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Comic-Con Report, volume 1
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Jul. 27th, 2008 @ 12:39 am
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Watching one of Yahoo!'s news videos just now about bands making deals for their music to appear in the Guitar Hero games, listed among the names who've gotten onboard were Aerosmith, ACDC, and Jimi Hendrix. That's right; Jimi Hendrix digs Guitar Hero and Yahoo! has the scoop. SIGH.
I got in really early to-night--around eight o'clock. I finally got in a desperately needed shower (I told you I wouldn't have time for anything), so I think I'll start trying to blog about this thing properly.
I'll get the panel for the Watchmen movie* out of the way first since I know it's what most of you are most curious about. First of all, I still think the movie's going to be a disaster at the box office and I still think it's going to be so inferior to the graphic novel that I'll ultimately dearly wish the movie had never come into existence. That being said, I love Carla Gugino. The number one thing I took away from that panel is that she'll be the best thing in the movie, though she'll barely be in it.
First a head honcho of Comic Con came out and thanked us all for being there. Then he brought out some schmuck from Entertainment Weekly who started reading off note cards a statement like, "In 1986, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created . . ." and I started laughing helplessly, to the bewilderment of everyone sitting nearby because the guy sounded like a sixth grader giving a half assed book report. He might as well have been saying, "I did my book report on Watchmen because it was really good and it's got superheroes and I think that's really cool and neat and I finished reading it all the way now, and you know, you should read it too, I think because it's really good." This after everyone had waited at least two hours to get into the fabled Hall H.
Then Zack Snyder came out, followed by the entire principle cast, as well as Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons. Gibbons spoke about how wonderful it was seeing his drawings come to life, how he loved seeing his "g" signature on set graffiti. The Entertainment Weekly schmuck asked him if he ever thought about visiting Alan Moore and telling him to "get over his bad self" and come support the movie. Gibbons laughed and said, "There is an elephant in the room, isn't there?" He said he wished Alan could share the joy he was experiencing at seeing brought to life things that had been in his head, and he was sorry Alan had had such bad experiences before.
It's hard to put a whole lot of stock in everyone's insistence of commitment to the material when they go right ahead adapting it against the wishes of its original author. Though I have to admit, Zack Snyder made a good point when he said that when he got the offer to direct the project, he would have felt responsible if, having passed on it, it would have gone to someone who'd have done an even worse job (the actual words he used, of course, were something like, "a bad job"). I'd forgotten how prone to rambling Snyder is. He gets stuck in loops, repeating the same bits of information as he goes further and further from the point.
Much more succinct was Billy Crudup, who is apparently kind of a badass. "You had to play someone," asked the EW schmuck, "who experiences all time at once, who's blue, and--"
"I already know what you're going to ask and I've already answered this question," said Crudup with a chilly smirk.
Dead silence in the huge room, followed by an "Ooooooo" from the crowd and nervous laughter.
"But they haven't heard it," said the Ew schmuck. Crudup eventually sort of responded to the question, but he seemed a bit detached for the whole panel, and I got the definite impression he considered himself a lot better than the movie. I don't hold it against him--he's probably right.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who's playing The Comedian, seemed like a complete prick, which I suppose is appropriate. He had a constant smirk, though it wasn't one that said he thought he was better than the movie so much as a smirk that said he thought everything in the world was stupid and funny. Again, admittedly appropriate to his character and it got me thinking about The Comedian's similarities to the Joker in The Dark Knight. He talked about how exhausting the shoot could be and added, with a smile, "I know there was one scene with Carla I'll never forget."
Is that asshole really talking about a rape scene like that? I thought. There was uncomfortable silence until Gugino forced out a wicked laugh, at which point the crowd also laughed--it sounded like she knew she had to in order to get Morgan off the hook. I really didn't think the guy deserved it. I thought her motive to laugh may've been entirely my imagination until she started talking about playing Sally Jupiter a little later.
We'd just watched clips from the movie, among which was a shot of Sally rubbing her eyes after the Minutemen group photo, followed by a shot of The Comedian leering at her. Gugino talked about how important that was to her to finding the character, how it showed the "light" that was extinguished from Sally's life after what Gugino quite soberly, and with a little hurt in her voice, described as "a . . . very intense scene with Jeff." The light of what Sally's life could have been if not for that incident, and how Sally transferred the potential of that light to Laurie.
Gugino spoke with complete passion, and I felt like she was more committed to her character than anyone else on the panel. And I thought about what a job actors have--how they have to put all their vulnerabilities on the line for faith in their directors**. Inevitably, as in this case, some directors probably don't deserve it. I wanted to hug Carla Gugino.
Some of the clips really did make me want to like the movie, mostly because several very closely replicated the art. I didn't dig the overuse of slow motion, though. The characters mostly looked right, except for some of the costumes, most notably Night Owl's.
Waiting for the trolley one night at a crowded stop, I saw a girl dressed as an anime character with a top hat and bunny ears walk past a cop, who said something complimentary to her, and commented to someone, "I gotta admit, she looked pretty cool." Is "cool" really the word? I thought.
I noticed another girl, who looked like she didn't have anything to do with Comic Con, was laughing with a strange persistence as two quiet boys grabbed and prodded her. The cop didn't say anything, she didn't say anything to the cop, or ask anyone for help. And yet later, I thought about how that laugh resembled Carla Gugino's and I hoped the girl was okay.
