The Mix : What are people talking about today?

The Joker and Doctor Who

The Joker and Doctor Who

Sometimes you just don’t want to know.

This was on the Daily Mail site this morning.  Presented without comment, mostly because we’re not that awake yet.

JOHN OSTRANDER: Odd Delights

I hesitate to recommend films these days – what I like you may well loathe. That said – having burdened you with a collection of “perverse pleasures” recently, I thought I’d devote this column to films that I own that I truly do enjoy, that I think are good films, and which you may not know.

Get Crazy is a 1983 film from Allan Arkush, who also directed the cult classic Rock And Roll High School and is an executive producer of Heroes. I came across it in the company of Timothy Truman while we were at a convention. We were staying at a distributor’s house and were too tired after the day’s proceedings to move. The distributor had the (then) novelty of projection screen TV and cable and Tim and I had a few beers as Get Crazy came across the screen. It sucked us in. At the time, we couldn’t decide if it was the beers or because we were exhausted but it seemed to us to be one of the funniest movies ever made. I’ve watched it many times since and it wasn’t the beers or the exhaustion; this is a damn funny film.

IMDB posts this plot synopsis of the film: “Mega-promoter Colin Beverly plans to sabotage the New Year’s 1983 concert of small-time operator Max Wolfe. Wolfe’s assistants Neil Allen and Willie Loman find romance while trying to save the drugs, violence, and rock and roll from Beverly’s schemes.” Fair enough so far as it goes but it barely scratches the surface.

To start off with, Colin Beverly is played by white-on-white Ed Begley Jr. in a terrifically manic mode. In a stroke of brilliance, his two henchman are played by two former teen idols, Bobby Sherman and Fabian Forte. That is hip, intelligent casting and a great joke in and of itself. The movie is full of little nods like that. Lee Ving, the frontsman for the punk band Fear, plays a punk musician called Piggy who has to be chained up when not performing. (Ving was also in another fave film of Brother Tim and myself, Streets of Fire.) Howard Kaylan of The Turtles plays a Jerry Garcia-ish Captain Sky. You don’t have to get all the in-jokes and references for the movie to work but boy do they add to the movie.

Malcolm McDowell plays Reggie Wanker, who is an amalgam of Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger. One of his band mates – Toad – is played by John Densmore of The Doors. How damn hip do you want a movie to be? And he looks so much like Keith Richards in the film, he could be Keith’s long lost brother. One of the best scenes is late in the movie when Wanker has a talk with himself in the men’s room after getting very high. I can’t tell you why without spoiling the joke but, trust me, it’s LOL funny.

But the absolute best guest shot has to be Lou Reed playing a character named Auden who is heavily modeled on Bob Dylan circa 1983. The in-joke is that you have a recluse (at the time) playing a greater recluse (at the time). Even if you don’t know the reference, the part is written and performed as to have its own laughs. Plus, Reed has a great song by the end of the film, "My Little Sister."

There’s others such as Paul Bartel of Eating Raoul in a bit part as Max’s doctor, Bill Henderson as King Blues and Franklin Ajaye as his driver, and more. There’s tons of music including at last three versions of “Hoochie Koochie Man.” And as much schtick as in any Police Squad movie.

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Star Wars gets Chicken

Star Wars gets Chicken

In a few weeks… in a galaxy not so far away!

The force is with Seth Green and Matthew Senriech, the creators of the stop action animation parody show Robot Chicken.  They are celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars (30 years??) with a special Robot Chicken episode that will feature the voices of the galactic creator, Mr. George Lucas as himself and the one and only one-armed, Darth’s son, Leia’s brother, x-wing fighter pilot, Yoda-taught Jedi played by Mark Hamill. Hamill is no stranger to the Robot Chicken voice team.

Listen carefully and you will be able to pick out other celebrity voices that I won’t tell you. Here’s a clue: Late Night with Scrubs at the ER with a Hero-ic Ape dancing with the stars. Bye Bye Bye

It’s too early to set your TiVo for this one.  The episode will air on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block at 10:00 pm on Sunday, June 17.

