Control: The short, sad life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. Directed by Anton Corbijn so as you’d expect the videography is strong, distant but full of emotion.

When the topic of a movie is a man who commits suicide at the age of 23 after creating some of the most hauntingly disturbing music ever, it’s no wonder Control isn’t exactly a laugh riot.

It’s impressive that Corbijn, who more than any other can be credited with crafting the “look” for bands like U2 and Depeche Mode, manages to be so restrained in his directing.

Control is well worth watching, both for Mr. Curtis’s personal drama and as a snapshot of an exciting time in popular music.

As a bonus, here’s the Anton Corbijn-directed video for Atmosphere. If you like it, you’ll like Control:

Live Free or Die Hard: Well, that was insulting. Seriously, I get the whole over-the-top thing they were going for, but sheesh, at least a nod to the laws of physics every once in a while would have been nice.

The one saving grace of the whole debacle is the performance of Timothy Olyphant, who is so fantastic at portraying the guy who is exactly one heartbeat away from going utterly and completely batshit. It is always immensely entertaining to behold.

Apart from Olyphant, though, the movie is tired and over the top in the same way as an old stripper who tries to compensate by gyrating wilder than ever. Sad, really.

Hitman: I watched Hitman since Timothy Olyphant is in it, and surprisingly for a movie adaptation of a video game it doesn’t suck. Not great, but has its moments.

Of course, why anybody would cast Timothy Olyphant—an actor whose forté is acting like he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown—for an emotionless character is beyond me, but it seems Hollywood forgot to check with me first.

Oldboy: Korean cyberpunk. Who’d a thunk it? The first half of the movie is very good, a Kafka-esque nightmare writ in neon, but then it fizzles into a ludicrous ending. Still, worth watching for the first half.

Shoot ‘Em Up: I’ve seen some painfully dumb movies in my day, and I’m guessing you have to. Unless you’ve seen Shoot ‘Em Up, though, you haven’t been fully exposed to complete, utter, and relentless stupidity. To make it even worse, and to remove any excuses, this is a high-budget movie with a strong cast. Great editing. Great effects. Great cinematography. But. The dumbest. Script. Ever. Really. You can tell the whole cast are in physical pain by the dumbness of the script.

But they got paid. All you’ll get out of watching this dreck is losing a part of your life you’ll never get back and a headache.

If I were king, Gitmo would be for people who create this kind of garbage.

Less money, mo' problems. Source: Stephen Poff. Click image for original.

I’m just a cave man, and your modern world scares and confuses me.

One thing that is sure confusing me right now is where the 7.7 trillion dollars—“amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year” for the bailout of a corrupt system imploding on a truly Wagnerian scale is actually coming from?

According to the US Census Bureau, 8.7 million (11.7 percent) of America’s children had no healthcare insurance in 2006. But, you know, healthcare costs money, so the rugrats are just going to have to suck it up. While you could make an argument that, actually, it would be a good investment to provide a modicum of healthcare services for the future workers of America, the money to pay for it would have to come from somewhere. Meaning cuts in something else. Fair enough.

But now all of a sudden, apparently the rules have changed, and money can be magicked into being. That’s right, we can spend 7.7 trillion to bail out companies that got too greedy—just rub the lamp and the genie will take care of it.

Thanks, Magic Lamp!

Too bad for sick kids they don’t have one of those.

The trilogy is composed of three novels, The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings, but they are really all pieces of a bigger work—Abercrombie makes no effort to bring the reader up to speed with what has happened in the earlier novels, just dives right in to the action, so you have to start from the beginning.

The trilogy contains enough epic fantasy tropes to feel comfortable—we have the mysterious mage, the barbarian warrior, the epic quest, etc., but they are all twisted around enough to feel fresh and new.

Like Glen Cook’s marvelous Black Company series, Abercrombie’s world is full of flawed, human characters who are doing their best to muddle through the difficult situations in which they find themselves, but where Cook writes in an almost offhand manner, Abercrombie’s writing is cinematic and energetic, especially in the battle scenes which leap off the page and grab the reader by the throat.

And the characters! Wow, what an assortment Abercrombie’s created. The one that stuck with me the most was Sand Dan Glokta, former dashing hero of the Union who after two years of unspeakable torture as a POW is a ruined shell of a man and has taken a position as a torturer for the Inquisition himself.

To sum it up, The First Law has a complex plot, interesting characters, a lived-in world, and is fueled by strong, graphic writing.

Note though, that it is a very graphic series, both in terms of stomach-churning violence and sex.

Can’t recommend it highly enough.

As a nerd aside, note how good the audio is—it’s the Flip’s built-in crappy mic, but I cleaned it up with Soundtrack Pro, which is pretty much like sprinkling fairy dust all over bad audio.

—Jack Handey.