Tagged: movie

Mike Gold: U.N.C.L.E. S.H.I.E.L.D?

Gold Art 130515Hoo boy. My Uh-Oh sense is screaming its fool head off.

Here’s the inevitable backstory. In the late spring of 1965, Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced The Human Torch in Marvel’s Strange Tales monthly. I liked the Human Torch in Fantastic Four, but this series was sadly second-rate. I also liked Nick Fury and his contemporary appearance in the just Big-Banged Marvel Universe. But I really loved the teevee series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (damn; typing all those damn dots is gonna wear real thin) so the new Nick Fury was met with a minor adolescent fangasm.

Timing is everything. U.N.C.L.E. was just ending its first season, and the next two would suck the chrome off of a mid-sixties Buick. Over at Marvel, Stan and Jack were just warming up. A couple years later Jim Steranko would take S.H.I.E.L.D., and comics, to a whole ‘nother level. My feelings towards U.N.C.L.E. remained positive, but in a more hopeful sense. That hope actually paid off in the show’s final half-season, and the series remains iconographic to this day.

Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. became a critical part of the Marvel Universe – but attempts at maintaining it as an ongoing series proved unsuccessful. It attracted some great talent, but not great sales. I doubt most humans were aware of the organization until Iron Man 1 came along.

Maybe it was the success of the Marvel movies that finally got the Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie off the ground. I hope so, as that appeals to my sense of Cosmic Balance. Guy Richie is directing it, and Tom Cruise and Armie Hammer are starring as Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin, respectively.

Uh-Oh.

I can’t say anything about Mr. Hammer except that his great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, became the world’s wealthiest man by selling lots of stuff to the Soviets. This appeals to my Cosmic Balance thing. Nonetheless, he is barely noticed in the trailers to the upcoming movie The Lone Ranger, in which he plays the lead but Johnny Depp plays the Star. But I can say a lot about Mr. Cruise.

Tom Cruise is, in my opinion, a good actor. Sometimes great. He stars as the continuing lead in the Mission: Impossible series. He stars as the continuing lead in the Jack Reacher series. In both series, as well as most of his movies I’ve seen, he doesn’t play the character, he makes the character Tom Cruise. That’s fine for M:I – his character is original, even though the series is not. But, as noted, I have a fondness for Napoleon Solo, the human being spy who kidnapped other human beings to engage them in adventures that even Alfred Hitchcock would find amazing. If the movie is called The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I want to see Solo on the screen and not Cruise.

I also have a fondness for S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson, who earned those feelings in a whole lotta recent Marvel movies. The same guy, Clark Gregg, is playing the character in the new teevee series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Perhaps that Cosmic Balance can be described by the old sawhorse “What goes around comes around.” But I gotta tell you, my fanboy reaction to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of great anticipation.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie? Not so much.

But I hope I’m wrong.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Michael Davis: The Black Plague

Michael Davis: The Black Plague

There is an unwritten law in the black community: support black projects in the arts, especially film and television ventures. The thinking is if we don’t support them then it will be that much harder to get another project made with black stories as the draw.

It’s hard as shit to get a black project green lit in Hollywood unless your last name is Perry. I’ve seen one Tyler Perry film and have no desire to see any others. It’s just not my thing. Nothing but respect for the man and his work but it’s just not for me. His films are the thing for an awful lot of black people and that is the audience he and his partners at Lion’s Gate pursue.

Now, a film like Red Tails was my thing. I’m a sucker for anything WWII and the story of the Tuskegee Airmen is just so badass as soon as it was announced I was on board. Before I could see the film I’d heard it was terrible. I saw it, did not like it and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

George Lucas, who put the project together and who wrote the check for most of the $58 million dollar budget (which I think is the biggest budget ever for a film that features a black cast) said that if the film flopped (and boy did it flop) then it will be that much harder to make another big budget film with a black story line and black cast.

The film Peeples premiered last Friday. Perry produced it but he did not star or direct the film. The film bombed as Tyler’s faithful stayed away from it. I had no intention of seeing it; again, not my thing. Why did the movie fail so dreadfully among the Tyler faithful? It’s not like there were any other black films out there to watch so why didn’t it preform?

Maybe because the film sucked? Or perhaps unless Perry put’s on a dress, black audiences won’t think it was funny?

I think the movie flopped because Iron Man 3 was the film most moviegoers wanted to see over the weekend. No, Iron Man is not a black character… and that’s my point, I like millions of other black movie goers, don’t decide to just go see black movies.

