I am tired, not of arguing in favour of equality, diversity and tolerance, but of having to explain, over and over and over again, why such arguments are still necessary, only to have my evidence casually dismissed by someone too oblivious to realise that their dismissal of the problem is itself a textbook example of the fucking problem. I am tired of being mocked by hypocrites who think that a single lazy counterexample is sufficient to debunk the fifteen detailed examples they demanded I produce before they’d even accept my point as a hypothetical, let alone valid, argument…. In short, I’m tired of being a female geek.
We remain enchanted by the offerings coming from Japan’s Studio Ghibli and the latest release, The Wind Rises, has a very impressive vocal cast. Check out the formal details:
BURBANK, Calif. (December 17, 2013) – An A-list roster of voice talent has been assembled for the English-language version of Studio Ghibli’s The Wind Rises, which opens in select North American theaters on Feb. 21, 2014, expanding wide on Feb. 28, 2014. The film marks director Hayao Miyazaki’s final feature, as the legendary animation veteran announced his retirement in September 2013.
In The Wind Rises, Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted and unable to be a pilot, he becomes one of the world’s most accomplished airplane designers, experiencing key historical events in an epic tale of love, perseverance and the challenges of living and making choices in a turbulent world. The voice cast of the English-language version follows.
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT (Don Jon, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) lends his voice to Jiro Horikoshi, who harbors strong ambitions to create his own beautiful airplane. A bubbling mix of wild excitement, extreme focus, individualism, pride, realism and idealism, Jiro also has a cool and brilliant mind and is recognized for his talent.
JOHN KRASINSKI (The Office, Promised Land) provides the voice of Honjo, Jiro’s college friend and fellow aviation engineer.
EMILY BLUNT (The Young Victoria, Edge of Tomorrow, Into the Woods) voices Nahoko Satomi, a beautiful and cheerful girl who is a passenger on the same train as Jiro on the day of a natural disaster. Ten years later, they reunite.
MARTIN SHORT (Father of the Bride, Saturday Night Live) was tapped to portray Kurokawa, Jiro’s grumpy boss.
STANLEY TUCCI (Julie & Julia,The Hunger Games films, The Devil Wears Prada) provides the voice of Caproni, an airplane creator known worldwide from the dawn of Italian aviation through the 1930s, who appears in Jiro’s dreams to stir up, advise and voice Jiro’s thoughts and emotions.
MANDY PATINKIN (Homeland, The Princess Bride) lends his voice to Hattori, the senior designer at Mitsubishi.
WERNER HERZOG (Jack Reacher, filmmaker Grizzly Man) voices Castorp, a mysterious visitor to Japan who encounters Jiro at a mountain resort.
WILLIAM H. MACY (Shameless, Fargo) steps into the role of Satomi, Nahoko’s father.
MAE WHITMAN (Parenthood, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) was called on to voice Kayo Horikoshi, Jiro’s younger sister, who adores him. Whitman also voices Kinu, Nahoko’s caretaker.
JENNIFER GREY (Dirty Dancing, The Cotton Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) provides the voice of Mrs. Kurokawa.
DARREN CRISS (Girl Most Likely, Glee) lends his voice to Katayama, a jovial junior engineering colleague of Jiro.
ELIJAH WOOD (Wilfred, Grand Piano, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) voices Sone, a studious engineering colleague of Jiro.
RONAN FARROW (From Up on Poppy Hill) is the voice of the Mitsubishi Employee.
Also featured in the English-language version of The Wind Rises are Zach Callison (Sofia the First, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Steven Universe), who voices young Jiro; Eva Bella (Frozen, Despicable Me 2, Almost Heroes 3D), who lends her voice to young Kayo; and Madeleine Rose Yen (Broadway’s War Horse, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas), who provides the voice of young Nahoko. Rounding out the English-language voice cast are Edie Mirman (Epic, Howl’s Moving Castle English-language version) as the voice of Jiro’s mother, and David Cowgill (Madagascar) as the voice of the flight engineer.
