FRED Entertainment

September 19, 2006

Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review, Stick It

Filed under: Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:50 am

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Ever since the show Life As We Know It, the very, very short-lived quasi-sequel to Freaks and Geeks, I’ve wondered what would happen to Missy Peregrym. She was the best thing about the show, the perfect American girl, athletic and funny, endearing yet strong.

She appeared briefly in a few series episodes and had a very small part in Catwoman, but she seemed destined for greater things. On the other hand, she is only 24 with plenty of time to build up a career. On the third hand time moves too damn fast and the next thing you know she’ll be 32 and in trouble.

On the surface, then, Stick It seemed like a good choice for her. A lead role in a youth oriented movie that highlighted both her healthy looks and her comedy skills. A healthy cast. A “sports” story that is, consequently, easy to plot and make jokes for (the credited writer is Bring It On scripter Jessica Bendinger, here also making her debut as a director). But unfortunately, the film is kind of weirdly uneven, like a kid’s balloon twisted in strange ways, big in the wrong places and small in the wrong places.

Stick It is set in the world of teen girl’s gymnastics, and in her voice over narration, Haley Graham (Peregrym), has some amusingly acerbic things to say about the sport and the judging. The twist of the movie is that competing gymnasts get together at the concluding tournament to act in solidarity, deliberately scratching so as to elevate the one person they have collectively determined is the best in one of the four events.

This clever plot point is obscured by too much back story about Haley. She starts out as an extreme biker in her Texas home town (the movie doesn’t feel like Texas, by the way), who is arrested for vandalism. Once a promising gymnast, she is remanded by the judge to a gymnastics school the next big town over, run by Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges, who bases his acting process on the nonstop gum chewing). Haley lives with her dad (Jon Gries), and is alienated from her mother. In fact she is alienated from everyone (except her two essentially sexless bike friends, one of whom appears to be gay), recalcitrant, sullen, complainy, and smart-mouthed. And she remains so for what seems like the first hour of this 103 minute movie. The mystery is why? Why is she so dissatisfied with gymnastics and why does she hate everyone? And why did she walk about from competition in “the Worlds” just seconds before going on the floor? When we eventually learn, we still don’t know. The plot point is so obscure and concerns people we have hardly met (a different gymnastics coach who seduced her mother and broke up her family), that it hardly explains anything, and her confession of this trauma to Vickerman seems hardly to have the weight it needs to change her personality in time for the final competition. It was good of the film to try to deviate from the conventions of the sports triumph genre, especially in its various moments of Canadian Film Board visual playfulness.

Stick It arrives in a good widescreen transfer (1.85:1, enhanced), with DD 5.1, French DD 2.0 Stereo, Spanish DD 2.0 Stereo, plus closed captioning, and subtitles in English, Spanish, and French.

There are plenty of supplements. There are two commentaries, the first with director Bendinger and actors Peregrym and Vanessa Lengies, the second with Bendinger, DP Daryn Okada and editor Troy Takaki. The first is fun; the second is technical, with lots of explanations of motivations that make the movie make sense in retrospect; three and a half minutes of “Buttaharas: Outrageous Bloopers and Outtakes”; thirteen minutes of deleted scenes with optional cast or crew commentaries, which explain, among other things, scenes written to explore Bridges’s character, let him improvise, or bring “closure” to certain plot points; “Hard Corps: The Real Gymnasts of Stick It,” a four minute profile of the stunt performers, which features some incredible moves not in the movie proper; “The Elites,” six full gymnastic routines, with optional commentary by the performers, Nastia Liukin and Isabelle Severino, plus three uneven bar routines in slow motion and optional commentaries, by Severino and Annie Gagnon; and two music videos, “We Run This” by Missy Elliott and Jeannie Ortega’s “Crowded.” Finally there are trailers for other Disney product.

Touchstone’s disc of Stick It hit the street on Tuesday, September 19th, retailing for $29.95.

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Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review, Taps

Filed under: Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:44 am

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Taps could just as easily been called Toy Soldiers – its cast of future sitcom regulars, stars, superstars, all look tiny and shiny and new. When it was released in 1981, however, it was a star vehicle for Timothy Hutton, Hollywood royalty (his father was the sentimental favorite Brian Hutton) recently anointed with an Oscar forÂ Ordinary People. Little did anyone realize that the rest of the cast, which included Sean Penn in his first film (he’d been in plays and some TV episodes and here sounds a lot like his late brother Chris), Tom Cruise in his second film (after having been “discovered” by Franco Zeffirelli forÂ Endless Love), as well as Giancarlo Esposito and Evan Handler, was quietly power-packed with hungry actors ready for attention.

Cruise, it turns out, was just an extra – but so impressed director Harold Becker that he elevated Cruise to a third major part, at the expense of a friend of his who already had the role. But casting, if anything, is the key to Becker’s career.

Becker’s identity is so aligned with the world of Joseph Wambaugh that it is easy to miss the truly defining characteristic of his career: whether by accident or design, Becker was there at the creation for many actors who went on to at least some measure of stardom. The list of future names peeking around the scenery of his movies is impressive: Victoria Tennent in the earlyÂ Ragman’s Daughter; James Woods, Ted Danson, and Christopher Lloyd inÂ Onion Field; Michael Dudikoff inÂ The Black Marble; Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga, Forest Whitaker (and Madonna) inÂ Vision Quest; Ellen Barkin and John Goodman inÂ Sea of Love.

Becker brings an almost documentary quality to some of his films, but the attempt at kitchen sink subject matter inÂ Daughter and strictÂ Wrong Man-style realism ofÂ Onion is not carried through to the the often preposterous tales he tells in later films. He tends to make dark, grainy works, almost black and white but happening, due to the exigencies of commercial cinema, to be in color. He seems drawn loosely to tales of men in crisis; young or old, his heroes are poised at some crucial moment of transition that will change the rest of their lives.

That few of these movies were star making vehicles in and of themselves suggests that Becker is not tapped into the Zeitgeist and that the flaw of his career is one he shares with so many other directors – absorption of a once original personality (as seen inÂ Daughter) into the generally commercial and impersonal projects Hollywood offers and proffers. If he is more a casting director than a director, this means simply that actors love him (though he tends to work with them once and no further), and as such he is dependent on good, clever screenplays, such as the brilliant and underratedÂ Malice, credited to Aaron Sorkin and Jonas McCord, and the initally gripping but ultimately disappointingÂ City Hall, credited to Ken Lipper and Paul Schrader. When Becker has neither the cast nor the script, you get indifferent paint by numbers works such asÂ Mercury Rising.

What’s fascinating about seeingÂ Taps again after so long is how shockingly inert it is “¦ nothing happens in it. Hutton, as Cadet Major Brian Moreland, takes over his military school at the summer break in response to its imminent closure. The major reason is that the board of directors have deemed the property more suitable for condos. The immediate reason is that the school’s leader, General Harlan Bache (George C. Scott in the kind of Patton-esque role he tends to sleepwalk through), has been arrested for shooting a “townie” in a ludicrously and agonizingly staged incident during the school’s version of prom night. The school itself is multidimensional, training kids and near adults, elite tactical forces, horse soldiers, and other types.

In the script credited to Robert Mark Kamen, Darryl Ponicsan, and James Lineberger for the “adaptation”), derived from the novelÂ Father Sky by Devery Freeman, Scott is invited to evoke a kinder, gentler, more elegiac Patton, who also makes an in-joke crack that allude to other earlier roles, such asÂ Gen. ‘Buck’ Turgidson inÂ Dr. Strangelove. But that is about as “funny” as the movie gets. The rest of the film is as somber and implacable as Bache himself. Under Moreland’s leadership the boys turn the school into a fortress, and much attention is paid to the intricacies of their moods and internecine tensions. Action threatens. A tank bearing a flood light rumbles up to the school gate in the dead of night and then – stops. Someone else gets severely burned. In the end everyone who experiences self doubt cries and a few kids are killed. Penn’s character represents the rebellious youth who is competent at what he does but usually takes the moral high ground, while Cruise’s is the gung ho guy who likes shooting people, a figure not all that distant from most of the militaristic or governmentally sponsored heroes he would play later.

When it was first released at the dawn of the Reagan eraÂ Taps was lumped with other filmsÂ – Â Raiders,Â Stripes,Â An Officer and a Gentleman – that seemed to evoke a renewed feeling for militarism, honor, standards, and American exceptionalism. However, the main problem withÂ TapsÂ is that as you watch you don’t know what the film is really about. Is it critical of the kids? Or sympathetic toward their ambition? Is the film critical of society? Of militarism? Of bad parenting? LikeÂ Patton itself, it is an “incoherent text” that appeals to viewers at both extremes of the political spectrum. Such a cunningly “incoherent” presentation is probably the only truly “Reaganite” thing about the film,

The Fox disc, the second iteration of the film on DVD here in a special edition, comes with an occasionally muddy looking widescreen (1.85:1 enhanced) transfer with occasional artifacts, and adequate sound selections (beginning with DD 4.0). Supplements include an audio commentary track by Becker that covers now-familiar ground, several TV spots, and two retrospective makings of, “Sounding the Call to Arms: Mobilizing the Taps Generation” with lots of clips from the film plus new interview bits with the producer, with Becker, with Hutton, and with co-star Ronny Cox, and “The Bugler’s Cry: The Origins of Playing Taps,” which is what it sounds like, although taps the melody has only a tangential importance to the theme or meaning of the film, just enough to provide a “label”-like title, popular at the time, and in fact, still a curse upon movies.

Taps hit the street on September 12th, retailing for $19.95.

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September 18, 2006

Scrubs Blog: My Dog Trouble

Filed under: Production Blogs,Quickcasts,Scrubs Blog — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:22 pm

VIDEO BLOG #58: “My Dog Trouble” ““
What does a production staff do with one 160-lb. dog on the third floor who needs to go home, but the elevator is down and the dog is terrified of the three flights of stairs? Find out in this week’s video blog…

Download Scrubs Video Blog #58:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

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Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 21 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 9 MB)

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Widge Goes Off #12: Night of the Pancakes From Mars!

Filed under: Widge Goes Off — widge @ 5:20 am

Welcome back, my five listeners. We are going to set the controls for the heart of the sun, with plenty of side trips to stop for pizza.

[CONTENT WARNING] This podcast contains foul language and a host who can’t stop saying “Um” no matter how many times he shocks himself with a car battery.

DOWNLOAD: mp3 Format (39.2 MB)

As for your Monday Morning Quarterbacking session, I’m doing that in the podcast now. Only fair to those listeners in drivetime. Find the full skinnee at Box Office Mojo.

Cory Doctorow’s commentary on Amazon Unbox.

Jeff Jarvis’ response to Universal Music on the YouTube situation.

Cory Doctorow’s commentary on copyright. Found via Boing Boing.

Top Ten Things That Will Happen to TV and Newspapers.

The whistleblower video and the the update.

Special thanks to Exit Mindbomb for letting me use “Godzilla Will Rule You” from their album Happy Accident for my new WGO music. Check them out on MySpace here and I tried to link up as many songs as I could here.

Widgett Walls is the chief cook and bottle washer for Needcoffee.com. He’s also the author of Mystics on the Road to Vanishing Point and Magnificent Desolation. His personal blog is at OneTusk.com, which he updates when he feels like it. He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. He hardly ever sleeps.

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Spook’d #95: Extreme Lair Makeover – Your Video Update

Filed under: Spook'd — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:00 am

by Jeffery Stevenson and Seth Damoose with colors by Anthony Lee

Larger sized comic | ARCHIVES | OLDER ARCHIVES

To see Spook’d host Alastor’s blogging silliness and more fun Spook’d stuff,visit the Spook’d Web site!

Check out the preview to…

E-MAIL WRITER | ABOUT JEFF | ABOUT SETH | SPOOK’D BLOG | SPOOK’D FORUM | ARCHIVES | OLDER ARCHIVES

Disclaimer: All material in Spook’d is fictitious and intended solely for the purpose of entertainment. Names are fabricated and any similarity to real people or places is purely coincidental except in those cases where public figures are being satirized.

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September 16, 2006

Game On! 9-16-2006

Filed under: Game On! — admin @ 4:02 am

Well, as the weeks have shown, we’ve been going through a bit of a slump with games, release wise. That isn’t to say there haven’t been some good things released, just that they’ve been fewer than most. But now that we’re entering the holiday months, things are going to start shaping up with A-list titles and big holiday blockbusters. In fact, just this week Nintendo made the official announcement that it’s Wii system will be released on November 19th, just TWO days after the release of the PS3, for a markedly lower price. As they say in wrestling “it’s on, brother”. With Sony delaying the launch of their system in Europe until 2007 and cutting the US shipment from 400,000 units to roughly 100,000 (not to mention the price difference between Sony’s $600 “computer” and the $250 for Nintendo’s “Revolutionary” system) it looks to be a console war with an already decided victor. And Microsoft, who arrived early to the game? They’re dropped arguably their most anticipated game for 360 (other than HALO 3) just FIVE days prior to PS3″¦GEARS OF WAR. A game versus a system? Oh yeah, that’s balls.

Now, in the meantime, we’re taking a look on some more recently released titles to keep you busy “˜til those blockbusters come a knocking, as well as a feature film that just about everyone who reads this column (or hell, anything else on this site) can relate to.

HEY, YOU GOT YOUR LEGO IN MY STAR WARS!

Once again those two great tastes that taste great together have joined forces to emulate the three Star Wars movies that don’t suck (in block form) with LEGO STAR WARS II: THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY, released this past week on every console that’s currently available. Taking the familiar groundwork from the previous game and kicking into hyperdrive, this new title fixes many of the problems of the first game, while adding a new flash and fun to keep things fresh.

First and foremost, the vehicle stages are greatly improved, not only allowing for more freedom of movement and greater control, but also allowing for 2-player co-op with those missions to not suck. From X-wings to the Falcon itself, every ship flies well and, despite some loop-de-loop hiccups, is pretty fun to do. Also, scattered around other land-based missions are other vehicles, such as land speeders, AT-ATs, or even dewbacks”¦and many of them you assemble before riding. LEGO building is no longer restricted to the Jedi’s and their forces powers, now everyone can pick up a few bricks and build with ease.

Also, the selection of characters can be increased for most of the versions, simply by already having a save game from the previous title on your hard drive or memory card. Not only that, but you can now also swap parts between characters to make wholly new characters; for example, taking the head of a Stormtrooper and placing it on Slave Leia’s torso, with Darth Maul’s hood and cape”¦yeah, it’s crazy, and doesn’t really add abilities to the gameplay, but it’s a kooky little fun feature.

Completing certain goals within the levels unlocks a Gold LEGO Brick, such as collecting enough LEGO bits to fill the bar to TRUE JEDI status, or finding all the LEGO kits in a mission. Get enough Gold Bricks per episode to unlock bonus goals, such as a Super Story Mode (where you have to beat all the chapters in an episode within a set time limit) or special character or mini kit modes (where collecting a certain number of LEGO bits within a time frame is your goal). Also returning is the Free Play mode, where you can return to levels already beaten to unlock parts of the stages that you had to pass previous in Story Mode simply by not having the proper character until later. This once again greatly increases the replay value, as well as satisfies those hardcore completists out there.

The LEGO idea is a great way to redo the Star Wars franchise in game without having to rehash the same old gameplay ideas that have been done to death already. It’s cute, it’s funny, and gamers of any age can play and enjoy it. It would be awesome if they did it with other franchises as well, such as Spider-man or Harry Potter, since there’s already LEGO versions of those characters in toy form. Ah, if only”¦

One Gamer’s Opinion:

BREAK ME OFF A PIECE OF THAT

For the “anime game of the week” this week, we’re looking at ONE PIECE: GRAND ADVENTURE, a sequel to last year” excellent ONE PIECE: GRAND BATTLE, available for both PS2 and Gamecube. Honestly, not much has changed between the two games, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With great control, a good sense of speed and combat, and combos galore, this new title actually adds value with its new game modes, while still retaining all the fun of the original.

For those not familiar with the story of ONE PIECE, a brief refresher. Monkey D. Luffy, a young boy, has aspirations of being a pirate. Not just any pirate, but king of the pirates. To achieve this goal he’s gathering up the top pirates in the land and adding them to his Straw Hat crew in search of the fabled One Piece, the legendary treasure of the former King of the Pirates. To make matters sillier, Luffy has eaten from the Gum-Gum fruit, making his body stretch and bend like taffy. In fact, many pirates have eaten strange fruit to make their bodies react in odd ways, and that’s what makes this fighting game so much fun. Each character has their own unique attributes and all are used well in battles.

The game’s main battle mode is set up kind of like POWER STONE; a 3D battle environment with many item pick ups that can be used to attack or power up, and colorful fast-paced attacks and combos galore. Many of the combatants from the previous game return, as well as a few others with more unlocked in the game’s secondary Adventure mode. Here, you sail around to different locations and recruit members for your ship (or just partake in random battles with certain set goals for each one) in your quest for the treasure and glory. There are many different quests as you travel, and multiple character storylines to take through this mode as well. While the gameplay here works as a basic “lite” version of the main versus mode, it’s still pretty cool and helps advance the story (such as it is).

The previous ONE PIECE game was pretty good, even for an anime game, and its cell-shaded graphics were bright and vibrant, though didn’t quite look like the show. That’s not really a bad thing, as they did the job well, and are repeated here. The audio as well is decent, capturing enough of the character nuances without being overly annoying. Fans of the show will definitely have much to enjoy here, as the list of playable characters is a fairly large one, spanning much of the series.

Good battles, fun combos and wacky characters abound in this game, and I couldn’t be happier. POWER STONE is a great game to emulate, and this title does it well, while still keeping the gameplay fresh and fun, as well as adhering to the show’s characters and story. Definitely a good time.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

EVERY ROSE HAS IT’S THORN

Finally this week we have RULE OF ROSE, a twisted survival horror-esque game for PS2 full of crazy, creepy children, imps, and a dog named Brown. Set in the early 1930s, you play and orphaned girl named Jennifer who comes to a strange orphanage, only to be abused and mistreated by The Aristocrats of the Rose, a group of girls who filled out the “vindictive” and “creepy” boxes on their applications WAY too fully. With your faithful pooch by your side you’ll collect clues and give offerings to the Aristocrats in order to keep them happy and, essentially, keep them from killing you.

Many of you out there who follow the survival horror genre may recognize this game as being similar to another title, HAUNTING GROUND, which was released last year. It too featured a young girl trapped in a big house with a canine companion. This time, however, the game isn’t nearly as scary as that title. Sure, there are weird imp creatures rather than just scary people, but the imps aren’t really even scary”¦just weird. What makes them even less scary is the fact that you really don’t even need to fight them. Most battles you can just run past them, never needing for confrontations save for the odd boss battle.

More so, the game is more about atmosphere than scares, and while the creepy girl aspect is in full effect, this isn’t a title that playing in the dark with the sound up will enhance. Sure, the cut scenes are beautifully rendered, the music moody and appropriate, and the puzzles are bizarre and intricate, but the game just seems to be bizarre just to be bizarre. The strange Aristocracy of the girls and their requests for items to stave off their seeming harmless bloodlust (“do what we say”¦or we’ll kill you!”) just ends up being creepy, but not outright horrifying. They really don’t act as viscous as they claim they will, and nothing really pans out to terror, just hints of what could be. Basically, the game wants to be SILENT HILL when it grows up”¦full of atmosphere, but not really sure of what to do with it.

So, basically what it boils down to is a pretty looking, creepy feeling fetch quest without that impending sense of doom so vital to the genre. It does weird well, but little else. Combat isn’t really clunky, but it isn’t really needed either, and having the dog sniff out clues has it’s troubles with the pooch getting stuck behind items or forgetting what he’s looking for. All in all, it’s a good attempt, but tries to play it safe more than going for the all out freak factor.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

DVD REVIEW ““ GAMERS

For those of you out there who still game and role play on table tops as opposed to (or including with) consoles, then there finally is a movie for you. Hell, it’s a movie for anyone with an inner (or outer) geek. GAMERS takes the mocumentary format and applies it to five uber nerds as they strive for a world record of 23 consecutive years of playing the RPG “Demons, Nymphs and Dragons” (cleverly abbreviated as DND”¦gee, I wonder) and profiles each of the players individually, as well as in the game.

The movie is sharp and witty, and sort of slams SPINAL TAP into OFFICE SPACE, with an episode of FAMILY GUY stuck in the middle. Shot documentary style, but featuring flash backs to previous year’s events, the movie’s chronicling of the gamers in question is full of left of center humor and improv galore. While many of the main actors may not strike a chord when you hear their names (though you’re sure to have seen many of them on prime time TV in small roles”¦hell, one of them even was asked to be a company member of a local theater of mine) it does have it’s fair share of stars in cameos. John Heard (Home Alone) and Beverly D’Angelo (the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies) play mother and father to Gordon, a poor cable access cameraman who still lives at home with his freaky swinger parents. William Katt (best known for the classic THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO) plays the boss of lame gamer Reese, who laments the loss of his favorite character Farrah to “Dungeon Lord” Kevin. Even Kelly LeBrock plays the hot mom of a high school love, and each actor revels in the absurdity of the subject matter and their off beat characters. To hear John Heard talking about getting his freak on, or William Katt opining about the bliss of the Franchise mode in the newest madden football game is priceless alone.

Written and directed with ease and flair by newcomer Christopher Folino, the movie has garnered such awards as “Best Indie Film” from Indie Film Nation and rave reviews across the internet and print (even from former MPS EIC Chris Ryall over at www.comics101.com). The scene breakdowns and interviews with each character brings out their own quirks and drives well, and each has their own bizarre moments to shine. The one thing that kind of takes you out of the documentary style of the film is the flashbacks, but honestly, you’re not going to mind, as these moments offer some of the best laughs in the entire flick.

