Brando Extravaganzo

2011 Movie Rankings

2012-01-16T00:21:00.000-05:00

I found it quite challenging to make a Top Ten list for the year, because there are so many films I've missed. I've tried to fill in as many holes as I possibly could, but it could be forever before I catch up. Instead, I've decided to present all of the films I saw this year ranked. So here are the top ten movies, with the rest of the list to be found after the jump.

1.    Bellflower
2.    50/50
3.    Drive
4.    I Saw the Devil
5.    Warrior
6.    Point Blank
7.    The Adventures of Tintin
8.    Take Shelter
9.    Fast Five
10.    Hugo

11.    Melancholia
12.    The Other F Word
13.    The Descendants
14.    Attack the Block
15.    Hanna
16.    Rubber
17.    Super 8
18.    Cedar Rapids
19.    Submarine
20.    Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
21.    The Muppets
22.    Captain America
23.    Moneyball
24.    Hobo with a Shotgun
25.    Source Code
26.    Senna
27.    We Need To Talk About Kevin
28.    Rise of the Planet of the Apes
29.    Thor
30.    Contagion
31.    Martha Marcy May Marlene
32.    Rango
33.    Page One: Inside the New York Times
34.    Bridesmaids
35.    Trollhunter
36.    The Tree of Life
37.    Paul
38.    The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
39.    Septien
40.    Ides of March
41.    Horrible Bosses
42.    30 Minutes or Less
43.    Final Destination 5
44.    SCRE4M
45.    Being Elmo
46.    Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
47.    Fright Night
48.    Tower Heist
49.    X-Men: First Class
50.    The Skin I Live In
51.    Win Win
52.    Drive Angry 3D
53.    Insidious
54.    The Green Hornet
55.    The Hangover Part II
56.    I Am Number Four
57.    Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
58.    The Beaver
59.    Hot Coffee
60.    Red State
61.    Limitless
62.    Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
63.    Margin Call
64.    Transformers: Dark of the Moon
65.    Cold Weather
66.    Super
67.    Sucker Punch
68.    Season of the Witch
69.    The Adjustment Bureau
70.    The Thing
71.    Battle: Los Angeles
72.    Granito
73.    Programming the Nation

2011's Tightest Tracks

2011-12-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

People seemed to enjoy the fact my end of the year playlist was available for all to download, so I suppose I'll do that again this year.You can download it here. Track list after the jump. Now, I unfortunately didn't get a chance to make a snazzy album cover like last year, but as a bonus you can check out the extended mix on Spotify, if you're so inclined.

1. "Future Starts Slow" by The Kills

2. "Songs For Women" by Frank Ocean

3. "Repetition" by TV On The Radio

4. "Midnight City" by M83

5. "Nightcall" by Kavinsky feat. Lovefoxxx

6. "Diamond Way" by JEFF The Brotherhood

7. "Turn The Season" by Fucked Up

8. "Black" by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi feat. Norah Jones

9. "Take Care" by Drake feat. Rihanna

10. "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd

11. "Cocaine" by The Internet feat. Left Brain

12. "Sex Syrup" by Slick Mahony feat. Yung Humma

13. "Lonely Boy" by The Black Keys

14. "I Guess You Can Say Things Are Getting Pretty Serious" by Forever The Sickest Kids

15. "Ghost On The Dance Floor" by blink-182

16. "Out Of This World" by ASAP Rocky

17. "She" by Tyler, The Creator feat. Frank Ocean

18. "Why I Love You" by Jay Z & Kanye West feat. Mr Hudson

19. "Dilettante" by St. Vincent

20. "Universe or Worse" by Braid

The Stupidest Movies of 2011

2011-12-29T13:49:00.001-05:00

This was my snap review of Robots! in 3D.

Since I don't get paid to write about movies like many of the people I associate with, I have absolutely no obligation to see every film that comes out which allows me to curate my moviegoing decisions pretty well. Still, something will often slip through the cracks or my morbid curiosity will get the better of me so I always have a solid list of stinkers each year. Here are the movies that insulted my intelligence the most in 2011, presented in alphabetical ~~odor~~ order.

The Adjustment Bureau - Though this had a mildly interesting premise and a decent cast, the execution was pretty doofy. Look, I like plenty of movies with odder things than hats that give people special access to portalways (Scott Pilgrim, anyone?), but when this is explained with oodles of dialogue among some of the most didactic storytelling since Full House, I won't buy it.

Battle: Los Angeles - This is the blandest movie I've seen in quite some time. There's nothing particularly enthralling about the battle depicted through the film, and all of the characters are stock archetypes from other war films. You know what would have made me invested in their fate? If they were all played by rappers or wrestlers, because at least then I could say things like "No! This was Chris Jericho's last tour of duty before getting home to his family why did he have to die!" or "Damn, who knew Gucci Mane would be such a good sniper!"

Sucker Punch - It's just like a Quentin Tarantino movie for people that hate movies, because it pulls from a mishmash of cultural influences but, unlike QT, has no respect for the storytelling medium. Everything here is based on the premise of "this-plus-that would be cool, brah," but the crossovers never quite congeal and the stakes are low, since everything occurs in the fantasy-in-another-fantasy world of Baby Cakes, or whatever the main character's name is. And are we actually supposed to buy the women's empowerment angle that kept being thrust upon us when this came out? Because it seemed to me that all of the women were pretty oppressed throughout, even in their fantasy world.

The Thing - I’m not one to necessarily judge a remake, prequel, or (in this case) a premaquel right out of the gate. For example, I thought Fright Night was a fun (though unnecessary) trip to the cinema. But not only does this follow most of the same beats the original had, but it does so with no soul. The only two times this film got any type of reactions from me are when Mary Elizabeth Winstead reiterates Kurt Russell’s speech from the original around the fire, and when they enter the alien ship (both reactions were groans).

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - For what it is, I like the first Transformers. It’s a big dumb action movie with a lot of property damage, and that’s all it really takes for an entertaining film. Unfortunately, the series evolved to just dumb movie here. There’s too much goofy ‘comic’ relief with the likes of Ken Jeong and John Malkovich, a silly heel turn from Dr. McDreamy, and a case of “let’s put glasses on this hot chick to make her seem smart” syndrome from Not Megan Fox’s character. However, I will say that replacing Megan Fox with Buzz Aldrin is a step up.

Honorary mention: Limitless - This flick thinks its much smarter than it is, because it’s not very bright, but it was saved from being included by having unintentionally hilarious sequences to provide large amounts of entertainment value. I urge you to watch this for yourself if you have a strange affection for terrible films like I do, so I don’t want to say too much. Just keep an eye out for the thing Abbie Cornish does at the ice skating rink, and then DeNiro’s crazy monologue toward the end.

The New Top 10

2011-11-30T03:07:00.001-05:00

As a geek who likes to keep track of lists of favorites, it's only natural that I should have a top ten list of favorite films. However, this type of thing always get switched up every few years based on changes in taste, discovering new films, or having a reinvigorated love for something old. This is why it's important to take a step back every few years and re-evaluate what's on the list. A newfound realization that I could watch Point Break on a loop is what inspired me that it was that time of the decade to take another look.

And so I proudly present my revitalized list of all-time favorite films:

1. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
2. Ghostbusters
3. Little Shop of Horrors
4. The Good, the Bad and The Ugly
5. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
6. Point Break
7. Scream
8. Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. Teen Wolf
10. Blue Velvet

Digital comics are a good thing

2011-06-01T13:06:00.002-04:00

I’ve been mulling over the big DC Comics announcement from yesterday and bemoaning a lot of things this presents from a storytelling standpoint (what will happen to Dick Grayson and all of the development Grant Morrison has given him? will there still be a Justice League International book?). This has distracted me, and surely others, from considering the impact of the other half of that announcement - that DC Comics will be releasing their comics in a digital format the same day as the print editions are released

Brian Michael Bendis tweeted yesterday that it would kill local comic book shops. That’s nonsense. It's simply a method to help facilitate a wider audience to have access to comics.

13 Year Old Me would have loved it. In the wee town of Olean, NY, there’s a pretty tiny store that allegedly sells comics, but they really don’t get much in stock. For example, when DC flagship event Blackest Night happened, I stopped in during my trip home for Christmastime to see if they had an issue and the guy working there had no clue what I was talking about. The same goes with the frequency of theatrical releases becoming more readily available through video-on-demand while in theaters - Olean's movie theater would never play any arthouse films, and the closest theater that would is an hour and a half drive. If technology like this prevents anyone in similar cultural dead zones from having to deal with a lack of access to things they're passionate about, I’m all for it.

Of course, Adult Me loves having a tangible product in his hands and is a compulsive collector of DVD's and comics. And since I live in a city where I can buy every comic that comes out each week, I’ll still be at my local comic book store every Wednesday. I know I’m not the only one.

I’d Really Like to See…Christopher Nolan Direct a Western

2011-03-18T13:20:00.001-04:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on January 29, 2009... so don't expect this to mention Inception.

In his relatively short film career, Christopher Nolan has proven that he’s among the best filmmakers working today. He slowly gained notoriety for completely changing the way we look at film structure and the reliable narrator with Memento and in less than a decade of work he's helmed one of the biggest motion pictures of all time. While Nolan’s films typically share some similarities tonally and thematically, he’s proven he's admirably adept at directing a wide range of genres, from intimate thrillers such as Memento to big budget summer spectacles such as The Dark Knight. Taking into consideration his versatility and the characteristics seen in Nolan’s films, I’d like to see one of my favorite filmmakers diversify a bit further and take on one of my favorite, mostly forgotten genres: the Western.

The first thing that pops into peoples’ minds about westerns is shootouts in front of the saloon between good guys and bad guys. The action-packed good guys and bad guys elements are obviously rather standard in Nolan’s Batman films. Of course, seemingly simple shoot ‘em ups often bring deeper themes into play, like the kind that question man’s morality and that turn these blacks and whites into shades of gray (3:10 to Yuma or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). These themes are most obviously resonant in The Dark Knight, which brings into question the ethics of vigilantism and the effects of its escalation that ripple throughout a community.

Most people don’t seem to realize that not all westerns are about the gun slinging, as the gunfights are often just the fruition of gradually evolving characters whose tensions rise to a boiling point. A recent example of this is in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford where a quiet competition between two men boils up until it reaches an astonishing conclusion. Well, I guess the conclusion isn’t that astonishing seeing as the title gives away the ending, but in the case of a similar Nolan film, The Prestige, I couldn’t believe when the endgame was spelled out by the film’s end.

And if Nolan did decide to direct a western, it wouldn’t necessarily be bound to the standard setting of the 1800’s. Contemporary westerns seem to be as frequent as period westerns, which admittedly, is still not that often. In my last entry I spoke a bit about some of the parallels between The Dark Knight and neo-western No Country For Old Men, but the earlier Coen neo-western Blood Simple parallels the noir sensibilities of Nolan’s earlier efforts, Following and Memento.

Whatever Nolan may choose to do between Bat-films, Western or other, he’s likely to think outside the box in whichever realm he’s in. Imagine the possibilities if he gave the same shot in the arm to the western that he did to comic book films and neo-noir.

I’d Really Like to See…A ‘King of Kong’ Feature Film

2011-01-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on March 26, 2009.

Documentaries often have a stigma for being dry and boring. Although reality programs pass themselves off as a form of the documentary medium, they’re overly stylized, mostly scripted and forged to bring more entertainment value to the piece. Unfortunately, this often prevents people from giving docs a chance to open them up to worlds, often quirky, unbeknownst to them.

My personal favorite documentary is one that completely shatters these stereotypes of documentaries. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters peers into the world of competitive Donkey Kong. While the concept seems silly and does not seem like a compelling subject for a documentary - there is, after all, a whole world ripe with socially, politically, emotionally relevant topics waiting to be discovered - the characters and their interactions turn out to be absolutely riveting.

Billy Mitchell, hot sauce king of Florida, was the first-ever World Champion of Donkey Kong. He held onto that record for nearly two decades until Steve Wiebe entered the picture. Recently laid-off from his job, Wiebe decides to pass the time by trying to be the new top-score holder. He succeeds and submits his tape to Twin Galaxies, the #1 authority in video game records. Submitting a world record tape doesn't turn out to as easy as Steve expects it to be when two Billy Mitchell loyalists show up to Wiebe’s house and tear apart his machine to make sure there’s nothing suspect about it that would give him an unfair advantage.

Once Mitchell’s minions enter the Wiebe residence, it’s clear that The King of Kong isn’t another doc with facts and talking heads. The film establishes such a clear conflict with outrageous twists and turns between two well-defined characters and has a wide array of supporting characters that it's ripe for transition to narrative. In fact, when Picturehouse acquired the film at Slamdance two years ago, a narrative feature from New Line was part of that deal. Unfortunately, New Line has since folded and director Seth Gordon, who directed the doc, instead moved on to direct the ultimately forgettable Four Christmases.

Although the film is riveting as is, I can only imagine the brilliance a capable cast would bring to this story. And since I fancy myself an armchair casting director of sorts, here are your major players:

Greg Grunberg as Steve Wiebe: Early on in “Heroes,” the psychic policeman portrayed by Grunberg exhibits the precise kind of likeable schlub that is Wiebe. Grunberg has potential to be a good straight man in the comedy act, but if he needs to step up to get some yuks, the more recent episodes of “Heroes” have shown that that’s within his range. (Wait, “Heroes" isn’t supposed to be funny now? Oh..)

Will Arnett as Billy Mitchell: Although some may argue that Mitchell was portrayed unfairly in the film, that cockiness and arrogance he exudes in the film is part of what makes the film work so well. Arnett has played this character time and time again on “Arrested Development” and “30 Rock,” and while I don’t like to typecast people, I feel this role would fit him like a glove.

Robert Duvall as Walter Day: Duvall has had a knack for playing eccentric old farts recently. He was clearly the highlight of soccer comedy Kicking and Screaming and seemed equally cantankerous in Four Christmases. Although I don’t feel video game referee Walter Day is more a nice old man with eccentric behaviors, it would be a delight to see Duvall take this character and run with it straight off his rocker.

Plenty of actors fit the supporting characters perfectly, too. Kristen Wiig played an exaggerated version of Wiebe’s unsupportive wife in Walk Hard. Her parnter in said film, John C. Riley, has played many slovenly, middle-aged characters that think they’re larger-than-life exactly like Roy “Mr. Awesome” Shildt, longtime nemesis to Billy Mitchell and the Twin Galaxies syndicate. Bill Hader is great in any role and could add a lot to Mitchell’s lackey Steven Kuh, the up-and-coming gamer who longs to be the first to a Donkey Kong kill screen and to earn vindication in the gaming world.

