Blackest Night Cheerleaders?
Okay, what would you call them?
We had to get this one in now, because we couldn’t live with ourselves if we ran this anytime during Women’s History Month.
Monthly Archive: February 2010
Review: ‘Clash of the Titans’ on Blu-ray
Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas grew up fascinated by the amazing stop-motion magic from model maker Ray Harryhausen. His films were cutting edge forays into the realms of monsters, science fiction, and fantasy for decades. His Jason and the Argonauts remains one of the best Greek myths brought to film and his work only got better through his Sinbad films.
By 1981, though, Lucas rewrote the special effects rulebook with [[[Star Wars]]] followed soon after by Spielberg’s [[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]]. The effects were aided by computers, the model makers improved the technology and the scripts grew stronger and more sophisticated.
As a result, when Harryhausen unleashed Clash Of The Titans
The movie has served as fodder for the 3-D remake coming this spring so Warner Home Video has dusted off the movie and is releasing it in Blu-ray on Tuesday.
Harryhausen eschewed the computer technologies available to him and did it the old fashioned way so while his creatures were interesting to look at, their stilted movements looked terrible and worse, dated. Similarly, at a time when Industrial Light & Magic showed what can be done on film, Harryhausen and director Desmond Davis chose to use substandard blue screen, double-exposure and poor matte paintings to achieve the effects. The entire film looked cheap and frankly, something that would have been more engaging a decade previous.
These are the Greek gods playing games with mortals. The politics of the gods is fascinating subject matter and in strong hands, can be compelling. Instead, screenwriter Beverly Cross served up a rehashed story that never delved into the character or their motivations. They were like Zeus’ clay pawns, moved on a chess board to advance the story.
Davis was clearly not a good director as he got wooden performances from a cast that included such heavyweights as Maggie Smith. Claire Bloom, Burgess Meredith, and Sir Laurence Olivier. Nor could he get anything subtle from Hamlin, who developed far better acting skills on television soon after. He also settled for horrible sets so Mount Olympus looked like a schoolhouse production, lacking grandeur and scale. Thankfully, the location shooting around Europe made Earth seem a far more interesting place.
And while Harryhausen swears the mechanical owl Bubo was conceived long before R2D2, it is hard to believe. Once that droid rolled across the screen, most genre productions had cute robotic companions much to the detriment of the stories. It’s no different here and a real let down from someone far more imaginative as was Harryhausen.
The Blu-ray edition is lackluster in that the original film seems to have been barely touched for the upgrade. Inconsistent film stocks look worse in h-def and the transfer is competent at best. The audio is fine although it shows us how dated even Laurence Rosenthal’s score was, shamed by John Williams and a new generation of composers.
The disc comes with two extras culled from the 2002 DVD release so if you have that edition, you can skip this one. The disc comes with an extended look at the new film and while the effects and creatures look impressive, and it has a nicely pedigreed cast, it also looks to lack the same depth of character that helped spoil this film.
The packaging is nice, though. Similar to the recent [[[North by Northwest]]], the disc is contained in a bookcase, with a 48-page booklet containing actor bios and a short article on Harryhausen’s amazing career. The package also contains a discount movie ticket for the remake.
Saturday Morning Cartoons: Who Lives In A Pineapple Under The Rubber Tree?
Tom Kenny, voice of beloved Spongebob Squarepants helped produce an unaired pilot for Cartoon Network. Even better, the celebrated voice talent lent his tenor to the pliable plastic hero. While quality shows like “Johnny Test” and “Dude! What would happen!?” got the green light, sadly, this didn’t make the cut.
So, for your enjoyment (and don’t tell Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio, or Jim Lee) here now the unaired pilot for “Plastic Man”. We here at ComicMix think it’s a bouncing good larf.
Korea To Open ROBOT LAND!
Opening it’s robo-doors in 2012, in the always pleasant Cheongra District of Public Water Free Economic Zone, comes the worlds first theme park dedicated to celebration of all things Robot. That’s right kids, save your pennies for your ticket to adventure 2.0 when you and your family take a trip to Robot Land!
Robot Land is a massive and major creation of two major Korean Public Organizations, four construction investors, ten colleges and R&D centers, and 17 robotics industries. All of these forces have combined (like all good robots, duh) to create this complex. The complex includes a theme park area; Within that there’s a proposed Robot Experience Center, Robot Battle Stadium, Robot Museum, Funny Town, Roller Coaster, Ferris Wheel, and more. A water park, cyber zoo, robot animal studio, robot mall, hotels, food court, and even a residential zone. That’s right kiddos. Why just visit Robot Land, when you can LIVE THERE, amongst your new robot bretheren!