If you’re an old school role player, know someone who is, or are just looking for that perfect film that makes fun of what you love while still holding it up to the light as a legitimate pastime, GAMERS is your HOLY GRAIL (in more ways than one). Check out all the info over at www.buygamers.com, and you can even look for it in the October issue of Previews magazine and order it at your local comic shop for this November. The perfect holiday gift for your RPG fan.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

Alright. I’m out folks. Next week, more good stuff, including a VIDEO GAMES 101 look at the SPY HUNTER series. “˜Til next time, Game On!

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September 15, 2006

Addicted To Bad: Love’s Labor Day Lost

Filed under: Addicted to Bad — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:57 am

Everyone knows that holidays and movies go together like monkeys and tuxedos, and yet, year after year, we see the same three or four of them on screen, as though those were the only ones worth mentioning. Is Halloween the only scary holiday? Did they forget Valentine’s Day? Tax day? What about a horror movie set on President’s Day, when all of the mattress and car salesmen come out of their caves to make loud, annoying commercials and feed on unsuspecting consumers?

Admittedly, when Hollywood does try to mix things up, it’s rarely pretty. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is, for all intents and purposes, basically MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET with a few more axe murders (although barely half as many as in the original MIRACLE book), but NIGHT has so far failed to make it onto the schedule even half as much as the feel-good “classic” does. Even worse, IT’S SECRETARY’S DAY, CHARLIE BROWN hardly ever gets played anymore, and the less said about BENJI’S TAX DAY ADVENTURE the better.

Still, hard as it may be to believe, there have been worse:

A FINE MOVING PHOTOPLAY OF LADIES ENJOUYING AN OUT-OF-DOORS PICK-NICK LUNCHEOUN ON THE DAY OF LABOURS (1892): Perhaps the earliest known “holiday” film in existence, this was merely one of Edison’s early cheapies, a depiction of several women eating lunch on Labor Day, which, at the time, actually honored America’s butlers. The film had a short run before being withdrawn over a scandalous glimpse of one of the ladies’ exposed philtrum. Also, in one frame, it was claimed that you could see the silhouette of a child who had died on the site years ago. Later, this was proven to be a cardboard cut-out of President McKinley.

LAUREL & HARDY’S FATHER’S DAY FRACAS (1936): Following a bitter feud, the duo’s legendary producer, Hal Roach, attempted to assert ownership of the characters with this misguided story in which neither Laurel nor Hardy actually appear. Instead, their elderly “fathers” accidentally kidnap Pope Pius XI. The film was never released. Interestingly, this marks the one time that the word “Fracas” was used in a movie title that wasn’t gay porn.

THE ROAD TO PUNXSUTAWNEY (1947): The only Hope and Crosby “road” movie to take place domestically, the film tells the story of two escaped convicts who systematically murder and then dismember dozens of people in a PCP-fueled rampage as they attempt to make it to Pennsylvania for the annual Groundhog Day festival. Features Crosby’s chart-topping toe-tapper “Where’s My Damn Money, Bitch?”

MEMORIAL DAY VACATION (1995): This ABC “Movie of the Week” starred C. Thomas Howell as Clark, and depicted the Griswold’s trip to Iwo Jima. The film culminates with Audrey being sold into white slavery while Clark is thrown in a Singapore prison for fondling the prime minister. Widely considered the second least funny of the VACATION films.

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD (1998): Although it is never mentioned on screen or the script, and has never been acknowledged by Carrot Top or anyone else associated with the production, the film takes place on Arbor Day. Anyone who says differently is lying, and a communist. And sells crack to infants.

BILLY BOB THORNTON EXPLAINS DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME (2002): Thornton, a well-known time enthusiast, produced, wrote, directed, edited, and catered this feature-length documentary on the benefits of Daylight Savings Time, which, according to the actor, include “improved Japanese-American relations, higher sperm counts in many species of toad, better tasting coffee, and an overall decrease in the number of reported zombies.”

NICK AND JESSICA’S VALENTINE’S ADVENTURE (unproduced): Originally planned to be a modern-day remake of MY FAIR LADY, the script was rewritten several times at the insistence of the soon-to-be-divorced Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. Jessica insisted that Nick’s character, Rick, change from a promising architect to a syphilis-ridden mental patient. The next draft saw Jessica’s character, Cathy, violently die in a flaming bus crash in the first two pages, never to appear again. After another rewrite, Nick’s character, now called “Rancid Bag of Vomit,” confesses on national television that he is into unspeakable sex acts, many of which involve lighting small animals on fire. He spends the rest of the film being savagely beaten. Subsequent drafts see representations of acts that could never be depicted on screen. The project is currently being developed as a vehicle for Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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Melonpool Quickcast #13: Blank Label Comics

Filed under: Melonpool Quickcast — admin @ 5:55 am

-By Steve Troop

Based on Steve Troop’s classic webcomic of the same name, the Melonpool Quickcast features puppet versions of Troop’s alien cast, who are desperately trying to make heads or tails out of Earth culture.

Mayberry and Ralph match wits with Blank Label Comics cartoonists Kristofer Straub (Starslip Crisis), Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary), David Willis (Shortpacked) and Steve Tripp — er — Troop (Melonpool).

Don’t forget to comment on this and other Melonpool Quickcasts over at the official Melonpool Quickcast Forum!

Join the Melonpool crew on MYSPACE!

Melonpool Quickcast #13: Blank Label Comics:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 20 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 9 MB)

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Nocturnal Admissions: Movie Review, Hollywoodland and The Black Dahlia

Filed under: Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:38 am

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Los Angeles, the past, old mysterious crimes still “unsolved.” Would these be the obsessions of movie makers if they didn’t all live for the most part in Los Angeles? If the movie industry had settled in, say, Wisconsin, would films be filled with snow,Â reindeer, and Ed Gein? Or perhaps San Francisco, with its fog, beatniks, and alternative sexualities? Of Miami: lizards, go fast boats, and Cuba as a dream – nightmare?

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The other film this year about Superman, as others have pointed out, isÂ Â Hollywoodland. Directed by Allen Coulter from a script by Paul Bernbaum, it tells, as is well known, two stories simultaneously, that of the late career of George Reeves – minor actor who lucked into the syndicated role of Superman on TV, a career sustained by his affair with Toni Mannix, wife of the then head of MGM, and which ended with a mysterious suicide – coupled with the tale of a fictional sleazy private investigator, who starts out cynical and mercenary but who comes to admire, identify with, and respect the subject of his inquiries (like James Stewart inÂ Call Northside 777 and Jack Nicholson inÂ Chinatown).

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The connection to Chinatown is almost explicit. Many of the music cues evoke Jerry Goldsmith’s score for that movie, Diane Lane as Toni has a Faye Dunaway look and sound, there is a crucial fight between a man and a woman in a bungalow not unlike the famous one from the earlier film, and there is even a little crux borrowed from it, in this case where the PI, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), after a brutal interlude, finally takes a moment to rest “¦ and then the phone rings, mirroring a similar scene in Chinatown.

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Unfortunately, the Simo story is boring, and Brody is miscast. He is too lean and cocky to seem like a tough PI; it’s nice that he changes, but his evolution doesn’t seem to have that much to do with Reeves’s case.

On the other hand, the Superman half of the movie is poignant and good natured. Ben Affleck is also miscast, but he does something with the part that isn’t just coasting on charm (Affleck won an acting prize at the Venice film festival), but generally doing three things at once: scheming, searching, but also just enjoying himself.

Because Reeve’s romantic complications and depression are unconnected with
Simo’s existential crisis, I think that most viewers find themselves a little impatient with Simo’s half of the movie (unless they are huge fans of Brody’s). A better story would have been to show a PI as an adult investigating, on his own, the crime that troubled him as a youth by running down all the survivors (though I don’t buy it that little kids all over the nation were burning their Superman costumes in grief and disillusionment) .

IfÂ Hollywoodland harks back toÂ Chinatown for its tone and tropes, The Black Dahlia is unavoidably comparable toÂ L. A. Confidential. But Brian De Palma’s film feels cartoony and unlived in, with its picture perfect settings and its nostalgic wipe dissolves. Many of De Palma’s films feel cartoony, and De Palma manages to tilt the film away from the world of source novelist James Ellroy, where schemes and conspiracies pile on top of each other in spirals of infinity, and to De Palmaville, where naifs wander through a landscape they don’t fully understand, only to be betrayed by the one person they deem a best friend.

Josh Friedman’s script is reasonably faithful to Ellroy’s sweeping, intense novel, which has huge swaths of back story presented as present story, but while the book is told in the first person, the movie, which starts out with narration, becomes quickly third person, and we are looking in on Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) as he gets set up in a boxing match with charismatic fellow officer Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart, the film’s Kevin Spacey equivalent role) as a benefit, then becomes his friend (while Bucky is living in what looks like theÂ Pretty Woman apartment building), then his partner, during which routine investigation they stumble onto the perimeter of the real life Black Dahlia case (or that of Elizabeth Short, a young woman whose body was found on January 15, 1947, cut in half and mutilated, abandoned to aÂ vacant lot at the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles). The case was never solved and formed the basis for other popular works, including the book and film ofÂ True Confessions, and even an episode ofÂ Hunter.

Once the Black Dahlia enters the picture, Lee leaves it, for long stretches of time, which doesn’t help us understand his sudden obsession with the Dahlia case (explained at the end, if you can follow it), while Bucky gets mired in affairs with both a hot socialite (Hilary Swank, also miscast) who dabbles in Lesbianism, and with Lee’s mysterious girlfriend, Kay (Scarlett Johansson). By this time, The Black Dahlia has become three movies in one, a boxing film, a murder mystery, and a romance. Plus it throws a lot of names at you – Bobby Dewitt, Nash, Baxter Fitch, George Tilden (87 cigarettes into the film and I still don’t know who this guy is suppose to be, though I recognized the actor playing him as De Palma standby William Finley). This is the kind of mystery where a statement made in passing at a dinner tableÂ returns via a flashback to illuminate the whole case at the last second.

Though it is fun to see this cast, and others, including Rose McGowan and Mia Kirshner, you have a feeling that they are all second tier. But the cast ofÂ L. A. Confidential was also second tier until the film made stars out of all of them, and that may be a mark of the difference between Curtis Hanson, who wants you to believe his films, and De Palma, who is essentially drawing a cartoon and thinking about the set pieces. It doesn’t help that Swank acts all vampy and sophisticated in an unconvincing way (though she is good in the vulnerable moments), or that Fiona Shaw, as a dipsomaniacal socialite, gives one of the worst performances in a De Palma, or any other kind of film. I was also disturbed that a stag film that figures in the plot was too well lit for a porno film (although there might be an explanation for that implicit in the mystery’s solution), and that people were still going to silent movies – in this case, The Man Who Laughs, from 1928, theÂ Paul Leni film starring Conrad Veidt. I don’t think that De Palma is much of a film buff, at root, otherwise he would have striven to get these details right. He is aÂ student of film, but only as a source of solutions to the specific problems of construction he faces on a per film basis. But remembering how much he ridiculed his pal George Lucas over rough cuts ofÂ Star Wars makes me think that essentially he doesn’t really like movies all that much, at least pop culture movies.

But the case isn’t closed.

Â

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Quickcast Commentary: 2010: The Year We Make Contact

Filed under: Quickcast Commentaries — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:47 am

Always eager to try something different, we’re launching a new series of Quickcast Commentaries here at Quick Stop. Essentially, they’re audio commentaries for existing movies, TV shows, short films ““ whatever the case may be ““ that you can download and sync up to your own personal copies of said films, programmes, etc. In the future, we’ll be offering commentaries from writers, artists, directors, actors ““ a whole range of creators ““ on films they’ve worked on, films they love, or films they loathe. We hope it will be a fun little corner of the Stop, and we’re eager to hear your feedback.

This week, we’ve got a commentary for Peter Hyams’ 2010: The Year We Make Contact, featuring Quick Stop editor-in-chief Ken Plume and QS columnist (“Widge Goes Off”) Widgett Walls.

All you have to do is download the mp3 file below, cue up the film/episode/whatever on your TIVO, VHS, DVD, or computer, then hit play on the commentary (or you can download the free Sharecrow DVD player, which allows you to sync up commentaries on your computer). Hope you dig it”¦

DOWNLOAD:
mp3 Format (106 MB)

[audio:http://asitecalledfred.com/commentaries/qsecommentary-2010.mp3]

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Weekend Shopping Guide 9/15/06: Dunder-Mifflin

Filed under: Shopping Guides — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:45 am

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

Jonathan Coulton is an evil, evil man who must be destroyed. That’s because he’s immensely talented, an amazingly gifted songwriter, and his incredible creativity both intimidates a normal, ungifted person like myself and drives me to distraction with catchy tunes and wordplay. Damn him to hell, I can’t stop listening to his CDs. Those include his first album Smoke Monkey ($10.00), his first EP, Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow ($7.00), and the first collection of his online songwriting experiment, Thing-a-Week ($10.00). You can purchase all of these discs, plus other merch, as well as partake of more sonic goodness at www.JonathanCoulton.com. That talented bastard. Dammit.

After a shaky first season finding their own voice, the second season of the US version of The Office (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP) came fully into its own, becoming a unique entity unto itself and a damn funny comedy to boot. What’s even better is that they did it without betraying the formula that made the original version of the show so successful – they just began writing for their own versions of the characters and have taken the arc into new territory. The 3-disc box set features all 22 episodes, plus deleted scenes, commentaries, NBC.com webisodes, fake PSAs, Olympic promos, a blooper reel, and more.

If you’re going to write a sequel to a classic comic book story, you damn well better make sure that you don’t drop the ball. Luckily, Don Rosa’s return to Carl Barks’s land of Tralla La – “Return to Xanadu” – is a worthy successor to The Master’s original tale (which featured Scrooge’s complete derailment of the idyllic – and moneyless – Tralla La-ian society via the introduction of a single bottle cap from a bottle of his nerve tonic). After being run off by the none-too-happy populace of the isolated Himalayan valley, Scrooge, Donald, and Huey, Dewey, & Louie find themselves returning to paradise by sheer accident – and their return is no less traumatic than the first time. You can find Don Rosa’s giant-sized epic in this month’s Uncle Scrooge #357 (Gemstone, $6.95).

Before it his a brick wall in its final season, Roseanne (Anchor Bay, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) was must-see TV in my house, which was still going strong in its fifth season. Roseanne and Dan celebrate their 20th, Roseanne opens the Lunch Box (gotta love those loose meat sandwiches), Jackie & Roseanne’s dad dies, David movies in, Darlene turns 16… Oh, and even Tim Curry shows up. What’s not to love? All 25 episodes are uncut (please tell me we’ll eventually get a reissued, corrected season 1 set), and there’s both video commentaries with Roseanne and a Q&A featurette.

Like The Simpsons, Roseanne Barr’s eponymous sitcom made a beloved annual tradition of its Halloween episodes, all of which are collected on Roseanne: Halloween Edition (Anchor Bay, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP). That’s 7 episodes of spooky goodness, and you even get commentary from Roseanne.

Opting for a more manageable handling of the latest seasonal set, the fourth season of Spongebob Squarepants (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$36.99 SRP) gets a 2-disc Volume 1, featuring 20 episodes plus animatics for 2 episodes and a behind-the-scenes look at the denizens of Bikini Bottom.

And speaking of Spongebob, the voice behind the square-pantsed one – Tom Kenny – has co-written and co-produced a positively infectious album starring the denizens of Bikini Bottom, recast as the pop group “Spongebob & The Hi-Seas” who are appearing in concert on WH20 Radio. Before you go thinking The Best Day Ever (Nick Records, $13.98 SRP) is just some lame vanity project, let me tell you that the songwriting is positively infectious – Kenny is a huge fan of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, and the melodies and arrangement is in that vein… In fact, Wilson even provides backing vocals. Kenny’s love of the sound radiates in each track. Crikey, I think I love this album… And want a follow-up ASAP.

Never a fan of the series, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (Paramount, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.99 SRP). Like South Park to come, it’s a sly little satire, all through the lens of its naÃ¯ve leads. It’s been a long wait for this to finally hit DVD in a decent edition, but they pulled out all the stops, with an audio commentary, TV spots, shorts, a fight montage, trailers, and a look at the film’s score.

Titan Books has practically cornered the market on comprehensive, behind-the-scenes episode guide and companion tomes for science fiction shows, and they continue that with the release of the first volume for Joss Whedon’s Firefly (Titan Books, $19.95) – which features the uncut scripts for the first 6 episodes – and the official companion for the second season of Stargate Atlantic (Titan Books, $14.95 SRP). If that weren’t enough, they’ve also released the official companion for the first two seasons of 24 (Titan Books, $16.95 SRP).

Forming a triumvirate with Matlock and Murder, She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$49.99 SRP) was must-see TV for the geriatric set, featuring Dick Van Dyke as the rascally doc that became involved with a disquieting amount of murders, proving that you should never be friends with Jessica Fletcher or come anywhere near Dyke’s Dr. Mark Sloan – at least if you want to make it out alive. The 5-disc set features all 19 first season episodes, plus the Jake and the Fatman episode that introduced Sloan.

It’s complete popcorn, but that’s the appeal of Lucky Number Slevin (Weinstein Company, Rated R, DVD-$29.95 SRP) – a bang-up dust-up that finds a young man named Slevin (Josh Hartnett) caught between two rival crime bosses (Morgan Freeman & Ben Kingsley), on the run from an assassin (Bruce Willis) and fending off the advances of his neighbor (Lucy Liu). It’s a pulpy romp perfect for a Fall viewing on a cold Saturday night. Bonus features include audio commentaries, deleted scenes (with an alternate ending), a making-of featurette, and the theatrical trailer.

As Mark Evanier is fond of saying, even sub-par Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy. The three films found in the second Laurel and Hardy Collections (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP) are certainly not the boys’ best work. The three flicks featured are The Dancing Masters, The Bullfighters, and A-Haunting We Will Go, and all 3 feature commentaries with L&H scholars, featurettes, trailers, and Fox Movietone News footage.

Despite the inordinate amount of buzz it’s generated and the dedicated fanbase it’s engendered, I still can’t get into Grey’s Anatomy (Buena Vista, Not Rated, DVD-$59.99 SRP). Every time I’ve tried to sit down and watch an episode, I’ve come out the other side feeling like I’ve just viewed an overindulgent soap opera that consistently “borrows” plots and jokes from Scrubs. Still, there are legions of fans out there, and I’m sure they’ll devour the new 6-disc set featuring all 27 episodes from Grey‘s sophomore season, including four extended episodes, a cast Q&A, interviews, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and more.

Some dismiss it as prog-rock pap, but I can’t help but get a warm and fuzzy feeling from Jeff Lynne’s completely bombastic orchestral tour de forces contained in every Electric Light Orchestra album. They’re just so unashamedly over-the-top that it’s hard to resist their goofy, catchy charm. Another trio of ELO albums have gotten the remastered treatment – Face The Music, A New World Record and On The Third Day (Sony Legacy, $11.98 SRP each) – with each disc containing a clutch of bonus tracks.

Any all-ages book of general knowledge and trivia that promises that the meaning of life can be found on page 42 automatically gets kudos from me, and the fact that the rest of Pick Me Up (DK, $29.99 SRP) is just as fun and informative – even for an adult. From a series of “what ifs” that explore the first two World Wars to naked mole rats to the reason no one can live forever (simple statistics), it’s chock full of so much fascinating goodness that once you pick it up, it’s hard to put down. I’ve always wanted to know what a Viking girl might post in her blog…

Akeelah And The Bee (Lionsgate, Rated PG, DVD-$28.98 SRP) reminded me of a sweet mash-up of Finding Forrester, Searching For Bobby Fisher, and an After-School Special. Young Akeelah Anderson has one dream – to make it to the National Spelling Bee, and like Pollyanna before her, she united all around her in her quest. Bonus features include deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a music video, and a gag reel.

While lesser lights of the DC animated universe (granted, I still can’t stand the latter), fans can pick up the complete second seasons of Teen Titans and The Batman (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP each). Both 2-disc sets feature all 13 episodes, but the sole bonus features are season one recap featurettes.

With his recent expulsion from Paramount – and the fact that he’s nuttier than a Xenu fruitcake – Fox might be reconsidering their idea of placing a sticker touting the fact that Taps (Fox, Rated PG, DVD-$19.98 SRP) was his second film role. The film is still a nice little character piece, benefiting from a new special edition featuring a commentary from director Harold Becker, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a look at the origins of playing “Taps,” and TV spots. Time to start scraping those stickers off, tho.

With the merger of Disney and Pixar, I sincerely hope that we won’t see the awkward, cheapie likes of The Wild (Walt Disney, Rated G, DVD-$29.99 SRP) again, with its poor animation and lame script. Bonus features on the disc include deleted scenes with optional commentary, and a blooper reel.

In it’s soap-filled three seasons, Las Vegas (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP) has truly become a latter-day Love Boat, packed to the rafters with B- and C-list guest stars (the third season alone features Ron Jeremy, Rachel Leigh Cook, Dennis Rodman, Dean Cain, and more), all under the watchful eye of Captain Steubing, played here by James Caan. The 3rd season set features all 23 episodes, plus a time-lapse featurette on the building of the new hotel and a gag reel.

If chasing down individual figures in order to complete a set of your favorite bust-ups is just too time-consuming for you, then Gentle Giant has made your life a whole lot easier by packaging sets together – in fact, right now you can pick up the complete set of all 7 Star Wars: Bounty Hunters (Gentle Giant, $29.99 SRP), featuring brand-new sculpts of your favorite rogues, plus Darth Vader. You know you want them.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

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Trailer Park: Anatomy of Buzz – BORAT and the Technicolor PR Machine

Filed under: Trailer Park — admin @ 12:28 am

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

In a recent article for The New York Times, Sharon Waxman hits upon something I could’ve told you weeks ago: You’re not going to get traditional press for BORAT in any sort of fashion.

Many weeks ago I recounted my experience at Comic-Con when Sacha Baron Cohen announced this film’s triumphant decent upon movie theaters everywhere. The buzz surrounding this film’s screening was intense and should have been enough to make any PR campaign for this movie an easy sell with the right kind of push. One of the things, however, that I latched onto when I did some initial talking to those who were working the event was that Fox was looking for people to help promote it as any other under-the-radar kind of flick would want to have; people to talk about it; offering up the crew for interviews; any great word of mouth would help drive box office.