Since it looks like this is a pipe dream for the moment, I encourage folks to check out King of Kong. The film gets so ridiculous and unbelievable it’s hard to believe it isn't fiction. But hopefully, someday, this story can be a playground for some of America’s top comic actors.

Top Ten Films of 2010

2011-01-08T01:07:00.002-05:00

There's a good reason this poster is here.

This is a bit delayed (obviously), but that's because I've been busy with holidays and Sundance stuff at work. This blog doesn't pay the bills you know. Anyway, take a look at the top ten after the jump.

And no, your eyes are not deceiving you; that is indeed a Wall Street 2 poster next to this text. How does this awful movie fit into my best of the year list? Well, that's another great reason for you to read on!

10. The American - I know a lot of people were pretty split on this film, with some anticipating a Bourne-style spy thriller and others getting the slow burn behind this. I'm certainly in the latter camp. Although you could basically describe the entire plot of this film in about a paragraph, director Anton Corbijn has a keen eye to bring out the beauty in the Italian landscape and skillfully has his scenes cut together to really wring out the tension.

9. Buried - It's hard to believe that Ryan Reynolds in a coffin for the entire movie can sustain an hour and a half, but a smart screenplay manages to keep it interesting and have a decent amount of twists and turns along the way. Unlike the similarly set 127 Hours, Buried accomplishes it without utilizing tricks like flashbacks or fantasy sequences.

8. Toy Story 3 - Although it's been at LEAST a decade since I've seen any of its predecessors, this movie does a great job of existing in its own bubble. And, of course, Michael Keaton in his second scene-stealing role of the year (other one being The Other Guys, of course).

7. The Fighter - David O. Russell's underdog boxer story stands far above other movies of this ilk. It doesn't simply provide the story of the featured athlete, but that of a compelling assortment of supporting characters. But that's not to write off the standard aspects of Mickey Ward's rise - an understated score and sharp editing go a long way in getting the audience invested in each fight along the way.

6. Scott Pilgrim vs the World - Although I have severe problems with the ending of this film, it's too damn watchable not to include on this list. Edgar Wright brings an entertaining and endearing ensemble on screen and does a mighty admirable job in condensing six books worth of source material into less than two hours on the screen (but still, the ending).

5. Carlos - This is probably the most epic 5 1/2 hours I've ever spent in a movie theater. Olivier Assayas assuredly guides Edgar Ramirez to an engrossing performance as notorious mercenary Carlos the Jackal. Even if this film only focused on Carlos' raid on an OPEC conference (the showcase of the film found in the second chapter), this film would surely make it onto this list.

4. Exit Through the Gift Shop - Doubles as an entertaining guide through the history of street art, as well as a brilliant satire of the art world in general. Even though Banksy clearly pushed along some of the events depicted in the film (a pet peeve of mine in documentaries), he knows an entertaining yarn when he sees it.

3. Black Swan - Chock full of mind trickery to keep you on your toes. It certainly doesn't hurt that it's also a perfect companion piece to Aronofsky's The Wrestler (which happened to be my top film of 2008).

2. Inception - How much else needs to be written about this? It's original. It's entertaining. It's the film Christopher Nolan has been working toward since he hit the film world with Following.

1. The Social Network - Count me in as one of the many people that was baffled about the existence of a Facebook movie, especially when word came out that David Fincher was directing and Aaron Sorkin was writing it. But Fincher manages to craft a highly engaging film in spite of its heavy amount of dialogue and creates a balanced look at a conflict from several differing perspectives.

SPECIAL MENTION - Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps - This is my favorite movie to make fun of in 2010. WS2 has it all: Eli Wallach's bird calls; the new round of Gordon Gecko-isms; Chinese supervillains; and of course the Subway Ghost of Frank Langella. I can't wait to own this movie and create a splendid drinking game to play while throwing Wall Street 2 parties.

2010 Wrap-up: End of the year playlist

2010-12-27T01:13:00.000-05:00

December is of course the month many folks such as myself who obsess over pop culture are thinking about what made the year. Here's the first of a series of a few posts I'll be doing this week which consists of my best of 2010 mix.

Lots of good diversity with this year's tunes, ranging from up and coming rappers (Chiddy Bang, K-Os, Wale), great bands further climbing toward their peak (Black Keys, Against Me!, Kings of Leon), and great bands I should have been listening to for years that I've just discovered (The Hold Steady, We Are Scientists).

The full list after the jump.

1. Chiddy Bang - All Things Go
2. Wale - The Soup
3. Les Savy Fav - Sleepless in Silverlake
4. We Are Scientists - Nice Guys
5. N.E.R.D. - I Wanna Jam
6. Circa Survive - Get Out
7. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Ativan Eyes
8. Janelle Monae - Tightrope (feat. Big Boi)
9. The Hold Steady - The Weekenders
10. Japandroids - Younger Us
11. Drake - Find Your Love
12. Superchunk - Crossed Wires
13. J. Cole - Lights Please
14. Kings of Leon - Birthday
15. Against Me! - Because Of The Shame
16. Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You
17. K-Os - I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman
18. mc chris - twin peaks
19. Vampire Weekend - Giving Up the Gun
20. The Black Keys - Unknown Brother
21. Kanye West - Runaway (feat. Pusha T)

I’d Really Like to See…’Criminal’ the Movie

2010-11-17T16:57:00.000-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on February 26, 2009.

Most folks find comic books synonymous with superheroes. Considering how popular cinematic adaptations of Batman and Iron Man were this past year, it’s hard to separate the two. Many seem to forget that there was a time where the superhero genre was dormant in comics while other genres, such as horror comics from EC and adventuring comics (like those paid homage to in Watchmen’s comic-in-a-comic “Tales from the Black Freighter”), were more common to find in a long box than they are today.

One of the best comics being released today is far from a superhero book. Writer Ed Brubaker and illustrator Sean Phillips bring pulp crime to four-color glory in their book “Criminal.” The “Criminal” books have a structure similar to beloved crime comic series “Sin City.” One thing that sets “Criminal” apart from “Sin City” (aside from the fact that Sean Phillips can draw really well, unlike Frank Miller) is that they waste no time setting up the mythology of their universe.

In the first volume (Coward), we are already introduced to mainstays Gnarly, the bartender at seedy hangout The Undertow; nonsensical comic strip character Frank Kafka PI; and the notorious Lawless family. Each volume in the series explores a different corner of the same universe each time. Since we see the world through a different perspective each time, it would be great to have a different director for each volume to give it a different feel, like indie horror flick The Signal or the veteran helmed New York Stories.

Volume 3, The Dead and Dying, would be well-served by a director like John Singleton (who happens to write the introduction for this section), whose experience on a film like Shaft would help bring some life to the 70’s Blaxploitation feel of the volume.

The adaptation of Volume 4, Bad Night (which is my personal favorite), could use a director like Christopher Nolan who’s a seasoned veteran of the surreal neo-noir film -- very fitting for a story that has a comic strip creator getting advice from his main character.

And finally, these stories would translate well from page to screen. There’s no worry of failing to make the fantastic seem realistic on-screen. Each story is derived from common elements of crime stories -- revenge, heist, femme fatale -- but Brubaker brings enough innovation to bring a fresh and exciting voice to a genre where its always welcome.

I’d Really Like to See…More Absurd Musical Adaptations

2010-10-29T12:08:00.001-04:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on December 18, 2008.

Yes, they adapted The Fly into an opera.

Years ago, there was an episode of “The Simpsons” that featured “Planet of the Apes: The Musical,” which was brilliant on multiple levels. In about 90 seconds, “The Simpsons” presented a fantastic "what if" that convinced me, and I’m sure plenty of others, that a Planet of the Apes musical should be made. The songs in the show incorporated some of the more popular moments of the film into catchy melodies with a wink to the viewer and took a grim science fiction tale, added song and dance numbers, and managed to maintain entertainment value (although it was in a very different way than the source material intended).

While at the moment we can only hope and dream for “Planet of the Apes: The Musical” to become a reality, there are other films taken from source material that seemingly should never be made into musicals. One of my favorite films of all time is Little Shop of Horrors. Who would have thought a Roger Corman film about a killer plant from outer space would form such a wonderful union with doo-wop song and dance numbers? And Little Shop is not alone. Alan Cumming, Kristen Bell, and Neve Campbell were among the stars of a 2005 film adaptation of Reefer Madness as a musical. That’s right -- the cult film that used to be shown in classrooms to preach the evils of marijuana. While they haven’t made them into films, there are on-stage productions of Evil Dead, The Toxic Avenger, and The Fly that exist or are in the development stages.

Although I can’t speak to the all-singing, all-dancing iterations of Toxie and Brundlefly, I have had the good fortune of seeing “Evil Dead: The Musical” and can attest that it’s a rollicking good time that ranks alongside Little Shop of Horrors. In fact, with all of the talk of remaking Evil Dead in recent years, I would imagine that remaking it as a musical on film would be the best way to go, if for no other reason than to bring a completely new approach to the story.

In fact, think of how much added entertainment and quality could be added to the cineplexes if every film remade nowadays was remade as a musical. I would much rather have seen musical versions of Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween than the respective versions by Marcus Nispel and Rob Zombie. Dr. Loomis from the Halloween films is already over the top in nature, after all, so the only thing he’s missing is a catchy musical number. Just imagine:

I stared into that boy’s cold and empty eyes
Then it came to me why he caused his sister’s demise:
The boy has no soul, and no matter how much a man begs,
The Shape will cut him down ‘cause he’s Evil on Two Legs.

And of course the musical would feature timeless numbers such as “Babysitting Tonight,” “Shot Him Six Times (Right in the Heart),” and “Where Did He Learn to Drive?”

Certainly this should not be limited to the horror/sci-fi genre. There are plenty of films that have equally inappropriate settings to incorporate singing and dancing into. Gazing into the vast era of 70’s disaster movies, for example, we can draw inspiration to find that “Earthquake! The Musical” has a great ring to it, as does “Poseidon: The Musical” (another remake that could have been improved by some nice tunes). I could go on and on getting into multiple genres subgenres that are ripe for adaptation: war films, blaxploitation, hicksploitation, revenge films; the possibilities are endless.

Since the film industry gravitates further and further toward remakes, it’s going to be more difficult to see something fresh and exciting. Maybe the studios should consider catchy tunes to go along with their remakes -- what’s more fresh and exciting than that?

I'd Really Like to See... Geoff Johns write the next Superman film

2010-10-26T17:54:00.001-04:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on December 11, 2008. Since a new Superman film is in the works, I thought it might have some good relevancy today.. even if we know Geoff Johns isn't going to be the scribe. Dammit.

A couple of months ago, Richard Donner (the original man to bring the Man of Steel to the silver screen) endorsed comic book super writer/man-god Geoff Johns for a job writing the next Superman film. I also noticed that his quote was picked up all over the place for weeks afterward, but nobody really took a deeper look why he would be a perfect fit. Geoff Johns has many qualifying characteristics. Not only is Donner endorsing him, but Donner also mentored the guy in his early days in the entertainment industry. Wizard Magazine has just named Johns’ run on Action Comics Best Book of 2008 and now he'll be redefining Superman’s origin in an upcoming miniseries. But for me personally, there is one primary reason above all that makes Geoff Johns the one and only man for this job: he made me believe Superman could be riveting.

For years I had always been turned off to Superman stories because, more often than not, they were no more than knockdown, drag-out fights. That’s great once in awhile, but frankly it can get old. I can only watch Superman and some random big-bad punch the crap out of each other so many times before I switch off. That’s the kind of film I feel the alleged Mark Millar script would end up being - while he can tell a good yarn once in awhile, he seems to be very much a disciple of the “bigger is better” school. The key to writing good Superman stories is to not write about Superman, but to write about Clark Kent or Kal-El. Johns has proven he can do this and do it well by focusing more on the supporting people in Kal’s life. While we all know and love the likes of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, Johns has worked to increase emphasis on people like Cat Grant, Steve Lombard and the Legion of Superheroes, and reestablishing villains with previously convoluted histories like Brainiac, Bizarro, and Toyman.

While it seems evident Johns would write a spectacular Man of Steel movie, what kind of story would we be in store for? First and foremost, Lex Luthor shouldn’t be a prominent villain. Although Luthor is a formidable and outstanding villain, we’ve seen enough of him in the movies (he was only missing from the Rule of Three abomination Superman III, and even then Robert Vaughn was playing a character pretty similar to Luthor anyway) and would be much better served as a greater threat looming behind the scenes.

Similar to Weyland-Yutani in the Alien films, Lexcorp could be mysteriously behind a sudden influx of meta-human criminals overtaking Metropolis – engineered villains like Metallo or Parasite in films that could culminate in a new Superman Revenge Squad in a later film. A film featuring Brainiac as the villain would be terrific, especially considering how Johns’ recent arc revitalizing the character was my personal favorite comic book arc of 2008. However, that angle would be too rooted in the Superman mythos to be introduced before first establishing some of Superman’s history before coming to Earth.

Even if this theoretical film were to prominently feature Luthor in the forefront as the villain, Johns has proven he’s a master craftsman with his steady hand retooling the mythos of The Flash, Green Lantern, and, of course, Superman. As much as I would like to see Brainiac on film, I’d be happy with Johns writing even if they used a villain as lame as Titano. Same goes for any of the other superhero franchises he’d like to get his hands on -- just as long as he still has time to write the comics.

Recap: New York Comic-Con 2010

2010-10-12T19:27:00.001-04:00

Yes, that's Pedobear at the Michael Jackson booth. There's a joke somewhere here that writes itself. Photo by Karen Kemmerle (@kenobibear)

I'm generally skeptical of NYCC, mainly because all of the big ticket stuff is at the San Diego convention. However, this year I was anticipating it far more because a. it was several months after SDCC and b. there really wasn't that much news from SDCC, so I was hoping they would make up for it on the East Coast. Of course, I didn't get to see very many developments, but on the other hand it was a great experience. I also would have liked to write a bit more in real-time, but as you can find out from most people there, reception was awful, particularly if you were trying to use Twitter. And apparently, wireless costs $30 at the Javits Center, I heard? Aside from those couple of things, it was good times all around.

Friday night was a bit of a wash for me due to having to be in an office most of the day, but I did get to the Javits Center in time to catch the Monsters panel. Gareth Edwards talks with such an enthusiasm and earnestness about his film and his work, that it moves this a bit further up on my 'to see' list (full disclosure: I worked on the PR for this during SXSW, but still have yet to see the film itself.. go figure).

