“This is about camaraderie. It’s about teamwork, but most of all it’s about history. It’s really about knowing your roots. I mean, kids today, they’re reading about Wolverine’s clone sister. What the hell is that about?” The Secret Wars Re-Enactment Society (By way of Do You Feel Loved?) For old-school comic fans, this is worth seeing for the Kang and Ultron costumes alone. (And, as Chris noted, the payoff is pretty funny too.)
Category: Fanboy
Stick Figure Theater.
Two decently amusing fanimation links courtesy of Ed Rants (who, it should be noted, has had a really lousy week): Stick Figure Dragon’s Lair and Raiders of the Lost Ark in GIF form. Enjoy.
Batson Begins.
The Longest Yard and 50 First Dates director Peter Segal picks up the reins for Shazam!, the forthcoming Captain Marvel movie. You know the comic-film revival is starting to overextend itself when the old Fawcett characters start getting their own flicks. Who’s next, Spy-Smasher?
It’s Good Enough for V.
“People should not be ‘fraid of cookie. Cookies should be ‘fraid of people.” Guy Fawkes, meet Crazy Harry. By way of my sister, experience Jim Henson’s uncompromising vision of the future, C for Cookie.
Miller’s (School) Crossing.
When I read in multiple interviews that writer-director Rian Johnson found his inspiration for the film Brick in the Coens’ Miller’s Crossing — which with Brazil and Amadeus holds the top spot in my all-time (non-fanboy) film list — my interest was piqued. And, to be sure, Dode, Tug, and the Pin of Brick bear more than a passing resemblance to Bernie Bernbaum, the Dane, and Johnny Caspar of Crossing. (In fact, some aspects of Brick, such as the mass of flunkies waiting in the hall and Brendan’s glasses (a.k.a. Tom’s hat), seem like direct lifts from the Coens’ film.) Still, ultimately the Prohibition-era Midwest of Crossing serves as a more plausible and fertile environment for Dashiel Hammett‘s tough guys and dangerous dames than does the sun-and-drug-drenched California high school here. Brick is worth seeing — It gets points for innovation, and for having the good taste to lift from a really great movie. But it’s also slow and uneven at times, and in its worst moments is somewhat reminiscent of Bugsy Malone. In a way, Brick also reminded me of Bubba Ho-Tep — an imaginative conceit that looks great on paper, but one that loses something in the execution. (That being said, and as some AICN reviewers noted, I could see this becoming a cult hit of Donnie Darko-ish proportions, particularly among high schoolers.)
So, what’s the rumpus? Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a high school loner forced to turn shamus when, after heeling him three months earlier for the in-crowd of dopers and jocks, his former twist (Emile de Ravin) shows up on ice. With his ally the Brain (Matt O’Leary) backing his play — namely by keeping an eye on the vice-principal’s office for him — Brendan starts digging around the high school underground to see what shakes. Along the way, he encounters a couple of filles fatale (Nora Zehetner, Meagan Good), a local drug lord — with a (maltese) falcon-headed cane, no less — (Lukas Haas), and some irate muscle (Noah Fleiss) who may or may not be chiseling on the side. Will Brendan get to the bottom of it all, and find some measure of belated justice for his dead ladyfriend? Or will he gum it, and end up just another broken-hearted yegg shuffling through fourth period study hall?
If you’re a noir aficionado who enjoys watching actors Hammiett-it-up, Brick is a treat most of the time. But, to be honest, some of the kids — not Gordon-Levitt or Haas, who are both very good — stumble over the period dialogue, and when they do, the whole artifice of this enterprise is exposed. Transplanting Hammiett into high school seems like a great idea, and at times the juxtaposition is really funny: Brendan tells an untrustworthy dame “If you need me, you know where I eat lunch” and warns the asst. vice-principal (Richard Roundtree), “If you’ve got a problem with me, write me up or suspend me — I’ll see you at the parent conference.” But, in the end, I think Brick should have gone farther with it. By having so much of the story revolve around a murder, a crime boss, and a totally absurd amount of hard drugs, Johnson is kinda cheating — this story isn’t really about high school at all. Brick would’ve been more satisfying, I think, if Brendan had just ended up navigating the interstices among high school social cliques as Tom Reagan does the Irish and Italian mob in Crossing. (Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War comes to mind as a template for how that might’ve worked.) But in having teenagers speak in Hammiett’s argot, while in no way acting like teenagers, Brick ends up feeling more like a pastiche or a film school exercise than it really should. I’d say it’s worth seeing, but ultimately Brick feels more clever than it does entertaining, and, all in all, I ended up admiring the attempt made here more than actually enjoying the film.