Feel free to visit the Robot Land website, and see some fantastic renderings of a world where hundreds of Honda’s ASIMO waiters serve you custom ordered ramen noodle packs cooked in cook-bots. You’ll be agape at all the proposed educational facilities; Robot Land will not only teach you about robots in an entertaining way, it’ll provide you with a degree with the proposed Graduate School of Robotics located on campus.
I… I can’t do this anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, what we’ve reported on speaks for itself. The Robot Land theme park will no doubt be taken over, ‘conquered’ if you will, by a master race of giant hyper intelligent robots. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume all captive Earthmen as biological batteries or merely enslave us to ironically do their automated chores. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the robots will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords. I’d like to remind them as a trusted web blogging personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their Matrix-like harvesting zones. For more information, you can read this article, or simply wait for the Robots to lure you to their “fun zone” in Korea.
You’ve been warned.
Andrew Koenig: 1968-2010
Andrew Koenig, star of Growing Pains and son of Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, committed suicide. His boy was found in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday afternoon after being missing for almost two weeks.
Vancouver authorities held a press conference on Thursday just
hours after the discovery, during which a police spokesperson revealed
they had no reason to believe foul play was involved in Koenig’s death.
Walter fears his son’s battle with depression led him to take his own life. He and his wife Judy want to use the tragic news to warn
other parents to seek help if they believe their child is struggling
with their personal demons.
From 1985 to 1989, Koenig played a recurring role as Richard “Boner” Stabone, best friend to Kirk Cameron‘s character Mike Seaver in the first four seasons of the sitcom Growing Pains. During the same period, he guest starred on episodes of the sitcoms My Sister Sam and My Two Dads as well as the drama 21 Jump Street. In the early 1990s he provided a voice for the animated series G.I. Joe as Ambush and Night Creeper Leader, and had a minor role as Tumak in the 1993 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Sanctuary“.
For comic book fans, he may be best known for playing The Joker in the incredibly popular fan film Batman: Dead End.
Our condolences go out to the Koenig family and Andrew’s friends.
The Point Radio: Stan Lee Wants You – And Your Violin
A good portion of the success enjoyed by DC’s direct-to-DVD features belongs to the directing expertise of Andrea Romano. So how does she find thopse wonderful voices and which Hollywood A-Listers are on her “wish list”? Plus, Stan The Man is looking for a few good musicians – really, True Believer we’re not kidding!
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99 people in Star Trek costumes is a record? Klingon, please!
I call shenanigans. The article on Times Online:
Namco Bandai decided to organise a world record attempt for people
dressed as Star Trek characters on Valentine’s Day. After all, what
else would all these trekkies be doing?The good news is that the world record is apparently in the bag. 99
people turned up at the Millennium Bridge in London on Sunday dressed
as characters from all generations of the pioneering TV show(s).
99 people in Star Trek garb is a world record? I’ve been to weddings with more people in Star Trek costumes.
Apparently, this is a world record because the nice people at Guinness never bothered to count before Namco Bandai wanted to promote Star Trek Online.
If nothing else, the group shot in Star Trek: The Motion Picture got hundreds of fans in Star Trek costumes, including David Gerrold and Bjo Trimble. (And before you say they were paid to be there, let it be known that originally the fans originally were there for free, and when told money had to change hands, a lot of the fans asked how much they would have to pay. Most of them never cashed the check they got for being extras.)
I fully expect that this record will be demolished by a new gathering by the end of the summer.
Detective Comics #27 Sets New Record For Sale of a Comic Book
Didn’t take long now, did it?
A whopping three days after Action Comics #1 took in a cool $1,000,000, the Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas reported to Comic Riffs that a copy of Detective Comics #27 sold for $1,075,500 last night. #27 you say? Why not #1? Well folks, don’t we all know that issue features the debut of a pointy eared vigilante who’s made a career out of being cooler than ole’ Big Blue. Just like it’s Action Comics counterpart, the issue was an 8.0 graded book by the CGC scale. With only 100-200 copies left in the world, this again marks a major sale in the aftermarket for comic books.
Richard Donner makes a great couple movies about you, Superman? Batman Begins and The Dark Knight was better. People thought you were so cool in Kingdom Come, oh Man of Steel? Face it, old Bruce kicked your keester in Dark Knight Returns. And you thought you had him there for a second, didn’t you, Clarky-poo. A million dollar comic sale! Well, this was a million-plus. Suck on that green kryptonite.