Saturday bustled a bit more, although I did miss The Thing panel and the DC Nation panel in favor of sleep. Fortunately, I did get to catch the Green Lantern Animated Series panel, which had some particularly interesting tidbits, such as Red Lanterns right off the bat in the series, and the idea of adapting Bruce Timm's original DCU character designs for 3D graphics. Oh, and spaceships. In a Green Lantern series. Oh well. Anyway, although I think it was silly to have something about it so early considering how little they had to announce or present (a bit of test footage and a few character designs), it got me sufficiently excited for the series.

While waiting for Marvel's Cup O'Joe panel to start, I caught the end of the Jim Lee spotlight. Not only did he breakdance, but the fellow has some of the weirdest fans. Some guy asked him to sign his 'autograph cube,' which I'm assuming was a big cube of styrofoam that had nothing written on it. Jim Lee dubbed it 'The Goddamn Cube' when he signed it. At least he has a sense of humor about that horrible All-Star Batman And Robin book he does/did with Frank Miller.

Onto the Marvel panel, we found out that Bendis is reuniting with Alex Maleev to do Moon Knight, and Bendis is doing some creator-owned series for kids called Takio. Then they said that Marvel's going to be teaming up with ESPN for a project. Yes, it sounds silly, however, the art they showed was pretty cool. From my understanding, it's not an ongoing series (like that WWE thing, or what this Stan Lee thing with the NHL sounds like) but a collection of art pieces in which the sports world meets the comic world. Observe this awful camera phone picture of a mashup between Lebron James' heel turn at some imagry from Spider-man No More (I took it with my phone because I wanted to upload it to Twitter, but reception was absolute garbage all weekend in the convention center). The only other highlight of the Marvel panel for me was an awkward Filipino gentleman telling Jeph Loeb how great his work on Smallville was and asking if he might return to the series anytime in the next couple years (obviously, that will be difficult considering it's the final season of that godforsaken show).

Afterward was the Green Lantern: Emerald Empire panel, which had the staff behind DC's all-around best franchise right now (including mangod Geoff Johns). Not much was learned here aside from some sort of 'war among the Green Lanterns' arc to come after Brightest Day (which seems like a logical direction), and something that nobody else seems to be writing about- Green Lantern: Secret Origin Part 2 will be coming out, which focuses on the fall of Sinestro. Aside from that, a lot of basic stuff and people asking dumb questions. The highlight of the thing would be the guy dressed as Larfleeze. It was a pretty impressive costume. I have a photo, but it's a profile shot and doesn't do justice to the costume so I don't feel it's worth posting to be honest.

It was then that I gained my first acquisition of the 'Con: a bootleg DVD set of the wretched TV series Freddy's Nightmares, the Nightmare on Elm Street anthology horror show. It's amazing how bad it is. I'm considering writing recaps as I watch each episode just to help folks witness this unbelieveable trainwreck.

Sunday, I missed yet another DC panel, but as soon as I got there it was a mad dash around the floor to get some items so I could get to The Walking Dead panel in time. One of my main missions going in was to get some old school Flash comics, and I did get some Barry Allen issues for fairly cheap. There's one where a hippie was karate chopping him in the throat, but sadly that was a more expensive one.

Warner Brothers Archive Collection did have a booth set up there, which was in anticipation of Legends of the Superheroes' release. Sadly that wasn't ready for sale like they originally intended, but that booth hooked me up big time (the wonders of a press pass). Not only did I get my long coveted copies of Angus and If Looks Could Kill, but a disaster movie called Cave-In! starring Leslie Nielsen. Can't go wrong with that! I feel like my DVD library is so much more complete now.

I also found out via Twitter (a rarity of it actually working) that Jeff Lemire was doing a signing at Top Shelf's booth, and they were selling The Complete Essex County for pretty cheap. This was good because not only have I been wanting to buy that for less than it costs, but because I could get Sweet Tooth #1 signed. On top of that, Jeff was also kind enough to draw me a sketch of Gus from the series.

After scooping up this good stuff, I declared NYCC a success but still had to make it to Walking Dead. To ensure my place, I endured the M. Night Shyamalan panel, in which he admitted he has a vagina (at least he said he'd rather have a gynecolegical exam rather than do DVD commentaries, so that's how I chose to interpret it). But The Walking Dead panel was worth the wait, because we saw some great footage from the show and Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman were a delight to listen to speak.

All in all, thumbs up to NYCC. Except for the lack of Twitter. And the overabundance of Anime kids this year from the merger with NYAF. I mean, the freaking Marvel booth on the floor was an absolute zoo- I didn't go near it because it looked like a Justin Bieber mall appearance the entire weekend.

NY Comic-Con 2010

2010-10-05T21:19:00.001-04:00

Good news, everyone! I got accredited for Comic-Con. You'll be sure to see a lot of info on the blog here, but for the speediest updates, I'll be annoying my Twitter followers pretty frequently, which you can view at the sidebar on the right or by following me (@brandonRohwer).

Danzig loves his cats

2010-10-04T01:30:00.001-04:00

The end of my weekend was spent contributing to my favorite new Internet meme.

Housekeeping

2010-10-01T18:24:00.004-04:00

Hi friends- just letting the folks who like to swing by Brando Extravaganzo that there will be a bit of overhauling going on around here.. in a good way. For instance, I've begun importing the old entries I wrote for Zoom In Online (RIP) to this blog for the sake of archival purposes (you can see the beginning of this process with the article I'd Really Like to See... Dirty Harry 6 if you missed it the first time). I'll also be doing a bit of visual modification to the site. And, since I recently bought www.brandocalrissian.com, that's incentive for me to write here a lot more often.

In the meantime, find me on Twitter (@brandonRohwer) where I write compulsively or on Tumblr (brandocalrissian) where I post funny images, like this one of Barry Allen running from a pirate torpedo:

Jeff Lemire

2010-06-03T21:42:00.005-04:00

Jeff Lemire is a writer and artist who I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more from. I haven’t read his Essex County trilogy, but I’m enthralled with Sweet Tooth and was fond of The Nobody (although it felt like so much more could have been there). Soon he’ll be writing a regular Superboy series and a feature for The Atom, which I’m especially excited about.

He does do his own art in his creator owned books, but will only be writing the superhero books. It makes sense because his art is so odd and unconventional in a way where it doesn’t fit in with what most other superhero comics look like (far beyond the likes of Frank Quietly or Gary Frank).

Still, I’m curious what some of these superheroes would look like if he drew them. So after a bit of online sleuthing, low and behold he has some sketches on his website, including Hawkman and Atom.

Overall, while I enjoy the sketch for what it is, I think the artists that are on board for the Superboy and Atom projects are more fitting (and their stuff has just been awesome anyway).

His Jonah Hex is pretty cool though:

Star Wars: Lost Episode - The Covert Platoon

2010-03-30T14:12:00.003-04:00

Here's a classic video from my college days. Mainly it's here because people apparently don't have Facebook still, and this was the easiest way to put it out there for people to see me fight with a lightsaber.

WWE presents In Your House: Empty Arena

2010-03-01T07:35:00.009-05:00

Greetings, friends.

As you may have noticed it's been quite some time since I've been active on the ol' Blogger. However, recent going-ons at WWE have baffled me and drawn me out of the woodwork.

I haven't watched terribly much wrestling in recent years, with a good portion of that reason being that I don't have cable and another being that I haven't exactly been too impressed with what I've seen, but I do try to keep up on what's happening because I still like to try watching Wrestlemania or Royal Rumble if the opportunity comes around.

I've noticed that WWE has been having a lot of gimmick based pay-per-view programs lately based around popular concepts like Hell in a Cell or Tables, Ladders, and Chairs. Apparently, these have become so popular that the federation is going to extend it to some of the unpopular gimmick matches, such as Fatal Four Way, and matches that don't seem to make sense to base an entire show around, like Money in the Bank.

Let me circle back to Fatal Four Way specifically. This is a match where four guys wrestle each other at once. These matches are, in general, awful. There are too many people in the ring at once to make for much of an entertaining match, and I can't fathom having any desire to watch an entire show based around this. This also comes right after ditching Survivor Series, which is a similar situation with too many guys doing too many things at once, but that was a long-standing tradition at least.

But apparently they insist on doing this and creating inevitably awful PPV's in the process. I'd like to take this opportunity to make a few recommendations that would not necessarily make a good show, but it would be a spectacular disaster to behold at the very least. I'll even be so generous to lend some of the ideas we utilized back in the UWL days. And remember, think of these as the theme for an entire 3-hour wrestling card:
-Stretcher Match
-Hair vs. Hair
-Six Pack Challenge
-Bunkhouse Brawl-Gimmick Battle Royal (this is what we in UWL called a Jobber Rumble)
-the XFL (I don't know how, just make it work)
-Good Housekeeping Match
-Bra and Panties
-In Your House (not like the old PPV names, but more like the video game where things happened like Undertaking throwing ghosts at his opponents)
-the return of WCW's Road Wild, the epic PPV brought to you from a biker rally in Sturges, South Dakota
-Kennel From Hell
-Judy Bagwell on a Pole
-Empty Arena Match (this is referring to the actual match The Rock and Mankind had during a Super Bowl Halftime- not WCW wrestling in general)
-Slow Motion Rumble (like a regular Battle Royal, but everybody has to move in slow motion)
-Jimmy Can't Win (as I recall, this was Jimmy in a 6-match gauntlet, but he wasn't allowed to win any of them)
-Finger Poke

On top of that, I'd like to see some kind of wrestling show that pays homage to some of the great storylines WWE has presented us, like the whole Katie Vick thing or that period where the Big Boss Man was driving around with the Big Show's dad's coffin tied to the back. And that time the Rock threw Austin off a bridge.

Today on Craigslist: Carrots of the Gods (or something like that)

2009-07-02T11:44:00.002-04:00

Heaven can be yours in this can of TENDER BABY carrots. You will never know ULTIMATE BLISS until you sink your teeth into these TENDER BABY JEWELS OF NATURE. This sealed can is from my private preserves of NATURES FOODS which are jealously hidden from prying eyes by 10 foot thick walls and a pair of the most ferocious attack dogs on the continent. But fear thee not--when you pick up this priceless treasure it will be left in the hands of the lobby attendant in my apartment house. No ferocious dogs to deal with. Let me know when thou art arriving and I will leave them in your name. ONLY ONE OF THESE CANS WIL BE GIVEN TO ONE LUCKY APPLICANT!!!!!!!!!!

More information is here. Actually, it's the same information I just gave you.

Get this man in a Tim Burton film

2009-04-26T10:02:00.001-04:00

Did the NYPD target me for a joke?

2009-03-31T12:35:00.010-04:00

Last night I was walking from the subway to my apartment in Brooklyn, something I obviously do every night and have done every night for over a year now. I had my phone out and was 'Tweeting' as the kids call it, and this car cop is driving alongside me as does the 'beep beep' thing. You know, not the actual horn, but when they have the mini-siren kind of sound. Not sure if that makes any sense, but it was that.

Anyway, I thought nothing of it and kept walking. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Then they did it again and I look over and they're beckoning me to come over to the car. I walk over and there were two cops. The conversation that ensued between the cop in the passenger seat and I can be seen after the jump.

Cop: "Hey, how much you pay for that phone?"
Me: "I dunno, like $150 or something maybe?"
Cop: "Yeah? Well, you like that phone?"
Me: "It's alright I suppose."
Cop: "Well if you like that phone you better keep it away. You know why? Ya gonna get robbed!"
Me: "Um.. oh?"
Cop: "This isn't like Manhattan where you go walking around with that stuff. You know how they rob you?"
Me: "Uh, how?"
Cop: "At gunpoint!!!!!!!1"

At this point, I'd like to add, I begin to notice that the other cop in the car was smirking. In fact, I'd say he was trying not to laugh.

Me: "Oh, well.. I walk through here twice a day and never really thought.."
Cop: "Like I said this isn't safe like Manhattan. Where you live?"
Me: "Right around the corner."
Cop: "Yeah? You ever see anything that shouldn't be going on?"
Me: "Hmm.. not really.."

At this point in the conversation I realized I should have told him about how people always honk their horns at obnoxious hours and don't pick up dog crap from the sidewalk.

Cop: "Alright keep your phone put away."
Me: "Ok. Goodnight."

Through this entire conversation, the other cop was trying not to laugh. Again, I've lived in this neighborhood for over a year now, and although some may think it looks seedy, I've never seen anything bad go on or heard of anything happening. I'm pretty sure I was a subject of bored police and/or reverse-racial profiling as the only white kid walking around the neighborhood after dark. It's not a bad neighborhood and I wish those cops spent their time in a more productive way, like fining people who let their dogs shit all over the sidewalk.

I’d Really Like to See…The ’Watchmen’ Not Suck

2009-03-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

Editor's Note: This blog contains SPOILERS about the "Watchmen" comic and film.

If you know me and/or follow this feature on the site, you should be well aware that I’m a pretty big comic book geek. It only seems inevitable that I should have something to say about this week’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s "Watchmen." Now I wouldn’t say that the book introduced me to comics or changed the way I look at them, and I may not even consider "Watchmen" my favorite thing by Alan Moore (seriously, check out his work on "Swamp Thing"), but it’s an absolute masterpiece no matter whether you're judging it as a graphic novel or standard novel (it's still one of the few graphic novels to be included on Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels of All Time).

Moore managed to add a level of maturity and moral complexity to superheroes that was not close to being matched until about 20 years later and he did it all while simultaneously incorporating the Golden and Silver Ages of comics and showing us how the medium has evolved in the Modern Age.

For the uninitiated, "Watchmen" follows a group of former masked vigilantes in an alternate version of our own reality (one which sees the recently re-elected Richard Nixon serving his third term as president in 1985). When one of their own is murdered, the heroes' investigation into the motives behind his death and a suspected plot to rid the world of all of the former avengers uncovers a conspiracy with much larger ramifications. That said, the novel takes full advantage of the comic medium and is a perfectly singular, self-contained work. In addition to the main story, Moore includes “source material” (articles and books written by or about characters in the universe) at the end of each chapter and the comic-within-a-comic "Tales from the Black Freighter" to add further layers to the story, characterization, and general themes of the piece. As one can imagine, these extra quirks to the book along with the generally massive scope of the story can make the film difficult to adapt from page to screen.

Here are some potential factors that, in my opinion, could hinder a successful adaptation:

Zack Snyder: I wouldn’t consider myself a Zack Snyder hater by any means. He’s 1-1 in my book. I enjoy Dawn of the Dead, but I consider 300 the Top Gun of our generation (think Tarantino's homosexual rant from Four Rooms). When looking at his films, you'll notice that they’re incredibly stylized, often sacrificing emotional substance on the altar of eye-popping visuals. Although we’re likely to have a pretty film to watch that compliments Dave Gibbons’ art, I fear a lot of the subtext and morality will be lost.

