100 Posts, 100 Bullet Points: My MCC Magical Retrospective Celebration Featurette Hoedown Extravaganza

August 3, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Meta Tags: 100 posts, about the author, blog celebration, blog milestone, Bunheads, entertainment, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), R. A. Golden, Sasha Leave a comment

When I inaugurated this open-ended project as an excuse to exercise my brain on a daily basis, I figured I was good for ten or fifteen posts, tops. Burnout was/is inevitable. 100 posts later, one per day and with three double-shots, it hasn’t happened yet. Setting aside a few short entries (so I’m a sucker for new movie trailers — I do try to offer something beyond HERE IS NEW MOVIE IT IS COOL AM I RITE), I’m surprised at how much processing capacity exists when I’m not just reading, lurking, passively consuming, and living vicariously in various corners of the Internet while other people enjoy themselves actively and sometimes even make a living at it.

I’m marking the occasion in the best way I know how: with a list. Stuff about me, around me, in my head, or otherwise tangential to my existence, all somehow surfacing at once and dying to make the Top 100 Me Factoids of the Month to commemorate this subjective mathematical milestone.

Super-lengthy special-occasion list is GO:

1. I’ve lived in Indianapolis all my life.
2. I’ve been an Internet user/dweller since 1999.
3. I’ve been reading comics for roughly 34 years.
4. My favorite class in high school was a senior-year single-semester creative writing course. Easy A.
5. My entries are usually posted late at night because I’m an evening person.
6. My favorite color is purple, because it’s pretty and less common.
7. My first job was at McDonald’s. I stayed with the company for twelve years, which were worth it in many ways I wasn’t aware of at the time.
8. I don’t care for sports. Mind you, it’s apathy, not antipathy. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
9. In my previous blog, 110 entries took me six years to amass.
10. I prefer mayo to ketchup.
11. If you care about astrology more than I do, I’m a Taurus.
12. I don’t do any amusement park rides that turn upside-down or spin at cyclonic speeds.
13. My first comic book convention that utilized more than one conference room was Wizard World Chicago 1999.
14. I spend every Wednesday evening hanging out with my son. Friends and family know better than to interrupt our schedule.
15. Between July 2004 and July 2005 I lost 98 pounds. I’ve gained some back since then.
16. My favorite movie has always been Die Hard, though it’s become difficult in my later years to recommend it to others in good conscience.
17. I’ve seen every single film that’s ever won an Academy Award for Best Picture, from Wings to The Artist. Some of them weren’t worth it.
18. My first car was a 1986 Grand Am lemon.
19. If you want to see me at my worst, put me in a leadership position.
20. My first rock concert was the 1992 Guns ‘n’ Roses/Metallica twofer at the Hoosier Dome. I was more interested in the opening act, Faith No More, who only played for 45 unenthusiastic minutes.
21. In high school my original plan was to become an artist. That changed during my junior year when I realized how impatient I was with my drawing.
22. My car repair skills rank Very Poor for my gender.
23. My most-Liked post to date is part 1 of the two part “Road Trip Clip Show“.
24. I don’t drink. Not even in moderation for recreation among oenophiles. Not even wine coolers or wedding champagne. In America this complicates most attempts at friendship with other humans.
25. I’ve never played any MMORPGs because I know how carried away I would get. If these had existed in my youth, I could’ve easily spent 40+ hours a week on one without remorse.
26. I’ve been divorced once. I filed for bankruptcy the following year. The divorce lawyer was cheaper than the bankruptcy lawyer.
27. My favorite food group is breakfast.
28. I learned to tie a necktie at age 19.
29. My first Internet writing piece was a turn taken in a Usenet round-robin story when I was still a newbie to the newsgroup.
30. I took German in junior high, high school, and college. I remember more of it than I think, and at the oddest times.
31. My favorite Disney movie is Aladdin.
32. Since this blog began, I’ve received two Facebook Friend requests from complete strangers, up from zero strangers for the twelve previous months. I have no idea if that’s coincidental.
33. I still cry at an occasional movie. Examples from recent years include Up and Serenity.
34. So far I’ve visited 26 of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Niagara Falls, Ontario.
35. I saw four of the Friday the 13th movies in my youth, but no longer have any need or desire to complete the set.
36. Have I mentioned my wife’s awesomeness here yet? Consider it mentioned.
37. My nervous habits include chewing on my lip and gnawing on the thumb knuckle where there once was a wart.
38. I’ve read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations a few times, but several more times definitely won’t hurt.
39. A Green Arrow show without Justin Hartley is no Green Arrow show of mine.
40. I prefer “geek” to “nerd” because its consonants can beat up those other consonants.
41. My first entry into a writing contest was a high-school short story called “The Cybernetic Wilderness”, which was sabotaged by a lousy typist whose clumsiness managed to spell “variation” with twelve letters.
42. I once cryptically wrote on a Post-It Note, “Tow Mater / Tow Maine / Tow Backy”. I’m afraid to find out what I plan to do with these thoughts.
43. The first Bible verse I ever memorized was Matthew 11:28 — “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It’s still my favorite.
44. The Valiant/First C2E2-panels two-p arter resulted from a brief nanosecond when comics journalism became an infinitesimally possible option.
45. I met my (second/current) wife in 1987 in high school German class.
46. My son and I have played 11 of the 13 Final Fantasy games. FFII was the indisputably worst; I can’t decide which was best between FFVII and FFXII.
47. I’m terrible at memorizing Scripture because English classes spent years successfully beating the moral “Put it in your own words” into my head.
48. My favorite album is Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade.
49. I’ve never touched an illegal drug in my life. The strongest substance I’ve ever taken was arguably Vivarin, once when I stayed up overnight to write a term paper about satire in popular music.
50. My highest-traffic post to date is the complete list of what’s not after the Brave end credits.
51. I had my very first taste of alcohol on my 21st birthday, and not one second before.
52. I had a brief stint as a co-writer of a few Star Wars fanfics, some of which are still online.
53. I’ve attended GenCon twice even though I haven’t played a tabletop RPG since junior high, and have never played a CCG, unless you count Triple Triad or Tetra Master.
54. My first date was at age 19.
55. Persuading family and friends to read this blog seems a Sisyphean task. I expect that’s for the best anyway.
56. I’m not too great with tools or home improvement. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
57. The first video I ever saw on MTV was “Since You’re Gone” by the Cars.
58. I’m not surprised Trust Us With Your Life was cancelled. I blame Ryan Stiles for not saving the day.
59. Our dog’s name is Lucky. His previous owners named him before they decided they’d rather have a hamster.
60. I once made a fanfic writers’ email list cry by being too candid about my opinion of their “columns”.
61. My first known comic book was Marvel’s Scooby-Doo #9 by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle. The Scooby Gang teamed up with Cap’n Caveman and the Teen Angels against the threat of a surfer ghost.
62. If my TV schedule ever eases up, I’ve been meaning to start The Wire season 4 next.
63. My second entry here, “The Train Job”, was a satirical labor of love that took days to fine-tune before I launched this blog. Unfortunately all the Hoosiers in my life don’t venture into the Internet beyond the boundaries of Facebook, so its target audience will never read it, let alone get it.
64. Last night my wife brought home Chik-Fil-A for supper. She was nearly two hours late because of the lines.
65. When I’m bored in a grocery line, I use the cart’s leg hole closure as a makeshift drum and tap the intro to Primus’ “John the Fisherman”.
66. The first Star Trek actor I ever met was Garrett Wang from Voyager.
67. I refused to touch soft drinks from ages 5 to 16.
68. I dropped out of college. Twice.
69. My mom used to buy me subscriptions to kids’ magazines without even asking me. What kid ever asked for a year’s worth of Cricket or Cobblestone?
70. My favorite pop song is John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”, and not just because he’s from Indiana.
71. Sometimes I worry that if I take a single night off from writing here, the whole thing will collapse and I’ll wake up the next morning to find my writing talent has vanished forever.
72. People are always surprised when I struggle to break it to them gently that I absolutely cannot stand The Big Bang Theory.
73. When my brain is firing on all cylinders, my writing voice tries to find a happy medium between George Will and Dave Barry.
74. Post-Modern MTV and 120 Minutes permanently altered the course of my musical tastes.
75. In 1992 I registered to vote as a Democrat because gas prices had skyrocketed to $1.29 per gallon and the incumbent President was a Republican.
76. On Sundays after church service, I’m on a one-man independent Bible study in which I’m going through Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest.
77. In junior high I wrote and drew my own comics. I still have them, but show them to no one.
78. People compliment my reading voice, which I built up by necessity during the years I spent working in a fast-food drive-thru with a terrible speaker.
79. I’ve seen every Best Picture Oscar nominee from 1997 to the present, including a few truly awful ones. I plan to work backward to 1996 and beyond if Secrets and Lies is ever granted an affordable re-release.
80. My Free Comic Book Day 2012 reviews inexplicably attract more spam than any other entries.
81. My Google+ feed is a wasteland where DC and Marvel PR reps battle daily for void supremacy.
82. I thought Ernest Borgnine pretty much ruled the four-hour Jesus of Nazareth.
83. The list of classic books I’ve never read is shamefully not short.
84. I once took second place in a college poetry contest that my poetry professor entered me into, without my knowledge and some weeks after I’d already dropped out.
85. I’m pleased as punch that the Bunheads clip of Sasha dancing to They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is online once again. FOR NOW.

86. I’ve been drunk exactly once, New Year’s Eve 1993. Once was enough.
87. As a child, the only pet I ever owned was a carnival goldfish who lived two weeks.
88. I had no idea which of my high school acquaintances were Christian or gay until long after graduation.
89. I don’t get Pink Floyd. At all. On Earth this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
90. This year I subscribed to Forbes on a lark, and now the mailman won’t stop stuffing the mailbox with Republican fundraiser ads.
91. I can’t remember if the first comic book professional I ever met was Tony Isabella or Don Rosa.
92. “Aurora.” was one of the painstaking things I’ve written in years, and is my most widely shared entry to date.
93. I’ve never flown before. Ever.
94. I accept and welcome suggestions, questions, and recommendations that don’t come from spammers.
95. Sometimes I like to think of every purchase as a donation of sorts.
96. In my combined three years of college, I made exactly zero (0) friends.
97. I’m currently reading Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist Way. It’s funny, constructive, creative, crude, and irksome at the same time.
98. The last time someone recommended something to me, it was Rob Liefeld’s Grifter. I stand by #94 anyway.
99. I’d like to pause here for a little game we like to call “Hoedown”! We’ll call this one “The 100th Post Hoedown”. Take it away, me:

[cue Laura Hall/Linda Taylor intro]

o/~ Thank you if you’re reading, I appreciate your time
I know the ‘Net is busy and this hardly is sublime
I’m sorry that my subject matter sometimes seems so random
Some nights I’m lucky if one reader can understand ’em…

Nerd or geek or in-between, and sometimes both and neither
I can’t believe I’ve kept it up without a single breather
Will I do a hundred more? Forgive me if I fail
Can I dare hit 200 without quoting Holy Grail? o/~

100. I reserve the privilege to expand or repurpose some, all, or none of these as subjects for future entries. Hopefully none of them is a thousand-word paean to the color purple.

How Will “Marvel NOW” Affect My Marvel Now?

