May
15
I’m Batman…No, Wait. I’m G.I. Joe.
Filed Under Comics, Movies, TV, Toys | Leave a Comment
Black is the new black, apparently. For the better part of a decade, comic book and cartoon characters have had their colorful costumes made over as “none more black,” to paraphrase Spinal Tap, when translated to film. Batman, the X-Men and even Spider-Man — to be fair, Spidey’s costume change also took place in the comics — have appeared on the big screen in slimming black getups, not their more recognizable outfits, the ones that costume designers say “won’t work” on film. It sometimes makes you wonder why these films are even shot in color.
Stills from the upcoming “G.I. Joe” movie began trickling out recently. The first one I saw was of a fan-favorite — the disfigured mute ninja in a knight’s helmet, Snake Eyes. It was as faithful a translation from cartoon-to-film as one could ask for. Granted, the character is black-clad on the television show and in the comics, so he had a bit of an advantage over the other Joes inasmuch as he wasn’t at risk of designers eighty-sixing his entire look in favor of something more Matrix-y.
It’s Snake Eyes’ teammates, at least the ones in the other stills I’ve seen, whose outfits are as interchangable as the b-lister Autobots and Decepticons in Michael Bay’s “Transformers.” They should be wearing “Hello…My Name is ____” stickers on their vacuformed black kevlar jumpsuits — jumpsuits that look very much like the body armor Bruce Wayne uses for “spelunking” in “Batman Begins.”
And where the hell’s Shipwreck?! I’ve been trying to scoop up an action figure of my favorite bearded sailor — the one from the ’80s, not the new one that makes him look like he has spinal meningitis — on eBay but I’m always outbid at the last minute. Now he’s not even going to be back in black in the movie next year? It’s probably just as well. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out from the other black-garbed Joes anyway.
-Brad Lohan
May
14
Captain America’s a Roid Head
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I was reading the latest issue of “MAD” magazine last night, the one with Alfred E. Neuman on the cover dressed up like a hypodermic needle sports mascot. The issue takes professional baseball players to task for shooting up with performance enhancing steroids. It’s a subject rife for parody. Contemporary sports heroes’ greatest achievements — like Barry Bonds’ controversial home run record — are dotted with asterisks and largely seen as counterfeit when measured against the accomplishments of athletes who weren’t doping. Whatever extra oomph they’d injected into their veins didn’t help them power through the Congressional hearings and public disgrace that came with being outed as a ‘roid head, either.
But there’s one hero — one enduring American icon –who has never been taken to task for his steroid use. Maybe it’s because he punched Hitler, maybe it’s because he’s dressed in red-white-and-blue (his outfit makes a lapel pin look like the half-hearted attempt at jingoism it is), or maybe it’s because his name is Captain America. Whatever is, once scientists pumped the Super Soldier Serum into frail Steve Rogers’ bloodstream and turned him into an ubermensch, he’s been immune to the sort of bad press that’s plagued today’s overdeveloped ball players.
Captain America’s seen a recent resurgence in popularity, coming on the heels of his shooting death in the wake of Marvel Comics’ epic “Civil War” crossover, and the announcement of the “First Avenger: Captain America” film that’s due in 2011. Will the steroid use in his early career come back to haunt the Star-Spangled Avenger now that he’s been thrust into the mainstream? How might it tarnish his heroic endeavors? Would every defeat he handed the Red Skull, Baron Zemo and Kang the Conqueror be given an asterisk?
Like Superman (an illegal immigrant), Captain America is a post-human whose controversial origins have been swept under the rug. Comics are a four-color prism for young people to view our culture, our morality, our justice system, our scientific advancements, and above all, our humanness. Creators, though, sometimes fail to address issues right in front of their faces, like Cap’s days as a juicer. But is Captain America less of a hero because performance enhancers gave him augmented strength, speed and stamina? Or, is his origin largely inconsequential, unlike a roided-up professional athlete who crushes a long-standing record for personal gain, and not for the good of his country?
-Brad Lohan*
May
13
Bring Our Clone Wars Troops Home Now!
Filed Under Blockbusters, Movies, TV | 1 Comment
There’s another Star Wars movie coming out. “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” an all-CGI installment in the unkillable franchise, opens on August 15th. The movie is a sequel to Episode II and a prequel to Episode III, giving it pretty much the dramatic weight of any one of the umpteen “Land Before Time” DTV films. It’s also a theatrically-released pilot to a proposed 100-episode television series. 100 episodes?! Is John McCain secretly pulling George Lucas’ strings? Personally, I don’t think the Clone Wars are worth the investment of blood and treasure spread out over five seasons.