As for us here at ComicMix, we’re gonna go check on our aforementioned copies of Ultraforce #1 and the “Darkchylde Summer Swimsuit Spectacular”. Cause, well, you never know.
Review: ‘FlashForward’ Season One Part One on DVD
You have wonder why ABC Studios released the first ten episodes of FlashForward
on DVD considering they’re already available either on their website or Hulu. And yet, the two-disc set came out this week, a convenient package for those who may have missed out on the fun. And, if you like what you see, the package contains a coupon good for saving $10 on the Complete First Season, advertised as coming in August.
There are just two bonus features contained here: Creating Catastrophe, a 7:06 look at filming the explosive opening scenes from the pilot; and A Look Ahead, 4:48 of enticing clips that focuses more on the relationships than the overall mystery.
The mystery, for those who have yet to discover the series, is how all of mankind blacked out for 2:17 at precisely the same moment (10 p.m. PST) and everyone experienced a glimpse into their future, April 29, 2010 to be exact. While a global phenomena, the show follows the investigation of an FBI task force headed up by Joseph Fiennes, apparently the people who gathered the most clues the fastest, so everyone else has seemingly backed off.
[[[FlashForward]]] is based on the 1999 novel by Robert J. Sawyer
which traces the incident to an accident caused by the CERN Super Collider and actually showed a future decades away. The cool concept is well executed in the book and offered the producers, Marc Guggenheim, David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga a starting point. Other than the basic concepts, the book (well recommended) and the show have nothing in common.
What they have done is nicely show the many ways people react to knowing what’s in store for them. Fiennes saw himself investigating and falling off the wagon; his partner John Cho discovers he’s dead; his fiancée comes to realize she’s attending his funeral; and so on. We have a suicidal man rededicate his life and Fiennes’ nanny comes to a spiritual rebirth. It’s a large, sprawling cast of investigators and their loved ones in addition to the people who may or may not be behind this incident (and potentially a previous limited test in Africa years before).
It could be that the cast is too large so we go weeks between seeing some of these people. As a result, their reactions are blunted and they feel disconnected from the main story. Threads are also added and dropped without much reason. For example, there is clearly a connection between Fiennes’ young daughter Charlie and Dylan, the autistic son of Lloyd Simcoe, the very man Fiennes’ wife, Olivia may have an affair with by spring. Lloyd, by the way, has something to do with the blackout and has a connection to Dominic Monaghan’s physicist. See, it gets messy after a while.
On the other hand, it’s nice to see a show dealing with characters and how they change based on this event. Most series refuse to let their characters grow and change this rapidly for fear audiences won’t grow attached to them. We’re also given a diverse cast, filled with many familiar genre performers but mostly getting larger-than-normal roles so that’s a plus.
The series stated off to great reviews and strong ratings but it slid quickly which prompted the network to suspend the series after these ten episodes and then return post-Olympics. The show will resume on March 18 with a two-hour premier and run uninterrupted until its conclusion with a two-hour finale on May 27 (well after Sweeps end and the new season has been announced).
This is a strong concept, but like [[[Lost]]], needs a resolution. In fact, this probably should have been a one-season show so the producers could have planned accordingly. Goyer hasn’t done much TV and certainly not been involved to this degree which may be why it felt and looked a little different at the outset. Guggenheim, strong with ensembles, was the first to leave over creative differences with the network. Goyer became the new showrunner and his approach clearly didn’t please ABC since he departed during the hiatus and his wife, Executive Producer Jessika Borsiczky, moved over to take the reins. Her touch will be seen this spring.
The show is engaging thanks to the cast and the characters but the overall mystery remains too ill-defined and possibly even unnecessary. But its here and needs to be resolved. Since April 29 comes during this run, you have to wonder what the aftermath will be like before a new wrinkle is introduced for the hoped-for second season.
‘It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Superman!’ the movie (musical)
We here at ComicMix would like to remind people, in the age of talks of Christopher Nolan consulting on the Superman movie franchise (with David S. Goyer rumored to have a script called The Man Of Steel) that Superman Returns wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
As a point of reference, we would like to show you what the state of the Superman franchise was like just a few years before Christopher Reeve took over the role. This is the televised version of the Broadway musical of It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Superman! entitled, simply, Superman (and now I know why all the ads called it Superman The Movie).
If you’re at home on a snow day today, check it out.
Interestingly enough, MTV Splashpage reports that the play is being completely revised and updated (by setting it in the 1930s?) by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a comic book writer going back to his roots as a playwright. It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman will run June 18 – July 25, 2010 at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas, Texas.
