I love this quote: “Caesar will always look computer generated in the same way Roger Rabbit will always be a cartoon, but his face expresses more genuine human emotion than James Franco ever will.”
via It’s Uncanny, This Valley: The Ups And Downs Of Cinematic CGI InHumanity
Maybe my math is off, but a show that debuted at the tail end of 1963 should be two years away from an anniversary. Still, I always loved Doctor Who when I was growing up, and I don’t mind it getting some hype.
I suppose it’s “hipster” of me to be a little resentful of how popular the show is now, considering I loved it back in the day when it was filmed in rock quarries and the budget for an episode was about as much as a phaser blast special effect cost on Star Trek. If there’s one thing that bugs me, it’s how the show almost never refers to the old series, which is why I appreciate that there are a few appearances in that new marathon promo above. Granted, the series is a hit precisely because you’re not obligated to know any old continuity, but the way it almost pretends that nothing came before Doctor #9 (whatsisname…the one that looks like a soccer hooligan) gets a little irritating.
I don’t buy many of the classic DVDs simply because of the cost. I realize that the episodes are as long as a movie sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I want to pay $20 to watch “Kinda”. Still, I think it’s awesome that they are spiffing up a few of the older episodes with special editions. Check out the promo for the new “Day of the Daleks” Special Edition.
Honestly, I watched this episode once a long time ago and it was a dull bore, culminating in a face-off with UNIT and three rickety Daleks. Now it has been enhanced with new footage shot in the same location. (Oh, but the original is also included. TAKE THAT, GEORGE LUCAS!)
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: Yes, I do buy the occasional Doctor Who DVD. I own “The Five Doctors” and the Tom Baker story, “The Ark In Space.” (Elizabeth Sladen, who passed away from cancer this year after a career resurgence making new Doctor Who appearances and “The Sarah Jane Adventures“, has a commentary on “Ark”.) There are a few that have been on my wish list as I wait for the price to come down a bit: Sylvester McCoy’s “Remembrance of the Daleks” (inarguably one of his best episodes), the classic “Earthshock,” and the 2084 cold war story “Warriors of the Deep” (those of you against CGI’d special editions should take a look at the Myrka in this one and imagine how much better the story could have been with a little help from ILM).
I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that Green Lantern tried to do too much and pack in too much exposition. But just in case you haven’t heard it enough: Why Iron Man Succeeded Where Green Lantern Failed.
It’s funny. As soon as I saw two criminals mule-kicking the door of a house in broad daylight, I knew it was a movie from England. But if they’re speaking English, why aren’t they talking? Usually, when a trailer is wordless, it’s because it’s foreign and they’re angling to lure in the unsuspecting without telling them there are subtitles.
Then I realized why they weren’t including dialogue in the trailer for Kill List:
Cracked.com had a photo contest urging people to make pulpy, b-movie posters for classic A-List movies.
You have to see the Fargo one.
The Comics Reporter has a page or exhibition for a newspaper strip collection for our Man of Steel:
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/go_look_massive_superman_newspaper_strip_repository/
I
am unclear which as I have not read it yet.
7 Examples of Misguided Superhero Casting – Holytaco.
I don’t care what anyone says. Winchester from M.A.S.H. was certainly the right voice for J’onn J’onzz, and while he may be out of shape, he was going to be a shadowy advisor to the League. It’s not a terrible idea.
SHOCKER! Disney Halts ‘The Lone Ranger’ With Johnny Depp And Gore Verbinski – Deadline.com.
Disney allegedly halted production of “The Lone Ranger” because of the $200 million price tag.
*sputter* $200 million??? Two hundred million DOLLARS to make a western where two guys ride on horses firing guns at other guys on horses?
Guys, you don’t have to use actual silver for the bullets.
I’m truly baffled. Westerns used to be the bread and butter of Hollywood because you got the most bang for your buck. A standard western town lot, some horsies, some guns, a lot of money for the stunt men… and bang, you’ve got a movie. There’s no reason on God’s green Earth that a western should be costing Lord of the Rings prices.
“The Lone Ranger”, if you focus on STORY, should be the kind of cheap film that a studio uses to balance out the gaudy tentpoles. Something tells me I don’t want to see a Lone Ranger that costs $200 million-plus.
