Reviews, Interviews & Comics by Mike Russell

A list of stuff I've written and drawn.

For THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

"Comics Fight Their Way Into the Mainstream" -- A day in the life of Excalibur Books & Comics in Portland, Ore. I also illustrated the piece, with digital color by Chad Essley. (March 4, 2004, page D10)
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For THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:

"'Twilight' taps teen-vampire romance" -- A visit to the "Twilight" set to watch some vampires play baseball. (May 11, 2008)
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For THE BOSTON GLOBE:

• "A Scanner, Artfully" -- a comic-strip interview with director Richard Linklater.
• "The Not-So-Secret History of 'Aeon Flux'" -- A full-page, full-color comic strip examining the appeal of the cult-hit MTV cartoon. This saw print just before the release of the live-action "Aeon Flux" movie. (Nov. 27, 2005)

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For THE OREGONIAN:

CulturePulp: Click here for the comic-strip archives.

Movie reviews:

• Rotten Tomatoes review indexes: "M.E. Russell" and "Mike Russell."
• CulturePulp.com movie-review archives: Old site and new site.
• Oscar Rant: 'The Incredibles' should be eligible for Best Picture (Feb. 5, 2005)
• Oscar Rant: 'Sideways' is totally overrated (Jan. 29, 2005)

DVD reviews:
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (Feb. 4, 2005)

TV reviews:
Spike Lee's "Sucker Free City" (Feb. 12, 2005)

Oscar liveblogs:

• 2007
• 2006

Book reviews:

• "Consider the Lobster" (Jan. 8, 2006)
• "Batman Begins" again (and again, and again....) (June 19, 2005)
• "Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams" (May 1, 2005)
• The "Sin City" comic-book series (March 27, 2005)
• "Eyeing the Flash: The Education of a Carnival Con Artist" (Jan. 9, 2005)
• "The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place" (Dec. 5, 2004)
• "Persepolis 2" by Marjane Satrapi (Sept. 12, 2004)
• "In the Shadow of No Towers" by Art Spiegelman (Sept. 12, 2004)
• "Colors Insulting to Nature" by Cintra Wilson (Aug. 8, 2004)

Interviews:

• Chiwetel Ejiofor (May 4, 2008)
  
• Bruce Campbell and Mike Richardson (Oct. 19, 2007)
• Karen Black (Oct. 14, 2007)
• Chris Onstad (Sept. 25, 2007)
• Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost (April 23, 2007)
• Jet Li (Sept. 24, 2006)
• 'Fearless' director Ronny Yu (Sept. 24, 2006)
• Edward Norton (May 28, 2006)
• 'Bone' cartoonist Jeff Smith (April 21, 2006)
• 'Farmer' John Peterson and 'Real Dirt on Farmer John' director Taggart Siegel (Feb. 1, 2006)
• Shane Black (Nov. 13, 2005)
• Joss Whedon (Sept. 24, 2005)
• Bruce Willis (March 11, 2005)
• "21 Dog Years" author and monologuist Mike Daisey (Jan. 7, 2005)
• "Shaun of the Dead" masterminds Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (September 23, 2004)
• "Napoleon Dynamite" star Jon Heder (July 4, 2004)
• David Carradine (April 17, 2004)
• The Rock (April 2, 2004)
• Kevin Smith (March 29, 2004)
• Viggo Mortensen (March 5, 2004)

Features and Columns:

• "Mr. Do and Mr. Don't™ go to PIFF" -- A handy visual guide to etiquette at the Portland International Film Festival. (Feb. 11, 2005)
• "Channeling Trivia" -- inside the IFC "Ultimate Film Fanatic Challenge."
• "Derided by photo jockeys" -- My emotional experience as the subject of a FARK.com Photoshop thread. (Dec. 17, 2004)
• "Taking the 'Chucky' dare" -- critics were banned from a Portland, OR preview screening of "Seed of Chucky." We went anyway. (Nov. 19, 2004)
• "Writer-slash-actor" -- Hangin' with the original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen.
• Bill Plympton's "Hair High" -- reports before and after an Aug. 1 screening of the film.
• "Best and worst disaster movies" -- Sidebar to a movie review (by Marc Mohan) of "The Day After Tomorrow." (May 28, 2004)
• "The Indie 15" -- Collection of mini-profiles of Portland-area independent filmmakers. Co-written with Karen Karbo and Marc Mohan. (May 16, 2004)
• Observed: "Clinton's killer kung-fu" (April 16, 2004)
• Observed: "Quantum Spirituality" (April 2, 2004)
• "Cellulouid Superhero Smackdown!" -- An A&E cover package detailing the history of comic-book movies -- in the form of a comic strip. Digital shades and colors by Chad Essley. (April 2, 2004)
• Scene and Herd: "Oscar Night Revelry" (March 5, 2004)
• "Comics rule Hollywood" -- Feature about the 2003 glut of comic-book movies. (June 22, 2003)

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For THE DAILY STANDARD:

• "The Browncoats Rise Again" -- I take a long look at "Firefly" fandom -- and Universal's positively bizarre marketing plan for the "Firefly" movie, "Serenity."
• "The Fan Films Strike Back" -- Thanks to digital cinema and the Web, geeks are filming their own "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" stories. And they're pretty close to making something better than the junk their heroes have been dishing out lately. (May 14, 2004)
• "To the Crack of Doom!" -- A Lord of the Rings "Trilogy Tuesday" war journal. (Dec. 19, 2003)

