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Category: Movies

Serenity

2012-09-03, 10:01 pm
Categories: Comics, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Watched Serenity again. Spoilers for a movie from 2005 follow.

I hadn't actually seen it the full way through since the theater in 2005 -- and that was before I'd watched the series.

It's a decent enough movie, but heavily compromised.

Because Firefly is not a show about big adventures or high stakes. It's a show about a family surviving together.

On that score, Serenity fails. Book and Inara are barely in the damn thing, and the rest of the crew not named Malcolm Reynolds don't fare much better. For a movie that revolves so heavily around River, we get precious little of her as a character -- we see her as sleeper agent, killing machine, and damaged person, but barely a shred of who she actually is. Right at the end of the movie, when Simon and Kaylee are going to bed and River's peeking down at them, not creepy but just a little curious -- that is the most fundamentally River Tam moment in the entire movie. And it's barely there. She's unrecognizable as the same River from the show -- indeed, when I started watching it, I spent most of the series wondering when she was going to start showing off her crazy ninja skills. The answer is "for about three seconds in one episode near the end."

And then there's the MacGuffin.

Speaking of things that are significant in the movie and barely even crop up in the series: the Reavers. They're in two episodes. And yet are fundamental to the plot of the movie.

And the movie revolves around a twist that, really, does not much qualify as a twist.

Was anyone in the audience even remotely surprised to learn that the Alliance created the Reavers? Because, having never watched one single episode of the series at the time, I can honestly say I wasn't.

Indeed, the single most implausible thing in this movie about space smugglers, assassins, and cartoons with subliminal messages activating sleeper agents to flip out and kill everybody is this: two Confederate soldiers are surprised by the existence of a government conspiracy.

Now, here's the thing.

Here on Earth-that-Was, there's a vocal contingent of people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

There's a vocal contingent of people who believe that our black President is a Secret Kenyan Muslim -- and yeah, those people are mostly from the region of the country that rebelled against the Federal Government. But they're not veterans themselves, they're people still holding a grudge a hundred and fifty years later.

Hell, the guy from Megadeth is convinced that Obama deliberately orchestrated the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin as a conspiracy to ban guns.

So yeah, the idea that nobody in the 'verse has ever floated the idea that the Alliance created the Reavers? Never mind faster-than-light travel, artificial gravity on a ship that doesn't rotate, or the sheer number of other ships the Serenity constantly bumps into in deep space -- that's the most implausible thing about this entire mythology.

If anything, Mal and co should have been saying, "Holy shit, those crazy assholes on the Future Internet were right!"

I haven't read much of the followups, post-movie. I picked up the first issue of each of the comic miniseries and couldn't get engaged -- I find it incredibly off-putting when an artist slavishly reproduces the likenesses of actors instead of just drawing the characters.

That said, I thought Serenity: Float Out, by Patton Oswalt and Patric Reynolds, did not commit that sin and was an excellent read. And managed to give a good little send-off for Wash and a little hint of where the story goes next.

I never got around to reading Shepherd's Tale -- it's still on my to-do list; doesn't appear that it ever came out in paperback -- but I do quite like Chris Samnee. I'm told it still doesn't answer the fundamental questions about Book, which is probably for the best; one of the best bits in the movie is where Mal tells Book he'll have to tell his story someday and Book responds that no, he won't.

While Whedon's tendency to leave his biggest mysteries dangling instead of resolving them can be vexing, I think it's good storytelling instinct -- how many stories can you name where a big mystery gets resolved and it's just a disappointment? (For a recent example: that other River, on Doctor Who.)

Similarly, I picked up the first issue of the new Dollhouse miniseries because it was focused on Alpha, and -- spoiler for a TV show from 2010 follows -- the only question dangling at the end of the series that I was interested in finding out the answer to was what happened to him, what made him change. The comic, pointedly, picks up his story after he's already changed, with no explanation.

Joss Whedon, you sneaky bastard.

Maybe we really will get a reunion someday, see what happens next, with the (surviving) cast intact. Whedon's certainly got the money and cachet to do it, since Avengers. But obviously I'm not holding my breath.

Meantime, Nathan Fillion is Castle, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

(Still hoping for that Dr. Horrible sequel, though.)

Shooting Yourself in the Hoof

2012-08-20, 10:47 pm
Categories: Games, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, TV

You know how a single ill-considered comment can overshadow absolutely everything else you say in an interview?

Well, if you've read the news today you can probably think of a pretty good case-in-point, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Last Thursday I went to a Rifftrax presentation of Manos: The Hands of Fate, which ended with a fan video entitled Take It Easy, Torgo Style which I duly posted here.

