Author: Robert Greenberger

The Creeps:  Night of the Frankenfrogs
By Chris Schweizer
Amulet, 122 pages, $9.95

After being nominated for his historic graphic novel series The Crogan Adventures, creator Chris Schweizer is back with a brand new young adult’s adventure series. The Creeps are a motley collection of middle school students in Pumpkins County. As Amulet describes their new heroes: Carol, a big-city girl new to Pumpkins County, who finds kindred spirits in Mitchell (monster expert), Jarvis (military brat with logistics know-how), and Rosario (girly girl on the outside, muscle underneath).

We meet them after their reputation is clearly established in the school so we avoid originitis and move right into their latest case. Principal Garish hates their antics, regardless of their effectiveness mostly because it means the mess is left to custodian Pinto to clean up, which somehow requires half the school budget. Here’s the first of a series of exaggerations that disrupt the flow of the story as you scratch your head and wonder how that works.

The kids are divided over the forthcoming biology lesson involving dissecting frogs leading several to circulate a petition, angering their teacher, Miss Yamamoto. They ten sadden her when they claim not to care about their science education, a fairly typical comment from immature students so her reaction feels unrealistic (can you tell a teacher is reviewing this?).

When the collection of frogs go missing, the students, in trouble for their comments, are on the case and the mystery begins. There are several threads to trace throughout, including the real nature of dreamy new student Tom Rigby. Their investigation takes them below ground to the secret lab of kid genius Perry Milburn, with an ego the size of Montana and gadgets worth of Doc Ock.

When the kids do find the frogs, they discover they have been enhanced, turning them into, well, Frankenfrogs, using brain matter from several of their peers. And again, here’s where the story reaches a point where you wonder how on earth can this happen, especially in less than sterile circumstances. The physical and mental well-being of these altered students is barely addressed as the action moves at a frenetic pace.

The dialogue is interesting but his characters feel not fully realized and it could be Schweizer’s working with too large a cast and too big a story for a first offering.  He also crams each page with lots of small panels, lots of dialogue and that makes for some tough reading. His use of color is interesting as he uses a variety of flat palettes to shift mood and setting.

Younger readers may find this engaging but for me, this introductory story doesn’t entirely rise to the occasion.

There’s a lot of action and running and fighting and things blowing up in Insurgent, the second installment of the films based on Veronica Roth’s Divergent book series. It has an attractive, well-pedigreed cast. It looks slick with top-notch CGI effects. It should be a major crowd pleaser.

Instead, it’s heartless and heartless, emphasizing but the characters and their emotions. The film opened this spring and did well enough and the Combo Pack (Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital copy) is out now from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The film itself earned $295.2 million worldwide, just enough to greenlight the by now mandatory two-part finale, Allegiant, coming March 18 an, 2016 and March 24, 2017.

The first film introduced us to yet another impossible to believe dystopia where society has been enclosed in a walled city of Chicago and people are born into one of several classes. Those who defy categorization are called “divergents” and are hunted, ostracized or both. Our protagonist, Tris (Shailene Woodley), of course is one of those but she’s even more special: she’s 100% divergent, making a sought after gem. And much of the film focuses on the hunt to obtain her so she can obtain an object conveniently unearthed from her family home. Much as Katniss Everdeen struggles against being a symbol in The Hunger Games books and movies, Tris is a reluctant hero, forced by circumstances, manipulated by both the spectre of her dead mother (Ashley Judd) and the cool Jeanine Mathews (Kate Winslet).

She’s not alone, accompanied by Four (Theo James), who is forced to admit his love for her when both endure truth serum sessions, watched by the impassive Daniel Dae Kim.

Back to complicate matters here and there are her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and troublemaker Peter Hayes (Miles Teller).

Once Tris sacrifices her freedom to stop Jeanine from killing people, she confronts her worst nightmares which turn out to be herself and the sequences are visually interesting but also too reminiscent of The Matrix to be fresh enough to sustain watching. The lack of humanity given the cast makes the film flat and boring when it should be engrossing. There’s a reason this series of books was made into a film series: they sold a ton and the reason they sold a ton is because Roth made them passionate and interesting figures.

Woodley gives the best performance given the range of emotions she goes through but Teller makes his character feel the most alive of the ensemble. Watts, Kate Winslet, and Janet McTeer lend veteran talent but are given little chance to do more than emote.

Sadly, the screenplay feels cobbled and compromised which explains the trio of credited authors, Brian Duffield, Mark Bomback, and Akiva Goldsman, who should know better. There are no surprises here, and too many climactic moments occur with predictable results, so you wonder what happened? Maybe it’s the absence of director Neil Burger, who was replaced by Robert Schwentke who did a far superior job with Red. Unfortunately, he’ll be back for Allegiant, but there’s also a chance for redemption.

The digital transfer is excellent so everything is sharp, colorful, and fun to watch at home. It is paired with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack although on my soundbar it decoded as a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track but was just fine.

