Okay friends of the nerd community, things are really going your way this week. Don’t ever say I didn’t do nothing for your chosen mediums of expression. This is a followup to the earlier post about BLACK DYNAMITE in cartoon and comics forms. This time Scott Sanders sent me a couple pictures from the cartoon so you can see what it’s gonna look like. (read the rest of this shit…)
Black Dynamite cartoon photos
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
There’s this new movie about owls, directed by Zack Snyder. Turns out it’s based on a series of children’s books called “Guardians of Ga’Hoole.” Warner Brothers didn’t want to use that title because they were worried nobody would know what “Ga’Hoole” meant. And it’s true, because to me it sounds like Ga’Hoole must be either a) the place where these “Guardians” are from, or b) a place that they guard, and they’re from some other place. It’s definitely one of those two options, but I don’t know for sure which one, so obviously that’s a huge, huge communication problem there, I’d just get so confused I’d never be able to watch the movie.
So they came up with the title LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS. Completely generic and bland, not descriptive at all, almost sounds like a made up title. Perfect! But after the first trailer came out they must’ve got a call from the Weinsteins saying come on you pricks, you can’t use a generic title like that, we need that to rename a Jet Li movie. You can’t fuck us like this, do you know who we are? We own this fucking town! We did SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. You don’t know who you’re fucking with you little pissants! Also the Dragon Dynasty series of DVDs, we did those also! We will crush you and make somebody else wipe you up, and then we will pointedly undertip them for their efforts! FUCK YOU WARNER BROTHERS YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME.
So Warner Brothers is like oh shit, those guys did the SCARY MOVIE series, they mean business. So they added the subtitle “The Owls of Ga’Hoole,” so we know now Ga’Hoole must be a place where some owls live, at least according to legend. That makes the full title LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE: THE 3-D IMAX EXPERIENCE. Which is a mouthful of a title for a movie everybody is obviously gonna just call OWL 300. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Town
THE TOWN is a real well done, more-realistic-than-most crime drama. Not exactly a heist movie, because although it’s leading up to an elaborate caper it’s not as much about the planning and executing of the thing as it is about the people who do it. It’s also one of these movies people from Boston make where they’re real anxious to show off every last detail about the Boston neighborhoods and culture. I haven’t been there much so I got no clue how accurate it is, but it seems believable enough. There’s a part where they have coffee at Dunk’n Donuts, that part was real I know. (read the rest of this shit…)
Required reading: David Bordwell’s Bond vs. Chan essay
Mouth and several others have sent me the link to this blog post by the film academician David Bordwell. (Unfortunately he never mentions Seagal in there, so I can’t call him ‘fellow Seagalogist’ or ‘my esteemed colleague.’ And I’m not familiar enough with his work to call him ‘Dave.’)
It’s a good one and I figure it oughta be on the reading list. Basically he does a shot-by-shot analysis (with screen grabs) of a fight scene from the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES and one from the Jackie Chan movie RIGHTING WRONGS. He shows how in the Bond scene the hits or even the enemies are often off screen, and shows how the Chan scene is designed to show fluid and clear movement. He also makes a good point about how the Chan scene is able to use very quick shots and still be understandable, which proves that the problem with that Michael Bay style is more than just the editing.
The Phantom (2009)
There’s a new version of THE PHANTOM out on DVD that tries to be BATMAN-BEGINS-realistic instead of old-fashioned-serial-goofy. It uses the same concept of the Walker family and associates passing down the name and methods of The Ghost Who Walks, but in the context of the modern world. You know, computers and internet and shit. The new Phantom can do acrobatics and what not but not because of jungle training. He does it because he’s a parkour dude. I actually thought that was a good way to explain it. I just didn’t like the dad saying, “None of this parkay stuff” and the kid whines “Daaa-aad, it’s called parkour!”