I’m pretty much done with Star Wars. I didn’t grow up on the movies, having been born too late to see the first one in the theater. I was a child of the ’80s. I was into He-Man and Transformers and the Ninja Turtles — all the franchises that Star Wars spawned, according to the hardcore fans anyway.
Star Wars fans are a myopic breed. They act as though George Lucas not only invented the blockbuster, but the film camera and storytelling as well. To suggest this is to ignore the 80 years of filmmaking that came before the first — or fourth — Star Wars film’s release in ‘77. Star Wars is a cocktail of genres and archetypes that were wowing audiences for decades before Lucas repurposed them for his original trilogy. That they connected with audiences in the late-’70s and early-’80s, thus beating back any degree of artistry or independent spirit that had prevailed in the Me Decade, should only come as a surprise to people who may have never seen a movie before.
Lucas has spent much of his career of late proving that whatever creative genius he’d once possessed has since been replaced with a sense of bitterness and disconnect. He’s not entirely sure what his fans want from him, nor does he really seem to care when he egregiously disappoints them. Filmmaking for him has become something that’s perfunctory, an exercise in pushing the limits of technology, not storytelling. I imagine it’s not emotionally rewarding for him, either. He admittedly dislikes the writing process, but powered through each of the scripts (with help from Tom Stoppard on Episode II) for the prequel trilogy. Why doesn’t he stop torturing himself? Better yet, why don’t the fans do the same?
I’m going to pass on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” The movie looks like a series of cutscenes from a Star Wars video game, not another must-see chapter in a saga that’s already gone on for three films too many. I think it’s time for the die-hard fans — even the lost causes who think that Episode I is the best of the prequels — as well as George Lucas to move on to something else. To paraphrase John Lennon, Star Wars is over…if you want it.
-Brad Lohan
May
10
“Grindhouse” at the Nuart
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The first time I saw this was on opening night a little over a year ago at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. “Grindhouse” was a three hour-plus exploitation film double feature with movie one, “Planet Terror,” written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and movie two, “Death Proof,” written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Of course it had sold out. Tarantino was there with his all-girl cast. Torture porn guru Eli Roth introduced the film, his fake trailer for “Thanksgiving” that bridges the two films being the NSFW download of the moment.
I had somehow managed to talk a girl into coming with me on an unofficial date that night. We would never go out again. Coincidence? I think it just means the movie was every inch the masterpiece of genre filmmaking Rodriguez and Tarantino were going for.
The movie ultimately tanked at the box office, coming in fourth in its opening weekend with $12 million. Its budget was more than five times that. I try not to let a movie’s take at the b.o. color my opinion of it. The general movie going public are nimrods, and a movie’s success or failure during its theatrical run is hardly a yardstick for measuring its quality. “Grindhouse” almost gains a certain bit of cult movie cred for failing to reach a wider audience when it was originally released.
The Nuart in West L.A. programs some of the best midnight movies in So. Cal. Many of my dateless Friday nights have been spent watching obscure cult classics (”Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky”), blockbusters I’d never seen in the theater (”Back to the Future”) and even the occasional turd (”Diary of the Dead”). Last night they screened a print of “Grindhouse,” one they’d beefed up with a few extra commercials and trailers to enhance the experience.
I blame No Child Left Behind for most folks’ lack of knowledge about just what in the hell a grindhouse even is. Well, I also blame theater chains for buying up every last privately-owned mom-and-pop movie house or simply driving them out of business with their garish multiplexes that have two dozen or more screens, stadium seating and thirty minutes of commercials before the trailers even start to roll. Regal Cinemas went into bankruptcy back in the late ’90s with their campaign to have a near monopoly on movie theaters in every town on Earth. Several other theater chains followed suit. But that’s what happens when you’ve got five screens of the latest Rob Schneider P.O.S. just down the street from another multiplex with another five screens of the latest Rob Schneider P.O.S. You cannibalize your own business, and Hollywood’s typically flavorless output hardly puts asses in seats like it used to.
