...but it looks like the X-Files movie turned out pretty bad.

Myy relationship with review aggregators has become interesting over the past year or so. There was a time when I would have resisted the very notion of aggregators, and on a basic theoretical level I suppose I still think they're an even more flawed approach to film response than thumbs up / thumbs down (a reduction so gross that even Roger Ebert has said it is specifically responsible for destroying modern film criticism). And yet, there's little denying that any movie I'm even slightly "on the fence" about, I'll go to RT and see what the critical consensus is before deciding whether I should give it a try. Money and time being as finite as they are right now, I lean on the rapid data snapshot - which I suppose by default must also mean that I no longer think my critical taste distinct enough for the masses that there is a better-than-average chance I will like something that the majority does not, i.e. even if using the aggregators is a massive generalization on my likelihood to like a movie, the odds are still in my favour that I'll come out above par by just following the herd. And this from the guy who liked The Phantom Menace. Ah well. If only movies (Dark Knight notwithstanding) weren't so crappy right now.

Comics being in a similar state of blah, I went all Five Families on my pull list Wednesday night - chucked the Avengers, the X-Men, the Boys, the Hellboys, the Angels, and came damn close to chucking Iron Fist thanks to the unannounced (at least to me) switch to an entirely new writing/art team. WTF? Fraction and Brubaker abandon sweet IIF awesomeness for Uncanny frickin' X-Men? Grrrrrrr.

Speaking of Five Families, all the stolen bike raids are making Toronto feel like The Untouchables this week! You know, like when Sean Connery walks across the street and knocks that door down and there's all the jamokes in there? Exciting.