Miscasting: When I heard that Carla Gugino was cast as Silk Spectre, I thought that it was a good choice. Then I heard that she was cast as the first Silk Spectre and that Silk Spectre II (the more primary of the two) was going to be played by some young girl, Malin Akerman, who doesn’t have much in the way of acting chops, judging from her body of work (27 Dresses, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle). I can’t say that I have much hope for scrawny Matthew Goode as otherwise fit Ozymandias either, nor do I have much optimism after seeing either of their stiff performances from the various clips that have been release on the Internet.

New Ending: “Squidgate” has been dominating the message boards about as much as the Fox/Warner Bros. legal tie-up the film had been in. Those familiar with the book know that it ends with a giant, "extraterrestrial" squid monster engineered by Ozymandias detonating upon its teleportation into Manhattan, effectively wiping out half the city and millions of lives. For various reasons, likely because the idea of a squid monster may not translate as easily to the screen, the end disaster results in a variety of nuclear, Dr. Manhattan-like explosions unleashed on cities around the world.

Think about Veidt’s reason for causing the disaster: he was hoping that the catastrophe would bring a world about to go to war together in harmony in its wake. In the book, it works and makes sense, but it can’t possibly work this way in the film. Why? Because other countries would obviously point to Dr. Manhattan - an American - as the cause of global atrocities. The catalyst for unification has to come from an outside, third party source without affiliations to anyone or anything in order for warring parties - in this case, the United States and Russia - to truly be uniting against a common enemy. And for anybody who doesn’t think a squid monster wreaking havoc on Manhattan doesn’t work in film, you haven’t seen Cloverfield.

Hopefully all of my concerns will be for naught. Please don’t think I want this film to fail; I would love to be able to have an additional way to enjoy this extraordinary story. But no matter how much the film may sink or swim, that will never change Alan Moore’s original novel, which will forever be around for us to enjoy in its original form.

Random bits

2009-02-26T13:45:00.010-05:00

Last time I posted something, I was having big dreams of writing all kinds of entries on here about various items. Obviously, that never happened, so find a combination of all these things after the jump.

I'd Really Like to See... Criminal: the Movie
Recently I've been big into Ed Brubaker, also known as the guy who killed off Captain America. I finished reading his series Criminal, and I liked it so much I wrote about it for Zoom In this week. Check out the full article here.

Oscar Extravaganzo: It's A Wrap
The Oscars were pretty lame. I do like the little bit of extra attention to the documentaries before that was awarded, but not so much a fan of the toast to the acting nominees. It seems to me they took two steps forward and one step back in the way of giving props to the people behind the camera.

Or maybe I'm just bitter that I did so badly with my Oscar predictions, partly because I thought the Academy would give at least a little bit of love to The Dark Knight in some of the technical categories. Sorry I didn't post the charts, but I'm a busy man people. I will say that the winner of this is Extravaganzo pundit Heather Babbitt, who according to our scoring system (which decided winners according to how they ranked likely winners) won with a score of 28. Next in line was McKinley Williamson with a score of 30 (yes, we did golf scores) and then me in last place with... 38. Like I said, I was holding out hope for The Dark Knight in some of these categories.

But wait, where does Zoom In's Jim Rohner fit into all of this? Jim didn't get the ranked predictions to me in time for the awards, but he did send me his guesses for who would win, and predicted 18 winners correctly over Babbitt's 16. So who's the real winner here? Beats me. Let's just give it to Danny Boyle and have an epic Rohner vs. Babbitt showdown for 2010.

The Wrestler
I saw this movie just before the Oscars, and if I had seen this before the nominations I probably would have been bitching about the lack of recognition for this instead of The Dark Knight. I truly feel this is the best movie of 2008. Yes, Mickey Rourke gives a great performance, but why aren't more people talking about how well-written this film is? It's a simple story and a simple concept that manages to be compelling, moving, and riveting.

As a long-time fan of pro-wrestling, I also appreciate the spotlight on how hard people in this profession fall from grace. For every Hulk Hogan or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson are a couple hundred Randy "The Ram" Johnsons. It's not unrealistic to think that all of these pseudo celebrities go from filling every seat in Madison Square Garden to living in a trailer and working in a deli. Former wrestlers and ECW Champions Shane Douglas and Justin Credible have been employed at Target and Olive Garden respectively after they left the business. Wrestlers start out young and spent every night on the road away from their families getting their bodies beaten all to hell. By their 40's or 50's many of them are left with no choice but to retire at that relatively young age and go into the world with no other skills aside from what they know in the squared circle. Many kudos to Robert Siegel for putting their pain on the page, Mickey Rourke for bringing his life experience to the role, and Darren Aronofsky for helping this film become fully realized.

Friday the 13th
What a dumb movie. Seriously, just make another sequel. I know those get hokey but it can't possibly get any worse than this. Let's advance Jason's and Leatherface's stories, as preposterous as they may have gotten, instead of continually rehashing them. If you insist on remaking them, then at least get people that show love for the source material. I'd much rather see Easter eggs scattered through the film than have to make jokes about how lame it is. Seriously, we couldn't even get a crazy hobo to deliver an omen to the kids about how they're "doomed! All doomed!"?!?

I’d Really Like to See…Green Lantern Done Right on the Big Screen

2009-02-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

Sequels, prequels, and remakes are the most prominent tools Hollywood has employed to make sure they don't have to think of anything original to do for the next 10 or 12 years. With the recent success of Iron Man and Christopher Nolan's resurrection of the Batman franchise, they can now add comic book films to their arsenal of tools to stifle originality. Still, just because something is adapted from source material doesn't mean it can't be good (once again, Nolan) and some of the upcoming comic book adaptations have potential to be really good.

Recent Interweb newsers are indicating that the next film from the DC Universe to be fast tracked at Warner Brothers may very well be Green Lantern, and why shouldn't it be? Green Lantern's history is just as storied and rich as either Batman's or Superman's and if nothing else, he's worth mentioning for his continuous penchant for pissing off the Caped Crusader with his ability to overcome great fear - the primary weapon of the Dark Knight. Rumor has it that Martin Campbell of Casino Royale fame is attached to direct a script from Eli Stone’s Marc Guggenheim.

These prospects seem promising (although not quite as promising as a script from Green Lantern genius writer Geoff Johns, or as promising as my own idea of a 7-part film series would be), but we’re still a long way from the pivotal casting process. There’s been a rumor of an "Emerald Dawn" for Ryan Gosling, but if you couldn’t already tell, I’ve been thinking long and hard about who would be perfect to join up with the Corps. We all know that not everybody is on point with their casting, because in spite of having the likes of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man and J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man, we still had to endure Halle Berry as both Catwoman and Storm.

Anyone familiar with the Green Lantern comics knows that his foes and allies, just like any superhero, are as numerous as the number of sectors over which the Green Lantern Corps watch (3600. If that didn't go way over your head and you're not subsequently repulsed by my nerdery, than by all means, continue reading). Just as there was speculation about which characters would feature prominently upon the news of Batman Begins and Iron Man being adapted for the big screen, there will undoubtedly be speculation as to which good guys and bad guys will join Hal Jordan. Unlike other heroes brought to theaters, Green Lantern's transition will need to involve a bit more of a stringent filtering process seeing as he's a member of large group of heroes, some of whom are just as significant as he. So who should make the cut and who should bring these characters to life?

The Corps:

Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan: It’s difficult for me to think of somebody else more fit to ring sling than Mal Reynolds himself. Fillion’s characters from Serenity and the vastly underrated Slither embody the right attitude to play Hal Jordan - down to business while cracking-wise without being too corny.

James DeBello as Guy Gardner: I’d love to put Thomas F. Wilson (a.k.a. Biff Tannen) in this role, but I’m afraid he’d be just too old for the part. Another lunkheaded character from a recent movie I love is DeBello’s character from Cabin Fever. If he were to rein that in a bit as a thickheaded guy that can take charge, he’d be a prime candidate.

Chiwetel Ejiofor as John Stewart: A lot of rumors have been going around about Common playing this Lantern, but I’d rather see somebody with proven acting chops than the next big rapper-turned-actor (not that all rappers are bad actors -- I love Ice-T’s hilarious turn in 3000 Miles to Graceland). Ejiofor has proven he’s one of the most versatile actors working today. Just observe the diversity found in his roles in Serenity and Kinky Boots and you’ll see.

Freddy Rodriguez as Kyle Rayner: The idea of this guy being an action star seemed like an odd choice when he was cast as El Wray in Planet Terror. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say Robert Rodriguez completed his goal of transforming Rodriguez into “the ultimate badass,” he did prove that the other Rodriguez could hold his own as an action star. I’d like to think that he could display the underlying torment of Rayner, the Lantern whose perpetually bad luck often results in things like his girlfriend in a refrigerator.

John Goodman as Kilowog: John Goodman is amazing (Editor's Note: and really fat). Where has he been lately? (Editor's Note: probably getting fat). Hopefully he’ll be thought of for playing the gruff trainer of the Green Lantern Corps.

Malcolm McDowell as Ganthet: As fellow contributor Gavin Mevius has said, “Malcolm McDowell could do Hamlet naked in a cave and I would watch it.” He was the only worthwhile thing about the Halloween remake, and his presence could only improve the film. It doesn’t hurt that he looks like the little blue guy, too.

The Rogues:

Daniel Day-Lewis as Sinestro: Most would think Day-Lewis would scoff at the idea of playing a comic book villain, but Sinestro is a bit more complex than your average ‘take over the world’ types. He thinks himself an altruistic benefactor, believing his tyrannical oppression is benefiting the universe by helping maintain order in it. The complexity of Sinestro and his motivations could give DDL plenty of material to sink his teeth into. Since he’s notorious for his method acting, it’d be pretty amusing to see him walking around in purple makeup all day, ordering people to do his bidding. Would you disobey Daniel Day-Lewis? I sure as hell wouldn't. I saw what he did to Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood.

David Dean Bottrell as Hector Hammond: Geoff Johns’ take on Hector Hammond basically has him as the creepiest, most perverted psychic paraplegic ever (though admittedly, the perverted, psychic paraplegic archetype is a sparsely populated one). Fans of “Boston Legal” may know Bottrell as playing a murder victim’s “favorite peepy” Lincoln Meyer. Most people flub the perv act by being over the top and becoming too weird or too slapstick, but Lincoln Meyer had just the right balance of being disgusting and menacing.

Chevy Chase as The Shark: It’s a shark that walks around on land. How can you not call Chevy Chase for this?

I have been delinquent

2009-02-18T14:49:00.003-05:00

It's true, I've been neglecting the blog here. It may have something to do with buying Mario Kart Wii. For the sake of having everything in one place, I've written two blogs for Zoom In since my last post, and I'll probably write something else on here soon about how much I love The Wrestler and something making fun of the Friday the 13th remake.

But in the meantime, here is a bit about how the moviegoing experience and how we watch films in general has changed over the decades, and here I write about how Kristen Wiig should be in a romantic comedy (and how that genre's crappy in general). Seriously - imagine Virginia Horsen treking the globe in a hot air balloon trying to find her dream lover. It's romantic, right?

I’d Really Like to See…Kristen Wiig in a Romantic Comedy

2009-02-12T18:02:00.000-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

It's that time of year again. Love is in the air and Hallmark is cashing in on it. And of course, the fellows out there are more frequently getting roped into watching the lowest form of supposed American art: romantic-comedies. There are exceptions to the rule that rom-coms are awful - The Wedding Singer, There's Something About Mary, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall - but these are few and far between. Seriously, if I see one more lame rom-com, I swear to the Lord I will slay it.

Actually no, that would be far too much slaying. Romantic-comedies are one of the genres that studios can and do mass produce because they can be made on the cheap and follow a simple formula (is it ironic or sad that this can also be said about the horror genre?). Directing my efforts to slaying rom-coms would require a Batman-like dedication and frankly, I have neither the time, finances, nor British butler to accommodate such demands. It seems something needs to happen to mix it up a bit with the rom-coms. I'm not necessarily talking about just making it movies guys can like, but movies that are actually hilarious. Enter: Kristen Wiig.

I've been fond of this actress since her days on the “The Joe Schmo Show” as Dr. Pat, but she's earned quite a reputation in recent years playing insane people on “SNL.” Now think of taking an oddball character like the Target Lady, or even Wiig's rendition of Suze Orman, and putting her in the lead of what would normally be a bland movie. Many rom-coms will have the fish out of water male lead trying to find the right woman for him, or simply rely on an 'opposites attract' mentality. When the female is the main protagonist she'll often times just be goofy, dorky, and 'movie ugly,' which translates to a mere step below super hot in real life (think about how a girl's transformation from ugly to pretty in movies often simply requires her to remove or glasses or let her hair down).

However, Wiig has a knack for playing characters that are genuinely bizarre and allowing her to bring this tendency to the big screen could help mix up rom-coms in two ways: first, it could just bring an off-beat, awkwardly hilarious vibe to the genre - I'm thinking “Kids in the Hall” type of feel here. Second, it could add a much-needed unpredictability to a genre that has become obnoxiously plotted. If you see a character like “Weekend Update” correspondent Judy Grimes looking for love, there's really no telling where she would be able to find it. If done right, the bizarre person could be endearing. If the audience were to genuinely care about this hopeless case, it adds a level of emotion that is all too artificial throughout the genre. After all, how many times can we believe/tolerate Jennifer Aniston as a middle-aged single who is STILL naive about relationships?

And frankly, the Wiig's a brilliant comedic actress. She's arguably the star player of “SNL” at the moment so it's only a matter of time before she gets to shine on the big screen. Also, I'd kind of like her to be my valentine this year. (Editor's Note: he's not kidding).

Howdy, Commissioner

2009-01-30T19:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another blog is up at Zoom In. This time I talk about why mangod-director Christopher Nolan should direct a Western sometime. Check it out.

Um.. WHAT!?

2009-01-22T09:49:00.002-05:00

Anybody who's been keeping an eye on the Oscar pools here know that we've been expecting big things for The Dark Knight in the nominations today. But where was it?! Nearly NOWHERE!! The big categories it was considered a contender in - Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay - completely shut it out.

And none of us were just predicting this as crazed Batman fans. Take a quick look at just about any noted and respected Oscar pundit's website (The Envelope at the LA Times is a good example) and they were in agreement. Add to that the fact it was recognized as one of the year's top films by National Board of Review, American Film Institute, and the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds -- all of these are incredibly reliable bellwethers to what's going to end up among the nominees. I'd also like to think I built up a pretty good argument for it winning the whole thing here.

