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Kevin Smith and Matt Johnson SDCC 2013 (Via Geek Legacy):
There was much mirth, merriment and creepy cosplay on display at the San Diego Comic-Con this past July but one of the most exciting treats of the convention was being able to have an audience with Kevin Smith. It was notable not so much for the opportunity to talk about what Smith has been up to but because he was sharing the floor with a fresh voice in the landscape of teenage-themed films, Matt Johnson. Johnson’s film, THE DIRTIES, http://www.thedirtiesthemovie.com/, deals with a couple of friends who have to deal with systematic bullying which results in the kind of violence we are all too aware of in this age of Columbine. It balances the humorous and the serious while trying to get at something raw and visceral. You can watch the entire interview above as Kevin explores all manner of topics that focus on why this film spoke to him, what he sees in Johnson as a filmmaker and how he sees his role as a shepherd for these kinds of movies.
I asked Kevin about that and how he sees himself now in a role where he take people under his wing to show them where the pitfalls are and where not to make the same mistakes he might have.
“Absolutely, there’s a real Kevin Spacey-ish, kind of PAY IT FORWARD, to it because I got real fuckin’ lucky and won the lottery with CLERKS… So, it’s nice to get to a point where there are enough people who follow what I do and I can be like, ‘Watch this as well!’ And advocate for someone else. That’s the altruistic version of it. But, honestly, like I’ve said before, all I do is get instant credibility by aligning myself with a movie this bold, this strong, this fresh, this original. So I’d be stupid to say, ‘Nah, you guys figure it out for yourself.’ There’s also something in it for me so it’s mutually beneficial, I guess, but it probably helps me out a little bit more.”
For more on what Kevin thinks of THE DIRTIES and why he thinks it needs to be one of your must-see’s this fall, check out the interview in its entirety.
Many of the competition films at PFF became in such high demand it was hard to get a good seat or see all of them over the seven day period. “The Retrieval” was one film that built tremendous momentum leaving the audience blown away and eventually winning Best Ensemble Acting, Best Director and the Cox Audience Award. I had to wait a couple of days to find the time to see what the buzz was all about.
From the opening shot “Favor” grabs you. Kip Desmond (Blayne Weaver) has it all; wonderful, good looking wife, great rewarding job, affluent lifestyle and a better looking waitress on the side for sex. It all comes crashing down at a seedy hotel when Kip’s side dish drops dead. What’s a guy to do? Let the chips fall where they may and risk everything or stack the deck and solicit a childhood friend for that “favor” he always agreed upon? Kip confides his tale of woe to Marvin Croat (an unnerving performance by Patrick Day) and brings him to the scene with eventually ugly results.
Director, Chaet was proud to wear a button asking “What is a putzel”. His answer was, “go see the movie and find out”. And, that is probably the best answer for anybody that is not Jewish or aware of the expression. I knew of “schmuck” and “schmeckel,” but Chaet was quick to point out those were Yiddish words. Most importantly you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this very funny romantic comedy.
The Wachowski’s, Andy and Lana, (The Matrix) newest outing is one with so much promise and moments of awe inspiring imagery that one would think that the audience would be walking out of the theater with a sense of wonderment after what had been presented. Instead, we have occasional set pieces that are memorable as they did with “The Matrix Reloaded” and only wished it had stepped up to the plate of such multiple storyline classics as “Pulp Fiction” or “Magnolia”. The storylines in “Cloud Atlas” are far more expanse, but if one were to take the individual storylines apart and view them separately, most of them would come across simplistic and ordinary rather than the themes this film suggest. It is a daring effort by the directors, Wachowski’s and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and one that is worth viewing at least once if not for the grandeur, then for two of the storylines; the fatal love story that transcends gender boundaries and the pure lunacy Jim Broadbent provides as a vanity book publisher.