*Ah. Looking at that Wikipedia entry, I see Alan Moore shares my feelings about 300; "I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid."
**"You have to go off the edge of the cliff and build your wings on the way down," I heard Ray Bradbury say to-day on the subject of what one needs to do to be a writer.Current Mood:  tired Current Music: "This Time the Dream's on Me" - Ella Fitzgerald |
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I've Got Blisters on Me Fingers!
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Jul. 25th, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
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I'm soooooooo tired. But I got back at 10:30pm to-night, so here's a quick update summary before I collapse to get on this behemoth again to-morrow;
A wonderful anime experience, a good H.P. Lovecraft documentary, clips from the film adaptation of Watchmen that made me want to like it a lot more than the trailer did, finding myself surrounded in a hall by the cast and writers of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (No, I didn't talk to them), and the sight of the Venture Brothers, in the flesh. And much more. To-morrow brings Tori Amos and Ray Bradbury. And maybe I'll get around to catching one of the eight million panels Joss Whedon is doing this year.
Two essential things I recommend anyone attending the Comic-Con bring with them; a good book and apples. And if you should ever encounter Rorschach, do not, under any circumstances, invade his personal space.
I have to get to sleep in an hour. So . . . good night.Current Mood: tired Current Music: "It's Only a Paper Moon" - Ella Fitzgerald |
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Venia's Society and Comic-Con Prologue
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Jul. 23rd, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
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I've uploaded Chapter 4 of Venia's Travels a couple days early. Mostly because I don't know when I'll have time to do it again within the next couple days. I'm going to the Con at 8:30am to-morrow and staying until well into the night. This blog might also be pretty quiet for a few days, but I promise detailed accounts next week.
Incidentally, if you see anything on the Comic Con schedule you'd like me to see and blog about in detail for you, let me know.
I ended up not seeing the pilot for J.J. Abrams' Fringe, though I easily could have. There were only a few hundred people lined up for it an hour beforehand and that's well within ballroom 20's capacity. But I decided I'd rather beat the rush to the trolley and get back here to colour.
As I walked passed the Fringe line, I noticed the end of another line going in the opposite direction. Twenty people in, people were sitting down and chatting, and I thought to myself, "I bet this isn't a line for anything. I bet a bunch of people just decided to sit down in a line and these lemmings back here just got behind them." Sure enough, I walked around the corner and saw the end of the thing was no room or special roped off area, just an end to the people. And you know, I bet almost none of the people queued up for Fringe really gave a damn about the show. They were just looking for something to do to-day. What the hell's it gonna take to get people to extend the Con to more than four days?
On my way to the trolley, I saw a guy with a knapsack who looked like he was seventy years old, dressed as I suspect he was dressed at the 1972 Comic-Con; sneakers, jeans, and a button down chequered shirt.
Anyway, I'd better eat dinner and try to get some sleep. Again, the new Venia's Travels is online. I swear I wrote it before I saw The Dark Knight.Current Mood: tired Current Music: "Let's Fall in Love" - Ella Fitzgerald |
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I Know He Built C-3PO
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Jul. 23rd, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
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I finished drawing and inking at around 2:30am and then spent the next two hours in some tough negotiations with my printer. It jammed three times last night, having never jammed before. I'd realised the bar code I had printed out in April to get my Comic Con badge was the wrong bar code (I'd been charged for two, remember; it's a boring story, I won't look up the old entry). Once I got that sorted, I decided to put a real effort into making cards. After a lot of struggle making a template for the blank cards I bought a couple days ago, I finally realised the company that'd made the cards had a free template online. The printer was greatly pained in the act of digesting the oak hard paper, but the cards are the best I've ever made, I must say. I promise I won't go all Patrick Bateman about them, though. Unless you want me to.
To-night is Preview Night, so I'll be leaving pretty soon. I'm not in a huge hurry, though. I got there at 4pm, I think, last year and was able to walk straight in, unlike, I gathered, the people who'd been there at noon, who'd dutifully queued around the building before opening. Plus, the only thing that's happening to-night the showing of a pilot episode for J.J. Abrams's newest show. Maybe I'll check it out. I've yet to see anything that guy's done outside of Cloverfield.
If nothing else, I'm looking forward to being downtown again. I'm taking the trolley to-day, but to-morrow I'm riding with my sister, who's gotten a job again, this time as a secret agent for Disney. She's going to be dressed like Agent Smith. Maybe I should try to teach her how to say, "Mr. Anderson" like Hugo Weaving with an American accent . . .Current Mood:  optimistic Current Music: "The Saga Begins" - "Weird Al" Yankovic |
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The Conspicuous and Invisible
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Jul. 22nd, 2008 @ 03:50 pm
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Last night I had the second of what seem to be a series of "hidden kitten" dreams. In the first one I'd discovered a black kitten had been living on a couch in plain view, but had just become visible to me, as though a hypnotic cloak had been removed, a la the Shadow. Last night, I dreamt another hidden kitten, a white one with black spots, had grown up and had hidden kittens of her own.
