Sep
30
Remember that movie “Adventures in Babysitting?” It’s the one with Elizabeth Shue as a babysitter who takes her three precocious charges into the city to pick up a friend of hers from the bus station. At any rate, one of the kids — the little girl — is a ginormous fan of the Marvel superhero Thor. She even wears a winged helmet and carries around a plastic Mjolnir; for all you non-fans, that’s a hammer. In one of the most unusual plot contrivances I can think of, she manages to convince an auto mechanic, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, to give Elizabeth Shue her car back even though she’s short on cash and can’t afford to pay for new tires. How does she do this? Well, she’s certain he’s actually Thor and appeals to the superhero’s good nature. She even gives him her helmet. But he gives it back, telling her he’s already got one at home.
Can Kenneth Branagh top “Adventures in Babysitting?” Marvel Studios would like to think so. According to Variety, the studio is negotiating with Branagh, whose name always looks misspelled to me, to helm a Thor picture.
I’m not really much of a fan of Thor. His costume looks like some of the more garish outfits worn by any number of Image Comics oddballs back in the early-’90s and he talks like a guy who plays way too much WoW. People gripe that Superman is nearly invincible and therefore boring in that he has no weaknesses apart from Kryptonite. Well, I submit to them Thor. What the hell is his weakness? I believe he was turned into a frog once. But still, magical characters just don’t work for me as well as ones who are accidents of science or from outer space.
Marvel’s hellbent on making an Avengers movie, though, and needs to get “Thor” in the pipeline. I’m of the opinion that the suggestion of there someday being an Avengers film, so brilliantly executed in the post-credits scene at the very end of “Iron Man,” is more exciting than what will end up on the screen in 2011.
Maybe Branagh will bring something to the material that makes the character work. As he is in the comics, he’s basically a guided missile in human form. There’s not a lot of personality on display. Branagh knows from complex characters, having directed several Shakespeare adaptations. Maybe “Thor” will be the “Hamlet” of superhero movies. Or, maybe it’ll be the “Hamlet 2.” Either way, it should net the Odinson enough coin so that he can afford to quit his day job as an auto mechanic.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
28
Quantum of Social Networking
Filed Under Culture, Movies | Leave a Comment
I’m about to start working on a new spy script. It’s not much of a stretch for me (I’ve already written two Bond knockoffs), but I have come up with a different approach, something I’m cagey about discussing in too much detail.
Still, if I weren’t so excited about this current project, I could find some inspiration for another script after having read this AFP article. MI6 is recruiting spies on the Intertubes — on Facebook of all sites!
I’m not into the whole social networking thing. I find it to be a really bass-ackwards way of invading one’s privacy, your own in point of fact. But people nevertheless create their own databases full of blackmail material. People love to take pictures of themselves engaged in all manner of debauchery then put them in their MySpace albums. A friend of mine was turned down for a job after her potential employers found her MySpace page. She’s since set her profile to “Private.”
I wonder how MI6 vets applicants who apply via Facebook. James Bond, though a fictional character, is rumored to have been based on an actual spy that author Ian Fleming knew during his days in the British Royal Navy. Perhaps some degree of debauchery is acceptable for a field agent. Of course not everyone who applies to MI6 is hoping for a slot in the double-o section. That said, I imagine that the turnover rate for 00 agents is pretty high, what with their being captured and/or killed rather frequently. Still, folks putting in for a job at MI6 on Facebook are probably better cut out for other positions at the intelligence agency, ones that don’t involve carrying a firearm or wearing a jetpack or working with a CIA agent named Holly Goodhead.
I must say I’m almost tempted to create a Facebook profile and see what opportunities MI6 has for us blokes across the pond. The producers of the James Bond films have considered Americanizing the hero several times. Fellows like Cary Grant and Adam West and James Brolin were all candidates for the gig at one point or another. I have plenty of experience being an American. I’m also familiar with Microsoft Office and can type 60 wpm. I think I’m more than qualified to have a license to kill. Do I have to apply for that online as well?
