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RIC MEYERS: The Thai’s have it

RIC MEYERS: The Thai’s have it

As a contributor (audio commentaries, on-camera interviews, liner notes, and packaging copy) to more than three hundred DVDs in America and Asia, I’’ve always wanted a source for what ComicMix is now allowing me to do — review DVDs specifically on the quality of their extras (audio commentaries, makings-of, et al). When deciding upon which DVDs to buy and which to rent, that’’s often the deciding factor.

All too often in DVD reviews, the extras are simply listed, which is misleading at best, since I’’ve suffered through dry, taciturn, frustrating commentaries from a star-studded roster (the pre-ultimate edition The Spy Who Loved Me), but also reveled in funny, enlightening, seemingly drunken revelries (Conan the Barbarian). And even in the most prestigious publications, the critics get bogged down in their opinions of the films in question, leaving precious little copy for the quality of the extras accompanying them on the disc.

But enough raison d’’etre. Now it’s time for shameful confessions. Naturally, I wanted to fill this first edition with insightful analysis of the most famous, anticipated DVDs on the market, but find myself presently concerned with quirky titles many of you might not have even heard of.

So, what to do, what to do: detail the flowing bounty of extras to be found on the consistently entertaining but hardly hilarious Night at the Museum or well-made but uninvolving Dreamgirls, or tell you about the demented delights of Thai cinema?

Well, given that this site is called ComicMix, and I’’m best known for Jackie Chan comics and my annual three-hour San Diego Comic-Con Superhero Kung-Fu Extravaganza, I’’m going for the stuff that’s as exhilarating and under-reported as comic books. Staggering into video shops this week are some DVDs that will either have you trawling for Thai flicks forever or keep you from seeing another ever again.

More accessible and superheroic is Born to Fight (Dragon Dynasty [The Weinstein Co.] Two-Disc Ultimate Edition), which is flailing feverishly to get out of the shadow of Thailand’s most famous and popular action export (Thai Warrior, aka Ong-Bak). The same fearless stunt crew worked on both films, but the latter starred Muy Thai boxing great Tony Jaa, who’s attitude and strength mirror Bruce Lee while his acrobatics and films crib from Jackie Chan’’s homework.

In order to differentiate itself from Tony, the Born to Fight crew decided to create even sicker, and more bone-breaking stunts, while catering to Thai patriotism, in a plot that has a village overrun by nuke-carrying terrorists on the same day it’s being visited by the Thai Olympic team. The disc’s main extra — an hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary – lays it all out in loving, if repetitive, detail, with many interviews and glimpses at the set-ups for the insane stunts.

It’’s hard not to marvel at the filmmakers’ passion, love for Thai tradition, and the crew’s willingness to risk their lives to gain America and Asia’s respect. The result is a flick that balances goofy and great (featuring one stomach-turning moment of near-suicide as a stuntman nearly gets ground up under a tractor-trailer’s wheels).

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Addicted to heroines

Addicted to heroines

Just in time for Mother’s Day, and as a nice counteraction to creepy sculptures and badly-drawn poses, here’s the latest podcast cartoon from Kyle Baker (alert: M4V file) all about a mother’s dilemma in trying to get her daughter interested in strong female comic book characters.  And just look at this gorgeous cover for Marvel’s Nova #5:

Wow.  I mean, wow.  This is what so many of us are talking about when we discuss wanting artists to depict women in strong, nonexploitive action poses.  Well done, Adi Granov!

Happy 70th birthday, George Carlin!

George Carlin.  Seven decades of living, five decades of performing. From the Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television to Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station to Rufus from the Bill & Ted movies, Cardinal Glick in Dogma, and Fillmore in Cars. With extra cool points for being arrested at the same time as Lenny Bruce.

"Things that you want to change in the world have to start inside yourself. You can’t just acquiesce. You can’t be at the mall, with a fannypack on, scratching your nuts, buying sneakers with lights in them. You have to be thinking. You have to be resisting. You have to be talking."

Happy birthday, man.

MARTHA THOMASES: Mom’s the word

MARTHA THOMASES: Mom’s the word

Tomorrow is Mothers Day. To some, it’s the most important day of the year. To others, it’s a crass exploitation, using real feelings to sell flowers, brunch, and long-distance calls.

