#WritingFromIsolationWard
Category: Entertainment
This is no way to get things going if you are going to pick up Amateur Super Heroics. In fact, I might suggest that this looks like total failure. This is the climax of issue one of Kick Ass (soon to be a major motion picture in theaters from Lions’ Gate). The basic plot isn’t really that much, no real motivations except heroics (maybe dead mommy issues) and the desire to do something. The “real” world has a share of the “Duff Man” styled super heroes running around being fat in tights. Kick Ass looks to say “those are the posers, this is what happens when you really want to do something”
Things improve for our protagonist by issue two:
I can’t say I was really into Kick Ass when it first came out, I had a full plate of Invincible and other standard superheroes and “alternate superheroics” (The Boys, Black Summer, Etc) do read. So when Kick Ass wasn’t right there for me to read, I missed a few issues and then forgot about it. It was violent and gritty, but “The Boys” showed superheropes getting their orbits cracked by a little scottish Simon Pegg. How could Kick Ass compete? A Movie is a good start.
The Intro seems to mirror the first pages of the Comic and the extended trailers looks REALLY amazing and the clips convinced me of Nic Cages commitment to the material. It looks like Kick Ass will be setting the “Violent as a Japanese Guro Horror” bar for 2010, but really, I hope it’s not just ridiculous violence like Machine Girl or Tokyo Gore Police.
When they gave me my powers the installed mental blocks — That’s the only reason that I can’t use my powers on living organic matter. — Atom Eve explains why her powers are not the exact same as Firestorm and totally fails.
The Invincible War has ended and provided a nice narrative device to excuse an art change, a cast change and allow the lead singer of My Chemical Romance a chance to build murder zombies out of a whole raft of super corpses. Isn’t war grand?
We were left with a dead or dying Atom Eve at the end of 64, I’m gonna spoil this one and say that Eve is still alive. If this was a spoiler, congratulations, you are a long time Kirkman reader, expecting fully that Mr K would have not only killed Eve but had her cooked and them vomited into her own grave. I expected it, I was surprised that things didn’t turn out that way, golf clap for Robert Kirkman and Company for the twist.
Everything else, sadly, goes exactly how you expect. I like Invincible a ton, I don’t stop reading it and buy the big hardbound editions to read over and over, it is THE BEST “young” superhero comic out there. It hits all the correct notes and gives us enemies we can dig:
However I keep expecting Mr. K to kill off the main cast and start fresh with Allan the Alien or something. This might actually be the real appeal of the comic.
Either way. we don’t see much of the world in mourning after a global attack by Invincibites and the Cavity Creeps so we’ll have to wait another issue before we see the global Anit-Invincible movement getting up to steam. Also, that is Mark claiming that he’s going to go all Dirty Harry some time in the future. Can’t wait.
If Sharlton Copley is not up for an Oscar for best actor this year I will be very disappointed. Eric Bana deserved on for his jocular killer in Chopper, Russel Crowe deserved on for his steeley eyed racist in Romper Stomper and Edward Norton deserved on for his Nazi-sympathizing lead in American History X.
As “Wickers” (that’s how I heard it – it’s Wikus) Sharlton plays the kind of casual racist who seldom gets to be front and center; a man so craven and cowardly that his old bold act is to proclaim that he loves his wife and that he thinks she is an angel. He casually refers to the Aliens as “The Prawn” in much the same way a southern preacher might put forth “The Negro” circa 1844. Wickers is weak, obsequious and in love with the limited authority being the boss’ son in law gives him. He doesn’t appear to seek the lime-light, save for the appreciation of his superiors and as a career bureaucrat he would put Hermes Conrad to shame, going so far as to point out the contraband around him even as he is being helped by the very people he casually dismisses as lower than him.
It is this performance, a real, vivid and at times sympathetic performance around which District 9 is drawn. The sweaty, craven center of an amazing film tootsie-pop. He cows to criminals and is easily frightened by the (typical) bald headed psychopath [security officer] who [we learn later] is in it for the killing. The effects are great, the Aliens alive and interesting and the action sequences are legitimate action sequences, especially the very first bit of surprise action, which I will endeavour not to spoil.
There are two scenes that shine, the first is when Wikus is alone and dealing with his lot in life, the desperation, the need to hide his troubles from his friends and family; the second is the “twist” moment when Wikus is faced with the hard realities of his life and his place in the world. The entire theatre held their collective breath and my wife was stricken by it, the performance was that powerful, his pleading, his praying his wishes for it to be taken from him. Breathtakingly real and authentic.
I would hazard to rate this the greatest movie of 2009; greater than any single movie that has arrived this year. Please, do not pass on a chance to visit a theater and see this movie
After about what 10 issues of “Let’s Shit on the main cast some more” we get an issue where Rick is neither a giant blubbering douche or leading his son into mortal danger. While it opens with Dale getting served as a nice leg-o-retiree but at least it’s amusing; see, Dale is laughing! It’s not all bad being kidnapped by cannibals during a zombie apocalypse, clearly there’s some kind of upside.