August 2, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Comics/Lit Tags: comic books, comics, Daredevil, Dark Avengers, entertainment, Hawkeye, Invincible Iron Man, Journey into Mystery, Kieron Gillen, Marvel Comics, Marvel NOW, marvel universe, Ms. Marvel, Venom 1 Comment

Comics readers are well aware of Marvel Comics’ new initiative, “Marvel NOW”, which will see many of their current series ending and restarting by year’s end with new #1s. Obviously this creative/financial decision wasn’t borne in a complete vacuum, separate and unaware of DC’s New 52 relaunch stunt in 2011. However, the Marvel titles on my current pull-list number twice as many as the DC titles that were on my pull-list prior to the New 52. Marvel NOW, then, stands to have a more noticeable effect on my buying habits. This time, though, I’m not yet feeling as grumpy as I should.

One of the most important differences between the New 52 and Marvel NOW is that the latter won’t reset all histories and character developments to square one. The Marvel Universe will continue forward in time and space, though I’m sure new events will rock some foundations. Another important difference: I’m excited about a few of the new creative teams. When weighing the entertainment viability of new comics, artists’ names don’t factor into my decision-making process as heavily as they used to. I follow writers more than artists or characters nowadays. I realize a majority of fans will remain flocked around their favorite hero regardless of whether or not the creative team can form complete sentences or depict more than two facial expressions. That’s just not how I manage my buying habits anymore. I was a hardcore Spider-Man fan for all of childhood, but no way will you convince me today to buy a comic just because Spidey’s in it and no other reason.

When I perused the list of New 52 teams last year, at least two-thirds of the writers fell somewhere between “Meh” and “Who?” for me. Marvel NOW, on the other hand, has a few choice names on deck. I don’t think all the new titles and creative teams have been announced yet, but I’ve seen glimmers or promise in the announcements to date. (Mark Waid writing the Hulk? SOLD.)

As of June 2012 I was collecting five Marvel series and one miniseries. In the past two weeks I’ve added two new series to my pull-list on a probationary basis. My current Marvel monthly experience is comprised of the following titles:

Journey into Mystery: Kieron Gillen’s final issue will be October’s #645. The solicitation copy doesn’t say it’s the final issue. Either that’s an oversight or Gillen is handing the reins to someone else. I should’ve known that something would happen to the series after I went on record and proclaimed it my favorite Marvel series of the moment. The innocuously devious Kid Loki and Hela’s bitter handmaiden Leah have made a great not-couple throughout their misadventures in godhood and questing…at least until the events of #641 ended in quiet tragedy and shattered the status quo. Whenever I express happiness about a title, this is exactly what happens. Clearly I have only myself to blame for this. We’ll see what happens in the November solicitations, I suppose.

Invincible Iron Man: Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca will conclude their four-year run (or is it five?) and the series with #527. I was more blown away in the early days when Fraction brought the noise with hard-SF sensibilities and real-world tech developments that appear just about never in any other comics today. (I blame Warren Ellis for allowing other mediums to lure him away with cash and booze.) Over the last few arcs it’s become increasingly more and more about watching Tony struggle with demons he didn’t know he had, but in the context of (a) Marvel’s big crossover events, and (b) the kind of scenario I hate hate HATE where all the hero’s villains team up against him. It’s a personal pet peeve that would take too long to explain here.

That being said, it’s still above-average for super-heroics, and I like to think that the remaining issues will continue tying all those years’ worth of strands together into one neat, eye-popping bow as Tony and his amazing armored friends work up to their final showdown with the Mandarin and his Iron Man Revenge Squad. The best is yet to come, though: with Marvel NOW, the writing reins will be passed to the aforementioned Kieron Gillen. I’m pleased and thinking about camping out at my comic shop in November. (Well, not really. Still eager to see it, though.)

Daredevil: Unaffected by Marvel NOW. Mark Waid and his rotating artists (all ranging from above-average to brilliant) will be allowed to continue uninterrupted with their portrayal of the most optimistic Man Without Fear I’ve ever seen. In a hobby with so many sullen, grimacing heroes, the new Matt Murdock borders on revolutionary.

Venom: Current symbiote host Flash Thompson has become my go-to when I want a sullen, grimacing antihero. Though the series is presently mid-transition as outgoing writer Rick Remender passes the torch to Cullen Bunn, so far it hasn’t lost its stride. It’s been alternately inspiring and tragic to follow Flash’s struggles with his family, his new Avengers teammates, and his general unease with super-powered heroics after losing his legs at war. The original Eddie Brock version was anathema to me, too emblematic of all that went wrong with Marvel in the 1990s, but I’ve been surprised at the damage control this series has managed so far. This is especially unusual for me because I’m otherwise not too keen on antiheroes anymore.

Venom won’t be a Marvel NOW do-over, but there is a crossover on the way that threatens my reading pleasure called “Minimum Carnage”. The concept sounds cute (Venom Goes to the Microverse), but I’m leery after my disappointment with comics crossovers in general and last year’s unwanted “Circle of Four” six-part fiasco in particular. I’ll give it a chance, but my expectations are low.

Dark Avengers: Someone felt my rollicking Thunderbolts saga had to be refitted with some other team’s name in order for it to continue. The team had already been split in twain for the last several months — one half in the present carrying on the good fight, the other half traveling uncontrollably backwards through time. The present-day good-guys half has now been usurped by the return of the government-run Dark Avengers, populated by members I don’t recognize and don’t feel like looking up. Since this technically already relaunched while retaining the original Thunderbolts numbering, Marvel NOW apparently won’t be intruding here. I’m still debating whether or not I’ll be standing by this till then to confirm if it does.

Captain Marvel: Carol Danvers’ promotion from Ms. Marvel to full-fledged captain is a demotion from her previous rank of colonel in her military career, but the new series, which just launched in July, is a step up from what few Ms. Marvel comics I’ve sampled before now. I only bought #1 because I sort-of distantly know one of the four fan artists who contributed pin-ups on the back page, but the comic itself ended up commanding my attention, too, with a lead character who’s strong-willed without being hateful, fiercely independent without being an angry loner (some male heroes should try this sometime), and mostly avoiding the kind of embarrassing fan-service art and costuming that precludes me from buying most other super-heroine titles. Great start.

Hawkeye: The arrogant archer’s new solo series kicked off this week under the reunited Iron Fist team of Matt Fraction and David Aja. I’m a little underwhelmed at Hawkeye playing the same kind of ill-fitting urban-hero premise that previously sank Herc and Black Panther. I’m even less impressed that the denouement in the first issue involved Our Hero saving the day with lots of Avengers cash. If only the White Tiger had been a multimillionaire, perhaps Marvel editors could have tuned that instrument a little more finely, instead of trying to turn established heroes into their answer to Batman. On the plus side, I do love the Daredevil: Born Again look, Fractions’s typically sharp dialogue, and Hawkeye’s new canine pal. #2 might be worth a look-see.

The Muppets: I know it’s only a four-issue miniseries and not remotely connected to Earth-616. I don’t care. Marvel is supplying me with more Roger Langridge funnies. I doubt we’ll see more Muppet work from him ever again, so I’m savoring this while I can and mentioning it to anyone who’ll listen.

…and that’s it. Initial prognosis: Marvel NOW may not hurt me after all. Its timing may coincide with other changes in my buying habits, though. Reply hazy, try again later.

This PR stunt might rock my world more uncomfortably if I were following more Avengers or X-Men titles. Luckily I’m not. The short answers about that are: I’ve never been enthusiastic about paying four bucks a pop for multiple Avengers titles per month; and I pretty much gave up on any hope of returning to full-time X-fandom sometime back in the late ’80s while Chris Claremont was still at the helm.

(I’ll admit I was tempted to see how Kieron Gillen might play in the X-Men sandbox. I resisted the temptation anyway.)

“Bunheads” 7/30/2012: I’ve Seen “Heathers”, but My Broadway Scorecard is Lacking…

July 30, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in TV/DVD Tags: ABC Family, Bailey Buntain, Bunheads, Desire, entertainment, Heathers, Mates of State, music, recap, Stacey Oristano, Sutton Foster, television, tv, What's Your Damage Heather? 4 Comments

I never intended to dedicate a weekly spot to any given TV show, but the sheer density of dialogue, references, and character momentum packed into every episode of Bunheads keep driving me to take notes while watching for later musing and reliving. Tonight’s episode, “What’s Your Damage, Heather?”, was darker-edged than last week’s movie-truck escapade, with Michelle confirming the hard way what she’d already assumed deep-down, long before Fannie’s surprise vacation forced her into the substitute role: that teaching is hard, and role-modeling is even harder.

(Courtesy Spoiler Alert goes here. Bail out now if you’re planning to view the episode later this week on the ABC Family official site. This was no fluffy, inconsequential episode like “Movie Truck” was.)

As a consequence of Michelle’s carefree recollections of her life as a free-wheeling teen who received next to no moral guidance from her “Deb”, Ginny and Josh ended their aww-cute/uhh-weird eight-year relationship because Ginny (taking center stage for once) now feels inspired to play the field. The resulting domino effect emboldened Melanie’s icky brother Charlie to use poor lovelorn Boo as a potential inroad to now-unattached Ginny, to Boo’s humiliation and budding ire toward Michelle.

On the adult front, Truly remains on a roll from last week’s wild night and finds herself inexplicably drawn to one-eyed David the bad plumber. When Michelle isn’t upsetting the delicate fabric of the Paradise romantic scene, she’s busy bristling and fuming when Sasha acts up and all but demands a dressing-down from a capable adult. Meanwhile, Boo’s mom Nanette brings the gift of snacks, but seemed a little jealous of Michelle’s influence on Boo. Worst of all, now Ginny’s mom Claire will have to take out her own trash whenever she’s not busy shoving a real-estate pitch down someone’s throat. Oh, the horror and effort of it all. Tonight was just not Michelle’s finest hour.

Other random thoughts from tonight:

* The Heathers reference in the title was apt, though the callback to Winona Ryder’s one-time shoplifting incident seemed more than a little dated, even by the standards of a show that’s previously name-checked Girl, Interrupted. Also, though the “Heather” line is easy to remember if you’ve seen the film, Sasha reminds me more of Shannen Doherty’s Heather than Ryder’s Veronica. Differently apropos: when Charlie once again treated Boo like a doormat, I couldn’t help being reminded of poor, downtrodden Martha Dumptruck (in terms of status, not figure).

* Back in the days when I had enough hair to keep it shaggy and necessitate the use of a hair dryer, I recall many a time having them overheat and conk out after three or four minutes. How did Our Heroines manage to keep their dryers functional for three straight hours? Has the technology improved that much over the past decade? Do teams of Conair scientists work ’round the clock infusing their products with state-of-the-art upgrades?

* Are there reasons to hate Guys and Dolls? I’ve never seen it. Also to my shameful ignorance, I’ve never seen a single version of Les Miserables. Is this (a) a minor oversight; (b) a major oversight; or (c) a crime against art on my part? (If it helps, I promise to see the upcoming Hugh Jackman version as soon as it’s ready for me.)

* They mentioned a food truck fair! Finally, they cited an event we actually have in Indianapolis. I feel so hip and modern now.

* Fries on salad: worth trying or not worth trying?