The fellow in the video is Rupert Talbot Munch, who runs the site torgolives.com and who is working on an honest-to-God sequel to Manos, featuring as much of the original cast, and their families, as he could find.

The other night I poked around his (turn-of-the-century throwback red-on-black Flash) site and, after a series of dead-end "Coming Soon" links that directed me back to the main page with its autoplay music, eventually ran across a link to a Fangoria interview with Munch.

Now, Munch seems like a neat dude. Clearly he's an über fan; he's got a good costume, a sense of humor, and has shown legitimate dedication in getting the band back together and getting this sequel made. Plus a documentary. Plus...well, this is where everything goes wrong.

And if that wasn't enough, Munch and co. have been busy spiffing up MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE for high definition. "We, the people who represent the original cast and all things MANOS, have been working on the HD restoration for over 14 months," he says. "Recently, some kid who found a print of MANOS at an auction is trying to cash in with the same idea. Myself and Joe Warren do not acknowledge, recognize, or approve of what this kid is doing. In the end, we just ask that the fans hold onto their money and wait for our version. It will include tons of never-before-seen footage, plenty of extras, cast and crew commentary, interviews...plus surprises. And the proceeds will go back to Joe Warren and the MANOS faithful."

Now -- possibly due to how legitimately difficult it is to find the link to this article from the torgolives site -- there are only 5 comments at the bottom of the article. And four of them are eight months old and the fifth is from me. But I do think it's telling that four of them (including mine) are negative responses to that one little paragraph out of the entire article.

Let's back up a bit. The "kid" he's talking about is Ben Solovey, and the restoration project he's talking about is Manos in HD.

Solovey, as Munch notes, got his hands on a work print of Manos and decided to restore it; he wrote about the experience.

Here is a truly independent horror film from the 60′s, a contemporary of 1962′s Carnival of Souls and 1968′s Night of the Living Dead. The main difference being, of course, that those movies came from career filmmakers Herk Harvey and George Romero, who had already made commercials and industrials and knew how a set should be run. Hal Warren, director of Manos, did not have that sort of experience and the deck was truly stacked against him.

[...]

If you yourself have ever been involved in an independent movie, Manos becomes somewhat poignant as you see evidence of the problems that have arisen and have been worked around or willfully ignored. [...] It's all very relatable stuff. And because this is a movie where the artifices of filmmaking are constantly crumbling and being rebuilt, a little shakier every time, it holds a certain fascination to film buffs that places it above worse and more boring films (which there are no shortage of, then or now). Simply put, it's memorable.

[...]

So rather than have Manos fade away as a footnote with only a cruddy video transfer to remember it by, I've resolved to make it a personal project to restore it.

[...]

In addition to making a digital restoration of Manos of sufficient quality to produce a new print or digital projection files, I will be creating a limited run Blu-ray and making the restoration available for repertory screenings. While it remains to be seen if this film is for anything but a niche market, I also feel that if I don't restore it no one else will.

Film restoration is something that too often falls by the wayside in troubled economic times. Though it's doubtful I will change anyone's minds about Manos, I would like to send a message that every film, regardless of the place it holds in movie history, deserves a fair shot to be maintained and presented in the best way possible.

Now does that sound to you like "some kid trying to cash in"?

Because, okay, first of all? If a guy were looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, and he told you he had a plan to release Manos: The Hands of Fate on Blu-Ray...well, look, that's a pretty fucking terrible get-rich-quick scheme, is what I'm getting at.

Yes, Solovey wound up exceeding his Kickstarter goal by some $38,000 -- but he had no idea that was going to happen when he bought the print. Even with the extra money, it's not clear if he's turned a profit or simply put that money back into making the project better than he had originally planned.

Point is, this sounds a lot more like a labor of love, born of a genuine desire to preserve a historical curiosity. And Munch kinda just pissed all over it.

And here's the thing: Manos has a pretty fucking small fanbase. If "fanbase" is even the right word. There is a whole hell of a lot of overlap between Munch's audience and Solovey's audience.

And I can relate to Munch realizing this and being upset -- to him, Solovey is unwelcome, unexpected competition, and threatens not just his bottom line but the exposure of a project that, to him, Joe Warren, and the rest, is also a labor of love.

But dude, one fan dumping on another fan? Very bad form. And incredibly off-putting to the fellow fans who you are trying to convince to buy your product instead of his.

So Mr. Munch, if you're reading this? (Not implausible, really; I'm often surprised by what kind of searches pull this site up.) Here's how I think you should handle it:

"We are aware of Ben Solovey's unofficial restoration project; he is not affiliated with myself, Joe Warren, or the Search for Valley Lodge team. We wish him the best but believe our restored version will be the superior product, as we have access to a higher-quality print, a larger restoration team, and many of the original cast and crew members."