-Brad Lohan
Sep
26
Boy, I Suck at LEGO Batman
Filed Under Comics, Video Games | Leave a Comment
This is a kids’ game, right? Because last night, I used quite a bit of adult language while playing the new LEGO Batman game on PS2. I unleashed such an unholy amount of obscenity, my cat turned blue. But it’s still kinda fun. I know I’m looking forward to playing it some more this evening with the presidential debates on in the background.
I sort of lamented the glut of LEGO-themed video games a couple months ago. It seemed dystopic to me that Nintendo and all the rest have begun absorbing so many different kinds of children’s activities. Sports games are one thing. Most kids will never be professional athletes. Sumo wrestling has simply not caught on here in the States, so most 200-pound adolescents should quit chasing that dream. Still, I felt it was outrageous that boys and girls aren’t physically playing with Legos anymore. Rather, they’re letting their video game consoles create their imaginary worlds for them.
All that being said, I’m almost 30 and haven’t played with Legos in forever. So who cares if I have LEGO Batman? There, I almost successfully talked my way out of sounding like a total hypocrite. Now let’s talk about the game.
I haven’t gotten very far. One of the game’s selling points is that you can not only play as Batman and Robin, but you can also be the villains. Well, you have to unlock the villains first, something they don’t tell you. It’s all well and good to play a level or two as the Dynamic Duo, but dammit, I want to be Two-Face. I want to be Clayface. I want to be…Killer Moth! However, I have to slog through these levels as the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder before I can go back and do it all over again as Scarecrow or Poison Ivy.
One thing that’s a plus about the game is you apparently have an infinite number of lives. You’re given a power meter — measured in hearts — but it’s meaningless. You die and come back immediately. It’s helpful when you can’t figure out how in the hell you’re you’re supposed to kill Mr. Freeze. Man alive, that level brought me to the brink of insanity. And that’s just the second level.
I’m astonished by how difficult the game is. The puzzles are unbelievably esoteric. I felt like a damn genius when I figured out some of the head-scratchers in “God of War.” When it comes to LEGO Batman, I feel like John McCain when it comes to the economy. I’ve got no idea what’s going on more often than not.
Apparently, you can destroy almost everything in Gotham City — lamp posts, fire hydrants, trees. Sometimes you have to destroy something like a dumpster in order to rebuild it as a vehicle or whatnot. Yes, in the game, you can put together Legos.
I skip the cinematics between levels. For whatever reason in this game, the characters communicate like Cro-Magnons. They grunt and gesticulate. It’s stunningly annoying. Tobey Maguire voiced Spider-Man for the movie tie-in games. Sean Connery voiced James Bond for “From Russia With Love.” For LEGO Batman, I don’t know who’s doing all the grunting, but I doubt it’s Adam West and Burt Ward.
I’ve been wanting a new Batman game and was disappointed by the news that there isn’t going to be a “Dark Knight” tie-in. I know there’s some sort of Batman game on the horizon, and not that Mortal Kombat vs. DC Comics crapola, either. But, it’s probably only going to be available on the next-gen consoles. The best I can do for now is LEGO Batman. It’s not a great game. It’s palatable. I think I’m getting better at it or at least adjusting to how maddening it can be. At the end of the day, you might just be better off getting a box of Legos.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
25
I downloaded the song “Men in Black” yesterday on Napster, and while listening to it, I openly wept, overwhelmed with nostalgia for the time in my life when I would actually highly anticipate the next Will Smith movie. Nowadays, it seems hardly worth the bother to go to whatever toothless movie he’s toplining. It’s doubtless been gutted by test audiences and studio suits. That’s why I skipped “Hancock” completely, though it was a ginormous hit. Regardless, the film is one of those blockbusters that everyone saw and no one really liked — another movie that coasts on Smith’s charisma, but completely wastes him at the very same time.
Enter “I Am Legend.” I was cautiously optimistic about that one. I prefer Smith as a comedic foil, yet he can anchor a film as an action hero just as easily. At any rate, I wasn’t worried about him being able to deliver. Yet the movie, despite his performance, is a clunker. Some folks overlook the film’s awfulness because the first half is relatively strong, but I’m not going to give a movie a thumbs up because it only sucks for one hour rather than two. Movie-goers need to be more demanding or Hollywood’s going to keep cranking out more banality.