I really miss having cats in this house. I miss going upstairs to feed them every morning. Lucky, Victoria, and Olivia. Olivia was a pretty white cat with green eyes who didn't warm to me until a few months before she died. It seemed she lost some kind of reserve and wanted as much love as she could get. I remember one day I sat down next to her and she slowly crawled onto my lap. When I had to go, a little shifting of my muscles was enough to alert her, and she slowly got back up again and walked away, as if to say, "I know you have things to do. I appreciate whatever you can give."
I've only two pages left to draw and ink on Chapter 5. It's weird being this far ahead, especially after having gotten a little behind on Chapter 4. To-night I'll be doing the last two pages and to-morrow's the beginning of Comic-Con. Well, technically it's only Preview Night, but you can bet I'll get all I can out of it. I'll probably have some time left over to colour, too. I haven't finished colouring a single page of Chapter 5 yet, though I've completely coloured one character on every finished page so far. I do it that way sometimes; it's a good way to avoid looking down.Current Mood:  die hard Current Music: "Disappear" - Mazzy Star |
| » Even Jane is on the Crazy Thing |
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I drew and inked from around 5pm 'til 3:30am. I'll be doing something similar to-day, though hopefully I'll finish earlier since I don't have to go to the grocery store. If I do finish earlier, I'll try to catch up on the colouring.
As I've mentioned, I'm doing this comic a chapter ahead, which means I've had the next chapter ready since last week. The one I'm working on now isn't going to be online until more than two weeks from now. So I suppose I could put this off until next week, when I'd have to work like mad on it, but I really don't want it hanging over my head at Comic-Con.
In case anyone's wondering if I'm going to be trying to promote my comic at the Con; not really. I might make myself some cards, but after three years of trying to make headway at the Con, I've kind of figured out what a long shot it really is. The Con is too much of a zoo.
I'm currently eating my oatmeal, and I could be colouring at the same time, so I'd better get to it. I'll leave you with another sonnet;
Pin the Tail on the Donkey
Beads in a brass bucket rolling around
Grinding dice in your idle fist all night
You'd make a mountain before you'd make sound
Or a mutant molehill to drain all light
You field strip your rifle and remake it
Into a shotgun, a shattered wide blast
For the damaged door where nothing would fit
Hoping to connect and seal, blind and fast
But there's a mythological gagged duck
You know is stuck in a tree you can't see
No matter how many places you've struck
The damned duck won't die and he's not set free
Hours crawl 'til night gets bigger than day
Each dawn reveals what you still need to say
Jul. 21st, 2008 @ 01:53 pm
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| » Electric Blue Collars |
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Reading Devin Faraci's review of The Dark Knight on CHUD, I got to marvelling again at what a complete hack Faraci is. The review asks questions of the film's logic and plot that are so clearly answered within the movie itself that I would wonder if Faraci had even watched the whole movie if I didn't know it was entirely due to Faraci's own ego and misdirected pain.
Let me give you a few examples of Faraci's powers of observation;
As the film begins, not long after the ending of the first one, a group of concerned citizens have taken up the mantle of the Bat (and the pads of the Goalie) and begun fighting crime as faux-Batmen. There are a lot of intriguing thematic elements to this concept - Batman's main (mostly unbelievable) arc is about him coming to grips with the impact he's had on Gotham, and these guys (along with The Joker and the reactions of the city's crime bosses) personify that. But they appear at the beginning of the movie and never again; during the third act Gotham is being evacuated and I kept expecting to see these Batmen show up in some form, a bit of closure or at least follow-through on their story.
Er, we do see at least one of them again, rather memorably as a mechanism in one of the Joker's plots that also makes it obvious why we wouldn't see them again afterwards.
There's the same problem with the film's foray to Hong Kong. It presents Nolan the opportunity to do a cool action scene, but that's it, and that scene ends up costing ten to fifteen extra minutes of screentime just to set up.
A lot of people have been claiming this as a useless scene, and I couldn't disagree more. Here's what the Hong Kong segment does; it helps establish the scope of Batman's power, both with physicality and technology, as well as his usefulness as an entity outside of government law enforcement. That last part establishes one of the biggest themes of the movie, ties Batman to the Joker, and also, tangentially, helps establish the Joker's cred with the mob.
Another subplot, about a Wayne Industries employee who figures out his boss is the Batman, similarly dead ends itself with a cute resolution that would have been better served fleshed out into a real story in another movie.
Here, Faraci apparently missed the entire purpose behind one of the film's big action sequences as well as one of the ways it's established that the Joker uses fear to control people.
He asks a spoiler-related question of his readers that I'll answer without a spoiler; because Gordon can't be bought, you dolt.
And what's worse, the very nature of Two Face is once again misused; in Schumacher's take on the character he was just a lunatic all the time, and here he's just using his scarred coin to decide whether or not to kill people. There's no feeling that he's torn about it, and at one point when the coin doesn't allow him to kill someone, he flips again to get a chance to kill another character in an attempt to kill that first person after all. I wanted to see this Two Face be torn, to be a slave to that coin. Instead he feels like a villain with a gimmick.
The point was that Dent is free of the weight of ethical considerations. He's been hurt so bad that he can't see the world in terms of logic anymore; only in terms of chaos.
The movie needs to give Batman some kind of arc (a nicety the comics long since dispensed with), so Nolan makes Batman want to give up the cowl right from the start. I think this is standard second superhero movie bullshit at this point, and it really doesn't fit here. At one point Bruce Wayne fantasizes that Dent in office will be what's needed to allow him to retire, and I couldn't help but wonder whose vision of Batman this was. It takes a certain megalomania to put on a rubber suit and beat up criminals, and one dude getting elected doesn't seem like it could cure that megalomania.