* Sasha may be the first character under age 30 in recorded history to recite a snappy comeback using the word “shtetl”. Can someone verify that? Have pop-culture punchlines been sufficiently documented up to this point in time?

* Using “hip-hop line dancing” as an ostensibly made-up punchline isn’t half as funny if you’ve attended a company holiday party that endured a four-minute interruption by “The Cha-Cha Slide”. It’s not hip-hop, but I don’t appreciate that Michelle’s off-the-cuff wisecrack somehow brought it to mind anyway and now it won’t leave my head. (“Everybody clap your hands! CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP” AAAAAAAUGH.)

* Perhaps I’m too finicky, but ending a downer of an episode with pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies and a grape juice box isn’t nearly as tempting as the cheesecake breaks that used to punctuate every other episode of The Golden Girls.

* Alas, no use of They Might Be Giants this week. I was rather hoping for a brisk interlude set to “The Mesopotamians” or even “Boat of Car” (good luck choreographing that one). For the curious, the song of the night was briefly brought to you by Mates of State, before being interrupted by the wall-punching incompetence of David the pirate plumber.

Today’s Unrelated Things: Joss Whedon, Action Hero; and “The Killing”, Inaction Victim

July 29, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Misc. Media, TV/DVD Tags: AMC, cancelled, Dave Foley, entertainment, Joss Whedon, Kate Micucci, Rosie Larsen, Scary Smash, television, The Killing, tv, unrelated things, Written by a Kid Leave a comment

For Rosie Larsen, justice was served far, far too late.

Last Friday AMC announced their cancellation of The Killing after two controversial seasons. What launched as a grim-‘n’-gritty crime drama with a unique tone and a promising premise strained to sustain viewer patience, culminating in a season-one finale that launched a thousand ‘Net-fits when it ended To Be Continued. TV fans raised on the complete, self-contained, season-long arcs of superior shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars were unaware that any showrunners in this age would still rely on the ancient TV model of ending a season with a DVD-boxed-set-ruining cliffhanger. We former might have been more forgiving if the season had been more satisfying. Alas, ’twas not the case here.

Before season two premiered, my half of a conversation with a friend digressed into a diatribe about my discontent with the show and my bold plan not to watch a single episode of season two, despite the thirteen hours of my time already invested without benefit of closure. My tantrum went like so:

I patiently allowed myself to be strung along for thirteen hours’ worth of watching one truly original character, several mopey characters, and one aggravatingly incompetent protagonist. I labored under the delustion that the season would be a fulfilling story in and of itself. I waited it out through thin and thinner, enduring unbelievable acts of stupidity committed in extreme slow motion by characters that would’ve been fired or murdered long ago if the same had happened in real life, under the expectation (fostered by precedents set by other, better shows, not to mention 99% of all other whodunits throughout recorded entertainment history) that closure for the simple question of “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” would be forthcoming in a timely manner.

When the show revealed itself to be an extended tease for a resolution that might or might not occur in some future season, unless they decide never to solve it, which they totally could if they wanted to, meaningless press releases in recent months notwithstanding, and when showrunner Veena Sud confirmed that they never intended to solve the mystery in season 1…I was not remotely happy.

And it wasn’t just for my own sake, but for my wife’s, whose reaction was even more vehement and scary than mine. She and I rarely watch any new TV shows together, but just this once she had trusted my recommendation and given The Killing a shot. It was fun to watch the show together, to compare our notes and thoughts on a shared experience.

So that blew up in my face. When the finale ended with the complete non-solution and the one original character betraying us, she instantly swore off the show, and she’s not fully trusted a TV recommendation of mine ever since.

So thank you, Veena Sud, for helping me not spend more time with my wife. I’ve never been this excited about not watching a TV show, but now I’m zealously anticipating any and all Schadenfreude I can derive at your show’s expense.

…but I’m feeling much better now. I honestly expected this to be a minority opinion that would long forgotten somewhere around the show’s fifth season. Apparently I wasn’t the only upset customer who upheld their promise, refused to tune in again, and passed the time until the finale aired and online news sites reported the mystery’s solution.

For what it’s worth, my wife bought me season one of Sherlock for our eighth anniversary a couple of weeks ago, in hopes that we’ll have time to enjoy it together. Neither of us has seen an episode yet (I’ve watched one brilliant scene online, under the title “Sherlock Holmes, Grammar Nazi”), but trustworthy people keep recommending it. Here’s hoping.

* * * * *

Since I’m not really in the mood for a complete downer of an entry, enclosed below is something completely different. If you’ve already seen it six times in the last week because your friends flooded all your Internet inboxes with links to it, I’ll understand if you groan and fire up your escape pod now.

From the producers of The Guild, a new Web series called Written by a Kid springboards from simple storytelling segments with children ages four to nine, who still say the darnedest things after all these years. Whereas Bill Cosby would only allow each of his interviewees a brief moment in the spotlight, Written by a Kid moves one step beyond and turns each child’s improv short-story into an animated tale of whimsy and wonder.

Episode one is called “Scary Smash”, about a one-eyed monster on a milkman-murdering rampage and the SQUAT team captain that takes seven days to stop him. Starring Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug’s Life) as the dead milkman, Kate Micucci (stuff I’ve never seen) as a latecomer to the war, and, in his first starring action role, TV’s Joss Whedon (TV’s Angel, TV’s Firefly) as that steadfast captain, Gerald by name, who wields a sword and a shield and a gun and a small gun.

…and now you know how to count to ten hundred.

If you watch as many YouTube shows as my son does, you may also recognize some of Gerald’s poor, ineffective soldiers in split-second cameos, including YouTube stars Rhett and Link, and executive producer Felicia Day herself.

For a first effort, it’s not bad. It may be the last time in this kid’s life that he will know the joy of having a script produced without a rewrite by a meddling studio hack.

Y’know what I liked best about it? It told a complete story in four minutes flat.

“Fight for Space” Documentary to Ask: Whatever Happened to the Final Frontier?

July 28, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Misc. Media, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: aeronautics, astronauts, Cosmosphere, documentaries, entertainment, Fight for Space, Kickstarter, NASA, Neil Degrasse Tyson, science, space program, space race, spaceflight 1 Comment

At the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, KS, this sign looms over you as you descend the steps into the main exhibit hall in their basement, where rests a comprehensive collection of rockets, spaceships, and aeronautical paraphernalia from various countries that share an active or tangential history with space travel. Man’s quest for space has been fraught with skepticism, debate, setbacks, and major disasters. “Difficulties” is an understatement.

That basement location is an apt metaphor for the state of American spaceflight today, compared to other agendas and priorities that garner larger headlines and weigh on us more heavily in the moment. What once seemed like a top-shelf objective for purposes of scientific research and frontier exploration is now a set of mostly forgotten toys boxed up and forgotten in some dark corner. A few weird kids still cherish them and try to make the most of them, but no one else is interested in watching them play or buying them better toys.

The Cosmosphere has one small section dedicated to the current state of space travel aspiration, including photos of several independent companies and programs (not just American) dedicated to continuing the work that NASA started but now seems too crippled to pursue alone. I had passing familiarity with Virgin Galactic and SpaceX before we visited the Cosmosphere on this year’s road trip, but I was surprised to see that several other would-be pioneers have tossed their hat into the ring to see what they can make happen.

I’m not surprised at my relative lack of awareness. I first learned about the 2010 mothballing of the Space Shuttle program from a 2009 exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum. I couldn’t believe that such a declaration of retreat hadn’t somehow caught my attention before. A tiny shuttle diorama had to break the news to me. When events and successes occur in or about space, they tend to be reported in the back section of your few remaining local newspapers (the same section containing “news” such as “College Study Shows Eating Causes Fat”), or in an easily overlooked article link buried among two dozen other such links in the “Stories with Ten Hits or Less” section of your favorite news site. If we’re not actively hunting for space news, our odds of keeping tabs on it by casual happenstance are nil.

Filmmaker Paul Hildebrandt is working on a new feature-length documentary called Fight for Space that aims to update us all on just what happened to the space race, where it is now, who does or doesn’t care, and why America’s support for it has all but withered away. Hildebrandt and his crew have already conducted numerous interviews with scientists and non-scientists alike, with plans and hopes to keep adding more diverse viewpoints to the mix that would push the movie even closer to fairness and balance.

To that end, Hildebrandt launched his Fight for Space Kickstarter campaign last week to fund his efforts beyond the initial investments. At their current rate of acceleration the project should be fully funded by Monday, so a desperate call to arms and wheedling for more money is hardly necessary. Regardless, pledges are still accepted, the reward packages are generous, and I’m curious to see if extra support would make the movie even snazzier.

The Kickstarter page has a short video with excerpts from some of the interviewees already in the can — the likes of Neil Degrasse Tyson, the inimitable Bill Nye the Science Guy, Star Trek: Voyager‘s Robert Picardo, and several studious-looking science guys that some of you probably know and love. (I wasn’t kidding about my ignorance.) The same page also informs us of PBS’ officially piqued interest; shows us a 2013 US government budget projection that would provide NASA with just enough lunch money for half its staff; and links to an hour-long speech from Tyson, who I’m told may be the coolest astrophysicist of all time.

I’m not sure I foresee the Fight for Space campaign becoming another Order of the Stick, but I look forward to seeing this movie, and I wouldn’t mind if they had the chance and the resources to make it even bigger and better. At the very least, maybe they can use the extra petty cash to buy NASA the largest Christmas turkey in the shopkeeper’s window.

Full Trailer for “The Master” Offers More Narrative Tidbits, Still No Mention of “Battlefield Earth”

July 24, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: Amy Adams, entertainment, Joaquin Phoenix, movies, Paul Thomas Anderson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Scientology, The Master, trailers 3 Comments

I was previously intrigued by the first and second teaser trailers for The Master, the new film from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, whose psycho-oil-magnate character study There Will Be Blood remains indelible and haunting even though I only saw it the one time in its theatrical release. The Master is an alleged roman à clef, or perhaps a mere parable, about the introduction of Scientology to the masses by one man who at first glance doesn’t quite appear to be Moses or Mohammed.

A longer, less vague full-length trailer is now available, with new shots of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the cagey author, Joaquin Phoenix as the agitated follower, and Amy Adams as the female.

The “cult” aspect is now unmistakably in the forefront. Hoffman has crowds at his disposal and detractors in the corners. Phoenix is all about the head-tilting, lip-curling, mule-headed arrogance. Adams has more than one line as the naive (?), supportive wife. Non-believers probably played by decent character actors will presumably either get on board with Hoffmanetics or suffer ignominious fates.

To be honest, I’m a little afraid to get too attached to this. If the movie turns out to be a three-hour sex scene and the only scenes with clothing are all in the trailer, I may have to bow out. If the plot takes a hairpin curve and ends with a surprise endorsement of Scientology in the form of an hour-long passionate hard-sell from the cast and crew, I promise I’ll pitch a fit. If we can tell early on that this was filmed during Phoenix’s bizarre rap phase, I’m out. If the next trailer is all about explosions and collisions, I’ll flip a coin.