Thing is, though, there is an across-the-board shut-out of anyone even remotely involved with the making of this movie. As Waxman points out when she tries to get Sacha’s ear with regards to this movie, “Mr. Baron Cohen, who is appearing in Toronto as Borat, declined to be interviewed for this article and will be conducting interviews ahead of the film only in character” and, further, “20th Century Fox also declined to comment for this article or otherwise participate.”

So, why the disconnect with a movie that seems to barrel down its viewers wherever it plays? If you’d like to be 20th Century Fox and play the political card and defer to the movie’s outlandish jabs at nationalism and religious issues then you’re a rather insipid Neanderthal who perhaps needs to learn a little more than your ABC’s when it comes to modern economics.

If I’m a studio and I know that I have a lightning rod of a movie on my hands what sense does it make to shove it in the closet like the neighborhood idiot who’s not allowed to socialize with the rest of the kids? Movies try and fail at ever gaining awareness of their pictures, some only wish a pack of crazies would make something out of nothing but yet here we are with a movie that’s getting gagged if for no other reason than this is the grand design of the movie’s creator who has figured out the precise mathematical equation about when a movie’s hype has passed the bombing run that would guarantee a dead-on hit.

I don’t know what the answer is to this one but I do know that we are roughly seven weeks away from this film’s opening, the word-of-mouth couldn’t be better and just when it’s time to start getting people on record about the tumultuous production we get that Sacha is only going to do interviews in character. Larry Charles won’t break his vow of silence, nor will anyone involved in the making of the movie.

Believe me, I tried.

For something like this I understand the need to create the air of mystery around the movie’s content. I get it. It’s artistic. No big mystery there.

You just hope, as a passionate stumper for this film’s power as a film, that those involved know what they’re doing and this movie is allowed to donkey punch people in the chest with the force this flick is capable of providing.
If anyone else in the audience has a reasonable theory about what’s afoot with the odd silence with any member of the press for a film that could use every voice at its disposal I would be more than happy to entertain any conspiracy theory.

THE TRANSFORMERS (2007)

Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Travis Van Winkle, Josh Duhamel, Jon Voight, Megan Fox
Release: July 4, 2007
Synopsis: TWhereas the Earth is the home of a variety of organic-based lifeforms, the planet of Cybertron is the homeworld of a race of robots which have the ability to transform into other mechanisms, with each Transformer having its own unique disguise. The Transformers are divided into two separate camps: the good and just Autobots, who are led by Optimus Prime (whose disguise is a red 18-wheel semi truck); and the evil Decepticons, who are led by Megatron (who transforms into a gun; there’s a good deal of size-shifting involved with Megatron as well). With fuel supplies (called Energon Cubes) on Cybertron running low, both forces travel through space looking for a new source, which leads them to Earth, which from their perspective in rich in the minerals and chemicals they need. Disguising themselves as cars, airplanes, boats, etc. easily recognizable to humans, the Transformers engage in a secret war for control of Earth’s bountiful natural resources…

View Trailer:

* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative; Nay, This Is A Dreadful Tease. What a puss.

I was talking with someone else, a lot of people actually, who were present and not present for the Comic-Con’s presentation of the TRANSFORMERS movie a couple of weeks ago. Now, while it was cool as all shit that the original voice of Optimus Prime was going to be the voice for the live action movie I was definitely put off by the fact there wasn’t so much as an inch of footage presented.

For those in the know, Comic-Con is perhaps one of the best places to get geeks amped about your production should you have a flick ready to roll out in the next year. You don’t need much to get this core demographic moist in their Jockey’s as Bryan Singer had literally just started shooting X-MEN 2 when he came to Comic-Con and presented a teaser trailer that just blew their minds. He left knowing that now he set the expectations and needed to perform. Michael Bay had already set in motion the events of Comic-Con 2005 when he had a tractor trailer set up on the main floor, adorned with the promise that the rumor was now a reality, and now, just weeks ago, he had a captive audience. He had the opportunity that a lot of studios wished they had so what did he do? Bay literally called it in. With a pre-recorded video message that essentially said, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, this movie is going to be so cool, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, I can’t show you a dick’s worth of footage, bullshit”¦” it was just awful. PR-wise the man’s lost to the idea of how to win friends or influence nerds. I was a marginal fan at best growing up but even I was pissed and disappointed for those who expected something more than they got.

And now we have this.

I’m not really sure what to make of it but I guess, as a teaser, it’s not too wretched. One of the things that I like is that the conceit that the events that transpire here on Earth have something to do with a rocket launch in 2003. If you had no idea that this was for the TRANSFORMERS the teaser would initially make you think you were seeing the sequel to APOLLO 13. You’ve got a very solid countdown with no voiceover, no cards to indicate something more than what this is.

“In 2003, the Beagle 2 Mars rover was launched”¦”

The lack of music or even Tom Hanks’ face somewhere in the opening five seconds lends itself to this teaser implying more than just this being a movie about megastars trapped in space.

I love, I really do, that the conceit about this being about a Beagle 2 cover-up is rendered with some of the most crisp, sharp looking video images of what should be the surface of Mars. Never minding that what actually got beamed back from the surface looked like a series of 5X7s pasted against each other we see here, in this teaser, that the REAL surface of Mars looks like the salt flats of Utah and that it looks damn nice to have a picnic with a few brews and a pack of wieners, not the inhospitable wasteland we’ve been led to believe it is. Please, it’s damn near laughable. I know it’s supposed to be the movies and the suspension of disbelief but this looks like it was shot right here in Arizona. I mean you can see blue skies for fuck’s sake; couldn’t have someone fixed this with a few strokes on their Apple or something? If a conspiracist ever thought to question how to fake a moon landing this would be it.

Attention to detail notwithstanding, I laughed a little when a card pops up and tells me that its last transmission was deemed classified. What, did the camera catch hillbillies in their Ford 350 doing doughnuts, kicking up dirt and dust, spinning to the sounds of Toby Keith, as some topless chicks in their Daisy Dukes toss empty beer bottles of MGD from the back of the pickup, revealing this hoax of hackery?

Oh, and I love it, I absolutely adore it, that as the teaser fades to a close, a completely inconsequential transformer making a cameo that is useless to even try and be excited about, that as the movie’s logo, The Transformers, appears on screen we also get, in an amply sized font, that this is a MICHAEL”¦BAY”¦FILM. Nice. Nice touch, ass; never mind all the people who you now have to depend on to bring the actual transformers to life and make you money.

I hope MICHAEL…BAY”¦understands what kind of opportunity he was afforded weeks ago and that coveting his footage was worth putting the cover on top of the boiling pot.

TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY (2006)

Director: Liam Lynch
Cast: Jack Black, Kyle Gass, Amy Poehler, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller
Release: November 17, 2006
Synopsis: This is the story of a friendship that changes the course of rock history forever, of the fateful collision of minds between JB and KG that led to the creation of the precedent-shattering band Tenacious D, and of the two heroes’ quest to find the fabled Guitar Pick Of Destiny…

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative. This is the movie that I’ve been waiting for, for over a year and a half?

I’m disappointed in this trailer for a lot of reasons but, and I think this speaks to the material, when you’ve got Jack Black doing a nut smash moment I am disappointed; it’s something I would expect from America’s Funniest/Best Staged Videos. It’s an easy laugh and speaks to a real uninspired master behind the switches.

I’d expect this sort of thing out of a lot of dollar theater hacks but this is the end result of waiting for as long as I have? The answer is yes and I’m not sure what more could be said above that.

At the very start of this trailer I was really expecting something special and unique. Some notable camerawork, unique cinematography or even the 5000 CCs of raw power that blew people away when they played live. Something!

“Prepare yourselves for the motion picture experience of the century”¦”

I thought having Jack Black doing his shtick-y deep rock and roller voice was a good idea until I heard him do it over the visuals we are presented with; it’s pretty limp. Sure, you’ve got Kyle Gass and Jack coming together on screen in this one moment where you can see the rise of the D but after seeing the two of them walk up the steps of the Guitarway To Heaven I am struck in the eyes by the fact that this feels like SCHOOL OF ROCK 2: The Lou Pearlman Years.

I guess I should be going crazy over their hardcore antics in small clubs and how they’re so rockin’ even in their own kitchen nook but it sort of feels tired. I’m not so much sold as I am wondering, “Haven’t I already bought this?”

We’re then introduced to the thrust of the film’s storyline: a quest to find the pick of destiny. I’m not sure if that should be capitalized as a proper noun but it kind of feels improper to give it that much weight after seeing Jack proclaim that this is their ticket to greatness. Jack’s assuaging to Kyle about its righteousness doesn’t really make me laugh as it does, however, give me a moment’s pause after seeing what Kyle is wearing: a shirt that spells out TRAIN WRECK; hmm, evil portent or cleverness disguised in the form of 100% cotton? Interesting thesis.

I’m not quite sure how to gauge Jack Black’s discovery of Sasquatch in the forest of some rich, acid-like trip or what it means to the overall story, per se, but I think it has something to do with the rather unnecessary car chase that’s inserted here as well.

Am I the only one losing their minds about what this has to do with the D?

About here is when Jack falls on a tree branch and squashes his nuts. I’m thankful that I am not left to linger too long on trying to understand how this bush league humor made it into this flick but I am hopeful, however, by the introduction of Satan. Who isn’t happy when the Lord of Darkness enters a movie? I count myself in favor of more movies with artificial renderings of his Lordship. Unfortunately, when I’m rooting for Satan and this is a movie when I should be basking in the glow that is Tenacious D I know there is something amiss in Rockville.

THE MOTEL (2006)

Director: Michael Kang
Cast: Jeffrey Chyau, Sung Kang, Jade Wu, Samantha Futerman, Alexis Change
Release: August 20, 2006
Synopsis: Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). As he watches guests come and go, Ernest finds himself forever stuck at his family’s hourly-rate motel, where he divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, cleaning up after whatever miscreants the motel may attract.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Positive. This trailer, if you can indulge me for a moment, feels like rain washing over a polluted sky.

In a filmic landscape cluttered, nay, clogged and congested, with pictures that want to show us what it’s like to be an adolescent it helps to know that there are flicks that seemed imbued with the promise that this isn’t going to end like a lot of other stories in its genre.

It’s damn hard to try and be original when someone already has told the story of youth in America and what it’s like to evolve at that stage in one’s life but this trailer is tender and firm with its presentation. No doubt that there are prescient notions of where we’re going to end up after we deal with the tropes of the bully story and the falling in love story and the dealing with one’s parents when all you want is for them to leave you the fuck alone story but what’s key here, and what seems to elevate this picture, is its belief that this is an original story all its own.

I could not be more pleased to take my finger off the Back button on my browser after getting through the first ten seconds of this trailer where we are introduced to our protagonist: a chubby kid who is screaming his hardest as he holds a box of Popeye’s fried chicken. After this young man’s concerned companion asks whether he’s “Ok” I determine this is not your average coming-of-age story. I don’t know why it amuses me, but it does.

After this I am jauntily carried to another solid 15 musical seconds where it’s established who produced this thing, the flicks that have earned them solid cred, and a real loose idea of what this movie is. I like it so much because we’re given tastes, not dollops, of information. The love interest here for our chubby bunny, played by a girl who just sparkles the moment we see her, and who also borders on the Bizarro-World kind of lady who is always attracted to the kind of physical profile that would be ignored by the same garden variety woman in real life, (e.g. King of Queens, According to Jim and every single movie where John Candy had a wife), seems like an excellent choice.

His trials and tribulations with his family also seem run-of-the-mill but there’s an air of something unique to a kid who is helping this same family operate an hourly motel; it changes the dynamic from a kid who rebels because he has everything and is a little piss ant teenager to one where he has something invested in the struggle to keep the family operation running.

The nameless sounding board for his inner consternation is an older dude, a brother perhaps, but regardless of his role within the family unit the use of him in the trailer here is really thought-provoking when we, as an audience, try to piece together this kid’s social circle.

The praises of this flick’s performance from the many different festivals it’s played at is presented wonderfully; it should be noted, as well, at how quick we’re shown from what festival it was from and how quick they get the hell on with things. It’s great to win but it should be the product, not the accolades, that gets you noticed.

We see our love interest again, the girl just bursting with believability as someone who really cares for our dude, the next moment we have her hanging out the side of a car window with chubby at the wheel. Bold, considering his age, and we easily transition to what is no doubt a highlight in his picture, to one where he stands, in a darkened room, crying just a little in front of his mother. I don’t know what to make of what happened but the trailer gives us just enough reason to think of a few things on our own to piece together what’s happening here. Real tension is a rare find in these mini-movies but you get it in these small, liquid-centered, bursts. It’s delicious.

What’s more about this trailer is that we’re not left to wonder what a series of quickly placed quick-cuts means in the overall scheme of things but we get equally timed snippets that round out this movie’s vibe.

Again, it’s hard to pimp a movie that deals with adolescence in a way that’s interesting or fresh to audiences but, I posit, this is a trailer that deserves some room on someone’s “To Look Further Into” list. In a landscape littered with pictures I just don’t have the time to research that label alone speaks louder than my words.

AURORA BOREALIS (2006)

Director: James Burke
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Donald Sutherland, Juliette Lewis
Release: September 15, 2006
Synopsis: Ever since the premature death of his father, 25-year-old Minneapolis slacker Duncan (Joshua Jackson) is content with shuffling aimlessly through life, hanging out with his lifelong friends, and ditching one dead-end job after another.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Underdog of The Week. Okay, let’s hit the high points first:

1) I know that the first reaction to seeing this movie’s poster is to turn tail and opt to watch the SPIDER-MAN 3 trailer another time is a right one. I mean, you’re all right on this; it’s God fucking awful and whoever designed it needs to have an inner tube shoved up their ass while someone else uses a foot pump to inflate it. BUT, at least watch the first minute of the trailer and be amazed by how discordant these two things are. Even the movie’s title is a little crap. Actually, it’s a whole lot of crap.

2) Holy Christ, you are not going to believe this but Scut Farkus, from the CHRISTMAS STORY, people, is in this movie. Does that automatically sell me on the movie? Maybe, but that’s reason enough, number two, to at least give the trailer a chance.

3) I had such low expectations for this trailer, the trailer of all things, because I saw Joshua Jackson was attached to the movie but, believe me or dis me, he’s solid. Surprised even me.

4) Really, this movie has a crap poster and a crap title. Ignore both.

The lead-in to this trailer is what really got me. We establish, quickly, that Joshua is unemployed, directionless and seems lost in his life. With the prodding from Steven Pasquale, one of the best reasons to watch Rescue Me, Joshua is asked to visit his grandparents where, as you can see from the crotchety-ness of Donald Sutherland’s old guy character, you can just tell that this movie is going to deal with how Joshua navigates a relationship with his elders. It doesn’t seem like much but the movie’s foundation is laid out for us; it’s an impressive feat, you understand, because there is no superfluous padding or glossing over what this movie is about.

Now that we have a vague idea that Joshua is sticking around his older family the bits with his friends, and the relationship they have, seems more genuine than a lot I’ve seen come out of onscreen buds. Mix in the love interest with Juliette Lewis, a lady who I’ve seen in both attractive and way repulsive roles, and this movie has done the impossible: makes me actually aware of Joshua as a real actor and Lewis as a genuine love interest.

Amazing, I know.

About mid-way though this trailer we get a laid-back acoustical number that launches us into the second half of this movie which establishes the notion that Joshua takes up the role of handyman for his grandparents, showing genuine interest in the goings-on of his older relatives, while mixing in the tension that exists between his new lady and the supposition that even in small time employment Joshua is still lost in his life.

Hey, Scut Farkus!

There seems to be an almost Tuesdays With Morrie kind of schmaltz that’s embedded into this movie but I somehow look past this for the simple reason that there seems to be a lot more at work within the confines of this movie.

“The way that they are or the way they were?”

We end on an ON GOLDEN POND moment but, I would posit, we’re not left scratching our heads, not feeling sold into a movie that it is not and feeling like there is hope for this little movie that could. Once in a while a movie like this deserves a second look even when its poster and title suck ass.

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Comics in Context #146: San Diego 2006 – A Hall Too Small

Filed under: Comics in Context — admin @ 12:27 am

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The following events took place at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Saturday, July 22 between 10:00 AM and 8:00 PM.

SATURDAY 10:00 AM
On Saturday I was to appear on a Comic Arts conference panel and do two book signings, so I wanted to look good. I felt I had put together an outfit that struck the right balance between professionalism and casualness. Having disembarked from my morning water taxi ride across the bay, I was heading towards the Convention Center when a female fan, whom I had never seen before, asked, “Why are you wearing a jacket on such a hot day?”

So maybe this is why Paul Levitz wisely dresses casually for Comic-Con: so he won’t get his fashion choices criticized to his face by strangers on the street.

When I went to my first event in Hall H on Friday, there was only a short line, and it moved quickly. This morning, there was not only no line for Hall H, but I was able to sit further down front than I ever had before. So why does Hall H have such a reputation for being hard to get into? Little did I then know.

SATURDAY 10:30 AM
Comic-Con’s Director of Programming, Gary Sassaman, emerged onstage, looking as dour as he had yesterday. “Welcome back,” he told the Hall H audience. “How many of you slept here last night?” He’s kidding, right? I looked at Mr. Sassaman’s face, magnified to brobdingnagian proportions, on an immense videoscreen and detected the faintest hint of a smile.

Sassaman noted that it was a “very hot Saturday morning.” (But he was wearing a jacket, too!) Then he said that today there would be “some special guests” and some “amazing, spectacular, and just plain adjective-less guests.” This alluded to the rumor that the lead actors of Spider-Man 3 were going to make a surprise appearance.

Sassaman asked the audience not to record the images from forthcoming films that would be shown on Hall H’s immense video screens in order to “share it with your 20 million friends on the Internet”; otherwise, Hollywood studios would no longer bring such preview footage to Comic-Con.

“You’re going to want to stay in here the rest of the day,” Sassaman told us. He’s encouraging them! He’s an enabler for the “campers”! But if I did not have commitments elsewhere at the Con this day, I would have been wise to follow his advice and remain there.

Then another familiar face, Jeff Walker, wearing a shirt labeled “Arkham Asylum Athletic Dept.” shirt, came onstage to present the day’s first Hall H panel: “Warner Bros. Presents 300,” the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, in which three hundred men from the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, fought the vastly larger Persian army. First Walker introduced the film’s director, Zach Snyder. Then Walker brought out one of the movie’s stars, David Wenham, who played Faramir in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, and a woman sitting next to me let out a big cheer. The idea that comics conventions are invariably attended almost entirely by men has become dated. As if to offer further evidence, Walker introduced Gerard Butler (from the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera musical), who plays King Leonidas in 300, and female shrieks of joy erupted from the audience. (And, oh, yes, he was wearing a jacket.) After 300 opens, I expect that reporters on Hollywood will express surprise that such a violent film attracts a female audience, but this is clearly a chick flick of an untraditional sort. Finally, Walker introduced “the one and only Frank Miller,” who was again displaying his new wardrobe, this time including what looked like a large Western hat and a long, red jacket.

Snyder started off by showing us the trailer for 300, a live action film which astonishingly, powerfully captured the look of Miller’s artwork for the graphic novel. It was rife with violence and sexuality, and also featured lines that seem like catchphrases in the making: “This is madness!”, “This is Sparta!” (Maybe that explains Walker’s shirt.)

The audience reacted loudly and enthusiastically to the trailer. Once it was over, Gerard Butler, who hadn’t seen it before, said, “I want to see it again.” And so we did, right away.

Then Snyder said, in a deadpan manner, “So we were going for something warm and fuzzy. . . It’s a family thing.” Then he asked for questions from the audience. There was no immediate response, and a panelist (Wenham, I think) observed that we were “obviously flabbergasted.”

Stating that he drew the look of the film from Miller’s 300 comics, Snyder joked, “I had no ideas of my own.” Sharing the credit, Miller added that “Many of those backgrounds [in the 300 comics] were done by Lynn Varley,” his longtime collaborator. (Later during the panel Butler explained that the backgrounds in the film were computer generated: there were “cliffs that don’t exist, armies that aren’t there. Only the immediate surroundings are right there” on the set.)

Snyder declared that Miller’s 300 book “is awesome.” In order to make the movie, Snyder explained he said “Let’s do that [directly adapt the comics], not fuck it up Hollywood style.”

Miller responded, “And you didn’t. It’s really cool.”

Describing his preparation for such a physically demanding role, Butler said, “I trained really hard for this,” and “am still recovering.” He claimed, “I came out of this pretty much a cripple.” Miller wryly interjected, “He was ninety-three pounds when he started.”

Undeterred, Butler described the atmosphere on the set among all these actors playing warriors: “You have so much testosterone floating around there. At times you were willing to kill, willing to die.”

Since he was playing the king, Butler said that he “wanted to get the respect of. . .the other actors, so I worked my little buttocks off.” There was a cheer from the audience. Miller observed to Butler, “Your buttocks just got a cheer.”

Still undeterred, Butler asserted that he did “intensive training” physically which “goes a long way” towards giving him the feelings of “strength,” “determination,” and “sacrifice” that his role required.

Returning to discussing the visual style of the film, Snyder explained simply that “The graphic novel’s pictures. A movie’s pictures.” He told us that in discussions with his co-workers “I go, “˜We have a picture here; let’s just do the picture,” meaning the visuals from the comics. If someone offered an alternate suggestion for a shot, Snyder said he replied, “It’s cool. For something else.” After a while, Snyder told us, his collaborators got the idea.

In other words, the 300 movie is following the same strategy as the Sin City movie: directly recreating the look of the comics onscreen. In announcing Warners Animation’s forthcoming direct-to-video animated films of stories from DC Comics, like the “Death of Superman” arc, DC’s Paul Levitz indicated at Comic-Con that the videos would be based on the look of the original comics. Later that day there was a panel in Hall H about the projected movie adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, at which Miler was officially announced as its director. Although I had to miss it due to other commitments, I have since read that during the panel Miller asserted that he intended to present Eisner’s vision onscreen. Moreover, in stating that he would create the backgrounds via CGI, as in the Sin City movie, Miller explained that he wanted it to look as if “Eisner’s hand is drawing the movie.”