Duh!

We decide to go see a movie. The audience for Tyler’s movie will also go see Iron Man and to think they won’t because Tony Stark is not black, just stupid.

Iron Man, like Superman, Batman, the Avengers and Spider-Man, were born in our beloved comics media. In many ways the comics industry is much more liberal creatively than film and TV but still we lack the balls to see beyond race on many fronts.

Consider this, Static Shock was a major hit for many years on television and more than a decade after its release it’s still being shown somewhere. Yet despite that massive success on TV has never been any toys, games or fucking underoos. Hollywood and the comics industry have what seems like a written law, which is black superheroes won’t sell.

Bullshit.

Black superheroes done badly or marketed badly won’t sell. But then again that’s true of any superhero. The entertainment industry, of which comics are becoming an even bigger part of, still follows the notion that America falls down on racial lines when it comes to creative content.

That’s even more bullshit.

The most influential person on television? Oprah.

The biggest name in sports? Tiger.

The most powerful man in the world? Barack.

Not one of the above could have gotten to where they are without overwhelming support from non-black people so clearly; comics, film and television are all missing something. Hancock was a movie about a black superhero movie and it made more than half a billion dollars worldwide. Spawn and Blade were also very successful yet still I hear black superheroes won’t sell. What did they have in common other than black leads?

They were not marketed as black movies, and they all were well made.

After Earth, the new Will Smith movie, will be out on May 31st. For the majority of that film only Smith and his son are on screen. It’s a father and son movie science fiction movie, not a black movie – although Smith and his son both happen to be black.

I’m sure some will say if the movie bombs it was because it was a black movie, others will say, if the movie succeeds it’s because it’s a Will Smith movie.

I have no wish to see it regardless, it just seems weak to me but then again, Red Tails seemed to me like a sure bet, so what do I know?

Wednesday: Mike Gold – Great Uncle Shield

Thursday: Dennis O’Neil – Tony Stark Grows Up

 

New Who Review: “Nightmare in Silver”

New Who Review: “Nightmare in Silver”

Not since Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park has the an amusement park been made the center of a thriller so perfectly.  The return (and re-threatening) of a classic villain, a heck of a guest cast and a script by Neil Gaiman.  Seems like a dream, but mix it all together and it’s a…

NIGHTMARE IN SILVER
by Neil Gaiman
Directed by Stephen Woolfenden

After last week’s last-minute extortion, Clara’s charges Angie and Artie are granted a trip on the TARDIS to Hedgewick’s World, the greatest amusement park ever.  But hidden beneath it is a dangerous secret – A vast sleeping army of Cybermen, under repair and improvement for a thousand years…and they are ready to return.

GUEST STAR REPORT

Warwick Davis (Porridge) has a list of genre longer than … OK, it’s long.  Starting off with Wicket in Return of the Jedi and Willow Ufgood in the film of the same name, he’s been the star of an amazing list of sci-fi and horro films.  He’s been featured in the Harry Potter films, and was Marvin in the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Most recently he was the star of Ricky Gervais’ latest project Life’s Too Short, where he played an over the to version of himself.

Jason Watkins (Webley) is a very busy comedic actor in Britain with quite a resume in genre work. He played Herrick on the British version of Being Human and DI Gilks in Dirk Gently. He was featured in Psychoville, the latest production of Sheersmith and Pemberton from The League of Gentlemen, and just worked twice with the delightful Miranda hart on Call the Midwife and her own show Miranda.

Since Neil Gaiman (writer) last wrote a Doctor Who script (last year’s The Doctor’s Wife, he’s written four of five new books (including children’s books [[[Chu’s Day]]] and [[[Fortunately, the Milk]]]), his novel [[[Neverwhere]]] was adapted for BBC Radio, and he’s probably won a few more awards (including the Hugo for the aforementioned Doctor Who script). He’s in the middle of what he calls his last book signing tour, and is still quite happily married with the musician and internet-enrager Amanda Palmer.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Cybermen are certainly The Doctor’s greatest enemy after The Daleks.  Originally from the tenth planet in our solar system, Mondas, the planet left the sun’s orbit, and to survive, the denizens of the planet began to replace their body parts with mechanical replacements, eventually becoming more machine than humanoid.  They fought The Doctor though many eras, taking many forms as their systems adapted and improved.