The English-language voice cast of The Wind Rises is directed by Gary Rydstrom, a seven-time Academy Award®-winning sound designer (Saving Private Ryan, Titanic) who worked on Wreck-It Ralph and Brave. Rydstrom also directed the English-language versions of The Secret World of Arrietty and From Up on Poppy Hill. The English-language version of the film is produced by Studio Ghibli and executive produced by Frank Marshall, who produced dozens of landmark films, including the Indiana Jones series, The Bourne Legacy and War Horse, and executive produced the English-language versions of Studio Ghibli films PONYO, The Secret World of Arrietty and From Up on Poppy Hill. Mike Jones (In the Event of a Moon Disaster) is credited with the English-language screenplay adaptation for The Wind Rises.
The Wind Rises was released in Japan in July 2013, topping the Japanese box office and the $120 million mark. The film opened for Academy Award® qualification engagements in New York and Los Angeles Nov. 8-14, 2013, showcasing the original film in Japanese with English subtitles.
ABOUT THE MOVIE:
In The Wind Rises, Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world’s most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan’s plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo. Writer and director Hayao Miyazaki pays tribute to engineer Jiro Horikoshi and author Tatsuo Hori in this epic tale of love, perseverance, and the challenges of living and making choices in a turbulent world.
From Studio Ghibli, The Wind Rises is slated for limited release in North American theaters on Feb. 21, 2014, and expanded release on Feb. 28, 2014, under the Touchstone Pictures banner.
Yes, I know, they already released a trailer for The Time of the Doctor, but this is the BBC, they run on the tears of their viewers.
This new trailers features a look at Clara‘s family, more villains in action, and the return of an old acquaintance of The Doctor that we’ve never met.
Also…how do you only have a phone OUTSIDE the TARDIS? That’s shoddy design, that.
In celebration of the Milestones show at Geppi Entertainment Museum, we present this piece, originally published in the San Diego Comic-Con International Souvenir Book 2013.
Twenty years. Daaaaamn.
I spent a lot of time hanging around Milestone when they were first starting up. I was working around the corner from their 23rd St. offices at a digital pre-press house, where DC Comics was getting their painted covers scanned and separated. And I’d worked at DC and knew a lot of the folks there informally, and Milestone in those days was a very informal place. There was no standing on ceremony, if you wanted to show up and pitch in, you could just do that. And I did, bringing over lots of fonts for typesetting on a Mac and helping out with little production things here and there— I couldn’t do much because of my full-time job, but they were a start-up, which meant they worked after 5 PM a LOT. But even as busy as any start-up can get, you could go in and sit in the editor-in-chief’s office and talk— although, to be fair, that was Dwayne McDuffie, a man who had the laid-back confidence that you can only get from being the size of a small mountain. Of course, that didn’t mean you couldn’t push back— I remember asking him after Hardware #1 came out how he really felt about work-for-hire.
It turned out, years later, that Dwayne wasn’t really sure why I was there. We knew each other, and he’d seen me around various comics offices and conventions and the like, but at the time, for some reason he thought I was Walt Simonson’s assistant. The point is, he didn’t care— you wanted in on what they were doing, you were in. Everybody had something to contribute.
The thing about Milestone, and this was a big one, is that it wasn’t a “black” company, even though everybody outside the office thought of it as such. It was a “people” company. Didn’t matter whether you were as dark-skinned as Derek Dingle or as pale as Matt Wayne, a guy even paler than me and that’s going some. Everybody there wanted to make comics— although there was a lot less of the feeling that people wanted to grow up and become Julie Schwartz. Milestone came from knowing that there was a different kind of story to tell, a story that had been neglected in everybody’s straight white male superhero stories, stories that might as well have taken place in 1960’s Riverdale. Milestone showed an entire generation of readers that there were strange new worlds just on the other side of town, and took you there.
More importantly, Milestone broke the monolith of minority character stereotypes in comics, that there was more to the characters than just being black or hispanic or gay or whatever. Icon, Hardware, Rocket, Static, and Wise Son were all black, but they all had different points of view— which just hadn’t happened much in comics before that; heck, I’m having a hard time trying to think of comics before Milestone where two black characters showed up together for any extended amount of time. Is there a minority version of the Bechdel Test? Let’s make one right now and call it the Milestone test: A comic passes if (1) there are at least two minority characters in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a white person. And if you have to tell the reader the character is black because it’s in his name– Black Lightning, Black Manta, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Black Racer, Black Vulcan– it’s not really a black character.