Years ago it was different. Movie theaters were smaller, independently-operated and the programming determined by the owner, not some corporate office in another state. Movies played as long as they continued to turn a profit for the theater, not just for a month or so before being dumped on DVD. Back in the day, there was no DVD. No Netflix. No TiVo. No Illegal Downloading. No Bootlegging. Not even VHS. You saw it in the theater or maybe eventually on one of the three TV stations you picked up via rabbit ears on your black-and-white at home. It’s amazing people didn’t descend into madness. But instead, they just went to the movies more often.
With independently run theaters, it was much easier to distribute your film if you didn’t have studio-backing. You didn’t have to hustle the one print of your masterpiece to Sundance and hope some mini-major would offer you a negative pickup deal. No, you just had to call around the local movie houses and see who’ll agree to screen your film for however long it generates an audience. A lot of these independently produced movies weren’t like the tame, PG-13 “Juno” crowd-pleasers dressed up in indie clothes you see today. These movies had to compete with the big Hollywood films, films with advertising budgets, production values and actors people had actually heard of. Enter exploitation movies — movies that made up for a lack in star power and budget with an overabundance of sex and violence, an absurdly high concept and a quick-and-dirty style.
Some movie houses were happy to program these films and “grind” them out for audiences, two or three at a time. And that is how the term “grindhouse” was coined, in reference to the type of venue that would screen exploitation films.
Rodriguez and Tarantino wanted to recapture that experience with their film. They were successful in that the film aesthetically nails the look of abused prints, the plots of “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof” are really just an excuse to get as many bullet-hits, car smash-ups and gorgeous women on camera as possible. The end result is like a shot of adrenaline in the eyeballs. I came out of the theater at 3:30 a.m. ready to explode zombie heads and beat the hell out of a maniac in a killer car.
It’s too bad that most audiences just don’t get the appeal of a movie like “Grindhouse.” They want their movies pasteurized and PG-13…when they actually go to the movies anyway. Isn’t attendance down again this year?
Today’s audiences, I think it’s safe to say, don’t know what they want. Studios don’t seem to know what will bring in audiences, either. Warner Bros. released “Speed Racer” this weekend. “Speed Racer?” Are you kidding me? I love the marketing campaign, too: “From the creators of ‘The Matrix’ trilogy.” Wow, there’s a new movie directed by the Wachowskis, the guys who made one movie I liked 9 years ago and two crap-tacular sequels since then that that were so bad, they made me retroactively dislike the first one.
Mainstream audiences can have “Speed Racer” if that’s what they think qualifies as entertainment when it’s really just sound and fury. I’m sure it’ll do mediocre business in its opening weekend before a greater than 50% dropoff next weekend. Hollywood will learn nothing from the movie’s failure to connect with the audiences. The fact that it sucks won’t occur to them.
Ten years from now, “Grindhouse” will have cemented its cult status and made its production budget back — several times over — with myriad midnight screenings at theaters like the Nuart. I’m hoping over time, the film will accumulate more commercials and trailers each time the print is passed along to another projectionist. Last night, there was a Pepsi spot, featuring a pre-Federline Britney Spears, and a trailer for Stallone’s “Judge Dredd” that were added to the mix. “Grindhouse” is more than a movie, it’s an experience. I hope you’ll experience it someday in theaters if you haven’t already.
-Brad Lohan
May
9
This October…Prepare…To Get…Bush!
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A few weeks ago, I read a script review on Slate.com for Oliver Stone’s upcoming Bush 43 biopic, “W,” and felt a twinge of disappointment in regards to screenwriter Stanely Weiser’s approach to the material. George W. Bush’s presidency is more or less a self-parody to begin with. A parody of a parody isn’t funny. And from what I gathered in reading the review, which isn’t terribly well-written (I couldn’t care less which page something happens on, Ms. Lapidos), the script seems to emphasize Bush’s alcoholism, war mongering and daddy issues with all the subtlety of a Wayans Brothers film. I don’t like Bush. I don’t want to have a beer with him, and not just because he’s an untreated alcoholic. But I’d be more enthusiastic about the film if it had a little nuance.
Stone’s rushing “W” into production and hopes to have it in theaters by October, just weeks before the election. Why this is so important to him is anyone’s guess. Bush is ineligible for a third presidential term, so it’s not like the movie could hurt him politically. I think the film would be better suited for a January release, like the weekend before Inauguration Day. Dumping the movie in October will simply confuse audiences into thinking it’s a horror film or one of those pieces of potential Oscar bait that a studio doesn’t believe in enough to roll out around Christmas; think of last year’s “Lions for Lambs.”