Batman's more interested in doing good than feeding his own ego. That should be ridiculously obvious.
But that's just there to give Batman a story
Er, it's integral to the movie's themes about order and chaos and how far someone can go into the latter while still being good.
he uses that ability to spy on every citizen of Gotham. Or something, it's sort of dumb and vague. It's an obvious allusion to the whole wiretapping thing now going on this country, and Morgan Freeman's character, being wise and black, takes offense at it all.
The hell? The movie's filled with all kinds of black people. The fact that one of them happens to be wise somehow makes the filmmakers devoted to stereotype?
This seems like it's shaping up to a good moral conundrum for the Batman, and to be exploring his fairly fascist side, something no movie ever wants to do. But the movie demurs, having Batman self-destruct the system after using it just the once when he really, really, really had to.
Yeah. Because we're all arguing about whether its ethical to spy on a building where it's known armed terrorists are holding hostages. Faraci's missed the heart of the domestic spying issue. Batman would have been crossing a line if he'd used the device to spy on his political enemies or on other innocent people.
Faraci also gives credit to David Goyer as well as Jonathon Nolan for the screenplay. Actually, the credits say, "Story by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer, Written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathon Nolan." This could mean a couple of things. It could simply be a reference to Goyer creating this setup in Batman Begins. At best, I think it means Goyer shot one or two of the big ideas Christopher Nolan's way; oil drums in a warehouse, bank heists, etc. But given that Goyer doesn't seem to have written anything decent himself, I think it's far more likely that Goyer's simply the studio's comic book guy they saddled Nolan with in the first movie as some insurance, and he's credited for the second movie because Christopher Nolan had developed some affection for him. Because like Brett Ratner or Zack Snyder, Goyer's a player. He knows how to grease the "wheels", knows how to talk to brass at studio parties, knows how to be loveable, and knows just enough about the craft of filmmaking that good hearted people in Hollywood don't feel too awful about throwing him some bones. Politics do run Hollywood, but a lot of those politics are related to big ideas about what it means to have a heart. Somehow in the Hollywood logic, having a big house in Beverly Hills translates to "just getting by", and a lot of people figure guys like Goyer deserve at least that much. But as Ferris Bueller once said, you can't respect a guy who kisses your ass.
This goes back to what I think is the real reason Faraci's got his knickers in a twist; he got to sit down and actually meet Hellboy a couple weeks ago. And now The Dark Knight has so thoroughly overshadowed Hellboy 2 it's almost grotesque. Add to this that Faraci already didn't like Batman, and you get this decidedly less than objective, grudgingly positive review.
Anyway, I need to get to the grocery store now. I'm going to start doing two pages a day until Comic-Con. Also, for any of my Second Life friends reading, you probably won't see me in sl until next Monday. I'm not going to have much time for anything for about a week . . .
Jul. 20th, 2008 @ 04:25 pm
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| » An Affection for and an Appeal to the Soul |
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Sometimes I'm kind of amazed by how many problems most of my friends have. Almost all of those problems are medical, compounded by an inability to purchase pills or treatments. I thought to-day about what a real, tangible effect free universal healthcare would have in my social circles. It'd be like a new world. I guess the trade-off would be one or two of my luckier friends complaining about a tax increase.
I think this is probably the real reason I've been trying to eat so much healthier lately; plain oatmeal for breakfast, cous cous or tofu for the other meals, sometimes quinoa, apples for snacks, and I've been getting Subway sandwiches when I'm out; I only get veggies and mayonnaise on white bread, and I'm considering cutting out the mayonnaise.
My sister and I did get to see The Dark Knight yesterday. It's the best comic book movie I've ever seen, and I'm including Ghost World in that equation. It owes a massive debt to Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke", but it has more than enough of its own material to stand on its own feet.
Would someone please stitch Christopher Nolan to his brother? Don't you ever let David Goyer write your screenplays again, sir. There are a lot of reasons The Dark Knight works better than its predecessor, Batman Begins, but the biggest reason is that The Dark Knight was written by Jonathon Nolan and Batman Begins was written by David Goyer. What Goyer, like so many writers of Batman stories, treated as an inherent weakness in the Batman concept, the brothers Nolan very shrewdly treated as a strength. Namely, Batman's refusal to kill people.
More than a few people pointed to the fuzzy logic in Batman's "But I don't have to save you" line in the climactic fight with Liam Neeson in the first movie. The Dark Knight is a movie about why it's important to keep decisions of life or death out of the hands of an emotionally motivated few. It even takes time to say a bit about domestic spying. A lot of people have been saying this is a 9/11 movie, and it definitely is. It's perhaps the best movie possible about how to react to terrorism; it's a great story in a wildly popular movie that demonstrates why principles oughtn't to be compromised. The public's been led off moral ledges by this president's administration for so long by fear, it's about time something appealed to humanity's more graceful sentiments. Gods, it gives me hope like no movie ever has.
Heath Ledger's performance is as excellent as everyone says it is, but on the acting front, I was mainly pleased that such a solid supporting cast was connected to a truly great movie; Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal. Usually when this many good actors are brought together, it's something completely insubstantial.