Juan of the Dead ““ Oh my God, this is the BEST dark comedy zombie movie since “Shaun of the Dead”. It is a foreign film and for some that is a deterrent. To that I say, “GROW UP!” You have a choice of subtitles (which I prefer) or dubbed. This slacker Cuban crisis is so unique and outlandish you’ll be screaming at the screen and laughing at the same time. Juan is a 40 year-old slacker who begins to suspect that the rioting in the streets is not just ordinary dissidents who support the evil that America is trying to infect his country with as the Cuban government reports. With a handful of low-lifes, Juan finally makes a decision that will profoundly affect his life as well as others in his community”¦start a business exterminating other people’s flesh-eating loved ones.
Absentia ““ This is by far the eeriest of my list of ten. This film is probably the closest to a great H.P. Lovecraft inspired story. For those not in the know, “Absentia” is Latin for “in the absence of (someone indicated)”. In this strange case, it’s regarding a new husband who suddenly disappears. After 7 painful years his wife, now pregnant and trying to move on with her life, has her troubled sister visit to help her cope as she declares her husband’s passing via “dead in absentia”. She battles with her visions of the dead husband visiting from beyond while her sister becomes obsessed with an ominous tunnel near the house, a pathway from the neighborhood to the park (or is it just that). Freaky sounds, things that go bump in the night and unnerving shadows make this picture perfect for late night viewing.
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Your filmography shows your last work coming in 2001. What brought you back 10 years later to do this project and how were you keeping your skills sharp in this time?
CS: The biggest challenge on this set feels like it was the elements. Did the snow or cold present any interesting obstacles?
Thanks to the enormous success of the recent movies about the character, Marvel’s Spider-Man has become more popular than ever. Sam Raimi directed the first three live action Spider-Man films, starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker alias Spider-Man, all of which I’ve reviewed in past installments of “Comics in Context.” Raimi, Maguire, and the rest of the original cast have left the series, and Columbia Pictures and Marvel have now “rebooted” the film series, starting it over from Spider-Man’s origin, in this year’s new film The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by the appropriately named Marc Webb, with Andrew Garfield taking over the role of Peter Parker. And Mr. Webb and his collaborators are taking a strikingly different approach to the Spider-Man saga than Mr. Raimi did, including a focus on Peter Parker’s fathers, both real and figurative. 
There is something wonderful about those who go out their way to make their experience at this week’s San Diego Comic-Con memorable. From the hours that fans put in to get their costume just right, the planning some geeks will do in order to get the ultra exclusive from brand X that scores of fellow basement dwellers also covet, to the meticulous schedule jiggering (present company included) in order to account for every moment of the day so as not to waste a single second. It’s this kind of thought and effort that make coming back every year to the land of the strange smell so wonderful. As the event has become so ginormous and almost unwieldily, event planners have taken it upon themselves to think outside of the four walls of the convention center.
CS: Hey, sir, how are you doing?
They bring everybody down there but I just kinda felt if I was going do to panels, what would I do? And, how would I want to do it differently? And then I started to think about ““ every time I’ve been down to Comic-Con there’s all these brown coats running around. And I’m like ““ there are still so many Firefly fans still ““ that still dress up but there’s never going to be another panel for it. Retro-panels rarely happen. So I called up Fillian who is a buddy of mine and asked if he would be interested in doing a Firefly panel. Get the cast back together ““ a small intimate panel. That was the first panel I thought of. He said, dude that’s a great idea ““ that would be so much fun. He’s going to be hanging out at the HQ basically all weekend long just to hang out ““ just to hang out with fans or have a drink or play video games. He and I are very kindred spirits in that regard. And so excited that Comic-Con is having a 10 year reunion for them. That’s really awesome. But anyway, that’s the little things that kept swirling through my head.
