A Wolf Loves Pork

Awesome!

Seems I'm not the only one...

As blue-eyed Benjamin would say, "Make with the click, ya crum-bum!"

http://io9.com/5169627/

Question of the day

Why the hell doesn't the blogspot text editor work properly? I get extra spaces betwen paragraphs, or no spaces. Just like in Outlook.

It's not like text editors haven't been around since the early days of computing! Grrr.

Apparently, Doctor Manhattan Can't Keep it Up

As per Variety, Watchmen's drop from its opening weekend is looking to be 67%. This doesn't surprise me. Watchmen seems to be a film only a fan of the graphic novel could love (or, in my case, admire for its ambition if not its execution). Everyone else, it seems, could care less.

Hopefully, the studios will back off on their rush to make every superhero movie "dark". I've been reading how, in the wake of The Dark Knight's success, the studios want to make Superman (Superman!) and the Fantastic Four darker. This only works when the character can naturally bear that interpretation, such as Batman. That said, I wasn't overly impressed with The Dark Knight. I'm not saying there shouldn't be grim superhero films, or that superhero films need to be childish; but are any properties less dark than Superman or The Fantastic Four?! You want to make a dark superhero movie about an indestructible, flying man with x-ray and heat vision? Fine. Just don't call it Superman. The Thing shouts "It's Clobberin' Time!" not "It's dismemberin' time!" or "It's knifin' time!"

Each superhero film should be its own thing, with its own sensibilities. If you homogenize these things and apply current trends, it's going to be the law of diminishing returns. We've seen that countless times in Hollywood. Every time something hits, we get a dozen knock-offs until the trends sputters out. (Shark movies, anyone? Breakdancing movies, anyone? Matrix-style fighting movies, anyone?) For my money the best superhero films are Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 (except the ridiculous bit where he takes of his mask and a subway car full of citizens agrees to keep his identity secret), Superman 2 (dated effects, corny as hell, but still fun) and The Invincibles (why no sequel?!)

Fingers crossed that the relatively poor performance of Watchmen will put at least a couple of nails into the coffin of the dark superhero film.

Who Tweets the Watchmen?

I’m not on Twitter (and probably never will be), but thought I’d try my hand at the format (140-characters or less per entry) and write my initial impressions of Watchmen:

* Too short. Should have been a 12-part HBO mini-series.

* Opening sequence: awesome. Hi, Warhol, Bowie, and Jagger! Fun subversion of iconic sailor-kiss photo.

* So ordinary, non-powered folks can punch through granite countertops, can they?

* Jackie Earle Haley is very, very good.

* Nite Owl looks WAY too much like Chevy Chase, ca. 1979. Distracts.

* Holy F, Malin Akerman is a terrible actress.

* Holy F, Mathew Goode is a terrible actor.

* Thanks for explaining The Doomsday Clock to me like I’m a complete fucking idiot.

* Adrian can see poison capsules in people’s mouths from five feet away! Other characters strangely not at all suspicious.

* Person who did old-age makeup effects obviously doesn’t know his craft. Doesn’t help that actors don’t act old.

* Hey! Where’d Hollis Mason go?!

* Cartoon violence and realistic violence don’t mix if your film has no sense of irony.

* I would have had my name taken off this film, too, Alan. Dave Gibbons on crack if he thinks this mess is good.

* Bad use of back-catalogue music to set emotional tone. Hire better actors!

* Adrian says he’s not a cartoon villain. No one told Matthew Goode that.

* Sex scene: pointless. Unsexy.

* Destruction of a big chunk of New York strangely unmoving. Bodies conveniently disintegrated.

* Small-scale brutal violence okay with director; large-scale not so much.

* Silk Spectre and Nite Owl kill people. What the F?!

* Three hours of life lost to this mess.

* Critics say "faithful" to original. Haven't read original, obviously.

* No more Alan Moore stories will be turned into Hollywood pap. Hooray!