Something like that. Make your case, explain why you think people should buy your version instead of his -- by all means! Nothing wrong with some friendly competition! But don't insult the guy. Don't mock his skill or his motives.

And I also get that Joe Warren may have a sense of ownership over his father's film. That's totally understandable! But the thing is, he doesn't own Manos. Manos belongs to all of us -- and that's not in some fanboy "Star Wars belongs to all of us" sense; Manos is public domain and legally belongs to all of us.

Somebody besides you and Warren wants to restore Manos? He has every right to. Somebody else wants to adapt it as a Zelda 2-style iPhone game? Totally acceptable too. And -- not to put too fine a point on it -- some guys from Minnesota want to put it on a show where a couple of puppets make sarcastic remarks about it? Yeah, that's legal too.

And so while, again, it's totally understandable if Warren has a sense of ownership toward the property, and is miffed when somebody else exploits its public-domain status without his family's blessing -- well, if somebody hadn't exploited its public-domain status without his family's blessing, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If Manos hadn't entered into the public domain and wound up in a box of movies that eventually made their way to Frank Conniff and MST3K, there would be no Manos sequel, no Manos restoration, no Manos documentary -- because nobody would know what the fuck Manos was.

All of this may seem a little harsh, but really, if you ever read this, Mr. Munch, I'd like to repeat that you seem like a cool guy, I love what you're doing, and I look forward to seeing your finished work. I just think you've made a pretty unfortunate misstep on this -- unfortunate enough that it overshadows all the cool stuff you talk about in that interview -- and in the future I'd advise a couple of things:

Remember that Ben Solovey is a fan just like you and me, and just like you and unlike me he has put a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into making something lasting out of this silly-ass movie.
And dude, seriously, do something about that website.

A Frank Frazetta of Frank Zappa

2012-08-16, 10:30 pm
Categories: Movies, Music, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Image: Portrait of the Master
Image courtesy of manosinhd.com

Caught the Rifftrax of Manos: The Hands of Fate this evening. It was great fun; all new riffs, plus two fun new shorts.

Also, it closed with this:

Back to the subject of Zappa: Zappa, because he appreciated things that were awesome, was an MST3K fan. Purportedly he once described the experience of watching the show and suddenly hearing a reference to himself as "unsettling". (Unfortunately I can't seem to find the interview where I originally read that at the moment...)

Friedrich Appeal

2012-08-02, 6:55 am
Categories: Comics, Movies

Since everybody loves my Creators' Rights posts: per 20th Century Danny Boy, Gary Friedrich is making good on his plan to appeal the ruling on the Ghost Rider rights.

Quick recap: Friedrich sued Marvel for the rights to Ghost Rider, claiming he had never signed over his ownership stake in the character. (He co-created Ghost Rider with Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog, though he claims he created the character in 1968 and that Marvel failed to register the copyright for the published story in 1972.)

Marvel countersued, on the grounds that Friedrich was selling signed Ghost Rider prints -- and Friedrich is a writer, not an artist, keep in mind, so the art wasn't his work.

The suit ended in a Marvel victory, with Marvel agreeing to drop the countersuit in exchange for $17,000 as payment for the prints and Friedrich agreeing not to refer to himself as "the creator of Ghost Rider" for financial gain.

Friedrich is penniless and in poor health and, as you might expect, regardless of its legal merits this rankled a whole lot of fans and pros.

Speaking of which, you can buy a Generic, Non-Infringing Flaming Skull T-Shirt for $12 at World of Strange, with the proceeds going to Friedrich; the art is by Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, Bob Burden, Billy Tackett, Nathan Thomas Milliner, Sam Flegal, and Denis St. John.

So now Friedrich is appealing the ruling.

The most interesting piece of new evidence he's introduced: a creator-owned Lee/Kirby Silver Surfer book from 1978. Why this is important, quoting Daniel Best:

At one point during Friedrich's deposition he was asked the following question: "Q. Are you aware of whether any other freelance writer of Marvel comic books owned the rights in any of the characters or stories created by that writer," in relation to the period of 1971 to 1978. The answer was no, and Marvel's lawyers accepted that, for the understanding in this case is that everything produced by Marvel in the 1970s at least, belonged to Marvel and was duly copyrighted. This isn't the case. In 1978 Marvel published The Silver Surfer, a graphic novel which contained a copyright legend naming not Marvel, but the books authors - Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Importantly it falls on the cusp of the work-for-hire contracts, but a savvy lawyer might well be able to argue that Marvel did indeed produce work that was owned not by the company, but by the authors from the time period of 1971 to [1978]. Unfortunately this news might have come a bit late to be of any use to Gary Friedrich, but the battle isn't over yet.

