Actually, it's quite brilliant
Apr 01One of my favorite movies (and definitely my favorite movie adapted from a play) is Sleuth, wherein a young Michael Caine matches wits with an Sir Larry Olivier. It’s definitely a old-school film, set almost entirely inside an English country mansion. And in this neverending season of remakes, someone has decided to update the film. This would normally drive me batty, as remakes rarely match their roots.
However, the remake is going to star Michael Caine and Jude Law. With Jude Law taking Caine’s role, and Sir Michael Caine taking Sir Olivier’s role. And the brilliance is that Jude Law has already re-did Caine in Alfie. Fate doesn’t get more fatey that that, really.
Really, I think it should be a rule – if you’re going to remake a Michael Caine film, you have to use Jude Law. And I’d go see them – Get Carter would have been a far better film, no doubt, with Law instead of Sylvester Stallone. “I am the Law!” No you ain’t!
Let’s fan out and see what we’ve got;
I see product placement… and dead people.
Apr 01It’s supposed to be invisible right? They’re supposed to put stuff into movies, and we see the label, but we don’t know we saw the label, and then later we leave and go, “I really need a beer and Twinkies.” But it’s never worked that way on me. And I doubt it works on other people either. But they do it all the time and it’s getting worse and frankly, it’s starting to interfere with my interest in the films that stoop to grab the cash.
I understand the concept – movie’s require money to make and product placement pays big bucks. But in recent years it seems like ad companies have started pining for the days of ET, when the product played a key role in the film. Like Castaway – did the dude have to work for for FedEx? No, but he did, and so in a movie where the guy spends 90 minutes ALONE ON A FUCKING ISLAND, we still get to see FedEx boxes throughout. Fantastic.
But when they start worming their way into the poster, despite what happens in the film, I’m done. I can’t play along any more. With rare exception, I’m doing my viewing through pre-viewed movies when they reach their must-go price – that way, none of my money makes it to the filmmakers.
Observe;
And knowing is half the battle
Mar 20
There’s a new magazine popping up in the UK called Cereal:Geek (not to be confused with plain old Geek magazine, which is also worth noting) that will come out quarterly – 100 pages, no ads – and focus on those wonderful, wasted Saturday mornings of youth. Specifically the 80s. Boomers and Gen-Y need not apply.
Dubious at first, I’ve now shelled out for the first issue – the sample pages I’ve seen feature brilliant articles and features, such as tearing apart a single episode of The Real Ghostbusters, scene by scene, because it was made using many different overseas animation studios. Or taking a cartoon episode and coming up with a cover for it, if it were a comic. Not to mention a lot of fantastic art – I mean really, what are the chances we’re going to see new M.A.S.K. art anywhere else?
And then there’s the attention-grabbing cover, featuring a post-duke-it-out She-Ra, putting the “pow!” back in Princess of Power. Maybe they couldn’t show us blood and bruises on Saturday morning, but it was always there.
Black is the new pink. Beatboxing is the new DJ.
Mar 14I’m not sure when this emerging pattern of beatboxing began (and I mean the recent upswing in visibility, not its 80s roots – I miss The Fat Boys), but it’s about to reach a critical mass I think. I’m not prone to predictions, but I think within the next year, if not the next few months, beatboxing is about to blow up. Follow my train of thought, won’t you.
Most recently, as in today, Xeni at BoingBoing posts about a French boxer on their version of American Idol (wait, did American Idol come first?) – Joseph blew away the judges, but I’m not sure that he made it on the show. You have to sing, after all.
I found this amusing, as I’d just stumbled upon a boxer trying out for the Australian Idol show.
My journey from not-paying-attention to trading links with Xeni started a couple of months back when I discovered a YouTube video for Biz Markie’s Turn the Party Out. Song, fucking, rules. And I had to buy an expensive hip hop sampler CD to get a better version, but it was worth it.
Captain America #25 and a speculative chronology of events.
Mar 09So, after a conversation with my local comic shop dude, in which he filled me in on the general situation surrounding the ordering of copies of Captain America #25, I would like to present the following timeline.
– Comic shops have no idea that Captain America will die in issue #25 of his titular book. This means they buy normal amounts.
– The news of Captain America’s death hits before stores are even open to offer the comic. Accounts get their copy at cover price, but by the time most stores put it out on the shelves, it’s worth $20. Wizard is offering both covers for $34.99. Speaking of Wizard…
– Comic shops immeadiately put in orders for more. They are told there are none. Wizard has bought the rest. The two cover versions are put with a third, Wizard variant, given the 9.8 CGC treatment, and offered as part of Wizard’s Death of a Dream package deal to Wizard’s World LA next week.
– Within 24 hours, anybody with copies of the comic are selling them on Ebay. A few who thought to get the CGC treatment are offering them at 9.9 for a grand and up. There are, incidentally, nine pages of just Captain America #25 for sale. Nine. Pages. Meanwhile, Wizard announces a limit on ticket purchases, so “all fans have a chance to get their copy of this once in a lifetime issue.” Apparently, according to them, demand has “skyrocketed.” No shit.
– Meanwhile, Marvel, who sold Wizard all the remaining first printings isn’t telling Diamond, who in turn isn’t telling retailers, when there will be a second printing. Marvel, it seems, doesn’t give a shit if everyone has a chance to read this… at least not right now, when it’s hot and generating more and more buzz all the time.
Joe Quesada apparently doesn’t remember that the makers of the Star Wars toys got in on the market tinkering action, releasing one Boba Fett for every million R2-D2s, only to release him en mass later, equally pissing off both fanboy collectors with poor impulse control and every small child that just wants to play in the backyard. And it didn’t go well.
Oh well. I’m with Stephen Colbert. “First they came for the X-men…”