In the parallel universe known as “Pete’s world”, the Cybermen were created on Earth, by over-reaching scientist John Lumic as an improvement to the human race.  Things went bad quickly, and soon the world faced a global war with the Cybermen, one they believed they won.  They eventually crossed over to our world a few times, presumably meeting and allying (alloying?) with their Mondasian counterparts, eventually forming the version we see in this episode.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

This episode owes a debt to several past Cybermen adventures.  Neil Gaiman noted that he found the Troughton episode Tomb of the Cybermen to be the most scary of the cyber-adventures, and this story parallels it in many ways.  Both are set many years after the Cybermen were believed destroyed forever, and both feature a massive armory of Cybermen in suspension, awaiting awakening.

A chess-playing Cyberman was the center of one of Mark Platt’s Big Finish Audio adventures, The Silver Turk.  Both Platt and Gaiman’s reference the original (fake) chess-playing automaton, also known as The Turk, run by a chess master hidden within, as Porridge did here.  One of Platt’s plots was used as the base of the first new series adventure, Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel.  Russell T. Davies made sure Platt was paid in full as if he’d written the TV script, and he received a “Thanks to” line in the credits.  The Turk was also the inspiration for the Clockwork Droids in The Girl in the Fireplace.

“Or don’t you have the processing power?” Even the last trick is a classic Sci-Fi move – give the computer an impossible problem to solve and it applies more and more power to solve it.  Spock told the ship’s computer to solve for Pi on Star Trek, and Arthur Dent almost killed everyone on the Heart of Gold when it asked the Nutrimatic machine if it knew why he wanted to drink dried leaves in a cup, boiled. As is true of all literature, it’s not what tools you choose to use, but how well you use them, and Neil uses them expertly.

UPGRADE COMPLETE – More than a few science-fiction fans have drawn parallels between the Cybermen and the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The similarity was brought into te light in the recent Doctor Who / ST:TNG crossover in IDW comics, where the Borg and the Cybermen formed a brief alliance.  Here, we see the Cybermen take a bit more of a page from the Borg playbook, with the rapid adaptation and instantaneous assimilation of human beings.

TAKE MY ARMS, I’LL NEVER USE THEM… – Matt Smith’s portrayal of the battle in his head was dramatic and well-done, but the ever so slightly over the top portrayal of the Cyber-planner made me think of Steve Martin playing half of Lily Tomlin in All of Me.  And comic fans will note a parallel evolution in Dan Slott’s current run of Superior Spider-Man, with Peter Parker fighting for control of his mind and body, right down to trying to write messages on nearby pads.

JUST GIVE US ALL YOUR… – Gold has been a steadily growing threat to the Cybermen even since first mention of it as a weakness in the Tom Baker adventure Revenge of the Cybermen.  Originally it coated their respiration systems, causing asphyxiation.  As time passed, gold seemed to affect them as badly as silver did a werewolf.  Here, even in this advanced form, the weakness to gold survived, still in a physical fashion, allowing The Doctor to use it on the exposed circuitry to short out the Cyber-Planner’s control of his mind.

“The Biggest and best Amusement park there will ever be” – Considering the amusement parks that have been mentioned on the series, that’s saying quite a bit.  Disneyland Clom featured the Warpspeed Death Ride, as mentioned in The Girl Who Waited.  There’s been more than a few mentions of Disneyland in the series – a bunch of alien tourists were trying to go to Disneyland and ended up in Wales in Delta and the Bannermen.  The seventh Doctor and Ace visited The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

“Let me show you my collection” – They raided the prop closet to fill the sets of Hedgewick’s world – there’s a slightly refitted version of the Doctor’s spacesuit from The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe, a ventriloquist dummy from The God Complex, and various aliens from Rings of Akhaten.  There’s a few Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood alumni as well, including a Shansheeth, a Uvdoni, and a Blowfish.

“Do any of you play Chess?” – The Doctor certainly does.  He claims the Time Lords invented Chess; it’s not impossible as one of the traps in The Five Doctors resembled a giant chessboard.  He’s played regular games with K-9, and a high-stakes (and voltage) game against Gantok, an agent of The Silence in The Wedding of River Song.

“You are beautiful” – The Doctor has made a bit of a habit of complimenting particularly well-built enemies.  He similarly admired the Clockwork Droids in Girl in the Fireplace, and the werewolves in Tooth and Claw.

