Inspired by those wacky geeks over at TWIT I have decided that instead of putting off and putting off and putting off my vow to somehow market my first book I would let people download and read it for free. Give it a preview, read the whole thing or, if you like what you see, send me some kind words or money for the actual book. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.
It’s springtime and it’s the time of the year when young men’s thoughts turn to the sightings of young adults dressed up like obscure Japanese anime characters, weighted down by scads of props and accouterments 
that even Mr. T would have to agree is a bit too much.
For a few reasons I bring this up:
1) I managed to book my hotel room damn near 8 months ago and have finally secured lodgings that will allow me to have a few and not have to worry about driving to the Motel 6 miles away because it was the only place left that charged less than a 100 spot for a night. It’s a great feeling to finally buck that procrastination monkey off my back for once; it’ll be even better around one a.m. after I’ve been drinking and realize I need to sleep before spending another nine hours chasing my tail in hopes of seeing everything that the convention has to offer.
2) I realize that those who have been see the Comic-Con as a thing you can do once and never do again, plus you get those people who kind of eschew the experience after they’ve done it year after year. Let me say this: ’07 marks my 4th straight year going to the Con. I’m still looking forward to it because not only do I live for my routines in life when I can establish them but I feel that it’s been a different monster every year. From my first one when I had the opportunity to talk to Breehn Burns who made one of the best faux trailers you’ll ever see, met Josh Holloway from Lost, and did a nice write up, thank you very much, for number two and then, for number three, had the chance to see BORAT months before it ever dropped. plus sat in with herr editor Ken Plume when he conducted absolutely hilarious interviews with members of HOT FUZZ, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost, and RENO 911!: MIAMI, Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant. I just don’t know, maybe it’s brain damage or being too dumb to know otherwise but it’s these little moments that make the excursion all worth it.
3) Building on a bit of what I had to say in number 2, I finally have something lined up weeks prior to me ever having to do anything to set it up. For those who enjoy the perks of writing for a known publication that publicists line up knocking at your door just hoping you’ll spill a little e-ink on their client this will come as no surprise to you: some of us, even though we can kinda sorta draw a link between us and Kevin Smith when we’re having to cold call prospective interview subjects, have to play the see-and-wait game with plebes who couldn’t care that I would be better for the person of the hour that they have to wrangle for the day because I wouldn’t start off the interview with, “If you could be an action figure…” or some sort of nonsense that passes for mainstream journalism. The words pathetic don’t come close to describing my pain when I see who I am passed over in lieu of. But, whatever, right? This is a time to play Johnny Hustle and, damn, I just love cold calling.
4) The shit for sale! Every year I raid Jim Mahfood’s booth and buy whatever the guy is selling. This is the real reason why the Con will always be fresh: it’s a time to connect, if you’re in harmony with it, with those who are creating great art. It’s not like you’re meeting the Dali Lama but if you’re plunking down any kind of coinage for comics this is the time when it’s nice, I think, to just let these artists and writers know you’re reading and appreciating their work. They obviously don’t do it for the fat check, some of them do, but it’s nice to be in the center for all of that.
5) Two words: Haunted Memories. Best money I ever spent at the Con, no joke. This and the Watchmen TPB I finally picked up last year.
Really, I could go on, and believe me I will, but when some things finally fell into place this week I just couldn’t believe how giddy I was just thinking about walking all day and running around like a chicken. From 
getting the chance to see what’s coming out next summer in ’08 to sitting in on forums about what’s up with my favorite geeky indulgence it’s just nice to be as old as me and genuinely look forward to wallowing in my own nerdiness.
Life is filled with enough things I don’t look forward to and this is one of the last vestiges of my youth that really is a good time. You’ve just got to get in the right frame of mind. Except, those kids in the anime costumes have got to go. For reals.
