What happened to Clifford Meth’s column? Read it here
Editor’s note: This column, which was originally published at Comics Bulletin and which we pointed to on Friday, was taken down from their site yesterday. We’re a bit touchy when it comes to internet censorship and the hint of legal threats from movie people, so we asked Cliff what we could to do help. Clifford has graciously allowed us to republish the original column here, and he’ll be writing up a fuller explanation of what’s been going on tomorrow. –Glenn Hauman
“Welcome to Hollywood”
By Clifford Meth
I’ve been away from this column for so long that an explanation is in order. I’m tempted to say it was something like a summer vacation where, by virtue of missed flights, I didn’t come home for years…but the truth is I sank belly-deep into a myriad of projects, most of which were destined to fail. So before we go any further, let’s get some closure:
Dave Cockrum’s Futurians and I have been attached at the hip for what seems like a lifetime. Besides being a fan of the project, I penned a back-up story that Dave illustrated for Futurians #0 (1995, Aardwolf Publishing) then personally walked the intellectual property into Starz Entertainment (nee IDT Entertainment) a decade later. How excited was I—and how excited was Dave—when they optioned rights and Stephen Brown, executive producer of Showtime’s “Masters of Horror” series, asked me to write the treatment and first draft for what they planned as a theatrical release. This came back-to-back with a script-editing assignment working with Peter David on Gene Roddenberry’s “Starpoint Academy” as well as script vetting for Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment. Seriously fun stuff. And happening fast.
Then came the long fizzle.
in the summer of 1981, it was not well received by an audience who considered his work a thing of the past. Despite its all-star cast, the movie featured a then unknown Harry Hamlin in the lead and the sum of the parts proved disappointing despite it finishing the year 11th at the box office. It would prove to be Harryhausen’s final feature film and a disappointment way to say farewell to his fans.
For one of the most popular book series of the last few years, the movie adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s 
America loved [[[Amelia]]]] Earhart, as much for her pioneering work in the sky, but for being a woman of accomplishment at a time women were still getting used to having the right to vote. She was celebrated in book, story, and song up to her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Since then, her story has been told and retold numerous times and the woman herself has been portrayed by the likes of Rosalind Russell, Diane Keaton, and Jane Lynch. On [[[Star Trek: Voyager]]] she was portrayed by Sharon Lawrence and most recently, Amy Adams displayed her as a plucky, ready-for-action woman in [[[Night at the Museum 2]]].
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When people get excited about something, they blossom and their affection can become contagious. Such is the case for screenwriter Shauna Cross, who stumbled across the world of roller derby and decided to get her story into print. She wrote it first as a young adult novel, 
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It used to be, actors could stretch by performing “ugly”, burying themselves under layers of makeup or by playing disadvantaged people such as Dustin Hoffman’s [[[Rain Man]]] or Larry Drake’s Benny on LA Law. The current favorite seems to be playing people with Asperger syndrome as popularized with Christian Clemson’s award winning work on [[[Boston Legal]]]. As with anything on a David E. Kelly series, the portrayal tended to be over-the-top or poignant and rarely anything in between.
Ricky Gervais is a terrific writer and comedian but since the success of [[[The Office]]], he has struggled to fully realize his ideas in the limitations of a motion picture. Last year’s 
Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga ([[[21 Grams]]], [[[Babel]]]) was determined to take greater control over his stories by directing and made his debut in the well-intentioned [[[The Burning Plain]]]. The movie, out now on DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment, played at various festivals before receiving an unsuccessful theatrical release. Starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, the movie is told in Arriaga’s patented nonlinear manner, but keeps us at arm’s distance from the characters.