The Cannibals would be a nice change of pace if it wasn’t for the roving rapists from a few issues back. The Man’s inhumanity towards man plotline was pretty much settled during the climax of the fourth year with Rick losing his entire family and 75% of the main cast dying. Adding more “Oh, here’s some more people who gave up on humanity after the big die off” is just ridiculous, it might be more realistic (in comic logic) but it’s not really. People tend to bunch up in adversity and while some fall to criminality and lawlessness, the majority try to get by and survive, a cannibal community doesn’t exactly have survival in mind, does it?
Oh well, overlooking this clunker of a plot point (seriously, it just sets up more people for murder by Rick and Son and doesn’t really make them any more heroic, just bloody handed) besides all that we don’t get to hear from the magic phone in this issue (so no insight into Rick’s mental state either). There is a bit of action too, but it’s more of the “RUN AWAY” kind:
I won’t spoil it, since it sets up the first really badass moment we’ve seen in a while.
So thank-you Mr. Kirkman for making Issue 64 interesting, maybe the thought of a TV Series won’t seem so bad in light of an equally uplifting issue 65
Smash Up Derby are the House Band At Bootie (A Mashup Dance Party) every 2nd and 4th Saturday in San Francisco.
Mashups (or Bootie or Bootmixes) are the blending of two or more songs to produce something that still sounds like the original components in some way; but also like something new. These can be frightening , freakish Frankenstein-like infernos, or they can be entertaining or amazing sometimes beautiful.
I imagine the easy criticism of a Mashup is that it is just a rip-off and mixing of someone else’s work. In many cases this is very true, simply laying lyrics from one accapella recording ont he melody of another song, no matter how novel isn’t really making something new out of it. However, sometimes a Mashup is simply something more.
The question of course that I’m heading towards is why I enjoy Mashups so much, it’s a form of nostalgia I imagine. I like the Mashup because I like the components the remind me of something, it’s perhaps a more relevant and entertaining of the “<adjective> movie” line of movies where the components are trotted out as if to say “remember this?” but in a way that doesn’t make you want to slap Kal Penn.
Here are a couple sites to check out MAshups
Youtube – Search for “Artist Name Mashup” you’ll find something.
Dev/Null links to some good stuff
Of course on “The Google” you can search for Mashups, Bootmixes, Bootlegs, etc…
Enjoy!
Sigh, yet another top ten list on Digg. Every day another list. Crappy Top Ten lists (except for cracked who seem to have a good handle on such things) are thick on the ground these days and getting thicker. Why bother with a substantive article about 80s nostalgia and the vagaries of movie production when one can just list their favorite tv shows and say “wouldn’t it be cool if Ice-T played Snarf?”
If you missed it; Ice-T played a mutant kangaroo in “Tank Girl”, it’s not a stretch to put him in a Snarf suit.
Face it; no cartoon you enjoyed as a child will ever be a great movie.
Some movie adaptions of cartoons can be “acceptable” (I’m looking at you GiJoe and Masters of the Universe) but they can easily slide into awful (you too GiJoe, Masters of the Universe and Transformers, Flintstones, Spiderman 3, Batman Forever, Catwoman, etc).
I imagine the reason for this is the same reason we can’t enjoy the same music universally because our individual tastes and cultural lenses are so unique. When someone tries to interpret why a given concept was so good, their own biases and interpretations will inevitably change the subject to meet their own vision, ruining it for everyone else who “loves it” as much as they do.
Take for example the “Addams Family” excepting the cultural touchstones that were added to the modern movie interpretations, the spirit of the original subject matter remains the same. The characters are fairly tight copies of the originals, the house is a bigger budget version of the original and while more fleshed out than the original material, there were no significant characterization changes made.
Compare this to “The Transformers” the stoic warriors from Cybertron who crashed to earth during the cretaceous period and spent millions of years in metal hibernation only to resume their fight in the modern era are replaced with pod robots who are clumsy led by a robot from Cybertron who says “My Bad” and another robot who pees on people.
This is a quality remake? No this is inevitable. Michael Bay looked at the Transformers and saw an opportunity to make his Robot Buddy movie. A metal Bad Boys.
Except Transformers isn’t about cops or drugs or LA cultural commentary; it’s about an ancient war for scarce resources on an alien planet fought by refugees. This is where any adaption for movies would fall apart except in the most skillful of hands, because if you catch my drift from before, my interpretation is probably inaccurate for the general public too.
In 10 years, someone will remake Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
If someone was to remake Harry Potter as a homosexual love triangle between Snape, Draco and Harry it would still sell tickets, regardless of its fidelity to the source material. This is the state of media and storytelling. There is almost always an audience, but it takes a deft touch to reach a plurality of that audience. Even when that audience is made up of fans of the subject matter.