So this is a new trend, and (despite my qualms about no longer seeing Bruce Timm character designs onscreen) a welcome one, I think, demonstrating unusual respect for the original source material. Why shouldn’t a Fantastic Four movie, whether live action or animated, try to translate the look of Jack Kirby’s artwork to the screen?

Alluding on the scanty garb the cast wore in the 300 trailer, an audience member asked the actors about their reaction to the costumes or “lack of costumes you have to wear.” Again there were appreciative female shrieks.

Butler responded that initially “I never felt so stupid in my life.” When he first donned “that leather codpiece,” “I thought, how am I going to get through this?” He added, “But then you’re surrounded by sixty guys wearing the same thing.” By the end of shooting, Butler said, “You just want to look bigger than the other guys.”

“You win, Gerry,” said Wenham; “you’re the biggest.” (I just report what they actually said, folks.)

Wenham reported that after he was cast in the film, “I bought Frank’s book” and saw the first appearance of the character he plays: “He’s naked. All he basically wears in the book is a leather codpiece.” But Wenham assured the audience, “I did some training and it was okay.”

Miller addressed more cerebral aspects of 300. “I researched the hell out of this thing,” he told us. “I wanted to do the story since I was six years old.” Miller asserted that “The story is so compelling that I think each generation has to retell it.”

Another audience member asked Butler what he has in common with his character. Butler answered, “Being extremely intelligent. . . powerful. . .insane. . .charismatic–were all things I found I didn’t have.” Then he added, “I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

But there was a point behind Butler’s joking. “Seriously,” he continued, “you see things like honor and nobility [in 300]” that, he said, do not exist in “today’s society” and you “don’t have enough [of these qualities] in yourself,” but, Butler said, he “wants to have” them. Therefore, to act the role involved “getting in touch with what you gave yourself and then get in touch with what you don’t have.”

As for the story of 300, Butler commented, “Frank makes it so dark.” “Moi?” replied Miller in mock innocence.

Though the Hall H audience had earlier been warned what kind of questions would be inappropriate, there are invariably people who think the rules do not apply to them. The audience, however, polices its ranks. So it was that a female fan asked the actors for hugs; instead she got booed by the audience. Obliviously persisting in her stupidity, the female fan then asked the actors, “What’s your favorite color?” More booing ensued. But the actors played along. Wenham replied that today his favorite color was red. Butler said, “My favorite color is green.” Then he turned to Miller and admitted, “Nobody cares, I know.”

Another questioner, commenting on the sex scenes in the trailer, observed that the moviemakers “show the relationship between Greek men and Greek women, but will you show the relationship between the Greek men and men?” This, of course, alludes to ancient Greek openness towards homosexuality. Miller responded, “No. We call this fiction.”

Though she was not mentioned, it appears that Gerard Butler shares the attitude of The Incredibles‘ fashion designer Edna Mode towards capes. “Capes were a problem,” he complained. “After fifteen hours your shoulder was willing to fall off.”

“Spoken like a real Spartan,” commented Miller.

“It hurt,” Butler said emphatically. “And I got a little scrape on my shoulder sometimes.” (Whether Butler’s female fans in Hall H found this endearing or disillusioning, I have no idea.)

Wenham said the “hardest part [of making the movie] was the training,” claiming that “My normal day training is three minutes long.” Wenham added, “The capes were a cinch. I didn’t have difficulty at all.” Later during the panel, Miller referred to Butler as “Mr. My Cape’s Heavy.” Yes, amid all the jesting one-upmanship, the testosterone was thick enough to cut with the proverbial knife.

A fan from Greece asked Miller about going to Greece to research 300. “I did go to Greece,” Miller replied, stating that he had spent weeks there on a National Trust tour. He took “a side trip” to “the actual Hot Gates,” the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, but discovered it’s “not what it used to be.” The site “used to be a cliff over the sea.” The sea has moved over the years, and “now there’s a freeway” there. But Miller said he did visit “the mountain where the Spartans actually died,.” Miller concluded, “If I hadn’t sailed the Aegean and seen the cliffs, I don’t know how I could have done the story.” Butler interjected that “Six Spartans were killed crossing the freeway.”

As with the Stardust panel, I was struck by how much respect the panelists showed the creator of the original source material, an attitude one does not expect in Hollywood. Wenham referred to “a true legend, Mr. Frank Miller!” Butler chimed in, “Frank Miller, the man himself!” And thus arrives that new phenomenon: the cartoonist as alpha male.

Praising the movie, Miller asserted that “In seeing an early cut of the movie, everything looks timeless but very contemporary.” He pointed out that sometimes Snyder changed the speed of the cameras to make the Spartans look “superhuman” during the fighting. Miller summed up, “This feels like a very contemporary movie. It doesn’t feel like a stiff old relic. Zach did a terrific job.”

And then they showed the trailer for a third time, whereupon I headed out of Hall H to make certain I got to the next panel on my list in time. This was important since I was scheduled to be on this particular panel.

SATURDAY 11:30 AM
This was session eight of the Comic Arts Conference, the annual academic conference on comics, being held in Room 7B: “The Supervillain: from Antagonist to Protagonist: Celebrating the Supervillain in Today’s Comics.”

This panel was designed to publicize The Supervillain Book, an encyclopedia of supervillains in comics and other media, which made its debut at this year’s Comic-Con and will be officially published this fall by Visible Ink. The panelist included the book’s editors and principal writers Gina Misiroglu and Michael Eury, and CAC co-chairman Peter Coogan, scholar Alex Boney and myself as contributing writers to the book.

We had done a similar panel for CAC last year, during which, unexpectedly, a man in a Star Wars Sith costume sat in the audience; since Darth Vader was mentioned in our presentation, we acknowledged the Sith from the stage. When Gina, Alex, contributing writer Heidi MacDonald (alias the Beat) and I did a panel for The Supervillain Book at this year’s New York Comic Con, the Trickster from The Flash turned up in the audience. At this year’s Comic-Con Gina arranged for Lex Luthor (in an unconvincing bald cap) and Dark Phoenix (with a very convincing costume and admirably voluptuous figure) to interrupt Michael Eury’s presentation. He knew they’d be showing up, but I was as surprised as anyone there. I’m glad they didn’t interrupt my presentation, which more serious, in keeping with an academic conference, but they were still fun. (And if having villains show up during the panel seems over the top, consider that, as I later learned, during the Lost panel, which overlapped with ours, there was a “plant” in the audience who purported to be a character from a Lost website.)

My presentation was about how supervillains are used to dramatize the concept that the human psyche is split between good and evil. There are characters who embody this division through their multiple personalities, such as Two-Face in Batman, DC’s Eclipso, and the Incredible Hulk. Then there are supervillains who make the transition to becoming superheroes, such as Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch in the 1960s Avengers and Spike in Joss Whedon’s Buffy, or superheroes who journey in the opposite direction, like X-Men‘s Phoenix and Star Wars’ Anakin Skywalker. And then there are characters who walk an ambiguous path between good and evil. Do we see Marvel’s Punisher, a vigilante who kills criminals, as a hero or condemn him as a criminal? I offered as my concluding example Namor the Sub-Mariner, who was created by Bill Everett in 1939, and who now seems to me to be ahead of his time: Originally Namor was depicted as what we would now call a terrorist conducting a one-man war against New York City, and yet Everett and later writers have allowed us to see and understand Namor’s own point of view.

SATURDAY 1:00 PM
At the conclusion of the panel, we participants went down to the main convention floor to do a signing of The Supervillain Book at the booth area for Rory Root’s Comic Relief. We were joined by the Beat, and you can see a photo of her, Michael Eury and myself during the signing here (http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2006/07/26/sdcc-06-photo-paradeum-saturday/#more-239): it’s a fuzzy photo, but the Beat looks particularly pretty in it.

Unfortunately, the signing was at the same time that Kevin Smith, benevolent monarch of Quick Stop Entertainment, was scheduled to appear in Hall H. But I felt it was my duty to Gina to do this signing. I’ve never met Kevin Smith; I wonder what he’s like?

If one must venture onto the main floor on Saturday afternoon, at the height of the Comic-Con crowds, sitting at a booth is probably the best thing to do. Instead of trying to make your way through the hordes of attendees filling the aisles, trying to locate people you know, you can relax and watch the sea of humanity drift past. You can even find people as they go by. (Look! There goes George Perez!) So when Mister Freeze wandered by, complete with a Schwarzeneggerian accent, I called to Gina to have her get his attention. So Mister Freeze ended up posing in front of our booth, as did the Riddler, whom Gina stopped as he was going past.

Group signings of a book work like assembly lines: one writer signs his or her name on the book and passes it down to the next writer, and so forth.

SATURDAY 3:00 PM
Now I was over at the DK (Dorling Kindersley) Publishing booth, next to one of the entrances to the main floor of the convention, to do a solo signing for the new expanded third edition of X-Men: The Ultimate Guide. Here I was reunited with Bess Braswell and Rachel Kempster of DK’s New York office and Alex Allan from the main office in London, all of whom are friendly and supportive.

Since another DK writer was still signing at the front of the booth, I was seated on the side, so people walking through the doors to the convention floor passed right in front of me. This proved to be fortuitous, since, as I said, if you sit long enough at a good location at Comic-Con, people you want to see will pass by. Thus, within the hour, I was visited by my old friend, comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz and by my new acquaintance, Stuart Vandal, the British writer for the current Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and for the first time met comics artist Phil Jimenez, who, I was happy to discover, recognized my name.

I signed a number of autographs, but wondered about a long line of people in front of the DK booth, heading somewhere else. I asked one of the DK ladies, and she told me these people were lined up to get autographs from Carrie Fisher in the next booth over. I looked 180 degrees behind me, and, yes, indeed, there she was in the booth right next to ours, signing away at Star Wars memorabilia; she even felt comfortable enough at one point to remove her shoes and put her feet up. I was signing autographs next to Carrie Fisher: now there’s something I would never have imagined.

SATURDAY 4:00 PM
I was feeling a little guilty since I spent part of the previous hour chatting with the aforementioned comics pros who stopped by the DK booth, and besides, I found I enjoyed doing signings. The next panel I intended to attend didn’t start till 5, so I volunteered to continue signing for a little while longer.

After all, I’d had no trouble whatsoever getting into Hall H either on this trip or on last year’s trip, right?

This was a mistake.

SATURDAY 4:20 PM
There was now a line waiting to get into Hall H. This was an understatement. The queue extended through the section of the lobby outside Hall H, out the door, down the sidewalk, past the Convention Center down to the end of the block, then turned at a ninety degree angle and ran along the sidewalk for the width of the Convention Center, then looped back towards the front of the Convention Center, went up the sidewalk and finally ended in front of the Convention Center doors through which I exited upon leaving the DK booth. This was no mere line: it was a labyrinth.

Everyone in line was waiting to see the final Hall H presentation of the day, “Sony Presents,” which would preview the upcoming Ghost Rider movie and Spider-Man 3. Nicolas Cage, who plays Marvel’s Ghost Rider, was scheduled to be there, as well as Sam Raimi, director of all three Spider-Man movies, and, according to rumor, the lead actors of Spider-Man 3 too.

Well, I had no trouble getting through the line for last year’s King Kong presentation. Sure, the line was much longer this afternoon, but at least I was practical enough to get in line forty minutes early.

SATURDAY 5:00 PM
Still in line. But Hall H panels don’t always start on time, right? And I saw last year’s Ghost Rider preview in Hall H (although Cage didn’t appear at that one), so I didn’t care about missing that part of the presentation. It was Raimi I wanted to see. (Kirsten Dunst would make a nice bonus.)

SATURDAY 5:30 PM
This guy who worked for Comic-Con kept walking up and down along the line, telling us that we had no hope of getting into the Sony presentation. Everybody around me found this guy annoying, and so did I. Virtually no one left: Southern California fans are clearly as stubborn as New Yorkers about queues.

Besides, we had reason for hope: the line kept moving forward. It was like my experience waiting to get into New York’s Symphony Space to see Stephen Sondheim and Joss Whedon (see “Comics in Context” #77). In that case, the line moved to close up space when people gave up and stopped waiting. But this was not the case with this Comic-Con line: it kept on moving relatively quickly, and i saw few people leave.

Besides, it was so chilly waiting in line outside Symphony Space in March. It was pleasantly warm in the line outside Hall H, even considering I was wearing a jacket.

The annoying guy also kept telling us that there were “only 6500 seats” inside Hall H. What did he mean, “only” 6500? Hall H is considerably larger than any panel room that Comic-Con had only three years ago. The Metropolitan Opera House has 3800 seats; Radio City Music Hall has 6000. These are famously vast venues, and Hall H is more colossal still. Could it be that the ever-increasing audience for Comic-Con has already outgrown even the enormity of Hall H? Had the “campers” filled it up?

SATURDAY 5:45 PM
By now I had moved all the way through the line to a point roughly only nine feet from the door to the Hall H lobby. And here the line lost all forward momentum. I realized that had I left the DK booth at 4 PM, I probably would have gotten inside Hall H by now. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

My fellow Quick Stop columnist Fred Hembeck is doubtless reading this and thinking: I can stand around doing nothing just as easily at home (and often do) without going to all the trouble and expense of flying cross-country. Point taken.

SATURDAY 6:40 PM
Finally I was inside Hall H, and the last panel of the day was about to begin! Could it be? Was I going to hear Sam Raimi speak? He was the last person on the Saturday schedule for Hall H, after all.

Gary Sassaman brought onstage the next speaker, who didn’t fit my image of Sam Raimi. This guy looked sort of like that Silent Bob character in those movies, except that (A) this guy didn’t wear a cap, and (B) this guy talked a lot, and so fast that I often couldn’t take notes quickly enough to keep up with him. Who is this guy?

Then this guy (for convenience’s sake, let’s give him an anonymous-sounding name, like Mr. Smith) started taking questions from the audience.

The first inquiry was about the status of the Green Hornet movie that “Smith” once planned to make. Smith said this wasn’t going to happen, because he is “not good at action” and instead “make[s] movies where people talk to each other.” He said that if he did a Green Hornet movie, the characters would “stand around talking about. . .pussy.”

The next fan said, “Thanks for all the trouble you took to get here.” Modestly, Smith replied, “All I did was sit in the car.” It seems that he was stuck in traffic, just as Snoop Dogg had been yesterday on the way to Comic-Con. Quick Stop editor Ken Plume has informed me that Saturday traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego is not usually this bad. It appears that Comic-Con is now so huge that it creates traffic jams between major cities.

Smith demonstrated a commendable paternal regard towards his fans. Observing that one questioner was accompanied by an attractive woman, Smith advised him, “You’re a comic book dude. Don’t dump the girlfriend. Very rarely,” he continues, would a male comics fan find a woman who would say, “I want to fuckin’ hang out while you fuckin’ talk to Spider-Man.” (Spider-Man just got mentioned, so I must be at the right panel, right?)

Then someone wanted to know about the dance number in Clerks II, which had just opened the previous day. Smith told disgruntled audience members to “Chill out. It’s a valid question.” Then he told us, “I’m the straightest gay filmmaker. Doing a musical is right up my alley.” He declared there was “a lot of gayness going in in the movie. I was going like Fosse!” (Well, actually Bob Fosse was very much straight but never mind.) “I always felt I was one cock in the mouth shy of being gay myself,” Smith informed us. Gosh, this is so different from the 300 panel.

Mr. Smith was like a skilled conductor and we in the audience were his orchestra. He told us he was going to bring out Clerks II actor Jason Mewes, and the audience got audibly excited. Then Smith told us, “I was just fuckin’ with you. He’s not here,” and the audience began to settle down again. Then, before emotions could die down, Smith broke into a big smile and said, “No! He is! Check it out!” And then out onstage came Jason Mewes, who looks like that Jay guy in those movies, but with short hair. And I thought: this isn’t Kirsten Dunst.

The next question returned to a previous theme: “Would you wear a kilt in public?” Smith responded, “The shorts I wear are practically a fuckin’ dress anyway.”

The next questioner was a deaf man who was accompanied by a sign language interpreter: the deaf guy wanted to know what Smith’s wife thought of the line in the Clerks II credits thanking her for “the pussy.” Smith observed, “Apparently even deaf dudes aren’t gentlemen anymore.” Pondering aloud, Smith said, “It’s so weird, cause you’re not looking at me.” Then he improvised an experiment, and got the interpreter to sign the following: “This isn’t Kevin talkin’ right now: For many years I’ve really wanted to suck your dick.”

Then Smith answered the “pussy” question seriously. “I think she realizes without me, who would fuck you?” I was beginning to detect this Smith guy’s inner melancholy. He lamented, “Why is it always, “˜Kevin, I respect you; Jason, I would fuck you?'”

The next questioner wanted to know how to get to work for Smith as an intern, inspiring him again to vent his inner pain: “All the interns I get are like, “˜I respect you.’ Mewes, on the other hand, takes interns all the time.” But then Smith confessed that there are no interns; “There’s like one dude who mans the phone, and it’s usually Mewes.”

I felt that Smith and I had something in common, until I remembered what his wife looks like. Okay, he’s way better off than me.

Speaking of his wife, another audience member wanted to know if it bothered Smith to have actor Brian O’Halloran kissing her in Clerks II. “No, it didn’t bother me,” Smith answered, though “if it was Affleck” it would have, because that would represent a “trade up.” Smith noted that “No woman wants to trade down. Why would she leave one fat bearded guy for another?”

Even so, Smith admitted being bothered that his wife ended up kissing O’Halloran for an hour while they were shooting the scene. “I can’t let O’Halloran have the record,” Smith asserted, so he tried to kiss her for even longer, but after twelve minutes, he gave up and said, “Fuck it, let’s fuck.” Smith then advised us that as far as he was concerned, “Kissing is a prelude to fucking.”

But I don’t want to give you the impression that this panel was just about sex. Smith also mused about the physical downside of growing older. “Honestly, it gets no better in your thirties,” he warned us. “Stuff starts falling apart.” Take this for example: “My shit was just too hard. I had hard core shit, like Jean-Claude Van Damme shit.” So Smith’s doctor advised him to start taking Metamucil, which had amazing results. “My shit has the consistency of Play-Doe now,” Smith reassured us. “It just flows out of me.” He counseled audience members in their twenties, “Start drinking Metamucil now. Protect your asshole.”

Now, really, do you get this sort of valuable advice about life at the DC and Marvel panels? I think not. Come back next week for my Comic-Con grand finale and you’ll learn still more from the mysterious Mr. Smith.

-Copyright 2006 Peter Sanderson

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September 14, 2006

Music For The Masses: September 14th, 2006

Filed under: Music for the Masses — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:13 am

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Welcome back, friends!Â I’m so glad to see you again and I hope all is well with each and every one of you out there. For me, things are absolutely fantastic.Â Know why?Â That’s right! Â It’s football season, baby, and I’ll tell you right now that makes me happier than John Michael Karr chewing on a pair of Dora the ExplorerÂ® panties.Â Yes sir. . .like the proverbial pig-in-shit!!Â And boy, I’m even more excited than usual this year because besides the normally full college football schedule (a quick aside to you CU fans out there. . .”HA HA!!Â SUCK IT!!!), you now have the new NFL channel, double-header Monday Night Football on ESPN and Sunday night games on NBC.Â I’ll tell you, my friends, there is more football on your basic cable television than you can shake a baby at (and yes, professor, I just ended that sentence in a preposition).Â
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Today, unlike in years past, we football fans have an unprecedented number of opportunities to catch not only some great match-ups, but more chances to scope that *cough* HILARIOUS *cough* Peyton Manning “porn-stache” commercial at every conceivable break, Bill Cower’s horrific under-bite jutting from the sidelines and onto the field of play and, of course. . .Â
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. . .the wit and witticism of John Madden, pictured here on break during the recording of one of his four sayings featured in Madden “˜07.
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In fact, the only thing about this new football season that I am NOT looking forward to is seeing more of Pink as “she” sings her homage to football during the opening of NBC’s Sunday night coverage.Â I caught the song this week and from it, I can discern two things:Â I sure as hell hope Joan Jett got some kind of compensation for that and, to paraphrase the immortal words of Austin Powers, “That’s DEFINITELY a man, baby!”Â Â Seriously.Â Large hands, Adam’s apple. . .huge, giant dick. Â Sure, it’s made of rubber, has a big, brass buckle on the back and “Tonsil Train” engraved on the side, but it’s still a dick.Â
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“I wanna see you in your pink tuxedo.Â I wanna sink you with my Pink torpedo.”
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So, I’m not sure what marketing genius thought up this move, but whoever they are, they dropped the ball in a major way because I am confident that I speak for most of the male, viewing audience when I say that we view “chicks” who can AND want to kick the living shit out of us as a general “turn off.”Â Nice try, though.Â And thanks, NBC, for not listening to the guy who wanted Clay Aiken to sing that opening. Â We dodged a bullet there for the only choice worse than having Pink man-grunt her way through “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” would have been getting your audience pumped up for football while sitting through Aiken’s “I Want You To Put A Vicious Hit On My Tight End.”
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Measure of a Man, huh?Â
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But enough about all of that.Â Screw football for the time being, friends, for we have more important things to do like. . .well, like checking out some new releases.Â This week, we spend some timeÂ with the new ones from Iron Maiden and the Barenaked Ladies.Â Plus, Double AÂ hits usÂ with the new one from Method Man and we have a Dave Mathews concert review from a faithful reader.Â Should be fun.Â So, what do you say?Â Let’s get to it, shall we??!!Â
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Artist: Iron Maiden
Album: A Matter Of Life And Death
Bastard Love Child of: Black Sabbath and King Crimson.
Best for: Pumping up your “street cred” at the local Hot Topic by cruising in there with an ACTUAL concert shirt.