JOSHUA (2007)
Director: George Ratliff
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga, Celia Weston, Dallas Roberts, Michael McKean
Release: July 6, 2007
Synopsis: The tale of Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (Vera Farmiga) Cairn, perfect Manhattan parents in a perfect Manhattan apartment whose perfect life begins to crack after the birth of their second child Lily. Shortly after Lily arrives home, a dark side of prodigy son Joshua slowly begins to reveal itself.
View Trailer:
* Medium (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Left Me Not Wanting More. I felt the nails on the chalkboard simply from that baby monitor in the beginning of the trailer.
Some of you basement dwellers will never know the pleasure of actually fornicating, impregnating and then having your bride pop out a nugget with ten fingers and toes but for those of you who have managed that feat will know the pleasure of listening to every cry and bleat for ever loving God that your child can muster through a shitty ass piece of $29.99 intercom technology.
I felt the pain of what that’s like and thankfully we’re not given some hokey voiceover explaining that to us as we open up onto things.
Yes, the opening sequence feels a little on the light side with regard to figuring out what the hell is happening on the screen, the wife looking like an uglified, malnourished Frances McDormand, even as the creepy boy who understands what this new kid means inside the household.
As well, the piano sequence that continues things, with this way-too-smart for his own good little boy lets his dad know that his father is not required to love him by any means is slightly awkward and feels a little false.
What’s great is Sam’s boss who cuts right through all the sentimentality of the new arrival, cuts right to the quick as he brings us all back to reality, and when you see the dead dog on the kitchen floor there is all sorts of giggles from this side of the fence. Now we’re talking entertainment…
The strange twist here is that the kid then becomes the Damien of the film’s focus. He starts killing his classroom’s pets, he exhibits the kind of creepiness that I would immediately take as a sign to take the kid back to whence it came but offering to be able and throw a rock at an old person for five dollars just made me laugh. It was really so absurd that I couldn’t help but feel it was more funny than it was scary.
And when the kid is staring in front of a television that has nothing on it but snow? I mean, when Carol Anne did it in POLTERGEIST that was because her parents were too fucking cheap to buy cable for the kids but here? Come on, it’s the 2000’s and the only people that should be without basic cable should be pedophiles and those who make Mike and Ike candies.
As we continue forth the parents are parents are completely caught unawares of what their demon brood is preparing to do, namely killing their youngest daughter, HOWEVER the remaining moments of the trailer are surprisingly suspenseful as we all wonder whether the kid is going to take the stroller and push his sister to her death.
I think the trailer, on the whole, is a sparse affair. It should be applauded for not using any voiceovers to try and amp up what’s not there but we’ve seen multiple films about kids who become killers and killers who might be kids, none with any great degree of success. This is why I wouldn’t pay to see the film. It might, though, be a reason why releasing the film in theaters and on television at the same time would be a good thing.
Director: Phillip G. Atwell
Cast: Jet Li, Jason Statham, Devon Aoki, Luis Guzman, Nadine Velazquez Release: September 14, 2007
Synopsis: After his partner Tom Lone (Terry Chen) and family are killed apparently by the infamous and elusive assassin Rogue (Jet Li), FBI agent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) becomes obsessed with revenge as his world unravels into a vortex of guilt and betrayal. Rogue eventually resurfaces to settle a score of his own, igniting a bloody crime war between Asian mob rivals Chang (John Lone) of the Triad’s and Yakuza boss Shiro (Ryo Ishibashi). When Jack and Rogue finally come face to face, the ultimate truth of their pasts will be revealed. Used to be titled ROGUE.
View Trailer:
* Large (Flash)
Prognosis: Yikes. Sometimes you just need to downshift your brain.
After trying to wrap your head around what the Bush administration is doing to people within our own country or thinking of how we’ve gotten our collective selves into a quagmire in Iraq with no possible endgame to finish things right, there are movies like this that speak to the Suspension of Disbelief theory better than any textbook example ever could.
