Category: News

Spidey site live

Spidey site live

The Spider-Man Week in NYC site has gone live!  Sony’s site features an interactive map, countdown clock, events listing, links and pretty much all the bells and whistles you’d expect.  Spider-Man Week officially begins on Monday, April 30.

And yes, there’s a link to Free Comic Book Day.  Looks like this is one year where it absolutely paid off to link FCBD to a comic book movie opening!

The Super-Duper Friends to the rescue!

The Super-Duper Friends to the rescue!

Sometimes you just have to have faith that something fun will turn up by day’s end.  Found this one yesterday making the blog-rounds:

Yes, it’s got a political point of view.  So does breathing, nowadays.

Who’s a Trekkie?

Who’s a Trekkie?

Well, not Doctor Who — but Freema Agyeman, the actress who plays the Doctor’s current assistant, Martha Jones, certainly is:

And apparently, Star Trek had an impact on Christopher Eccleston, too…

Hat tip to Sailorboy for the initial photo.

Persepolis film bows at Cannes

Persepolis film bows at Cannes

The lineup for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled, and Marjane Satrapi’s much-anticipated Persepolis, based on her graphic novel, will be among the films competing.  Here’s a shot of Satrapi, who currently lives in France, from last year’s festival, flanked by actress Chiara Mastroianni and "Persepolis" co-writer/director Vincent Paronnaud:

Also selected were Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko.  Separate films, we’re certain.  The festival will take place from May 16 through 27.

MARTHA THOMASES: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

MARTHA THOMASES: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

The horrific events this week at Virginia Tech have elicited the usual pompous political rhetoric about the evils of Hollywood entertainment – violent video games, rap music, movies and television are to blame. “Our kids are being trained to be murderers,” thunder the politicians. “They learn to shoot at their enemies instead of reasoning with them. They become calloused by this violence, which dehumanizes others. Let us regulate this evil, lest our children slaughter us in our beds.”

Except that’s not how it works. If the media were that effective, we would all be effective code crackers, physically fit from our active lifestyles, enjoying out fabulously large New York apartments. That’s what the non-violent media teaches.

I’ve been a non-violent activist since high school, where I regularly risked expulsion by distributing an anti-war magazine. I dropped out of college for 18 months to work with the War Resisters League, and I now serve on the Board of Directors for the A. J. Muste Institute (http://www.ajmuste.org). Doing this work, I’ve met a lot of people who are deeply and thoughtfully concerned about popular culture, and think it degrades people. After decades of rational and reasonable conversation, I need to disagree.

In Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence, author (and sometimes comic book writer) Gerard Jones examines why children enjoy playing at violence, and why it can be a good thing for them. If I may grossly over-simplify an entire book into a few sentences, he says that children play to work out their feelings, including anger, frustration and helplessness. It’s far better to pretend to kill the monsters with rayguns or laser beams than to hit another kid because he’s got better stuff in his lunchbox than you do.

Kids aren’t the only ones who feel this way. As a human being and a New Yorker, I face frustration dozens of times a day. The traffic lights are slow, the tourists don’t know how to walk down a city sidewalk so other people can pass them, my neighbors don’t clean up after their dogs. I think about killing them all the time. Because I’m an adult, and because I understand that actions have consequences, I don’t do these things. Instead, I watch Kill Bill or read Punisher.

I also understand that other people have feelings. This understanding did as much to shape my politics as anything else – I saw people on television, dying in Viet Nam, realized I didn’t want to die, and the people I saw, even the Communists, probably didn’t want to die, either. From there, I could see that the people making the decisions to go to war weren’t the ones fighting, but they and their friends were getting rich.

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Say it ain’t so, Spidey!

Say it ain’t so, Spidey!

Remember that Batman musical we were all dreading a couple years ago? The one with Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater dancing in the dark in full costume? Well, the good news is, that ain’t happening.