I certainly don’t want to see a 3D Three Musketeers movie that needed to add CGI war blimps.
I just watched Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland” because I was clearing out the DVR. (We had gotten a free movie channels weekend, which offered me a great opportunity to fill the DVR with movies I would never pay to see like Alice in Wonderland, Predators, Transformers 2, The Sorceror’s Apprentice, etc.) I found “Alice” to be incredibly overwrought and dull in that “Isn’t it astounding what you can do with a squizillion dollars of computer graphics?” way that many big blockbusters are.
Johnny Depp’s overacting is painful just as it was in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, with the added bonus of being pedo-creepy in that he gives the Mad Hatter a crush on a girl he previously met as a child (and Depp is twice her age as well). But I finally realized my big hang-up with Tim Burton movies:
What the hell is it about pasty white skin that Tim Burton thinks is so goddam enchanting?
Look, Beetlejuice was dead, and The Joker IS pasty white, and Edward Scissorhands is pale from never seeing the sun. I get that. But then, Catwoman and The Penguin were pasty white, too. I guess I attributed it to the wintry color scheme of the movie. And of course, the animated films about gruesome monsters and dead people would have pasty white skin. That makes sense. Pee-Wee Herman isn’t exactly George Hamilton, either, but that’s a pre-existing character.
But then you throw in films where the white skin clearly isn’t related to the character’s being dead or British, such as Sleepy Hollow, or Depp’s bizarre take on Willy Wonka as a Michael Jacksony freak, and it begins to look pathological. Then there’s the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, the White Queen and endless other Alice in Wonderland characters… You begin to suspect that Hollywood just keeps giving Tim Burton cash to make these garish films because without his career he’d just be hanging around mortuaries while vigorously abusing himself.
It is the Minnesota comic book convention that I will always remember, because I, the world’s biggest Elongated Man fan, got to meet Carmine Infantino. That prized issue of Flash that I owned, with the first appearance of Elongated Man? That guy there, in the front of the room taking questions from the audience, was the artist who drew that cover and thus created my favorite superhero! Wow.
Mrow!
Carmine was promoting his new book, “The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino,” and he regaled us of stories about working in comic books. He told us about the infamous cover of Batman that sold 1 million copies, and how the aggressive poses of Batgirl and Catwoman as they fought over the prone and helpless Batman was based on an idea by William Moulton Marston. He reflected on how the “Seduction of the Innocent” book was filled with a lot of baseless charges of sexual suggestion where there wasn’t any… but when it came to Marston’s work, yeah, that was probably pretty much true.
I was so nervous, but I finally saw an opportunity and raised my hand. I told him how I was the world’s biggest fan of his creation Elongated Man, I babbled on a bit about how I thought he had a lot of unrealized potential, and what did he think about Elongated Man now?
Carmine, looking rather perplexed by my devotion to his creation, narrowed his eyes a bit and asked, “You, uh, you’ve heard of Plastic Man, right?”
I’ll admit it. I was a little stunned. I had been defending Ralph Dibny as his own unique character for years. I explained to other fans time and again how they were different in personality, powers and their place in the DCU. And yet the guy who created him saw him as little more than a copy of Plastic Man!
Here’s a juicy tidbit for you: Elongated Man almost WAS Plastic Man! Had Carmine known that DC Comics had recently bought the rights to Plastic Man, then he never would have bothered with the unwieldy monicker of Elongated Man.
Now, does this mean that supervillain Ralph Dibny in his purple costume would have been named “Plastic Man”? Would he have been introduced as the new Silver Age Plastic Man, to someday encounter the Golden Age Plastic Man of Earth-2? Would the Eel O’Brien Plastic Man have appeared in the Flash as a villain, or as a hero? Or does Mr. Infantino mean that he would have scrapped the whole Elongated Man idea because DC owned “the real thing”? That is unclear.
So, he was almost a member of The Flash’s Rogues Gallery. And he was almost Plastic Man! He came within a hair of not even existing at all.
See what I mean about his being all wrong?
More to come, folks!
I got two and a half hours of sleep last night because I followed a link to TV Tropes.org.
No, I’m not even linking it. Go there at your own risk. That site is like a pop culture form of heroin.