The book seems like a pretty serious outlier; it was a case of Kirby, already unhappy with his work-for-hire situation with Marvel, pushing for a different arrangement (and indeed a different publisher, as the book was published by Simon and Schuster). I find it hard to believe that a court will rule that Friedrich's work on Ghost Rider was not necessarily for-hire just because Kirby and Lee put out a creator-owned book with a Marvel character six years later.

The previous ruling did hinge on Friedrich signing back-of-the-check contracts, and that sticks in my craw. Back-of-the-check contracts are coercive (you already did the work expecting to be paid for it, and the company only shows you an agreement to sign after the work is already done?) and I would very much like it if an appelate court determined that they are not legally binding.

But I still don't think that's going to help Friedrich. The judge in Marvel v Kirby determined that Kirby's work was for-hire based on the instance-and-expense test and stated outright that it was irrelevant whether he signed a back-of-the-check contract or not. Similarly, precedent doesn't necessarily favor Friedrich's "I created the character 4 years earlier" argument; even if he can prove it, the judge in Wolfman v Marvel ruled that the Blade character who appeared in Tomb of Dracula was so substantially different from Wolfman's original pitch as to constitute a distinct, work-for-hire creation.

In short: I don't think Marvel's in the right here ethically, but I don't think Friedrich's prospects look good legally. I hope I'm wrong and I hope he gets something out of this, but I'm concerned that he's doubling down on a losing hand.

Ideally, this would be settled out of court. Ideally, Marvel would open itself to renegotiation with its pre-1980 creators and allow them to get the same equity deals that current creators do (something that DC has done -- DC's not perfect but it's better than Marvel on this subject at this time). Ideally, Friedrich would get some small share of Ghost Rider comics and movies, and be satisfied and not feel the need to sue to get that piece.

But unfortunately I don't see any of that happening. I'm worried that Friedrich is going to be pounded into the concrete once again -- but if he does win, it'll be a great thing not just for him but for creators everywhere.

Dark Knight Rises Initial, Non-Spoiler Impressions

2012-07-29, 9:35 pm
Categories: Comics, Movies, Politics, Stream of Consciousness

Dark Knight keeps its spot as the best of the three. But this one hung together a lot more consistently than Begins.
I think Hathaway wins as the best movie Catwoman. Nice that they remembered "cat" refers to being a cat burglar, not some goofy-ass feline mysticism.
For that matter, Hardy of course wins as best Bane, but he could do that just by default given that the previous one was a mute thug in Batman and Robin.
It's gotten progressively harder to ignore the right-wing fantasy element of these movies.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm a liberal, but -- Superman's original New Deal leanings notwithstanding -- there's something inherently conservative about the superhero genre. (But that's an essay for another day.)
Bit too much of characters explaining their philosophies and the themes of the movie in dialogue.
Which you can't understand half the time. It turns out my experience watching Dark Knight a few months back with the bass up too high to hear what anyone was saying was an authentic theater experience!
And it's an ending. A real, honest-to-God ending. The exact thing that indefinitely-serialized comics lack. (And movies, for that matter -- superhero movie series are rife with finales that the filmmakers didn't know were finales and, thus, lack conclusive endings: Batman and Robin, Spider-Man 3, Superman 4, Superman Returns, even X-Men 3 and Blade 3.) This was a real-ass ending, and it was satisfying.

I expect I'll get into spoilers and specifics later on down the line. But that's it for now.

Fly, You Fools

2012-07-23, 4:42 pm
Categories: Movies

So I just watched the Man of Steel teaser, and, er, ah...

Why...why would you use the music from Gandalf's death scene to advertise your Superman movie?

I just...what?

Ineffable

2012-07-20, 4:32 pm
Categories: Comics, Movies, Stream of Consciousness

There's a word Ford Prefect uses when he feels like he needs to say something but he doesn't know how to say it: goosnargh.

I'm going to say some things anyway. Maybe that's a bad idea. Guess we'll see. Maybe I'll stumble, fugue-like, onto some deep and profound truth; more likely I'll say something trite, insensitive and offensive -- in which case at least my newfound posting frequency means it won't be on the front page for long.

In the early hours of this morning, a man in a gas mask and a bulletproof vest walked into a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, threw two cannisters of tear gas on the ground, fired once into the air and then began firing into the crowd. The death toll currently stands at 12, the wounded at 59. Those are the details as they're currently being reported, though it's still early and the information could change.

