Comic-Con movie news

While I would like to experience the San Diego Comic-Con sometime, I may have been able to follow more news from assorted media than if I had to deal with the more than 100,000 people at the genre entertainment convention last week (23 to 26 July 2009). I was disappointed that so much coverage still seemed to be snickering at the attendees, characterizing them as geeks, nerds, or worse.

Yes, most of the fanboys at such events are young men, but we don’t all live in our parents’
basements, have questionable personal hygiene, fear women, or lack productive jobs. In fact, most of my peers who are fans of fantasy, science fiction, horror, anime, and superheroes are well-adjusted professionals, often with families. People who play videogames, gamble, or are avid sports fans are still more socially acceptable than the millions of us who read comics, play role-playing games, and make the movies adapted from them profitable.

Speaking of genre film, the big Hollywood studios have all but taken over Comic-Con,
using it to preview and promote their upcoming releases. With the average price of tickets at $10 and climbing, studios are trying to find ways to compete with home theaters, online file-sharing, and ever-more-fragmented audiences and attention spans. As a result, they’re playing it safe, adapting known intellectual properties; using gimmicks like 3-D, computer imagery, and IMAX for more and more flicks; and relying on big-budget “tentpole” summer fare to boost their box office.

Still, for all of the conservatism of producers, good films are still being made. We’re still
riding the latest wave of movies with costumed superheroes, as second-stringers such as Western antihero Jonah Hex are portrayed in live action, often for the first time. I thought the previews of Iron Man 2 looked promising, even if they and the cast didn’t inspire
fans as much as when director Jon Favreau brought the first movie to Comic-Con.

As for Tony Stark, star Robert Downey Jr. can soon also be seen in Guy Ritchie’s action-oriented take on Sherlock Holmes. I’ll probably enjoy it as a steampunk/alternate
Victorian-era history rather than a faithful rendition of one of my favorite fictional characters.

Nostalgia is also behind Seth Rogen’s upcoming Green Hornet. I’ve seen reruns of the 1960s television show featuring Bruce Lee, and the “Black Beauty” was a contemporary of the classic Adam West Batmobile. I was a fan of the early 1980s Tron — not only did I play the videogame in arcades, but I have fond memories of using bicycles and Frisbees for “light cycles and deadly discs” with neighborhood kids! Thus, the trailer with genre vet Jeff Bridges looked exciting to me, even if I had to explain to Janice why.

Fantasy enthusiasts can look forward to the whimsical (and surprisingly melancholy,
from the preview) Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonzes’ live-action rendition of the Maurice Sendak book. I reviewed Hayao Miyazaki‘s Ponyo a few months ago, and the American English-dubbed version of the animated fable should be worth screening in a cinema. The animated Mr. Fox could also be good, since Coraline recently demonstrated that stop-motion is still a good fit for fantasy. I may not be the biggest fan of Tim Burton’s quirky style, but it does seem well-suited to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Fantasist Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus should be able to overcome the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger.

In addition, The Chronicles of Narnia [3]: Voyage of the Dawn Treader has started filming. Let’s hope that Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson can make their two-picture Hobbit continue to do justice to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth as the Lord of the Rings trilogy did.

In terms of literature, science fiction was my first love before I discovered other subgenres. District 9 looks like an explicit parable about apartheid, and like last week’s Torchwood: Children of Earth, it shows that ordinary humans can be as villainous as any alien menace. If you take classic space opera, add dollops of the ever-popular cyberpunk, and use state-of-the-art visual effects, you might have something resembling James Cameron’s Avatar (not to be confused with M. Night Shyamalan’s Last Airbender). Somewhere between Burton‘s fantasy and postapocalyptic dystopia is the upcoming stop-motion “9,” which also looks interesting.

I’m less optimistic about Roland Emmerich adapting Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, a
speculation about future history and the rise and fall of galactic civilization. Asimov‘s intellectual stories aren’t a good fit for Emmerich’s usual pyrotechnics. Many more announcements were made at Comic-Con, but I’ve only mentioned the ones I found interesting.

Coming soon: Comic-Con TV, comics, and game news!

Comics Wednesday, July 2009

Friends, please note that my blog is no longer available at Yahoo 360. You can find it at MySpace.com or under my “edemaitre” Yahoo Profile. As promised, here are some of my thoughts on recent comic books.

As I mentioned in my previous posting, the San Diego Comic-Con is this week. While I
haven’t yet made the hajj to the largest annual genre/popular culture event in the U.S., I have closely followed coverage of it for the past few years. Movies, comic books and graphic novels, action figures, television shows, games, and more are announced or previewed at this convention. I hope to get to smaller shows here in the Boston area, such as November’s Super MegaFest.