Enter the prequel to “I Am Legend.” According to CHUD.com, Warner Bros. is developing “I Am Legend: Episode One - The Phantom Fake-Looking Zombie/Vampire Menace.” Let me be the first to make a farting sound that will register as my acute disapproval for this project.
I dunno about you, but I’m experiencing prequel fatigue. “Prequel” shouldn’t even be a word, let alone a studio’s preferred method of franchising a property. But I guess they can’t make an honest sequel to “I Am Legend,” considering that (*Spoiler Territory Ahead*) Smith’s character dies at the end of the film, and he wasn’t even the last person on Earth to begin with (*Now Leaving Spoiler Territory*). All that being said, I don’t see how the filmmakers can wring a whole ‘nother story out of this. I imagine the movie will be nothing more than an extended episode of “This Old Zombie-Proof House,” two hours of Smith boarding up windows and doors.
There’s a problem with prequels that no one ever talks about, and that problem is this: If there were a story worth telling before the original film is set, the filmmakers would’ve told that story first. In “I Am Legend,” the filmmakers to their credit skip over all the boring expository stuff and get to the meat of the story. Audiences, being the sophisticates that we are, sort of fill in the blanks when this sort of thing happens. Because Smith’s pet German Shepherd is fully grown (it’s a puppy in the opening moments of the film), Times Square looks like the Rainforest Cafe and Smith lives in a fortified Brownstone, we imagine that nothing terribly interesting took place in the intervening years between the outbreak of the plague and the when the film begins in earnest. Moreover, we’re not too stupid to understand that there’s been a passage of time, nor are we incapable of comprehending the reality of the story world without gobs of exposition.
So what the stink do we need a prequel for? We don’t. Prequels are by and large worthless, the filmic equivalent of flotsam. When Warner Bros. drops this “I Am Legend” prequel on us in a couple of years, I hope you’ll join me in collectively telling the studio, “Aw, hell no.”
-Brad Lohan
Sep
24
How many damn times does “The Godfather” need to be released on DVD? For the love of Pete! I remember during my first year of film school, circa 2000, the VHS(!) version of movie one was screened for our class. The following year, the “Godfather” trilogy finally landed on DVD in a boxed set, since no one in their right mind — not even the oddball completists like me — would pick up the third film on its own. I got the trilogy that Christmas. Three years later, Paramount released the films separately on DVD, the double-dipping bastiches!
Now Paramount’s triple-dipping, cranking out “The Coppola Restoration” versions of the “Godfather” films. What the junk?! I thought my friggin’ 2001 versions were restorations. Well, imagine how stupid the people buying the “Coppola Restoration” DVDs will feel 5 years from now Paramount will release the motherless trilogy in 3-D. Double-dips are Hollywood’s way of punching fans in the nuts. I understand that Francis Ford Coppola hasn’t made a good movie since before I took my first steps, but he’s been hanging out with his buddy George Lucas too much for my liking. This is ridiculous.
That being said, the two “Godfather” double-dips fall far short of the eleventeen editions of the original “Night of the Living Dead,” but Romero’s film is out of copyright and any low-rent distributor can crank out their own inferior version. Major Hollywood movies, however, should have one (1) DVD release with all the commentaries, special features, deleted scenes, making-of documentaries, featurettes, alternate endings, free movie tickets (worth up to $7.50!) and severed horse heads you could possibly want.
Who could refuse that?
-Brad Lohan
Sep
23
“Spider-Man: The Musical”
Filed Under Comics, Theatre | Leave a Comment
So I pretty much lied through my teeth when I said I was going to see “The Fly: The Opera.” The reviews have been unkind, and the ticket prices are through the roof. You think $14 is a lot of money for a movie ticket at the ArcLight? Well, tix for “The Fly: The Opera” are as high as $250. $250?! For that kind of money, you could turn yourself into BrundleFly and still have enough left over for singing lessons.
I guess my fandom for “The Fly” has its limits. And as Dirty Harry said, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” But what about Spider-Man? Well… I might just pay $250 to see Spidey croon. As luck would have it, IESB.net reports that “Spider-Man: The Musical” might be opening on Broadway as early as next year. Eat it, “Rent!”
