Hot Cops!
May 03Here’s my Back Stage interview with the Hot Fuzz gang — Wright, Pegg and Frost. I don’t know why they cropped the online photo so it’s just Edgar’s cute mug, but rest assured that a pic of all three of them appeared in print and it was completely adorable.
Also, because I love you, here’s a racy little outtake.
First, whilst reading the article, make special note of the part where they talk about their imaginary coat of arms. Then read this, which came a bit later:
WWH: Smash All Puny Humans
May 02Today is the start of World War Hulk. The Initiative still isn’t over, but I’m relaxing my grip on it. It’s not Civil War – I don’t need to get them all. Really The Initiative is Marvel figuring out a way to brand what would normally be the downtime between major event story arcs.
And I realized something today, as I started reading the WWH books – I’m really looking forward to it. Civil War was a car crash – the idea of the heroes of the world fighting one another, allying themselves with the bad guys, etc. It was a good statement to make, a super-hero prism taking a look at the stuff happening in the politics of the real world, but while it was intriguing, while I had to slow down and take a look, it wasn’t what I’d call fun. And in the end, there’s only a small handful of heroes I’m that happy with as characters. Spider-man. Thing. Ummm. Punisher, sort of. Luke Cage, m’man. Most of the Mighty Avengers really – fight the power. And Omega Flight, but that’s kind of a knee-jerk thing. We’ll see where it ends up – the writer didn’t get the CSIS acronym right, so this may not go well.
And that’s about it. The rest can go to hell, as far as I care. Ooooh, wait. They are.
I’m really looking forward to WWH. After a year of watching our favorite heroes be shits, WWH is promising a bit of a cliche – the power fantasy. After a year of watching Marvel’s big heroes be pricks, I really can’t wait to watch a focused, non-Pantheon Hulk (ie a non-Banner brained Hulk) either beat some sense into or the shit out of every single one of them.
’nuff said.
Star Wars: Beloved by Gingrich AND Pelosi
May 01The History Channel is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of a lil’ flick called Star Wars with a two-hour special on May 28, Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed.
In this special, such “luminaries” as Tom Brokaw, Nancy Pelosi, and Newt “Evil Incarnate” Gingrich comment on the Star Wars films. If you’re like me, you have been LITERALLY SLOWLY DYING from not knowing what Newt “Satan’s Spawn” Gingrich thinks of Star Wars, so at long last, we can sleep easy.
Then, we wake on Tuesday morning and initiate the suicide pact bestowed upon us by our Martian overlords.
Here’s my favorite part of the hype-soaked press release, though:
The special makes the argument that Star Wars’ intensely compelling stories—borrowed from diverse traditions, from Greek mythology and American westerns to the Bible and even Vaudeville—compel us to explore some of the biggest questions of our time. STAR WARS: THE LEGACY REVEALED explores that view through interviews with politicians, academics, journalists and critics, who all weigh in on the creations of George Lucas. The special shows how seldom a movie can make us laugh and think about our role in the universe—which may be why it has stood the test of time.
So, wow. When the prequels first bombed, these were stories for kids:
“The movies are for children but they don’t want to admit that. In the first film they absolutely hated R2 and C3-PO. In the second film they didn’t like Yoda and in the third one they hated the Ewoks… and now Jar Jar is getting accused of the same thing.”
Now, of course, we’ve come full circle again and Lucas is claiming the title of “modern mythmaker” and “Joseph Campbell’s bitch.”
Let’s just call these movies what they are. Two shitty ones, two good ones, and two classics. You know which is which.