Other surprises at a glance:
-Michael Shannon got a supporting nod. That guy rocks. I love how everybody cheered at the nominations for him.
-The Boss neglected for his song from The Wrestler? Somewhat surprised Gran Torino's song was shut out of that, too.
-Just about every nomination The Reader had. Nothing against the film itself, but that built up some steam out of nowhere.
-

Oscar Extravaganzo Part 2

2009-01-18T18:30:00.011-05:00

The day we've all been waiting for is upon us -- nominations are announced this Thursday for the Academy Awards. In addition, a lot's gone on since the last pool was posted, including Golden Globes and nominations for all of the guilds. In light of those events, I figured it would be great to get a new pool up before nominations.

So what did me, Heather Babbitt, Jim Rohne r, and newcomer McKinley Williamson from Premiere.com come up with? Well it looks like we're pretty agreeable on most of these, particularly Best Picture and Drector, and the biggest shake-ups are coming in the Original Screenplay category -- with all love lost for J. Michael Straczynski in that category! Apologies to JMS: I love your work on Thor, but we don't think you'll make it to the big dance for this one.

Take a look at our charts after the jump.

Oscar Knight (see what I did there?)

2009-01-16T12:13:00.004-05:00

As you can see on the Oscar Extravaganzo, we pretty much agree that The Dark Knight will make it to the Best Picture nominations. But after they announce the nominations and we start predicting the chances of winning, sadly I don't think it will be the front runner by any means. Of course, I think it SHOULD be. If you'd like to know more about why, check out my new Zoom In blog, and be sure to check back this weekend for the second round of the Oscar Extravaganzo predictions.

And I'd also like to add: after the amazing 'final fate of the Dark Knight' we saw in Final Crisis #6, a Best Pic win would be the topper to an amazing Batman year.

Alan Moore still hates everything

2009-01-13T23:17:00.005-05:00

I was reading the newest issue of Wizard and it looks like they got comic book legend Alan Moore to come out of his cave to say some words about what he thought about some shows on television. Normally this is the kind of thing where an artist talks about different shows they like and why the like it, but apparently Moore just hates everything, except for The Wire and South Park.

Having recently realized how awful Heroes has gotten, I was particularly amused to read what he had to say about that program, although I'm sure it would have amused me if I still liked it. Maybe Moore's bitter because he thought Nathan Petrelli's fake Oklahoma!-style beard was making fun of his own. Anyway, here's what Alan Moore had to say about Heroes. Spoiler alert, I guess, if you didn't see the first season:

I saw the last episode of Season One where the flying superhero [Nathan Petrelli] and his brother, the exploding superhero [Peter Petrelli], have a little moment and a bit of a hug and then the flying guy takes the exploding guy up into the atmosphere above New York where he undergoes a nuclear explosion to the great relief of all the spectators. You know, again, it wouldn't have taken much. All you'd have had to do, as I understand it, and I speak as somebody who doesn't actually have an Internet connection and has very little idea what an Internet connection is, but I understand there is this thing called 'Google' and that apparently you just have to put a couple of words into it and magically it will provide all your reference for you. You don't even have to get up out of your seat. If you'd have just put, 'nuclear explosion,' say, into Google then I'm sure that somewhere in that it would have explained that an air burst is much, much, much, much, much, much worse than a ground burst. I hope that if that unlikely situation should ever come about, I hope that the superpowered beings who will presumably be around to save us from it are perhaps a bit more intelligent, otherwise we're doomed. So no, I'm not a big fan of Heroes, got to say.

I’d Really Like to See…’The Dark Knight’ Take the Gold

2009-01-13T12:15:00.005-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

In recent years, it seems that there’s a certain ‘type’ of movie that racks up the nominations in the Oscar race and some others that get shunned altogether. You could pick out most of these overlooked categories individually: aside from whatever is “this year’s Juno/Little Miss Sunshine,” comedies are ignored; fantasy films are ignored (with the recent exception of Return of the King getting an Oscar to award Peter Jackson for the cumulative achievement of his massive undertaking); and crime films will most likely be ignored despite The Departed trying to make up for all the times Scorsese has deserved his Oscar in the past. A lot of people are clamoring for WALL-E to get a nod, but it’s going to be secluded to the ‘animation ghetto’ of the Best Animated Picture category for a consolation prize.

I’d like to categorize all of these diverse films under the umbrella of “the popcorn film.” Not to discredit all ‘popcorn’ films, but they are, on the surface, the type of film that’s accessible to the common moviegoer and do not require a lot of thought to ingest them. However, many may have their own layers of motifs, recurring themes, and character ticks that provide extra substance for the more analytical viewer.

This past year we saw The Dark Knight, the biggest popcorn movie event since, well, I might say the first Batman in 1989. The Dark Knight ended up being so huge that the Academy will most likely not ignore it - all signs point to a Best Picture nomination to be announced next week. Of course, this will probably be overlooked when it comes to the actual win because of its status not only as a popcorn movie, but a popcorn movie of the worst kind - a comic book film. A lot of people attribute its success, and will likely attribute its nomination, to the untimely passing of Heath Ledger. But here I’m going to put my foot down and say something I’ve said many time in conversations: this film does, in fact, deserve a win. I feel like this movie NEEDS to win because, believe it or not, the Academy used to recognize a lot of ‘cool’ movies, and I would love to see it go back to those times.

A lot of people forget that Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Towering Inferno are all nominees for Best Picture. The French Connection actually won the big one. If a movie dubbed by many as ‘the greatest car chase movie of all time’ doesn’t scream popcorn, I don’t know what does.

Even in an awards season full of campaigns and “Oscar films,” let’s review some of the recent winners. To pull a quote from The Dark Knight, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain” encapsulates the slippery paths that Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon’s characters are set on in The Departed. Both The Joker and No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh can be compared as the ruthless killers who only adhere to their own code in life -- the code of chaos and chance.

When you break it down, Christopher Nolan crafted a superb crime film that is not so different from other Oscar-caliber pictures. Sadly, just because the costumes are more elaborate and the source material is a comic book, people are finding it too easy to write off.

Oscar Extravaganzo Part 1

2008-12-31T19:56:00.002-05:00

Today I'm introducing the first in what I hope to be a recurring feature every year: Brando's Oscar Extravaganzo. I'll be inviting some dear friends to weigh in on who we think will be seeing success throughout the awards season. Joining me for the first round will be Jim Rohner from Zoom In and Oscar enthusiast Heather Babbitt.

Everybody will be weighing in on their picks for the five nominees for the five major categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and the two screenplay categories) along with what we think will be a Wild Card and hop into the competition. I'll be updating this periodically with additional contributers and new picks in light of certain events that come along with each award season. Keep an eye out for the next set of grids shortly after the Critic's Choice awards.

In this first set of predictions, most of us seem to have similar minds for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay. Jim diverges in Best Picture to cheer on WALL-E and in Best Actress to cheer Cate Blanchett, and while we all love The Dark Knight only Jim thinks it has a shot at Best Adapted Screenplay. I'm the only person looking back to The Visitor to think Richard Jenkins could be get a dark horse acting nom. Original Screenplay and Director Categories are a bit more scattered.

Below are the charts with all of our predictions. Feel free to weigh in on what you think of our predictions, and come back for Round 2 in a couple weeks.

All-singing, all-dancing

2008-12-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

The latest contribution to Zoom In has been posted, and I've covered the controversial subject of remaking classic films.. as musicals. I don't think it's a bad plan, if we have to deal with remakes anyway. Check it out.

And for the record, I haven't written songs for all of these, but if that's something people would really like to see, I'll take requests.

That cat looks scared. And a cat should not be eating spaghetti.

2008-12-17T00:48:00.005-05:00

I've had the good fortune of knowing of Nerf Herder, and in turn Parry Gripp, for several years now thanks to WSBU including the song "Sorry" in their regular rotation. I was reintroduced to Parry Gripp's music my senior year of college when somebody in my class made a music video to one of his jingles on his album "For Those About to Shop, We Salute You".

Well it seems Parry is still making jingles, but now he's taking aim at Youtube fads. On that note, I give you a few of the finer selections after the jump.

Spaghetti Cat (I Weep For You)

Young Girl Talking About Herself

Soccer Ball (In The Face)

"Anybody who can blast his friend in the face and get him to take the rap for it is my kind of citizen!"

2008-12-07T22:12:00.006-05:00

Tomorrow marks a sad day: the series finale of Boston Legal. I've got to admit that I've come on late in the game on watching the show, but I've grown to love it rather quickly. The writing is simultaneously poignant and irrelevant. A show that can masterfully weave topics such as gun control, euthanasia, and every other issue of controversy you can think of into a series that features characters like Denny Crane who suffers from Mad Cow and likes to shoot bad guys deserves to stay on the air for as long as it wishes.

Below is a clip that I recently saw for the first time on the Season 3 DVD's that I feel perfectly encapsulates both the heart and absurdity packed into the series. If you're a latecomer like I was, I highly recommend seeking out the DVD's of this series.

I’d Really Like to See…Dirty Harry 6

2008-12-03T17:53:00.003-05:00

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

Considering this is my first contribution to Zoom In, I realize this is a bold statement to make. After all, not a lot of people have been very keen on old timers revisiting signature roles from their prime, including Schwarzenegger reprising the T-800 and Stallone coming back to Rocky and Rambo. Even though he has a couple decades on both of them, Clint Eastwood is an entirely different story. In fact, when Gran Torino was announced and rumored to be a new Dirty Harry film, I thought it would be great. Of course, Eastwood immediately shot those rumors down, saying, “Dirty Harry would not be in the police department at my age.”

Certainly it’s easy to dismiss this franchise as dead considering how much it went downhill after the outstanding Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, with The Enforcer being another fair addition to round out the first three films. Sudden Impact, which was the lone entry directed by Eastwood, displayed too many signs of self-awareness and seemed to deviate from the Harry Callahan character in many ways. The Dead Pool boiled over with ridiculousness, including an early Liam Neeson role as a film auteur who just wants to finish filming his classic-in-the-making Hotel Satan, and another early, hammy role for Jim Carrey playing a drug addled rock star who acts like, well, Jim Carrey at his most over the top, but in the worst kind of way.

But we’ve come a long way in the twenty years since The Dead Pool, haven’t we now? Eastwood’s been raking in the kudos with films in years since such as Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, and the masterpiece Unforgiven. Even this year alone, there’s plenty of award buzz floating around for Gran Torino and his other film Changeling. In fact, Eastwood shows he still has a bit of that mean streak on display in his Gran Torino performance.

While it may be safe to assume that Harry 6 wouldn’t be feted the same as the aforementioned films, remember that other Eastwood films in recent years such as Blood Work and Absolute Power are taut thrillers, and I can’t help but give props for the considerably lighter fare of Space Cowboys for being a well-crafted tale about geriatrics looking to reclaim a part of their youth. Think of what Eastwood, who has become that rare filmmaker that can consistently churn out high quality films (despite silliness such as Firefox), could do with an established character that he already knows from the inside out – especially with the right writer (maybe another team up with Brian Helgeland?). And besides, there have been rumors of a remake floating around for years. Wouldn’t we rather have Clint take the helm and reprise the role instead of another person take over Harry Callahan?

Catch phrases: they won't stop coming (that's what she said)

2008-12-02T22:12:00.009-05:00

Yesterday's NY Post had an article talking about the lost art of the television show catch phrase. While the analysis does have a few good points, I beg to differ on this matter. Sure, we don't exactly have many characters worth making a talking plush doll out of (see: Bart Simpson, Urkel), but while we hear less of "eat my shorts," there's still plenty of Family Guy's "Giggity giggity" to go around and annoy the shit out of me.

For example, had this author ever seen The Office? Because if they had, they would know exactly where I'm coming from with the title of this article. Even if they haven't, it's not like you need to see a TV show to recognize a catchphrase. I've never seen a single episode of Entourage, but I get where "Hug it out, bitch" comes from.

Of course, I think that DVR and DVD's have helped us bring on catchphrases in a different capacity. While shows like The Office and Arrested Development have recurring phrases ("I've made a huge mistake" for Arrested Development), the phenomenon they've become on DVD has facilitated a surge in beloved quotes, quite similar to many films that were around when VHS and video stores started to become big (Ghostbusters, Stripes, Caddyshack).

Either way, TV is not at all like it used to be. But perhaps it's for the better. I know I'd rather see Tracy Jordan say something new and outrageous each week than set up some gag around his most beloved phrase over and over again.

Don't jerk me around, Ron Howard

2008-11-21T14:00:00.003-05:00

When internet sites like Ain't It Cool News post rumors about movies that are coming out, that's one thing. Often times, you can tell when it's a lie. For example, I remember a fake script review that AICN posted for Star Wars: Episode III which had young Lando and Han Solo, and an appearance from Lando's father aptly named... Grando Calrissian.

But what happens when people you should trust start spreading such vicious and/or misleading rumors? More often than not, I get my hopes up for nothing. A prime example in recent years has emerged whenever Dan Aykroyd would be interviewed about anything and then he would talk about his latest draft for a Ghostbusters 3 script. First there was the Ben Stiller film, then there was the talk of Ghostbusters: Hellbent with Peter Venkman as a ghost in the film, then the CG movie, and now the legitimate one that they ran a story about in Variety. Still, it took years of lip service to get to that point, and I'm still skeptical that it will happen until they announce a production start date.

But of course, now that it looks like Ghostbusters 3 is a real possibility, something had to fill its shoes, and of course that would have to be the much desired Arrested Development movie. There have been a lot of people involved with the series saying "I'd like to do it" with people translating it to "we WILL do it," and now Ron Howard is throwing more fuel onto that fire:

And there you have it - straight from Opie's mouth. But will they ever have this time? We know that the Narrator is busy adapting crappy novels for the next decade, Gob has a kid to take care of, and George Michael would be more content as a normal kid instead of starring in movies. Am I being too much of a skeptic, or are you with me that we shouldn't hold our breath on these things?

At least we can have some reassurance that Ron Howard still came back to the roles of Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham recently:

Somewhere else... Doomsday is coming!

2008-11-21T00:13:00.004-05:00

Doomsday is a pretty lame villain (one of many in Superman's rogues gallery) - just a random big, strong enemy for Superman to punch the crap out of. And he has shards of bone sticking out of his body. And he hit Supergirl so hard she turned into goo!