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For BOOKSLUT.com:

Interview with Cintra Wilson (September 2004)
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For IN FOCUS magazine:

• Interview: George Miller (November 2006)
• Interview: Christopher Nolan (October 2006)
• Interview: 'Superman Returns' writers Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris (June 2006)
• Interview: J.J. Abrams (April 2006)
• Interview: Judd Apatow (December 2005)
• Interview: Harold Ramis (November 2005)
• Interview: James L. Brooks (February 2005)
• Interview: Robert Zemeckis (November 2004)
• Interview: Trey Parker and Matt Stone (October 2004)
• Interview: Will Ferrell (July 2004)
• Interview: Wolfgang Petersen (May 2004)
• Interview: David Zucker (September 2003)
• Interview: Stephen Frears (August 2003)
• Interview: Jonathan Mostow (July 2003)
• Interview: "Finding Nemo" director Andrew Stanton and co-director Lee Unkrich (May 2003)
• Interview: Chris Rock (April 2003)
• Interview: Lawrence Kasdan (March 2003)
• Interview: Marvel Studios producer Kevin Feige (February 2003)
• Interview: "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition" director Sam Mendes (January 2003)
• Interview: Screenwriter John Logan (December 2002)
• Interview: James Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (November 2002)
• Interview: "The Ring" and "Scream 3" screenwriter Ehren Kruger (October 2002)
• Interview: Master Japanese animator Hiyao Miyazaki (September 2002)
• Interview: M. Night Shyamalan (August 2002)
• Interview: Barry Sonnenfeld (July 2002)
• Interview: "Sum of All Fears" and "Field of Dreams" director Phil Alden Robinson (June 2002)
• Interview: "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (April 2002)

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For THE PORTLAND MERCURY:

"Living in a Republican World" -- A co-authored satirical guide for those who want -- nay, need -- to conform. I also drew the illustrations. (January 30, 2003)
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For COMIXPEDIA:

"The Comixpedia End of 2006 Roundtable" -- I was one of ten writers asked to "give their thoughts on the state of webcomics at the end of 2006." (December 2006)

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For ODDJOB:

"The Future Lens" -- four-page backup story that appeared in issue 4 (Winter 2000) of ODDJOB. Ty and Ian Smith let me hijack their characters to ask a simple question: If you're looking through a window that tells the future and you see your friend's head blow up, is there any way to stop that from happening?
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For THEFORCE.NET:

"Jaxxon's 11" -- Internet comic strip spoofing the 1970s Marvel "Star Wars" comic books (and starring the strangest character from those books -- a six-foot-tall green rabbit named Jaxxon who fought alongside Han and Chewie). Illustrated (and co-written) by David Stroup. (BTW, if you're so inclined, you can download high-rez PDFs of all the pages right here and make your own comic book.)
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For HAIRLESS PRESS:

• "Santa's Lil' Gimp" -- A spoof of children's Christmas books written by Gregory P. Dorr. I provided the pen-and-ink illustrations.
• "Hudson Van Curen" -- A comic strip about a very angsty and naive young man, his occasional girlfriend, and his talking-bird sidekick. It ran in varying formats and publications at the University of Oregon from 1990-92.

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For WILLAMETTE WEEK:

"Two-Fisted John McLoughlin" -- Satirically offensive "Manifest Destiny Superhero Comic." Created for Willamette Week's "Big Strip-Off" cartooning contest.
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For AIIIE! Comics:

"The Whisperers" -- An eight-page horror story about a guy who keeps hearing the same vague mutterings coming out of every vent and air duct. My first collaboration with the great Scott Allie, who wrote the story; it appeared in issue 10 of his terrific horror anthology "Sick Smiles."
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Repackaged (and quite possibly expanded) reviews for THE DVD JOURNAL:

• Aquamarine 
  Blade: Trinity
• Constantine
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America 
• Derailed 
• Domino
• Doom: Unrated Extended Edition 
• Eight Below 
  Elektra
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Failure to Launch
• The Family Stone
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
  Fat Albert
• Find Me Guilty 
  Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
• Hard Candy
• Hide and Seek
• Hoodwinked 
• Hoot 
• Hostage
• House of Wax (2005)
• Hustle & Flow 
• The Ice Harvest 
• The Island
• Just Like Heaven 
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 
• Ladder 49
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
• The Libertine 
• Lightning in a Bottle
• The Longest Yard (2005)
• Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World 
• Mindhunters
• National Treasure
• The Notebook
• Ocean's Twelve
• The Pacifier
• The Pink Panther (2006) 
• Poseidon 
• Rebound
• Red Eye
• The Ringer 
• Roll Bounce
• Rumor Has It... 
• RV 
• Sahara
• Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic 
• Seed of Chucky 
• Shall We Dance? (2004)
• Shaun of the Dead
• The Skeleton Key
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 
• Star Wars: Clone Wars, Volume One
• Star Wars: Clone Wars, Volume Two
• Stick It 
• Two for the Money
• Underclassman
• Unleashed
• The Venture Bros.: Season One
• White Noise
• The Woodsman
• X-Men: The Last Stand