Tomorrow, I will be painting my lawn furniture, and then working on some bills, and then hopefully finishing my Elongated Man piece. For now…I need sleep.
Worth it just to see the Batmobile!
No time for part two of Elongated Man tonight. And yes, I’m trying to redesign the site to look more comic booky.
You all know I like Elongated Man. “Like” being an understatement along the lines of “Chicago’s elections aren’t exactly spotless” or “Marilyn Monroe had some appeal.” I’ve written Elongated Man fan-fiction, ran “Dibny Dirt” until Identity Crisis came out, and still hope that someday Ralph and Sue Dibny will be restored somehow. Were I ever to write a superhero for DC, he’s the one I’d want to write. As in, I would turn down Batman to write Elongated Man.
I’ve liked him ever since I was a kid and I saw a page from Justice League of America #100, where the Flash calls him “Ralph” while they’re fighting bad guys and it merited an editor’s note: “Ralph ‘Elongated Man’ Dibny is the only superhero to make his identity known to the public.” I thought that was awesome because it made him different. I suppose it says something about me that the key to my liking him was an intriguing editor’s note.
There’s an element of rooting for the underdog, certainly. I’m sure it may be simply a contrarian nature, where I have to like the guy that no one likes so that it makes me different. But the plain fact is, I like him. I could read his adventures all day, and I truly enjoy them.
I think it’s because he’s all wrong.
I mean, look at him. He’s not muscular like any cover-space grabbing superhero should be. He’s handsome, I suppose, to the same extent that Keanu Reeves, David Schwimmer or Dick van Dyke are handsome but not hunky, smoldering, “make the ladies throw their panties handsome” a la Brad Pitt. He isn’t even marketable. He has a terribly goofy name that lends itself to double entendre, a secret identity that gets misspelled as “Digby” even by writers at DC Comics, and no logo. You know that JLA meeting table where everyone has a space-age chair with their logo or distinctive icon on the back? I don’t even know what Ralph’s chair has on it. I would bet you it’s an E that looks like it was written with spaghetti, and that’s disgraceful. (Granted, J’onn J’onzz has the planet Mars on his, so Ralph gets the Silver Medal for “worst chair”.) Why would they even create a superhero this bad?
They didn’t. He was supposed to be a supervillain.
Flash #112, the first appearance of Elongated Man
Elongated Man was created as the enemy of The Flash in issue #112 of “The Flash.” That’s why he doesn’t have a nice logo, handsome looks or a marketable name that could be the title of its own comic someday. It’s why he has red hair, not blonde (Flash, Green Arrow, Aquaman), brown (The Atom, Dr. Magnus, John Jones) or brunette/dark blue (Superman) like every other superhero on the market. It’s why he has a purple costume, as all of the Flash’s enemies have costumes with secondary colors to contrast with the Flash’s striking red and gold.
Once you realize this, then The Elongated Man makes a little sense. Mr. Element (green), Mirror Master (orange and green), Weather Wizard (green), Captain Cold (white and blue), Heat Wave (white), Golden Glider (looks orange), Captain Boomerang (blue), Trickster (orange and blech) …none of them have The Flash’s color scheme, and the few that have the primary color of blue have a pale blue. None have an iconic logo, and few have names that really sing; they were created to be catchy and distinctive, sure, but not to sell books in the same way that a protagonist is designed. Ralph Dibny is right up there with Len Snart, Digger Harkness, Sam Scudder, Hartley Rathaway, Mark Mardon and Roscoe Dillon as a name that’s distinctive but not awesome. (It’s not alliterative, nor is it two first names, nor is it macho.)
In this story, Elongated Man appears on the scene in Central City, having already made a name for himself in other cities. He rescues cats and stops crooks before The Flash can, and this makes the Flash jealous. Really, Barry Allen gets his nose out of joint like you wouldn’t believe just because another hero steals his thunder, and this makes the Flash suspicious of this new Elongated Man. When some vases are stolen from an inaccessible museum room, he realizes Elongated Man could have done it, and later ends up pursuing EM who tries to trap the Flash as seen on the cover.
