest is going to help out his sonny boy with his broken universe problem. He’s going to pawn his gold face in order to afford a better Superflow of the Universe.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9 [June, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Star Bound”

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9

You can’t see the cover very well, but rest assured that Kevin Connor’s eyes look like they’re rolled back in his head in bored, smug ecstacy. Impervious to Hyperion’s lasers, Hulk’s fists, and Thor’s hammer?! This pipsqueak can’t even make it to the bathroom in time before pooping his nerd pants.

“Hello, Father… we need your help.” Nightmask is glowing with radiant energy. Ex Nihilo is like pffft, kids. Run away from home and then come back begging when they need something. Typical. Abyss tells Ex Nihilo to hold his horses. Maybe this is a different case! Maybe Nightmask didn’t actually total the car or fail his algebra test.

Ex Nihilo does notice something different about his son. He and this douchebag over here *points to Kevin Connor* have changed. Abyss wonders what it is and does a quick scan of Kevin’s torso with her wispy, black, smoky tendrils. He tells her to bug off. She tells him that fighting it will make things harder for him. He then yells “GET AWAY” and cuts her in half with a huge energy blast.

All she can do is snarl. Kevin freaks out and apologizes. As she magically mends, Nightmask speaks his gobbeldygook Builders language and insists that Abyss mess with him first if she’s going to mess with anyone. And make it snappy.

So she does. With her wispy, black, smoky tendrils, she senses the following: a genetically perfect, but modified, human being with an incompletely downloaded secondary Builder system. Cool. What else, grandma? Oh, and the conflict isn’t with him or Kevin, it’s… Earth. Earth is the conflict.

She turns to her brother Ex Nihilo, who admits that he fucked around Earth when he got bored. So what? Big whoop.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9

I started using my left hand! It’s like someone else it doin’ it!

So, usually, these gardener gods will terminate a world if it was flawed, and encouraged evolution if a world has potential. With Earth, however, for fun, he’s attempting to make the planet sentient. Self-aware. Self-sustaining. Self-repairing. Able to reproduce! Able to communicate! Able to evolve! Able to self-defend! Able to pee with the toilet seat down! And all this because Ex Nihilo wants to play dice with the universe! Hella Yahtzee!

Nightmask asks Ex Nihilo if he can stop the process. Ex Nihilo responds that it’s impossible to stop life without ending it completely. Plus, he and Abyss aren’t allowed on Earth anymore. Restraining order.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Kevin asks, scratching his head and making a 40 IQ face.

“Behave, and you and Adam can stay here as long as you like,” responds Abyss.

Ex Nihilo thinks that’s dull as dirt! Return to Earth! Revel in the fun! Maybe something cool will happen!

Speaking of something cool happening, we return to Avengers Tower where nothing cool ever happens. Steve Rogers is putting on his Captain America costume which, hopefully, he washed this time. Captain Marvel reports that they’re attempting to track Nightmask and Kevin and, hopefully, Ex Nihilo and Abyss didn’t get involved. “Maybe we just let them be?” she says. Cap tells her that a college was destroyed, and since Cap himself has never set foot within 14 miles of a college, he feels like it’s his responsibility to avenge his inability to get an education and NOT let them be. Off to Mars they go!

Tony Stark tells him to cool his overly flatulent jets. “Signal just disappeared from Mars and popped up local. Earth’s atmo”.

In the Quarantined Zone.

Croatia.

Where I hear it’s lovely this time of year.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9

I’ll show you a sack, you little shit.

Night Adam Mask is 47 days old. That’s like 500 in Builder years, maybe. I’m making that up, of course. On a beach in Croatia, the duo hear a very loud buzzing sound. Kinda like when a phone is on vibrate only a lot less phone-like. The beach is full of these weird bug pods that are starting to expel giant worms from their husks. They all start converging to one spot, swarming all over each other.

“What are they doing?” asks Kevin. “It’s worm sex, isn’t it?”

Nightmask answers in the negative. They’re creating a consciousness. As individuals, they are simple organisms. Together, they are attempting to create one complex organism.

While they watch the worms fucking, the Avengers jet rolls on in. At an impossibly fast pace, the worms are forming an enormous brain. They watch as Nightmask attempts to communicate with it. It doesn’t work very well, since the brain-like entity reaches out with not-wispy, not-black, not-smoky tendrils and latches onto Nightmask’s arm to suck him in. “MRRFFF!” he says! Kevin attempts to pull him back, but of course he gets fucking mad when he can’t accomplish it and blows up the brain-thing. And, again, he’s all like “oh no oh no I’m sorry I’m sorry” like that’s going to make it all better.

Avengers (Vol. 5), Issue #9

Wasn’t the world already broken, though? You can’t break it twice! Lighten up!

Captain America, on the dead Earth, tells Kevin that he’s out of control. Young man. And he has to get a spanking. Kevin apologizes, says he doesn’t know what’s going on and he’s not meaning to be a Bad Boy. Honest, mister! Nightmask corroborates this very unlikely story. All he needs is time to get adjusted, that’s all. Who’s the widdle out-of-control pistol. Is it you? Is it you? Goochie goochie goo.

Nightmask turns to Captain Universe, who pretty much tells him that he has to die for all this to get fixed. After a hearty refusal to die or do anything close to dying, Captain America is left with no choice to but to BRING THEM BOTH DOWN. AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!

*skirmish*

While that happens, let me transcribe the narration!

“It was the spark that started the fire – a legend that grew in the telling. It happened after the light. Before the war. And before the fall. They were the high days of the great idea – an Avengers World. A time of life, before a season of death. They were titans and gods and mortals doing immortal acts… They had been summoned, and did not pause to answer. They were perfect… they were heroes. And we… we were broken. Not called… but made. Errors in the system anomalies. Planet killers and world breakers. Final options. Last resorts. Things it was not time for…”

After getting his butt blasted to smithereens, Kevin cries uncle. He put up quite a fight even though he was holding back, because, deep down, he doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. If you can believe it! “I never asked for this power. I don’t want it.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, save it for the judge, dipstick.

“We’re going to try to help you,” says Iron Man. “We will help you, because that’s what we do.” But for now, Kevin is too dangerous to run around all fancy-free. “Because we have the world to think about. And today, it’s safer with you not in it.”

Final Thoughts

Ouch, man. The truth hurts like a poison dart to the dick. I don’t like this kid very much, even less than I like Captain America, so if the Avengers can throw this kid down a well then I’m all for it.


Click here to ridicule this post!