In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying DC’s Wednesday Comics, a 12-issue experiment in weekly comics on tabloid newsprint. The quality of the writing varies, but the art is
impressive, and it reminds me of lying on the floor reading Prince Valiant in the Sunday funnies.

DC‘s big summer storyline crossing over several titles is Green Lantern: Blackest Night, which addresses the temporary nature of death among costumed superheroes (and villains). Although I don’t plan to spend even more on comics than I do now, it has gotten good reviews so far.

I have continued picking up the Batman family of titles, as Bruce Wayne is presumed dead and former Robin/Nightwing Dick Grayson has taken up the mantle. I wasn’t a big fan of Grant Morrison’s trippy run, but he, Paul Dini, and company have upped their game with the creative freedom granted by the temporary change in lead characters.

Similarly, Marvel Comics is winding down its run of Bucky Barnes as Captain America with the imminent return of Steve Rogers. Unlike the regular shakeups for Superman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men, Rogers has been gone for a few years now of continuity (fictional history), and the espionage/thriller tone of his title remains engaging. I’ve been avoiding most team-based Marvel and DC books lately because of overly convoluted continuities and gimmicky crossovers designed to sell more issues.

Speaking of alternate histories, I’m still catching up on collected editions. I’ve recently read Dark Horse’s convenient omnibuses of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and I look forward to getting to the next installment of the steampunk The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (not the weak movie adaptation), the metahuman procedural Powers, and the political Ex Machina. Dynamite, which I’ve praised previously for its handling of licensed properties such as Buck Rogers, will also be handling the next batch of Stargate comics.

Typically, fiction is adapted from print to television or movie, but in the case of Nickelodeon’s excellent Avatar: the Last Airbender, a fantasy cartoon is being adapted to a live-action film series directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Last Airbender shouldn’t be confused with James Cameron’s upcoming science fiction movie Avatar.

The first previews and still photos of the young cast have appeared online. I sympathize with those who feel that Last Airbender should have had more actors of Asian descent in its cast, I’m cautiously optimistic. We’ll have to wait and see whether planned movie reboots such as Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, Astro Boy, and Green Hornet are closer to Watchmen or to Dragonball in quality.

Wild about Harry

Friends, I hope you’ve had a good fortnight. I’ve been busy with work and the usual games. On Saturday, 18 July 2009, Janice and I had brunch at Fresco in Needham, Mass., and met Thomas K.Y. at the AMC Burlington cinemas for Harry Potter [6] and the Half-Blood Prince.

We enjoyed the movie, mainly because it was nice to see the maturing actors and characters
and to return to a familiar fantasy setting. Young wizards in training Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are a joy
to watch as they continue their studies, fall in and out of love, and respond to the threats posed by followers of the evil Lord Voldemort.

This time, the faculty at Hogwart’s (led by Michael Gambon as Prof. Albus Dumbledore,
continuing the series’ commitment to casting every actor in the U.K.) is joined by Jim
Broadbent’s Prof. Horace Slughorn. The professor is hiding some secrets related to Tom Riddle (Hero Feinnes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane), as Voldemort was once known.

I wouldn’t say that Half-Blood Prince is my favorite of the series, since some choppy
transitions reflected the difficulty of adapting J.K. Rowling’s lengthening popular novels to screen. However, I liked seeing the female characters developed, including brainy Hermione, fey Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), and sensible Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright).

Even the sneering Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and Prof. Severus Snape (Alan Rickman,
again stealing every scene he’s in) became more sympathetic amid the murderous intrigues surrounding Harry. To say anything more would spoil the plot for those few who
haven’t yet read the books or seen the movie.

Other than the Star Trek and Star Wars space operas, I can’t recall going to theaters to see this many installments of any film franchise. I’d give Half-Blood Prince, which was rated PG-13, a 7 or 8 out of 10, or a B+. Despite the trendiness of the Twilight teenaged vampire soap opera, I think it will be a while before another franchise can claim the quality or fan base of Harry Potter.

Of the trailers we saw, Guy Ritchie’s action-oriented take on Sherlock Holmes looks like a guilty pleasure rather than a good adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s seminal sleuth. Coudy With a Chance of Meatballs could be amusing, but most of the other previews were dross.

After the movie, we went to Romano’s Macaroni Grill, which was pretty good. I may have been influenced by watching an episode of Phantom Gourmet, a local food program, focusing on Italian cuisine that morning, though.

Coming soon: Genre TV, comics in review, and gaming!