LEVI: I gotta say that most of the things that we felt like needed to be polished were very kind of venue contingent and by that I mean one of the things we had issues with last year was fire code for example. There were only so many people we could fit into any particular room in the location we were at last year. And that was just because it was kind of an older building and had very few entrances and exits and they were small. So when it came to the party or it came to having a lot of people at the panel and signing, and games and stuff, that was difficult. All the things that you think about or things you don’t think about like how do we do this. Every venue has it’s challenges. The venue we’re in now poses a challenge but that’s something you gladly take on. How do we roll our sleeves up and solve this puzzle and I think we’ve done that pretty well. I’m trying to think of other things. Honestly I think it was all just little logistical things that weren’t really too much of a worry then and are not too much of a worry now. We’re spacing our panels out a little more just to give ourselves some breathing room. Last year it was one audience was getting up to go into the signing room while we were loading another one in – we just felt a little frazzled. Because everyone that’s coming in to do a panel is volunteering their time and they are busy. They are running to other panels at Comic-Con or doing other appearances with other publications and stuff and parties.
I want to feel like people thought of somebody. And not only did they think about the people coming in, but they are also thinking more globally and thinking about ““ like in my case ““ Operation Smile is my charity. I am an ambassador for it, proudly, and have been for years and will continue to be. It struck a chord with me that is incredibly deep and personal. I’ve never had a cleft lip or pallet or oral deformation but I’ve had friends growing up with cleft lips and pallets. And the effect that that has on a child growing up ““ in a lot of third world countries they are considered cursed. They are considered damned. I can’t even imagine. It was one day I was driving around town and I felt like God just put it in my face. I saw six billboard and six commercials in two days. And I’d seen them before but all of a sudden it dawned on me that I make a living and a big part because I have a good smile. I have a good dentist and good orthodontist. I’ve got a good smile. But what if I didn’t? What if my teeth were all mangled? Or slightly mangled? That would have a huge impact on me as an actor. Everyone knows that Hollywood is a physical beautiful place or whatever. And it just sort of hit me that not only do I get to have a normal life, even if I couldn’t be a working actor, what if I was in this kids shoes. This child is a human being, has a heart and a soul and because of some weird birth defect, they are shunned and have no friends and being able to get medical assistance to them in the middle of nowhere. Stories that I’ve heard of families trekking hundreds of miles with their kid on their back so they could get in line to get their child an operation and having been turned away because there were too many people there already and they trek hundreds of miles back and wait for the next one to come around.
The problem with Marc Webb’s reboot of a comic property that needed a new lease on its comic book shelf life isn’t that it’s somehow unfaithful to the web head’s past. Rather, Andrew Garfield is placed in a role that just doesn’t have the much of a spark. Sure, the love interest that Peter has with Gwen Stacy flirts with some genuine heat the two seem pushed together way too fast, too soon, and without so much of that certain bit of romance that we felt between he and Mary Jane in previous films.
Make no mistake, this is a B movie. C movie, more like it.
I’ve been gone for awhile if you have not noticed. Not physically but mentally, although I would prefer to be somewhere cooler where small mammals are not threatened to explode with contact to the intense morning heat that greets the Phoenix residents on a daily basis. I finally figured out after eight years why the city was anointed with such a name; survive the fire and you may rise above it all. In the dead heat of this summer people either flee the state (they’re called “snowbirds,” flocking to cooler destinations), seek refuge hibernating in their air conditioned homes (if not working at their jobs), wolfing meal after meal at Golden Corral (where ““ if one listens very carefully ““ you can hear the faint musings of satisfied cattle among the mostly portly patrons) or converge to the nearest multiplex subjecting one’s self to the least expensive form of what we’ve been told is entertainment.
Have you ever read a story or watched a movie that you thought was going in one direction and then went in an entirely different one? Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is a prime example, when you first see it. But I’m not just talking about a switch in the direction of the narrative, but a shift in what the story seems to be about thematically. What if you think that the story is expressing one point of view and then you realize that it is actually saying something quite different? In other words, what if you, as a member of the audience, think that the story means something different than what the creator seemed to intend? I will avoid the overused word “deconstruction” here, but this is what I am about to do to the new animated feature film from Disney and Pixar: Brave, from a story by Brenda Chapman, the film’s direction is credited to both Chapman and Mark Andrews. And as always, I am putting you on spoiler alert: in critiquing the film, I am going to write about what happens in this story from beginning to end.