Quite ostensibly, you’ve got the intro. Hot cars pull up in front of some nameless bar with lots of hot chicks with body paint bumping and writhing to the sounds of whatever; who cares about equal rights when you’ve got body paint, right?
Oooo…intrigue. You’ve got some gangland style executions going on, again, without any context about the who’s, the why’s, the how’s and what-does-this-all-mean theorizing. I’m ok with all of this.
Then the voiceover starts and even I can’t help but start laughing.
See if you can follow me on this, the trailer basically lays it out better than any blueprint of how to make a circle ever could: in some way or fashion there’s this Asian gang that has enjoyed freedom, I guess, to do whatever the hell they want because they have some kind of “truce†with the police. Yeah, I see where this is going too…
Someone gets shot dead on the good guy side, whatever that means, and then Voiceover Guy chimes in with, “A renegade FBI agent.†This is about where I lose my shit. I mean, yes, I love these kinds of films but if you’re not even going to make an effort to make some kind of original B.S. then, really, why should I?
You look at a film like UNLEASHED and even a film like CRANK and you can see what I’m talking about. There’s originality there, obviously not Oscar award winning originality, but as this trailer progresses we’re just going through the motions.
We’re dished up some crappy hip-hop/techno track as Jet punches and kicks his way through bad guys, Jason punches and kicks his way through equally as bad bad guys in his pseudo Kung-Fu style.
There’s some jumping through windows that looks terribly choreographed, some Asian guys fighting in three piece suits (a staple of any good martial arts movies in the 80’s starring Van Damme, Brandon Lee or Dolph Lundgren), lots of fancy cars and motorcycles being a part of action sequences, more three piece Asian fighting dudes and, hell, to finish it off, we even get a ninja. A fucking ninja.
Look, I enjoy these kinds of movies if they’re done right but this trailer speaks to someone who I used to be as a little man of 13: someone who wanted stuff to blow up, for there to be a wafer-thin plot and to leave me feeling utterly stupid by the end.
I’m older now and this kind of idiocy just doesn’t sit well with me anymore and this trailer honestly feels like it should have been left back in the 80’s where it belongs.
Director: Lars Von Trier
Cast: Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler, Thor Fridriksson, Benedikt Erlingsson, Iben Hjejle
Release: May 23, 2007 (Limited)
Synopsis: The owner of an Information Technology firm wants to sell his business for profit. The trouble is that when he started his firm he invented a nonexistent company president to hide behind when unpopular steps needed to be taken. When potential purchasers insist on negotiating with the “Boss†face to face the owner has to hire a failed actor to play the part. The actor suddenly discovers he is a pawn in a game that tests his (lack of) moral fiber.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Negative. I despise superlatives.
Ok, I don’t really despise them because I employ them every now and again but when they’re used in film advertising I really take umbrage with the connotations of making such statements. Case in point is the trailer for this film and is a textbook case as to why it’s just not a turn-on when you’re being asked to pay money to see a film that someone’s directed.
What’s more, or what’s truly confounding, is in the first few seconds of this film we’re treated to a reflection of Von Trier in a pane of glass as he navigates a camera on a crane. I get that he was behind the whole Dogme 95 movement but what are we, as an audience, supposed to make of Lars breaking the virtual 4th wall in exposing himself, his movie, as nothing more than a play put to film? An overt fiction where, I guess, we’re not supposed to believe the story in which he’s trying to sell us. He obviously doesn’t mind be credited in the trailer as the man who directed the film, breaking commandment number 10 of his own visionary plan for cinema, but it’s a little odd if nothing else.
We’re tossed the “most controversial director†moniker like it’s supposed to make me sip a little faster from my latte because I’m about to hit with something really controversial but, the fact of the matter is, the joke that this movie is really only an “office comedy†only serves to make this trailer lumber forward with only a vague sense of what this all is supposed to be about.