Being Mr Angry

Someone I know writes a blog. He's quite a thoughtful writer, but the tone of his posts are suffused with anger, especially when it comes to his open hatred of anyone who is even remotely critical of films he likes (which tend to be mainstream franchises such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars). This got me thinking about how much energy this person seems to fritter away worrying that others may not like what he likes, angry that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just won a Razzie Award for "worst sequel, prequel or rip-off", and penning venomous letters to the editors of NOW Magazine upbraiding the film critic who (gasp!) dared to say that Zac and Miri Make a Porno wasn't a very good film.

My questions for this blogger (and the many others out there like him):

1. If you like something, does having someone not like it take away from your enjoyment of it? If so, how? More importantly, why? Is it some need to feel accepted or validated, to know that your choice of entertainments is shared by others? Perhaps it's the feeling that if something you love doesn't make oodles of box office loot there won't be more of the same in your future, but this can be disproven by history. Since Star Wars in 1977, has there been a dearth of popular (and almost popular, and unpopular) franchise films? Hardly.

2. Aren't critics paid to be critical, or ostensibly offer up their criticism of something they see as sub-standard? Isn't that what he or she is paid to do? Should we do away with criticism and allow the studios and the Marketing Boffins to help us decide what to see? Should all the reviews adopt the 680 News format, with a disinterested announcer merely reading a plot summary or a blurb from a press release?

I've often thought what the angry people of the world could do if they inverted that energy and turned it into creativity. If they spent even a small fraction of the time they spend being angry about critics and other public opinion on creating their own fictions, films, TV shows, there would be plenty of things to watch and read. Some of them might even be good.

Oh, and for the record, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Zac and Miri Make a Porno were both shitty films. Guess I'll be on someone's hate-list for saying so. Only thing is, I don't care.

More thoughts on fictional continuity

You know how you think about or write about something, and the very next day you read something related? That's what happened today, that weird synchronicity. Yesterday I blogged about continuity, and today, I came across these.

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/capturing-continuity/

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/capturing-continuity-ii-this-time-its-personal/

A wonderful set of postings, with more to come. Check 'em out.

To Freely Go Where No Geek Has Gone Before....

A friend blogged about JJ Abram's new Star Trek film, expressing the idea that exploring the original characters with new actors might just work.

Which got me thinking about continuity. This is a case where a prequel might actually work. Don't ask me to name another film where I think this is true. But doing it for Star Trek it frees JJ and makers from the albatross of continuity, which is something I think sci-fi and comics fans worry WAAAAAAAAAY too much about.

Imagined conversation after the screening:

GEEK 1: Was it a good story?

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Was it true to the essence of the characters?

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Was it respectful of the orginal intent or did it extrapolate on ideas of the original? [this is how we non-geeks imagine geeks talk amongst themsleves]

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Did you like it?

GEEK 2: Hell, No! Kirk's outfit was the wrong shade of yellow.

Incognito #2

It's always nice to see something that succesfully reworks tired cliches into something new and exciting. Such is the case with Incognito, the ICON/Marvel comic series from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It successfully grafts film noir and pulp sensibilities onto a modern superhero comic, and never once does it feel forced, or that the creative team is trying too hard. Reading this gave me the same buzz I got when I was 12 and reading the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks for the first time, no small feat. Comic-wise, I haven't enjoyed comics this much since my first encounter with Moore and O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

If you like superheroes, pulp fiction, film noir; or if you're just a fan of excellent storytelling, pick this one up. You won't be disappointed. Oh, and don't wait for the trade paperback! Like Criminal, Incognito has text articles that will only be in the monthlies. Brubaker has tapped Jess Nevins to write about pulp heroes of the past. Issue #1 had a text piece on The Shadow. I had no idea that the written character and the radio incarnation were two very different characters. Fascinating. Issue #2 has an bit on Doc Savage, with Philips doing a fantastic James Bama-inspired watercolour portrait of the Man of Bronze.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading this and get yourself Icognito ASAP.

[Geek mode off]

That's an "Albert"

Having recently decided to watch all of Hitchcock's films, it didn't take long to bump into a bad one. The Wrong Man. Slow, a plodding performance by Henry Fonda, and none of the thrills that are the hallmark of good Hitchcock films.

I have decided to attribute all the poor Hitchcock films to "Albert Hitchcock", Alfred's less-talented brother.

Can anyone suggest some Alberts I might want to pass on?