Based on the character breakdowns, it appears that Spidey will be romancing Mary Jane and doing battle against the Green Goblin. There’s also a character named Arachne, loosely based on Spider-Woman (the Julia Carpenter one, not the Jessica Drew one). She sounds like she’ll bring sort of a New Agey vibe to the material. Apparently, there are spider-gods or something.
Bono has taken some time off from activism to co-write the score with his U2 bandmate, The Edge. I like U2. I don’t have any of their albums, but you really don’t need them, not if you’ve ever owned on a radio in the past twenty years. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Spidey, even if it costs a couple hundred bucks for a ticket.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
21
Last week saw the end of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 12-issue run on “All-Star Superman,” a series that was sort of a throwback to the Silver Age and an antidote to the godawful “All-Star Batman and Robin” book that intermittently pollutes comics racks.
This weekend, I got the urge to revisit two Super-sequels — “Superman II” and “Superman III,” films from an era when Roman numerals classed up a franchise. More recently, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” tried them as well, but I imagine it suffered at the box office because too many tweens thought the film was the eleventh entry, not the second, in the series.
A Couple of Dicks
“Superman II” has a rather fascinating backstory. Long before the second and third “Matrix” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” films were shot back-to-back, the first two “Superman” films were made simultaneously. Richard Donner had originally been hired by the producers, the father-and-son team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind, to direct the film(s), but “creative differences” ultimately led to his firing before movie two was completed.
Enter Richard Lester, director of “A Hard Day’s Night.” Lester was brought on board by the Salkinds to finish “Superman II.” But Lester didn’t simply film whatever scenes Donner’s departure had left unfinished. No, he reworked the script, shot alternate sequences — most notably how Lois discovers Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same — and used as little of Donner’s footage as possible. He was over a barrel with Gene Hackman’s scenes, though. The actor refused to return to the set and shoot any new footage, feeling that the producers had shafted Donner, which they had.
A couple years ago, Warner Bros. released “The Donner Cut” of “Superman II.” The quintessential fanwank manages to incorporate as much of what Donner had originally shot for the film, including a badass scene where the Kryptonian supervillain General Zod mows down a bunch of soldiers with an assault rifle. Unfortunately, the producers of the Donner version had to use Chris Reeve’s audition footage for a very key moment in the film, the aforementioned scene when Lois “shoots” Clark Kent to prove that he’s really Superman. At any rate, “The Donner Cut” isn’t what I’d consider to be the definitive version of “Superman II.” No, Lester’s film has that honor.
Terence Stamp of Approval
Everyone knows that in “The Empire Strikes Back” Luke Skywalker finds out Darth Vader’s his father, and “Return of the Jedi” has the Ewoks. But, if I had a nickel for every time I had to explain which Superman sequel has the three Kryptonian supervillains and which has Richard Pryor, I’d have enough money to buy “Action Comics” #1; for all you non-fans, that would be the first issue Superman ever appeared in, published back in 1938.
I guess the first two Superman sequels sort of run together in the average’s person’s mind. After all, they were both directed by Richard Lester. Fans are almost unanimously dismissive of movie three, but the second film is generally better received, mostly because of the lengthy sequence when Superman battles General Zod, Ursa and Non — a trio of nogoodniks from Krypton who’d been banished to the Phantom Zone shortly before the planet went kablooey.
What’s more, “Superman II” explores the title character’s relationship with Lois Lane, and I think those moments are the strongest in the film. Once he reveals his dual identities to her and does a little soul searching with a holographic representation of his Kryptonian mother Lara in the Fortress of Solitude, Superman realizes he must forfeit his powers to be with the woman he loves. He steps into a chamber that bathes him in rays from a red sun, stripping him of his superhuman abilities and making him mortal. In essence, Lois kills Superman in the movie. Then he gets his ass kicked by a trucker in a roadside diner and finds out that General Zod has taken over the world. Oop!
Superman somehow manages to restore his powers and turn that red sun ray technology against the Kryptonian baddies by film’s end. But what’s great about the film is how it shows Superman’s weakness in this installment isn’t kryptonite; it’s his ego. He selfishly relinquishes his powers to be with a woman who loves him. He’s thinking only of himself, not of Lois, not of the world he’s sworn to protect. The paradox, however, is that Lois loves Superman because he’s powerful, not simply because he’s tall, dark and handsome. Clark Kent’s tall, dark and handsome, and she’s not the least bit interesting in him. Powerless, Superman is of no use to her, exemplified by the scene in which the trucker beats the hell out of him. I especially love how Superman — as Clark Kent — goes back to the diner and knocks the trucker for a loop in the film’s closing moments. He couldn’t let it go. That’s one bruised [super] ego.