What we see is some guy who looks like Treat Williams introducing a dude who could easily pass for Daniel Craig’s body double to a pack of people in a boardroom. I get the guy is supposed to be an actor only playing the part of a boss but what are we to make of the brown shit he applies to his forehead like he’s someone who’s forgot that a) he’s a dude and b) that you’ve now established this character as some kind of whack job no matter how good the excuse is.
Further on we get it, almost nauseatingly so with as many references to how ruthless this guy is, that the imaginary boss is reviled to the point of physical violence. The guy gets beaten up, for Christ sakes.
I try desperately to look for some kind of narrative that will jive with what’s supposed to be at issue here, that some mark was brought in to take the heat off the real boss who has been driving a pack of yuppies into a sense of submission and violent tendencies or that this all part of some more elaborate experiment of some kind, but there is a glimmer that there is more underneath all the seething hatred.
I can’t imagine anyone would stay at a position like this considering what these people are going through, at least what we’re shown they’re going through, but the trailer is an utter failure in proving any thesis greater than whoever cut this thing deserves the same type of vile violence that seems to be visited upon the blonde actor who is just looking for a paycheck.
I could be wrong but the trailer doesn’t make it any easier on any of us in getting some kind of straight answer as why I should spend anything more than my time just moving on to another movie than can explain itself better than this.
Director(s): Frank A. Cappello
Cast: Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert, William H. Macy, Sascha Knopf, Jamison Jones
Release: Coming Soon
Synopsis: He seemed like such a nice guy…He pretty much kept to himself…An office worker inadvertently becomes a hero after he saves a woman’s life.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive; This Is Why I Love Trailers. Unless you’re one of the few who can actually do it I am going to go on a limb and say that there are a lot of brilliant people who contribute to the Internet but have to slug it out in an office where clichés come to life every single morning.
The office genre, thankfully, still has room for growth and this looks like a shockingly excellent addition to it. Not everything that goes on in an everyday office has to be funny, most people who know can affirm that it can be downright miserable without an ounce of humor to be found, and Christian Slater just blazes right off the screen.
The voiceover is a curious one. It is a woman’s voice who essentially proposes a question of whether if you knew the outcome of a situation, a high stress one, while were you were in it, would you do something different. The question is a simple one but it works well with what’s happening on the screen. Slater is holding a pistol and even though we don’t know why or what’s happening.
Slater has shed his clean and well-shaven appearance, it was really KUFFS that best embodied this sense of cool style and Leon Rippy earns high marks for allowing Slater to eclipse what could have been an Oscar worthy performance, and has instead opted for old guy glasses, a wicked bad Members Only jacket and a loaded gun.
Kudos as well go out to the trailer makers for taking a large block of trailer time and giving us an extended moment after a maniac shoots up his office. Slater going ape shit on his own and capping the guy before he can fire back was completely unexpected.
They have my attention.
The places where this film goes from here is rather interesting. The screen gives us quick comments like “what if you could make a difference†and other such what ifs but it’s Slater’s geeky response in feeling uncomfortably ill at ease makes me want to know more as a viewer; exactly the kind of thing, you see, a good trailer should do.
He looks like he gets the kind of job and life all of us dream of in a business setting, of becoming the boss, having some modicum of power, and seeing William Macy act along Slater just elevates the production that much further in my own mind as a consumer.
This is also something I have been missing in the creation of modern trailers, a good soundtrack. It’s the Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love†which just launches and thrusts the action of this thing forward better than most any other trailer in the past couple months; it fits, for one, the movement of those on the screen and, second, it makes everything feel fresh.
And, what’s more, when the song switches to Keane’s “Bad Dream†I find myself getting those prickly little goose bumps as we go further, not getting a real definitive explanation of what we’re watching but getting a feel, a real feel, for the film’s ethos on how these two people, Slater and Elisha, come together and what happens when they do.
The animated hummingbird, the shot of the office building blowing up, the two of them dancing with one another in some kind of dreamscape and the vagueness of what these two mean in the grand scope of this film easily put this trailer in my Top Ten for 2007.
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