Mind Control Comics Forum

Coming... today!

(http://mindcontrolcomics.com/covers/date_movie-i02-p00.jpg)

Is it body jumping, MC, a Stay Tuned/Pleasantville scenario with a sexy (or, in the case of Pleasantville, sexier) spin?  It's still all over the place.

It does seem to benefit from re-reading it a couple of times to make sure I've got the plot, but it's pushing a lot of good personal buttons for me so I've been making the effort and I think I'm following it. Let me know if any of this sounds like I misread compared to your take:

Lindsay (one of at least three characters with reddish-brown hair, a student, Tim's girlfriend) and Britney (blonde from the porn film) have now swapped minds and places. In the porn world, Lindsay-as-Britney is trying to still be Lindsay (using that name, trying to contact Tim, trying to actually keep up academically) but it's also evident that she's gradually finding it harder to study and easier to go along with the porn tropes around her.

In the real world, Britney-as-Lindsay tried to make a go of it with Tim, but eventually left him; we learn that she'd started out "normal" but is now an insatiable nymphomaniac with no patience for Lindsay's studies, and reconciled to that. (This, combined with what's going on in the porn world, strongly suggest that the longer Lindsay's left to baste, as it were, the less she'll resemble the original Lindsay psychologically when and if she returns to this world.) Tim had a page and a half dream sequence about getting Lindsay back by swapping her with Omi (a redheaded coworker that I confused on first reading with Britney-as-Lindsay in episode 1, where she appeared briefly but wasn't named). Tim and Nicole (blonde from work, "sweet young thing" who would call paramedics if she heard moaning and cries from the storeroom rather than assuming it was someone having a nooner) go on a date, she starts to watch the movie and get horny, but Tim shuts off the DVD with Lindsay still trapped on the other side and settles in for the long haul with Nicole.

So, a couple of nits with the issue:

• p. 2 of 13, first frame (Asha and Lindsay-as-Britney in their garden) - should the voice balloon go to Lindsay instead of Asha? It seems like Lindsay should be the one questioning the local reality.
• p. 4 of 13 ("Too much?" "Ya think?") - is there a reason Tim's hair is that dark? I though it was Daryl at first, until I realized he's wearing Tim's long-sleeved business shirt instead of Daryl's polo, and only really makes sense as Tim.

And a bunch of open questions, some of which I hope have answers coming up later in the series:

• When Britney-as-Lindsay first met Nicole, we saw Nicole naked for one frame - was that just Britney undressing Nicole with her eyes, or was there more to that?
• Britney had been normal but got stuck in the movie, Lindsay is now stuck in the movie - are any of the other characters people who used to be normal but got swapped in, or are the rest of the characters "native"?
• There was a lot of synchronicity between Lindsay and Terri (the redhead in the movie) when Lindsay swapped with Britney that didn't seem to be as strictly true when Nicole watched the film. Will that turn out to be significant?
• Speaking of, we didn't see Terri this episode; what's up with her? Is she still the shy, reluctant one that needs to be awakened or has Lindsay assumed that role?
• What was the significance of Nicole's birthday in Tim's decision to turn off the movie? I'm thinking "I can't tell an innocent, unsuspecting girl 'happy birthday, you're trapped in a porn film forever'" but it's not completely clear.
• Are we eventually going to see "the chick across the hall" with the tits Britney would kill for? (If we do, I'd like to get a vote in now for giving her dark brunette hair, if only to make it easier to tell everyone apart ;))

Just my two cents: I love the concept, the art, the writing. I guess philosophically I tend more toward redemption in the end. Like that eventually Lindsay gets out of the movie, hornier but still able to interact with the normal world. Having her get sucked away permanently- with her personality destroyed in the process- would make this into too much of a horror scenario for me to really find hot. I suppose I find story endings like "The Good People'''s to be more comforting. So, just an opinion...if you end up doing a "Date Movie" #3, maybe Lindsay will find her way back somehow, "horizons broadened" but still able to, well, function as a normal person.

Then again, maybe I'm worrying a little too much about it.

As with much of William Pratt's stuff, this is initially confusing but crazy hot.  The art is top-notch (though I do agree that some additional differentiation among some of the characters would be helpful), and the story is both interesting and funny - Lindsay-as-Brit, living out porn tropes in rapid succession, expressing bewilderment and exasperation before giving into lust every time, is pretty damn funny.