Tagged: Ric Meyers
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses
While it’s been a rather quiet week news-wise, our weekly ComicMix columns have seen lots of activity. We were particularly honored to host an online wake of sorts last Thursday, reuniting members of the old CompuServe Comics and Animation Forum (myself included) in the comments section of John Ostrander’s touching remembrance of Paul "Zeus" Grant. Here’s what else we’ve written for you this past week:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #46: An Editor’s Night Before Christmas
- Dennis O’Neil – The Four-Color Answer #46: Little Ditty About Danny and Fred
- Me – It’s All Good #45: ‘Zat You, Santy Claus?
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #46: Zeus, In Passing
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #46: The Top 10 Reasons I’m Glad it’s 2008
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #37: What are you doing New Year’s Eve?
- Michael A. Price – Forgotten Horrors #37: Bamboozled by Bat Masterson
- Ric Meyers – DVD XTra #30: Leftovers/Third Helpings
We wish everyone all you wish for yourselves in 2008 and beyond.
Leftovers/Third Helpings, by Ric Meyers
Tidings of comfort and joy
On the off-chance that anyone else out there is spending their Christmas holiday engaged in online reading rather than in more traditional pursuits (eating, opening pressies, eating, singing carols, eating, watching heartwarming holiday specials on TV, and eating), we herewith present this past week’s ComicMix columns:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #45: The Variant Question
- Dennis O’Neil – The Four-Color Answer #45: Driving The Big Boat
- Me – It’s All Good #44: More of My Favorite Things
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #45: An Agnostic’s Christmas
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #45: Because It’s Christmas
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #36: The Sweetest Gift
- Michael A. Price – Forgotten Horrors #36: Conversations with Roy Rogers
- Ric Meyers – DVD XTra #29: Ultimate Complete Final Cut Collection (Volume 1)
Have a safe and peaceful Christmas, everyone!
Ultimate Complete Final Cut Collection (Volume 1), by Ric Meyers
If you happen to have three hundred and twenty-five smackaroos lying around, you can secure a DVD-lover’s dream. Because that’s about how much it’ll cost you to give yourself — or others — my top DVD picks for this season’s gift-giving.
Oh sure, you could simply go back amongst my previous columns and cherry pick my favorites, but what’s the fun of that? Wouldn’t it be, oh, so much better to lay on your chosen a mass media item that they’ll never forget? Imagine the joy and confusion on your preferred holiday morning when they receive not only a mass o’discs but a handy attaché case as well?
Yes, there are not one, but two special editions available just in time for ho-ho-ho-ing that come in a super nifty briefcase. The first, and most hefty, is the long-awaited The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Collection, available only from Time Life Video (until the autumn of ’08). Although it comes with a hefty pricetag to match ($250) it includes 41 discs, so that’s really only about six bucks each.
Let’s get one thing straight: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is to James Bond what The Monkees are to The Beatles. But plenty people like The Monkees, myself included, so that’s okay. When the 1960’s TV networks saw how well 007 was doing, they scrambled to get a piece of the action. MGM and NBC’s answer was to go to the source: James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, who took a minor mobster character from Goldfinger, and turned him into Napoleon Solo, the man from the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Sam Rolfe, a veteran writer/producer (Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel) took the idea and ran with it.
A Spacious Odyssey
On this occasion of the 90th birthday of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, why not curl up in the capsule with a good ComicMix column or three? After all, any sufficiently advanced ComicMix column is indistinguishable from magic! Here’s a bunch from which to choose from this past week:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #44: Let’s Go Burn Some Books
- Dennis O’Neil – The Four-Color Answer #44: The Evolution of the Superhero
- Me – It’s All Good #43: Things to come
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #44: I’m Dreaming of a Celluloid Christmas Part Deux
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #44: Superman #2 – A Christmas Story
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #35: We Are Family
- Michael A. Price – Forgotten Horrors #35: The Poshumous Persistence of George E. Turner
- Ric Meyers – DVD XTra #29 — Still to come!
Now it’s time to leave that capsule, if you dare… Dave? Dave? ("Dave’s not here, man!")
ComicMix columns burn brightly
As some of us celebrate the Festival of Lights, it’s time once again to catch up with our ComicMix luminaries and see what they’ve brought us this past week:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #43: Speaking Ill Of The Dead
- Dennis O’Neil – The Four-Color Answer #43: Nudity and the Editorial Process
- Me – It’s All Good #42: Burning the candle
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #43: I’m Dreaming of a Celluloid Christmas, Part 1
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #43: Jasmine
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #34: I Pity the Poor Immigrant
- Michael A. Price – Forgotten Horrors #34: Tippy Tacker’s Yuletide Travails
- Ric Meyers – DVD XTra #28: Bourne Potter
Remember, don’t fill up on too many latkes and donuts!