I went to an opening day showing of director Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows movie, starring Johnny Depp as its vampire protagonist Barnabas Collins, with trepidation. The film is based on the legendary daytime serial that was created by the late producer Dan Curtis, and ran on ABC from 1966 into 1971, attracting an immense audience, including myself. It was a modern, ongoing version of Gothic melodrama, incorporating nearly every element of classic horror and Gothic romance, and gripped the imaginations of young Baby Boomers like myself. (It has also been a source for comics adaptations, from Ken Bald’s 1970s newspaper strip to Dynamite Entertainment’s recent comic book series, which is why it fits in “Comics in Context.”) But the trailers and commercials for the movie appalled many of the show’s admirers, seemingly indicating that Burton and his collaborators had turned Dark Shadows into a heavy-handed farce, set to a 1970s rock score. In interviews Burton, Depp, and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith expressed bafflement at the negative reaction, saying they did treat the saga of Barnabas Collins seriously, but Burton and Grahame-Smith also ominously spoke about emphasizing the “weirdness” of the show. Then Warners put Danny Elfman’s score for the film online, and it was what I had hoped for: grand and powerful music for a Gothic drama on an operatic scale, with nice momentary homages to Robert Cobert’s score for the original TV series.
DALLAS HALLAM: Hi, Christopher, I’m Dallas Hallam.
HALLAM: I actually met Suziey while casting my ill-fated projected that fell apart. She wasn’t right for that project so I didn’t cast her but she was a nice person. And I remember when I told her she didn’t get the part she vehemently told me I was wrong and that she was the right person for it. She had such gusto and she was so terrific ““ she had such a spark and was so right for this thing I just said, you don’t have to cast the lead, I got her. I said Pat and I share the same brain and he just trusted me and she was totally right. Everbody else just came once we started making the film. Suziey had to have a job and it turns out she worked for a coffee shop and we could shoot there at night so now her character works at a coffee shop.
Here’s one of the advantages of living in New York City. On the last Saturday in April, shortly after my birthday, I attended the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s annual Art Fest, celebrating independent and small press comics. Then I headed down to the Tribeca Film Festival to watch the red carpet entrances for its closing night gala: a screening of Disney/Marvel’s new movie The Avengers, directed and scripted by Joss Whedon. Many times crowds in New York are so big that I have gotten shut out of events. Take this year’s Free Comic Book Day, for example. By the time I arrived in Manhattan in the afternoon, major comics stores were out of copies of most of the free comics, which had already been snapped up by fans who waited in line in the morning. But there were fewer people than I expected at the sight of The Avengers screening, and I arrived early enough to get a good place to stand, and sighted Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), and even Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man). 
The Silver Age of the 1960s brought an explosion of creativity in the superhero genre that has not been equaled in it since; now, a half-century later the Marvel characters created during that decade are now conquering movie screens. But the Marvel revolution was only one aspect of the change in American comics in the 1960s, which also launched the underground comix movement which evolved into today’s alternative comics and graphic novels. And what happened in comics is only one aspect of the major revolution across popular and political and sexual culture that took place during the 1960s. I don’t think there has been as seismic a generational shift since. Just look at all the middle-aged people using computers and smartphones and social networking; the Boomers have proved to be adept at adopting new cultural developments.
Once again, far too many good films to see and so little time. That is including the documentaries, World Cinema and short films provided. I am hoping to follow up with some of them in the next couple of weeks. As for the festival itself; stars were in attendance starting with Academy Award winning actress, Marcia Gay Harden present for a tribute to her body of work. Michael Biehn (Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss) introduced his directorial debut with “The Victim”. Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down) popped in to greet everybody with his new film “Slumber Party Slaughter” and the festival had a host of filmmakers introducing their films as well.