But the most amazing thing is that, in many ways, it’s not as big of a deal anymore. You can put Static Shock on TV and people don’t look at it as pandering to connect with the urban audience, he’s a character. And for that alone, the work done by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Robert Washington, Matt Wayne, Ivan Velez, Michael Davis, John Paul Leon, Mark Bright, Trevor Von Eeden, Andrew Pepoy, Janet Jackson, Jimmy Palmiotti, Noelle Giddings, Janice Chiang, Steve Dutro, Mike Gustovich, James Sherman, Joe James, John Rozum, Steve Mitchell, Joe James, Chriscross, Prentis Rollins, Derek Dingle, and so many others… well, it’s a Milestone worth celebrating.
After nearly eight seasons, the guys at ROBOT CHICKEN area still having fun playing with toys. We sit down with creator Matt Senreich and actor Breckin Meyer to talk about what has (or hasn’t) changed over the years. Plus DC and Marvel are neck and neck another month in the comic stores, and can it really be true? A SANDMAN movie at last?!
Milestones, the new exhibit at Geppi’s entertainment museum in Baltimore premiered last Friday night with a gala that presented the collection in grand style.
The exhibition, assembled and curated by Michael Davis and Tatiana El-Khouri, showcases both the work of not only black creators, but black characters in comics, Such as Storm and Black Panther, rightly described as one of the most iconic black characters in the medium. Don Mcgregor, classic writer of Black Panther (and co-creator with Paul Gulacy of Sabre) was a guest of honor for the evening, along with a broad selection of comics creators.
It features art from both major publishers and independents, well-known and cult characters, and a wide array of black writers and artists. Artwork includes Ken Lashley’s covers for Justice League of America, Shawn Martinbrough’s work on Thief of Thieves, and the Black Dynamite mini series Slave Island. Kyle Baker’s contributes art from his graphic novel King David, and Denys Cowan‘s careers is prominently featured, including some of Cowan’s initial designs for John Henry Irons, AKA Steel.
The work of the eponymous Milestone Media is included, including a tribute to the late Dwayne McDuffie; a portrait by Davis and an essay by Milestone President Derek Dingle.
A video presentation features interviews with Orlando Jones, Wayne Brady, Reginald Hudlin and more, all discussing the historic and modern contribution of black creators to pop culture.
“What can brown do for you?” Was the once massively successful slogan for United Parcel Service (UPS) that’s been replaced by “We Love Logistics.”
If you ask me both slogans suck.
“Who can Brown screw for you?” Now that’s truth in advertising.
Instead of writing about the fantastic opening of Milestones: African Americans In Comics Pop Culture & Beyond last Friday the 13th at The Geppi Entertainment Museum I’m writing about a devastating lost to superstar artist and my best friend Denys Cowan.
Thursday the 5th of December 2013 Denys Cowan and I sent, via UPS, our artwork for the Milestones show. The work was to be shipped for overnight delivery. That was the plan but Brown screwed that up. When called the UPS location where the work was sent from gave the wrong cut off time for east coast overnight shipments. So the art was scheduled to arrive on Saturday instead of Friday the following day.
There was an omen if ever there was. It was two packages but one shipment. My assistant James was smart enough to request two different airbills to make any tracking easier.
Bad stormy weather on the east coast was headline news much of the week so the art was wrapped in plastic, sealed with tape, then placed in size related cardboard boxes and that was sealed with at least 3 layers of packing tape. Professional artists KNOW how to ship their art.
Denys sent 28 original pieces of not just art but history. Included were irreplaceable work from original Milestone concept drawings to Batman #400 pages other works from both before and after those career highlights.
My work (some of it) arrived at the Geppi on Saturday. Denys’ did not. On Monday UPS says it tried to deliver Denys’s package but the Geppi was closed because of a snowstorm.