In superhero comics, it’s pretty much a non-event. Good mothers are almost non-existent, if not dead. The good moms send their children away (see Lara) or die in a rain of pearls (Martha Wayne). Living moms are over-bearing control fiends (Phantom Girl’s mom in the 31st Century) or distracted career women (Queen Hippolyta). Recently, the mother in Blue Beetle looks like she has the most realistic relationship with her kids.

Except for Sue Storm, there aren’t any premiere super-hero moms.

The best moms in comics are those who adopt. Martha Kent, Aunt May, even Alfred Pennyworth did fabulously maternal jobs raising children who would grow up to make the world a better place.

Why is this? Some of it may be a remnant from folk tales, where heroes are orphaned so they may have adventures without familial responsibilities or ties to complicate the quest. More to the point, superhero comics are power fantasies, often aimed at adolescents (of all ages) who are extremely frustrated with their bodies. Imagining super-strength, flight, and other extraordinary abilities is comforting and satisfying to someone experiencing growth spurts, hormonal fluctuations and acne.

This is not compatible with feeling like somebody’s baby. And you will always be your mom’s sweet baby.

A mother is an even more uncomfortable reminder of sexuality. Until recently, one couldn’t be a mother without having sex. Children don’t like to think about their parents having sex. (Parents also don’t like thinking about their children having sex, even when their children are grown.) An adoptive mother can be pure and untouched, at least in the mind of her child.

And yet, being a mother is an astonishingly sensual experience. It’s more complicated and more pure than could be easily conveyed in a 22-page story, even by an expert, and almost certainly not by a man. The smell of your child’s head, the smoothness of a baby’s skin, the music of a toddler’s laugh – these are glorious sensations. Beyond this kind of intimate contact, having a child permits a mother to experience the wonders of life all over again. As an adult, you expect to see snow or rain or flowers in the spring, but these are new and awe-inspiring to a child. You know why a fire fighter wears red suspenders, but it’s all new to your kid.

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Sunday: Free Indy in the Windy City

Sunday: Free Indy in the Windy City

Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art will be featuring the Zines, Comics, and Other Hip Lit Fair this Sunday, May 13, from noon to 4 PM.  According to their website: Celebrate independent press in all forms, including zines, comics, graphic novels, artist books, and much more with readings, signings, and serious book shopping featuring emerging and well-known authors, artists, comics, and poets selected by Quimby’s Bookstore and the MCA.

The festival will feature presentations from Mark Todd and Esther Pearl (Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?), writer and editor of Punk Planet magazine Anne Elizabeth Moore, underground author Al Burian, and zine writer Aaron Cynic (Diatribe and Vices Make My Life More Interesting).

Co-presented with Quimby’s Bookstore, the event will be at the MCA’s Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Education Center Lobby, 220 East Chicago Avenue, near the massive American Girl Emporium zombie-machine. Best of all, admission is free.

Iron Man gets real

Iron Man gets real

If the fighter jet scenes in next year’s Iron Man movie look very realistic, that’s because they were filmed at Edwards Air Force Base with about a dozen Marines, 150 Airmen, and real Air Force aircraft – and some of the newest stuff at that!

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Lt. Col. Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) share what the American Forces Press Service described as a "heated scene" in front of 20 Air Force "pilots" — all active-duty airmen and Marines who auditioned to be extras — between a  F-22 Raptor and a bulb-nosed Global Hawk.

Director Jon Favreau said brought realism to Iron Man.  "This is the best back lot you could ever have," he said. "Every angle you shoot is authentic: desert, dry lake beds, hangars."

"This is a movie about superheroes, and my son might watch it," Sergeant Danny Vaughn told the American Forces Press Service. He’s hoping 7-year-old Danny III will get to see his dad acting as 2nd Lt. Eric Huppert, one of Rhodie’s pilots in the hangar, or as an Army special operations Soldier walking across the camera during the previous day’s shoot.

Iron Man is scheduled for release in May, 2008.

(Special thanks to John Tebbel for the legwork.)

Could it be… magic?

Could it be… magic?