James Bond’s playground reopens

James Bond’s playground reopens

Last July, Pinewood Studio’s famed 007 Stage – once the largest in the world – burned down like the final action scene in a James Bond movie. Given the type of movies being made these days, that was quite a setback to the British film industry.

The folks in Pinewood immediately started rebuilding, and now the 007 Stage is reopening as the largest sound stage in Europe – all 59,000 square feet of it.

Want to take a tour? Yep, it’s got its own website.

(Glenn Hauman contributed mightily to this story.)

 

The Big San Diego ComicCon Troma Contest

The Big San Diego ComicCon Troma Contest

Via Sean McKeever, Previews magazine, in conjunction with Devil’s Due Publishing and Troma Studios president Lloyd Kaufman (it already sounds like a Hollywood production, doesn’t it?), is having a contest the grand prize for which includes: a $6,500 value! — includes:

  • Round-Trip airfare to San Diego (hotel accommodations not included)
  • Dinner with Lloyd Kaufman in San Diego
  • A pass into the Comic-Con
  • A grab-bag of Troma DVDs
  • The original cover art to the Troma GN
  • A signed copy of the Troma GN, autographed by Lloyd Kaufman and Tim Seeley

Note again, the hotel is not included in this prize package, so if you happen to be the lucky winner and you didn’t book months ago, you’d better be prepared to bunk with a friend or pack a sleeping bag.  Here’s a PDF of the entry form.

Captain America arrested (again)

Captain America arrested (again)

Okay, let’s see if we’ve got all the weird down right:

1) A 54 year old doctor in Melbourne Florida was part of a gaggle of costumed drunks doing a pub crawl. 

2) Dr. Raymond Adamcik was dressed as Captain America.

3) He had a burrito stuffed in his pants. He allegedly groped two women.

4) He got arrested.

5) At the police station, he was caught flushing a bag of marijuana down the toilet.

6) After being charged with battery, disorderly conduct, and pot possession, he was released after posting $2000 bail.

Well, the story is more plausable than 52.  But if you think we’re making this up, the Melbourne police department report is available right here.

(Glenn Hauman contributed mightily to this story)

Heroes in 90 seconds

Heroes in 90 seconds

Thanks, Wired!  A minute and a half video of the only scene in which I’d probably have had any interest from Monday night’s Heroes (even though former DC writer Chuck Kim penned this one). But come on, was the 15-second ad preceding it really necessary? Isn’t a 6-to-1 program-to-ad ratio a bit high? (Or is my math off?)

ELAYNE RIGGS: Money changes everything

ELAYNE RIGGS: Money changes everything

One of my biggest regrets in my years of involvement in the comics industry is the way I would refer to myself as an "industry professional" during my "early Usenet years," when I’d never been paid a cent for any of my comic book storytelling nor hired by any company. The impetus, though wrongheaded, was easy to understand. It hadn’t been that long since I’d discovered comics and online fandom, and I wanted to be a part of the excitement, but — having developed very definite ideas about fannish behavior from briefly hanging out with science fiction fans in my 20’s — I didn’t want to be "just" a fan. I craved credibility and legitimacy; after all, I wrote about comics and corresponded with lots of people who got paid to create them, so didn’t that sort of make me a pro as well?

Well, no, it didn’t. And by the time I decided to run for a board position in Friends of Lulu, I ‘d decided to stick to both the letter and spirit of the unwritten law. FoL’s charter specified that only a working industry professional could hold certain positions like national president, so I knew that was one I’d never hold. And when I started maintaining the Women Doing Comics list, I made up for past foolishness by leaving my name off of it (even though I’d had work published and my rule for the list was that it should include all current created and published work done by women, not only the work for which the woman got paid). I couldn’t, and still don’t, consider my efforts for charity books to be in the same league as people who did this sort of thing for a living.

We live in a hyper-capitalist society where status and success is measured primarily by one’s ability to make money. This has nothing to do with value or worth — that’s earned by deeds and conferred by friends, and none of us should ever have any doubt as to our individual value or worth no matter what we do to make money (or how much or little take-home pay we see). Professional status is a very serious matter, particularly in the entertainment industry where so many wannabes decide, as I once did, that there’s no difference between "aspiring" and "actual."

But there is. I didn’t realize just how much until I married a freelancer.

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