A Pryor Engagement
“Superman III” doesn’t have the unevenness of its predecessor. It has a different sort of unevenness, I suppose. Where movie two was a comprimised vision, helmed by two very different directors, the third film is entirely Richard Lester’s. The original idea was to bring the villain Brainiac into the fold. I love Brainiac. His name alone screams awesomeness. But then comedian Richard Pryor went on “The Tonight Show” and told Johnny Carson how much he’d love to be in a Superman film.
The Salkinds saw great potential in casting Richard Pryor in movie three, not as Brainiac, alas, but Gus Gorman — a chronically unemployed goofball who discovers he has a hidden talent for computer hacking when he takes a job as a programmer at Webscoe. The film also stars Robert Vaughn as Webscoe CEO Ross Webster, a corrupt businessman (Is there any other kind?) that sees great potential in Gorman’s abilities. They build a supercomputer in a cave that shoots kryptonite lasers and turns Webster’s rather mannish sister into some kind of lumbering robot that freaked me out when I was 5. The movie’s strength isn’t so much the doomsday weapon, but the portion where Superman turns evil.
In the comics, and on that crappy show “Smallville” from what I understand, there’s more than one kind of kryptonite. I don’t pretend to know what all of them do. Of course, green kryptonite weakens Superman and can potentially kill him. The other colors of kryptonite each have their own quirks. There is some confusion among the laymen as to why a piece of Superman’s home planet causes him harm. It’s not nostalgia. It’s the radiation that permeates the rock which is what robs him of his powers or turns him into an ant or whatever.
That being said, in “Superman III,” Webster and Gorman conspire to kill Superman with kryptonite. The problem is they don’t have any. So they make some. But the synthetic kryptonite affects Superman differently than the stuff from outer space. It makes him a not very nice person. He beings to shirk his Superman duties then straightens the Leaning Tower of Pisa before blowing out the Olympic Torch. Later, he punches a giant hole in an oil tanker and hooks up with Webster’s squeeze. His costume goes from bright red and blue to more subdued tones. His hair is greasy and he needs a shave. This is probably the closest we’ll ever get to seeing Bizarro on-screen.
After pounding shots in a bar, Superman has a bit of an emotional breakdown in a junkyard, where he splits into two beings — Evil Superman and Good Clark Kent. They lay into each other until Kent’s left standing. He tears open his shirt and reveals the bright red “S”-shield underneath. Regardless of whether or not you think Richard Pryor was a worthy addition to the film franchise, you have to admit that the junkyard brawl in “Superman III” is one of the best sequences in the series and justifies the movie’s existence.
In sum, Richard Lester’s directorial efforts on “Superman II” and “III” were more successful than the rabid fanbase would have you think. Richard Donner would have gone a different route, granted, but it’s fairly pointless to romanticize all the possibilities. These two films have plenty of greatness in them. Who knows what Warner Bros. is going to do with the property next? But at the end of the day, they have a lot to live up to.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
20
“Fright Night” at the Nuart
Filed Under Cult Films, Movies | Leave a Comment
It’d been something like 15 years since I’d originally seen “Fright Night.” I was just getting into horror, and the USA Network was my one-stop shop for all manner of things that go bump. I did a lot of catching up on mid-’80s scare-flicks in my early adolescence, not that I can remember much of what I saw all that well on late-night basic cable. That said, “Fright Night” was a movie that I remember having seen, and not much else.
So last night when the Nuart screened the film, I sort of was going in blind. There was a buzz in the audience, as several members of the cast and crew were there. Tim Sullivan — director of “2001 Maniacs,” one of the worst movies I’ve seen at the Nuart to date — did a brief introduction before the film, calling out all the actors and filmmakers who were in attendance. I think the editor probably got the most tepid applause. Vampire villain Chris Sarandon unfortunately couldn’t make it to the screening but had sent a video message that played before the film; they had to run it twice since there was no audio the first time. There was even a camera crew at the screening. They went all out for this one.