Best Documentary was whisked away by “We Run Sh*t”. Directors, Michael Rogers and Scott Storm (star of last year’s “Official Rejection”) bring us an insane tale of five veteran event producers who plan a five day rave party in Miami only to have everything and anything go very, very wrong. Sex, drugs and music pervades a lurid tale of corruption in the club scene while platinum selling artists and spoiled celebrities are the nasty spice that no one in their right mind needs when their life is being threatened. Michael Rogers was the videographer throughout the event and the man is to be commended. He practically gave his life for this document of decadence. Scott Storm managed to not only piece it together and make sense of it, but he also provided the witty animation where no cameras were allowed to go.
The winner of Best Picture was a surprise to me, at first. I had seen the trailer of “Shuffle” several times and was not impressed, but upon my first viewing, like many others, I was wowed and reduced to tears. Director Kurt Kuenne gives us the best movie regarding time jumping since George Roy Hill’s interpretation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s, “Slaughterhouse-Five”. Kuenne, cast and crew give us a film that touches our heart and soul and makes us better for it while having us reflect on our own lives. Lovell Milo’s life is shuffling away. He keeps falling asleep and waking up at different ages; 28, 30, 8, 92 and so on. Lovell attempts to get a handle on what is going on and to what purpose. The mystery is suspenseful, funny and endearing with T.J. Thyne giving a very honest and empathetic performance, Paula Rhodes making us so very easily fall in love with her as Grace and the two children Dylan Sprayberry and Elle Labadie who play their young counter parts deliver the joys of youth in spades.
Watch this, buy this. Support horror comedy done right. There is something so fun about a movie that knows what it wants to be and embraces it fully.
This is a movie not for the timid.
Here we are again, at long last. For those who came in late, as they say in The Phantom, I’m Peter Sanderson, and I’ve been writing about comics since I was a contributor to Silver Age DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz’s letter columns in the 1960s. After doing graduate studies at Columbia University, I planned to become a teacher, but got diverted into the comics business, where I researched and helped write the original DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Since then I became Marvel’s first archivist, taught about comics at New York University, helped curate exhibits at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, worked on documentaries about comics, and write and co-wrote a lot of books about comics. There’s even a new one that is just coming out now. Years ago I reviewed the first edition of The Superhero Book, an encyclopedia of superheroes in comics, movies and television, edited by Gina Misiroglu. Years later, Gina invited me to help her revise and update the second edition, and I ended up writing lots of new entries and updating nearly all the rest. You can find the new edition on Amazon here: 
First off let’s have a reality check for all those haters that have not even seen this film. The great Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame) delivered the character of John Carter in his stories of Barsoom (Mars) in September of 1911 in a serialized form within a pulp magazine through July of 1912. In 1917 a hardcover novel was produced entitled, “A Princess of Mars” and subsequently 10 other novels were to follow for the next 45 years. The character of John Carter appeared in 8 out of the 11 novels. Burroughs stories have inspired films from Flash Gordon, Star Wars and all the way to Avatar and even Cowboys & Aliens.
Carter’s introduction to the gravity of the new world is enjoyable and becomes increasingly fun as he realizes he is no longer on Earth when he encounters the unusual life forms. The exchange is very humorous and that is where director Andrew Stanton and his cast shine. It brings back the joys of watching Han Solo from “Star Wars”. The subtle tongue-in-cheek humor pervades and makes our journey all the more enjoyable. John Carter is once again urged to join another war, but he is more inclined to save himself until he meets up with the princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris. Lynn Collins is fetching as the princess, poised, classy and sassy all at the same time.
Documentaries like this just remind me how much older I’m getting every day.
1.
7.
Ray Schillaci: Congratulations on your release date. For the benefit of all those other independent filmmakers out there; it’s been nearly a year since the Phoenix Film Festival, what has happened since then to get where you are now?
DILLEY: Yea. I know why it’s done and all that stuff and for a lot of films it works, you know quite effectively. But I’d rather watch a movie that had real people than characters and that’s “Suspicion”.