They Might Be Giants Dance Number on “Bunheads” Wins My TV Week, and It’s Only Monday

July 23, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Misc. Media, TV/DVD Tags: Bunheads, entertainment, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Julia Goldani Telles, movie truck, music, recap, Stacey Oristano, Sutton Foster, television, They Might Be Giants, tv 10 Comments

Apparently because the showrunners can peer inside my mind and divine all the right ways to earn an instant thumbs-up, tonight’s episode of Bunheads concluded with Sasha (played by Julia Goldani Telles — in Archie Comics terms, she’s the Reggie of our four teen heroines) and two backup dancers performing a routine set to They Might Be Giants’ classic “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. It pains me to realize their version of the song is now over twenty years old and therefore qualified for “classic” status on age alone, despite complete lack of Top-40 love or common-man opinion, but there it is. I owned a copy of Flood long before the song was famously featured in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.

Their Malcolm in the Middle theme notwithstanding, any other chance to hear TMBG tunes outside the Internet or my CD collection is a rare major event in my life. I have zero (0) local friends who get them, not even my own family. In all their years of existence I’ve heard Indianapolis radio play exactly one TMBG song exactly one time, and why that honor went to a single rotation of “AKA Driver” I cannot even begin to speculate. I’ve seen them twice in concert — once at the now-defunct Music Mill and once at the Vogue — and in both cases I had to attend alone. Hence their headline status tonight. For me this is huge, even if it’s just for me and only me.

To the show’s credit, tonight’s episode was full of fun concepts even before the epilogue. Concept #1 provided the episode title, “Movie Truck”. Our main characters spend an evening grouped separately by age inside a full-on movie truck, which I gathered from the background glimpses is like Indianapolis’ own food trucks, except instead of food they serve a cinema inside a truck, walled with gypsy quilts and furnished with interior seating for a fair crowd. Someone must invent this if they haven’t already.

Trendsetting concept #2 in dire need of widespread acceptance and franchising: the cupcake ATM. When Michelle’s birthday night-on-the-town threatens to end before dawn because of Paradise’s small-town closing hours (I’ve known this pain, albeit without Michelle’s love of alcohol), a blessedly sober Truly is still enthralled by night-on-the-town fever (in an increasingly bubblier performance by Stacey Oristano as a meek-girl-gone-slightly-less-mild) and offers to drive them out to a rumored 24-hour cupcake ATM over in L.A. One scene later it’s dawn, they’re still awake but a little less toasted, and they have cupcakes thanks to the invention of a Redbox stocked with snacks instead of flicks. I can only hope the contents of this magical bakery-vending machine aren’t facilitated by an evil preservative formula that maintains freshness from within the product, like a reverse Hostess wrapper.

I hastily researched but couldn’t confirm the existence of a movie truck in real life (yet). To prove Bunheads isn’t secretly a science fiction show, I did find the following evidence of an alleged cupcake ATM sighting that doesn’t appear to be an SNL Digital Short or College Humor offering:

Concept #3 wouldn’t be my thing if it were real, but I won’t be surprised to see it exist within a year: Mountain of Arms, the R-rated movie-within-the-episode that I assume is like The Crawling Hand crossed with The Human Centipede. Our Four Teen Heroines obtain movie-truck passes and sneak out to see this future Criterion Collection classic without permission, all the better to escape an unfortunately epic rumble between Sasha’s troubled parents. I never had the wherewithal to pull such a stunt when I was a teen, but there was the time when I was eleven and snuck over to my friends’ house to watch Friday the 13th parts 1 and 3 on a surprise snow day when parents had to work. I recognize this ritual even if I naturally don’t condone it as an adult. (The moral: kids, do as I say now and not as I did then. And that’s…one to grow on.)

Between the majority of the above and an amusing sequence of movie-truck musical chairs, I found this a great character-building episode tonight (and I think I finally have all four girls’ names memorized now), even if it ended on a downer of a note, as relations between Sasha’s parents hit a new low, and a fateful letter in the wake of last week’s Joffrey Ballet auditions brings rewarding news that threatens to separate one of our lucky heroines from her best friends. I’m not sure which part of that is meant to be symbolized by Sasha’s non sequitur “Istanbul” set. Some deep thinking might be in order.

ABC Family will post the episode for online viewing on Tuesday, so another run-through of Flood will have to do until then.

* * * * *

Updated 7/24/2012, 7:30 EDT: Someone’s posted the “Istanbul” segment online! Enjoy before Disney or ABC Family shoot it down:

Updated 8/2/2012, 8:05 EDT: As expected, the YouTube user took it down days ago. I’ve left it up for posterity because I hate being too much of a George Lucas with my old posts.

Updated 12/9/2012, 7:00 EST: Oh, what the heck — here it is anyway:

“Dark Knight Rises”: in Three Hours Batman Will Rise, But Results Will Vary

July 23, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: Anne Hathaway, Bane, Batman, Catwoman, Christian Bale, Dark Knight Rises, director christopher nolan, entertainment, joseph gordon levitt, Marion Cotillard, movies, scene after credits, The Dark Knight Rises Leave a comment

The Dark Knight Rises was a flawed but perfectly apt capper on Christopher Nolan’s Batman miniseries, a true trilogy in the sense that it’s an integral continuation of developments and themes from the first two films and wraps up loose ends we didn’t even realize were unraveled. Its marathon length was no deterrent to me, but some of its minutes could have been used to better effect.

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The 2011-2012 Emmy Nominations That Actually Noticed My Shows, Great or Small

July 19, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in TV/DVD Tags: Academy Awards, Community, Emmy Awards, entertainment, Futurama, Mad Men, oscars, Parks & Recreation, televison, The Simpsons, tv 2 Comments

I’ve never watched a complete Emmy Awards ceremony. I follow several different TV shows each season, but I don’t watch nearly enough of the “right” shows to have a sizable stake in the proceedings. It’s with good reason that I don’t write about television seven days a week.

For fun, though, I decided for my very first time ever to read through today’s nominations and see if anything I watched in the 2011-2012 season qualified for honors. Any and all of them. The official Emmys site has a link to a handy PDF summarizing every single category and nominee for the media or obsessive TV stalkers to peruse at will. I encountered two surprises:

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All “Dark Knight Rises” Reviews Must Assign at Least an A-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus-Plus OR ELSE.

July 19, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: Batman, comic book fans, comic book movies, Dark Knight Rises, director christopher nolan, entertainment, movies, reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, super-hero movies, super-heroes 1 Comment

Internet flame wars are no rare occurrence, but I was surprised to see them in the headlines again, not just in a headline’s poorly moderated Comments section. Entertainment Weekly reported Wednesday on the decision of the colossal movie-review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to revoke discussion privileges for any and all reviews of The Dark Knight Rises, opening nationwide this weekend. The drastic measure, whether temporary or not, was invoked after a few early negative reviews spurred a combined thousand-plus responses from diehard fans of either Batman or director Christopher Nolan behaving in a manner allegedly on the scale somewhere between junior-high-snotty and creepy-terrorist-threat.

The official statement of RT editor-in-chief Matt Atchity seems well-reasoned, polite, diplomatic, and firm about the situation. Clearly this man has no place on the Internets and should not be taken seriously unless he calls out his opponents using misspelled epithets from all the worst R-rated comedies.

The release of the final film in Nolan’s Bat-trilogy is doubtlessly a sensitive time for our nation. Batman Begins stood above all else as a remarkable turnaround from its Bat-predecessors. The Dark Knight was, regardless of its flaws, the apex of Heath Ledger’s film legacy. Between the two, they’re prime examples of what happens when a super-hero movie attempts to transcend such singular classification without necessarily failing at it. Geek America would love to see lightning strike a third time and herald the very first successful super-hero trilogy. Fantasy fans had Lord of the Rings. Animation fans had Toy Story. Horror fans had Evil Dead, and maybe George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels (I only saw part of the original). Adventure fans had Indiana Jones. Spy fans had Jason Bourne, any three favorite Bond films of their choice, and Mission Impossible if you skip the second and include the fourth instead. Comic book fans have, at best, several records with two-hits-and-a-miss. Just once, a successful hat trick in our genre would be a wonder to behold.

I read through some of the preserved responses to the reviews by Christy Lemire and Marshall Fine, two of the most heinous criminals targeted in the War on Negative Bat-Reviews. I’m not convinced that assailing naysayers with playground tactics will somehow result in a better movie. I’m sure more than one fan wishes they could have the power of li’l Billy Mumy from that famous Twilight Zone episode and force everyone to agree with them on everything. Alas, God’s gift of free will and the nonexistence of super-villain cornfields permit otherwise.

I won’t have time to see DKR for myself until at least Sunday afternoon, but I plan to keep an open mind in every sense. Nolan has an impeccable track record with me thus far. Then again, once upon a time, so did Pixar. DKR may the Greatest Film of All Times. It may be Nolan’s weakest film to date. I may go home afterward and rethink my life. I may spend all three hours comparing Tom Hardy’s performance unfavorably to Gail Simone’s superlative version of Bane from DC’s Secret Six. I may or may not reevaluate my lifelong indifference to every version of Catwoman ever (yes, including even the great Julie Newmar’s rendition). I may hang on its every word and quote portions of it for days afterward, or I may have to suppress the internal MST3K track that clicks on in my head when a film begins to crash and burn before my eyes.

I truly have no idea what reaction to expect, and refuse to form my opinion until after I’ve seen the movie for myself. Whatever my personal results, I don’t plan to spend my free time heaping scorn upon others for their own reactions, questioning their credentials, besmirching their integrity, or scrutinizing their kinder reviews of other, lesser films for signs of hypocrisy. Not even those notorious critics that I consider to be the anti-Me.

I’d like to think I can be honest in my response without fear of being bullied in return. I would hope the Internet can sustain isolated safe zones where the notion of civil discourse isn’t more radical than any concepts DKR has to offer.

100 Points to “Trust Us with Your Life” for Ignoring “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” DNR Order

July 18, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in TV/DVD Tags: ABC, Brad Sherwood, Colin Mochrie, comedy, entertainment, Fred Willard, Greg Proops, improv, Jonathan Mangum, television, Trust Us With Your Life, Wayne Brady, Whose Line Is It Anyway? 4 Comments

When the American version of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? was canceled, it was a sad day for those fans of TV improv comedy who were still watching after all those seasons and time slot changes. When Drew Carey and friends reformatted and relaunched on the WB as Drew Carey’s Green Screen, it just wasn’t the same to me. When a live version of basically the same shtick and troupe was recorded for the Game Show Network as Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza, it was closer to the mark, but only lasted through late-spring/early-summer 2011.

For a limited time only, improv has returned to ABC once more, minus a few faces. Trust Us with Your Life is missing Carey and longtime cohort Ryan Stiles, but the Tuesday night summer series aims for much the same ambience. Returning vets such as Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, and Jonathan Mangum (from Improv-a-Ganza, not WLIIA) are ordered around by replacement host Fred Willard into improv games adapted from a British show called Fast and Loose (which in turn was created by one of the original mind behind the original British WLIIA). Rather than a series of competitions where points are awarded even though they don’t really matter, now the games are instead loopy, inspired-by recreations of anecdotes from the lives of assorted celebrity guests of varying caliber.

So far our old friends are a treat to see again, though I wish Willard was an active performer instead of being relegated to mere host duties. Of all the games aired thus far, the funniest and least cribbed from WLIIA is “Sideways Scene”, in which three of our funnymen reenact a tale while lying sideways on an orange mat but filmed from overhead, creating fun discomfort from gravity and crawling around and over each other. (It’s funnier than it sounds.) Guest participation has varied:

* Episode 1: Tennis star Serena Williams. She seemed to enjoy every minute of it, but I was a little bugged that half the jokes were Wayne Brady complimenting her figure. This became repetitive and just a little voyeuristic.