Decidedly less impressive was the trailer for the Watchmen movie. As it ended, I leaned over to my sister and said, "I can already see myself trying to convince people it's actually a great comic." My sister nodded--she doesn't read comics, but she's an intelligent girl and she thought the trailer looked pretty lame. So that might be an indicator of how this thing works on people who aren't excited by seeing the nostalgic images in motion. And there's no beefy homophobic white guys beating up on bisexual minorities to bring in the 300 crowd. Yes, I think this movie's going to be a complete disaster*, which I think I almost prefer over something like V for Vendetta, which had its positive qualities. It almost seems like Alan Moore's the victim of a conspiracy. The Dark Knight, actually, with its notes from "The Killing Joke", is probably the best Alan Moore adaptation ever.
*I can't believe I haven't taken a moment to point out that I was right about The Incredible Hulk not doing better than Hulk. So; I was right about The Incredible Hulk not doing better than Hulk!
Jul. 19th, 2008 @ 03:23 pm
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| » A Brief Message about Merfolk |
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This morning I watched the first episode of an anime series called Seto no Hanayome. It's about a mermaid who falls in love with a human boy. The twist is that merfolk society closely resembles Japanese organised crime--yakuza. I love that premise, but unfortunately it's executed as just another run of the mill hyperactive romantic comedy. It made me long for the days of Ranma 1/2, when tales of complicated relationships between martial artist shapeshifters had heart.
My sister and I are now going to try to see The Dark Knight. I've already drawn half a page to-day, hopefully I'll have time for the rest after the movie . . . Assuming we can get into the movie.
Jul. 18th, 2008 @ 04:23 pm
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| » Filled with Tint, Hue, and Contrast |
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There. All caught up. Only to get behind again next week during Comic-Con. Oh, well.
Yesterday, I . . . Hmm. I went grocery shopping, bought some honey garlic sauce for my tofu. I had another mildly strange encounter on The Bridge when an old man or woman (couldn't tell) stopped suddenly, looked wildly to the right. I had to walk around him or her.
I realised yesterday that a guy I knew in high school, Iain Stasukevich, is now writing for CHUD.com. He also seems to be the only guy in the world really looking forward to The Spirit movie. I find it kind of interesting that Frank Miller would go with the philosophy of a director needing to assert his own creative vision when adapting when recent adaptations of his works have been lauded for their extreme faithfulness to their sources. Though, if I remember correctly, 300 was modified to include more racism and homophobia.
But, yes, I likely shall go to Zack Snyder's latest Comic-Con Watchmen panel. And I will kvetch about how it's becoming a disappointingly popular boulder, or about how it's horribly unfaithful to the source, or about how it's actually looking kind of good.
Actually, my theory about it is that Rorschach's going to be played as more of a true visionary with his extreme right-wing politics portrayed as wisdom. This is what Alan Moore gets for writing about politics without demonising either perspective; ideologically skewed movie adaptations.
I guess this'll be my last "night off" until a few days after Comic-Con. Well, who am I kidding, that'll be a holiday. But this'll be the last night without anything scheduled. I think I'll walk to Tim's . . .
Jul. 17th, 2008 @ 06:14 pm
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| » Wino Forever |
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I drank a bottle of wine last night, for once. I don't usually see much point in wine since I know it doesn't keep, and I have to drink a lot more of it to get the same effect as one scotch. Both of those elements add up to me figuring I may as well finish off the bottle in one go. Somehow, I was in the mood; well, and it was exciting to buy wine from Francis Ford Coppola's vineyard. I had the pinot noir, and it was pretty good.
I lost a game of chess to a Maori while I was drinking it. But maybe that was inevitable.
I got the INLAND EMPIRE soundtrack yesterday, and I'm really enjoying it. It's weird having a David Lynch movie soundtrack that doesn't feature Angelo Badalamenti--most of the original music is by Lynch himself--but there are nonetheless stylistic similarities, similarities I don't find in Badalamenti's work outside of his David Lynch projects (such as the soundtrack for Secretary or the theme from Inside the Actor's Studio). I'm wondering if things like the eerie, isolated bass were Lynch's idea all along.
Here's another great soundtrack featuring Polish composers, too. I still need to do some real investigation of that scene.
Jul. 16th, 2008 @ 04:47 pm
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| » Journeys and Deliveries |
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Last night I dreamt I was going on another cruise with my family, only I had to be smuggled onboard in a hollowed out mannequin. The dream was longer than it sounds; I saw myself being wheeled about on a dolly, customs agents trying to figure out why the mannequin was so heavy.
I don't have much to say here to-day. I ate at IHOP yesterday, as I mentioned. I had a decent spinach and mushroom omelette.
Yep. I have colouring to catch up on. Only five pages of Chapter 4 are completely finished, but the last three pages are partially finished, so they shouldn't take very long. I think one of the reasons this chapter's lagging a little bit is because I wasn't colouring during meals as much last week. I guess that was more essential than I thought. To-morrow I write the script for Chapter 5, which I anticipate as being the most pleasant chapter so far. I hope I'm not exhausting anyone.
