Clint Eastwood To Play Jim Gordon In Nolan’s Forthcoming Batman Flick?

This caught my eye this weekend: www.superherohype.com reports that Eastwood may be up for part of Commissioner Gordon in the forthcoming Batman flick “BATMAN:INTIMIDATION GAME” that will be directed by Christopher Nolan. Eastwood would be a brilliant pick (though I do think that he is a tad old for the role if we look at Gordon’s age in the comics). This is yet another hopeful sign that Warner is trying to insure that this is a first-rate production in all regards.

The only thing that I hope that they do remove it Batman wearing his undies on the outside of his costume. It does look pretty lame! On a side note, I noticed that when Bryan Hitch was on JLA that he did almost everything to get away from drawing those stupid undies on Bat’s outfit (by utilizing shadows, various scene angles etc.). Thank you , Bryan!

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Batman Intimidation Game? Warner Registers URL Name For Forthcoming Batman Movie

Warner’s forthcoming Christopher Nolan directed Batman flick (which has cast Christian Bale as the brooding Dark Knight) has taken another step or two this past week. One curious step includes Warner registering the domain name www.batmanintimidationgame.com this past week. It appears that we’ve gone from a working title of Batman: Intimidation to Batman:Intimidation Game. Works for me!

This film (in pre-production stage) already has some serious fan appeal with Nolan in the director’s chair and Bale cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman. It has also been rumoured that Michael Caine has been cast as Wayne’s butler Aldred Pennyworth. I dare say that unless the film gets trapped in spoof/campiness, this may become the definitive Batman film that fans and general readers have yearned for since the charcter first appeared in the late 1930′s!

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Brown Bunny Trailer!

The movie The Brown Bunny got some truly devastating reviews at Cannes. It’s a long boring movie where nothing happens until the end when the ostensible hero gets pleasured by his girlfriend.

Now we have the trailer which couldn’t possibly convince anyone to see it. I mean, the trailer is bad! This is a movie which is going to do boffo blockbuster earnings just from people wondering how bad it could be. (Note: trailer contains nudity.)

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hmmm. That’s all good food. Excellent turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving.

If you’re from Canada, which celebrates Thanksgiving in October, oh well… if you’re British or French… not your day either.

It’s ours and it is lovely.

Have a good one, all.

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“How big can it be?

What, no one around here notices when the newest comic-book-to-movie trailer comes out? Sheesh.

Hellboy trailer. Online. In Quicktime. Click here and watch.

Personally, I’ve never read any Hellboy, but I’ll get to correcting that quite soon, I imagine. Something about this trailer gets to me– maybe the inherent silliness contrasted with the dark subject matter, or the superb makeup for the title character, or the fact that Selma Blair has somehow become even more adorable. It might very well be the delivery of “Ya missed!”, which I am literally unable to get tired of.

I say that we should all support this film. To not support Ron Perlman is to be un-American.

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American Gods, Innovation and the Ground Breakers

Check this out, dudes!

There is a well written article called ‘AMERICAN GODS’ that has been posted by the Village Voice. The issue also sports a controversial cover by Alex Ross in which Uncle Sam is giving the reader ‘the bird’!

Without overreacting to the image, I highly recommend that you give R.C. Baker’s article an attentive read over. It is a very solid synopsis of the role of comics and comic book art within American life since the 1930′s. It discusses the pivotal roles of Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, and Alex Ross and how they respectively impacted the eras in which they broke new ground for the comic books.

Despite what some other Monitor Duty contributors have said about Ross’s ‘Uncle Sam’, I personally enjoyed it on a number of levels. Is it flawed? Yes it is. Yet it also facilitates another interpretation/voice of how “the west was won” (in a manner of speaking) and where it may be headed.

I highly recommended this ‘AMERICAN GODS’ article for its brevity, intelligence and punch.

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Michael Caine is Alfred

It was reported in Variety.

I saw it at SuperHeroHype.

You’re seeing it here.

Michael Caine has been officially cast as Alfred Pennyworth in the next Batman flick, Intimidation Game.

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Astro City…. the movie?