* Episode 2: Jack and Kelly Osbourne. I never watched their world-famous MTV reality show and had few preconceptions about them beyond their bizarre fashion choices of years past. They seemed like well-adjusted siblings with the expected rivalries and embarrassing dirt on each other, perhaps because they’ve caroused together one time too many. Our improv all-stars seemed on fire, but when called upon to impersonate their famous father, I was annoyed that no one could remember the difference between his daily mumbling and his much clearer, louder singing voice.

Episode 3: Mark Cuban. Never heard of him. Apparently he’s a buff millionaire who was once a Pittsburgh bouncer and now owns a basketball team. The cast had fun with his occasionally lewd life stories, my ignorance notwithstanding.

Episode 4: Ricky Gervais. All his responses to Willard’s questions appeared to have been edited heavily due to either excessive length or simple incredulity. After some awkward opening segments about his non-idyllic childhood, he seemed to enjoy himself the most when asked to participate in a sketch where all his dialogue was provided by Colin. It’s hard to go wrong when Colin is in charge.

ABC is showing two episodes per week, Tuesdays at 9 EDT. The Internet says only eight were filmed, so this may soon be a blip in TV history. I plan to enjoy them while I can, though the promise that one of next week’s guests is Jerry Springer is not exactly enticing.

Prequelmania Continues in 2013 with “Oz the Great and Powerful”, a.k.a. “Before Munchkins”

July 16, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: entertainment, humor, James Franco, l frank baum, movies, Oz the Great and Powerful, prequelitis, prequelmania, prequels, Sam Raimi, trailers Leave a comment

I was away from home last week and privy to hotel Internet access of varying strengths ranging from Very Good to Intermittent to Sadly-DSL to Better-Off-Using-the-Unsecured-Hotspot-of-the-Hotel-Next-Door. Unwilling to squander minutes of family quality time on failed attempts at streaming video, I missed out when the rest of America had the chance to view the first trailer for Oz the Great and Powerful, director Sam Raimi’s vision of how Academy Award Nominee James Franco might transform into Academy Award Nominee Frank Morgan with the aid of a hat, a balloon, a storm, and younger, more hygienic versions of the three witches from MacBeth.

For those who likewise missed out:

I’m sure it’s visually stunning, but I may be seeing it alone in theaters. My son prefers L. Frank Baum’s original Oz novels and holds the loose 1939 film adaptation in contempt. He also hated Harry Osborn and thought he should have died much earlier in the Spider-Man series.

I’m mildly curious to see if this prequel can connect the dots without being too derivative. Maybe it’s just me, but writing a prequel sounds even easier than rebooting an existing franchise. Select one character from a previous work whose origin was never explained. Imagine them younger and the exact opposite of what made them famous. Design a simple plot framework that allows them to transform from one state to the other, either in two hours or in six. Add a few new characters to sell toys, plus a few in-jokes that will only be funny to several hundreds of millions of hardcore #1 fans. Presto! Instant beloved prequel with crowded San Diego Comic Con panel. Since prequels don’t yet suffer the same stigmata that sequels and reboots do, generating one seems more prestigious and less unoriginal. For now.

Under the right circumstances, any of the following potential prequels could be coming soon to a theater or Kindle near you:

Harry Potter Origins: James Potter — Once upon a time, Harry Potter’s dad was an individual in his own right. This ten-film prequel series would show how his seven painstaking years at Hogwarts helped him become a heroic student, husband, and father before his noble sacrifice reduced him to a supporting character in his own son’s life, as well as playing second fiddle to his wife Lily, about whom Harry would reminisce much more often. This would be the first of a plethora of Potter prequels, one series for each of the series’ several hundred characters. The final movie in the series, Harry Potter Origins: Colin Creevey, should begin filming by the time original actor Hugh Mitchell turns 80, though his contract will require him to reprise the role as a ten-year-old anyway. This may require some light makeup and a few hundred million in digital effects.

Crib Story — A rousing adventure about the hopes and dreams of the original toys that belonged to two-month-old baby Andy. Returning characters such as Wheezy, Hamm, Bo Peep, and the shark that once borrowed Woody’s hat will be joined by an all-new set of merchandised characters who react poorly when their ranks are joined by an age-inappropriate cowboy doll. Featuring the voices of Jon Hamm as Lots-o-Huggin Bear (a good, uncorrupted one this time), Ke$ha as a Beanie Baby kitty-cat, Patton Oswalt as a really cool sock monkey, the members of One Direction as a bunch of plastic animals dangling from a mobile, Ian McShane as a Fisher Price Corn Popper with a hidden agenda, and Ricky Gervais as a really annoying rattle who keeps trying to steal the movie.

Star Wars Episode Minus-2: the Hopeful Phantom — Why not prequels to prequels? Within five years I predict preprequels will be all the rage. The first chapter of a new trilogy (to be continued in episodes minus-one and zero) will chronicle the life of scrawny Cecil Palpatine, victim of many a bully in Coruscant Elementary School until he orders a self-help pamphlet from an old comic book that teaches him how to be a man, win friends, influence people, and electrocute opponents with his bare hands. A few scant elements will be cherry-picked at random from existing Star Wars Expanded Universe novels; any previous books not referenced in the movie version of Cecil’s story will be rendered instantly non-canonical and allowed to go out of print.

X-Men First Class Origins: Sebastian Shaw — See how a once-heroic man turned into a super-villain, who turned the once-heroic Erik Lensherr into a super-villain, who turned the once-barely-heroic Pyro into a super-villain, who turned some other guy into a super-villain, who went back in time and turned this one other guy into a super-villain, who turned Shaw into a super-villain. Or something. Fans will adore how quickly the movie continuity and timeline become even more convoluted and impenetrable than the original comics’.

God: Days of Genesis Future — All-powerful, everlasting, infinite in existence and consciousness…but what was he like before infinity began? This hypothetical examination will fancy itself an authoritative work in the hands of two Jewish screenwriters, an agnostic director, eight atheist executive producers, an endless parade of inter-faith focus groups who agree on nothing, and a handsome Scientologist starring as The God. For the sake of affirmative action, exactly one token Christian will be allowed on set, a makeup assistant who thinks that listening to Oprah is as good as reading Scripture. In order to avoid an R rating, the movie will be limited to a maximum of 2½ non-swearing uses of the name “Jesus”, though it’ll be a heart-stopping surprise if they even reach 1.

Lord of the Rings: the Silmarillion — No. Please, can we just not?

“Once Upon a Time” Season 2 Cast to Add as Many as 700 More Disney Characters

July 6, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in TV/DVD Tags: ABC, casting news, Disney, entertainment, fairy tale characters, humor, Jamie Chung, meghan ory, Mulan, Once Upon a Time, Sarah Bolger, Sleeping Beauty Leave a comment

Once Upon a Time was originally written off by Internet comics fans as an alt-world version of Bill Willingham’s Fables, but felt no slings or arrows as it became ABC’s highest-rated new drama of the 2011-2012 season. The complex saga of fairy-tale characters trapped in the modern world without their memories was a nonstop roller coaster that leavened linear storytelling with non-linear flashbacks and delved into themes of identity, belief, vengeance, betrayal, and true love. The basic cast of Snow White, Prince Charming, their long-lost adult daughter Emma, her forsaken son Henry, his adopted mother Mayor Evil Queen, and her ally/nemesis/ally/nemesis Rumpelstiltskin were joined each week by a strong, nuanced supporting cast who each had a turn living out their origins and defining their roles in the scary new world of quaint little Storybrooke.

The happy news three weeks ago was that Meghan Ory’s Red Riding Hood (a.k.a. Ruby the world’s greatest detective who’d rather be a waitress) would be upgraded to full-time regular status in season 2. This week Entertainment Weekly brought announcements of two more recurring characters being added to the show, neither of whom I’ve ever watched in anything: Jamie Chung as Mulan and Sarah Bolger as Sleeping Beauty. Those two are in addition to already existing recurring characters Dr. Jiminy Cricket, Ruby’s grandma restaurateur, the Blue Fairy, Amy Acker’s other fairy, the madder-than-mad Mad Hatter, Sidney Glass the queen’s tool, August “Pinocchio” Booth, the tormented Belle, my personal hero Grumpy, the blondish doctor who has yet to reveal his true Disney name, and a handful of other one-shot Disney properties such as Maleficent and Pongo.

I trust the showrunners know what they’re doing and will be adding new characters organically as the flow of the season allows them, rather than cramming them in all at once as if the series were a virtual clown-car of corporate merchandise mascots, all suffocating each other as they vie for our attention and the approval of their Disney overlords. I can only imagine this trend taken to an extreme as we run out of princesses by season 4 and have to start scraping the Disney barrel for too many unnecessary live-action reboots. The possibilities for casting and subplots abound:

* A Hawaiian girl named Lilo with a most exotic pet.

* Chernabog from Fantasia as the season 3 Big Bad, having conquered and assumed control of Fairy Tale Land while Mayor Evil Queen has been in absentia.

* Pocahontas as a lawyer representing for Storybrooke’s minorities and/or environmental causes, switching specialties every other episode for plot needs as TV lawyers are wont to do.

* Dumbo’s mother incarnated as an overprotective plus-sized mother of Henry’s new mute, big-eared friend.

* Bob Newhart and Zsa-Zsa Gabor reprising their roles as Bernard and Bianca, now retired adventurers who bicker sweetly while their rambunctious brood carry on the family business.

* Don Novello resumes as the demolitions expert from Atlantis: the Lost Empire, except now clad in his old Father Guido Sarducci costume.

* Aladdin’s magic carpet as a hybrid sports car, purple with gold trim, and as alive as Herbie the Love Bug.

* While I’m thinking about it, Herbie the Love Bug wouldn’t be unwelcome, either.

* Zach Braff as a small, jaundiced paranoiac who won’t stop ranting about the sky falling.

* Goofy as the world’s worst sports instructor, still making that terrified “YAAAA-HOOIE!” cry that never fails to make me chuckle.

* Robin Williams as a live-action genie. If this never happens, the show and its promises are all LIES.

Of course, a cast this size would require a budget of several million dollars per episode, possibly as much as one-tenth the cost of an episode of George Lucas’ Star Wars dream show. Cuts will need to be made somewhere to accommodate producer mandates. CG effects may be toned down somewhat in favor of placards that advise the viewers at home to “just use your imagination.” More time for extra commercials may be necessary, cutting episode running times down from forty-five minutes per episode to about ten. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Storybrooke open its very first Subway franchise.

The schedule for next weekend’s San Diego Comic Con includes a Once Upon a Time panel (Saturday the 14th at 11 a.m. — note it on your SDCC calendar app!) that will no doubt shed more light on what’s in store for season two, in addition to giving lucky fans a chance to express their gratitude to the cast in person. Personally, I’m crossing my fingers in hopes of a Grumpy and the Fairy spinoff. I’d claim myself a front-row seat for that, even if it was…for a price.