Bourne Potter, by Ric Meyers
I have a special relationship with Jason Bourne. But, before I elaborate on my entirely self-manufactured rapport, let’s establish something at the outset. Bourne (and/or 24’s Jack Bauer, for that matter) literally wouldn’t exist without James Bond. You don’t think that all their initials being “J.B.” is a coincidence, do you? In fact, the late author Robert Ludlum created the Bourne book series with the brilliantly simple and engaging high concept of “what if 007 got amnesia?”
So, perhaps I should rephrase my declaration: I have a special “bond” with Jason Bourne. Dr. No was the first “adult” film I ever saw. The Bourne Identity is the most recent movie I saw with my brother at a cinema. I saw its sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, on Christmas Eve, the last day of my first tenure as Santa Claus at the Danbury (CT) Fair Mall. Sitting alone in a dark hotel room as the snow fell outside, watching director Paul Greengrass’ frenetic, yet somehow followable, chases on a hotel’s small TV screen – prior to heading out for a Christmas celebration with my family – created an evocative memory.
Now there’s The Bourne Ultimatum, out this coming Tuesday as a single, non-special edition DVD. I originally saw the film at its New York screening, but truly appreciated seeing it again on an HDTV, since the DVD remote control allowed me to slow down the frenzied editing so I could truly enjoy the jigsaw-designed chases and hand-to-hand battles (especially a frantic fight in a cramped apartment where Bourne proves that the book is mightier than the knife).
Although it remains one of the worthiest second sequels in film history, I still found the DVD lacking for two small reasons. First, despite truly fascinating featurettes on the action sequences – “Rooftop Pursuit,” “Planning the Punches,” “Driving School,” and “New York Chase” – character building “deleted scenes,” which were excised when Greengrass decided that he was making a “violent ballet” rather than a character-driven drama, and a doc called “Man on the Move: Jason Bourne,” none (or all) of them really don’t communicate how agonizing the film’s production actually was.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
It’s snowing, albeit gently, here in the Northeast, and the temperatures are definitely of the stay-indoors variety, so why not do what I’ll be doing, catching up on ComicMix columns from this past week?:
- Mike Gold – Whizzy’s Wazoo #42: Raiders of Lost Knowledge
- Dennis O’Neil – The Four-Color Answer #42: Is Iron Man Mike Hammer?
- Me – It’s All Good #41: Comics, community and The 99
- John Ostrander – Tales From The O-zone #42: Medium Rare
- Michael Davis – Straight, No Chaser #42: Is it me, or are they just stupid?
- Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise #33: Baby, It’s Cold Outside
- Michael A. Price – Forgotten Horrors #33: My Cousin Vinnie vs. the Vampires
- Ric Meyers – DVD XTra #27: Superbad Tiger Gate
May all your hot chocolates be filled to the brim with peppermint schnapps!
Superbad Tiger Gate by Ric Meyers
The third of my favorite summer ‘007 films, Superbad, is arriving as a “2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition” this coming Tuesday, with too many special features for its own good. The best of the many extras are the ones which share the raunchy, soft-centered, spirit of the film itself. The ones I could’ve done without are the ones which feign outrage, anger, or disgust.
This “unrated” DVD edition allowed director Greg Mottola to return the trims he originally needed to satisfy the ratings board’s “R”. So the unrated Superbad is about four minutes longer, with some gestures and expletives returned to their original positions of glory. Naturally this film — along with the growing oeuvre of producer/writer/director Judd Apatow’s Apatow Company (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, etc.) — has plenty to play with, since all his movies use their garrulous scripts as a jumping off point for their casts of expert improv-ers. That allows the filmmakers to cherry pick their favorite, funniest, takes, and leave the rest for the DVD extras.
So, in addition to some deleted and extended scenes, there’s also a legitimately funny gag reel, followed by what they’re calling a “Line-O-Rama” – which shows the various, different, improvised retorts the actors used on subsequent takes of the same scene. The first of admittedly interesting, although totally superfluous, features, is “Cop Car Confessions,” where the filmmakers put a variety of guest stars (from Saturday Night Live, The Office, Live Free or Die Hard, and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, among others) in the back seat of a police cruiser driven by Superbad’s cop characters (co-writer/producer Seth Rogan and SNL’s Bill Hader) and let everybody riff.