DILLEY: Yeah, I know. So, my really good friend, Alex McCullough, helped me produce the film and Alex knew Carlos. They had worked on a couple of projects before and he was like, would you mind if this person auditioned? I said, no problem, absolutely. He came in for the open casting call and he read it and I looked at the tapes and I wasn’t sold. I talked to Alex and he was like, what do you mean? And, I told him I didn’t know. It seemed like he played it too nice and I told him to record himself again and let me see it. The second tape he sent in, he essentially invented that voice, that’s in the movie which is really cool. I was like, YEA. He says in the audition tape that he’s thinking like a Kris Kristofferson kind of thing. I’m watching this tape and it works!
S: Many filmmakers have a tendency to get pigeonholed in a genre, but I think that would be hard to do with you since you’ve shown that you can handle drama as well as the down-and-dirty of a thriller. What do you see on the horizon? Do you have a desire to branch out in other genres?
An emotionally gripping documentary that charts the lives of those living around the Salton Sea area in California this is a film that incorporates the emotional punch of showing a triad of stories that deal with rural poverty and abject isolation with some artistic injections of poetry and dancing. I know, it sounds like a combination that should not work and if it wasn’t anyone else but filmmaker 
If any of you have watched OVER THE TOP you’ll have a good idea of where things are going in this one.
RS: Warren, I have to tell you how excited I am that your film is moving forward. Not enough people see documentaries and it’s probably been since Michael Moore that audiences discovered documentaries can be informative and entertaining at the same time.
RS: I have to tell you, two people for me stood out from the rest. Jeremy was one. What’s happened to him so far?
WARREN: Not that I know of and if that were to happen I think that would be fantastic. We are trying to make the educational rights affordable. We want to allow the school to screen it as many times as it wants for their students, faculty, staff, guests and etc for a onetime fee of $270. They just can’t charge admission, but they could screen it for eternity as long as it’s at the school district. I talked to our investors and relayed that schools have it really tough right now and if we could get any kind of price break on this and I finally got them to agree on a $99 rate.
I don’t get many two-fers around these parts but I was sure going to take advantage of the opportunity after being offered when both PAT HEALY and TI WEST came up for THE INNKEEPERS. Many have probably heard of the film by now either because people have been muttering about how great it is or because of director/writer Ti West’s appeal to the 21st century generation to 
PAT HEALY – INTERVIEW
CS: And he’s able to evoke something that is really sort of natural ““ it’s not forced and obviously something people have seen and really responded to it in House of the Devil. It’s great that we have filmmakers who are making paranormal activity ““ the idea that you don’t need to have a hack and slash to be able to scare people. Talking with Ti and what he was expecting with this movie and how he wanted you to play it, how did you understand it? Obviously there’s a little bit of humor in this movie which is weird to some people coming into a movie where you are expecting to get scared a little bit. How did he approach it and say this is going to be a scary movie but with humor?
For those who are looking for a film that looks like nothing but cheesy goodness here is a description of the film straight from THE SCORPION KING 3’s press release:
And for those needing a little more Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro in their lives, comes a film that feels gritty, raw and all sorts of action packed. Here, then, is a blurb about KILLER ELITE:
If you had told me that the man responsible for some of the darkest and greatest films of our time (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas) was to be the creator of the most endearing family film of the decade, I probably would have scoffed. Put aside your humbug, Martin Scorsese has delivered his magical gift, “Hugo” just in time for the holiday season. The only drawback is the marketing department at Paramount. The trailer gives the film a homogenized family-film look that does not do this wonderful tale justice. To add insult to injury; nothing is said about the use of 3D being the best since “Avatar”.
I had a blast with this film.
Just watch this for Viola Davis.
The new Blu-ray Oscilloscope release of “Rare Exports: a Christmas Tale” may not be everybody’s cup of Christmas tea, but it is definitely the most original and delightfully dark holiday tale since Tim Burton’s, “Nightmare before Christmas”. This is the second fantasy film from Norway (the first being Troll Hunter) that has hit our shores and it has all the earmarks of a cult classic and is even better than its predecessor. Several films of late (Super 8, Cowboys and Aliens) have tried to recapture the magic of Spielberg in the 80s and they have fallen short. Director, Jalmeri Helander delivers that magic in spades with an unwavering “R” rating and has us giggling all the way as to how wrong it is.