“Amazing Spider-Man” Reboot Likely Superior to What “Spider-Man 4” Might Have Been

July 6, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: Amazing Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, end credits scene, entertainment, Marc Webb, movies, reboot, scene after credits, Spider-Man Leave a comment

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 remains one of my favorite super-hero films, but Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man approaches the same old origin from such a unique perspective of its own, I’ve decided I don’t mind their mutual existence. If I can handle the separate-but-equal Marvel-616 Spidey and Ultimate Spidey holding their own concurrent series, I suppose it’s not too far a leap to afford the movies similar tolerance, regardless of the debates about “How soon is too soon?”

Honestly, after the corporate-mandated mishmash that was Spider-Man 3, I’m relieved that Sony had the gall to buck popular opinion and return to square one. If the downward spiral had been allowed to continue, Spider-Man 4 would have been the franchise’s answer to Batman and Robin (some would argue SM3 was just that — witness Peter crossing over to the Dark Side, where there’s soulless dancing and self-inflicted haircuts), and Spider-Man 5 would have been a two-hour QVC Spidey Merchandise Marathon with no actual story, just five villains as hosts and a 1-800 number flashing onscreen all through the movie, with the house lights still turned on so viewers could use their cell phones to order while they watch. In much the same way that Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins eliminated the stigma from the Dark Knight Detective’s own series, Amazing Spidey restores honor to his own series by returning to the classic super-hero movie formula, by which I mean it only has one villain and fewer opportunities to push new action figures on us.

The web-swinging technology has improved to the point where I can no longer tell which Spideys were live stuntmen versus which were pure CG renderings (as opposed to the first film, which often switched to an animated Spidey only slightly more convincing than Kirk Alyn’s Superman cartoon-takeoffs). The speed-ramping effects to achieve super-cool slo-mo poster shots was annoying at first, until I realized that, for once, Spidey actually did look cool in action. Admittedly, some cityscape sequences felt more like cut-scenes from the Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions PS3 game, but that may simply be because video game art has been catching up to movie effects in recent years. I opted for the 2-D version, but even without a set of Upcharge-o-Vision glasses, the visuals were dynamic and occasionally wondrous without being a complete blur.

As our new Peter Parker, Andrew Garfield brings a winsome vulnerability and a more impish demeanor to the role, while at the same time seeming fiercer when pushed to his limits during the mandatory scenes where he’s unmasked for the sake of Acting. While Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris nailed the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko versions of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, I found the younger versions reinterpreted by Martin Sheen and Sally Field to be a worthy, loving old couple whom you could believe spent thirty-seven years together as a finely tuned family unit. As for Emma Stone’s version of Gwen Stacy — who’s far from helpless, yet just sensible enough to know when she needs to vacate the premises instead of playing victim-to-be — I’d be very content if this series allowed Gwen never to be murdered or usurped by Mary Jane as the original comic-book Gwen was.

I wasn’t exactly giddy at the choice of the Lizard as a villain, but his presence works in the context of the rewritten origin, which takes a cue from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics and gives Peter’s deceased parents a scientific backstory set at the blatantly nefarious OsCorp. Whereas the comics used this setup as an excuse to reinvent Venom, the movie offers a logical series of mad-science events that result in sufficient excuse for two animal-based characters to be spawned at once. Rhys Ifans does what he can with his few all-human scenes, but I wish that Dr. Curt Connors had been allowed to retain his wife and son from the comics. Poor li’l Billy Connors’ shocked reactions to the dad he loved unconditionally used to deepen the tragedy of Connors’ circumstances even more. Even so, at least the Lizard’s makeup and visual effects are well above Black Lagoon quality, though his stiff plastic-surgery grins reminded me of Jack Nicholson’s unsightly Joker makeup. Despite that, as the Lizard tore through the streets of Manhattan (and sometimes through its citizens), I couldn’t help wondering how much better the TV series V would’ve been if the Visitors had been this formidable.

I liked the modernized look chosen for this film, rather than Sam Raimi’s timeless, occasionally old-fashioned design, which was a great recapture of Lee and Ditko’s world, but not necessarily one that needs to be enforced in perpetuity. I’m glad J. Jonah Jameson was nowhere in sight, because replacing J. K. Simmons would be a fool’s game. Filling the gadfly role with Denis Leary as Gwen’s dad (constantly irritated, but a hard-working hero when needed) was a smart move to sidestep that issue. Flash Thompson was what he needed to be, albeit capped with a final scene that was a great nod to the comics, though I have to wonder how in the world an aggro basketball jock could gain admission to the renamed “Midtown Science High School” that Peter and Gwen attend in this version for some reason. Would a typical New York high school have been an inadequate setting here? Or was this a subtle plug for magnet schools?

In one or two places, I was irked. In some places, I was blown away. In general, I was content. Whether it counts as a reboot, remake, relaunch, reimagining, recycling, or whatever, I’m not much concerned at this point. After Spider-Man 3 I’m just happy to be able to call Amazing Spider-Man a comeback.

(For those who are wondering: there’s a bonus scene not too far into the end credits, none at the end of the credits. It’s the exact same kind of end-scene we had in the Avengers series — ominous foreshadowing of evil scheming by a shadowy man. His identity is ridiculously easy to guess unless this movie is your very first experience with a Spider-Man product. If you paid attention to the trailers or even read this entry closely enough, you can guess who he is without even seeing the movie.)

Today’s Unrelated Things: the Stalker and the Stick

July 2, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Comics/Lit, TV/DVD Tags: entertainment, fan entitlement, Investigation Discovery, Kickstarter, Order of the Stick, Rich Burlew, Stalked: Someone's Watching, stalkers, unrelated things, xenogenesis 1 Comment

Basic-cable true-crime melodrama is my wife’s thing, not mine, but she noticed the description of one of tonight’s reruns of the Investigation Discovery docuseries Stalked: Someone’s Watching mentioned “a comic book author”. I’m easily excitable whenever our interests converge, so I dropped what I was doing and joined her for quality TV time that ended up disturbing me instead. The December 2011 episode titled “Signed, your Deadliest Fan” was a half-hour run-through of the experience of Colleen Doran, creator of A Distant Soil and artist of various commendable works (Sandman, Orbiter, the underrated Zodiac), who spent years at the mercy of a “fan” who subjected her to no small amount of devious psychological Hell.

As Doran recounted her story to the offscreen interviewer, I felt sure I wasn’t the only comics reader reminded of Harlan Ellison’s classic essay, “Xenogenesis”, about the real-life horror stories endured by science fiction writers at the hands of poorly raised readers oblivious to the pain caused by their own reprehensible actions toward their ostensible idols. I’m glad that Ellison was forthright enough to set “Xenogenesis” down in print, but I really don’t like to be reminded of it. I hate knowing that I share a hobby or a fandom with extremist malcontents who failed at paying attention to the good-is-better-than-evil motif portrayed in 90% of all comics ever. Understanding that other humans are not your toys shouldn’t be a challenging lesson to learn.

“Xenogenesis” doesn’t appear to be online in any reputable downloadable form. I think I still have the copy I clipped out when it was reprinted in Comics Buyer’s Guide many a moon ago. The Stalked episode is available to view via tvguide.com; alas, it costs money. Doran also wrote an even more distressing follow-up about the episode with links to her past writings about the ordeal, covering details that the producers omitted or glossed over, such as the part where the offender in question is now out and about on his own recognizance. I can see how this non-minor detail would interfere with the show’s need for closure.

(Less saddening aside about the show: I was jarred out of it for a moment during a dramatization in which “Colleen” apprehensively attended a New York comic con as a special guest circa 1987. In one brief shot, we see her cheerfully signing copies of The Unwritten. Anachronism and complete un-relation to Doran aside, the next time Peter Gross needs a month’s vacation, she would seem a great fit to me.)

* * * * *

On the brighter side of my day, the mailman finally delivered my tangible rewards for supporting Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick Kickstarter campaign. It still boggles the mind how a project that started as a quixotic quest to reprint a few old collections became a record-breaking runaway train of generosity gone wild. My pledge level permitted me a graphic novel I didn’t have, along with far too many additional stationery-section goodies that were added as prizes later in the campaign.

I’m especially tickled pink by the OotS coloring book, which includes coloring pages for each of the major stick-figure cast members, plus value-added puzzles and drawing challenges. I’m tempted to color a page and post an example for all to see, but then my coloring book wouldn’t be a mint-condition collectible anymore that I can use to fund my post-retirement world traveling.

(Caveat emptor: intense typo Nazis should think twice before purchasing a copy if the opportunity arises, because one section in the answer key misspells “situations”. I’ve seen your kind act as wet blankets in the name of proofreading in many a venue, but do realize Burlew is under tremendous pressure to fulfill his part of the deal and has a lot on his plate. It would be most gracious of you to forgive, forget, and refrain from insisting that the mere existence of “situtions” sullies his good name and ruins everything. Please do not declare the whole thing a sham or demand triple your money back and your next ten graphic novels free. As Stalked taught us, fan entitlement is an ugly, destructive force of evil.)

Questioning My Reality after Preferring “Madagascar 3” to “Brave”

July 2, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: animated movies, animation studios, Brave, Disney, DreamWorks, entertainment, Europe's Most Wanted, Madagascar 3, Merida, movies, Pixar, Pixar vs. DreamWorks Leave a comment

After seeing Brave and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted within a week of each other, I was surprised to conclude that this is the second year in a row in which I’ve liked a DreamWorks CG-animated film more than a same-year Pixar release. Last year’s narrow victory of Kung Fu Panda 2 over Cars 2 was…well, a paltry competition, but still.

For the most part, Brave was still very good for what it was. I could appreciate the uneasy conflict between a mother and daughter who fail to see eye-to-eye, but who eventually learn to accept each other’s differences through a series of intense situations. However, swap their gender and you find yourself with the same uneasy conflict last seen in How to Train Your Dragon. Whereas the latter was more epic in scope, Brave by comparison was a more intimate struggle whose own four-legged antagonist was a bit smaller. Both were also set in long-ago Scotland, had characters with limbs amputated by beasts, and beefed up their supporting cast with a healthy dose of Craig Ferguson. I didn’t want to keep comparing the two so unfairly, especially since Dragon is presently my favorite DreamWorks CG film, but my mind wouldn’t stop.

Madagascar 3, on the other hand, benefited tremendously from how forgettable I found the first two. I remember the main and supporting characters, and a few flourishes from the original that are referenced in this one for effective callback resonance, but not my actual overall opinions of them. It was a pleasure hearing Ben Stiller and Chris Rock riffing to their heart’s content for a general audience. I was practically giddy from overdosing on the manic wit that propels the film forward at breakneck speed. I’m enamored of the moral of the story, that nostalgia can prevent us from seeing how confining our former boundaries were until we confront them and realize the power of moving on to wider stages. I also enjoyed turns from incoming performers such as Bryan Cranston (a Siberian tiger with a tragic story), Martin Short (a fawning, barely talented sealion), Academy Award Winner Frances McDormand (an unstoppable French animal control specialist on a vendetta), and X-Men 3‘s Juggernaut as a miniature circus dog with a ‘tude. This may also feature the best performance by a mute circus bear in cinema history. I entered the theater expecting no effect on my apathy; I exited with a smile on my face and the very few lyrics to “Afro Circus” stuck on Repeat in my head.