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No. . .this is not a scene from Spinal Tap II.Â But it easily could be.
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I’m not ashamed to tell you that, much like pubic hair, I came into Iron Maiden late.Â Then again, having Iron Maiden in my life has never made a “clean wipe” a challenge, so maybe that’s a bad comparison.Â Whatever.Â I guess my point here is that I never gave Iron Maiden’s music a fair shake until well into my college years; always dismissing them as a “poor man’s Sabbath.”Â Hey, fuck off.Â I never said I was a smart man, Jenny.
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Needless to say, in the years since “my discovery,” I have actually become a big fan of the band, more so of the band WITH Dickinson, and have been anxiously awaiting the release of this, their 14^th studio album, A Matter Of Life And Death.Â So, right about now, you are probably asking yourself “was it worth the wait?”Â Well, chuckle nuts, I’m glad you asked.
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Quite simply, this is the best Maiden disc in years.Â Hell, I’d gladly argue that it is the strongest album that Maiden has released since the “˜80’s and it is EASILY one of the best metal discs I’ve heard this year.Â I mean, sure, the band is getting a little long in the tooth, but it doesn’t show in the music.Â Not in the least.Â Dickinson’s voice is as strong as ever and the impressive, 3-guitar attack of Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers delivers enough punch to make your sphincter tighten.Â I’m not sure what that really means. . .I just like the word “sphincter.”
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The band has always had progressive leanings, but on this album, they lean a bit harder as they switch up tempos, keys and styles while galloping through the 10, epic songs on this 70+ minute disc.Â All of the songs are engaging with soaring melodies and catchier-than-usual choruses, but my personal favorites include the slow-burning The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, the punishing Different World and the driving The Longest Day.

Simply put, this album is a must-have for any fan of good, old-fashioned, ass-kicking metal.
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Rating:Â 4 out of 5
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Artist: Barenaked Ladies
Album: Barenaked Ladies Are Me
Bastard Love Child of: They Might Be Giants and R.E.M..
Best for: Proving that the fully-clothed “˜Ladies are a hell of a lot of fun, too!

Man. . .I absolutely LOVE Barenaked Ladies.Â In fact, if I had to guess, I probably spend a MINIMUM of 4 hours a day searching them out on free sites on the internet.Â Hey, why buy the whole cow when you can get a sample of the jerky for free? Â Know what I’m saying?Â Â So, imagine my surprise, whilst chasing down a “golden shower” string, when I found a BAND named Barenaked Ladies.Â No shit.Â Here’s a picture of them. . .
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Settle down, now. . .I’m just joking.Â The Barenaked Ladies are actually one of my all time favorite bands. . .even if they are Canadian.Â Â Â They are a talented group of musicians, especially keyboardist Kevin Hearn and bass player Jim Creegan, who are funny, quirky and, hands down, put on one of the best, damn live shows I have ever seen.Â I shit you not.Â A live BNL show is NOT to be missed.Â You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. . .it’ll become a part of you.Â

That’s why I’m a bit perplexed by this new disc, Barenaked Ladies Are Me (Get it? Barenaked Ladies ARMY?).Â You see, it’s not that goofy.Â It’s not that quirky.Â In fact, the damn thing is actually a very *CRINGE* mature effort.Â What the hell, Ladies?Â Where’s my Yoko Ono?Â Huh?Â How about my monkey?Â You know I’ve always wanted a monkey.Â Seriously.Â I want one of you guys to explain just how in the hell I’m supposed to dance to the radio station that plays in my teeth if it’s playing this album?Â Huh?Â Fuckers.
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Yep, I’m sorry to say it, friends, but it appears that the Ladies are “all growed up” and all we are left with is. . .easily their most consistent effort to date.Â Sure, the wacky humor has been trimmed back to dry wit and the “rocking” is MIA, but these songs do a better job of showcasing the band’s musical craftsmanship and songwriting than any of their other albums.Â Oh yeah, and, lest we forget, in true BNL style, the songs are all catchier than Hep C.Â Right, Tommy?
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Tommy says, “RIGHT!!”Â

Even though the disc is more mellow in nature than previous BNL efforts, you should know going in that it is chock full of easily accessible tunes and that there are some real gems here. . .particularly, the album’s opener, “Adrift,” featuring some smart lyrics and incredible harmonies, the creative instrumentation of “Bank Job,” the nice and easy track. . .umm, “Easy,” which is also the first single and, my personal favorite, “Wind it Up.”
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Obviously, long-time fans of the band will get more out of this disc than casual listeners, but if you are one of those people who shied away from this band because they were just too damn wacky, give this disc a chance.Â I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s nice to finally see that these guys have grown up a bit.
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Rating:Â 3.5 out of 5
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Im going to admit something to you dear Quick Stoppers that I’m not proud of.Â I did not buy Method Man’s new album 4:21″¦the Day After on the day that it came out. Nor did I buy it the next Tuesday either.Â It took me 10 days to finally get around to buying this album.Â I like Meth, (the rapper, not the cough medicine derived drug that is produced in trailer parks across this great country).Â I enjoy his music.Â But there were so many other CDs and DVDs to buy in the last few weeks that I just kept pushing Meth further and further down my priority list.Â Now, after giving this album a good listen, I wish I had picked it up on the day it came out.Â I won’t go as far as to say this is the best rap album to come out this year, (Dr. Octagon is the best), but this is a very, VERY close second.
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With nightmares of the ill-fated and ill-conceived sitcom “Method and Red” running through my head, I listened intently to the songs on the disc.Â The first thing I noticed that separates this album from just about every other mainstream rapper out there is the beats.Â In a world of over the top beats where each song tries to be more complex than the latest hit, it’s nice to see someone take a step back and do it simply.Â That’s what made Dr. Octagon good, that’s what makes 4:21″¦the Day After good.Â Simple bass lines with simple melodies, often just a guitar or piano sample.Â Makes for a nice, retro feel.Â It also doesn’t hurt that Meth, or Mef, as he is often called, can rap.
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Seriously, Mef can bust a rhyme quicker and better than I can bust a flimsy lawn chair.Â All of the flows are smooth and the lyrics are tight.Â It also doesn’t hurt that this album is very “Wu tang-y.”Â Just about the whole gang is present and accounted for, with the only real exceptions being GZA and Ghost Face Killa.Â Hell, even Big Baby Jesus himself, the Ol’ Dirty Bastard makes a posthumous appearance.Â Another difference between this album and most other rap discs of late is that the guest stars don’t necessarily make the songs better.Â The songs are good enough as they are, the guests are just the icing on the cake.Â And being a gentleman of a larger stature, I likes me my cake and icing.
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There are no bad songs on this disc.Â Of course there are the obligatory rap disc skits, but they don’t bog the album down.Â They are short and seem more like song intros than actual skits.Â The best songs on the album are “Fall Out” and “Say.”Â Both follow the formula with simple beats and both are Mef solo and at his best.Â “Fall Out” is more of a hardcore rap song while “Say” is more of a biographical song.Â Out of all the many guest stars, the Dirty memorial song “Dirty Mef” is the best collaboration.Â It’s nice to hear that the memory of ODB is everywhere on this disc.Â Just about every song has a shout out to the Dirty, and seeing as he is one of my favorite all time rappers, its cool to see the memory kept alive.Â

Rating:Â 5 out of 5

REVIEWS. . .

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Â by Tommy GunnÂ Â Â Â Â

TEN HUT, SOLDIER!!

Now, ladies. . .

Normally, a Dave Matthews Band concert held in a modern day sports arena wouldn’t warrant much attention or acclaim.Â DMB, though always good live, comes off much better in either smaller venues or outside.Â Â But the performance at Denver’s Pepsi Center on September 12th bucked the status quo and was one of the betterÂ shows I’ve seen by Dave and Company.

With an opening act of Robert Randolph (who appearedÂ again later withÂ the groupÂ toÂ close the show) and the guest addition of Rashawn Ross on trumpet, DMBÂ concocted a production with great tempo and flow.Â As Dave himselfÂ mumbled in the mike, “We’re just gonnaÂ eeeeease into it,”Â before launching into a handful of mellowÂ tunes before laying into more upbeatÂ tracks like Â Grey Street.Â Playing mostly well-known songs with a dash of newer titles, even the most casual follower of the Dave MatthewsÂ Band was able to sing alongÂ with the result being an arena that rocked for almost 2 hours.Â Â

Â Dave’s affection for Colorado is always genuine andÂ despite the venue, they gave an A-grade performance to a very receptive crowd.Â Â The technical crew deserves kudos for this show as the audio and, in particular the video, were dialed in and overcame theÂ typical shortcomings of a cavernousÂ Pepsi Center.Â Of the 8 timesÂ I’ve seen DMB live, this wasÂ by far the best indoors and the energy rivaled previous epic performances at Folsom Field in 2001 and the legendary Red Rocks last September.Â

AS YOU WERE!!!!

Nice work, Major.Â Well, there you have it friends.Â That’s going to do it for me and the gang this week, so, until next time, keep wearing it proud and playing it loud!Â

Send your naked lady pictures, review copies, presents and assorted hate mail to:

M.C. Bell
P.O. Box 1222
Arvada, CO 80001Â Â Â Â Â

Â E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVESÂ Â Â Â Â

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The Fred Hembeck Show: Episode 72 – The Mark Gruenwald Show

Filed under: The Fred Hembeck Show — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:09 am

Back in the spring of 1987, I received a call from Jim Salicrup, my editor over at Marvel Age Magazine, for whom I’d been doing a monthly feature for a number of years already at that point. He informed me that Marvel was going to include the fan-friendly promo publication amongst that summer’s roster of Annuals, and he had a swell idea as to how to not only promote the line’s upcoming books, but to entertain the readers in the process: he wanted me to expand my “Fred Hembeck Show” schtick that I’d been doing upon occasion over an entire double-sized issue!

The concept was this: Cartoon Fred would come out on stage at this mock late-night chat-fest, welcoming all the biggies (i.e., characters with their own ongoing titles) onto the couch one page at a time. There’d be some (hopefully) comedic banter, and then, in tried and true talk show tradition, I’d direct the audience towards the clip our guests inevitably brought along. In this case, that meant each alternating page in this book was handled by the costumed do-gooders current creative teams, showcasing the near future plans slated for such mainstays as Spider-Man, Thor, and the Avengers.

It was an inspired notion, and despite the fact that I had little over a month to write, draw and letter (and you betcha by golly, there sure was a WHOLE lotta lettering!…) nearly twenty pages, it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever been assigned to do in comics. Naturally, cranking out the set-up material at such a hasty pace, I didn’t have time (nor really, any need, since Cartoon Fred got to play the smoozing host who loves EVERYTHING, no matter what you put in front of him!…) to co-ordinate any of my intros with the folks who were actually in charge of this impressive parade of iconic Marvel characters.

With one exception.

Mark Gruenwald.

Truth is, he was the one who called me. Neither of us could’ve imagined at the time that he was merely at the comparative outset of an epic decade-plus long run scripting Captain America (1985-1995, issues 307 through 443, save for 423), but it was a task for which his enthusiasm apparently never wavered, and that was especially true for what he had prepared for the then immediate future. Only, he felt that the upcoming events in the Star-Spangled Avenger’s life needed a little more oomph than my (by necessity) generic, already completed introduction provided. So he suggested that I take a few further panels on top of the page entrusted to him (and artists Tom Morgan and Joe Sinnott) to really get across the title’s exciting new direction.

This is what it looked like…

Unfortunately, despite his near omnipresence at Marvel for nearly twenty years, that was the only time I ever worked with Mark Gruenwald (unless you count the fact that he’d done some production work for his friend, Dean Mullaney of Eclipse – color separations, mainly – on my first published collection, Hembeck: The Best of Dateline:@#$% back in the late seventies). We’d met up at conventions and parties on several occasions, but as I was never a regular New York City denizen, those brief encounters were few and fleeting. Still, he always seemed like a nice enough guy, and his going the extra mile to promote Cap’s book – and eagerly buying into the whole faux talk show conceit – really impressed me. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, though – I’d long been a fan of his writing.

Now, some folks would tell you that Mark’s dialog wasn’t the best, and yeah, there were clunkers to be found lurking in his plentiful fully loaded balloons, but that always seemed a minor quibble at best to me. Y’see, there were always more ideas to be found in a single issue of a Gruenwald book than could oft times be detected in a full year’s worth of work from other, more ear-pleasingly glib, writers. And I’m not just talking about the nuts and bolts of the menace of the month – I was always impressed by the way Mark slowly but surely brought along the personalities of his always bountiful casts, having them interact in a surprising yet clearly logical manner. That above all is what I treasured about a Gruenwald penned episode – you could never quite predict where it was going, but it always made sense in getting there – and was true to the characters as established to boot. Little wonder then that far above anything else produced under the aegis of the regrettable New Universe experiment, Mark (and artists Paul Ryan’s) 32 issues (plus one Annual) of D.P.7 shines like a bright beacon of success amidst a gloomy cloud of failure.

And in the early nineties, when Marvel was cranking out books like sausages – bad sausages – and I was still on the freebie list, there were only four regular books I could stomach reading. Two were by Mark: Captain America, natch, and his 59 (of 60) issues of Quasar. (To stave off your curiosity, the other two were Walt Simonson’s F.F. and Peter David’s Hulk.) I always felt Mark’s books (save for the landmark 12 issue Squadron Supreme limited series) never quite got the props they truly deserved. Partially that had to do with the fact that Mark was usually paired up with solid, professional – but rarely flashy – artists, and partially because readers needed to immerse themselves in these continuing sagas to fully appreciate the thought and skill Gruenwald invested into his writing. Too bad. I have nothing but fond memories of his work.

Mark Gruenwald, as you probably know, passed away unexpectedly in August of 1996. Obviously, that was a great loss for everyone – his fans, the comics field, and most especially his family. Like I said, I barely knew the man, but if I can’t be counted among his personal friends, let me at least be happily identified as one his biggest fans.

The reason this all came to mind, oddly enough, was due to my MySpace page. I generally double post anything I write over there on my own Fred Sez blog. The advantage the MySpace page has is the ability for readers to leave their own pithy comments under my ramblings. Last week, in a brief posting pointing folks to the previous edition of “The Fred Hembeck Show”, the aforementioned Jim Salicrup, as well as an Italian fan by the name of Max Brigel, both chipped in their two cents, and after seeing himself sharing space with Jim and I, Max came back with this brief note…

Nice! Now, with you and Jim Salicrup, I’m almost on a Marvel Age page!! Ahh, those were the times…

Friend Max, it turned out, had good reason to wax nostalgic over the sadly long defunct Marvel Age, as he explained with his next posting…

Well, since I owe my career to the late great Mark Gruenwald I completely agree with that! I’ll tell you the story… because I didn’t have the chance to write it down anywhere last month, in the 10th anniversary of Gru’s passing.In 1990, I was only a fan of Marvel Comics (now I work for Panini Comics, which reprints Marvel for Italy/France/Germany/Brasil/Spain) and decided to check their boot at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Lo and behold: the great Gru was there, and when I saw him I couldn’t resist asking the hostess if I could speak a minute with him. Only later I discovered we were both born on the 18th of June (ditto for Alan Davis and Paul McCartney), so maybe there was a weird connection between us, but in 1990 I only exploited my knowledge of Marvel Comics.I remember pointing at him, even when I was speaking to the hostess, and he noticed, and asked me to sit in the Marvel booth so we could speak everything Marvel. And so we did for a few minutes (15? Maybe more…), but he didn’t mind answering all of my questions. If I had had more of them, he would’ve answered more: he was kindness! Then I thanked him and got back home with a precious knowledge of Marvel’s next moves.

A few days later I went to my comic shop and spoke freely to the people there about my encounter with Mark Gruenwald… “Why don’t you write it down? We’re printing a fanzine next month and your ‘interview’ will be priceless!” they told me. No sooner said than done, I rushed home and wrote everything with a pen (using my memory too) on a piece of paper: I didn’t have a computer back then!

The “interview” was indeed printed in the fanzine (“Glamazonia”) and I was so proud of it I decided to send a copy to an Italian editor of Marvel Comics (Luca Scatasta), just to thank him for his great work. When Glamazonia arrived in his bullpen, it created quite a sensation, and everyone started to remember my name: “He’s a letter hacker!” said the editor-in-chief, “He’s buying comics in the comic book shop where I used to work” said the secretary. You see: they needed another freelance editor because Luca Scatasta was only very part-time at the moment, and they decided to interview me.

The interview went very well, and so my first articles and editing job (basically I edited a couple of translations of Wolverine issues)… In short, I got my very first freelance job! And it was only the beginning of a (so far) amazing experience in Marvel editing which started in 1990 thanks to the great man I discovered with “Mark’s remarks” in Marvel Age!Two or three years after that meeting (dated 7th April 1990, as I recently discovered), I had the incredible honor to start editing the translations of every single Captain America Mark G. wrote! I also wrote cliff notes on characters he would have surely appreciated!

This in turn inspired Jim Salicrup to share the following…

Well, this will be the longest comment ever on Fred’s MySpace page…First, here’s something I wrote for the latest issue of MoCCAzine, the newsletter for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org):“MoCCA Remembers Mark Gruenwald

“Peter Sanderson’s MoCCA Monday lectures on 1986: The Year That Changed Comics are incredibly insightful examinations of key important and influential comics and graphic novels. But Peter’s August 7th talk was extra special, and no, it’s not because Peter raced through his in-depth analysis of Marvel’s Squadron Supreme limited series in Speed Demon fashion (clocking in at a little over fifteen minutes compared to his usual norm of roughly two hours). What made this particular MoCCA Monday unique was that Peter had gathered together a group of special guests to talk about Squadron Supreme writer Mark Gruenwald, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Mark’s death. Remarkably, this wasn’t the first time Mark’s death has been tied to the Squadron Supreme, as some of Mark’s ashes were actually blended in with the ink used to print the first trade paperback collection edition.“Speaking before the standing-room-only crowd, guests included Catherine Schuller, Mark’s widow, who read movingly from a eulogy Mark had written for himself years before he died, and Sara Gruenwald, Mark’s daughter who announced she has, despite her father’s advice, recently published comics of her own. Many of Mark’s co-workers were present and shared their favorite memories of Mark. Mike Carlin, Jim Salicrup, Glenn Herdling, Glen Greenberg, Tom Palmer, Carl Potts, and Tom DeFalco all spoke of Mark’s humor, practical jokes, and love of comics. Also in attendance were several of the current writers of Mark’s creation, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, one of whom spoke and told of Mark’s impact on his generation of comics fans and professionals.“Videos of Mark’s convention appearances and Bullpen hi-jinks were shown, and to conclude the formal proceedings, a friend Henry O, performed one of Mark’s favorite Beatles songs, ‘In My Life.’ The guests and audience members, including many comics industry professionals such as Bob Budiansky, Renee Witterstaetter, Ken Lopez, and many others, all then got to mingle, enjoy refreshments, and continue to share their memories of the clearly much-loved Mark Gruenwald. Despite the potential of such an event turning into a very sad occasion, the mood was upbeat and fun the entire evening, making for a truly memorable MoCCA Monday.”And, if that wasn’t enough, here’s what I said at MoCCA that night…

“A Few Words About Mark Gruenwald

“Asking me to say a few words about anything is often futile, as I tend to go on endlessly about almost anything. And when it comes to Mark Gruenwald, I’m sure I could write a monthly ongoing solo comicbook series, as well as an ongoing team-up title. But tonight, I’ll give it my best shot to be somewhat restrained.

“Like most people I liked Mark as soon as I met him. His unique sense of humor and passion for comics was infectious. He was sort of combination of Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson – the bad boy with that endearing twinkle in his eye. In the time I knew Mark, we went from being the young fans that were breaking into comics to becoming what they like call ‘comics veterans.’ We went from being very close friends to colleagues with a tremendous amount of mutual respect.

“In the early days, we spent lots of time together talking about our respective hopes and dreams, usually while taking long walks through Central Park, up to his West Side apartment. We both passionately loved comics, but the reality of working at a major comics publisher could be, shall we say, very challenging.

“Rather than simply despair, Mark and I would always embrace the challenge of finding a way to please both our corporate masters and our own fannish desires. For example, Mark was always more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan, but did Mark let that stop him from writing the Justice League of America?“Mark wrote, with Ralph Macchio, the long-time Marvel editor, not the star of Karate Kid movies, Marvel-Two-In-One, a team-up title featuring the Fantastic Four’s ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing character, which I got to edit. Working with such top artists as George Perez and John Byrne, we got to have fun with such storylines as Project: Pegasus and the Serpent Crown Affair. While most of the time it was fun to work with Ralph and Mark, sometimes Mark would come up with ideas that I wasn’t able to appreciate at the time. For example, Mark once wanted to feature Moon Man, the older version of Jack Kirby’s Moon-Boy character from Devil Dinosaur. I didn’t quite appreciate Mark’s sense of the absurd at that point.“Later when looking for a villain somehow related to the ballet, to include in a strange comic I wrote, which actually featured Spider-Man, Fire-Star, and Ice Man watching a performance of the Nutcracker, I was thrilled to come upon a character Mark had created – a guy who was repeatedly rejected because he was too short to be a ballet dancer, so he somehow got his hands on a growing formula that turned him into the freakish Daddy Long-legs – a guy now too tall to be a ballet dancer.“Quite often, Mark would try to get a concept by me, by saying, ‘But Jim, there’s never been anything done like this in comics before.’ And unfortunately, I’d have to respond by saying, ‘Sometimes there are good reasons.’