I think I'll go get a sandwich. Here's Toubanua waiting for James Bond to be delivered to her Grecian hideout;
Jul. 15th, 2008 @ 04:37 pm
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| » We've Secretly Replaced Everyone with Porcupinefish |
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Walking back from the IHOP to-day, I saw a small brass key on the ground, and had to resist the temptation to pick it up. Maybe video games are trying to train me to automatically pick up keys? If so, they've failed. Manipulative, amoral entertainments are letting us down. Or maybe there's something wrong with me.
I had some inking to catch up on yesterday, during which I listened to John Hughes' commentary for Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Rifftrax for Saw and X-Files: Fight the Future. Saw has failed to make me want to torture people. Maybe something's unplugged?
I'd never seen any of the Saw movies before and I have to say what surprised me most about it was how tame it was. I was expecting unrelenting, terrible gore. But compared to Pulp Fiction, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Seven, or even Raiders of the Lost Ark, it really wasn't much. And, jeez, compared to Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, it's a drop of blood next to an ocean. Saw's assault is on a quality film viewing experience; as Bill Corbett remarked when the titular tool appeared, "That's the same saw used to edit the film."
The movie's filled with suspense/horror movie clichés, from the hooded villain with the raspy voice to, as Kevin Murphy was quick to point out, the two cops who go into the evil lair alone and never, ever consider calling for backup no matter what happens. Saw, I suspect, is a far more effective film for a lot of the people who've never seen it.
I see ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) greygirlbeast was obliquely talking about "torture-porn" movies to-day by way of thoughts on the sort of anti-torture movie Funny Games. She notes a lot of the violence is effective because it's off-screen. All the violence of Saw was off-screen until I saw it yesterday (I use the term loosely as I was mostly just listening while I inked), which is how I think the movie, and probably a lot of torture-porns, have gotten reputations as being so horrid; from people who haven't seen them and have let their imaginations, boosted by reactionary reviews, do the filmmakers' work better than they ever could have.
The guy does saw off his own foot at the end of the movie, the point of which seems to've been, "Whoa, dude, this is fucked up!" It's silly and immature, but really only effective on the kinds of guys who grew up to write the screenplay, i.e., people who were already that kind of silly and immature to begin with.
Well, there was a girl in my British Literature class who liked the Saw movies and she seemed really nice. I suppose that sort of story might be appealing in the same way as the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" is.
I am a fan of the Hostel movies. The first one seemed like a decent horror movie with a slightly dull final act, and the second one was part suspense movie, part intelligent rumination on the compulsion to torture, and part revenge movie (my original review is here). I came across an interesting interview with Stephen King on the subject of Hostel part II and so-called torture porn movies, and I mostly agree with what he says, particularly his resistance to generalising. Though I wasn't disturbed by Lorna getting cut in half in Hostel part II as he was, mostly because movie violence doesn't effect me in nearly the same way as real violence, but also because it was shown in the sort of gallows-humour, horror movie fashion, where a character's very minor personality flaw gets them killed. That's part of the psychological effect exploited by a lot of horror movies; someone has one, tiny little thing about them, and somehow it opens them to the demons. When someone has some quality for which we might fear they may be punished, it adds to the tension. In the case of Hostel part II, I think it was important in establishing what sort of operation the torture company was.
But to the point of truly disturbing violence against a character in a movie, I'm reminded of Roger Ebert's reaction to Blue Velvet. I think disturbing violence is justified in Blue Velvet because truly awful experiences are one of the defining pieces of existence. The beauty in Blue Velvet is made stronger by its brilliant realisation of that awfulness and the relationship the rest of the movie has with it.
Of course, I also disagree with Stephen King on the subject of Stanley Kubrick's film of The Shining, which I actually find to be superior to the novel. In the interview I linked to, King seems to feel there needed to be more love shown between Jack and Wendy, but I think the film's brilliance is in how it shows the motions of love can be corrosive when there's a fundamental lack of understanding and communication, fomenting resentment.
I finished reading Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption last night. I liked it a lot, and it certainly does seem to me that Stephen King is kind of a cuddly person. I got nothing against sweet people; in fact, I rather like them. But I like cold people, too.
Jul. 14th, 2008 @ 06:41 pm
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| » Skumps! A Toast to Well Used Days and Nights |
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The Comic-Con schedule's already online. Gods, only four days. I think I'll be staying all day each day. I've never actually stayed for any of the night time programming before, but I think it'll change this year, especially as there's to be a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 anniversary panel featuring Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson, as well as both Trace Beaulieu and Bill Corbett, not to mention Kevin Murphy and most of the other main cast members and writers.
And I've already got tough decisions to make. Like, do I go to the Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles panel with Summer Glau and, for some reason, Shirley Manson of Garbage, or do I see Tori Amos, whose panel's at the same time? And, of course, Ray Bradbury'll be at the Con, as usual. Maybe I'll actually get a chance to see him this year. I think I'll probably go to all the webcomics panels.
Yesterday was a long walk to and from Tim's house, where his sister asked me to beat the last and hardest section of the newest Maro Kart game while Tim put together a computer. I'd only played the game once before, but the both of them seemed sure I could do it, and what d'you know, I did. I guess if you've played one Mario Kart game, you've played them all. This one doesn't appear to be a huge leap of graphics or gameplay from the previous game, but the dirty little secret of the Wii is that it's not terrifically more powerful than the Game Cube.
