Theater Hopper on “Return of the King

Training the buttocks to withstand nine hours of movie watching

Was the workout a success?

Second feat of strength

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Ed Brubaker will arm-wrestle you for comics

On Friday December 19th Ed Brubaker is arm-wrestling people at Isotope – the comic book lounge for free copies of the new Sleeper Trade Paperback. Beat Brubaker and you get Free Comics.

Unfortunately for most of the strong-arms out there, that’s in San Fransisco.

Don’t worry for Brubaker though; worry for the consumers, Brubaker lives on a farm. (Of course, I live on a farm and… I’m not a farmer).

This is an interesting promotion. It shows how serious he is about promoting his work.

Thanks to Newsarama for the wonderful article and be wary when you click the link…. there’s vulgar non-adult f-word-type language there.

The Ed Brubaker Over The Top Armwrestlethon will be held from noon to midnight on Friday, December 19th at Isotope – the comic book lounge 1653 Noriega St in San Francisco

For more information go to the article.

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I, too will review The Lord of the Rings

I’m seeing a matinee of “The Return of the King” at 5:20 PM, baby!

I love this.

I feel soooooooo….. I love this.

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Darwyn Cooke interview regarding The New Frontier

Newsarama gives us an interview with Darwyne Cooke, and revealing slightly more about The New Frontier.

I’m looking forward to this. At six books of sixty-four pages each that sums up to 384 pages total, longer than Crisis At Infinite Earths. This is something taking place in the Silver Age, which to me that means we can get a story mixed in thoroughly with the appropriate ‘sense of wonder’ which has been missing in all of these so-called ‘realistic’ titles with ‘realistic’ aproaches. This isn’t a retro-piece nor is it an “Elseworlds”. We have something taking place in the Pre-Crisis DC Universe!

It’s a period-piece which has the characters working and acting in their own ‘present day’. When their original first appearances took place, the 1950s were present day.

According to Darwyn Cooke this is “The Right Stuff for superheroes”. I’m going to love this.

I can name many fans that are or will as well.

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Blurb this!

Speaking of Catholics reviewing movies, how about this? Pope gives two thumbs up to “The Passion of the Christ”

Wow. Do you think that will be on the posters encouraging others to see it? After all, how many other movies can boast that?

“An eye-popping thrill ride! The Core will have you on the edge of your seat!” — THE POPE
“A delight…Jim Carrey shines and touches the heart” — THE POPE
“American Pie is an American original! Two thumbs up!” — THE POPE
“Will change the way you think of hair gel!” — THE POPE

Okay, okay, I kid. But the Pope’s verdict on The Passion of the Christ is actually just the right size for a movie quote:

“It is as it was.”

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The Source and “Job Wanted

Just got off the phone with Nick at The Source of Comics and Games. I’ve praised the store (and Nick) before, because they are big supporters of local talent.

Nick was gung ho to carry Job Wanted and told me that they were ordering 50 copies from Diamond. I just found out today that they actually purchased about 75…and almost half of them are sold already! Simply amazing.

The Source will be having an event in late January featuring a local Xeric award winner and several other regional artists. I and hopefully Erik Burnham and Phil Meadows will be there. I will pass along the date and more details as I get them.

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LOTR Marathon

‘Rings’ Devotees Show Up for Debut of ‘King’

I don’t know that I could do a marathon in a theater. These movies are all very long, and they lack intermissions. This is an annoyance, frankly, since people consume refreshments and have the attendant bodily needs. In other words, monster-sized popcorn and a tankard of Pepsi ensure that you will have to dash out to use the restroom. It doesn’t help in this day and age where between the time you purchase your food and the movie starts you will have eaten all your refreshments during the 25 minutes of advertising, trailers and “Shh! Be quiet and throw away your litter” announcements.

Most of us are aware that theaters are getting the shaft from the movie companies. During the opening weeks those companies take almost all of the profits, and theaters only get to keep a greater percentage in the lagging weeks where most people stop going to the movie due to the DVD coming out next month. Theaters make their money on concession stands. Given that…wouldn’t a ten minute intermission in a 3-hour movie give people enough time to empty their bladders and then buy more food? Seems like good business sense to me.