The only time I ever remotely cared about Doomsday is when Grant Morrison was in All-Star Superman when Jimmy Olsen turned into it, although Death of Superman is a decent story for one of those 'big Superman and a bad guy brawling' type of stories. Anyway, Smallville is a pretty lame show - always twisting the Superman mythos in awful ways. But at last -- the two are together as one! The Pefrect Storm!

Now surely, I did not watch the Doomsday episode of Smallville, but I did happen to find this commercial. Now, is it me or does Doomsday look more like Lord Zed from Power Rangers?

Clint Eastwood Fingerbangs Chinese Gang

2008-11-10T01:19:00.003-05:00

Recently the trailer for Clint's other new movie Gran Torino was released. I do realize there is a lot of Oscar buzz for this one, but I don't get that from this. It's bound to be good, but a lot of this stuff seems way more comical to me. Must be it's only me, because nobody else aside from my friend Colleen was laughing when it played before Changeling. How can you not though? The excessive finger guns, all that tobacco spit, and especially the Batman voice. (And people think I'm crazy when I say that I'd like to see Clint star in and direct an adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns!)

From this trailer, the film looks a bit silly, but I'm sure it'll surpass that in the end. You know, because it's Clint. But still, he's done some silly-ish things, so let's reflect after the jump, shall we?

Firefox - This film's pretty riveting at some moments, but let me sum up what's going on here that the trailer doesn't tell you about: The Russians have this advanced plane that is controlled by the pilot's thoughts. Clint Eastwood is a former Air Force pilot that's recruited to the mission because he has two vital qualities: he speaks Russian (because obviously you have to think IN Russian when you control the plane), and he has the same flight suit size as the guy they have flying it.

Every Which Way But Loose - You can't go wrong with Clint Eastwood and a monkey. Or monkeys in general. And more fingerguns!

Paint Your Wagon - Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin sing! Unfortunately, it's not as funny as this:

Or this:

Um, did Superman and Lois just uh.....

2008-08-27T23:46:00.008-04:00

Wednesday is probably the most notable day in my week because it's when comic books come out. Today I was reading Superman #679, and DC has been giving me high hopes for this new writer on the book because he's apparently been working closely with Man-god Geoff Johns, but there was something strange a-brewing in the latest issue.

Usually it's hard to avoid looking at a splash page or a half page panel before getting the whole picture. This is one instance where it was particularly gross. The last panel of the second page was this, and again, since the panel is so big this is the only thing I saw:

So I see that image and my inner monologue voice changes to that of Stan Hooper, a character Norm MacDonald plays on his comedy album who works at the Daily Planet in a sketch. Stan Hooper is in my head saying, "So.. those are some nice underwear you've got there, Lois."

But something more is amiss here....

After I'm done observing looking at that for the moment I go on to read the beginning of the scene, which is Lois and Clark having an mild spat about going to see Zatanna's show. Lois is just being a jealous broad in this scene, talking about how Zatanna is all sexy and wears fishnets. But then... she adds this to the reasons she's feeling insecure:

Wait, WHAT?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!!?? Hold on a second now, writer James Robinson!! Now first of all, I know that nowadays comic books are trying to be more grounded in reality at times, but.. do you think we REALLY need to hear Lois talk about her time of the month?

And then!!!! Then...!

Awwwwwwww come on! Period sex? Really? Jeeeeeeez, that's just nasty. I hope DC steps in and pulls Daniel Robinson off the book altogether and just hands it over to Geoff Johns for now while they (hopefully) find a writer who won't have Superman simply fight big strong monsters. And they won't randomly say "Hey why don't we bring Lois' Aunt Flo in for a visit?" I also hope Dan DiDio throws a brick in his face for his troubles.

Seriously, this might be worse than Frank Miller's "The Goddamn Batman" book, because at least that book's funny sometimes.

"I'm Wilford Brimley. I love my flowers."

2008-08-22T16:12:00.008-04:00

Today I was walking down Bleecker Street when some fellow walked past me with an amusing shirt featuring an illustration of Wilford Brimley that simply read "Diabeetus." And yes, it made me laugh, but my friends and I were laughing at Wilford Brimley long before that. See, back in the day we'd sit around watching Viva Variety and await commercials with Mr. Brimley selling a gardening tool called the Leverage Digger, proclaiming "Hi folks. I'm Wilford Brimley. I love m'flowers." Dick Clark was in another one that was pretty good where he sold Isis Cellular Phones, harkening "Pick up the phone, America -- it's for you!" And of course I can't forget the infomercials of crazy-ass Jay Kordich (pictured above with his woman) and his Juiceman Juicers, which promised immortality. They never explicitly proimsed eternal life, but given that Kordich, the Juiceman's inventer, is probably old enough to have surfed in the killer waves that resulted in Moses parting the Red Sea, I've always been under that impression.

Anyway, all this reminiscing made me have an epiphany: "My friends and I are ten years more advanced than the rest of the world."

Before Family Guy, before John Goodman played him on SNL, before a single Liberty Medical commercial even aired during the Price is Right, the Leverage Digger was King of Brimley Comedy.

Sadly, the commercial for the Leverage Digger is nowhere to be found on YouTube (but that video was still pretty good, you must admit). Sure, plenty of that Liberty Medical stuff and a couple of the Quaker Oats commercials are posted, but nothing from this sadly. Fortunately, there is archive.org, which still has the website. God bless them. The main photo there, also pictured somewhere around here, was my AIM icon back in the day (and is once again). I will never forget the description my friend D'amato had of that icon: "He looks pissed."

If you're looking for more Brimley goodness, you can look to Wilford Brimley World, which predates even myself and my friends in the niche comedic stylings of jesting at Wilford Brimley's expense.

I don't envy this kid very much

2008-08-06T02:16:00.007-04:00

My friend Heather recently put an amusing screen cap on her blog of a crazy looking kid from a Kidz Bop video (which you may take a look at here), and it made me think of some of these people who I'd be really embarrassed to be if I happened to get caught in a funny-looking position on a national level program. Remember that girl in the audience who cried through an entire episode of American Idol because she just really, really liked Sanjay? And remember that one other guy who cried on the season finale of American Idol one year? I don't even watch the show and I know about that.

But for some reason, before I even thought of that show, looking at Kidz Bop Kid made me think of this one kid who was just really overwhelmed at Wrestlemania 7, who you shall see after the jump.

I wasn't watching WWF when Wrestlemania 7 happened, and I don't think my parents would have let me get the pay-per-view anyway, but I sure remember seeing that kid in the years to follow. It's bad enough he was shown during the event, but they have got to show this kid's face in every Macho Man/Miss Elizabeth retrospective montage. I know that I was weirded out when the cutaway came up in the 'Best of Wrestlemania' video I had back in the day.

What do you suppose that child thinks now if he looks at this? I'm guessing one of two things:
1. "I sure look like a child version of Rick Moranis."
2. "Why the hell did I wear my Gorton's Fisherman hat to Wrestlemania?!"

Either way, I really do wonder what that kid is up to nowadays.

Samsploitation, or: How I Learned To Talk Really Really Loud and Love the Snakes

2008-08-04T19:58:00.002-04:00

Back in the day, there were all sorts of fun subgenres that would be categorized with the umbrella of 'exploitation films.' Anybody that's in NYC can head to St. Mark's Place for a visit to Kim's Video to check out some of these subgenres: blaxsploitation, chixploitation (with its own subgenre 'women in prison'), hicksploitation, apesploitation, and my personal favorite "[Charles] Bronson Is God."

Now it's beginning to come to my attention that there is a new exploitation subgenre on the rise. In fact, it's been around for years, but I'm going to stick my flag in it and declare its existence: Samsploitation.

People are simply taking advantage of the fact that Samuel L. Jackson is not the pickiest actor in the world, it seems. Stranger yet, Sam has proven that he can be a hell of an actor. Jackie Brown? Pulp Fiction? And with Black Snake Moan, we see that it doesn't require him to collaborate with Tarantino and that he's simply given up on himself after the mid-90's.

We all remember how much fun it was waiting for Snakes on a Plane to come out and the fun of thinking about Sam yelling about the motherfucking snakes on his motherfucking plane. Ah, the joys. Although his upcoming film doesn't have the hilarious title, it looks like Mr. Jackson will be striking similarly funny-but-probably-shouldn't-be gold with Lakeview Terrace:

And looking at Samuel L's 116 film credits to date on IMDb, you can pluck out plenty more examples earlier on, the most obvious one being Deep Blue Sea. Sam Jackson vs super-intelligent sharks? And getting killed halfway through the film while delivering an inspirational speech? Fits like a glove. He even stars in Shaft, a remake of one of the most popular and well-known blaxploitation flicks of all time.

Of course, I haven't seen most of the movies he's been in because, face it.. he gets himself in some crappy movies. But maybe I'm wrong about them. What do you think? Are xXx and xXx: State of the Union and worth including in here? Did The Man tickle your funny-bone enough to include it in the elite genre of Samsploitation? And are you like me and half-tempted to include the Star Wars prequels in the genre, just because of the lame-ass dialog ("Mmm, good relations with the Wookies, I have") and the fact they're just awful?

Battle for the Cowl: Brando's Pick

2008-08-01T17:49:00.002-04:00

This is a big year for Batman (aka best fictional character ever). Most people on the planet know about some movie with the character that came out over the summer, but in addition to that there are some big shakeups going on in the comic book in a story called Batman R.I.P., written by the comic world's own resident acid tripper/former transvestite/general crazy man Grant Morrison. While the R.I.P. doesn't necessarily stand for "Rest In Peace," DC is certainly leading us to believe Bruce Wayne will not be Batman when the story is done after releasing this teaser image for the follow-up arc, titled "Battle for the Cowl:"

First, it seems kinda random and crazy that they added Catwoman to that. Second, I think it would have been crazier to add Two Face (he did defend Gotham during 52), or WAY CRAZIER and put Joker on there.. just for shits and giggs. But regardless, I don't think any of those people are going to end up taking over for Bruce Wayne. There is only one person who makes plenty of sense to me, although I doubt it will actually happen: Martian Manhunter. Why do I think that? Read on, True Believers.

Yes, it seems like it would be out of left field, and yes J'onn J'onnz just got killed off, but here's why it would make sense:

1. Bruce Wayne actually trusts Martian Manhunter. And Batman is a paranoid dude. That says a lot.
2. Martian Manhunter could make himself look like Bruce Wayne. It would be like he was never gone.
3. Martian Manhunter obviously isn't going to stay dead. In fact, Superman said he'd pray for a resurrection at his funeral.
4. It would be a good way to bring him back from the dead. He was just kind of floating around before Libra killed him off, and I'd hate to see them waste a good resurrection like they did with Jason Todd.
5. I just like the Martian Manhunter, alright? Especially that part in Justice League: The New Frontier when he was shapeshifting to what he was seeing on TV, and made himself look like the Indian Chief from the late-night test patterns.

I've spoken my piece. You think I'm right? Or do you think Dick Grayson would be ready for Round 2 as Batman? Or maybe you reaaaaaally want to see Jean-Paul Valley come back from the dead instead to be Batman again.

Load the spaceship with rocket fuel! Load it with the Warriors!

2008-07-31T17:19:00.006-04:00

Today at work I needed to clear out the ol' noggin with a good laugh. If you ask me and several other people, there are very few things in this world that are more reliable for a laugh than old wrestling promos as done by the Ultimate Warrior. For non-wrestling fans, he's probably the reason you dismiss sports entertainment so easily. For wrestling fans, you know him as the classic figure who says random shit and is now a radical right wing weirdo who says things like "Queering doesn't make the world work."

But again -- there was a time when he would say things that are funny just because he's a lunatic ranting and raving.Video analysis after the jump.

Everybody from Olean reading this should remember that Erik Wineberg grew up watching that guy on TV.

As great as that was, it doesn't end there. Much to my surprise, when looking for a Warrior promo to make me laugh and laugh and then laugh some more, I found something with Ultimate Warrior that was even farther beyond words than any promo I had ever witnessed:

Thoughts? Or is your mind too far blown?

Mormans.. Whoa those mormons!

2008-07-29T21:22:00.004-04:00

Mormans are always good for a laugh one way or another. From the stories of my dad just getting home from working night crew with his buddies in the early morning and inviting the door-to-door mormons to watch porn and have a beer with them, to Dan Dieteman's dad's classy Sinatra-esque "Mormons" ditty, to Orgazmo's mormon-turned-superhero Joe Young, it's not hard to find amusement with the topic.

But now I'm finding something that takes the cake. As I type, dear reader, I sit on the subway surrounded by mormons. Not in the sense that I'm on a crowded train and I'm the only one not wearing black dress pants, white dress shirt and a tie, but there is a group of three sitting in a triangle formation communicating with sign language across the train.

Now I'm not fluent in sign language, but judging from their movements I can take a few guesses as to what the conversation is about:
-cradling Baby Jesus
-Joseph Smith playing a trumpet
-seducing multiple wives in a movie theater
-trap doors, like the kind bad guys have in their offices
-knitting
-flying a airplane while intoxicated
-Hawaii
-sailors, or perhaps the Navy
-Jimmy "T-Bone" Hopkins
-cavemen
-wrapping Christmas presents

Of course, I'm probably wrong and they're talking smack about me like everybody else that doesn't speak English when I'm around.

Opening the X-Files

2008-07-22T20:15:00.003-04:00

It has recently come to my attention that I will be seeing the new X-Files movie when it comes out this weekend. I think the movie looks great and all, but there is a major obstacle I must overcome: I was not a fan of the show. That's right, the resident geek missed out on the X-Files. It looks like a fine program, but DVR didn't exist in the 90's so I never hopped on board.

While in Best Buy recently, I came across a new DVD: X-Files Revelations -- a 2 disc set of episodes handpicked by Chris Carter as a primer for schlubs like myself who will be seeing the movie having seen little to none of the series. Naturally, I picked it up -- AND it includes free X-Files movie money. An automatic return on my investment!

As I'm watching the episodes, one thing stands out overall: the opening sequence. Boy, does it look tacky. I feel like Chris Carter didn't expect the series to get picked up and said "Uh oh, better throw something together. Well here's a photo of a flying saucer we can put in. What else is creepy? Eyes are pretty spooky, let's put that in here. And those bitchin' static electricity balls they have in Spencer's gifts!" I don't know why my version of Chris Carter talks like Michael Bay probably does, but have a look for yourself:

At the same time, it's pretty appropriate for this series. Let's forget about the theme song -- the music is obviously great. Tacky as it may look, the visuals have a good thing going on. The low production value reminds me a lot of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries or one of those UFO shows they show on the History Channel fairly regularly. Kind of a nice homage for crackpots such as myself who are all about those kind of shows. It's also nice to finally see what insane fanboys watched on TV before LOST came along.