As an actor, Josh Brolin won me over last year with his roles in “Grindhouse,” “American Gangster” and “No Country for Old Men.” I think he’s a little young to be playing Bush in his early-60s; he’d be better suited for Indiana Jones if Spielberg and Lucas were inclined to do a prequel or two or three, but I digress. Still, Brolin’s on the cusp of establishing himself as a solid character actor as well as a leading man. I’m sure he’ll make the most of the role, capturing the wildly inconsistent cadence and word-mangling that have made Bush’s speech patterns such a cottage industry for people who make desk calendars and publish books of Bush quotes. But if the film fails, I hope the blame falls solely on Stone and not him. After I saw “World Trade Center” in ‘05, I realized that Stone had finally proven himself as a very talented director of toothless made-for-TV movies.
Who knows? I’m speculating at this point. The movie could be brilliant and the review I read in Slate might have completely — ahem — misunderestimated the script’s finer qualities. Maybe this will be an October Surprise of a different sort.
-Brad Lohan
May
8
Dead Oscar-Nominated Actors… Collect Them All!
Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Movies, Toys | Leave a Comment
Last weekend, I saw the new line of action figures for “The Dark Knight” — a half-dozen different Batmen in a variety costumes that have little to nothing to do with the plot of the film and Batman’s nemesis, The Joker. I thought the scupts were generally mediocre, like those for the previous Batman film. Their likenesses only vaguely resemble their cinematic counterparts in that they each have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Toy sculpts have come a long way in terms of sophistication over the past decade, as the adult collector market has grown significantly. But some manufacturers still do things on the cheap, and “The Dark Knight” line looks like a quickie attempt to rake in some ancillary profits, not raise the bar in terms of toy design.
I almost bought The Joker but found the sculpting job too inadequate in capturing the late Heath Ledger’s grotesque make-up job. So, I put the toy back on the peg and only later did I realize I could’ve sold that very same $7 figure on eBay for north of fifty bucks.
Heath Ledger’s unexpected death last March has absolutely cast a long shadow over the post-production period on “The Dark Knight.” The studio has wisely not shied away from showcasing his performance as The Joker in the theatrical trailers, though the audience’s hyper-awareness of every circumstance surrounding his passing lends an odd sense of unintended pathos to the character. When test-screened last month, the unfinished film received negative marks from the focus group regarding a scene in which The Joker is… (*potential spoiler*) seen in a body bag (*end spoiler*). Never mind that this is the same character who guns down all of his partners in crime during a bank robbery in the opening scene of “The Dark Knight” that played before the IMAX version of “I Am Legend” last fall. The audience cannot separate the promising young actor who died of an accidental overdose from a knife-wielding psychotic with heavy scar tissue around his lips that gives him a permanently fixed sneer.
Toy collectors, however, have no conscience about these sorts of things. Collectors of any stripe tend to have an unfortunate degree of moral relativism surrounding their hobby. I read a letter in last month’s “Toy Fare” in which a reader lamented that his O.J. Simpson football cards didn’t increase in value after the murders in Brentwood. Why Simpson’s much-speculated connection to the unsolved double-homicide would create a greater demand for his memorabilia is any kook’s guess. I find it somewhat tasteless. A celebrity’s death — or having caused someone’s death — should not create an added value to whatever widget that bears his name and/or likeness.
People should have more class than to drop $50 on an action figure that resembles the late actor who portrayed him. I can understand there being demand for the toy if it’s a rare “chase” figure or if The Joker is a collector’s favorite Batman villain. But wanting the toy simply because the actor’s dead is just weird and macabre. Why not collect action figures of your dead relatives? I’m sure you could find a customizer online who’ll kitbash one for you. And for much less than $50.
-Brad Lohan
May
7
Dumb & Movie-Goer
Filed Under Movies | 4 Comments
This happened a couple weeks ago, but I’d forgotten about it until just now. I’m beginning to think that I shouldn’t call what I do every weekend “going to the movies.” I’m not. I’m going to listen to 400 yahoos have dim-witted conversations with one another in the dark while a movie is happening. I think people hit the multiplex now to catch up on their texting or play their ’80s music ring tones for a captive audience. They especially go there to talk, and to talk loudly, much more loudly than human beings typically talk. Now I’ve heard that people are more terrified of public speaking than they are of death. Not true. Not at the flickershows, anyway. It’s become a veritable townhall meeting with overpriced popcorn and drinks.