“See You Next Wednesday” – Fans of John Landis perked up at that line – it’s a running gag from his films.  Originally a line from the video call in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s been a movie poster, a film shown in Feelaround, dialogue in a horror movie, and more than a few other things in his various films.

“The Cyberiad” – As well as having a lovely Roman sound, mimicking several other terms the Cybermen use like Legion, it’s also a deliberate tip of the hat to the classic Stanislaw Lem novel.

“You’re deleting yourself from history.  You realize you can be reconstructed from the holes you left?” – Somewhat verifying the theme that’s been coming up most of the season, following up from The Doctor’s desire to “step back into the shadows”.  But it’s important to note that the first place that was done was in the Dalek database, and it was done by…Oswin Oswald.

BIG BAD REPORT / CLEVER THEORY DEPARTMENT –

“I feel like a monster sometimes” – Warwick Davis delivers a solid performance in this episode, referring to the actions of The Emperor in the third person, and really getting across the heaviness of the crown.  And once again we get a reference to the term “Monster”, that we’ve heard in several episodes. And once again, his actions could easily parallel the way The Doctor feels about himself.

“She’s not our mother” – I can’t help but notice somewhat of a similarity between Angie and young Mels, as played by Maya Glace-Green in Let’s Kill Hitler.  The sass, the overuse of the word “stupid”, but yet the interest in seeing the TARDIS.  And when Clara describes her as being “full of surprises” one has to wonder if there’s not one more coming…

“You’re the boss” – And in this episode…she is.  She’s given charge of the Imperial platoon, and does a VERY good job of taking charge.

“You’re the impossible girl” – While it’s not the first time she learned about The Doctor’s fascination with her, it’s the first one she remembers, presuming she indeed doesn’t recall the events of Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.  And with the finale only days away, we clearly haven’t got long to wait to learn more.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – The Question is asked.  Who will hear the answer? The Name of the Doctor, this weekend.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtaIpkjF6Ss]

Martha Thomases: Iron Man & Iron Mothers

Guy-Pearce-Aldrich-Killian-Iron-Man-3-PosterLike everyone else in the United States, I saw Iron Man 3  last weekend with my illustrious colleague, Mike Gold. I went for the explosions. I went to see my future husband, Robert Downey Jr. I went because I love Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by Shane Black beyond all reason.

And I had a good time. But, as time goes on and I have time to consider what I saw, there is one thing that bugs me. If spoilers are going to bother you, depending on your standards for what constitutes a spoiler, you may want to stop reading now.

And that brings us to this week’s word:

Mothers.

There is a kid in the movie who helps Tony Stark. The kid lives in Tennessee with his mom, his dad having abandoned them long ago. The kid is, of course, a boy, because, for the most part, boys are more interesting to Hollywood than girls are.

If I were still a kid, this would have been my absolute favorite part of the movie, because I would identify with the boy (identifying with boys is something girls are expected to do all the time, although the converse is rarely true) and feel what it’s like to hang out with a super-hero. As an adult, I thought this part went on a bit too long.

So long, in fact, that I started to worry about the kid. His mother had to work, so she wasn’t at home. At night. Leaving her kid by himself, to run around town with Iron Man, even when there were explosions. We don’t know if she ever finds out what he was doing.

Mothers are hardly ever the leading characters in action-adventure stories. In comics, there is Sue Storm in Fantastic Four, Mark Andreyko’s Manhunter, and I can’t think of any others (please correct me in the comments). There are a lot of mom’s (and mom surrogates) who are supporting characters – Martha Kent, Martha Wayne, Aunt May, Maggie Sawyer, Hippolyte – but very few headliners have to find child care.

I think this has to do in large part because of who makes comics, and who they think the audience is. Men, for the most part, don’t identify with mothers. Boys (of all ages) prefer to think of their moms as people devoted to being parents, not lean, mean, world-saving machines.

As for sex, that other inspiration for plots, none of these guys want to think about their moms – or anyone’s mom – having sex. Ever. Unless that woman is maybe the mother of Blue Ivy Carter.

In real life, of course, mothers are heroes every hour of every day. No matter how one defines the term, mothers are brave and self-sacrificing and just plain bad-ass.

And that’s after they have pushed a live human being out of their bodies.