A Triumphant Return

2008-07-01T14:01:00.009-04:00

I've noticed that I've been incredibly delinquent with my blog posting. For a decent stretch, I was posting things pretty consistently, but alas -- it was not to be for long. Not since Easter have I posted anything, and here we are with the 4th of July upon us (aka the funnest holiday ever).

I'm here now to say 'no more!' I've somehow accumulated maybe 200 hits since the last time I logged in here, so that could very well be 200 people who are seeing nothing new. Or it could be one person that has been so anxious to see something new they've logged in approximately 2-3 times every day since my last post. Or I could be completely mistake and people could just be fond of the adorable killer rabbits from Night of the Lepus. Regardless, somebody's been looking at a lot of old news.

It's time for me to do some of this 'time management' that the business-types, like my boss, are always telling me I should get better at. For starters, I got one of these 'Black Jack' telephones. Did you know you can get Internet and electronic mail on your telephone now? Heck, this thing even has an alarm! Of course, it also has a 'to do' list application and one of my list's items has been 'blog' for a couple weeks. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot for me to say lately aside from "I'm so stoked for The Dark Knight" or "I'm sad that the Martian Manhunter is dead," so I decided to take a look at what exactly keeps me so busy from writing here when I am flooded with ideas after the jump.

Remember these pie chart things? There's a blast from the past. Now again, I'm not one of these 'business meeting' types, so I haven't seen a pie chart since high school. However, I think I've managed to figure out the inner-workings of it to properly break down where all of my time flies and maybe excuse myself for my extended absence from the blogosphere. Of course, I'm going to go on to explain each of these items a little bit further for you.

Work (30%) - Yes, since moving to NYC, I've had one of these Monday through Friday type jobs and no longer have the luxury of sitting around watching Price is Right with my mornings. Of course, these jobs take up a significant chunk of your day. Since the last post especially I've been inundated with the likes of the Tribeca Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival, where I went on an adventure with Judd Apatow (not quite, but he was there).

Sleep (20%) - Boy, this one's a real time killer. Do you know how much more stuff I've gotten done while I wasn't sleeping? Way more than I did while I was asleep, that's for sure. These are at the very least 5 hours out of my day where I am literally just laying around in my underwear. It's like all those sitcom episodes where the bumbling dad is out of work and the wife is fed up and says "Ralph! You have to find a job!" or what have you. See, if these unemployed sitcom dads were smarter they would just be asleep since it's obviously ok to do so then. If they were smarter, I'm sure they'd be employed too.

Napping (10%) - Here's the catch -- as much time as I feel is wasted when I sleep, my body just can't get enough of it. As much as I don't like to, sometimes when I'm just sitting around -- watching TV, sitting at the computer, riding the subway -- my body is like "Hey, you know what's a good idea? Some sleep. Time for a nap." Ridiculous.

Subway (10%) - Not the restaurant -- they tricked me into eating their gross Philly Cheesesteak sub once and I haven't looked back. I'm talking about transportation. While not having to drive a car around is a pretty sweet deal, the subway can be pretty lame when the MTA says "Hey, there's some rain. Better hold off on letting the trains run," or "Well those two hours of the week the B train runs are over, good luck finding a way home." The good thing about the subway is that it often can be used for plenty of much more useful things, such as reading comic books.

Denny Crane (10%) - Ever watch Boston Legal? Because you should. It's amazing. William Shatner is consistently brilliant. James Spader, too. I just got Season 1 on DVD, and I could easily spend this much time watching this show all the time. Denny Crane doesn't believe in a no-win situation. Denny Crane.

Grooming (5%) - I'm a handsome man, so I have to take care of myself to make sure it stays that way. Especially with summer here and living in an apartment on the 4th floor with no AC, I have to shower 2-3 times a day sometimes. It's really quite ridiculous.

Shopping (5%) - This often ends up being more practical than it sounds. It's not like shoe shopping. Ever hear of grocery shopping, people? Considering all of the food shops in my neighborhood are bodegas, I generally have to do all of my shopping in Manhattan which is an effort in itself. Of course, this also takes into account my binges at the Virgin Megastore with their $10 DVD's and the fact I cannot go near Union Square without entering Forbidden Planet.

And now we are left with the final ten percent, which is what the blog is left to fight with. Unforeseen things often come up, such as phone calls from loved ones, having to mess around with my iTunes library, or quality time spent at a beloved pub such as The Slaughtered Lamb or Barcade. Of course, I cannot allow myself to continue being so negligent with my bloggering here. While I don't think I'm quite ready to spare some quality Boston Legal-watching time to write up a blog, there's always the advantage of not having to look your best to write about stuff on the Internet.

The Easter from Hell

2008-03-22T23:50:00.007-04:00

In the spirit of mocking people who leave generic messages like "Happy Thanksgiving!" with a cute dressed up pilgrim on my MySpace wall, I like to think of ridiculous things to put on people's walls. With the impending Easter coming up and along with it a rash of sparkly bunnies and Zombie Jesus comments getting plastered on MySpace, I spent a good ten minutes racking my brain trying to think of the perfect thing to leave for my dear MySpace friends.

In the process of coming across the perfect accompaniment to my Easter greeting, I came across this fine trailer you will witness after the jump.

Smart marketing there. One of the key techniques for Jaws and, more recently, Cloverfield was to show very little of the monster in the end, and it worked for them. I don't think Night of the Lepus had the same fortune because I'm sure most of you have never even heard of it until now.

***SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!***

I've got a Brando Extravaganzo Exclusivo clip from the film revealing what the monster is!

Unless you know what a lepus is or telegraphed it based on the title of the post.. shocking, right??

The Rule of Threes (with comic book films)

2008-03-19T15:26:00.011-04:00

Yesterday Gavin (the person who lives in the other room in my apartment) sent me a message on gChat with a tempting offer -- "Want to watch that really bad Fantastic Four sequel tonight?" Considering there was beer recently brought into the apartment, OF COURSE I wanted to watch a really bad movie! On top of that, I've been attracted to watching awful movies as of late. Some readers may recall that weekend Joel Schumacher still owes me, and just the other night I was starting to watch Blood Simple when the mere sight of Dan Hedaya made me say, "You know what movie I could go for instead? Alien Resurrection." I don't know if maybe I'm suffering from depression, or perhaps I'm feeling anxiety because of the crippling economy that these news anchors told me about, but some voice deep inside of me says, "I know you just bought a copy of Magnolia and all, but wouldn't you much rather reminisce on all those good times you had with Brett Ratner when he mangled the X-Men franchise?"

However, I digress. All of this bad movie watching has made me notice as of late that comic book film franchises tend to follow a rule of threes: First installment -- pretty damn good; second installment -- AMAZING!; third installment -- trainwreck.

Allow me to analyze the examples we've already been provided with, starting with Superman. The first film from the Christopher Reeves era was a wonderful adaptation of the character and the comic. While I generally don't enjoy straight up Superman vs. the bad guys stories, this film has a bit more to it to make the film a fun fantasy romp that successfully makes the character's origin accessible to new audiences, and I'm also fond of watching how Reeves transformed himself between Clark Kent and Superman. Although the increased quality in the second film is debatable, I don't think it is. Simply put -- Zod rules. 'Nuff said, now KNEEL. When we enter the third one, we have a mess of a film where somebody decided it would be a good idea to have Richard Pryor help Robert Vaughn invent Brainiac. They also lifted that idea about stealing penny fractions from bank accounts from a much better film called Office Space.

The next major comic book franchise we had was Batman, and wisely chosen was Tim Burton to helm the first film. While farther off from its source material than most people realize, the first Batman maintains several key elements of the character's core, and there's no way anybody can forget Jack Nicholson's awesome presence as The Joker. Except seriously, why was Vicki Vale allowed in the Batcave? Anyway, the success of that allowed Burton some more freedom to create a much darker toned film with Batman Returns, which is the direction most Batfans would like to see with the character. And then there was Schumacher. Take my word for it, Batman Forever sucks. If you don't believe me, I will once again direct you toward Brando's Lost Weekend to read up on that subject more.

After Joel Schumacher killed comic book movies for the rest of the 90's, Bryan Singer came along to seek sweet, sweet redemption with the X-Men franchise, even if he did start the subtrend of comic book films with questionable female casting (Halle Berry in this case, which has continued with Kirsten Dunst, Katie Holmes, and it appears Gwyneth Paltrow). Again, X-Men wasn't the greatest film ever, but it was a lot of fun and its success treated us to a bigger, better film with X2. It was evident that Singer was trying to carefully plot an arc stretching across several films with plenty of nice set-ups and winks in this film. And who didn't freak out with the obvious allusion to the Phoenix at the end? Of course, Brett Ratner came along and while he at least didn't Schumacher all over Patrick Stewart's scalp, he committed the atrocity of cramming too much into one film with a hearty side of arbitrarily introducing characters.. just because. Was Angel really pivotal to those two scenes he was in? And while I get a good laugh out of the videos online as much as anyone else, but did Vinnie Jones really need to declare that he was the Juggernaut, bitch?

But no film committed the heinous act of two-films-in-one as badly as Spiderman 3. Oh, Sam Raimi, where are your morals? The scope and sheer wonder of the first Spiderman completely captured my imagination, and while it isn't "the film" that made me do so, it was an important catalyst in making me decide I wanted to enter the film industry. And you made Spiderman 2 so much better! You did such a great job of capturing the struggle that a masked vigilante must endure when trying to be a hero and living their own life. Nobody had done so well with it, and they still haven't touched it since. But the third? Far too much was attempted at once. It felt like some black suit, Venom, and Sandman stories were taken and thrown into a garbage compacter and then you reached in and found your script. That's really what the film is -- garbage contained to a much smaller space than it should be. All that was accomplished in this film were some cool effects with the Sandman and effectively making James Franco look like some sort of pederast.

At the end of this retrospective, we must think of what the future holds for this cursed Rule of Threes. Christopher Nolan looks to be well on his way to following the same path with his rebooted Batman franchise. It's astounding how well he simultaneous took the character back to its core on screen while helping ease the pain of those dreadful Schumacher versions of the character. The Dark Knight looks to continue on this same path, and the opportunity to see The Joker and Harvey Dent (Batmans two biggest adversaries if you ask me) in top form on the big screen is sure to be a fanboy's -- and a Brando's -- wet dream.

All of this considered it makes me think what Christopher Nolan could do to screw up any Batman film. Not only is he doing great things for the character on the silver screen, but he's Christopher Nolan! He made Memento! And The Prestige!! I asked the same about Sam Raimi, of course, but we all see where that ended up. Would Nolan ditch a character he seems to be so enthusiastic about working with before the third movie? Or do you think he would do something drastic like take his source material from Frank Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (aka The Goddamn Batman)?

I'm also a little curious to see if this works in the opposite direction. For as bad as Rise of the Silver Surfer was, it was still better than its predecessor. I can't deny how cool the Silver Surfer looked. In theory, this is going along with the rule of threes only with diminished quality in its proportions -- part one is really crappy, with part two being slightly less crappy. If they make a third Fantastic Four, can you imagine how epically terrible that would be? It would probably even be subpar to your average made-for-Sci-Fi Channel movie.

And what are your thoughts on the matter? Are you more secure than I am about the direction our comic book properties are headed on screen? Do you think I'm actually suffering some sort of weird mental disorder that makes me more likely to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning rather than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford when I get home from work tonight?

Just kidding about that last one.. there's a new South Park on tonight. But seriously, let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment or sending me an email -- brandonrohwer@gmail.com

Cartoons in my day...

2008-03-17T00:03:00.017-04:00

Remember how easy it was to get a cartoon and, in turn, a toy line based off of your movie back in the 80's? Allow me a moment to reflect on some franchises that did:

Beetlejuice
Chuck Norris
Ed Grimley
Hulk Hogan
Little Shop of Horrors
Planet of the Apes
Rambo
Robocop
Teen Wolf
Toxic Avengers

Who on this planet said, "You know that guy with the triangle that Martin Short plays on SNL and SCTV? Wouldn't that make a great cartoon?" Part of me believes that Seth Brundle aka Brundlefly (the lead character from Cronenberg's The Fly) was programming Saturday mornings for my generation. After all, he did say that his life story would make "a phenomenal children's book." Either that or there were way more drugs around in the Eighties than I was ever led to believe.

Regardless of who it was, what happened to the children's entertainment guru who decided an X-rated film like Robocop and a crazed Vietnam vet would make wonderful cartoons/toylines? Probably fired, because if they were still in business I'm sure our Saturday mornings would be graced with such out of place entries as The Matrix, Jason Bourne, and even Darkman if you want to go back a few years further.

If you are reading this now, drugged-out-children's-programmer or Brundlefly, I have a few things that would be great to see on the screen. As much as I'd like to be hired as a writer on each of these ideas, I think I would be happy enough to see some favorite franchises of mine grace the screen for the younger generations.

There Will Be.. Learning! This probably makes more sense than any of the other ideas. You may not believe that a belligerent old coot like Daniel Plainview would be appropriate for children's programming, but if you've seen There Will Be Blood, you know that Daniel Plainview has a particular fondness for children. As he so eloquently put it, children mean schools. Schools mean education. It only makes sense to put Daniel Plainview in his own Mr. Wizard-style series.

The Adventures of El Mariachi and the Blind Gunman I'm pretty sure this could actually have happened if Robert Rodriguez made his Mariachi Trilogy ten years earlier. Couldn't you picture El and Agent Sands traveling from one impoverished town to another in Mexico saving the poor citizens from the Big Bad? Seems kind of like an A-Team style story to me.

Quantum Leap: The Animated Series This doesn't really fit into the "inappropriate cartoon adaptation" category. I would just be really happy if Quantum Leap came back somehow. If it did.... oh boy.

Trapped in the Classroom (with Lil' R. Kelly & Pals) A lot of people who look into Trapped in the Closet more than they should (such as myself) say that the epic hip-hopera is a morality play of sorts. And if there's one thing we need to teach our children about, it's good morals. In my time, we learned our morals from an episode of Full House, but I think I would have listened a little bit more if our morality plays had some soul to them. Turning characters such as Sylvester, Chuck, Rufus, Gwendolyn, Twan, Pimp Luscious, Bridget, The Ghost of Christmas Past, and Big Man (especially Big Man) into tykes in a classroom would translate pretty well. Think of some sort of twisted version of Muppet Babies, but with singing the whole time and Rosie the Nosy Neighbor as Nanny. And a lot of the storylines could switch over easily as well. For example, instead of seeing the consequences of cheating on your spouse getting you the p-p-p-package or something to that effect, you would learn about the consequences of cheating on a test.