People who are this outspokenly rude (i.e. Los Angelenos) tend to also be breathtakingly stupid, too. I call them “breathtakingly stupid” because they’ll say things — loudly, mind you — that are so shockingly dumb, they’ll take your breath away. After 7 years of Bush, these people have really come out of the woodwork, emboldened to just talk and talk and talk, thinking their ignorance is something that must be communicated to an auditorum full of disinterested strangers. These are also people who think the show “Family Guy” is the pinnacle of artistic achievement and that bumper stickers of Calvin peeing on something accurately reflect their unique worldview.
Well, two weeks ago, I went to see “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden” (read my review). I nearly lucked out and got a private screening, since the only thing people in this country hate more than keeping their damn mouths shut at the movies is a documentary that deals with complicated issues surrounding our policies in the Middle East. But right before the film began, a couple of loudmouths bumbled into the theater, and since I’m apparently the most magnetic human being short of Ian McKellen, the goofballs sat uncomfortably close to me. The trailers started and the couple just kept on chattering, compelling me to move to the very front row.
The front row can be a blessing or a curse. Modern stadium-seating theaters no longer have front rows that are so close to the screen, you’re looking up everyone’s nose. I happen to enjoy having the screen swallow up my entire field of view — particularly at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome, where the screen is concave. Most people, however, still strongly dislike the front row, leaving it relatively unpopulated and more to my liking…unless of course the movie’s sold out. Then all the late-comers will plop down on either side of me and begin their loud conversations with a lament about how close they’re sitting to the screen. Never mind they showed up 10 minutes late to a much-anticipated A-picture on opening night.
At any rate, the night I went to see “bin Laden,” the auditorium was so sparsely populated, that in the front row I was free and clear of any fashionably late jabbering spider-monkeys. Still, without several rows of heads between myself and the loudmouths I’d moved away from, I could still hear snippets of their moronic conversation as it built to a crescendo of absolute insipidness, thanks in part to the preview for “Hamlet 2.”
Now, “Hamlet 2″ is not a terribly funny title, and the trailer leads one to believe that the title is the funniest thing about it. In short, it’s one of those forgettable trailers that are front-loaded by the dozen before features these days, I think, in an effort to make what you’re seeing seem significantly better. But that’s not what’s worth noting about “Hamlet 2.” No, it’s what I heard one of the loudmouths say — without a single hint of irony — the moment the title flashed on the screen:
“There was a ‘Hamlet 1′?!”
Holy socks. I was absolutely stunned. It’s like when you read about how a large percentage of children in this country can’t find the United States on a map, or that “American Idol” is a highly-rated television show. You think to yourself, “People aren’t that retarded, are they?” But they are. They really and truly are. What’s more, they boast about it in public, like it’s not even shameful to be stupid anymore. It’s become culturally acceptable. And it’s ruining my weekly trips to the movies.
-Brad Lohan
May
7
“MacGyver” The Movie
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For Christmas last year I got “MacGyver: The Complete Series” — all seven seasons of the thinking-man’s adventure series from an age when heroes wear mullets, Russian badguys speak to each other in heavily-accented English, and everyday household items are used by Angus MacGyver (played by Richard Dean Anderson) to save his bacon at the climax of each episode. Being somewhat responsible for the shooting death of a childhood friend, Mac never carries a gun. He’s typically armed with only a Swiss Army knife, not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of physics and chemistry. Never is he held captive in a room where he can’t find something to cook up his means for escape. And that’s the series’ charm.
A few years ago, a pilot for “Young MacGyver” (starring Jared Padalecki) mercifully died on the vine before it was picked up by a network. Now the Internet is buzzing with a rumor that series creator Lee David Zlotoff is trying to get a MacGyver film off the ground: http://joblo.com/macgyver-movie. I’m not of the opinion that a movie needs to be made about every television series that ever brightened a picture tube for more than a season. But, I did watch the film version of “The Fugitive” so often as a teen, the tape came off the spools. Still, that film’s about 15 years old, and with the only extremely successful movie franchise based on a TV series being “Mission: Impossible” (now with movie four in the works), it’s very possible that the cinematic version of MacGyver might be MacGyver-in-name-only.
If I were given the opportunity, I’d bring back Richard Dean Anderson to play the title role. The umpteen seasons of “Stargate: SG1″ have kept him in fighting shape. And in a world where Harrison Ford can don the Indiana Jones fedora after hanging up his whip for 19 years, Anderson can certainly cobble together one last MacGyverism since the show left air in ‘92. Need more proof? Check out the YouTube clip.