TV transitions

In the past few months, the 2008-2009 television season drew to a close with the cancellations of numerous genre shows. I was particularly fond of comedies Pushing Daisies, The Middleman, and Reaper (all of which may wrap up storylines in comic book form). Long-running, critically acclaimed shows such as E R and Battlestar Galactica
(BSG) finished, as did immature ones like Crusoe and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I thought the whimsical Eli Stone, Valentine, and Cupid deserved a chance, and we’ll never know if dramas such as biblical allegory Kings would have lived up to their potential. Space operas BSG and Stargate: Atlantis ended with a whimper, although each promises to have more spin-offs with The Plan/Caprica and Stargate: Universe, respectively.

Thanks to HBO and Showtime’s free preview weekend, Janice and I caught the second
season premiere of vampire melodrama True Blood and the dark comedy Nurse Jackie. While neither was particularly realistic, both showcased the quality of writing that
distinguishes HBO from its many competitors.

I can’t say the same thing for Frank Miller’s live-action adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. As a fan of the recent comic book continuation by Darwyn Cooke and others, I was
disappointed that Miller chose to emphasize over-the-top violence rather than the wry humor of Eisner’s blue-masked gumshoe.

I’d put the rotoscoped cyberpunk A Scanner Darkly, Brendan Fraser’s juvenile adventure Journey to the Center of the Earth, and comedian Jack Black’s Be Kind, Rewind somewhere between those two extremes. Each of these movies was reasonably entertaining.

The remake of Blind Samurai was interesting, and it’s a shame that Fox didn’t give the speculative fiction Virtuality a chance beyond its television pilot. As a student of Arthurian lore, I wanted to like BBC/NBC’s Merlin but was instead annoyed at the numerous ways in which it dumbed down the characters and plot for a younger audience.

HBO’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and PBS’s latest Poirot have been solid, if not overly faithful to the source novels, according to Janice, who somehow retains plot details of numerous mysteries for years (I suppose my own knowledge of comic book continuities is similar).

Coming soon: The summer TV season begins!

9 June 2009: Comics musings

In the past month or so, I’ve been able to catch up on reading and filing comic books and graphic novels. Here are some of my observations.

The trend of adapting licensed properties to comic books has continued, just as Hollywood keeps raiding the medium — and not just superheroes, but also other genres — for ideas. I’ve already mentioned the solid translations of Conan/Red Sonja, the Lone Ranger/Zorro, and Buffy: the Vampire Slayer/Angel, as well as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Farscape. They’re being joined by revivals of Sherlock Holmes, the Muppets, Doctor Who, and Buck Rogers.

Unlike some past comic versions, most of these are being done with reverence for the characters and stories of the source material, and the art and writing is nearly as good as
reading a classic book or watching the original TV shows they’re based on. Other independently published books that I recommend include anthropomorphic animal fantasy Mouse Guard (in the same spirit as Watership Down and Redwall), the noirish Powers, and the surreal Umbrella Academy.

In more mainstream superhero titles, I’ve drifted off from DC Comics‘ “Blackest Night” and Marvel’s “Dark Reign” back to monthly issues based on individuals or smaller teams rather than crossovers. Although Batman and Superman aren’t even appearing in their own titles right now, the writing has been pretty good, as it has been for Captain America and the Flash. In the case of most of these superheroes, former sidekicks have stepped in to replace Bruce Wayne as Batman and Steve Rogers as Captain America, while the Silver Age icon Barry Allen has returned to take back the mantle of the Flash from Wally West. Justice Society of America and Titans have also illustrated the appeal of so-called legacy characters.

As a longtime fan of Green Arrow and Black Canary, I’m disappointed at the cancellation
of Birds of Prey, which focused on the DC Universe‘s superheroines. However, as part of Grant Morrison‘s trippy replacement Batman storylines, perhaps Gotham Girls will be good. Of course, most big changes are only temporary in these fictional universes, as writers must balance decades of continuity with most readers’ desire for their favorite characters to be unaging.

Despite continuing speculation about the imminent demise of print, costumed vigilantes are also doing well in other media, with Smallville, Batman and the Brave and the Bold, Wolverine and the X-Men, and a new computer-animated Iron Man on television, as well as X-Men Origins: Wolverine starting off the summer movie season. I haven’t yet seen the revisionist origin story of Wolverine, partly because of mixed reviews and partly because of the recent glut of mutants, metahumans, and antiheroes in theaters.

On the other hand, Batman and the Brave and the Bold continues to impress with its tribute to the sensibilities of the 1950s and 1960s, and in the coming weeks, Disney XD’s energetically retro Spectacular Spider-Man will begin its second television season. I’m also looking forward to direct-to-video releases such as the upcoming Green Lantern: First Flight.