Category: Fanboy

A Long-Expected Party.


“There are a few times in your career when you come across an actor who you know was born to play a role, but that was the case as soon as I met Martin. He is intelligent, funny, surprising and brave – exactly like Bilbo and I feel incredibly proud to be able to announce that he is our Hobbit.“

With the fate of a Kiwi Middle Earth still up in the air (due to the aforementioned labor issues), Peter Jackson gets a greenlight — yes, he’s directing now — and announces the cast of The Hobbit. As Bilbo, and as rumored since the very beginning, Martin Freeman of The Office UK and Hitchhiker’s Guide. I like it.

Rounding out the cast (besides Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, and Andy Serkis, of course): Richard Armitage (no, not that one) as Thorin Oakinshield, Rob Kazinsky as Fili, Aidan Turner as Kili, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, John Callen as Oin, Stephen Hunter as Bombur, Mark Hadlow as Dori, and Peter Hambleton as Gloin. AICN has already thrown together a handy visual guide, and these guys all already have that dwarven je-ne-sais-quoi. (Hopefully, that means less Gimli make-up.) Pending a location, shooting is set to start in February.

Tales of the Big Three.


While work has been kicking my ass like Doomsday on a tear through Metropolis, some big doings for the Big Three on the comic-to-film front. To wit:

A Shadow from the West?


“[I]t sure feels like we are being attacked simply because we are a big fat juicy target – not for any wrong doing. We haven’t even been greenlit yet! It feels as if we have a large Aussie cousin kicking sand in our eyes…or to put it another way, opportunists exploiting our film for their own political gain.“

Out of the frying pan, into the fire: Still reeling from MGM’s dismal cashflow situation and the departure of Guillermo del Toro, The Hobbit now faces another threat from — according to Peter Jackson, at least —an Australian actor’s union muscling in on Kiwi turf, and potentially sending the Land of Middle-Earth over to Eastern Europe.

The link above is PJ’s account of where things stand. I understand he’s management in this instance, but, speaking as someone who’s very pro-union in general but has had issues with some specific organizing tactics in the past, his summary sounds eminently plausible to me.

Hallows, Four, Speeches, Grit, and Sky.

In the trailer bin of late:

  • Death comes to Hogwarts, and young Master Potter must beat it back one final time — but not before moping across the English countryside for two hours — in the full trailer for David Yates’ first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the usual gang (and Bill Nighy) in tow. Not a big fan of the 7th book, but let’s face it, we’re all pot-committed at this point.

  • I was a Teenage Alien? No, it’s the teaser for D.J. Caruso’s I am Number Four, with Alex Pettyfer, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron, Kevin Durand and Timothy Olyphant. Mr. Seth Bullock notwithstanding, that bland, Twilight-y cast and the February release date suggests to me this is eminently missable.

  • King George isn’t mad, per se. But he does suffer from a rather serious stammer in the trailer for Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, with Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Jennifer Ehle, and Guy Pearce. The trailer looks a bit too inspirational-true-story! and Oscar-baitish to me, but word of mouth on this has been g-g-g-g…well, ok, very good.

  • And, saving the best for last, a young girl — younger even than Kim Darby — (Hailee Steinfeld) enlists the services of one Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) for an Old West mission of vengeance in the first trailer for the Coens’ remake of True Grit, also with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper. You know how I am about the Coens. I’ll be there.

  • Update: One more for the pile: Independence Day meets Cloverfield in the trailer for the Straus brothers’ Skyline, with Donald Faison, Eric Balfour, David Zayas, Scottie Thompson, and Brittany Daniel. Eh, the FX look rather impressive, if nothing else.

The GOP Whigs Out.


As this prescient August J. Pollak cartoon predicted way back in 2007, it seems that months if not years of stirring the crazy pot has finally caught up to the GOP. The most recent case in point: Tea partier Christine O’Donnell’s upset win over Mike Castle in Delaware last night, which capped a series of Tea Party upsets in the GOP primaries. Sorry, y’all — You play with matches, you get burned.

Still, the Republicans’ recent intemperate rhetoric aside, one could argue we’re seeing the slow-motion devolution of a movement that began over a half-century ago, with Goldwater in 1964. Since then, Nixon notwithstanding, the Republicans have moved continually to the right, engaging in putsch after putsch to retain the purity of their conservatism (to say nothing of the precious bodily fluids.) Even the much-beloved Ronald Reagan, pretty far right for his day, would be considered a pinko by the standards of the contemporary Tea Partier, as would, in many corners, the Muslim-coddling Dubya.

And so, here we are at the end of the rainbow. The snake is eating itself. Not for nothing is Newt Gingrich, once the Robespierre of this particular Revolution, now frantically swimming right to save his own head — He doesn’t want to end up like Rove. (Speaking of which, Presidents Collins and Snowe, take note: There is no room for you at this table anymore.)

As for the evening’s big winner, well, obviously I think O’Donnell is frighteningly wrong on just about everything, from creationism to onanism, and she’d be an absolute disaster in the Senate. (Good thing she seems unelectable.) Still, however much we disagree, I have to confess a soft spot for anyone who takes their Tolkien seriously.

Thrones, Pierces.

On the eve of Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire — premiering this Sunday — HBO shows off some of the goods in its 2011 hopper: Tom McCarthy’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, with Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance, and Lena Headey, and Todd Haynes’ five-part take on James Cain’s Mildred Pearce, with Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, and Evan Rachel Wood. I already did the re-up a month ago — looking forward to catching up with Treme — but I’m glad to see HBO plans to keep ’em coming.

He tried to warn us.