May
6
A Beginner’s Guide to the Marvel Universe & “Iron Man”
Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Movies | 1 Comment
I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about the Marvel Universe recently, and in an effort to clarify things for the noobs, I thought I’d write a primer. Read on so you too can impress your friends by pointing out every fanboy nod in “Iron Man” and understand what that Samuel L. Jackson cameo at the tail end of the film was all about. With “Iron Man” being the first in-house Marvel Studios film, I’ll be using it as the main point of reference in this blog. It’s also the first of several interconnected franchise-starters — including “Thor” (due in 2010) and “Captain America” (due in 2011) — that will ultimately crossover into a full-blown “Avengers” film to be released in July of 2011.
What’s important to understand is that comic book continuity isn’t as tidy or streamlined as fanboys would like it to be. Efforts are often made to wipe the slate clean (or “retcon,” retroactively change the continuity) when creators paint themselves into a corner. As most people are familiar with the “Star Wars” saga, I imagine even casual fans can find some inconsistencies among the six films, regardless of how many Botoxed special editions that George Lucas releases. At any rate, when trying to explicate how the Marvel Universe fits together and translates to film, I’ll do my best to sum things up as neatly as possible, given the abundance of retcons, out-of-continuity and “What If…?” stories there are in the Marvel U.
Technically, there are two Marvel Universes — the Marvel 616 Universe and the Ultimate Marvel Universe; you’re already confused, aren’t you? The Marvel 616 Universe began in earnest with the publication of “The Fantastic Four” #1 in 1961; before you ask, “616″ is a meaningless numerical designation. Almost 40 years later, the Ultimate Marvel Universe was born with the publication of “Ultimate Spider-Man” #1 in 2000. The 616 and Ultimate universes exist parallel to one another, but do not crossover (at least, to date). What differentiates the two is that the 616 universe is rooted in the atomic age, where the Ultimate universe contemporizes 40-year-old characters and storylines (i.e. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider in the 616 universe, but in the Ultimate universe, the spider was genetically-engineered).
In the film “Iron Man,” Tony Stark’s a war profiteer whose convoy is attacked by terrorists in Afghanistan. An explosion gravely injures him, embedding shrapnel in his chest and forcing him to wear a magnetic device that prevents the shards of metal from plunging into his heart. Held captive, Stark is ordered to build the terrorists a WMD. Instead he constructs a suit of armor to effect his escape. He quickly creates more sophisticated armors with which he fights evil. This origin is more faithful to the 616 Iron Man than the Ultimate Iron Man, that is, if you swap out the terrorists with the Viet Cong. The Ultimate Iron Man has an extremely convoluted, Orson Scott Card-written origin which even I don’t understand. The Ultimate Tony Stark is, however, every bit the boozy playboy as Robert Downey Jr. plays in the film. But the Ultimate Tony Stark has a fist-sized brain tumor, not a heart condition. Still with me?
The “Iron Man” movie essentially cherry-picks elements of the 616 and Ultimate Iron Man mythologies, creating a composite character. So who the hell is Nick Fury? And what’s S.H.I.E.L.D.? I’m glad you asked.
Nick Fury in the 616 universe was originally a sergeant in the U.S. military and led a team called the Howling Commandos during the ’60s. Despite having to wear an eyepatch, Sgt. Fury was nevertheless an active duty soldier; depth perception is totally unnecessary in the two-dimensional comic book medium. Fury later went to OCS, became a Colonel and was put in charge of a super-secret government organization known as SHIELD — sort of the CIA on steroids. They jet around the world in a floating battleship called the Helicarrier and wear blue zippered jumpsuits with chalk white belts, pouches and gun holsters. The 616 Nick Fury is an older man, having served in WWII, with graying temples and a fondness for cigars. He’s also Caucasian.
General Nick Fury in the Ultimate universe looks exactly like Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. At least that’s how artist Bryan Hitch draws him. As the head of SHIELD like his 616 counterpart, Gen. Fury is the one who put together the Ultimates — a government-sponsored team consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye — to fight super-criminals…when they’re not at each other’s throats, anyway. The Ultimates are, as you may have guessed, a modernized equivalent of the Avengers in the 616 universe, a team founded in the early-’60s, one that’s gone through countless rosters over the years, broken up and reformed. Currently, there are two Avengers teams in the 616 universe — the Mighty Avengers and the New Avengers.