The film itself is pretty okay. I think it has a great first act but limps along for much of the middle section. The climax is a little long-ish for a movie like this, too. It’s definitely enjoyable with a packed house, but if it’s a movie you haven’t grown up on and can easily overlook its flaws — like I can with “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter” — you might be a little puzzled as to why some people are so nuts over the film.
It has a great concept: a teenage horror movie buff (William Ragsdale) thinks his next-door neighbor (Sarandon) is a vampire and teams up with a late-night spookshow host (Roddy McDowall) to stop him. And I liked how the film actually follows all the “rules” of vampire lore instead of subverting them like the Bush Administration does with the Constitution. Too many vampire movies — even my beloved “Blade” films — try a more “realistic” approach to the material rather than just resigning themselves to the fact that, yes, everything pop culture has taught you about vampires’ strengths and weaknesses is true.
It certainly saves you gobs of exposition.
After the film, there was a Q&A. The movie had started late, and William Ragsdale pointed out that it was almost 3:30 in the morning, and we were all still there — 23 years after the movie had been released — talking about it. Some people might say that’s pretty frightening.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
19
“Another Way to Die” Review
Filed Under Blockbusters, Movies | Leave a Comment
Amy Winehouse almost wound up doing the song for the “Quantum of Solace” opening credits sequence. I think that would’ve been more painful than the ball-busting interrogation scene from “Casino Royale.” I’m not a fan of Ms. Winehouse’s music, nor am I a fan of her steady decline. Apparently, the filmmakers aren’t either.
Jack White and Alicia Keys have since collaborated on “Another Way to Die,” a song that’s a bit of a mixed bag. I gave the track a listen on CHUD.com. The instrumentals at the beginning are good, but I think Keys’ vocals are buried deeper than the late Vesper Lynd. I can’t remember any lyrics from the song, apart from the title, after having just listened to it twice. The collaboration between Keys and White is more like a collision.
I’m a huge, huge fan of the title songs from Bond films. I have a CD with the first 19 of them. I also went out and bought Chris Cornell’s greatest hits album to just get the criminally underrated “You Know My Name” from “Casino Royale.” This new track simply doesn’t do it for me at the moment. But, maybe once I hear “Another Way to Die” in the context of the film (i.e. against a montage of women dancing naked in silhouette), I’ll be all over it like Amy Winehouse on a mountain of blow.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
17
I Don’t Approve of This Message
Filed Under Culture, TV | Leave a Comment
When I was a kid, I saw a commercial for a toy called Manglor Mountain. It was a volcano that erupted slime and came with a rubbery monster — the Manglord! — you could literally tear limb from limb. Even better, you could reattach his severed limbs. Well, I begged my parents to buy me this macabre little playset for Christmas. Sure enough, on Christmas morning, it was beneath the tree. I promptly ripped the Manglord’s arm off, but when I tried to reattach it, the damn thing wouldn’t stick. The commercial had lied to me. The toy was a big pile of suck.
I don’t watch TV anymore, and I have a special place in my heart reserved for hating television commercials. I don’t think my intense dislike for advertisements is entirely the fault of the Manglor Mountain spot. But after two decades of watching TV, I found advertisements to be more than a little disingenuous and endlessly astonished by the fact that people over the age of 5 still believe what the idiot box tells them.
That being said, I think political ads are 30-second horrorshows. I don’t see them on TV, of course, but they play the hell out of them on Air America if only to rip on all the white noise coming from the McCain camp. I’m not really interested in bashing McCain at length in this blog, though. I’d rather rip on how our culture of advertising has infiltrated politics and turned our candidates into widgets that have to be sold to the American public.
Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t Coke and Pepsi. They’re not a product or service. That we’ve become so lazy, so incurious a culture that TV spots are what decide elections, not an informed electorate, is terrifying. Commercials lie like a damn rug, folks! It’s one thing to get a shoddy toy for Christmas because you were a child and didn’t know better than to believe what you saw on TV. It’s another to spend the next four years with another dullard in the White House because he had the better commercials.
Why not just vote for the Manglord? He’s got experience.
-Brad Lohan