On Tuesday Denys’ box arrived. In that box was some damn fine art. Problem was 27 pieces of Denys’ 28 pieces of art were NOT in the box.
Gone. Perhaps, forever.
For some reason that has yet to be explained to me Denys’ package sat for two days in the UPS Kentucky hub. BOTH boxes left and arrived at the UPS location in Kentucky at the same time. My box was scanned and arrived in Baltimore on Saturday.
I’ve placed numerous calls to UPS and have made it crystal clear what was missing was the art of the man whose idea it was and from which the Milestones show sprung. I made it extremely clear that if this was a show on cubism they had ‘lost’ Picasso’s art.
The woman I said that to didn’t get it. “The Jackson Five exhibit without Michael.”
THAT she got.
Didn’t matter.
I spoke to 11 different people during the week. All were extremely nice; all were as useless as a condom worn on an ear.
What was made clear to me was the repeated UPS reason why 27 of 28 works of art were not in the box. The package was somehow sealed wrong and the art, ‘fell out.’
Really?
So, the packing tape (used by professional MOVERS among others to keep boxes SEALED-hence the name PACKING TAPE) somehow came loose, every layer simply came apart the plastic sealed art then fell out, the plastic opened 27 pieces of art with it but one somehow crawled back in the box and was able to make the trip from Kentucky to Baltimore.
BULLSHIT.
When arriving at the Geppi the box was sealed (badly) when opened both the art and the plastic around it was gone, say ONE.
HOW can that be? How can 28 pieces of art wrapped in plastic become ONE piece of art?
The art was either stolen or ‘fell out.’ I’m sure it was stolen, someone opened the box, opened the plastic took the art except for one, resealed the box, badly and sent it along it’s merry way.
I can’t say that for a fact because I was not there when it went missing. I also can’t say for fact slavery is bad as I’ve never been a slave but I’m pretty sure it is.
As of today, Monday Dec. 16th nothing has been done to find the artwork of Denys Cowan.
The last thing I was told was NOTHING could be done to expedite the ‘process’ because UPS treats every single ‘lost’ package the same they are all of equal importance.
UPS is Johnny on the spot when someone shoves a TV camera in their faces.
Every package is the same my ass. You mean to tell me UPS would not move any faster if the Academy Awards were to be broadcasted on a Friday and the Oscars statures ‘fell out’ of a box Tuesday?
BULLSHIT.
The artwork of Denys Cowan deserves a lot more respect than a ‘tablet’ and to that end UPS is about to get a lot more than a TV camera shoved in their faces.
I have a list of movies that is as malleable as a rubber band. Okay, certain movies, such as The Bridge on the River Kwai or The Searchers or The Best Years of Our Lives are always on that list, but their positions- 1, 2, 3, and so on- tumble around in my mind like clothes in a dryer. Other movies appear and disappear like the crew of the Enterprise on the transporter pad.
Gone With the Wind, for instance. This is a movie that hops on and off my list all the time. On the list because of the incredible “brought to full life” performances and spectacle, and off the list because, as a devotee of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer-winning novel, in which all the characters are given full, rich personalities, I can’t stand the way Scarlett is portrayed in the second half of the movie; this is a product of Victor Fleming’s direction, who was brought in after George Cukor, the original director, was fired less than three weeks into filming, and of Fleming’s rewrite of the script so that Rhett Butler became a more sympathetic character and Scarlett O’Hara much less so.
There are two explanations for Cukor’s firing. The first is that that Clark Gable— who supposedly wasn’t enthusiastic about playing Rhett Butler, and only agreed to do it after producer David Selznick agreed to help Gable obtain a divorce so that Gable could marry Carole Lombard — was not happy with the choice of Cukor as director. Cukor was known as a “woman’s director,” and Gable was worried that Cukor’s attention to Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland as Scarlett and Melanie would overshadow any direction that Cukor gave Gable in playing Rhett. The second, and probably true, reason is that Cukor knew that Gable had worked as a gigolo in the gay Hollywood scene before breaking out into stardom, and that this, understandably, made Gable very uncomfortable working with him. So the actor threatened to walk off the set unless Cukor was replaced. But just as Cukor as known as a “women’s director,” Fleming was known as a “man’s director;” he gave very little advice and just shot the movie, wanting no dilly-dallying or investigation into a character’s motivations and he was not in the least respectful of either Vivien Leigh or Olivia de Havilland and their talents- oh, and by the way, for you GWTW fans, Leigh and de Havilland continued to secretly meet with Cukor at his home when off the set to investigate their characters’ motivations and how to play them.
