Tagged: reboot

FRIGHT NIGHT Now & Then With Chris Sarandon


Chalk up FRIGHT NIGHT as the newest cult reboot to hit theaters and we talk to original actor Chris Sarandon about his role in the new version, and his recollections about the first. Plus if you paid big bucks for a copy of ELSEWORLDS 80 PAGE GIANT, better unload it quick!

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

GLENN HAUMAN: The Thirty Year War

GLENN HAUMAN: The Thirty Year War

“Ladies and gentlemen… rock and roll.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw6xesXLIAA[/youtube]

With those words thirty years ago today, a revolution came to an industry. The old ways of consuming pop culture weren’t dead, per se, but they were being badly eclipsed by what was coming down the coaxial cable into the home. And although it didn’t happen overnight, the old ways of doing business were gone forever. No longer would marketing to individual distributors scattered across the country in fragmented markets work, you had to change to a larger brand identity that relied on visual punch and integration with new media.

The new medium was subversive. Innovators could create for the new communications channel and gain a tremendous first mover advantage, which could then be maintained by fresh content on a constant basis.

In time, a new crop of stars came to the foreground. Some of them were pros from the old guard who learned to adapt. Others were people who couldn’t break in under the old regimes, but found a way in the new uncharted territories. And some of the most interesting work came from people who were immersed in the new ways, who didn’t have any reference for “the way things were supposed to be done” and came in and broke the rules precisely because they didn’t have any idea what the rules were.

This was incredibly disruptive, as you can well imagine. Some people simply couldn’t make the leap– their stuff just didn’t look all that hot. Some were too entrenched in the old system. But the ones who probably got it worst were the stores. First, the mom and pops and the hobbyists got pushed out, or amped up their game and got big. Then the formats changed, and while purists claimed the new digital format leached out all the fire and passion and humanity, most people either couldn’t tell the difference or—heresy!— preferred the shiny new format without scratches or imperfections, copies that were as crisp and sharp the thousandth time as they were the first. Soon, the old format was completely gone from the stores, and for that matter, a lot of the stores were gone too. The stores that carried the new digital format did okay… for a while. But then after a few years, most of them disappeared too, even some of the biggest.

In time, even the new channel lost focus. They started making movies, and dabbled in animation. But after a while, they seemed to stop being as relevant as they used to be, branching off with new storylines and products that seemed to have no connection to what they were once known for– even their name was divorced from their identity. It didn’t seem to be a problem, they were still reaching the demographic they were shooting for, or so it seemed, and they were still making money, although not as much as they were, because times change, y’know? Besides, they’d say, you just aren’t getting it because you’re old, and this is what the kids want now. They ignored the cries of people who said they’d completely gotten away from their original focus, but maybe they had a point– after all, you couldn’t cater to the fans of the old stuff forever. We can still make things for the nostalgia market, but we have to pay attention to the new audience too. And really, have you looked at some of the old stuff recently? It’s downright primitive. These were met with the predictable cries of “Sellout!” Meanwhile, new artists still break through to new audiences any way they can.

Mike Gold’s edict is that these columns should have something to do with comics.

Yeah.

I saw the latest reboot with new 52
We thought it was another crisis to go through
We didn’t know that printer invoices were due
ohh, ohh…
They took the blame for all collector dormancy
Forced to adapt their ways to new technology
and now I understand the problem at DC
ohh, ohh…
What did they tell you?
ohh, ohh…
There was no sell-through…

Doctor Who Series 6 Part 1

Doctor Who, under producer Steven Moffat, feels very different than that of the shows from Russell T. Davies. In some ways, it feels as if Moffat needs to top Davies so we go from the terrifying Weeping Angels to The Silence. And we go younger, with Matt Smith as Eleventh Doctor, the youngest yet. Everything old is new again, it seems, while a show once aimed strictly at kids is now being criticized for being too scary for the audience.

The new season, Series 6 of the reboot, is the first to be shown in halves, a marketing device that cable channels in the USA have been quite successful using, nabbing viewers during major network lull periods. It also provides a dramatic cliffhanger, which may be thrilling for viewers but no doubt causes headaches for the producers.