I played a little chess with dadragoness last night, and then finally finished watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Not really a bad movie. I probably wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't only seven dollars and it didn't have director commentary. It feels curiously unfinished, though. Like the script needed maybe two more drafts. It's almost like two movies; a screwball comedy about a principal and Jennifer Grey, and a drama about Cameron needing to face his father. It's unintentionally funny how the movie actually dodges showing that confrontation; how, after his father's car is totalled, the music swells and moves in on Cameron's smiling and resolute face, prepared for whatever comes and . . . nothing. Ferris Bueller trying to get home before his parents realise he's been gone.
Somewhere in the movie is a completely empty story about Ferris Bueller and his girlfriend that might have worked if someone who was actually singing and dancing, like Gene Kelly maybe, had been cast as Ferris Bueller. Though, of course, it would then be a third movie grafted onto the other two. I can see why John Hughes all but retired in the early 1990s. He was clearly running out of steam and fast.
I'd better finish up work on Chapter 4 of my comic to-day. It's weird to think that I'll be uploading it in the middle of Comic-Con.
Jul. 13th, 2008 @ 03:43 pm
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| » Where the Elves and the Devils Play |
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Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a good movie. It has a lot of great action sequences; I particularly liked Hellboy's fight with Wink and the battle with the Golden Army at the end. The battle with the Elemental "Forest God" was devoid of tension, though, due to the presence of an inexplicably psychotic baby. Guillermo del Toro is truly a brilliant director who consistently makes great movies, but to him and everyone else with a great public forum for their art, I address this plea; Please, stop talking about your baby. Unless you're going to do something challenging, like Eraserhead, or Pan's Labyrinth, for that matter, I don't care. I'm glad you've found happiness by having kids, but have pity on the rest of us. Having kids should not be Hellboy's reason to live.
The Troll Market segment is as amazing as everyone says it is. It contains the one baby moment in the movie that I actually liked. My absolute favourite thing about the movie was Seth MacFarlane's Johann Krauss. I love just about all the actors in the movie, but none of them come close to MacFarlane's impeccable comic timing. Unlike his work on Family Guy, though, his performance here is accompanied by threatening situations and subtle pathos, both of which are somehow enhanced by MacFarlane's performance even as they enhance the performance. An excellent movie could be made focusing entirely on Krauss.
It seemed like there were an awful lot of references to other modern movies in this one. The Forest God couldn't fail to remind me of the Forest Spirit in Princess Mononoke. The Hellboy incarnation borrows the Forest Spirit's tendency to create fast, spontaneous plant growth in the places it touches, though the visual was far more beautiful in Princess Mononoke. And the fate of the Forest Spirit was far more effective as Mononoke more effectively established its significance, its action sequences weren't sanitised by an unrealistically reacting baby, and Ashitaka's statement to San, about the Forest Spirit wanting them to be free, had the more solemn resonance of a wilfully optimistic interpretation of death that isn't borne out by the observable facts.
The Forest God sequence in Hellboy II is followed by a bit borrowed from X-Men 2 where police pointing guns at Hellboy demand that he drop his weapon, not realising the weapon is part of his body. I'm hoping the extended edition of Hellboy II explains the abrupt shift in the public reaction to Hellboy from a state where everyone wanted his autograph to a state where he's apparently reviled completely by every passer-by. As it is, the moody bits of Hellboy lamenting his freakishness are made incredibly awkward and insubstantial.
The Lord of the Rings influence on the appearance of the elves' clothes and weaponry is unmistakable, but I can't say I mind. The colours for the elves are stripped down to gold, white, black and red which adds a quite elegant and deadly beauty. The opening sequence unabashedly resembles the history lesson at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, so del Toro apparently decided to distinguish it by casting all the players as puppets in the imagination of the young Howdy Doody fan Hellboy. But it's even clearer now that del Toro's a natural fit for The Hobbit.
I loved Abe Sapien and Princess Nuala. A movie revolving entirely around those two would also be good. So long as they didn't have kids.
I still don't have car insurance, or at least proof of it, since I have paid for it. So I took the trolley to Parkway Plaza mall, finding myself two hours early for the next showing. This used to happen to me a lot, mostly before I started doing web comics (I did draw a page yesterday, in case anyone's wondering), so I knew how to spend my time. I got a big quesadilla at Rubio's, went to the book store, bought a book, and went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to read while drinking green tea. I got matociquala's Blood and Iron, since I've felt vaguely guilty about never having read any of her books, despite the fact that I read her blog. I'm twenty pages in and it's pretty good so far. As good as Hellboy II, in fact, which causes me to reflect again on the inequities of capitalism.
I almost got some manga instead. As I was perusing Borders' massive manga section, a skinny redhead woman about my age walked up behind me to abruptly ask, "Have you seen glitter?"
"The movie?" I asked.
"No, this!" She held up what looked like a pink snow globe filled with glitter.
"Er, oh."
"Isn't it great?"
I smiled, "Better than the movie already."
"Yes," she said, the tone of her voice dipping, and she walked quickly away. I'm not sure if she was scared off by my missing front tooth or if she was a massive Mariah Carey fan. I'm not sure why she talked to me in the first place, except my hat was getting a lot of compliments yesterday. It's strange; either I hear a bunch of homophobic insults aimed at me, or a bunch of compliments, never both on the same day. I almost wonder if it's the new Indiana Jones movie actually having a lasting, positive effect on the culture.