You could take your mom to see Iron Man 3 this weekend, and she’ll probably like it, because, in addition to its other attributes, it has Guy Pearce. Just be sure to tell her that you know she’s tough enough as she is, and doesn’t need any armor to prove it.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Dennis O’Neil: Much Ado About Iron Man

Iron-Man-II-Tony-StarkMaybe you’ve been on a vision quest in the Himalayas, or maybe you’ve just been in a coma, so I’ll try too negotiate the next few hundred words without dropping any spoilers. The subject is the movie that looks like it will be the summer’s monster, Iron Man 3, and by now, most of you have seen it, or are planning to see it, or have at least read reviews. As a lowly scribe who once wrote the Iron Man comic book – yes, kids, it was a comic book first – I might be expected to have an opinion about it and I do. But I did promise no spoilers and to state what I liked about it would probably constitute a spoiler…

What’s a fellow to do?

Go at the problem from another angle? Okay: What I did not like about the movie was all the kabooms. Lots and lots of fireworks. Big explosions. Then more big explosions. Hey, no elitism here: I understand the entertainment value of pyrotechnics and to complain about explosions in a film designed to be a summer blockbuster is kind of like attending the opera and bitching about all the screechy singing. But maybe a little moderation? I wearied of all the noise and shrapnel and flame coming at my 3D glasses. Enough was enough. Less might have been more. Anything stuffed down your throat will eventually make you gag.

There you have my major kvetch: the explosions.

I guess I could complain that the villain’s motivations could have been more thoroughly explained, but you might not agree. And if we got rid of a few explosions, the movie would have been been a tad shorter and that might have benefitted it. But none of this constitutes major inadequacy. You pay for your ticket and you get what you paid for, that special kind of summer respite that only happens in cool theaters on hot days. It has been significant pleasure in my life for some 40 years and it still is. (You think I’m not going to see The Man of Steel and The Wolverine and even The Lone Ranger when they grace the multiplex in a month or two? Ha!)

But superhero movies are maturing, as did westerns and badge operas and science fiction before them. While still delivering the spectacle and fantastic heroics that characterize the genre, they’re being put to other uses, too. They’re telling the kind of stories that help us define ourselves, which is something stories have always done. First, there was The Batman trilogy, which was, beneath all the swashbuckling, a tale of redemption.  Now, we have the Iron Man movies, which, if you squint a little, also constitute a trilogy and use the character of Tony Stark to…

Whoa! I promised no spoilers. So, if you haven’t already seen it, watch for the scene in which Tony mentions a cocoon and the shot of Tony standing on a cliff. They’ll tell you what I think the movie is really about.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

John Ostrander: Making Apples Into Oranges

Ostrander Art 130505Well, this weekend Iron Man 3 opens here in the States after having conquered the world. (BTW, when did this become the norm? It used to be a film opened here in the US of A and then around the globe. Is the American market now the secondary market?) What started in one medium – comics – has become big in another.

There certainly are lots of reasons behind it, a principle one being less risk. Comics make great fodder for movies because they are relatively a cheap way of testing and ironing out concepts and stories compared to movies. The risk is lessened and if the product (as with John Carter) bombs, at least the executive who approved it can show it was not an unreasonable risk – in theory. Something new? From scratch? Not with our hundred million, buddy! So having a proven commodity in some form makes it a safer, surer, bet. In theory.

There’s lots of different sources – books, games, amusement park rides, television, even the theater. Joss Whedon’s follow up to The Avengers last year? Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Why? Because he’s Joss Goddam Whedon and The Avengers made bazillions of dollars which means that for his next movie he gets to do whatever the hell he wants… at least until the box office receipts on that comes in.

The problem is – not everything translates well. I recently finally saw the movie version of the musical Les Miserables which in itself is an adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo. I’m a fan of the musical, having seen it several times on stage, so I looked forward to the movie.

I was… whelmed. I enjoyed it and I have a DVD of it (yes, I need to move up to Blu-Ray or whatever else is coming) and I’m sure I’ll watch it again several times. Hugh Jackman was fine in the lead and, in a year that didn’t have Daniel Day Lewis owning the Oscar for his performance in Lincoln (adapted in part from Doris Kearns Goodwin biography, Team of Rivals) would have gotten him the Oscar as Best Actor. Anne Hathaway did score a Supporting Actress Oscar for her work as Fantine. However, there were several miscastings. Javert – the antagonist-  should be intense, driven, formidable and ultimately tragic and Russell Crowe was none of those things. He was doughy. He was there.