Speaking of commercial, BBC Video, distributed here through Warner Home Video, today releases Doctor Who Series 6 Part 1, collecting the seven episodes aired to date while we eagerly await part two this fall (with Part 2 and Complete Series 6 DVDs no doubt to come).

Moffat has introduced meta arcs and mini arcs that require a fair amount of attention and makes the series increasingly difficult to attract newcomers. Miss an episode and vital clues to the Big Picture are absent, potentially confusing the viewer the next time a story is watched.

At this point, the Doctor, along with Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), has settled into a comfortable relationship. The couple continues to act like newlyweds and the Doctor delights in having them around.  As a result, it’s business as usual with the opening two-parter “The Impossible Astronaut”/ “The Day of the Moon” which sets up the big threat, that of The Silence, referenced in previous seasons and made manifest here. They are an eerie addition, for sure, but what they want and how they’ll be defeated seem saved for the second half season. We also learn Amy is pregnant and the little girl, who manages to call President Nixon and ask for help, leads audiences to believe she is Amy’s child. The story opens with the Doctor being shot dead but we discover he’s a Doctor from 200 years into the future so the duo conceals this information only to fret about it in every subsequent episode. (more…)

MICHAEL DAVIS: Back To The Future

“Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in.”
Michael Corleone

“This is a moment of history.”
Jim Lee

“ I told you so.”
Michael Davis

“Bitch better have my money.”
Fly Guy

Michael Corleone was talking about not being able to escape the Mafia.

Jim Lee was talking about the DC Comics Reboot.

I’m taking about my return to ComicMix.

Fly guy was talking about a bitch having his money.

Don’t waste anytime trying to figure out why I used the Fly Guy quote. I’ll just tell you, I simply like saying, “Bitch better have my money.”

I’m told there are a lot more ComicMix users now then when I was writing here. Because of that I’m going to write a brief bio of myself in case you never heard of me.

My name is Michael Davis and I’m Master Of The Universe. I’m also a writer, TV producer artist and dealmaker. I work in mainstream publishing, comics, television and the music industry, yada, yada, blah, blah. When ComicMix started I wrote a wildly popular column called “Straight No Chaser”.  I was fired from ComicMix because I was black.

OK, the black thing is just what I told girls at comic conventions when I wanted them to feel bad for me. Now I’ll tell them ComicMix brought me back because of pressure from the NAACP and President Obama.

My column WAS wildly popular. If you hear differently remember that’s the white man trying to keep me down.

As I mentioned my column was called Straight No Chaser. I can’t call my return to ComicMix that because I continue my weekly rants under that title at my WILDLY popular website, www.michaeldavisworld.com.

If anyone tells you it’s not wildly popular, remember,

White man.

Down.

Me.

(more…)

Monday Mix-Up: Superman, Joker, Captain America Invade Bulgaria

An anonymous artist transformed Russian Red Army soldiers from a monument in the city of Sofia, in Bulgaria, into versions of Superman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Robin, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus, and the Joker.

The giant monument was built to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Russian ‘liberation’ of Bulgaria in 1944. It is regarded as the prime example of the forceful socialist-realism of the period.

The place of honor goes to a Red Army soldier atop a column, surrounded by animated cast-iron sculptural groups depicting determined, gun-waving soldiers and members of the proletariat. But those characters have been painted over, along with graffiti at the bottom saying “Moving With The Times” in Bulgarian.

We put this up just to make sure nobody thinks these are new costumes for the reboot.

ComicMix Quick Picks: June 15, 2011

ComicMix Quick Picks: June 15, 2011

Natalie Portman at the TIFF 2009-01 at the pre...

Image via Wikipedia

Boy, migrate one server, and a lot of links can pile up while waiting for your computers to reboot. Here’s some of the stuff we have to do before we get to the stuff we didn’t get around to covering yet…

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Twitter Updates for 2011-03-20

Twitter Updates for 2011-03-20

20 Endings We Better Not See On ‘Lost’

20 Endings We Better Not See On ‘Lost’

Tonight, “LOST” finally comes to an end. The saga of warring brothers, mysterious lights, smoke monsters, time travel, dimensional anomalies, lost souls and power-hungry manipulators will at last wrap up and answer many (though I doubt all) of our questions.