The only reason that that last bit is the least bit relevent… Comics Continuum reports that the first steps have been taken towards an Astro City movie.

Incredibly, I’ve never read an issue of Astro City in my life; but I’ve always wanted to. I know from personal experience that Kurt Busiek does good work…. blah. I love the concepts in and of Astro City and soon we’ll get to see them move!

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is it just me? or is…

Kurt Busiek getting greyer…?

I don’t remember him so old….

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well, looks like they’re here for the near future, at least

Comics Continuum has CrossGen Entertainment’s solicitation information for February.

Chuck Dixon is still writing three titles for CGE, and Way of the Rat has an ‘all-monkey issue’ coming up. Sweet.

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more of Halle Berry on Catwoman

In an interview with comingsoon.net Halle Berry discussed Catwoman, among other things

“I do wear a mask in this one, and what I like a lot about this script is that it harkens back to the Catwomen of the past. Like we’re not presenting that I’m the only Catwoman. I’m one of nine Catwomen. We believe there are nine Catwomen in this life and I’m one of them. I would be the sixth or fifth one. And so, there are scenes where they talk about, yeah you know, that really great Catwoman on the east coast, which is supposed to be Michelle Pfeiffer. It leaves room for us to appreciate the ones of the past and also make a space for this new Catwoman version which is mine who is a little more 2004.”

By “the past” she is apparently referring to Eartha Kitt, as she has before in other interviews. I’d also like to point out that “a little more 2004″ is an utterly meaningless statement…. especially to someone who remembers the statement “this is the nineties, man!” 2004 doesn’t seem that much different from 2003, especially since I won’t be graduating.

“The costume is a little bit more sexy than the costumes of the past,”

This is highly subjective. Does she mean “whore-ish”? Lordy, I really don’t understand how this fleshtacular S&M suit can be considered more sexy than any of those fine cat-suits (pun not intended) of the sixties.

she’s a little bit more urban, and hopefully we’ll find a right tone for her that will make her like the other ones, but somehow different at the same time.”

This is vague.

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Natalie Portman as Lois Lane?!

It’s just a rumor, but this whole thing would just feel slightly wrong to me. For one thing she’s younger than I am! Experienced seasoned reporter, or some fresh-faced kid…. frankly she’d more be like my love interest than Superman’s!

Beyond that, I also don’t think she has the figure for Lois Lane, but these are highly subjective opinions.

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another Superman/Seinfeld credit card commercial, but with a special guest-star

Because it’s not in a seperate article, I’m stealing it outright from the Superman Homepage:

November 19/2003: New Seinfeld/Superman Commercial Starring Noel Neill

An animated Superman is set to team-up once again with comedian Jerry Seinfeld for a new American Express commercial.
The commerical has Jerry Seinfeld and an animated (cartoon) Superman on a road trip across America, getting into various mishaps along the way, ultimately being saved by using the American Express Card. Reportedly it will be both a 3-4 minute internet commerical, and a short commerical during the Superbowl.

Having just read his copy of Noel Neill’s book “Truth, Justice, & The American Way”, Jerry specifically asked that Noel Neill (the original Lois Lane) be in the commerical. Amazingly, he also secured A-List director Barry Levinson to direct the piece.

Noel was flown to Las Vegas, then transported 3-hours to a hotel in the middle of Death Valley, then the next day was driven an additional 1-hour to the set, on a lonely stretch of highway in the desert. With a crew of 45 people, Noel’s piece was completed in one day. Jerry and the crew, on by one, expressed their admiration for Noel and her work, using the word “icon” numerous times, and all seemingly wanting to have their photo taken with her.

Jerry himself described Noel as: “Such a legendary performer.”

The trouper that she is, Noel never left the set and tirelessly worked all-day long. After the sun set, she was transported back to the hotel, and early the next day, back to Los Angeles.

If only I had a faster internet connection. I remember the first one; it was funny.

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2003 Marvel Masterworks Survey

I’m tired so I’m just going to phone this one in, thus let’s hear it from Schatzie:

Be sure to vote in the 2003 Marvel Masterworks Survey!

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Richard Dragon’s back!