So, the “Avenger Initiative” that Fury mentions in the last line of the “Iron Man” movie is more or less the start of his pitch to Tony Stark about the formation of a super-team. You can find bootlegs of the final scene on YouTube (with Spanish subtitles: “Yo Soy Iron Man!”) in case you left the theater once the credits started to roll — philistine!
Is there anything else you may have missed in “Iron Man?” Well, the terrorist organization that kidnaps Tony Stark is called the Ten Rings. The follically-challenged big bad who’s the leader of the Afghani cell even wears a large piece of bling around his finger. One of Iron Man’s better-known foes in the comics is the Mandarin, known for wearing a magical ring around each of his digits. It’s possible that Mandy’s distributed his rings to the heads of terrorist groups across the globe. That’s call franchising, kids. I think the introduction of Ten Rings is more or less setting up the Mandarin to be a sort of bin Laden type figure in the film series. Or, if you want a less real world equivalent, think Dr. Claw in “Inspector Gadget.”
“Demon in a Bottle” is perhaps the most popular “Iron Man” story arc, dealing with Tony Stark’s alcoholism. In the film, Stark boozes it up a bit, and it’s implied that he’s something of a functioning alcoholic. There may be in a point in movie two when Stark becomes too stinking drunk to wear the armor and, as in the comics, his friend Jim Rhodes (played by Terrence Howard) steps into the suit; this is also suggested by the brief moment in “Iron Man” when Rhodes says of the Mark II armor, “Next time.”
What’s great about “Iron Man,” though, is that it’s totally accessable to non-fans. The film’s $100+ box office take last weekend goes to show that you don’t have to be as well-known as Spider-Man to clean up at the box office and make McDreamy’s dopey little rom-com run a very, very distant second. It’s rewarding to be a comics fan and find all the fanboy easter eggs hidden throughout a film adaptation of your favorite funnybook. But at the end of the day, no amount of winks and nudges can save a suckfest. Check out 2003’s “Hulk” for further evidence. That “Iron Man” is a brilliant adaptation and a valentine to the fans is what makes it a gem.
-Brad Lohan
May
5
Eww-Face (*Potential Spoilers Ahead*)
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The movie “Darkman” cost me a good night’s sleep for two full months when I was a kid. At 11, I may have been a bit too young and impressionable for the amount of carnage Sam Raimi put on the screen. In the film, Dr. Peyton Westlake’s face is not only partially eaten away by boiling acid, but also barbecued in a laboratory explosion. Liam Neeson, buried under pounds of makeup and Ace bandages in the title role, plays the hell out of the character’s emotional anguish at being turned into a burnt match. I think why the movie’s so resonant is that it’s not just about a walking horror that fights for justice — like, say, the Toxic Avenger, who’s seemingly okay with his problem skin. This guy’s actually hurting, inside and out, his scorched dermis a grim reflection of his inner turmoil.
With the final trailer for “The Dark Knight” pwning “Iron Man” audiences, fans are still forced to speculate at just how gruesome Aaron Eckhart’s Two-Face will be. The character’s only glimpsed in profile for a fleeting moment, and the shot favors his good side. It’s implied during the trailer that he’s burned by fire (the left side of his face is pressed against a pool of what appears to be flammable liquid that’s more than likely about to be set aflame) rather than scarred by acid, like his comic book counterpart.
Acid scarring, being a type of disfigurement most people aren’t terribly familiar with, allows for a bit of creative license. Dozens of comic book artists, animator Bruce Timm on “Batman: The Animated Series, and Hollywood makeup legend Rick Baker on “Batman Forever” generally took a similar approach to Two-Face’s a horrific, but stylized mug: teased out hair, ragged laugh lines, lots of pustules — what we would imagine someone who’s disfigured by acid might look like because we’re idiots.
Burn victims, however, we’ve all seen, their features hopelessly incinerated and what remains is so much dead ashen tissue. This is apparently the approach Christopher Nolan’s taking with his interpretation of Two-Face, at least from what I’ve discovered on the always reliable Internet movie sites. I suppose it’s more real, which is what he went for with the first film — verisimilitude. But good Lord, Two-Face makes Darkman look like the prom king.
And so, the next generation of adolescent super-hero buffs are but 10 weeks away from being robbed of a good night’s sleep for months on end after seeing “The Dark Knight.” In a way I envy them.
-Brad Lohan