Some of us are total suckers for magic. I mean, let’s be honest, all that super-science stuff that purports to explain how people have superpowers and everything — how different is that really than just saying "He flies? She shoots beams from her eyes? It’s magic!"

To some of us it’s all much of a muchness, but superhero comics universes are peculiar about that sort of thing, they seem to demand differing levels of disbelief-suspension depending on whether we’re talking about Batman or the Spectre, Spidey or Dr. Strange.

At both Marvel and DC, magic is a part of their fictional universes but, like religion, is usually distinguished from the mythmaking involving superscience. The DC Universe has had a number of recent stories dealing with a transformation of how magic works in that fictional milieu, and now Marvel’s about to undergo a similar shift in their interpretation of the fantastic.

For my money, even though I’m not paying for it, the best story currently dealing with DC’s attitude towards magic and superheroes is the Doctor Thirteen backup tale currently running in Tales of the Unexpected, wherein superscience and magic and nonsense and fourth-wall breaking all collide in a fun romp that proves DC is well schooled on how to puncture its own pomposity. Maybe it’s not Ambush Bug-level surreality, but you can’t go wrong with talking pirate gorillas, parodies of the 52 writers, and Infectious Lass.

Now Marvel’s gearing up for their own big magic event this summer, Mystic Arcana, leading off with, appropriately enough, a Magik one-shot written by one of my personal heroes, Louise Simonson.  Firm believers in not being able to tell the players without a scorecard, Marvel’s also bringing out a companion guide called Mystic Arcana: The Book of Marvel Magic, 64 pages of bios and character sketches and probably not storytelling.

Meanwhile, Scott at Polite Dissent decries the use of the "humans only use 10% of their brains" misinformation employed so often in comic book fiction as a way of introducing magical (or even superhuman) abilities.  Dang, there goes about 90% of the captioning for future origin stories!

Star Trek’s Scotty back on Earth…

Star Trek’s Scotty back on Earth…

As Montgomery Scott could tell you, things don’t always work out the way they were intended.

Some of the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Chief Engineer in the classic Star Trek teevee series and movies, were launced into outer space on April 29th. Some of the late astronaut Gordon Cooper accompanied Doohan on the ride.

The capsule was scheduled to return to Earth, and so it did, in the New Mexico desert. Where it has yet to be found.

Space Services Inc. spokeswoman Susan Schonfeld told Reuters news service "The terrain is very mountainous; it’s not somewhere that you can walk or drive to. My understanding is that it will take some time to get up into there."

Blaming the problem on "horrendous" weather, Schonfeld concluded "they know the general location, and we have the utmost confidence that they will recover it."

Superman Returns wins most Saturn Awards

Superman Returns wins most Saturn Awards

Variety reports that Superman Returns was top movie winner at the Saturn Awards.  These awards are presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.

Superman Returns won as best fantasy film, best director (Bryan Singer), best actor (Brandon Routh), best script (Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty) and best score (John Ottman). 

Children of Men was the best science fiction film, The Descent was the best horror film, and Cars was the best animated film.

Heroes was awarded the prize as best network television show, and Battlestar Galactica won for best cable or syndicated series.  Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere took best supporting actor and actress awards.

Full list after the jump…

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Bionic Woman Returns

Bionic Woman Returns

NBC has picked up David Eick’s remake of The Bionic Woman for the 2007 -2008 season.

Eick was best known for his work as executive producer of the remake of Battlestar Galactica, running on NBC’s Sci-Fi Network. Now he’s best known as teevee’s go-to guy for science ficiton teevee revivals.

The revisioned series stars British actress Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers. Eick has said that they only used the title of the series as their starting point and that the show will go in its own direction. So we know Ryan will have a chip on her shoulder – as well as everyplace else – and, well, that she’s a woman.

Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) co-stars in the pilot as the mandatory evil bionic woman. Whereas she worked on this during her brief time-off from Galactica, since Eick wrote the pilot we shouldn’t be astonished if we see her come back – certainly, after Galactica wraps its next and final season.

No word on any reappearance of The Six Million Dollar Man. Today, six mill wouldn’t buy you a used Dalek.

 

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