Crowe was Oscar material compared to Sacha Baron Cohen who played Thénardier, the innkeeper. The character is a louse, a con man, a parasite but in every production I’ve seen, he (along with his wife, played in the film by Helena Bonham Carter, also badly cast) brings down the house in his songs. The character should be charming, a rogue, and funny and Cohen was none of that.

What really unsold the movie to me was the direction by Tom Hooper. Prosaic, uninspired, functional – it served its purpose, it got the basic job done, but I found no “wow” in it and the theater always gave me “wow.” The stage productions always swept me along; the movie version plodded.

That brings me to my central argument – maybe it couldn’t. Movies are often very literal. Les Mis on stage works because of its theatricality. Stage makes great use of suggestion, illusion, metaphor. It engages the imagination, makes you see what may not be there, makes you a partner in the production whereas movies have to show you and you become an observer. What was magical becomes pedestrian.

I’m not sure that something that begins as a stage musical ever translates well into film. Yes, Chicago was an exception but it found cinema versions to create a heightened reality that mimicked the stage production. It wasn’t a translation; it was a re-invention for the cinema – which Les Mis was not. Musicals that are created for movies fare far better, Wizard of Oz being a superb example.

Comics also work like musicals. The imagination must be engaged to fill in what happens in the gutters, in between the panels. The movies made from comics succeed when they re-invent them for the movies.  I don’t need them to adapt a specific storyline; they are most successful when they are true to the concepts but re-imagine them for the films.

That’s why Iron Man 3 succeeds and Les Mis just lies there. Apples into oranges, my friends.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Earth Station One Episode 161 – 2013 Summer Movie Preview

This weekend, the race to box office supremacy begins! Mike Faber, Mike Gordon, award-winning author Bobby Nash, Box Office Buzz scribe Ashley Bergner, and 7th Row Center podcaster Alex Autrey survey the highs and lows of the upcoming summer movie season. However, Alex’s magic movie 8-ball cannot help him in The Geek Seat! Plus, Tara Lynne returns to the station to tell tales of the Ice & Fire Con this past weekend. All this, and the usual Rants, Raves, Khan Report, and Shout Outs! Plus, Bobby gives a report from the Pulp Ark Convention.

Join us for yet another episode of The Earth Station One Podcast we like to call: 2013 Summer Movie Preview at www.esopodcast.com

Direct link: http://erthstationone.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/earth-station-one-episode-161-2013-summer-movie-preview/

KISS*

MBDWILO-EC005Before you read this column today, go watch Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride or A Guy Named Joe, or Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, or Bad Day At Black Rock, or Adam’s Rib, or Judgment At Nuremberg, or Inherit The Wind.

Katherine Hepburn said to Spencer Tracy “you were, really, the greatest movie actor.  I say this because I believe it and I’ve heard so many people of standing in our business say it – from Olivier to Lee Strasberg, David Lean, name it.  You could do it, and you could do it with that glorious simplicity, that directness.”  Elizabeth Taylor said, “His acting seemed almost effortless, it seemed almost as if he wasn’t doing anything, and yet he was doing everything. It came so subtly out of his eyes, every muscle in his face…”  Richard Widmark said “It’s what every actor tries to strive for – to make it so simple, so real that anybody in the audience can say, ‘Oh, I could do that.’”

And this is Tracy himself giving advice to young actors on how to achieve success.  “Come to work on time, know your lines, and don’t bump into the other actors.”

It’s advice that has come to mean more and more to me as I’ve matured as a writer.  Tracy’s acting was the epitome of simplicity, of naturalness, of easy reality, and that what I try to do in my writing.

I’m not Spencer Tracy, though.  It’s not easy for me to find my mark and remember my lines.  Mostly I sweat like Jake LaMotta in the 13th round, bobbing and weaving and dodging the weedy dialogue, the pusillanimous paragraphs, and the purple prose screaming for attention.   I’m not that quick on my feet; they deliver their fair share of jabs, upper cuts, and low blows to my brain and end up on my computer screen.  And yeah, sometimes I want to throw up my hands, cry uncle and give in to the exhaustion, just go down for the count and let the fight be over.

But I don’t.  I delete, and delete, and delete, and write again, and struggle to find the right words, because words are important, and good stories are made up of words that don’t obfuscate or complicate the story, but reveal the truth of it.