Whenever a series finale comes along, one can’t help but think about how other shows, film franchises and book series met their end or introduced some final twist in the last scene. So while I may have liked a couple of these when they were done in OTHER shows, here are the endings I definitely don’t want to see happen tonight in any way, shape or form:

(more…)

ComicMix Quick Picks (in Six) for September 24, 2009

ComicMix Quick Picks (in Six) for September 24, 2009

There was a lot going on today, so let’s see if we can get these Quick Picks done in ComicMix Six words or less.

What was missed? Comments are open.

Review: Knight Rider Premiere

knight rider nbcIn an attempt to make up for NBC’s flop of a reboot last year with [[[Bionic Woman]]] comes the new and improved [[[Knight Rider]]] which is like the original series, but with a revamped KITT, a younger cast, a brand new back-story, and fantastic special effects, this show has the potential be a win for NBC’s fall lineup. Many will be going into this “pilot” with some hesitation after February’s TV movie (which was technically the pilot), due to the fact that the show lacked in story structure, was full of WB-level acting, and gave work to David Hasselhoff. Happily, this episode fixed many of those issues and made the hour mildly entertaining.

The story from the original movie is that terrorists go after and “kill” scientist Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison) who helped work on the supercar Knight Industries Three-Thousand, or K.I.T.T. (see what they did there?), which drives away to find Graiman’s next of kin; his daughter Sarah (Deanna Russo). They meet up and Sarah decides to go to her old flame for help, a renegade army ranger named Michael Traceur (Jason Bruening) who is in his own heap of trouble with a whole “the-government-erased-my-brain-not-unlike-in-[[[The Bourne Identity]]]” plot of his own going on. By the end of the movie, Michael decides to become an agent for the newly reformed Foundation (an updated version of the original show’s F.L.A.G.) and drive KITT permanently.

This first episode takes off right in the middle of the action, as main characters Michael and Sarah are on a James Bond-style mission when Sarah gets kidnapped and Michael and KITT go after her, when they learn that these mystery men were actually after Michael and what he “knows”. This triggers the running theme of the episode, as everybody is trying to obtain clearance levels that they don’t have. Lots of shtupping going on for one episode, as there is presumed sexual tension between Sarah and Michael, and also between some other nondescript characters back in what can only be described as the KITTcave.

The KITT effects are easily the coolest part of the show so far. With essentially a Transformer voiced by Val Kilmer, it’s a pretty good answer to the “futuristic” car we got in 1982. There are some great uses of modern special effects where the car can turn into a pick-up truck—and back again—without crushing the passengers inside! Granted, this makes the show basically a weekly 40-minute commercial for Ford, but it is still pretty cool for any fan of the original series who wanted more than a bunch of cool [[[Dukes of Hazzard]]] jumps and William Daniels.

The bad points: there are some very cheeky moments back at the “base” with the wacky super nerds (a stereotype NBC seems to love) throughout the show, which comes across as incongruous for the show’s dynamic. Three-quarters of the show consisted of shadowy government types, as the overall story of the first episode was the death of Michael Traceur and the birth of Michael Knight, which was originally helmed by Michael’s father, Hasselhoff.

The biggest weakness for the show by a stretch is certainly the amount of different elements that the show tries to cram into 40 minutes. With that said, there is still plenty of action to keep you entertained, but add that in with the government mystery storyline, Michael finding out who erased his memory and why, the “Sam & Diane” storyline between Sarah and Michael, the plucky sidekicks, a unnecessarily dominant Sydney Poiter (the daughter, not Mr. Tibbs) and the dry wit of Val Kilmer as KITT, it becomes too much to keep track of. Each element on it’s own would make for great B-story to go along with the weekly spy thriller of the show, but cramming all of this in at once only proves to be confusing and hard to keep straight. The show certainly has potential to make it farther than last year’s Bionic Woman, but may have trouble keeping it up for more than a season unless they can find some solid structure, drop a few secondary storylines, or at least bring Will Arnett back as K.I.T.T. RATING: 7/10