“Mark also wrote a monthly Mark’s Remarks column for Marvel Age Magazine, the official Marvel fan magazine I edited for eight years. While most of the columns were in someway promoting something or other that Marvel was publishing at the time, I’d sometimes be surprised at how personal his column could become. For example, unlike me, who thought it was great that everyone had an opportunity to submit their work to Marvel for consideration, Mark was far more compassionate, and felt strongly for the many people who would inevitably be rejected.“In another column, where Mark was just listing random thoughts, one of his philosophical points had a profound affect on my life. It was a simple thought, appreciate the people in your life who love you. Back then I was a bit too full of myself, and taking the people who loved me for granted. Mark’s sincere advice, coming from such an unexpected source – a column in a magazine devoted to promoting Marvel Comics – made me think about how I was treating people in my life, and for that, I’m eternally thankful to Mark.“I remember one difficult time, walking Mark home on the night that Spider-Woman, a title he had been writing, was reassigned to another writer. Mark was crushed. He was pouring everything he had into that comic. I told him he shouldn’t let this upset him too much. That he should remain open to future opportunities. That life was full of creative challenges, and the specifics weren’t all that important – that he would continually find ways to creatively express himself. And he did.“Instead of allowing the job to shape him, Mark shaped his job to reflect him. I’ve always thought it was an editor’s job to construct an environment conducive to creativity. Mark took that literally and would redesign and rebuild his office in amazing ways. Mark’s life was a constant expression of his humor, compassion, love, and spirit.“As much as I enjoyed Mark’s comicbook work, I think Mark himself was his greatest creation.”

Max, I’d like to read that interview you did with Mark. It would be like spending a few minutes with my old friend yet again.

Thanks Jim – and thanks to both you and Max for granting me permission to reuse your heartfelt words here – I felt both pieces were just too good to be shunted away in the comments section of my MySpace page. If nothing else, it spurred me on to offer up this long overdue tribute of my own to one of my favorite latter-day mainstream scribes. We all miss you Mark, but you haven’t been forgotten. Not by a long shot. And if you folks are at all interested in reading an expansive collection of the earlier alluded to Mark’s Remarks columns, well, this whole sentence will serve as a link to get you there. Go ahead and take a look – there are far worse ways to while away the time on the Internet, after all.

(Not including Hembeck.com, of course!…)

Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck (except for the material generously provided by Jim Salicrup and Max Brighel, used by permission)

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September 13, 2006

Interview: John Hodgman

Filed under: Interviews — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:37 am

-by Ken PlumeÂ

Once in a generation, a humorist will step forward whose thinking is so uniquely, sublimely outside of the box that a new box must be hastily constructed – usually out of found materials, since the process must be undertaken with incredible speed or risk losing so gossamer a genius. In this generation, that freak of nature is named John Hodgman, and he has written a book called The Areas Of My Expertise.

Mr. Hodgman is a man of letters (26, to be exact – and he used every last one of them to write this book) and a current guest correspondent on The Daily Show – his past is shrouded in mystery, though it may have involved editing, agenting, writing, and constructing the world’s largest popsicle castle.

Presented in the form of an ersatz almanac, his book is a hilarious journey into the secret Hobo culture (and the list of 700 Hobo names), the American presidents who had hooks for hands, plus little known facts about the 51 U.S. States, Lycanthropic Transformation Timetables (very important), and much, much more. Hodgman writes in an easily accessible, quite matter-of-fact style about matters most surreal – yet disturbingly plausible. Now that it’s available in a newly expanded paperback edition and audiobook form, you have absolutely no excuse not to pick it up. Mr. Hodgman’s family, and his myriad creditors, will thank you.

He is also currently on tour, accompanied by cyber-troubadour Jonathan Coulton. Like The Monkees before them, they could be coming to your town – check for dates at the official website, www.areasofmyexpertise.com.

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JOHN HODGMAN: So how are you?

KEN PLUME: I’m doing quite well.Â I keep hearing all these wonderful things about you from all different contacts I have within the industry.

HODGMAN: Oh, that’s very nice to hear.Â Glad that’s happening.

KP: So, I can either start with a serious question or an even more serious question.

HODGMAN: I think you should pick the one that you most want the answer to.

KP: Should I be afraid of the hobos, and where are they now?

HODGMAN: Is that the serious question or the more serious question?

KP: I’m really not sure anymore.Â I think it’s the more serious question in this day and age.

HODGMAN: Well, as you may know, there are still people in the world who ride the rails, and ride box cars… Emulate the hobo lifestyle as it was sort of defined in the early 20th century.Â But these people are hobo emulators – what we call in the hobo observation business “fauxbos” – instead of the true hobos, who left after 1941.Â Some believe that, after Pearl Harbor, they gave up their wandering ways and joined the fight against our common enemy, Europe.Â Others believe that they went to another planet or another dimension. Others think they just simply went underground and are waiting to come back.Â But that’s not true.Â Most historians agree that they probably went to another planet.

KP: So they were like the Heaven’s Gate of happy wanderers.

HODGMAN: Yes, but with success.

KP: But will they return?Â Or have they abandoned us?

HODGMAN: Well, the point of the hobos in my book is that they are unknowable and simply… they represented a sort of subculture that is so far out of the mainstream that they are not understandable to civilized humans like you and me.Â And so what they might choose to do and what they might not choose to do, it’s really a question that’s impossible to answer.Â Should we fear them?Â Well, you know, I would exercise caution if you were to go back in time and see one. Or if they were to come back.Â You know, a hobo might just as soon sit and stare at you for several hours, or make you a hobo soup out of old soup that they collected for many months. Or they might try to stab you with a needle.

KP: So a hobo is just like my grandmother.

HODGMAN: (laughing) Well, I didn’t want to get into your grandmother, but you know, it’s the elephant in the room.Â We might as well talk about it.

KP: Yes, well, I’m glad that you’re bringing up all kinds of bad memories now.

HODGMAN: Yeah.

KP: Along with the prospect of time travel, which I’m quite intrigued by.

HODGMAN: Yeah, exactly.Â Time travel’s gonna… I predict it’s gonna be reality.

KP: If we were to extrapolate off the time travel aspect, you certainly had an interesting career prior to launching into writing.

HODGMAN: Yeah…

KP: It seems like it’s a certain kind of person that goes into agenting.Â How would you describe the John Hodgman of, let’s say, even 10 years ago?

HODGMAN: Well, let’s see.Â This is 2006.Â In the year 1996 I was working at a literary agency in New York City called Writer’s House, very happily sort of deciding that I would not have to ever bother with actually writing anything myself because that is very… it’s very hard work.Â Very time consuming, and I could live like a parasite off of other writers by representing their work and being their advocates to the publishing industry.Â And also, while drinking their blood, also helping them in their careers and editing their works – which is something that I actually get a lot of reward from.Â In 1996, we did not have the World Wide Web at the office yet, and I had AOL at home.Â So in many ways my career – as I suspect your career – was at that point impossible.Â No offense.Â I mean, maybe you were running Quick Stop in 1996.Â I don’t know.

KP: Yes, we ran it out of a small kiosk in Red Bank.

HODGMAN: Is that true?

KP: No.

HODGMAN: We had two Apple 2Es connected to each other in the garage.

KP: We would just share news between each other…

HODGMAN: In 1997, which was a more interesting year, we did get the internet at work, and we moved up from DOS – which is what we had been using – to Windows 95, and I found a website for the actor Bruce Campbell, and then my life really began to change. Because Bruce Campbell, who you may know is the star of Evil Dead 1 and 2 and Army of Darkness and several other… uh… B movies, which is a term that he uses proudly, answers all of his own email.Â And I said, “Would you want to write a book?”Â Because I was a big fan of Bruce Campbell.Â And like many things that I was a fan of, I thought I was the one of maybe five or ten or fifteen in the world.Â But I think what most people discovered when they found the internet was that they unknowingly were members of groups that were much, much larger who wanted to share information about things.Â Meanwhile, Bruce Campbell emailed me back and said, “I always wanted to write a book about being a B movie actor.”

KP: This would be If Chins Could Kill?

HODGMAN: Yep.Â And I said, “Great. If you want, I can try to represent it to you, or I could recommend an actual agent…” But Bruce is a very nice guy and let me do it, and I thought I had a big hit on my hands right away.Â Took a long time to actually sell that book.Â But when we did, it did turn out to be a great big hit – because that was the lesson of 1997, as far as I was concerned, that there were other people out there in the world who were just waiting to talk to one another about crazy things that they loved.Â And as a result, I ended up meeting up with a bunch of people who were working on a literary journal and website called McSweeney’s, and began developing a voice in various little writings that I would do for them as a sort of semi-deranged publishing professional.Â And eventually that became… Well, that was never successful and never made any money, but I began writing for magazines and began having to learn all of a sudden about… very quickly learn about hangover cures and chronic knee pain and the history of vodka and all other sorts of things you need to know. All the other things you need to know when you’re writing front-of-the-book pieces for magazines.Â Just trying to get a foothold.Â And pretty soon I decided that I wanted to leave book publishing as an industry and try to write, and that’s when I started writing a column for the McSweeney’s website called “Ask A Former Professional Literary Agent,” where I would dispense advice on publishing as well as on hangover cures and chronic knee pain.Â And more and more developed a voice that would become the voice of me and the book as you know – a world expert on every subject.Â Which is really just my voice, the kind of voice that I like to use when I’m talking to people or writing things for myself – but because I had met via technology and good fortune a lot of other people who liked this sort of voice, I could find an audience and develop it.

KP: Was there anything that surprised you in that transition?

HODGMAN: Is there anything that surprised me?

KP: In your transition, now being in the position of those who you had once represented…

HODGMAN: Oh, well, I mean, I was surprised at how quickly I transformed into a desperate, loathsome, needy person.Â

KP: You were expecting the process to be a lot slower, then…

HODGMAN: Well, yeah, perhaps I expected it to be slower.Â Perhaps I expected that because I had worked in publishing and I worked with authors, and while I loved them, of course I never wanted to speak to them or deal with them in any way, and their small problems and their desire for money and free lunches and everything else.

KP: So here’s where the hobo fascination comes in…

HODGMAN: Yeah, perhaps.Â But I ended up being represented by an old colleague of mine from the agency.Â So this is someone I knew when I was a publishing professional and a respectable person who wore clean clothes and was taken out to lunch.Â And then I became a client and a writer and the transformation was so complete and, like, awful… I could hear myself become this whining creature of pure need and desire, calling up, “Yeah, this royalty statement is five cents off!Â I can’t stand for this.Â And tomorrow I have to take a shower.”Â I was really aghast at myself, I have to say.

KP: So, when you’re so completely submerged in irony like that, is there any way to pull yourself back up and sort of dust yourself off and realize where you are at that point?

HODGMAN: Where I was at what point?

KP: At the point of which… was there a realization point that, “My god, I’ve become them…”?

HODGMAN: There was probably one particular conversation but I’m sorry that I can’t remember what it was.

KP: You could make it up.

HODGMAN: Yeah, I know I could.Â But it’s better when it’s true.Â The thing about my book is that there’s a lot of truth in it. And I would say most of the things… it’s primarily a book of fake trivia, but I never wanted it to be pure absurdist non sequitur.Â When I was answering questions as “Ask A Former Professional Literary Agent,” someone would ask me questions about chronic knee pain and I would want to know about chronic knee pain before I answered the question, so I could talk about the Patello-Femoral Syndrome.Â Do you know what I mean? Having a ring of plausibility or even actual plausibility, I think, was what was interesting to me, and then following that plausibility to absurd extents is sort of where I really gained pleasure from it.Â So I’m actually not very good at making things up. Just sort of coming up with things.Â Where I feel like I gain pleasure – and this is another area where I would not be able to live without the internet – is coming across some bit of folklore or some weird urban legend on an urban legends page, or some shared cultural memory that I’d forgotten about – about, you know, like Star Blazers from when I was a kid, or whatever – and realizing that people are thinking about this, and then suddenly seeing a joke that I had never thought of.

KP: I think the book wouldn’t work if it didn’t have that solid foundation… That plausibility for absurdity to build upon.

HODGMAN: Right.

KP: You unfortunately see people who go off on flights of fancy without any ground beneath them, and you really can’t buy into that absurd world they’re trying to build – whereas with your book, instantly when you get into it you realize that there is a solid ground to stand on before you take off.

HODGMAN: Well, I’m glad you feel that way.Â I’m not surprised to some degree that people have gotten so much pleasure out of the hobo section of the book, because it is crazy.Â The hobos did not take over the United States government, but I think that there is a…

KP: I could have sworn I saw bindle during the State of the Union.

HODGMAN: Yeah. I saw that too.Â Turns out it wasn’t a bindle.

KP: It was just a sack

HODGMAN: I think people are fascinated with hobos.Â I think I’m one of a generation of people who sort of 15… or… yeah, 15 or closer to 20 years ago were in elementary school sort of learning about hobo symbols and just being fascinated by this subculture that seemed to have existed, and does it exist now still…

KP: The section of the book I enjoyed most is the section on the 51 states.Â Which really is exemplary of that idea you were describing, of the fact that it has to have some grounding in the reality of each of those states for the humor and the absurdity to play off of, or else the joke is lost.

HODGMAN: Yeah, I was just thinking about that, because I spent a lot of time during writing that with an old book called The National Geographic Picture Atlas of our 50 States, which is from the 70s. An old sort of kid’s textbook from the 70s with… let’s see a fact… I have it here.Â For example, in Ohio, they mine coal, petroleum, stone lime, natural gas, sand and gravel.Â Sort of general little bits of propaganda for each state.Â So I spent a lot of time with that and I really found it really funny and fascinating and weird, what states are known for.Â I think I make a reference to the famous glittering marble mines of West Virginia, and I think not many people are gonna know, except maybe a few people, that West Virginia is the center of the marble industry.Â I don’t mean marble, but marbles. They make glass marbles for playing with.

KP: It would have been great if that were the case.

HODGMAN: Well it was the case around the time in the late 70s when this book was published.Â So who knows if that’s gonna ping against someone’s actual experience out there, but…

KP: I’m envisioning this great marble empire of the west.

HODGMAN: Yeah, exactly.Â And of course, West Virginia with its mines is one of the gateways to the world beneath the earth’s crust and the empire of the mole men, who are going to play a very big role in the second book.

KP: What is the current status of the second book?

HODGMAN: I am beginning to write it.Â Ideally in about a year it will be written.

KP: Is writing a difficult process for you?

HODGMAN: No, in this case… I find writing to be very anxiety producing for me, which is part of the reason why I tried to avoid it for so long.

KP: Where does that anxiety stem from?

HODGMAN: When I write something, I don’t really know what’s happening.Â And I never… when I have an idea it suddenly happens, I write it, and if I like it then that’s good.Â But the moment that it’s over, I can’t remember how I… it seems impossible that I could have had that idea.Â And not even necessarily a good idea, you know, it just seems… there’s a chemistry in my brain that is a little misaligned, I guess, because it just… the idea of sitting down now just talking about it, sitting down like writing a sentence – like, I don’t know how to do that, and then something just sort of happens and I do it, and then after it’s done like I don’t know who wrote that.

KP: So, creativity for you is a spontaneous process…

HODGMAN: I think it involves a certain amount of auto-hypnosis and a measure of, I think, possession by an ancient prehistoric star-traveling spirit that I call Gobus.

KP: So, in other words, you’re the one who’s been hogging Gobus.

HODGMAN: Yeah, I’ve been hogging Gobus for a long time, and I know…

KP: You bastard.

HODGMAN: Well, he’s no picnic, let me tell you.Â A lot of people want Gobus, but when he comes in, he eats up all the crackers in the house.Â And then doesn’t do the dishes.Â He’s kind of a pain in the ass.

KP: So he’s like John Belushi as “The guest who wouldn’t leave”…

HODGMAN: That would be very nice, but no.Â More like Jim Belushi.

KP: How did The Daily Show thing come about?Â Because obviously you were originally a guest in November of last year.

HODGMAN: Yeah.

KP: But now you’re a regular contributor…

HODGMAN: Well, I’ve been on a few times and I hope to be on again, though nothing is certain.Â We seem to all like each other pretty well and I’m a huge fan of the show.Â So, knock wood, I’ll be back again.

KP: I think it was fascinating comparing your first and second appearance, and seeing the audience’s learning curve in understanding exactly what you were doing with the delivery of the humor.Â Did it seem that way in the studio, that the audience wasn’t quite sure how to take it?

HODGMAN: Well, no. From my point of view, in all three cases that I’ve been on the show as a guest and the two times sort of contributing, it was all just a complete blur to me, those moments that I was actually on stage.Â It goes so quickly and it’s so sort of very difficult for the brain to process that you’re actually doing it.Â Particularly if you’re a fan of the show.

KP: Did they approach you?

HODGMAN: Yeah. I had met the executive producer socially one time, a couple times before I was on the show as a guest. So we had been in touch.Â We knew each other.Â He made some very flattering noises about having me back some time to do something on the show. And then all of a sudden he called me on Friday and said, “Can you work up something for Monday on the Iran nuclear capability issue?”Â And I said, “Okay.”Â And the next thing I knew, there I was.

KP: That was also on the heels of the thing you did with They Might Be Giants.

HODGMAN: Yeah.Â ‘Cause They Might Be Giants was also a similarly surreal experience for me because I’ve been a fan since I was a kid of They Might Be Giants, and I had met them through McSweeney’s. McSweeney’s had done an issue with the original CD from They Might Be Giants, and so they had done some joint readings together.Â At some point in the history of McSweeney’s I got tapped as the occasional emcee of various literary events, so I had this completely surreal experience, for example, of emceeing these They Might Be Giants/McSweeney’s readings in Chicago and London.Â Just very, very weird.Â And I remember when we went to London in 2003 to do it at the Barbican, which was this huge house, 1000 seat house that was full, and I could believe it. And my wife came with me, and the morning after the show we’re sitting in this cheesy Euro hotel eating bad three-day-old croissants.Â My wife, with whom I went to high school, also liked They Might Be Giants.Â She’s like… just having difficulty understanding that I’m sitting here eating breakfast with They Might Be Giants.Â It’s very weird.Â And the whole experience has been like that.Â Just a very unbelievable adventure.

KP: if you were to pick one thing that’s been the most surreal that you’ve been able to do, what would you point to?

HODGMAN: In life or with regard to the book?

KP: Either/or.

HODGMAN: I think it would had to have been… I think that moment in London, playing at the London Barbican, which is a huge performing arts center in London, and introducing Zadie Smith and Nick Hornby and They Might Be Giants and Arthur Bradford and Dave Eggers.Â It’s like, “What’s going on?Â How did this happen?” That was a moment where you felt a learning curve.Â Then, of course, all those people knowing who I was, and I went out and just started talking about radio attack ads – which is a piece that ended up being in my book – and doing that piece, and I could feel this audience of 1,000 people suddenly get it all at once, and then they really got it and they really liked it.Â You know, it was very much like writing, actually, because I could not for the life of me write out what it was that I wanted to say on that event. Then two seconds before I went on stage I knew exactly how I wanted to set up the radio attack ads piece.Â It was like channeling Gobus, you know?

KP: Creatively, where are you most comfortable?

HODGMAN: Creatively?Â You mean physically in the world?Â

KP: Or in a creative fashion.Â Is it writing? Is it being in front of an audience?Â Where do you feel most at ease and most creative and fulfilled?

HODGMAN: There’s a difference between where I feel most at ease and creatively most fulfilled.Â I feel most at ease sitting on a couch watching TV or watching a movie or hanging around with some friends.Â I don’t… the writing is pure dis-ease from then, and the performing as well.Â But, of course, it is the most creatively fulfilling thing that I could do, because without it, where would I be? I don’t know.Â I wouldn’t have that memory of going to London, or whatever.Â Being on The Daily Show…

KP: Is the hurdle higher to sit down and write, or to walk out in front of an audience?

HODGMAN: Um… I’d say they’re about the same.Â Usually when I’ve gone out to an audience, I’ve already written what it is that I’m gonna say, so, you know, basically what I’m doing is reading dictation from the time traveling spirit known as Gobus, you know?Â I guess it’s probably… sitting down to write is a little more anxiety producing, but of course there is less concern about your pants falling down, ’cause who cares if that happens when you’re writing.

KP: Well, then it’d just be vaudeville for no one but yourself.

HODGMAN: Right, exactly.

KP: What would you say has been your worst experience writing, and your worst experience performing in front of an audience?

HODGMAN: Well, every experience of writing is my worst.

KP: Is there any writing experience that has actually gone surprisingly easy?

HODGMAN: Yes.Â This book was a surprisingly easy thing for me to write.Â It was a surprisingly enjoyable thing for me to write. Even though it was nerve wracking in the same way, and even though each time I would sit down to do it I’m like, “What am I doing?Â How do I write sentences?”Â You know, that whole experience.Â But for the most part it was very enjoyable and I’m very excited to be back involved in writing the next one. So that went well.Â But otherwise, generally speaking, each time I sit down to write it’s the exact same complete anxiety.Â Total pancellular anxiety.Â It makes writing sound very glamorous, I’m sure.Â My worst experience performing… gosh… I don’t know. There are plenty of things where I feel like I didn’t really get where I wanted to be.

KP: Have you ever walked out and – comparing it to the London experience – where an audience just didn’t click at all?

HODGMAN: Yeah, but I’m not gonna tell you about it!Â Because I think I feel things much more differently.Â I’m glad to say that there have been no unparalleled, unquestionable disasters.

KP: So no one’s run you out of town at this point.

HODGMAN: No one’s run me out of town.Â No one’s, like… my pants have not fallen down, I haven’t completely blown my lines.Â For the most part I’ve been very lucky in that even if it’s only a few people and that’s happened, you know…

KP: It’s a hell of a night where they all happen at once – you forget your lines, your pants fall down, and then they run you out… which would be very difficult with your pants down.

HODGMAN: Yeah, exactly.Â I wouldn’t be running, exactly.Â Well I guess for me it’s probably about as fast as I move anyway.Â No, I’ve been very lucky that even when the crowds are very small – and that happens fairly frequently on book tours and that sort of thing – people are extremely gracious and nice and responsive. And if they don’t get it, I don’t really blame them.Â It’s usually because… it has something to do with talking about hobos.Â Maybe I’m talking about weird esoteric Muppet trivia, for example.Â I’m sure you’ve experienced, in your life, that not everyone gets it the same way that you do for me.

KP: Are you surprised at all by the attention and the accolades you’ve gotten?