“In my practice, I’ve seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happened slowly instead of all at once. They didn’t seem to mind…All of us – a little bit – we harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.” Veteran character actor Kevin McCarthy, best known for his starring role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1914-2010.

The Empire in Bodymore.


Since Glenn Beck and his elderly white army ventured to DC this weekend (via roads, highways, and mass transit) to complain about socialism (in a public park), what better time to break away to nearby Baltimore for a gathering of fanboys and fangirls? Baltimore Comic-Con was Saturday, and, as with the NY Comic-Con back in 2006, I’ve put a few pics up on the Flickr Feed. (I mostly took pics of cosplayers, but there were quite a few venerable comic names out and about as well, including Walt and Louise Simonson, Bernie Wrightson, Howard Chaykin, Jim Shooter, and Jim Starlin.)

Love in the Time of Konami.


Now that I’m back in civilization (and particularly given that my apartment is having power issues, and thus Berk and I are living like the Amish this week), time to catch up on the recent movies I’ve missed. First up, Edgar Wright’s fun and propulsive adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the (vaguely problematic) indie comic by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

Sadly, it seems Pilgrim has already joined a film it shares a lot in common with in terms of visual inventiveness, the Wachowskis’ unjustly maligned Speed Racer, as something of a box office “bob-omb”. (That pun, by the way, was borrowed from one of the many Expendables fans on AICN strangely all-too-happy to dance on Pilgrim‘s box office grave.) And that’s really too bad. Because, even if I have some issues with the blatant fanboy (emphasis on “boy”) wish-fulfillment at its core, which I’ll get to in a bit, Scott Pilgrim deserves a wider airing.

For one, with its Wham-Pow! effusiveness and viscerally engaging superhero fights, it’s easily one of the most imaginative comic book renderings onscreen this side of Sin City. And comics are only half the story. From its 8-bit Universal opening (a la those great NES Pink Floyd mash-ups I linked to a few months ago), the movie also has one foot firmly entrenched in the world of old-school console gaming. If the dreamworlds of Inception felt like stages in a video game, this movie takes the conceit to the next level: Scott Pilgrim’s entire life unfolds in a Walter-Mitty-meets-Street Fighter, coin-operated Toronto (Trononto?) where g4m3r rules are a fact of life.

This allows for defeated villains turning into collectible coins, 1-ups around for psychic rejuvenation when needed, and — always a happy indication that the movie is about to get super-fun again — the Capcom “VS.” popping up whenever Scott (Michael Cera) must face off against another of his dastardly foes. Those would be the seven members of the League of Evil Ex’es, the sinister cadre of former significant others to the lovely Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) that have gathered together to block our hero from ever dating his dream girl.

And trust me — These Ex-Men (and one Ex-Woman) are no slouches. Among their number are not only Captain America (Chris Evans), here an action hero heartthrob and skater punk with a Jamie Madrox-style army of stunt doubles at his disposal, but the one and only Superman (Brandon Routh), now blonde, psychic, and, most dastardly of all, Vegan. (In the Pilgrimverse, Vegans operate like the Green Lantern Corps. Just ask Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins, Jr.) And they’re just the mini-bosses Scott will have to contend with before defeating Gideon (Jason Schwartzman, a bit anti-climatic, quite frankly — They should’ve sprung for Aldous Snow), the music biz impresario who still has an unholy thrall over Ramona, thanks to a chip implanted in the back of her neck.

Wait…a what? A chip, you say? That makes her a rather passive character, doesn’t it? Yeah, well, that’s the major problem with Pilgrim, which I attribute more to the source material than anything else. This is basically fanboy pr0n, and, in terms of the ostensible romance here, Pilgrim is as one-sided and overtly gendered a piece of rom-com wish-fulfillment as I imagine Eat, Pray, Love was in the theater next door. I mean, I get it: Saving the girl of your dreams from despicably evil forces has been a fanboy trope from Princess Leia to Princess Zelda (although, to her credit, Leia takes over the show as soon as she’s sprung from Detention Block AA-23.) And as one who’s eternally fond of Brazil, I’m not one to complain about a man going out on a limb for his dream-girl.

Still, something about Scott Pilgrim rankles. Sure, Michael Cera specializes in dweebs, but as George Michael in Arrested Development and in movies like Superbad, Juno, and Youth in Revolt, he still had a certain wry, self-effacing charm about him. But, as Scott Pilgrim, he’s just a lazy, whiny, self-entitled jerk, and seems unpossessed of any trait that would make him either desirable to the opposite sex or worth rooting for as a hero. (Well, I guess he does play the bass.) Meanwhile, Ramona is a very pretty cipher — She doesn’t bring much to the table either except Kate Winslet’s hair from Eternal Sunshine and the plot-driving baggage of seven evil ex’es. She’s more of a Macguffin than a fully-realized character.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s a lot of joy to be had in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, mostly due to Edgar Wright, after Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz, really letting his freak flag fly. There’s almost always something fun and geeky going on in the margins of the screen or on the soundtrack, and the Brandon Routh fight and a later Battle of the Bands (between Scott’s outfit, Sex Bob-omb, and a pair of Japanese twins by way of Daft Punk) are both absolute showstoppers. (Maybe too much so, in fact — The final twenty minutes are muddled, and feel like a letdown after these earlier highs.)

Yet, despite the flaws of its titular hero, Scott Pilgrim is the most purely enjoyable roller coaster ride to come down the cinematic pike since Kick-Ass. And, sure, Scott Pilgrim probably doesn’t deserve the girl in the end (or maybe he does, given that she’s drawn as such a blank), but Scott Pilgrim vs the World definitely deserves your ten bucks regardless.