Anyway, back to this “Marathon” discussion. I told my wife last night that my objective in the coming year is to sell our old furniture, remodel our living room and put in a widescreen projection TV in time to have an all-Saturday Extended Version party next November. You may want to pencil it in on your calendars if you’ll be around Rochester, MN.

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Steven Grant reviews Job Wanted

Steven Grant reviews Job Wanted today in his Master of the Obvious column.

Wish it was a better review, but I do appreciate that he read it and gave it some buzz.

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Reviews of “Return of the King

Eric Spratling’s review below should be taken with a grain of salt, in that he isn’t enthused about the first two films either. We all have our quibbles, but if you are inclined towards liking the first two films you’ll probably like this one even more.

What can I find in the way of reviews for you?

I’ll start with a negative one so that Eric won’t feel lonely. Stephen Whitty of the New Jersey Star-Ledger gripes that it’s a racist movie. Actually, he has a thin point. While reading The Two Towers, I noticed that the bad guys joining Sauron were described as having “black faces” and came from a land that had oliphaunts (elephants). But in the movie version, these same guys are white. In any case, there are enough white bad guys and monsters amongst the enemy that it doesn’t seem a fair complaint. And as Whitty observes, the only way to defuse complaints about “the sea of white faces” is to put in token black guys who would seem forcibly out of place, especially compared to the source material.

Ebert is his normal bitchy self in his review of “Return of the King”, leveling complaints about it that could be equally aimed at all films that aren’t Cannes-worthy unwatchable crap and picking up on the most minor of quibbles to make himself look more observant. Be warned, he also spoils a good deal of the plot details. Again, Ebert’s review is a grain of salt thing. He moans about how much better old movies were because they weren’t spectacles and cites of all things “Apocalypse Now,” a tediously unpleasant drug trippy film I once forced myself to sit through just because so many seem to like it.

Chuck Colson assesses the movie as to how it reflects the Catholicism of Tolkein, and he offers a number of links you may find informative at the end of it. Ross Mackenzie also analyzes the meaning of the books.

But atheist FlickFilosopher is also exultant. Simply put: Best. Film. Ever. Her money quote:

Jackson has proved to us, with the first two films, that he knows what he’s doing, and that only by, like, throwing in some Ewoks at the Battle of Pelennor Fields could he screw this up…

For a pantload of reviews, check out the Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes. With over 100 reviews in, the movie stands at 97% Approval on the Tomatometer!

We used to have a forum on the Fuzzball Forum just for movie discussions. Now you can do it in the main forum, but I’m setting up two threads. NEVER MIND – THIS LINK IS DEAD –One is for spoilers and the NEVER MIND – THIS LINK IS DEAD –other one is spoiler-free for those who haven’t seen it. I’m disabling the comments field below so that the discussion is taken there.

Speaking of which, I’ll see a matinee of Return of the King tomorrow and have a review for both of you who won’t have seen it by then.

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“Who are you?” “I’m the Party Pooper.

Yeah, so it looks like courtesy of a midnight screening, I’m the first MD-er to review Return of the King.

I know that the movie’s review-proof and all (TTT certainly proved that last year), but honestly… it’s awful. Terrible. At times it is howlingly, horrifyingly bad. I’m not being sarcastic– I don’t think that there is literally one entire scene that is not in some way marred by some manner of idiocy.

And although it may come as a surprise to some people who know, I often DO doubt myself, and wonder if I’m right. More than once I’ve pondered the possibility that I’m just being an arbitrary crank, feeling a needless an inexplicable cynicism towards the last two LOTR movies.

But then, Jackson and co. add in a scene where Elrond explains that Sauron has somehow poisoned Arwen and if Sauron doesn’t die then Arwen will soon (and people thought that the Joker killing Batman’s parents was stupid), and I doubt myself no more; this script was indeed written by idiots. Or, how the Paths of the Dead somehow got turned into Disneyland’s freaking Haunted Mansion, cackling ghosts and all.

I’m sorry, I’m so terribly sorry. Hey, it’s 4:40 a.m., I’m allowed to be melodramatic.

Oh, and one more thing: after this movie gets the obligatory raves, if I ever hear one more person claim that John Woo overuses slow motion, then here comes Mr. Punch.

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