However, your friendly neighborhood webslinger will be swooping down on Broadway – and, if successful, theaters all over the Real Universe. It’ll be directed by The Lion King‘s own Julie Taymor (that’s The Lion King on Broadway, not to be confused with the even stupider Tarzan on Broadway) and the music will be provided by … wait for it … Bono and The Edge.

No first-night date has been announced, but I’m sure American Idol wannabees are scouring the trades for casting calls.  However, if you can’t wait for Spider-Man The Musical, perhaps a naked Harry Potter will do, as, according to Playbill, the London show is headed for Broadway after its June closing. Hmmm… just in time for the new book. That should scare the horses!

(Oh, I’m kidding about Baldwin and Slater; grow up!)

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On-screen comics?

On-screen comics?

If you saw last night’s episode of Smallville – even on TiVo – you probably noticed a vaguely animated "comic book" story starring their version of the Justice League (Green Arrow, Aquaman, Cyborg, and a Flash), as opposed to, say, DC’s version or the version they’re trying to bring to the big screen in a few years. This comic book is actually a commercial for the Toyota Yaris, and it will continue through the show’s next-to-last season finale on May 17.

It’s almost good.

The interesting part of all this is that the comic book / commercial is promoting a contest whereby the winner can get one of those Yaris (wasn’t that an old video game called Yaris’ Revenge?). Until recently, advertisers thought superheroes could only sell Underoos and POGs, so this is a great leap forward in consumer recognition.

You can see / read / experience the comic book, play the game, and enter the contest by going to the appropriate spot on The CW’s website.

MICHAEL DAVIS: The Blame Game

MICHAEL DAVIS: The Blame Game

Monday April 17, 2007 at Virginia Tech University a gunman took 32 lives. I am writing this the following day, Tuesday April 18. To give this piece a little more perspective I tell you this: I lost my sister and grandmother some time ago and when ever I hear of any random act of violence like what happened at Virginia Tech I always pause and think of what the families are going though. I say a silent prayer and hope that somehow the pain that they feel now will ease a bit over time. It never goes away but I hope that they find some comfort from what will seem like an eternity of grief.

My family unit was my mother, sister, grandmother and myself. So half of my family was taken from me. I had to deal with losing my sister and grandmother; my mother had to deal with losing her first-born child and her mother. It hit us both very hard. We were lucky enough to have friends and family around us to comfort us. After a while – a great while we had to deal with the why of what happened. Why them? Why now? Why not me? Why were they there? Etc, etc.

There was always a why.

Those questions are as biting now as they were then. My mother and I still deal with those questions every single day. As I said we had help getting though it.

In the last 24 hours I have heard the Virginia Tech Massacre described in many ways by many people in the media.

A National tragedy

A Nation mourns

America is saddened

United as one

We all feel this

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Happy Birthday, Simpsons!

Happy Birthday, Simpsons!

It was twenty years ago today, Homer Simpson taught the land to strangle his son.

On April 19, 1987 The Tracey Ullman Show aired a two-minute animated short by Matt Groening that introduced the world to the Simpsons, a family from Springfield, USA. And, quite literally, television has never been the same. The Simpsons has gone on to become one of the longest continuously-aired television shows in American history. What had been seen as "good grief, look what they’re shoveling onto the children now" has become one of the most honored and most respected shows of all time.

Michael Pinto points us to a Parade interview with Simpsons producer Al Jean.

Artwork copyright Fox. All Rights Reserved.

Counting down on MySpace

DC Comics has just announced it’s partnered with the comic books section of MySpace to preview the first two issues of its much-anticipated Countdown series, which has reverse numbering because we aren’t confused enough.

The first 10 pages of Countdown #51 will be up on MySpace/comicbooks on May 4, followed on May 11 by the last 12 pages of that issue and the the first 12 pages of issue #50. The final ten pages of Countdown #50 will be on the site on May 18.

Why the sudden interest in the site? Well, DC’s also launching its own DC Nation MySpace page on May 2, so that could have something to do with it.

While it’s always good to see major corporations paying attention to the netroots, let’s hope smaller efforts aren’t completely usurped by the bigger fish.