HODGMAN: It is very gratifying and I think that probably, you know, things… books or comedic sensibilities, they have their own audience, and I think for me this book was really gonna… I was gonna work very hard to promote the book and just test to see just how large the audience is out there for deranged fake trivia.Â And I had sort of steeled myself for the possibility that the audience, while very gracious and people that I like, might not be more than a couple thousand people, you know?Â And then I was gonna have to sort of, you know, focus on other kinds of writing professionally and keep doing this on the side.Â So I was very happily surprised in many ways that it seems to touch a diseased part of many more brains than that.

KP: Is there anything about the attention that you regret?

HODGMAN: No.Â Oh, I’m sorry that the book isn’t longer.Â One of the jokes of the book was that it was… like the 700 hobo names, it was going to be so massive and comprehensive-seeming as to be almost incomprehensible.Â

KP: You should have just printed the book twice over and bound it together.

HODGMAN: Yeah, that would have been a way.Â But you know, instead I decided to write two more and make them all part of the same book.

KP: So when should the next book be out?

HODGMAN: Hopefully it’ll be written by the beginning of next year and then it would come out a year from this fall. More Information Than You Require will come out in 2007.Â Fall of 2007. One of the things that is important to understand about the three books that will ultimately complete The Complete World Knowledge is that they are not a trilogy in the same way The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy, but one long novel that is sometimes published in three parts.Â And similarly, the second book, More Information Than You Require, and the third book, That Is All, will be all part of one complete, deranged whole.Â And if I have my way, the page numbers of the second book will pick up exactly where the page numbers of this book left off, and so on.

KP: So eventually we’ll see a compendium of all three.

HODGMAN: Yes, and then a “Page a Day” calendar and maybe some themed cruises and lots and lots of matchbooks.

KP: And when will the animated series be premiering?

HODGMAN: I don’t know, you should talk to your friend Jackson Publick about that.

KP: So, now, what can we do with the uranium we were talking about?

HODGMAN: What can we do with it? ‘Cause I’ve got a lot of it here.Â A lot of enriched uranium.

KP: No one has had, like, a Tupperware party for uranium.

HODGMAN: I know.

KP: Have you thought about that?

HODGMAN: I was thinking about it.Â You can put me in touch with the world leaders who need it.Â I’d like to get some of this stuff out of my house, because I need to get my office back, you know what I mean?

KP: I can get you Muppeteers but not world leaders.Â Although you never know what you can do with a uranium powered Muppet.

HODGMAN: Well, you can entertain some children and then blow them up, I guess.Â And adults alike.Â I didn’t mean to limit it.

KP: I know. But back to the book – you know, as soon as I got my hands on it, I called up people and read them portions.Â It seems like a book that people want to share with other people.

HODGMAN: It’s a book of many, many small portions. It is not designed necessarily to be read from start to finish, but more to be dipped into and appreciated over time, lest you see the underlying con of the whole thing.

Â

Â

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Brat-halla #145: Norse Force – Blushing Problems

Filed under: Brat-Halla — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:35 am

by Jeffery Stevenson and Seth Damoose with colors by Anthony Lee

Larger Comic Version | ARCHIVES | OLDER ARCHIVES

For extras, visit the Brat-halla Web site!

Check out the preview to the Image comic Jeff writes…

E-MAIL WRITER | ABOUT JEFF | ABOUT SETH | BRAT-HALLA BLOG | BRAT-HALLA FORUM | ARCHIVES

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September 12, 2006

Widge Goes Off #11: The NyQuil Has My Face!

Filed under: Widge Goes Off — widge @ 3:16 am

Welcome back. All five of you. Yee-hah.

[CONTENT WARNING] This podcast contains foul language and a self-medicated host, hopped up on NyQuil and Twinkies.

DOWNLOAD: mp3 Format (21.3 MBs)

As for your Monday Morning Quarterbacking session, well…I’m bored. So I went through it in the podcast. Find the full skinnee at Box Office Mojo.

Cinematical’s article on Mummy 3 is here.

Amazon Unbox is here.

Heroes is here. I just noticed how much their “group shot” is a Lost ripoff. Ha! And…wait, what the hell? I mentioned it in the WGO as in trouble, but Joey is already cancelled! Awesome! This just in–Joey is still cancelled! Christ, I’m tired…

Special thanks to Exit Mindbomb for letting me use “Godzilla Will Rule You” from their album Happy Accident for my new WGO music. Check them out on MySpace here and I tried to link up as many songs as I could here.

Widgett Walls is the chief cook and bottle washer for Needcoffee.com. He’s also the author of Mystics on the Road to Vanishing Point and Magnificent Desolation. His personal blog is at OneTusk.com, which he updates when he feels like it. He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. He hardly ever sleeps.

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Toy Box: FANtastic Exclusive 2006

Filed under: Toy Box — admin @ 3:13 am

Â

One thing that there’s no shortage of is San Diego Comic Con Exclusives.Â It’s become a requirement for any company, no matter how big or how small, to have some sort of exclusive offering for the show each year.Â

The Four Horsemen are a group of artists you should know well.Â They’ve done some amazing work for companies like Mattel, where they worked on the Masters of the Universe line, the Batman comic line, DC Superheroes, and even the initial Harry Potter series.Â This gang of four extremely talented artists met first at Mcfarlane Toys, where they produced some amazing stuff.

Just like you’d expect from a bunch of really creative people, the Four Horsemen came up with a new idea for this last summer’s SDCC.Â They brought the fans and collectors into the process of creating an action figure, from the concept to completion, and called it the FANtastic Exclusive 2006.Â At most of the steps in the process, including selecting the theme, the actual figure, and various other items, fans were allowed to vote on their favorites.Â They helped set the direction and scope of the exclusive, and they were even rewarded by the Four Horsemen when the line was distributed.Â Along with the SDCC exclusive, they produced several variants that were distributed by several of the major collector websites.

Tonight’s review covers the SDCC version, the minotaur (although he’s not, technically) called Xetheus.Â He hails from a planet called Mynothecea – and he’s basically a big, mean heffer.

“Xetheus: Champion of Mynothecea”

Â

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Okay, that’s cool and all, but you didn’t know about the whole voting thing last year.Â Never fear – they’re doing it again for 2007!Â Voting has already begin for the overall theme of the exclusive, so head over to the website and let your voice be heard!

Packaging – ***
The Horsemen went with a traditional cardback/bubble package, but spiffed it up considerably with great Seventh Kingdom (the name of the in house line from which the Big X hails), along with the FANtastic logo.Â There’s no wasted space, and the bubble and card are both quite compact.Â AÂ nice example of exclusive packaging that does the job, and looks good doing it.

Â

Â Â

Sculpting – ***1/2
If you’ve never thought the bovine branch of the farm animal tree was particularly tough, think again.Â You know those bulls that run in the streets, chasing morons?Â Xetheus here could have them for lunch, with a little steak sauce.

Â

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The detail work is excellent, with multiple textures to indicate various material and furry skin.Â The various ABS and PVC plastics that were used work extremely well to mimic the boney horns, leathery clothing, and metal blades and armor.

The sculpt complements the articulation fairly well, and he stands great on his own even with the small hooves.Â The hands are sculpted to hold the accessories, and work well with both large weapons.

The scale is around 7″, although he does seem just a hair on the small side for a cow in that scale.Â I think he really fits in better with 6″ scaled human lines than the straight 7″ lines.Â EDIT – yep, he should be considered really in a six inch scale, which as you can see from the final comparison photo, makes him quite a bit larger than a standard human in that scale, as you’d expect.

I do have one question though – why does everybody keep refering to this guy as a minotaur?Â Minotaurs have the legs of a man, and old Xetheus here definitely does not.Â He’s a bipedal bovine, something not seen in our ancient mythology.

Paint – ****
If there’s one thing better than the sculpt, it’s the paint.Â As I’ve said many times, a great paint job can make even a mediocre sculpt shine, and when you put one on an excellent sculpt – as is the case here – you have the makings of a dynamite figure.

While the textures of the various parts are important to make them appear as though they are made of different materials, the real key is the paint.Â To get the horns to look like horns, the blades to look like metal, or the loin cloth to look like material, it requires just the right application of paint.Â They’ve done a fantastic job with this figure.Â Notice I didn’t get all corny and say FANtastic?

Now there might be an issue for some folks with the basic pallette they chose. I’m betting blue won’t be everybodies cup of tea for your basic butt kickin’ bull, but there are the various other variants to choose from.Â And you can rest assured that the technical application of the paint is top notch on all of them.

Articulation – ***
Xetheus has plenty of articulation, and almost all of it works in concert with the sculpt.Â There’s the ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, pin chest, cut waist, pin elbows,Â ball jointedÂ wrists, ball jointed hips, double pin jointed knees, andÂ ballÂ jointedÂ ankles. The ball joints at the shoulders and hips are the best kind, jointed on both sides of the ball and allowing for the maximum amount of articulation, and having ball joints at the wrists and ankles is just icing on the cake.

Â

Â

Most of the joints are tight, although I did have a little trouble with the ankles and knees.Â Their weakness is probably due largelly to the weight of the body they are holding up.

Accessories – ***
There are three accessories, which for an exclusive isÂ atÂ least twoÂ more than we usually get.

Â

Â

Xetheus has two weapons – a very large double ended contraption that would turn his opponents into T-bones and Porterhouse cuts pretty quick, along with a smaller, one handed double bladed knife-like implement of death called the H-Blade. Both of these weapons are very reminiscent of Klingon like blades.

X can hold them great, and pose with them in some pretty deadly looking stances.Â The weapon comes apart, and can be carried on his back in a nifty sculpted bull horn attachment.

He also comes with a third accessory, that looks an awful lot like a baby rattle to me.Â I have no idea what it is, although I’m betting it attaches to him someplace… EDIT – thanks to the fine folks at 4H, I now know that it’s a totem symbolizing his deity, which is also represented on his chest plate and knee pads.Â He’s a very religious cow.

Fun Factor – ***
While these are designed specifically as toys, you can certainly see that’s where they get their inpiration.Â They are fairly sturdy, with the exception of a couple joints, and the accessories make them even more fun for kids in that 8 – 10 range.Â Who doesn’t need a barnyard animal to battle the evil forces?

Value – ***
Most con exclusives are merely repaints of existing figures, and run around twenty bucks.Â Here you get a new character, that was influenced by you (as long as you did your civic toy duty), with great sculpting and paint, along with good articulation and accessories.Â What more could you ask for?

Things to Watch Out For –
Not much.Â A couple of the joints are a little weak, but that’s about it.

Â

Â

Overall – ***1/2
Exclusives are like any other figure – there’s everything from the most awful crap to the finest craftsmanship.Â When it’s a figure from the Horsemen, odds are good it’s closer to the amazing than the awful.Â Xetheus is a very cool design, treated with real care and attention by a group of guys that clearly love their work.Â Oh sure, it’s not some fancy smancy license of the hour, but it’s definitely creative.Â And the addition of getting fan input really takes this exclusive a level above the majority.

Where to Buy –
Well, since this was a con exclusive (and the other five variants were all website exclusives at different sites), the options are a tad limited.Â However, you can order this regular version direct from the Store Horseman (cute, huh?) for $20 plus shipping, or you can order the super limited (only 250) variant they just announced, The Royal Guard, also ONLY at the Store Horsemen.

Related Links
One of last year’s Four Horsemen SDCC exclusives was Commader Argus from their in house M.A.G.M.A. Corps line.Â And of course, you want to get your vote in for next year’s FANtastic Exclusive.

Â

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DVD Late Show: Back to the B’s

Filed under: DVD Late Show — UncaScroogeMcD @ 3:10 am

September 12, 2006

You would not believe the summer I’ve had.

Not to get into gory details, but two of the most painful conditions it is possible for a guy to have hit me in rapid succession early in August, accompanied by various other debilitating and lingering ailments. I didn’t watch many movies last month, nor, if truth were told, have the mental clarity and concentration to coherently write about them.

However, it appears that the worst is now over. I’m about neck-deep in missed deadlines, but I’m slowly clawing my way out. With luck ““ the good kind, for a change, I hope ““ I’ll be able to get back to that weekly schedule for the column that I was achieving earlier this summer.

Anyway, today, I’ve got a few short reviews to tide you over until next week, which will be a full-fledged, full-service Late Show, crammed with B-movie goodness.

Classic Media has done a great service for fans of kaiju eiga and, specifically the Big G, with their release of the original, uncut, Japanese version of GOJIRA (1954), paired in an attractive new DVD package with the American version, known as GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (1956).

American nuclear testing creates a towering prehistoric monster with radioactive breath, which heads straight for Tokyo, leaving devastation in its wake. Japan’s only hope of defeating the creature lies in the Oxygen Destroyer a weapon as potentially deadly as the A-bomb itself. Can Dr. Serizawa, the Destroyer’s inventor, be persuaded to use the weapon before it’s too late?

Directed by IshirÃ´ Honda, GOJIRA is a dark, occasionally moving, anti-nuclear allegory with powerful performances by a top-flight Japanese cast. The script is excellently constructed, never losing sight of the human stories that might easily have been lost in the devastating spectacle of the primeval giant’s fury. Played utterly straight and with complete sincerity, the film ““ while derivative of American efforts like THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS ““ has an emotional weight unique in the genre. Only the Japanese have suffered the consequences of a nuclear attack, and the memories of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were still very vivid in 1954. The scenes showing the wounded victims of the creature’s first Tokyo attack, lying en masse on hospital floors as they slowly die from radiation poisoning, have a verismilitude that could only have come from real-life experience.

The U.S. version, GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS, is a pretty effective creature feature in its own right, but much of the human suffering and character drama has been cut out, replaced with new footage of actor Raymond Burr, playing an American journalist on the scene. Although the structure of the movies is quite different, played out mostly in flashback, the movie is still quite grim. Burr’s scenes are really quite expertly integrated into the Japanese footage, with excellent use of body doubles and carefully matched sets and lighting. Burr, too, deserves credit for playing the role very straight, describing the devastation his character witnesses with credible conviction.

Classic Media presents GOJIRA for the first time on American home video in fine form. Although the print ““ direct from the vaults of Toho Studios ““ shows considerable wear and damage, due to the inferior stock used, the transfer is as fine as modern technology could make it. There are still scratches and specks riddled throughout, but the image is mostly sharp, with solid blacks and good contrast. The movie also uses lots of stock footage of the military, and when that film appears, it is noticeably inferior to the rest of the footage. Overall, though, the transfer is excellent for a movie of this vintage. The print of GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS, is okay, but looks about the same as it has on every previous domestic video presentation: slightly washed out and grainy.

GOJIRA includes clear English subtitles accompanying the original mono audio soundtrack, while GODZILLA keeps its familiar English mono tracks. Both films include informative, detailed audio commentaries by Godzilla scholars Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski, and there are two featurettes, one focusing on the development of the original film story, the other on the film’s elaborate special effects.

The two films come in a classy, attractively designed “hardback” clamshell, and the package includes a 16-page booklet with extensive liner notes.

For fans of kaiju films or serious students of science fiction cinema, Classic Media’s GOJIRA/GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS may be the most important DVD release of the year. And if that’s not enough to be grateful for, they’ve announced similar editions of other Godzilla and vintage Toho kaiju films in the months to come.

Highly recommended.

Hungarian actor Peter Lorre made quite a career for himself in sinister character roles, but probably his most offbeat characterization was that of Japanese detective/secret agent, Mr. Moto. In eight films for 20th Century Fox, Lorre played the devious, crime busting jiu-jitsu master and Fox Home Video has just released four of these classic B-movies in THE MR. MOTO COLLECTION VOL. 1.

The first film in the set, THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937), introduces the Japanese sleuth as a San Francisco importer/exporter who takes it upon himself to track down and break a diamond smuggling ring operating out of Shanghai. Atmospheric, moody, and filled with devious characters, it’s a strong start to the series.

The second disc, THANK YOU MR. MOTO (1937), finds our hero in China, searching for the tomb of the legendary Genghis Khan. Disc three, MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE (1938), finds the inscrutable secret agent deep in the jungles of Cambodia, posing as an archeologist. In the final disc in this first set, THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO (1938), Lorre’s character heads for London, where he attempts to destroy an organization of professional assassins.

Each film is presented full frame with cleaned-up mono sound. Fox has done a marvelous job restoring these early thrillers (each disc has a restoration comparison), and has packaged them together in a smart box set. Each disc includes a featurette focusing on a different aspect of the series’ production ““ including profiles of Lorre and series director Norman Foster.

I love these old B&W mystery series, and Fox is to be complimented not only for releasing them on DVD, but putting the effort in to restore and present them properly. A great set, and well-worth buying if you’re a fan of classic Hollywood mysteries. I can’t wait for Volume Two.

I haven’t actually watched a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie since KNOCK-OFF, I think. While there was a time when I made an effort to see each of the Muscles from Brussels’ movies ““ I particularly liked BLOODSPORT, DOUBLE IMPACT, HARD TARGET and MAXIMUM RISK ““ his transition in the early 90’s from theatrical action star to direct-to-vid leading man left me behind, I’m afraid.

Well, Sony Home Video just sent me the latest action effort from the man, a surprisingly involving little flick called THE HARD CORPS (2006).

Van Damme plays Phillipe Sauvage (gotta love those movie names), a Desert Storm vet suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Through a somewhat contrived series of events, he is hired as bodyguard for an ex-boxing champ-turned-philanthropist (Razaaq Adoti). Unfortunately, an ex-con rap music producer with a grudge has marked the former boxer for death, and Sauvage finds himself trying to protect an uncooperative client in the midst of a hip-hop shooting war.

There’s not really all that much action in this one ““ maybe one hand-to-hand bout and a couple of gunfights, but what there is fairly well staged. Direction (by Van Damme vet Sheldon Lettich), production values and cinematography are surprisingly slick for a direct-to-DVD flick, and the story (despite how it may read above) is actually quite interesting and well executed, with solid performances by most of the cast, especially Vivica A. Fox and Adoti.

Van Damme mumbles his lines and delivers them in his usual stilted manner, but since his character is supposed to be emotionally damaged, it sorta works.

Setting Van Damme down into the middle of a hip-hop gangsta war makes for some interesting character bits and gags; I particularly liked a scene where his character is training some young bodyguard recruits how to shoot properly, berating them for holding their guns sideways. Sure enough, in the final gunfight, only he and his team seem able to hit anybody, with the bad guy gangstas shooting their sideways sidearms wildly.

Sony Home Video’s bare bones DVD offers the feature in a crisp1.85 anamorphic widescreen transfer with Dolby 5.1 audio. The only extras are trailers for other recent and current Sony action releases, including Van Damme’s SECOND IN COMMAND.

Ultimately, I found THE HARD CORPS (the name that Van Damme’s bodyguard team is given by their employer), to be an entertaining diversion, and far better than I expected it to be. It’s not a classic ““ but it’s one of the man’s better movies.

Next week, I’ll have a big ol’ bunch of reviews for you ““ nearly a month and half’s worth, actually ““ including the softcore thrills of FELICITY, the vintage sci-fi of THIS ISLAND EARTH, the video game horrors of STAY ALIVE ““ plus: I WAS A TEENAGE MOVIE MAKER, 9 DEATHS OF THE NINJA, the VICE ACADEMY Trilogy… and did I mention pirates?

Comments about this column or DVD-related questions? Feel free to contact me at dvdlateshow@atomicpulp.com.

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September 11, 2006

Interview: Robert Vaughn

Filed under: Interviews — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:36 am

-by Ken Plume

If there is a master list of actors whom you immediately identify whenever they show up on screen, Robert Vaughn surely has a secure place on it. From The Magnificent Seven to The Man From U.N.C.L.E., from The Towering Inferno to Superman III – you know, the list just goes on an on, in a career spanning nearly 50 years.

His latest foray is the BBC drama Hustle, the first season of which has just hit DVD. Like Ocean’s 11 with a multigenerational group of cons substituting for the fabled thieves, Hustle one of those confection dramas that you devour greedily, enjoying the dramatic cake and the sweet character icing all in one go, unable to stop with just one episode. Maybe the cake metaphor was a bit much, but this is still an amazing show, if only for Vaughn’s performance as an aging con with much wisdom to impart to the young, sometimes foolishly cocksure, turks.

We had a chance to chat with Vaughn about his life and career…

——————————————————————————-

KEN PLUME: I guess the first question I have to ask you is – this many years into your career, what exactly does it take for a part to excite you?

ROBERT VAUGHN: Well, the first thing I consider is where it’s going to be filmed.Â Then I find out how much money they have, and then I read the script.Â In some 125 movies I’ve done over the last 50 years, I’ve been on some disastrous locations which I would never want to return to for any amount of money.Â So always make sure to check that out. In the case of the current show, it’s filming n London, which is my second home.Â I lived there off and on since the late 50s.

KP: You’ve done quite a bit of work there, as well.

VAUGHN: Yes, I did a series there for three years in the 70s, and I’ve done various other films like Julius Cesar with Charlton Heston, Jason Robards and Diana Rigg. In various periods in my life I’ve lived in London, and we’re living there now until we finish Hustle, whenever that happens.

KP: Hopefully no time soon.

VAUGHN: I hope not, because I’m really enjoying it. I love doing it.

KP: When you talk about locations, and I’m not asking you to name names, what is it that makes for a bad location for you?

VAUGHN: Well I can tell you quite clearly what I feel is a bad location.Â I’ll just cite three different pictures.Â One I did in Caracas where I was under house arrest and couldn’t get out of the country, and eventually I had to put on a costume with my wife and my dog, a Mexican and Spanish costume, and sneak into the airport – and I had to take the first flight out of Caracas that I could get, and it was to Barcelona, not to the United States.Â So my dog and my wife and I wound up in Barcelona and came back to the United States after having been under house arrest for several weeks in Caracas because the producers of the film were in jail.Â That was one instance.Â Another instance, I did a film in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and it was invaded by the Russians at the time I was filming, so once again I’m under house arrest.Â Nothing could be done about that.Â Â It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

KP: Well, except for the communists.