The Harry Potter movies may even be a great example of why Cartoon Movie Remakes are doomed to failure. Harry Potter is (for the most part) the consistent vision of a single creator telling a continuous story. Cartoons are (with few exceptions) the product of multiple creators over many years often facing competing visions and cultural pressures. Even the venerable South Park has uneven storytelling and writing, with wildly vacillating moral mores. If a cartoon that has creators and producers who are so committed can be so wildly uneven, how can a toy-driven cartoon like “Thundercats” ever hope to be captured as a widely accepted and even acclaimed live-action product?
Fans who came to a product later in life would have a much different view of it if the cultural norms that bore it were no longer remembered or relevant. GiJoe may have been about an advanced fighting force against a faceless and aggressive terrorist force, but there was a none-to-subtle “USA” vs “Russia” element that hung around it. The GiJoe comics gave Cobra a more American origin (making Cobra a domestic Terrorist organization led by a former salesman no less – how Postman). This proved to be somewhat more challenging to put on film, the producers and writers opting for “The Cobra Origin Story” instead of any concrete discussion of the Joes and their purpose (hint, in the 80s the Joes were formed to combat Cobra, or not, depending on who was at the reigns that day)
Which brings me back to my initial point, while reading this you’ve been thinking that here and there I’ve misinterpreted something about one of the cartoons or TV shows I’ve been talking about. Or more egregiously praised or condemned something that you feel was worthy of neither or both. Which is the crux of my previous piece on music and this as well. Appreciation of art or creative works is so subjective, one cannot hope to please a plurality of people without first rendering the subject so inoffensive or so bland so as to remove all unique qualities from it, unless of course the work itself IS unqiue. Remakes, by their very nature cannot be unique and instead must be reduced to their base elements in order to (if you will excuse the term) hit all the targets at once. Thus Transformers was “Names, Object labels and Basic story” and Gi-Joe is “The Origin of Cobra” and Masters of the Universe was “Set AFTER the cartoon when Skeletor has won” because faithful remakes are impossible and are avoided by the very people who make them.
I strongly disliked the Michael Bay “Transformers” movie. So much so that I didn’t crack the DVD my Mother in Law got me for Xmas. It’s sitting up on my Random Crap shelf with some tea lights and Mr. Skull. I hated the way the source material was just “character names, object labels and places” then the rest was just drek. G.i. Joe:Rise of Cobra may not be the Museum Quality reproduction of the source material that say “Sin City” was; but it’s no Wing Commander (AND I LIKED WING COMMANDER).
They do in fact toss out “Yo, Joe!” on occasion, there is some fist pumping when “good things” happen for the “good guys”. The Joes are pretty much and inoffensive, well-armed and proactive UN NATO strike team (mostly staffed and led by Americans). It loses the “American Hero” aspect but gains some credibility, in a “near future” world, post Iraq and Afghanistan, would NATO allow the Americans to concentrate and recruit the best and most quirky soldiers from their ranks? Probably not, but from a secret base in a Torture friendly nation, sure!
I’m going to try and dance around the movie a bit; as I want to encourage at least one other G.i. Joe fan to see it before the week is out. I’ll break it down like this; if you liked the Original Mummy and don’t mind a bunch of clunking dialog (“you said that knowing is half the battle”) then this movie is for you. There’s a couple of really great fight scenes, a great car chase and the “accelerator suits” give some of the best acrobatic run and gun sequences in the movie (they made it awesome, haters)
The concept of how Cobra is coming to “rise” is fairly believable; having the backing of the worlds largest arms manufacturer. No prizes for guessing his identity. I walked into the movie knowing who would turn out to be Cobra Commander; but I have to admit that the movie threw me a rope-a-dope on the big reveal, the only early Cobra character left out of this movie was “Major Bludd” who I guess we’ll see in a later movie if this weekend goes well.
I’m struggling with how to portray this movie as a “good” movie without giving away the plot. Everything that was set up by the general consensus as “this too will suck” really didn’t suck. It was charming. The plot is just a way to get from fight A to chase B and on to explosion C. There are thudding lines like “you and what army? My ARMY” cue giant vehicle and surrounding allies. It’s hokey and obvious and that is why it is a positive thing.
This is a movie based upon an unabashed boys toy that was simply a series of flashy space-age weapons with ever-more outrageous features. This movie accurately captures that idea, super weapons and overpowered soldiers slamming into each other for goals that are outrageous; but not overtly national in their scope.
I strongly recommend this movie; if only for the spectacle and I promise no urine or genital jokes at all.
Utter Bullcrap, Why Bother recording it?
Published by NiteMayr on August 25, 2009Didn’t we have enough Norah Jones when Norah Jones was doing it? This is the most vanilla boring song that has ever lurched from my speakers during a commercial. Moby might be able to get away with it, but Jewel learned to her chagrin that while Jingles are memorable, if your song is one, you suck.