Jul. 12th, 2008 @ 03:51 pm
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| » You See, but Do You Observe? |
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Just got back from seeing Hellboy II, which I liked and will talk about more in to-morrow's post. But here are two things I overheard from the audience;
WOMAN: "Reminds of that Rings movie." MAN: "Legolas?" WOMAN: "Yeah. Reminds me of Legolas."
ANOTHER WOMAN, halfway through the movie: "He's a fish man!"
We have a winner.
On an unrelated topic; this gave me chills.
Jul. 11th, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
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| » Venia's Ironic Name |
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Chapter 3 of Venia's Travels is now online. I know I'm competing with Hellboy II to-day, but I hope you make some time for Venia anyway.
I hope everyone's okay out there.
Jul. 11th, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
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| » "Crimson Beyond Blood that Flows, Buried in the Stream of Time is Where Your Power Grows" |
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Sunday was a great day for anime*. Eclipse, the fansub group whose translations for Code Geass I generally prefer, took such an inordinately long time uploading the new episode that I was beginning to think they had abandoned the series, and I must say I wouldn't have blamed them if they did. The three previous episodes had been beyond silly on just about every level; faux chess stratagems, nerfed civil war in China, rampant insubstantial deus ex machinas, all followed by a goofy school episode. Well, that last one was kind of cute, but we were clearly a long way from the glory days of Code Geass.
And then episode 13. I was incredibly glad I convinced myself to download it when I saw Eclipse had finally gotten around to the upload at 5pm. In one episode, the show managed to do everything I'd been telling Tim the show had been needing to do for a long time; people needed to die, the school subplot had to be extinguished or drastically reformed, fanservice be damned, characters--especially Lelouch--needed to start accomplishing things again, and characters needed to have confrontations with their psychological issues. In short, sacrifices had to be made. Episode 13 scored on just about every count. And it was better animated. Which leads me to suspect there's one group of people who come in only periodically to do good episodes, which is a shame.
The other big thing on Sunday was that I realised the new series of Slayers had begun, Slayers: Revolution. This is the first new Slayers series in eleven years. It's the best looking series, in some ways even better looking than the movies, mainly because the animation industry has completely shifted in the past decade from paint to images coloured completely via a computer, giving colourists a complete spectrum of colour for cheap.
But otherwise, Slayers: Revolution feels astoundingly similar to the other Slayers series' in feel. It's sort of like the original Star Trek series picking up in 1980 exactly as it left off. I'm not sure this is entirely explained by Slayers: Revolution having the same director, the same animation studio, and the same voice actors. Everything feels uncannily retro without feeling self-consciously so. Like the new theme song**;
It's the same sort of 1980s sounding, mid-90s Japanese pop. Layers of unselfconscious anachronisms. Beautiful, if you ask me.
The theme's sung by Lina Inverse herself, voiced once again by the incredible Megumi Hayashibara whose lead roles in Paprika and Neon Genesis Evangelion haven't made her too big to do a new Slayers series. She is my dream girl.
Background art has exactly the same cheap quality of the old series', the humour's still not incredibly funny, but good enough to contribute to making the characters endearing. The first episode featured Lina rampaging against pirates, including a suspiciously Jack Sparrow-ish fellow, but the second episode, which I downloaded to-day, is much better, as we're given the first real look at threads from the first story arc wherein Lina's nemesis appears to be a little white furry guy with green hands on his ears. Fight on, Lina!
*Yes I'm only just now getting around to talking about Sunday.
**No subtitled version on YouTube, sorry. She's basically singing about how she'll destroy anyone in her way and she'll take lots of treasure, despite the efforts of the forces of, er, evil.
Jul. 10th, 2008 @ 03:57 pm
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| » Where are My Percolators of Valour? |
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I sure wish my coffee wasn't so chewy. Every time I think I've figured out what this coffee pot wants, it throws me for another loop. I guess chewy, slightly crunchy, coffee's not bad, though. I do like chocolate covered coffee beans, after all.
I remember seeing Mission Impossible 2 while stuffing myself with two boxes of coffee beans. That was a thrill ride, yes sirs and madams. I used to appreciate caffeine in much greater quantities than I do to-day.
Yesterday, I got a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila "Clasico" for only ten dollars. This is only the second bottle of tequila I've ever purchased, the previous bottle having been Jose Cuervo "Especial". Clasico appears to be eight trillion times better. I'm learning a good rule of thumb, here; if an alcoholic beverage that's normally clear, such as rum or tequila, is sold in a tinted "spiced" variety, the clear version is invariably better.
Last night I read through a forum argument dadragoness was having with a very confused Christian who decided to argue that Venia's Travels is inferior to the teachings of Christ. So I can honestly say now that Venia's Travels is already being compared to the Christian Bible.
Well, I suppose I ought to get back to my heresy . . . va, va, va!
Jul. 9th, 2008 @ 01:34 pm
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| » And Now . . . |
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I suppose a slightly cheerier post may be in order. I've been listening to RiffTrax movies while inking and colouring, and I think one of the best things I've learned from listening to the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew make fun of modern movies is that old bad movies and new bad movies really aren't so different.
Take Battlefield Earth. Is it really so different from This Island Earth?
Jul. 8th, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
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