If you are reading this, Mr. Brundlefly, please go back to your post at Kids WB. Take heed of my words and make some quality children's programming again. For all I care, you could make Takashi Miike films into a cartoon. I beg you of this, because I know that when I bring children into this world, I would much rather sit them in front of something like Ichi and the Yakuza Squad rather instead of something that will forever ruin their attention spans like Johnny Test.

Those crappy Batman movies

2008-03-02T16:23:00.008-05:00

For Christmas I had the wonderful fortune of being given some Amazon gift certificates by my parents. I put them to good use and bought several things I've needed for sometime DVD-wise, like the Planet of the Apes 35th Anniversary Edition and the Joe Schmo Show. I also at long last purchased The Batman Anthology.

Since my work schedule has calmed down immensely since the aftermath of Sundance and a couple other projects which shall go unnamed, I've cherished my freer weekends as of late to watch some of these new films I've purchased recently. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment and just don't realize it, but I decided to put off doing taxes once again in favor of a double feature of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. The lesser of the two evils? Hmm, good question.

Originally, I had planned to begin a series of blog entries entitled "WHY!?", where I would watch bad movies such as these and catalog each fault that made me yell out "WHY!?!?" Unfortunately, I couldn't keep doing this after fifteen minutes of Forever. It just got too damn exhausting.

For quite some time now, I've been telling people that Forever is inferior to Robin to which they promptly reply "Batman Forever wasn't THAT bad!" Now that I've rewatched them both back-to-back, it's definitely that bad. In fact, I may say Batman & Robin has even grown on me a little bit. Yes, it's still pretty horrendous, but let's take a look at what each of the Schumacher Batman films has offer.

Forever has two villains trying to act like Jack Nicholson's Joker. The weird thing is that neither The Riddler nor Two Face (especially not Two Face) should act like the Joker. Tommy Lee Jones' Two Face is just downright awful for this reason. Val Kilmer looks incredibly uncomfortable through the whole film; poor Val is completely clueless as to what's going on the whole time. So am I thanks to all of the movie-style bullshit science of brainwaves throughout the whole film. And please don't forget that Val Kilmer -- NOT George Clooney like most people cite -- was the first to don the nippled Batsuit. Basically, aside from the soundtrack, the only thing good about this film is watching Nicole Kidman inexplicably joygasm every time she looks at Batman.

As for Batman & Robin, I would say its biggest crime is the treatment of Bane, who is far from the hired muscle role he plays here. If they wanted a random brainless goon, why use Bane, who is actually intelligent and educated? If the filmmakers were to have taken a look at some Batman books instead of just talk to the children in their family about who they'd want to see in a Batman movie, they could have discovered a perfect candidate in Solomon Grundy. But on the upside, at least Robin does a decent job of feigning depth in the plot. I like that Paul Dini's tragic villain-style origin story from Batman: The Animated Series was incorporated for him here. I also like the themes of family within Wayne Manor, as many times Batman stories are a family affair (especially most recently in the comics continuity with Grant Morrison bringing Bruce Wayne's son Damien into play). Of course, that storyline is forced and as cheesy as the rest of Joel Schumacher's run on Batman.

And as for the performances, Uma Thurman's pretty damn good at over the top, and she takes ridiculous dialog and makes it work. Come on, we've all seen Kill Bill. I love Kill Bill, but most of those words probably wouldn't fly if they came out of some other actress's mouth. George Clooney is a far better Bruce Wayne and even a better Batman than Val Kilmer because he at least fits in with the rest of the film. Sure, Val had the whole 'dark and brooding' thing down in a way, but it didn't work in Forever because (1) he was the only one that wasn't goofy for the duration and it was just awkward, and (2) he didn't emote one bit.

But I digress. I tire of defending a crappy movie against a crappier movie. The point I'm really trying to make here is that Batman Forever is the worst of the bunch by far, so before you try and tell me otherwise again just think back to how old you were the last time you watched it, because you were probably just old enough when you saw Batman and Robin to realize its faults. But when it comes to the previous film, who didn't love Jim Carrey in 1995?

Jukebox Hero

2008-03-01T06:27:00.001-05:00

When I make my weekend travels, I enjoy going to bars specifically that have internet jukebox. In the event I find one, I usually like to play the types of songs that would normally clear the place because I just get a kick out of it. Frequently, my playlists include "Batdance" by Prince, "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger, "Dream Warriors" by Dokken, and "Batdance" another time or two.

Last night in a midtown bar, I experienced a travesty that I have not incurred since Gavin and I performed "Batdance" at karaoke. In the midst of a playlist that included Squeeze's "Up the Junction" (just because I like it) and the "Last Caress" by The Misfits (just because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside), I had my coup de gras on deck --"The Flame" by Cheap Trick aka the Ultimate Power Ballad.

People seemed to be enjoying "The Flame." I mean, why not? It's the Ultimate Power Ballad. One dude was trying to sing along. Young Elvis Mitchell (not Elvis Mitchell himself, but a guy who looked like a young version of him) was using the tremendous mood-setting music to hit on some other dude's girlfriend. Like I said, this is the Ultimate Power Ballad. Everytime I hear it, it makes me think of Desmond and Penny on Lost, because that's greatest love story of our time.

But the bartender apparently had something against this. Maybe he's friends with the guy who's dating that chick Young Elvis Mitchell was hitting on. Or perhaps the man just can't appreciate a good slow jam. I don't know. Whatever the reason, he was driven to shut the song off halfway through. Bastard.

At least the song he put on instead was "Thriller".

Trannies on the Train

2007-10-14T08:19:00.001-04:00

Since I moved to New York City, I've seen a lot of bad transvestites but tonight I saw one that really took the cake. The situation amused me much more than the dude that was dressing so hard to look like a dame, but didn't quite have the voice causing the blind man he was helping directions with to say, "Thank you, sir."

So I'm on the E train coming back into Queens, and this big dude and the transvestite walk in and have a seat. They sit down across from me and I'm taking a look at this dude in the dress thinking, "Seriously?" The guy in drag was literally a dude wearing a dress and a wig that he probably picked up from Rite Aid's Halloween section. The guy he was with was huge, kind of like a wrestler or football player.

I spent a good amount of time trying to think of what exactly was going on. I mean this guy was obviously NOT a chick. Football Guy may have been into that whole thing, but he wasn't interacting with him like you would imagine they would if he was, you know, taking him home. On the other hand, perhaps they were both partaking in some hilarious prank where they would see if people actually fell for this guy being a chick. I like to think that the hilarious prank was played on Football Guy himself by Bad Transvestite and Football Guy was slowly realizing what he was getting into. I also think that's the most believable conclusion because he was wearing the stupidest hat I had ever seen, which looked like a silver du-rag with a bill on the front.

Top 25

2007-08-31T02:19:00.000-04:00

It took me a long time to figure this out, and here it is... no longer am I doing my year-by-year ranking of movies. I've compiled a Top 25 list. I feel pretty good about this, but I'm always concerned that something might be left out. Thoughts? Here they are in chronological order.

1. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
3. Dirty Harry
4. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
5. The Blues Brothers
6. E.T: The Extra Terrestrial
7. Ghostbusters
8. A Nightmare on Elm St.
9. Back to the Future trilogy
10. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
11. Little Shop of Horrors
12. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
13. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
14. Unforgiven
15. Pulp Fiction
16. Clerks
17. Swingers
18. Jackie Brown
19. Rushmore
20. Fight Club
21. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
22. High Fidelity
23. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
24. Shaun of the Dead
25. The 40 Year Old Virgin

Civil War Beard

2007-08-03T03:46:00.000-04:00

Today I saw a ferocious Civil War Beard. Not only did this guy have a Civil War Beard, but he had a goatee, too. Those of you familiar with the concept of a CWB are probably thinking, "Wait.. that's impossible!" Nope.

This guy's Civil War Beard cut up across his cheeks, instead of at the jowels like your run of the mill CWB. This allowed him to have some extra room to spare on his face to grow the goatee.

In addition, he had bright red hair. As a result, he wasn't just any Civil War lookin' guy, but he was a pissed off drunken Irish Civil War guy who had a goatee along with his traditional beard. With these powers combined, I saw a pretty original Civil War Beard today across the street from good ol' Joe's Pizza.

Post party note

2007-07-28T16:40:00.000-04:00

Big thanks to everyone who came to the party last night. It was quite a success, as just about everything was eaten which means my father will have the good fortune of not being forced to eat beef sandwiches for the next three weeks.

So I think about three people walked into the door, and Andy put an end to his mortal enemy at last.

A lot of people assumed it was a graduation party, but it really wasn't. That's cool though, because I got some cards. I got a particularly lovely card from my grandmother congratulating me on graduating... but from high school, not grad school. There was twenty bucks in it, so that's cool anyway.

New York F'n City

2007-03-22T05:19:00.000-04:00

Today I saw the following:

-a fake mustache on a street sign pole
-Hot Fuzz
-some heroes of mine aka Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright

I am enraged at YOU, Boston

2007-02-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

I read the Boston Globe at lunch today, and I'm not too happy about all this hoopla about the Lite Brite Mooninites mistaken for bombs. Probably the thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that the news keeps reporting this as a 'hoax.' A hoax is something done with the INTENT to deceive. If they intended on deceiving people into thinking there were bombs all over, then it would be a hoax, and then all the people running the city of Boston could be justified in called everyone involved 'irresponsible.'

I'm sure there will be more ranting to come when I'm out of work and have more time to think and type about it, and mainly how the thing that scares me is the potential threat to freedom of speech rights.

On the upside of this, I did see a front page today with pictures of the Aqua Teens with the headline "Wad A Joke!"

REALLY weird dream

2006-11-23T19:02:00.000-05:00

Last night I dreamt that I bought The Da Vinci Code on DVD. Then I was really pissed, because I realized I had bought The Da Vinci Code.

Merry Melodies

2006-07-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

Here's a little tune that I like to sing to myself whenever life gets me down to remind me that it really ain't all that bad:

You think your life is difficult
Well mine's a little bit harder
You see
I've got this problem
My girlfriend is a vampire
Blond hair
Brown eyes
Thin waist
My prize
She sleeps during the day
When I'm not exactly tired
It ain't much fun in a coffin
My girlfriend is a vampire
Sucks blood
Likes bats
Big fangs
My love
You can't taker out in the sun
You can't take a picture of her
Her ex-boyfriend is a werewolf
My girlfriend is a vampire

The Olympics

2006-02-15T03:31:00.000-05:00

I enjoy watching them, but curling? What the hell is up with that? Were they desperate to get another sport for people to compete in? You might as well add bowling to the Olympics (nothing against bowling, of course).

A friendly reminder...

2005-07-09T17:51:00.000-04:00

NOTHING CAN KILL THE GRIMACE!!!

UPDATE: Nick Sprague is a Communist

2005-05-29T07:03:00.001-04:00

When going to The Apartment tonight, I was disappointed to find out that Nick Sprague had already came and left this momentous occasion. Having been looking towards this epic debate, I immediately called him up. He replied by saying, "I'm scared of you, Brandon." Regardless, I pushed him into admitting why he preferred The Phantom Menace among the other prequels. In a nutshell, he found the lightsaber fight at the end of The Phantom Menace* to be the most exciting event, and I pointed out that a scene does not make an entire movie good. After some conversing, he admitted he was wrong. While it would appear his preference leans towars The Phantom Menace, I made him realize that it was the inferior film.

*While I do enjoy the action in Revenge of the Sith, I may be inclined to agree that Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan v. Darth Maul may be the best lightsaber fight of the series. However, I have yet to watch all of the fights in the vicinity of each other to properly compare them.

Nick Sprague is a Communist

2005-05-28T16:52:00.001-04:00

CAN YOU TRUST THIS MAN?

Look at Nick Sprague up there. What a creep. Can you trust a creep like that? I could, but not completely. Then you find out he claims that The Phantom Menace is the best of the Star Wars prequels. Can I still trust him? Certainly not any farther than I can throw him!

That is why I plan on crushing him with my New Powers in the Saturday Night Debate Special tonight. Somebody needs to give him some humility before we take formerly good movie recommendations like The Way of the Gun and have him use his Phantom Menace Mind Trickery to make us end up watching movies that are much like The Phantom Menace: foolish movies that pander towards children. Do you want to live in a world where you have people like Nick Sprague telling you to watch movies like Baby's Day Out or 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up? I think not!

Holczman = C3-PO

2005-05-27T21:46:00.001-04:00

This is something I've been pondering for sometime, and I think it deserves to be examined. I'm sure most people who went to Olean remember Mr. Holczman. However, it wasn't until I was trying to describe him to somebody at school when I realized just how much he resembled C3-PO of Star Wars fame. First, let us look at a side-by-side comparison:

What a pair. First, I would have to say that their biggest physical similarity from a still photograph would be how much fear is instilled in their eyes. Threepio is clearly frightened by the surrounding Galactic Civil War, while Holczman is looking like he's ready to jump out the window after a greuling day at the urban war turf that is Olean High.

I always get a kick of these guys when they react to trouble, mainly Holczman. I fondly remember the day in the Senior Commons before it was devastated at the hands of the class of 2003 when Francie Yehl and Sara MacDonald were in some sort of fight, which was mostly messing around, but looked angrier than it actually was. Holczman's prompt response was to stand up flailing his arms ranting, "What do I do? What do I do!?" I can only imagine the hilarity if he actually was a droid, because then he could be dismantled by some Storm Troopers in Bespin and be put back together by Chewbacca, who in OHS terms would most likely end up being Mrs. Balaban.

This leads in to how similar their mannerisms are. In a nutshell, they are both helpless fools. C3-PO's reaction to Bail Organa's order in Revenge of the Sith to have Threepio's memory is a pretty accurate representation to Holczman's reaction to Nary throwing an entire ping-pong table at Jimmy. The only difference is that Holczman didn't actually utter the words, "Oh no."

Of course, where there is C3-PO, there must be R2D2. Although I never actually saw this teacher pal around with Holczman, I think he can be a good OHS representation of R2D2:

Although Mr. Kopko (pictured here with winningest coach in Bills history Marv Levy) isn't quite as lovable as Artoo, he is a short and round fellow who I always saw wheeling around the halls of OHS. He wasn't literally wheeling, but he seemed to be power-walking usually and that was close enough to fit my criteria. In addition to this, he was always making some weird sounds that didn't quite make sense. I'm sure Holczman's worked with him long enough to fullfill his protocol droid purposes to translate "blip bleep bloop" to the typical Kopko-fashioned "POSEEEEIIIIDON!!!"