Tagged: Genre

George A. Romero’s ‘Diary of the Dead’ in Review, by Michael H. Price

George A. Romero’s ‘Diary of the Dead’ in Review, by Michael H. Price

 
The film-trade press tends increasingly to hail Pittsburgh’s George A. Romero as “the godfather of gore,” in a smirking nod to his new picture, Diary of the Dead, and to the persistent influence of Romero’s breakout film of 1968, Night of the Living Dead. The facile assumption, here, is that Romero’s films must rely more upon visceral shock value than upon narrative ferocity or scathing social criticism – qualities that constitute his larger impact as a filmmaking artist.
 
The medium is outright and unapologetic horror, of course – a perennially hardy escapism-or-allegory genre that had embraced gratuitous “gore” as a ticket-selling commodity several years before Romero had seasoned Night of the Living Dead with such incidental excesses. If any human agency counts as a “godfather of gore,” it must be the short-lived partnership of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman, whose first-of-a-kind collaborative films Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red (1963–1965) had championed the pageantry of bloodletting spectacle to the near-exclusion of storytelling values. (Interesting to see a homage-to-Lewis sequence turn up in the Jason Reitman’s indie-film Oscar-bait hit Juno. Enough with the digressions, already.)
 
Romero’s investment in the genre, however, involves a steadfast commitment to bigger and more troubling ideas about the fragile state of civilization. Imitations, remakes and homages abound, but Romero stands apart as the Genuine Article. (Among the more sharply attuned nods to Romero: Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, from 2002; Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead, from 2004; and Robert Kirkman’s comics-chapbook novel The Walking Dead, from 2003 et seq.)
 
Romero’s previous such picture, Land of the Dead, goes so far as to channel the humane, defiant desperation of John Steinbeck, suggesting a Grapes of Wrath-like prophecy of America as a Third World country – harshly divided amongst a small monied class, an impoverished mass population, and a gathering horde of once-human predators, with no remedies in sight and no perceptible middle-class buffer zone. Romero, like Francis Ford Coppola with his Godfather suite or Ingmar Bergman in his film-by-film search for a Meaning of Life, has accomplished more with one recurring concern, so outlandish that it becomes plausible, than many another writer–director from either the maverick or studio-establishment ranks could perform with any succession of self-contained ideas.
 

(more…)

Superhero Novelizations for 2008

Superhero Novelizations for 2008

With the summer super-hero blockbusters come the inevitable novelizations. It used to be almost every movie from every genre would receive the prose treatment but with time, that has been winnowed dramatically.  These days it appears just the genre films get the attention and not even all those receive a book. 

The blockbuster, tent pole films for 2008 will be receiving not only novelizations but tie-in and spin-off books galore.  One, Speed Racer, does not have a novelization but a ton of related books for the younger audiences.

Here’s a look at the 2008 novelization list, in order of film release, with some rather familiar names attached:

   

Iron Man by Peter David

Speed Racer, none scheduled

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins

Incredible Hulk by Peter David

Wanted, none scheduled

Get Smart, none scheduled

Hellboy II: The Golden Army by Robert Greenberger

The Dark Knight by Dennis O’Neil

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, unknown

The X-Files 2, none scheduled

Punisher: War Zone, none scheduled

Star Trek, unknown

Romance! Action! Prose!

Romance! Action! Prose!

It used to be, the most successful comic book heroes would eventually wind up in prose.  These days, with superheroes fully integrated into mainstream America, it’s no surprise that several novelists have taken their own, unique looks at the genre.  Already this year we’ve had the well received Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and Perry Moore’s Hero.  It’s no surprise, then, that the romance genre would also introduce their own take on the subject.

 

Long-time comic book fan and one-time DC Comics staffer Elizabeth M. Flynn, writing as Ellis Flynn, has produced Introducing Sonika.  The novel is an eBook, available from Cerridwen Press as of December 13.

 

According to the publisher, “Sonika is actually 28-year-old Sonya Penn, a Gen Y gal working hard as a physical therapist in order to pay off the enormous medical bills that remained after her parents’ deaths. Like so many of her generation, her career has left her no time for romance. But unlike so many others like her, the medical bills she’s working hard to pay off were incurred when her super-hero parents were killed by their arch-nemesis, Gentleman Geoffrey.

 

“Sonya could hardly know that when she met her newest client, he would not only turn out to be John Arlen, the heir to an engineering fortune, but that he, too, was injured by a super-villain.

(more…)

Hero Squared coming to a close

Hero Squared coming to a close

Ian Brill, a man who calls himself the Earth-Prime Jimmy Olsen and who clearly hasn’t seen the shirts at the DC booth at WonderCon, reports that Hero Squared is coming to a close, according to BOOM! Studios head Ross Richie, who also says "this will be the last word for J.M. DeMatteis when it comes to the superhero genre."

Marc, Marc, Marc… don’t you know that never is a very long time in the span of the eternal cosmos that is but a metaphor for the mind of the infinite… er, just never is a long time.

Riding high at the box office

Riding high at the box office

Ghost Rider, based on the Marvel Comics series, dominated the box office this holiday weekend, opening at $44.5 million according to studio estimates.  The movie took in over twice as much as its nearest competitor, the Disney movie Bridge to Terabithia, based on the Newberry-award winning book by Katherine Paterson. 

This was Hollywood’s biggest opening so far this year, and the best opening weekend ever for comics super-fan Cage, beating his previous $35.1 million debut for National Treasure.  This showing bodes well for the movies’ continued association with comic book properties, which are still pleasing audiences despite critics’ misgivings that "the genre" is on the way out. 

Someond tell them comics isn’t a genre, it’s a format!  Sheesh.