In the meantime, well, everyone is shocked and sad and horrified and, in compliance with human nature, trying to make some sense of this appalling act by making it fit some sort of narrative.

Was the killer a deranged Batman fan? Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't; I don't think it matters. Maybe he just picked a movie he knew would be crowded. Maybe he picked a movie where he thought people would think he was just a guy in a costume.

But there's something that feels like Batman about it, isn't there? An over-the-top villain on an over-the-top murder spree. There's no making sense of it; it's a horrific cross of violence and theatricality. If this man wasn't doing an intentional impression of a Batman villain, then he was tapping into something in the zeitgeist that forms the basis of all the Batman villains.

There's something Alfred says in The Dark Knight:

Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

That's the kind of man we're talking about today -- a madman, a broken man, a man who cannot be understood rationally and whose motivations are fear and chaos on a scale that an ordinary mind cannot reconcile.

I heard an interview on NPR this morning -- it doesn't appear to be online yet -- with a reporter on the scene who also covered the Columbine massacre. The interviewer, sensibly, emphasized the fundamental differences between the two shootings, but, also sensibly, asked if the police procedure for responding to shootings had changed since Columbine.

The reporter said that yes, it has -- that in the case of Columbine, the police took time to set up a perimeter, whereas now they focus on getting in and stopping the shooter as quickly as possible.

And that makes sense, too, looking at something that's changed in how we see criminals. Setting up a perimeter and a dialogue is what you do in a hostage situation -- what you do when you're dealing with people who can, at least on some level, be negotiated with, reasoned with.

Random acts of violence are something else entirely. You cannot reason with someone who is just killing for its own sake -- there is nothing you can offer him to make him stop. He's not threatening lives in order to achieve something he wants; ending lives is what he wants.

It's a hard, hard thing to read about, to hear about.

Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing linked to Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?, Marilyn Manson's Rolling Stone article following the massacre which is sadly relevant today. He discusses how there is no single simple cause for such acts of violence, but how the media and society seek simple answers, seek explanations for the unexplainable. And how his own stage name is a criticism of the media's tendency to treat mass murderers like movie stars.

In the days and weeks to come, the news media will talk about this. They'll speculate. They'll engage in crass discussions of how this will affect the movie's box office, or what it's going to mean for Obama and Romney in the polls. Maybe they'll try and engage in some scapegoating and try to blame it on comics or video games, maybe they won't -- even speculating on such things is just too much for me right now. All I can think is how horrible this was and how my heart goes out to the victims and their families.

Perhaps the deepest and bitterest irony is that Batman itself is, on a fundamental level, a story about two people who went to see a movie and were gunned down, and the devastation that wrought on the son who would never see them again.

Standin' in Line

2012-07-19, 6:37 pm
Categories: Movies

Not planning on seeing Dark Knight Rises this weekend.

I am the biggest fan of Batman I know.

But do you know what I'm an even bigger fan of?

Not standing in line when it is 108 degrees out.

And no, I don't want to see a midnight showing either. I've got work tomorrow.

Here is a short list of things I have stood in line for over the years:

Episode I
Episode II
Not Episode III (I had learned my lesson by this point)
A PlayStation 2 (actually Brad did the bulk of the standing in line on that one)
A Wii (which I did not get; I was the third or fourth guy in line but all but 2 of them came in damaged; I later purchased one just randomly walking into the same store and asking if they had any, no line required)
Spamalot
Bruce Campbell's autograph
All three Lord of the Rings movies
The Avengers

Now, don't get me wrong. I had fun all those times. (Even the Star Wars ones.) I can see the appeal of standing in line with a bunch of nerds with similar interests. It is a conversation starter. Sometimes it's almost like a party. (Not a very good party, but, you know, one of those parties where people show up in costume and there's no beer or music.)

So, you know, it was fun to do a few times. But I think there are lots of other fun things to do in Tempe in the summer. Like sit in my air-conditioned house and play video games.

I'll catch DKR -- maybe next weekend, more likely the weekend after. Do it up right, see at at the IMAX.

But I'll wait until there are no lines.

A Venn Diagram of a Circle Inside a Bigger Circle

2012-07-17, 7:52 pm
Categories: Comics, Movies

Dear DC,

Thank you so much for putting an obnoxious-ass banner ad for The Dark Knight Rises across the top of all my fucking comic books. Everybody loves banner ads, and I was just wondering how you could make comic book covers as distracting as television shows!

Kudos on targeting the completely fucking imaginary demographic of people who buy DC comics but are not aware that there is a Batman movie coming out! Four dollars is far too small a price to pay for this bold and completely redundant innovation!

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