Can I get a (super)-witness?
The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters, with a handy graphic of who’s a member of what “legion.” The site also includes impressively detailed individual entries on each character — not only the big guns like Methodist Superman, Episcopal Batman, Catholic Daredevil, and Buddhist Wolverine, but also everyone from Presbyterian Wolfsbane to the Mormon Power Pack. (Via Triptych Cryptic.)
Homerian Epic.
The Superman-themed teaser for The Simpsons Movie premieres online, with a street date of July 27, 2007. Excellent.
Cronenberg’s Calendar.
“It doesn’t exist, and we’ve been trying to get the IMDb to take the damn thing off.” With A History of Violence behind him, director David Cronenberg talks about several projects he is — and isn’t — working on.
Zack Resets the Clock.
Directors Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass failed their Rorschach tests — Still, Alan Moore’s Watchmen may soon have a new helmer in Zack Snyder, who’s currently finishing up Frank Miller’s 300.
Fawkes News.
Verily, my view on V for Vendetta vacillates. Even with visage veiled, the venerable Hugo Weaving’s voice brings vim and verve to the verbose, volatile, and vindictive vigiliante. Natalie Portman is vivacious enough as V’s volunteer, and varied English veterans (Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt) bring valuable versimilitude to V’s environs. But, various vignettes notwithstanding, this vaunted venture is less vibrant and versatile than I’d hoped. V is too virtuous, and the villains — from a venal vicar to a vainglorious video host — too vile. Vendetta is a viable version of Alan Moore’s violent vision, I suppose, but a vulgarized one.
If you thought the last paragraph was clunky, be prepared for more of the same in V. Vendetta is an enjoyable night at the movies, and definitely an above-average, smarter-than-usual actioner. And Weaving is amazingly dynamic behind the static mask — It’s hard to think of anyone else who could’ve pulled this off quite as well. But, like the last two Matrix films, V‘s bravura moments — the escape from the BBC, V’s talk with the botanist (Sinead Cusack), the domino scene — are too often interspersed with leaden, expository-heavy scenes where the pacing of the film just goes slack. Particularly egregious in this regard is our Batman-ish introduction to V very early in the film, where even Weaving’s mellifluous phrasing can’t salvage a similarly V-intensive monologue. (Frankly, the whole scene needed a rewrite.) The film does eventually recover from this Act I stumble, but it takes awhile.
And the larger problem with V for Vendetta is that, for all its pretense of moral complexity, it stacks the ethical deck in favor of our terrorist-protagonist. It’s been awhile since I’ve read the graphic novel, but I remember V coming across as a much more unlikable character. He’s a monster created by monstrous circumstances, and as much a symptom as the cure of his society’s larger sickness. But here, V is too (anti-)heroic and charismatic, even given the second act twist, and the government too Orwellian and depraved by far. Who wouldn’t sympathize with rising up against this Taliban-meets-the-Tories outfit? As such, the subtler elements of Moore’s moral economy have been flattened out, and all the choices have been made for us. But perhaps it’s a problem of medium — what worked well on the page comes across as overkill on the big screen. (Exhibit A: Big Brother John Hurt…I liked him better as Winston Smith.)
All in all, I’d say V for Vendetta is much better comic adaptation than LXG or, say, Fantastic Four, and on par with the other Vertigo films, From Hell and Constantine. But it’s not a slam-dunk: Vendetta‘s heart is in the right place, but, sadly, something doesn’t quite translate.