I’m having a very hard time reconciling these two opinions. In pondering my blasphemous imaginings of a world where Pixar is no longer the automatic king of everything, I wondered if any statistical comparisons have been drawn between the two. As luck would have it, such comparisons have been done and overdone. I decided to compile figures anyway for my own amusement, chronologically for all CG releases from each of the two companies — not of American box office grosses, but of ratings on the world-famous Tomatometer™.

Those results to date:

1995: No Dreamworks CG department to speak of; 100% for Toy Story, the grand pioneer of the medium.

1996-1997: No entrants. Each studio lay dormant, making plans and revving up their engines.

1998: 95% for Antz; 92% for A Bug’s Life. This flawed comparison is a prime example of how the Tomatometer fresh/rotten binary system lacks nuance. I didn’t hate Antz, but I’d be surprised if anyone favors or even remembers it to this day. I’m also mystified as to why Pixar hasn’t allowed an encore yet for Flik and friends. Were their merchandise sales really that anemic?

1999: No Dreamworks CG releases; a rightful 100% for Toy Story 2.

2000: No entrants. Remember when each studio used to craft one film at a time, no matter how long it took? Pixar has obviously expanded their staff and resources to sufficient capacity to maintain a steady pace of one new film per year as productions overlap. Meanwhile at DreamWorks, their WikiPedia page lists an alleged, ambitious overkill slate of twenty-two projects in various stages between ideation and completion. That either speaks to their success, foreshadows an animation glut in our future, or includes direct-to-DVD fodder to be distributed by DreamWorks but created by other, smaller animation houses.

2001: 89% for Shrek; 95% for Monsters Inc. I enjoyed the cleverness and performances in Shrek up until the exact moment where the plot pivoted because of a Three’s Company-style stupid misunderstanding because of ill-timed eavesdropping. Those are an automatic fail in my book. While that meant a forfeit in favor of Pixar, I thought some of Billy Crystal’s ad-libs weren’t exactly among his best. Given the choice, I’d rather watch clips of his past Oscar-hosting gigs.

2002: the last mutual skip year. Going forward, the mission statement for both studios was to crank out new movies every year or die trying.

2003: Still no new Dreamworks CG releases; 98% for Finding Nemo, the greatest Ellen DeGeneres film of all time.

2004: 89% for Shrek 2, which I thought was the best of the series; 36% for Shark Tale, which seemed like a case of casting famous faces first, then writing a script around them later. DreamWorks thankfully took notes from Pixar’s methodology and has relied on this poor creative formula a lot less than they used to. Meanwhile, The Incredibles, my all-time favorite Pixar film sans Woody or Buzz, impressed with 97%.

2005: 55% for the first Madagascar, whatever it was like. I do remember it looking crudely drawn. Cars was originally scheduled this year but delayed to 2006 for any number of rumored reasons, from quality control to internecine corporate shenanigans.

2006: 74% for Over the Hedge, shrewder and funnier than I expected in its barbed consumer-culture satire. 74% for Cars, which I thought was just fine. I suspect some negative reactions were Mater’s fault. He didn’t bother me. I know people here in Indiana not too different from him.

2007: 41% for Shrek the Third (no argument here); 51% for Bee Movie, proof that not everyone loved Seinfeld as much as some entertainment magazines did; and 96% for Ratatouille, Pixar’s first attempt at something besides an epic adventure, and a blessedly successful one at that.

2008: 88% for Kung Fu Panda, which I tried to tell everyone around me was seriously awesome (especially in super-sized all-powerful IMAX), but no one would listen to me because of either Jack Black or disdain for kung-fu flicks. Their loss. The 64% for Madagasacar 2: Something Something Animals improved on its predecessor in ways I no longer recall. 96% for WALL-E, which I really liked but didn’t fall head-over-heels in love with, as some of my peers did. Can’t really put my finger on why. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing about environmental lectures.

2009: 72% for Monsters vs. Aliens, which was quite a nifty League of Extraordinary B-Movie Creatures; 98% for Up, which made me bawl before the end of the first half-hour, but knocked itself down from an A+ to a mere A because of doggie biplanes. No one steals Snoopy’s shtick and gets away with it, not even Pixar.

2010: 98% for How to Train Your Dragon (thank you, critics, for validating me); 58% for Shrek Forever After (which I avoided after hating the third one); 73% for Megamind (not a fan of Will Ferrell movies, but was pretty happy with this despite sad reliance on AC/DC); and naturally 99% for Toy Story 3, weakest of the trilogy but hardly a weak film.

2011: 81% for Kung Fu Panda 2, okay but not nearly as seriously awesome as the first; 83% for Puss in Boots, which I also avoided because of Shrek the Third (my loss, perhaps); and 38% for Cars 2, certifiably the Worst Pixar Film of All Time. If you think of it as three back-to-back episodes of Cars: the TV Series, it’s really not so disappointing in those terms. If this had been released direct-to-DVD, it might have attained the same kind of regard that Disney fans hold for The Lion King 1½. Again I blame the Mater-haters.

2012: As of this evening, 76% apiece for Madagascar 3 and for Brave. It’s a tie!

On average, the DreamWorks track record has improved in the years since its Shark Tale nadir. Pixar isn’t exactly churning out third-rate filler just to pad the Disney release schedule, but no longer seems bulletproof, either. I look forward to future works from both, as long as none of them is Flik vs. Antz, which I would view as a sign of creative bankruptcy, unless Flik wins.

Additional notes:

1. List does not include Aardman productions released through DreamWorks, as much as I recommend the majority of them.

2. List excludes non-Pixar Disney CG fare because it is presumed inferior due to lack of Pixar authorship, with the exception of Tangled. The jury can’t wait to deliberate on Wreck-It Ralph.

3. List obviously excludes productions from other well-known studios such as Blue Sky and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers because my free time for late-night writing is not unlimited. Their inclusion would also distract from the whole two-sided rap-rivalry vibe of the competition.

4. I lament that the list excludes traditional animated films, just as movie executives do nowadays. Recent works in this medium have been flawed in ways that could not necessarily be blamed on said medium (e.g. mediocre stories; unfunny jokes; reliance on star power over creativity); and yet, when those flaws hurt them at the box office, the medium was blamed and practically scuttled as a whole in America. This, in my mind, is an even greater shame than Shark Tale.

Comic Book Company Resurrection Scorecard, Part 2 of 2: First Things First for First

June 28, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Comics/Lit Tags: C2E2, comic book publishers, comic books, comics, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, entertainment, Fillbach Brothers, First Comics, Necessary Monsters, Sean Azzopardi 1 Comment

Presenting the conclusion of my 2012 C2E2 panel experience. This would be longer, but attending Saturday only left me little time for all the possible indulgences. Many events were scheduled against each other. Tough choices were required. When the dust settled, the two panels that won my attention shared a theme: two former publishers staging a reversal of their fortunes, hoping to reach a new generation of fans and avoid the mistakes that doomed their previous incarnations.

Of the two panels, First Comics drew the smaller attendance. I blame the Kids These Days. When I first discovered the joy and wonder of dedicated comic book shops in 1985, I was overwhelmed to learn that Marvel, DC, Archie, and Harvey weren’t the only options for my hobby dollars. I first learned of their existence from the comics fanzine Amazing Heroes, which reached the racks of my local Waldenbooks for a short time and opened my eyes to a whole new part of my formerly small world. My favorite of those publishers was First Comics, some of whose titles would become must-buys for me for the next several years — Mike Baron’s Nexus and Badger, John Ostrander’s Grimjack, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar (which moved there from Marvel’s creator-owned Epic imprint), and the shorter-lived, anime-inspired Dynamo Joe (years before anime truly took off in America). Without writing a full essay about each one, for now suffice it to say they weren’t ordinary average four-color fare.

Alas, the company took a turn for the worse after they acquired the Classics Illustrated license and refocused their efforts on hiring talented creators to adapt famous public-domain novels to comics. It was such an initial success that they soon scuttled their entire publishing line except the new CI, a once-magic goose that ultimately didn’t take long to stop producing golden eggs. I was bitter for ages. When I heard First was risen from the grave and holding court at C2E2, it was pinned to the top of my itinerary.

C2E2 First Comics panel Presenting the panel in a poorly lit room were (left to right) original co-founder/editor Mike Gold, who would later move to DC Comics for a memorable time; other co-founder/publisher Ken Levin; and original art director Alex Wald. Not pictured but also on hand was Bill Willingham, more of a household name among comics fans as the creator of Fables, who transitioned from illustrator of RPG materials for TSR to comics artist via First’s first series, the sci-fi anthology Warp (a little before my time). Willingham was double-booked for another panel, but hung out for the first fifteen minutes as a nod to the thirty years passed since First’s startup, and in acknowledgment of their value as an important career stepping stone.

First brought a few books to sell and show off at their Exhibit Hall booth. I was sorely tempted by a collection reprinting Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton’s E-Man, who began life as a Charlton Comics hero but later to First for a two-year run. If only Cuti and Staton had waited or otherwise declined the deal, E-Man might have ended up in the hands of DC Comics along with the other Charlton heroes, starring in a New 52 title and having a twisted analog paraded around in Before Watchmen. Ah, what might have been.

Necessary "Necessary Monsters" creators

Instead of furthering my E-Man collection (which today stands at a paltry three issues, two of those from the Charlton run), I chose to sample an original graphic novel called Necessary Monsters, written and drawn by panel guests Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Sean Azzopardi (pictured above). Lurking in the pop-culture-supergroup subgenre as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Monsters vs. Aliens, the book imagines a covert-ops team comprised entirely of movie-maniac homages. I’ve ceased being a horror fan in recent years, but I’m sometimes a sucker for stories of evil versus eviller (see also: Gail Simone’s Secret Six). Our curious, dysfunctional viewpoint character is a serial killer’s daughter who inherited his power to murder in dreams, but acts less like Daddy and more like the Punisher until the American government conscripts her into service for humanity’s greater good. The art is a little cruder than I’d prefer (faces in particular), but in general the protagonist’s emotional conflict and a plethora of demented ideas (a chicken-headed chainsaw murderer? You saw it here first!) might merit further viewing by fans of the genre. For a value-added bonus, the introduction is by the Kieron Gillen. Completists who love Phonogram and Journey into Mystery now suffer the heartbreak of Gillen incompleteness without this tome on their shelves.

Fillbach Brothers @ C2E2

Also at the panel were the Fillbach Brothers, artists of Dark Horse Comics’ Clone Wars Adventures original faux-manga. As the new First plans to be a haven for creator-owned works, the Fillbachs hope to launch their own title, Frickin’ Butt-Kickin’ Zombie Ants. I can’t possibly add anything else to a paragraph that contains a title like that.

I failed to take a decent photo or write down his name, but the last guest was the artist of an in-the-works relaunch of Zen, Intergalactic Ninja, a title that’s bounced from publisher to publisher for decades. Creator Steve Stern was unable to attend due to a serious car accident. Zen was never my thing, but I believe it has its fans.

To be honest, not much of this sounded at all like the First I knew and loved. This seemed like an idiosyncratic slate of launch titles, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Levin spoke of talks with Mike Baron about the possibility of a Badger revival in 2013, but had nothing firm to announce otherwise about old titles, except that the chances for Nexus returning to First from Dark Horse were zero.