There’s a story from the Talmud, the written scholarship of Jewish law.  A Gentile went to the rabbis of his city, saying to each that he would become a Jew if the rabbi could teach the whole Torah while standing one foot.  Every rabbi chased him away, saying that it took years of study; what he asked was impossible.  Finally this Gentile met with Rabbi Hillel, and, standing one foot, repeated his request.  “Teach me the whole Torah while I stand here like this and I will become a Jew.” Rabbi Hillel said “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor.  All the rest is commentary.”

Amen, Rabbi!

And I’ll try not to bump into the other actors, Spence!

*Keep It Simple, Stupid.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

Hudlin, Cowan Reunite for Django Animated Series

  • News
  • April 1, 2013

Django_Unchained#2-CoverDenysCowanReginald Hudlin and Denys Cowan have been named executive producers on the upcoming Django Unchained animated series.

Set immediately after the events detailed in the movie, Django Unchained The Animated Series will focus on the Reconstruction Era events that led up to his becoming the first black state senator in Mississippi. Like the movie, the emphasis will be placed upon the action elements, although the sons of Django and Broomhilda will play a major role in the plot.

Reginald Hudlin, director of such movies and teevee shows as Psych, The Office, The Bernie Mac Show, Everybody Hates Chris, House Party and – my favorite – Cosmic Slop, was a producer of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. He also wrote the DC Comics adaptation of the movie, where his friend and collaborator Denys Cowan provided covers. Previously, Cowan and Hudlin worked together on the Black Panther and Boondocks animated series as well as on Marvel Comics’ Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers series. His numerous comics credits include Black Panther and Spider-Man.

Cowan is best known for his work as an artist on such series as Batman, The Question, Steel, Deathlok, Firestorm, Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child, Hardware and Moon Knight.

It is anticipated that Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington will not be involved in this new series, although Samuel L. Jackson is likely to voice both of their children. Christoph Waltz, whose character King Schultz was (SPOILER ALERT) killed off in the movie, will be reprising his role as the pissed-off Jesus.

Cyndi Lauper has been signed to write and perform the theme.

 

Flash Gordon (1979) vs Flash Gordon (1980)

  • News
  • March 28, 2013

The end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s saw fans confronted with two completely different visions for what Flash Gordon could be.

It began in the late Seventies when producers Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer wanted to make a full-blown, live-action Flash Gordon movie, probably for television but possibly for theatrical release.  They commissioned a script that turned out to be, in their description, extremely close to the original pulp source material and potentially amazing as a film–but also far, far too expensive to produce.

Instead they decided to create an animated version of the movie using essentially the same script.  They did so, complete with references to Hitler and the Nazis working with Ming the Merciless, but then decided to revamp the concept into a weekly animated series.  That’s how we ended up with the show as it now exists–known at the time simply as FLASH GORDON but today called “The New Adventures of Flash Gordon” to distinguish it from other versions of the property.

Needing extra money to be able to complete the project, they hooked up with film producer Dino de Laurentiis (he of “Orca” and 1976 “King Kong” fame) to help fund the show in conjunction with the production of a live-action movie.  This, of course, would result in the Sam Jones/Max von Sydow 1980 “Flash Gordon” film.  De Laurentiis saw the animated series as perhaps raising public awareness of the property in the months leading up to his big-budget movie’s release.

As it turned out, the movie was about what one would’ve (or should have) expected from De Laurentiis–an over-the-top camp-fest, best remembered today mainly for its fantastic Queen music score.

The animated series, however, lives on as a mostly very-good-to-excellent example of late Seventies animation (with rotoscoping of human movement, interesting back-lighting effects, and pioneering use of scale models for spacecraft animation).  It’s also just a flat-out great planetary adventure pulp story, with Flash first confronting (as foes) and then gathering to his side the leaders of the various other kingdoms of Mongo, in common cause against their evil ruler, Ming.

As a side note, not only was the animation cutting-edge, the music is excellent (an orchestral score–for a Saturday morning cartoon!) and the women… well, let’s just say you can tell this project was conceived as a movie for grown-ups and retrofitted into being a kids’ cartoon!  Wow!

The series is available on DVD and, with the ability to fast-forward through some of the repetitive parts necessitated by the serialized format of a weekly half-hour show and budget constraints, it is well worth your time.

(Addendum: The voice of Ming the Merciless is performed by Allen Oppenheimer, later known as the voice of Skeletor in Filmation’s “He-Man” and “She-Ra” series.  This might prove distracting to some, as the voice is quite distinct.)

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