For a lackluster and disappointing film, it comes chock full of extras beginning with an Audio Commentary from Producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher, who offer little in the way of fresh insights. Next is Insurgent Unlocked: The Ultimate Behind-the-Scenes Access (1:56:32) letting you watch separately or as a picture in picture option. Every aspect of the production is covered, including Building a Bigger World, Creating the Big Screen Experience, Exploring the Factionless, From Factionless to Candor, A New Landscape of Weapons and Stunts, Composers and Simulators, and A Fight to the Finish. Additionally, you get From Divergent to Insurgent (5:09) as cast and crew talk about how the two connect; The Others: Cast and Characters (3:40); Anatomy of a Scene: The Train Fight (4:01); The Peter Hayes Story (2:40); and Divergent: Adapting Insurgent to the Screen (4:00).

If that’s not enough there’s the Marketing Gallery that features the HBO First Look and all five theatrical trailers. Then there are animated character portraits: Shailene Woodley (00:19); Theo James (00:19); Kate Winslet (00:19); Octavia Spencer (00:19); and, Naomi Watts (1080i; 00:17).

Sunny Side Up
By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm
216 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $12.99

Unlike so many of the offerings from the Scholastic Graphix line, this one requires paying attention to the structure as we jump around both time and place. The semiautobiographical memoir brings the timelines together as Sunny Lewin experiences her brother’s self-destructive nature and is packed off to Florida. There, her grumpy grandfather doesn’t seem to know what to do with her, at first. As a result, she goes wandering around the 55+ community and finally encounters Buzz.

Her developing friendship with Buzz not only gives her someone to hang out with, but also introduces her to comic books. It’s interesting to note which 1970s titles she gravitates to, starting with David Michelinie’s run on Swamp Thing before discovering Batman, Spider-Man, the Hulk and others. In time, they begin earning money finding missing cats and later missing objects and people as they glimpse what senior life holds for them.

The sunshine, swimming, comics, and odd neighbors are far more preferable than being home where her brother Teddy has chosen to enmesh himself with drugs, spiraling downward until he literally hits bottom. Also, she gets to crack through her grandfather’s tough façade and connects him better to his own community.

Interestingly, the Holm siblings explore their past with a certain level of fondness, keeping the storytelling simple without hiding the complex issues at play. They’ve previously partnered on two series: Babymouse and Squish. Here, Lark Pien provides a cheerful color palette in keeping with the title and location.

A satisfying read, the book addresses several strong issues without moralizing or dwelling on only the sad portions. Sunny’s maturity in the face of adverse conditions makes for a strong role model for the readers.

It’s a challenge to begin watching a show during its second season. After all, the characters have been introduced, the dynamics established and the backstory in place. Season twos tend to show evolution as the cast and crew all find their rhythm but don’t always remember to reintroduce themselves in case newcomers have wandered by.

I had been hesitant to try Silicon Valley, the Mike Judge-created series on HBO, largely because we sat through the wildly uneven first season of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire and felt that was our technology quota of television. So, when HBO invited me to review Silicon Valley the Complete Second Season, I decided to take the plunge. First, there was watching it video Digital HD, not disc, and there was exploring something new.

The show is funny and engaging, as much an office workplace dramedy as it is a commentary on our growing connection virtually, and less so as human beings. These ten episodes were filled with characters, mostly well realized, all well-acted.

This band of misfits run Pied Piper, a music app, and the season opened with back and forth over ownership issues, an all-too-common problem with intellectual property these days. Apparently PP was created while members of the team worked for Hooli and their CEO Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) wants it, meaning its valuable, a plus to the team. Of course litigation tends to scare people off and sure enough this complicates locating investors willing to weather the storm.

As a result, they accept the offer from the eccentric Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos), whose actions take the PP team into uncomfortable territory. What could have been an interesting breakout character felt like a retread of the dude who took over ACN on HBO’s sister program The Newsroom. Opposing him and acting as the moral voice at times was Richard (Thomas Middleditch), who seems to grow stronger as a leader throughout the season. Of course, there sometimes comes a price to be paid which happens in the season finale. The app gets a real world test so we build up to that moment and deal with the aftermath along with the percolating court case.

There’s some nice chemistry with Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) as they prank one another that allows the series to veer into other tech realms such as Kickstarter.  Then there’s Jared who is the team optimistic and perhaps its quirkiest member.

For a 30 minute series, it has a large sprawling cast, made larger by many new additions notably Laurie (Suzanne Cryer), the new CEO at Raviga Capital. The arrival of so many new faces, including Carla (Alice Wetterlund) at the Hacker Hostel, also meant others got diminished screen time and overall, it’s hard to provide more than a handful of characters any depth.

The storylines drew tighter by the ninth episode and the tenth and “Two Days of the Condor,” the final episode proved the most satisfying with moving storylines along and making a marked social commentary with a human life at stake. Things came to a climax and reset the status quo as things settle down but Raviga, the new investors in Pied Piper want Richard out and he’s fired. From what I saw this season, it was totally justified.