My mild concern turned into eyebrows-raised skepticism when Levin announced that the new First plan for reaching comic shops nationwide involved avoiding Diamond Comic Distributors altogether and selling their books directly to retailers. I can’t say I’m an avid fan of the near-monopolistic system that the hobby seems to require today, in which any publisher wanting to sell more than a hundred copies must work chiefly through Diamond, if not exclusively. Granted, yes, Diamond can be circumnavigated. Books that do so are often referred to as “small press” and are fortunate if they can sell copies beyond their immediate geographic region, unless they’re based on a popular webcomic.

Today, two months after that panel, I’m at a loss to find encouraging results online. Necessary Monsters has a dedicated website, but no direct means to purchase it, and no updates since the week before C2E2. One formerly official First website malfunctions if you try visiting directly; if you Google “fillbach zombie ants”, you can backdoor into it, try adding ten million copies of #1 to your cart, and watch as nothing else happens. Another official First website promises to see us soon in San Diego, but I’m not sure if that’s this year’s San Diego con or last year’s.

I’m hoping I’ve merely caught them at a bad time, and that they haven’t already finished before they’d even begun. I do plan to keep an eye to the future and a few dollars set aside, just in case the outlook improves. One tangible upside to this: we couple dozen who showed up for the panel were graciously allowed a free First Comics T-shirt. As it hangs proudly in my closet, I prefer to think of it not as a reminder of what might have been and right now fails to be, but as a memento of what it used to be and what it meant to me.

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Brave” End Credits

June 26, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: animation, Brave, Disney, entertainment, Merida, movies, Pixar, scene after credits, Steve Purcell 2 Comments

My wife and I are stubborn about receiving our money’s worth for our movie tickets. We really don’t mind sitting through the end credits, skimming for names we recognize, trying to spot buried gags, and waiting for the occasional Easter egg to be hatched. I like seeing if any of the storyboard artists are names I recognize from their previous career in comic books (this is extremely common), or if any bands I like contributed music (not so common). If our patience is rewarded with an extra scene, it’s a super-special bonus.

My son and I attended a showing of Brave this evening in a theater packed with several dozen other patrons, most of whom seemed to know each other, probably a group outing. (Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I was surrounded by so many teenage girls.) And yet, by the time the final minute of the final reel arrived, we two were the last ones around to smile at the capper.

For those who deserted early and missed out because you were dying for a bathroom or you have an intense fear of scrolling words, you can rest assured that, for better or for worse, it did not include any of the following:

* A middle-aged Merida and her husband playing with their children, Hamish and Lamish

* Several outtakes in which Merida keeps slipping into a Valley Girl accent

* An ad for a proposed Disneyland Glasgow resort

* Eight more versions of the Monsters University trailer, including one badly aged Sammy Davis Jr. impression

* 17-minute bagpipe solo

* Merida and Katniss Everdeen gabbing over tea and mocking Hawkeye’s alleged archery training

* A new “Sam and Max, Freelance Police” short by Brave co-director Steve Purcell (Man, if only. *sigh*)

* A cartoon Mel Gibson yelling about freedom, right before being beheaded

* A word from John Ratzenberger about the Will Rogers Institute

* A single male character who’s not a boor, a dolt, a wild animal, or a ringer for Huey, Dewey, and Louie

* A round of applause for How to Train Your Dragon, a better, more epic fantasy about ye olde Scotland

If you haven’t seen the film, a description of the epilogue will make no sense to you. For those who fled and really want to know without seeing it a second time…

…

[insert space for courtesy mild spoiler alert in case anyone needs to abandon ship]

…

…suffice it to say that goods previously purchased near the film’s halfway point are finally delivered in one overflowing wagon. It’s nice to know a deal’s a deal, no matter how monkey’s-pawed it was.

Comic Book Company Resurrection Scorecard, Part 1 of 2: the Valiant Return of Valiant

June 26, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Comics/Lit Tags: C2E2, Cary Nord, comic book publishers, comic books, comics, entertainment, Harbinger, Joshua Dysart, Khari Evans, Robert Venditti, Valiant Comics, X-O Manowar 1 Comment

Two months ago at the third annual C2E2 comics/entertainment convention in Chicago, I had the pleasure of attending separate panels celebrating the return of two different comic book publishers that collapsed in previous decades. Each company had a comeback plan, an experienced staff, and creators ready and willing to create. I didn’t write about my experience at the time for a few weird reasons, even when I shared my C2E2 photos with friends, but I’ve kept it in mind as I’ve followed up on their respective results.

Of the two panels, Valiant Comics drew the better attendance. Back in the ’90s, while Image Comics stole the spotlight with superstar artists and characters made of action lines, Valiant offered a more writer-driven approach and built a large following over time through rock-solid storytelling fundamentals and consistent new material every month. That was my understanding, anyway. I avoided Valiant during its prime because every book I flipped through looked pedestrian. (As opposed to Image, where so much looked exciting but read pedestrian.) In its later years I jumped aboard for the Kurt Busiek/Neil Vokes revamp of Ninjak, Fabian Nicieza’s Troublemakers, and the ultimate buddy-hero odd-couple series, Christopher Priest and Mark Bright’s funny-cerebral Quantum and Woody. Naturally, as soon as I became a fan of Valiant, Acclaim Entertainment bought the company and dragged it into the grave when it filed for bankruptcy.

Valiant has shed the Acclaim label and returned to the living with the intent to reboot and make up for lost time. Left to right at the panel were: our humble moderator; Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani; X-O Manowar writer Robert Venditti (co-creator of comic-turned-Bruce Willis flick The Surrogates, who was very gracious at their exhibit booth — he came out from behind the table and offered to autograph my Valiant Sampler before I realized who he even was); Executive Editor Warren Simons (formerly of Marvel); and Publisher Fred Pierce (a previous Valiant VP). Also present but out of camera range was Assistant Editor Josh Johns.

C2E2 2012 Valiant Panel

Much of the panel was devoted to projection-screen previews of their first four titles, all of which looked fantastic on screen but will understandably be printed at less grandiose comic-book size in the final product. I’m not the intended audience for some of their plans, such as smartphone interactivity, variant covers and eventual crossovers, but I did understand their decision to set their titles at an initial price point of $3.99 per issue. I wasn’t the other guy in the audience booing them about it. I figured booing the inevitable crossovers wouldn’t change their minds, so I kept it to myself. If they’re too pervasive or catch me in the wrong mood, I reserve the right to abandon ship immediately.

Their launch title, the new X-O Manowar, began in May. For the sake of comparison and for a great price, at C2E2 I also found a bargain-bin copy of an old trade paperback reprinting the first four issues of the original version. Venditti’s new version is paced more deliberately — by the end of issue #2, our hero Aric has just now donned the alien exoskeleton that will allow him to become the one true protagonist. In the original version’s first issue alone, Aric had already been kidnapped from his backwater point of origin, acquired the suit, escaped his alien captors, relocated to the strange new world of present-day Earth, and befriended his first supporting character. His grasp of English was’t up to kindergarten level yet, but he was working on it. The written-for-the-trade approach to today’s version does allow artist Cary Nord more room to show off, with grand visions of attacking armies and alien ship environments and such. (By comparison, maybe it’s cruel hindsight or poor printing to blame, but the original X-O art appears to be Barry Windsor-Smith on rushed, cramped autopilot.) I did, though, have to raise at an eyebrow at a scene where our powerless, atrophied, crippled hero somehow dodged a healthily wielded point-blank laser despite years of incarceration. This still has a way to go, but I’m curious enough to keep tabs on it for the time being.

Their second title, Harbinger, began this month with a disturbing sort of cat-and-mouse game between Toyo Harada, evil businessman with abnormal history, and an amoral runaway teen with mind-control powers and a deadbeat best friend who’ll doubtlessly make everything worse. It’s more engaging than I can make it sound. Writer Joshua Dysart last impressed on the DC/Vertigo title Unknown Soldier (setting aside the revenge-fantasy aspect that grew too disturbing for me after a while) and builds up a great start with artist Khari Evans (from Image’s Carbon Grey), portraying what it’s like for a telepath whose powers are constantly on, and who finds it hard to resist the temptation to abuse his talents for selfish, young-stupid-male gain. So far I’m on board, albeit without knowing how this stacks up against the original Harbinger, whatever it was about. I assume there were super-powers.

Two more titles arrive later this summer: July will bring the revamped mercenary Bloodshot, which Warren Simons described as being “like a house on fire, and the house is rolling down a hill, and it’s filled with dynamite.” Count on explosions, then. And I have to wait until August for the new Archer & Armstrong from Fred van Lente, co-creator of the wondrous Action Philosophers! and former co-writer of the once-divine Incredible Hercules. Van Lente’s name alone was enough to guarantee my purchase, even though the first issue promises to have at least four different covers by series artist Clayton Henry, David Aja, Mico Suayan, and The Neal Adams. A preview of the first five pages is now online, but I dislike reading previews of comics I already know I’ll be buying.

The promo art at C2E2 also teased the return of other old characters like Rai and the Eternal Warrior, but Valiant is taking their time with their world-building instead of releasing fifty-two new series at once and waiting to count the casualties. June figures are obviously not in yet, but the May sales for X-O Manowar #1 estimate a healthy 42,700 copies, which in these days of our waning hobby is positively gargantuan for anything not Marvel, DC, or The Walking Dead.

I look forward to seeing future results, unless Valiant becomes all about crossovers, crossovers, crossovers. I might even forgive that if a cataclysmic in-story event can serve somehow to bring back Quantum and Woody, and their little goat, too. I’d pay at least a good $4.99 for that.

Pixar to Spend Billions Making 350 Versions of “Monsters U”, One for Each Billy Crystal Ad-Lib

June 24, 2012 By Randall A. Golden in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: animation, Billy Crystal, Disney, entertainment, John Goodman, john ratzenberger, Mike Wazowski, Monsters University, Pixar, prequels, teaser Leave a comment

Prefacing Pixar’s Brave this weekend in theaters were four different versions of a new teaser for their next adventure, Monsters University. Moviegoers had the chance to witness one of four versions, each with Billy Crystal voicing a different non sequitur as our hero Mike Wazowski is awakened in the middle of the night so that his roommate Sully can prank him, because of the high hilarity to be found in college-dorm bullying.

The most frequently viewed version according to YouTube stats involves a line about a pony, but this one’s my favorite of the four:

Monsters University is rumored to be a prequel to Pixar’s classic monster movie Monsters Inc. While not confirming that rumor directly with any real detail, Pixar reps insist, “Monsters Inc. fans will be very pleased, especially with the last eight minutes.” Speculation abounds as to whether or not this film will at long last answer the important questions that have lingered over the last eleven years: How was the Monsters’ universe created? Which of the million-plus bedroom doors in the original had a preschool-age Space Jockey standing behind it? Did Boo’s parents freak out while she was missing all those days? Did Mike Wazowski’s race evolve from expired olives?

Monsters University is scheduled for American theatrical release on June 21, 2013. In addition to Crystal, returning voices include John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, former Muppeteer Frank Oz, and Mandatory John Ratzenberger. Newcomers will include Senor Chang from Community, Freddy Rumsen from Mad Men, and animation veteran Robert Underdunk Terwilliger.

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Tag Archives: entertainment

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