VAUGHN: And then I did another film in Yugoslavia where there were only four Americans in the cast. The rest were all Yugoslavians, and it was a three month shoot and I literally had no facilities at all. I had a tree to go to the bathroom behind.Â It was Robert’s tree…

KP: That’s because they have a strong guild.

VAUGHN: They did not serve food that was edible.Â In other words, they treated actors like trees, like chairs. I also did a film in Peru where I had a 24 hour bodyguard because The Shining Path, the Maoist guerillas, were kidnapping Americans right around when we were shooting on the top of Machu Picchu, the large mountain outside of Lima. That’s just a handful.

KP: So, really, it’s just locations that produce anecdotes that you don’t like…

VAUGHN: Oh absolutely, no question.Â Also, as the years go by, it puts unnecessary strain on my brain and my heart and I don’t want to experience that anymore.

KP: No, we definitely want you working for quite a few more of those years that stress would take away. We particularly want to keep you out from under house arrest or a communist invasion.

VAUGHN: Yeah, enough of that.Â I’d like to be under house arrest at Buckingham Palace.

KP: You’ve also been an actor over the years that hasn’t been afraid to make the transition back and forth between TV and film…

VAUGHN: Yeah, I was very lucky, because many actors that had great success in television series seem to disappear off the map, the acting map, and I was fortunate enough that the first movie I did after The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a picture called Bullitt with my old friend at that time, Steve McQueen.Â We’d known each other at that time for eight years.Â We met doing The Magnificent Seven.Â So that picture, Bullitt, was one of the top ten grossing pictures of 1968, which is the year that U.N.C.L.E. went off the air, and I went on into other motion pictures, and Towering Inferno and Superman III, and on and on and on – but lots of times that doesn’t happen.Â Most of the time it doesn’t happen to actors who’ve had a successful television series, but I was very fortunate.

KP: Particularly at that point.

VAUGHN: It was particularly having Steve as a friend at that point.Â He was producing the picture and he wanted me in it.

KP: Well, it’s good to have connections.

VAUGHN: Yes.

KP: Especially at that point in the industry, it was not an easy transition for an actor to make, to go from TV to film.

VAUGHN: Oh no, very definitely. I think the only two people who had done it at that time were James Garner and Steve McQueen.Â Other people did it as time went on, but most of the other actors, 90% of them, either disappeared altogether or reappeared many years later in some lesser vehicle.

KP: I also find it fascinating that during the 70s you pursued and attained a PhD.

VAUGHN: Yeah, I got my doctorate in June of 1970.Â I’d been in graduate school all through the 60s.Â I got my masters degree in 1960, and then during the 60s I did get my doctorate. USC, where I got my doctorate, were very kind to accommodate me in terms of my work schedule in television.Â Somebody let me off the hook in terms of certain time limits that would normally be put on somebody getting a PhD.Â They allowed me some flexibility – which was certainly alright with me, and I was able to complete the work.Â My doctorate dissertation, I revised as a book titled Only Victims, that dealt with Hollywood blacklisting.

KP: It’s a topic and attitudeÂ that seems to recur every once in a while in more insidious forms.

VAUGHN: Yes.Â I don’t think it’s ever going to reoccur again in exactly the same form, but there are still cases when people, even now who are supporting the war in Iraq, who are to some degree at least graylisted in Hollywood because Hollywood is a predominantly liberal community.

KP: You obviously have been very political over the years. I was surprised to find that you were asked to run for governor in the 70s.

VAUGHN: Actually it was Senator.Â And it was the Peace and Freedom party. It was made up of a lot of people, Black Panthers, so I declined.

KP: But at least you felt honored to be asked, right?

VAUGHN: Yeah, right.

KP: I also have to ask what the status of your autobiography is…

VAUGHN: I’m looking at part of it right now.Â I’m waiting… there are two publishers that are down to the wire that I’m meeting with, and my projected manuscript handing-in would be the Spring of 2008, and that would be exactly my 50th full year in the motion pictures and television business.Â So it’d be released on the 50th anniversary of my life in Hollywood.

KP: Does it have a title?

VAUGHN: It’s currently titled A Fortuned Life.Â And it’ll have a picture of me on the front and a picture of me on the back and my name on the top of the book and the title will be probably smaller than my name.Â

KP: It’ll should just be a picture of you.Â You don’t have to put your name on it at all.

VAUGHN: I hadn’t thought of that.Â Maybe I’ll check that out.

KP: How exactly did Hustle come about?

VAUGHN: In May of 2003, my wife and I had scheduled a visit to Scotland, where we had never gone even though we lived in England many, many years off and on.Â Every time we had made a preparation to go to Scotland, something had canceled it with work or I had to come home for something.Â So we had this trip to Scotland planned. Five days in May. And about a week before we were to leave, I got a call from my British agent, Jean Diamond, and she said, “Are you coming through England any time in the near future?” And I said, “Well, oddly enough, I’m coming through in about a week on my way to Scotland.Â Stopping in London.”Â “Oh, wonderful,” she said, “The BBC wants to have lunch with you and tell you about a new series they’re doing about con men.Â And we’ll set it up.” So they did indeed set it up and I had a lovely long liquid lunch with all the producers and directors, and a great deal of hugging and kissing, we will know each other forever at the end of lunch, and all that kind of thing.Â So we went to Scotland and I didn’t hear anything back.Â In the meantime, they sent me three of the scripts for Hustle.Â They also sent me a videotape of a series they did called Spooks, in London, which is MI5 in America.Â This is the same production company that did Spooks – and is doing Spooks, because it’s still on the air.Â So I looked at the scripts, which I thought were wonderful – best scripts I’d read in years – and I loved the production values on the television shows that they sent me.Â So I said to the agent, “Green light. Absolutely.Â London is definitely a fine location for me, I’m very happy there.”Â So time went by and May went into June and June went into July, and I basically forgot about it because that happens quite often. There’s nothing unusual about it.Â There’ll be a great deal of movement and then all of a sudden it’s quiet.

KP: And you got a lunch out of it.

VAUGHN: Yeah.Â So in August, we had a huge blackout as you may remember, on the East Coast of America all the way from Canada down to North Carolina.Â Well, we knew from prior experience in the house that we lived in, in Connecticut, that when we had a blackout that affected us, which was fairly often, there was one phone in the garage that seemed to work while all the other ones did not work.Â So we were sitting there in the dark. It was about 9:00 at night and it was 2:00 am in London, and we’re watching television – a battery operated television – by candlelight, but we’re very used to it.Â It’s nothing unusual for us.Â And the phone rings in the garage.Â And so I went to the garage because it was only about 20 feet away.Â I picked up the phone and it was my agent, Jean Diamond, and she said, “They want you… they started shooting last Wednesday on Hustle and they want you there to shoot on Wednesday.Â So you have to take the flight out tomorrow night.”Â And I said, “Well, wait a minute. We haven’t even talked a deal.” And she said, “Don’t worry. They’ve already started shooting, they don’t want anybody else – they want you.Â And get over here.”Â So I did. I arrived Tuesday morning and started filming Wednesday morning, and that’s the story of Hustle.

KP: Well, that’s a great way to be wanted.Â

VAUGHN: Even though I didn’t know I was hanging in there, apparently I was and didn’t know it.

KP: It’s good when you’re contacted and it’s a fait accompli.

VAUGHN: Yeah!Â Right.

KP: And then stepping into the role, what is it about the character that you found appealing?

VAUGHN: Well, the day after I started filming, which was on a Wednesday, I was overwhelmed at my hotel with calls from the British press wanting to interview me.Â Everybody wanted to know what I thought of the character of Albert Stroller, and I, since I hadn’t actually given it zero thought – since I hadn’t planned on doing it – I said, “Well, look at it this way.Â Suppose my character from The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon Solo, after leading this glamorous international adventurous life, retired on his government pension. And realized after a while he couldn’t live that life anymore.Â What could he do that was still within the confines of the law that could take advantage of his knowledge of everything from women and cars to jewelry to international events, gambling and so on? He said, ‘Well, why not be a con man?”‘Â So I just made this up as I went along.Â But that’s what’s now playing in all the columns in the U.K.Â That I’m playing Napoleon Solo, the later years.

KP: Wait a second… You make stuff up when you talk to the press?

VAUGHN: Well, I made it up at that point because I had nothing to say.Â I hadn’t given it any thought.Â So I told them in advance I’m just winging this as I go along, so bear with me.Â And everybody took it for gospel and that’s what it was. And what it remains today.Â Napoleon Solo, but he is now called Albert Stroller.

KP: Has that now legitimately become your hook into the character?

VAUGHN: Well basically, yeah, because it’s the kind of role that just lends itself to, I’m wearing a tux most of the time, I’m in gambling casinos, I do deal with various lovely ladies from time to time – so it is, in effect, a later version of the character I played in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

KP: It’s amazing how many roles you’ve performed that have found you in a tux.

VAUGHN: Yeah, my wife said I’m the last three piece suit/tux actor still around.Â I wear it very often.Â In Hustle I wear a three piece suit with a double breasted vest.

KP: Maybe that should be the subtitle for your autobiography.

VAUGHN: Yeah.

KP: “Last of the Three Piece Suit Men.”

VAUGHN: Exactly. I’ll get it in there somewhere, I’m sure.

KP: Nothing ever goes away.Â The Man from U.N.C.L.E. should be on DVD soon, even…

VAUGHN: Yeah.Â As a matter of fact, last year I did a whole day of filming for the DVD of the first year which was going to be… I think it was coming out this fall.Â And I suddenly found out that after I’d done all this, the company that I was doing it for didn’t actually have the rights to the DVD.Â And they still don’t have it, and I think someone else in the meantime got the rights to it, so it should be coming out this spring now under a different brand than the one that I worked for.

KP: Hopefully they’ll be able to repurpose the footage they shot with you.

VAUGHN: I hope so, yeah, because it really was literally an entire day of them asking me questions while I was on camera, and they just drilled me for eight hours about the show.

KP: Maybe they just used it as a great way to meet you.

VAUGHN: (laughing) Well, it’s a fairly expensive way.Â Lunch would be easier.

KP: And your season of The A-Team will be out soon as well.

VAUGHN: Oh, The A-Team!Â I didn’t know that.

KP: It’ll be out in a few months.

VAUGHN: Oh, is that right?Â I didn’t know.Â Well, I just did the last year.Â I didn’t do the whole… however many years they were on. I only did the last two.

KP: So really, with the release of that and Hustle, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., this could be the year of Vaughn.

VAUGHN: Yeah, I hope so.

KP: Are there any other projects that you haven’t been able to do yet that are kinda personal that you love to be able to do?

VAUGHN: The only thing that I have always wanted to do – and now it’s too late to do – was I wanted to do My Fair Lady onstage.Â A couple years ago I got a call from the president of Los Angeles City College, where I had gone to school in the early 50s, and they were having the 75th anniversary of the school, and they wanted to put all their budget into some big production of some kind and wanted to know if I’d be interested in doing anything.Â And I immediately suggested My Fair Lady, and they said, “That’s wonderful. Do you think Jim Coburn would do Pickering?” And I said, “Well, I see Jim fairly often and I’ll mention it to him.”Â So fade in, fade out, they did get together with a lot of money to do the production, and Jim passed away, and then the woman who hired me – who was the president of the school – got a new job as chancellor of all the junior colleges in Michigan, and so she was out of the picture. So it never happened, and now I’m sure it never will.Â It’s too late in life for me to do that.

KP: You would have made a great Eliza, though.

VAUGHN: (laughing) Well, you’d have to get an elderly Eliza, or middle-aged, at least.

KP: I think you’re underestimating your ability to still carry off the role.

VAUGHN: Oh, thank you very much, that’s very kind of you.

KP: So really, doing that… is that something that you’ve always harbored a desire to do?

VAUGHN: Yes. I saw the original production on Broadway with Rex Harrison. I also saw, that same year, a production of Inherit the Wind with Paul Muni playing the lead on stage, and I remember at the time I said, “I must put this in my mental checkbook that I will someday be these two parts.”Â And I did do Inherit the Wind with E.G. Marshall at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey about 15 years ago, so I did get a chance to do that. But unfortunately, I didn’t get a crack at My Fair Lady.Â I learned all the songs and I spent a lot of time preparing for it, and unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to use my efforts.

KP: Well, maybe you can do just an audio version of it.

VAUGHN: Yes.

KP: Release your own cast album for it…

VAUGHN: Yes…

KP: At least all the preparation won’t go to waste.

VAUGHN: Well, we shall see.

KP: It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you.

VAUGHN: Thank you very much.

KP: And I wish you the best of luck and can’t wait to see what comes next, and I can’t wait to read your autobiography…

VAUGHN: Thank you very much, Ken…

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Spook’d #94: Extreme Lair Makeover – Mega-Ass

Filed under: Spook'd — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:35 am

by Jeffery Stevenson and Seth Damoose with colors by Anthony Lee

Larger sized comic | ARCHIVES | OLDER ARCHIVES

To see Spook’d host Alastor’s blogging silliness and more fun Spook’d stuff,visit the Spook’d Web site!

Check out the preview to…

E-MAIL WRITER | ABOUT JEFF | ABOUT SETH | SPOOK’D BLOG | SPOOK’D FORUM | ARCHIVES | OLDER ARCHIVES

Disclaimer: All material in Spook’d is fictitious and intended solely for the purpose of entertainment. Names are fabricated and any similarity to real people or places is purely coincidental except in those cases where public figures are being satirized.

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Nocturnal Admissions: TV Review, Storm leaves Rock Star

Filed under: Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:55 am

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So Storm is gone.Â

And it’s kind of a relief. For one thing, watching the show is no longer necessary. It makes for two and a half less hours of TV to watch next week. And second, careful scrutiny of the program made it clear that Storm has been yearning to get off it for weeks. No longer will she have to tout the sponsors in her spontaneous “reality” dialogue or act “surprised” if Dave wants to back her up on a song.

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Except that apparently one never truly “leaves” this show. A member of the show’s rejects will be voted by the viewer to return for the finale; and there will be a Rock Star tour with House Band.

Like many other followers of Rock Star, I’m fairly confident that Toby is going to “win.” The Australian lad has been something of a dark horse, who didn’t really emerge as a front runner until the field was greatly reduced. Also, I think that Storm made it her project to groom him to win, giving Toby secret counseling and stage tips. His act is much more lively now, mimicking Storm’s brazen audience participation. Also, Toby’s original song was better than any of the Super Nova originals. They’ll need that.

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It must have been a great disappointment to Mark Burnett that most of the rock star aspirants got along so well. The only one who really fell for the “reality” TV manipulation was Dilana, who still thought it was a contest as late as three weeks ago, and not an audition show. But the producers didn’t understand that either. People don’t tune in to see the “reality” drama. They’re tuning in for performances by a group of highly if unevenly talented professionals. Variety shows were common during the early years of television but today they have to be sneaked on in the guise of a competition or audition, and it’s clear now that if the show is highly focused, as in this case, on rock and roll, or what passes for rock and roll, it will drawn intense attention from a deep segment of the much coveted young audience.

In the local media here there was a Storm Watch on the local CBS news affiliate, there were nightly broadcasts of the show episodes in Dante’s, the club where Storm and the Balls played every week, and numerous interviews in the Storm-whoring local press. Presumably she will return to Portland, but why bother? She’s too big for the town now, which she is not really “from” anyway (she’s only lived here for four or five years). After all, Storm emerged as the real star ofÂ Rock Star, and her fame, a long time coming, could go in many different directions right now, toward more TV, or movies, a record deal, whatever she wants, even writing a book, at least right now, while she’s hot. I wonder if Warren Beatty has called her yet, the ultimate sign that a female personality has arrived.

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Speaking of which, recall Beatty’s comments about Madonna’s life on screen in the rockumentaryÂ Truth or Dare? StormÂ is the new Madonna, perfectly comfortable in front of the camera as it records her life. She’s the harbinger of a new age, the post-television child, grown to womanhood as an “object” who has seized back “the gaze” that the ladies in the quarterlies talk about and owns it.

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Scrubs Blog – Picture This

Filed under: Production Blogs,Scrubs Blog — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:53 am

Yes, things are still awfully busy now that production has resumed, withÂ everyone running around a bit right now – so we’ve got another week ofÂ behind-the-scenes pics from around the office… Â

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A farewell cake made for our former make-up artist, Darla Albright, who left to form her own company, Air Craft Cosmetics.

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Even Floating Head Doctor makes an appearance for cake.Â

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Mr. Darcy, after his failed Chicken Little audition.Â

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Ken Jenkins and his feathered friend.Â

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Producer Danny Rose has a tender moment with Mr. DarcyÂ

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Rocky the orangutan and utility soundperson Anna Wilborn.Â

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Assistant Production Office Coordinator Jared Weisfelner and Rowdy check out the set from the 3rd Floor dressing room during the end of shooting for Season 4, while Mr. Darcy checks out Rowdy.

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Rob Maschio being rigged and covered up during his big dangling scene.

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Colin Farrell romancing the girls of Scrubs, Jen Holt & Liz Newman, while Jared tries to horn in on his action.Â

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1st A.D. Franklyn Gottbetter, dreaming the impossible dream.
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Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review, House, Season 2

Filed under: Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:14 am

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The first episode of season three ofÂ House aired the other night (is it already season three? I remember when the show was advertised relentlessly during a Superbowl weekend). The first thing you learn from it is that Greg House (Hugh Laurie) can walk. In fact he can run, and later on in the episode he skateboards. This is a different status from where we left him at the end of last season, hallucinating long philosophical conversations with the man who shot him. In 3.1 we learn that the police have not apprehended House’s assailant, nor learned why he attacked the doctor in the first place (a set up, perhaps, for a later Sweeps Week broadcast). Meanwhile, Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) injected House with a serum that might cure his bum leg artery, that which keeps him in continual pain and, presumably, with an acerbic disposition.

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Meanwhile, Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) has a new fuller haircut, a kind of throwback to Barbara Feldon as Agent 99. It makes her looker cuter and softer, with its forelocks and feathered look. Yet her character is a lot tougher. She stands up to House, says no, and views him with the impatience, contradicting the conniving lies he presses on family members. The other two doctors in the fellowship to study with House, doctors Eric ForemanÂ and Robert Chase (Omar Epps, Jesse Spencer) didn’t have a whole lot of airtime, but Cuddy did, even sharing with House a sort of bedroom scene, while also proving to be a stronger opponent of House’s. Robert Sean Leonard, as Dr. James Wilson, continues his role as reverse court jester; court bucket of cold water, I guess you could call him.

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The opening sequence, in which a guy in a wheelchair rolls himself into the swimming pool, a mega version of what Bill Murray does inÂ Rushmore. It’s a sequence that attempts to take you into the mind and sensations of a quadriplegic, showing the world from his POV, and which concurrently conveys a great deal about his family dynamics. The ep lured a big star in the form of Kathleen Quinlan, who is married to someone I knew in high school, but her role ultimately is as ephemeral as those of all guest stars, as we watch week after week after week House ponder then solve a medical mystery whose confusing symptoms send the team down one wrong path after another.

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Coincidentally,Â House M.D.: Season TwoÂ was released on DVD on Tuesday August 22 (retailing for $59.95), so House obsessives could have caughtÂ up with or relived the second season in anticipation of the third. My complaint about the second season was that it got bogged down in whether or not House was going to lure back his ex-wife, Stacy Warner (Sela Ward). This was a totally annoying and irrelevant subplot, because essentially we don’t care why House is the way he is, and don’t necessary want him to change or be happier. We prefer him to be sharp enough to crack wise at his bosses and colleagues the way we are never quick enough to do in the real world at our terrible jobs.

Yet the romantic subplot, such thin gruel compared to the sexual musical stock closets ofÂ Grey’s Anatomy, was itself a solution to the problem of the first season, which is that every week it is just about the same thing, even time-able by commercial breaks. There is theÂ Six Feet Under prologue, where someone collapses somewhere. There is the jaunty opening sequence, which finds House annoying his hospital somehow. There are the three early diagnoses coupled with family problems and home invasions by the staff looking for clues to what makes the patient ail, which take us to the 45-minute mark. Then, finally, there is the resolution to whatever personal subplot is offered up, during which House has the brainwave that solves the A story medical mystery, or also the B story if that one has dragged out this long (in the case of the 3 premier, noticing that a quadriplegic’s toes show signs of scurvy, at the 17 minute mark).

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This repetition is one of the reasons that friends of mine have dropped the show. Yet I continue to watch it when I can, despite being terrified of hospitals and medical procedures. It’s because the mysteries are so dang clever.Â House is one of the few network shows that demands the viewer keep up. Moreover it shows people thinking, crisis-born thinking, and then the product of that thought. It’s also one of the few shows that has an unrepentant unpleasant person as its central character. House is the WWF of medical dramas, where the villain is the protagonist.

Seeing season two again in a short amount of time only highlights the repetition factor, but also emphasizes the braininess quotient, but then again also the misguided subplot element. This six-disc set has all 24 episodes from the second season, with a small parcel of supplements.

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They begin with an audio commentary by creator David Shore and producer Katie Jacobs, which is mainly nuts and bolts stuff (House has a cold for the episode; did Laurie really have a cold? No) and they are reunited for a yak over the season finale, “No Reason,” where they don’t really get into the philosophical implications of one of the most complex TV shows ever aired. There is also some alternate takes, a blooper reel, and “An Evening withÂ House,” an 18-minute shat with the cast and crew at the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, with Shore, Singer, Laurie, and the rest of the cast, which concentrates most on the show’s origins.Â Finally there are trailers forÂ The Office, Las Vegas, BSG, and Inside Man. The transfers are excellent and each episode has five chapter scene selection.

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“Thank you” is the theme of the season premier, and it ends with a “miracle cure” that I would be curious to know complies with medical science. Still, it’s affecting, and sets up the season to follow as one in which House will battle with his drug addiction, with his “relationship” with Allison, and his need to alienate everyone around him. All that’s missing so far fromÂ H3 is a villain; butÂ House hasn’t been too good at villains, especially if you remember the straw man from S1. The show is better when it concentrates on the brainy matter of medial mysteries.

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