Chuck Dixon returns to DC Comics and even more importantly DC’s master of kung fu fighting has returned. The master of comics multi-tasking takes the fighter back to his roots last regularly seen in the Richard Dragon series back in the seventies. No longer is Dragon the mere instructor he was in The Question or Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood. Richard Dragon is back as a warrior. Also returning is the Bronze Tiger, who brings Dragon to Bludhaven.

Richard Dragon was created in the 1970s by Denny O’Neil, who of course wrote several Batman titles and eventually edited them. Dragon as he appeared originally was a fighter and within that series was the first appearance of many characters that went on to appear in so many other stories written by O’Neil, Dixon, and others like John Ostrander and Greg Rucka. Characters like the Sensei, the Bronze Tiger, and Lady Shiva appeared in Richard Dragon and all later went on to fight Batman, and two of them served quasi-heroic roles.

The only thing this whole deal really calls into question is the continuing future of such CrossGen Comics titles such as Brath, El Cazador, and Way of the Rat.

Scott McDaniel is pencilling this series and is thus re-teaming with Dixon. McDaniel rocks.

Thanks to thePopa for the notifier.

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George Perez to finish his Games

It’s genuinely hard to choose a gag. Is he finished playing games? No, games are hard work. No, Games is hard work.

Actually, now that many of his prior obligations are over and/or have been completed, most notably JLA/Avengers, George Perez has been wooed back to finish the work that he and Marv Wolfman started back in 1989, the second Titans graphic novel, Titans: Games.

Some attentive people will ask which was the first Titans graphic novel. The answer is in the Newsarama article.

Some fans have been waiting forever for this. It’s coming out some time in 2004.

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MD Review: Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams

Today being my birthday, my lovely wife presented me with the first volume of Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams, the new collection of every batman story and cover that the modern master did, in chronological order.

I have always loved Neal Adams’ work, and I will take that further and say that it is because of his work that I became an artist. He, like Alex Ross, comes to comics with not only great talent but a determination to use every tool at his disposal to make the storytelling medium look more like reality than it ever did before.

This book, the first of three, shows how the young upstart at DC brought his experience from advertising, illustration, and daily comic-strip storytelling into focus on his new love, the comic book–and transform it into a recognized art form.

Just looking through the book, one can see the transformation of Batman from the campy ’60s Caped Crusader to the brooding, serious Darknight Detective. I can almost see his ears growing longer and sharper…

The book itself is well designed and has a great book jacket. One odd thing is that the first five stories seem to have been recolored digitally, but the rest of the book is standard four color. Perhaps they ran close to the deadline? In any case the book is suitable for the library of the urbane fanboy.

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Snake Plissken Slithers Into A New Controversy

Putting the CrossGen fiasco behind them Hurricane Entertainment has found a new controversy to immerse Snake Plissken in. It seems that the central plot of the first story-arc in John Carpenter’s Snake Plissken Chronicles revolves around Snake stealing the Lincoln Continental that President John F. Kennedy was shot in. Issue #3 will see a “Very dark, very tongue in cheek” reenactment of the assassination. But with the shake-up at CrossGen that issue’s ship date had to be pushed back and will now be hitting store shelves shortly after the 40th anniversary of the real Kennedy assassination. The company has said the timing was not intentional and they are sorry if they offended anyone as that was not their intent. But they have no plans to change the story.

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Family Guy Movie Out…New TV Season In

Remember when letter writing campaigns were the means by which small pockets of rabid fans got their favorite cancelled shows back on the air? Well here’s a twist on that: DVD sales of The Family Guy are so high that 20th Century Fox are thinking about pulling the upcoming Family Guy feature film in favor of reviving the show on regular television.

Hey, this could be the new litmus test of a show’s true fan base! Until it’s abused, that is. I can forsee the suits “cancelling” semi-popular two season shows just to get big sales on the dvd during the summer, and then claiming high dvd sales as the reason to order another 22 episodes. Money in the bank.

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hmmmm. veal

Now I know what we must do with this inanimate valued bovine. We must sell it on eBay and put the proceeds towards our very own…. I want a giant TV.

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