Overall, the series is funny and often wildly so, but it also presents a skewed view of software engineers (I know, I’m married to one) as well as corporate shenanigans. Judge, who did give us the brilliant Office Space, seems to be stretching credulity now and then in the interests of being quirky. Props, though to the real tech, tech theory, and law that was infused throughout the season, grounding it when it could otherwise floated away as a lightweight series.

The show is definitely entertaining and easy to binge so here’s a chance to catch up. The Digital HD release is as pristine as the cable broadcast and streams cleanly with good picture and audio. Will I be around for season three? Probably, there’s enough here to like and the 30 minute slices are good so it doesn’t wear out its welcome.

Aaron Sorkin is an exceptionally talent writer who brings a playwright’s sensibilities to television which means his characters talk. A lot. But unlike so many prime time series, his characters actually have something to say. It’s a shame more people don’t want to hear whatever it is being discussed because Sorkin series tend not to last very long.

There were two seasons of Sports Night, four Sorkin-produced episodes of The West Wing and a single uneven season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. For his self-proclaimed final act in television, Sorkin gave us three ever-shortened seasons of The Newsroom. This last ran on HBO and other than using a handful of words, could have easily aired on the major networks. After all, Sorkin didn’t pander with nudity or excessive violence.

The series’ conceit was that we were watching the fall and rise of network anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), the face and voice of Atlantic Cable Network, all all-news cable channel. As we watch him and the production staff find their mojo, Sorkin chose to set the show in the recent past and see how these high-minded journalists would have covered current events. The first season was the run-up to the 2012 election while season two covered election night and how a story blew up in their faces.

Season three, a mere six episodes in length, comes out in a two-disc DVD set on Tuesday from HBO Home Entertainment. The focus this time falls on the Boston Marathon bombing along with the network’s sale and struggles to maintain its integrity while boosting ratings for revenue. With just six hours to play with, Sorkin never let up and moved things along at a fast clip, minimizing the number of sub-plots which meant the supporting cast had less to do. In the penultimate episode, though, there is a strong sub-plot about a college rape story that caused some criticism from the pundits but the series gets credit for even exploring the subject, when few other shows have touched on it.

Daniels, Emily Mortimer, and Sam Waterston get to carry the load this time around and do so with energy and pathos. Everyone else, from Olivia Munn to Alison Pill, have their moment or two and it’s nice to see them in action. If anyone is given less to do it’s Dev Patel, whose Neal has to disappear to avoid testifying where he got leaked information that points to the Eric Snowden case.

Even though it’s set in the past, it’s the very recent past so the issues of the day remain largely the same and there’s a wonderful thread about the impact social networking has had on news coverage, especially without proper vetting of sources and details. Sorkin, at his weakest, still tackles topics few other series go near and gets people on the show and then in the audience discussing the issue. He is clearly liberal in his biases but allows his characters to explore all sides of an issue. Too few prime time shows on any distribution channel truly take on the topics of the day and give their characters strong opinions in favor or escapism or “ripped from the headlines” gloss. As a result, as The Newsroom fades from memory so does the impetus for further intelligent debate thanks to characters we’re invested in.

Sorkin has come to end his series with an episode entitled “What Kind of Day has it Been” and here he brings things full circle as the death of beloved producer Charlie Skinner has everyone reflecting at the events that brought everyone together in the very first episode, when McAvoy was at his lowest ebb and needed help. While McAvoy and crew have come a long way, the series rarely let its viewers down and remained a sharp commentary on politics, media ethics, and human relationships.

The standard definition transfers are fine and makes for good watching. The sextet of episodes is accompanied by the Sorkin commentary that aired after each show. Additionally, there’s some interesting commentary from Sorkin and executive producer Alan Poul for the finale.

HBO gets kudos for airing the series at all and rewatching this reminds me how much Sorkin’s weekly presence will be missed.

Cleopatra in Space: The Thief and the Sword
By Mike Maihack
191 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $12.99

When Scholastic brought Mike Maihack’s webcomic Cleopatra in Space to print, it seemed like a perfect fit for their line. Unfortunately, the protagonist had as much to do with the real life Cleopatra as does the Queen of England. Target Practice was an Egyptian-flavored space opera with an overly familiar feel to it, much like the overhyped Amulet series from Graphix.

We now have the second volume and it does little fresh or different. In fact, it does less than volume one, slowing things down. Considering the annual release pattern, young readers deserve stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Here, we start in the middle and reach page 191 without too much happening, leaving us with a cliffhanger that will frustrate the audience and make parents feel as if they wasted their money.

Maihack clearly studied comics when the decompressed storytelling of the late 1990s and 2000s were all the rage. At the time, graphic novel collections were increasingly valuable to the bottom line and six issue collections were the sweet spot. That meant pacing went way down and things dragged out. Here, Maihack spends lots of time watching people run, jump, fight, and so on without much of consequence happening. Similarly, he never deepens the characters so they remain flat, two-dimensional types rather than complex beings.

Maihack clearly knows how to tell a story and his character designs are good. His color palette is interesting and he brings some nice emotion to his story but that’s as far as it goes and for the price, more is expected. Heck, I’ll say, it’s demanded.