This new Phantom (Ryan Carnes) is a young pretty boy law student, what is commonly referred to as a bag containing douche. He’s not rich like Batman, Iron Man or Green Hornet, but he follows that same currently popular super hero formula of self-absorbed do-nothing finds his purpose through a masked alternative lifestyle. These stories tell us that you will never truly be happy with yourself until you help others. The Fountainhead would hate the Phantom. Actually, The Fountainhead would be a really good nemesis for a future Phantom movie. The Phantom could rescue people from his building before he blows it up. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Phantom
You know what movie gets a bad rap, or unfairly ignored? Well, you probly already guessed it’s gonna be the one I wrote the title of above and then there’s a picture of it to the left. Maybe this is not the best format for a guessing game of this type, now that I think about it. If that’s your answer then you are correct, THE PHANTOM from 1996 starring Billy Zane gets a bad rap or is unfairly ignored.
I’m sure in its darkest moments THE PHANTOM believes that nobody understands it, but it doesn’t care. It knows what it is. It’s comfortable with itself. I mean, I don’t know how you guys feel about slamming evil, but THE PHANTOM is all about slamming evil according to the American poster, and I think it does a good job of making the slamming of evil entertaining. (read the rest of this shit…)
Streets of Fire
You guys ever heard of this one?
Okay, you were right, STREETS OF FIRE is pretty cool. I was a little skeptical because the poster calls it “A Rock & Roll Fable,” which is not really one of my top kinds of fables. I’m more of a free jazz fable type of guy, I like SPACE IS THE PLACE. Also I got some prejudices against the ’80s rock and the retro ’50s style fetishes. Luckily the singer gets kidnapped for most of the movie, so the long onstage performances are only at the beginning and end. It’s not a rock musical or anything. (read the rest of this shit…)
Black Dynamite cartoons and what not
You know when you got a relative who thinks you’re into, say, motorcycle races or whatever, so every time they find a newspaper article that has a motorcycle in it they clip it out and send it to you? And you don’t really feel like you need to read about “Motorcycle Trail raises money for scholarships” or “Harley-Riding Lawyer Part of Biker Group That Helps Abused Pets,” but it’s kind of sweet anyway? Well, that’s gonna be me right now, I am that relative for you guys.
But this is one clipping that’s gonna bring us closer together. You know how some of you guys love comics strips and cartoons? And you know how we all love the movie BLACK DYNAMITE? Trust me, this is going somewhere, these two things are gonna connect together somehow, you’ll see when you click to the rest of the article. THis is gonna blow your fuckin mind right out the back of your fuckin mind container. (read the rest of this shit…)
Vern Tells It Like It Is for September 19th, 2010: Of Storms and Stadiums
I don’t really do these columns anymore, but what the hell. Here is a column I want to write. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. It’s a free country.
I thought this was gonna be a followup or update to a previous column, but using the power of search engines I can’t figure out where I wrote about this topic before. I don’t know if it was in some talkback or comments or on the door of a bathroom stall or what but I could’ve sworn that somewhere I wrote about the phenomenon of the multi-millionaire owners of professional sports teams blackmailing taxpayers into building them unnecessary new stadiums. So forgive me if I repeat myself here.
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Nerd shit
To show that I’m not above it I will comment on the news that set off the recent Superman conversation: that Zack Snyder is on a list of potential directors for the new Superman picture. I thought about it and I think actually Snyder might work well with David S. Goyer, who wrote the script, so I’m for it. Also on the list is David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones, who did MOON. I have no idea if he can pull off a big studio movie, but he seems like the most interesting director on the list.
Also they’re saying Darren Aranofsky now. I’d see that. It could be Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD, LET ME IN, co-creator of an old TV show called Felicity). And Jonathan Liebesman (TEXAS CHAINSAW reprequel) most likely based on the alien invasion movie he has coming out, but he’s also supposed to do CLASH OF THE TITANS 2: THE RE-CLASH.
But the rule is they always go with the worst guy on the list, so congratulations to Tony Scott, who will direct the first Superman movie where nobody can tell if the guy is supposed to be flying or not.
September 28th, 2010 | 501 Comments »