Gone With the Wind was on Turner Classic Movies a couple of weeks back, and of course I watched it. And it’s on my list again. It also made me pick the book and start reading it again.
And then there is The Sound of Music. The movie is based on the true story of the Von Trapp Family, escaped from the 1938 political annexation, or Anschluss, of Austria into the Third Reich. Directed by Robert Wise (who directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture), the movie stars Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp. It was filmed on location in Austria, including Salzburg and the Nonnburg Convent, where the real Maria was a postulant. The music, of course, is unforgettable and iconic- in fact, midnight sing-alongs of The Sound of Music, a laThe Rocky Horror Picture Show have become quite the thing- but more than that, and it’s something that makes the movie more than just a beautiful travelogue of the Austrian Alps, it’s the Nazi threat and the looming-on-the-horizon beginning of World War II that underscores what could have been just a “sappy” love story.
By the way, Carrie Underwood got a lot of grief from critics and non-critics, i.e. “pundits” on the Web, last week for her performance in NBC’s live broadcast. Okay, she was a little stiff and a bit ingenuous, but that lady can sing. There were also complaints that the teleplay “messed with the script,” moving songs around, leaving out the gazebo, and not having Captain Von Trapp engaged to “the Baroness.” Which annoyed the hell out of me, because the teleplay was based on the original Broadway show which starred Mary Martin as Maria and Theodore Bikel as Captain Von Trapp and ran for 1,443 performances, from 1959 to 1963. Which means that it was the movie that played with the original script. Jesus, people, know your musical theatre history before you complain!
Anyway, it’s not a movie that appears on my list, but when I do watch it, I am enchanted and captivated, delighted, thrilled, and yes, just a bit weepy at the ending as the Von Trapps “climb every mountain” and “ford every stream” to escape the Germans’ every-tightening noose into Switzerland.
And then there’s Mary Poppins.
I remember going with my family to see it. I also remember my father not being entirely willing, but doing it because, well, that’s what fathers do. And I also remember my father really enjoying himself. Starring Julie Andrews (hmm, is there a theme here?) as the magical, mystical nanny and Dick Van Dyke as her friend Bert, the one-man band player, chalk painting drawer, chimney sweep Cockney, and deliverer of wisdom to sacked-from-the-bank Edwardian fathers, the film is based on English writer P. L. Travers’s series of books. Believe it or not, I never read the books, and I didn’t know what to expect on this family outing, except that I had a girlhood crush on Dick Van Dyke (or Rob Petrie) and my mom told me he was in the movie, so I was looking forward to it.
We all came out of the theatre singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and it became a badge of honor at school and at sleepaway camp that year to be able to spell it backwards (s-u-o-i-c-o-d-i-l-a-i-p-x-e-c-i-t-s-i-l-i-g-a-r-f-i-l-a-c-r-e-r-p-u-S and if you think I can do that without looking at the word while typing it out you’re giving me a lot of credit!)
And I still find myself singing “A Spoonful of Sugar” while cleaning the house and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” when seeing kids play with them in the park and singing “Feed the Birds” when I see pictures of St. Paul’s in London. And after watching previews of Saving Mr. Banks (which I’m definitely going to see) I downloaded the score to my playlist on iTunes.
That puts Mary Poppins on my list of top movies…
For a while at least.
Next week: …AND CHECKING IT TWICE. My favorite Christmastime movies.
The toughest part of the story, inevitably, is the beginning. How do you get the narrative ball rolling? How do you get somebody’s attention so that they want, maybe need, to hear what happens next?
Yes, I know, they 