It’s at this point in the story that creators John Broome and Carmine Infantino realized they liked Elongated Man as a superhero, and changed their minds about making him an enemy. Although Carmine never said this to me (I met him at FallCon long ago), I am also willing to bet they realized that he had zero potential as a recurring enemy of a guy who grabs bullets out of the air. I mean, really? He’s going to win against the Flash because his upper torso stretched around a tree to grab The Flash from behind? Doesn’t that mean that The Flash can be defeated by two normal people, so long as he doesn’t see the second guy?
So: Elongated Man would have been a member of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, except that the creators like him as a superhero, but they left all the trappings of the supervillain that they created.
Tomorrow, I’ll further explore more of how Elongated Man is the triple fried egg sandwich with chili sauce and chutney of the superhero set.
Artist Butch Guice’s birthday is today. Happy half-century, dude!
Last year, as Hollywood Video was closing its doors here in Rochester, MN, I was running around the place grabbing any movie that looked halfway decent… and a bunch that weren’t even that. If you think “Hump Day” sounds hilarious, you’re right: it sounds hilarious. The back of the DVD talks about two guys who dare each other to be in an amateur porn movie. (It doesn’t say that it’s just them in it, without women. “Zack and Miri” it ain’t!)
I thought the premise of Marines in Afghanistan taking on giant sand monsters sounded great, but “Sand Serpents” proved me wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P4qnyZtvao
And while I’ve thought all of my life that there is a truly great movie to be made from the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, the Tony Todd version of “Minotaur” was not it. Oh, it’s good, but not great. That one’s at least worth a watch.
So, did I find any real gems? Yes, I found one. “Infestation” is a great popcorn flick. It has good acting and a decent plot. In fact, I’d say it’s a very decent plot, inasmuch as it rarely has moments where you’re chiding the characters for doing something stupid. The dialogue has wit, and there’s a running gag that I won’t spoil but it’s excellent. The ending is rather unique, too.
Despite this being an event in Canada it is indicative about our own country’s legal policies regarding toys realistically resembling firearms.
WINDSOR, Ont. — A 25-year-old Windsor man who allegedly pointed a handgun at his neighbours was arrested on Wednesday after police officers surrounded his west end residence.
The three-hour standoff forced the lockdown of a nearby elementary school, and drew a police response that included tactical officers, body armour, submachine guns, sniper rifles, a police dog and the mobile command centre.
“We treat everything as real,” said Insp. Kirk Mason at the scene after the man had been taken into custody.
“There will be a search of the premises and hopefully we’ll come up with whatever it is that he was waving out the window at his neighbours.”
But the man’s friends accused police of overreacting, and said his supposed handgun was a toy.
“It’s a Transformer,” said William Findley, 24. “It turns into a Luger. It’s an 80s-style Transformer… He’s had a really bad day. People are treating him like crap.”
Findley said his friend had a pellet gun in the house at one point, but it was elsewhere at the time of the incident, and the only thing left resembling a weapon was his “Megatron” toy gun… Mason said the original call to police was that the man had become irate over his apparent eviction, and that he’d begun “screaming and yelling” and pointing what looked like a handgun out the window of his upstairs unit… Emily, who lives next door and didn’t want her last name published, said she also saw the man point a silver-coloured pistol… Mason said charges are pending. “We’re going to be looking at some weapon offences at the very least, but we’ll have to give it some time to get to the bottom of it.”
Mason said the response level was reasonable, and in accordance with procedure. “Everything went very smoothly, as usual,” he said.
Regarding the complaints of some in the neighbourhood, Mason said: “Well, I’ll let the neighbours be the judge. If somebody’s wagging a gun in your face… I would hope that would get police attention.”
Megatron, the toy robot in question, transforms into a Walther P38, actually.
That is beside the point, of course, that the toy in question transforms from a robot to an artifact that resembles a genuine firearm. It is my understanding that under current American law it is illegal to manufacture and sell toys that realistically resemble real guns. Necessarily these items could be used to alarm police. Some would say that this is for safety reasons but the real purpose is to compensate for an overly litigious age that desperately needs tort reform.
It does mean that no replicas of particular toys from my childhood will be reproduced.
I never did understand why a Decepticon Commander converted into a weapon for another individual to hold.
It’s only two photos. I don’t care. I’m excited it’s happening.