Wolverine Comic Con Teaser!

Do I need to say anything? Only sucky thing is that it's in two parts. Not my deal. Enjoy!





Thoughts? Badass! Now thats a Wolverine movie! Plus, Blob, Gambit, & Deadpool! Liev as Sabertooth! Looks like fun, can't wait to see it for real.

SPACED, It's Finally Here!

You think I'm unemotional, don't you. I can be emotional! Jesus I cried like a child at the end of Terminator 2. -Tim Bisley (Simon Pegg)


And so starts the glorious if too brief journey into the UK series known as Spaced. I had heard of Spaced when Shaun of the Dead had hit our shores and being a fan of that film, I was definitely curious. It wasn't til right before Hot Fuzz, that I was able to get my hands on the series (14 episodes, two season, thank you bittorrent!). Until now Spaced has only been available stateside in bootlegged form passed from fan by hand to hand (and Internet.) I immediately fell in love with the gang of geeks and regular joes that inhabit Spaced. These people are my friends. These people are me.

If Couplings is the UK Friends, then Spaced is the UK Friends for the geek crowd. The type that own comics, adore Gillain Anderson and whose speech is laden with pop culture references like they are going out of style. Envisioned as "a cross between "The Simpsons" (1989) "The X Files" (1993) and "Northern Exposure" (1990)" by creators/writers and stars Jessica Stevenson & Simon Pegg, Spaced's heart is about a guy and a girl who meet in a coffee shop, bond and then pretend to be a couple to get a couples only apartment. A skinny Nick Forst and others show up and hilarity ensues. Directed by Edgar Wright, Spaced episodes move like freight trains and are brimming with enough homages to choke a small horse. All this makes for hilarious, if brief viewing experience. But Spaced fanboy soul really is in its lovable characters that become near and dear to you in no time at all. It's a credit to Stevenson and Pegg and that Spaced emotions, not witty remarks really are the draw.



I encourage everyone to seek this dvd set out. It's loaded to the gills with special features and the episodes are presented with quality. Plus, its only 14 episodes! My favorite episodes are ep 4, Battles and ep 5, Chaos. First involving Pegg, Frost and paintball. The second involving a rescue plan for a captured pet. Hilarious! Enjoy it while you can. You be glad you did. I'm off to watch the second season!

How is it the foriegn Dvds always have the better covers?

I Have a Name For My Payne...

...and it is Marky Mark! No disrespect, I'm actaully a Mark Wahlberg fan (Boogie Nights, the Departed) but even he couldn't save The Happening (though a good script and a different director might have)

Anyway, I did quite enjoy blazing my way through the video game Max Payne a few years ago. It was fun, dark, and a had a pulpy heart I quite enjoyed. His premise has shades of the Punisher, (and the drug induced level where you played his families murder flashback was a bitch). Overall it did have the makings of a nice little film. From what I've seen, Wahlberg nails the voice-over work, but it is a video game film, so who knows. Anyway check out the new posters realsed for the film. Second one is classic Payne (and the game cover) so I dig that one. And I'm not sure about the first... were there angels in the game? I don't remember that.No really, I don't remember angels. Especially shiny ones.

The Night is Always Darkest Before the Dawn

Review: The Dark Knight


I’ve been waiting for this film. I’ve been waiting since I watched a magical film known as Tim Burton’s Batman over and over again as a kid. I’ve been waiting since I got into comics and read Frank Miller’s Year One & Dark Knight Returns along with Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. And I’ve been waiting since Chris Nolan put Batman and Gordon on a rooftop at the end of his fantastic Batman Begins, had them talk about escalation and showed us a Joker Card. It was then that a pact with the audience was made. Not just for a sequel, but one that could rule them all. A cinematic version of Batman the likes of which has never been seen on screen. A truly disturbing, maniacal Joker, a truly detective Batman, a Dark Knight. Three years later, promise fulfilled. And then some.

The Dark Knight is everything I hoped it would be and more. This is not only a phenomenal Batman film, it’s a great film. Period. End of story. I’m not gonna call it the Godfather 2 of superhero movies. Though it is a great crime film. I will call it Batman’s Empire Strikes Back. But not only that, the reason why you have to see it. The reason why everyone will be talking about it is that its done what comic fans have known for a long time.
Comics can be adult too.

This film is for everybody who cringes when someone’s total view of comics is the SLAM, POW, BOOM, of the old Adam West Batman series. Yes, comics can be corny and lightweight, just like movies can. But just like the film medium, they can also be adult, strikingly intellectual and dramatically heartbreaking. And that’s what tale that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan along with David Goyer have crafted.

And this is craft, from all the people involved. From a beautifully tragic script, to often stunning cinematography by Wally Pfister, everyone is firing on all cylinders. I can’t heap enough credit on Nolan. He went in and declared he was going to make the film his way. And boy did he ever. I adore Batman Begins. Until this, it was the purest representation of the Batman I love to be realized onscreen. Some however had beef with how Batman’s fight sequences were depicted. I have heard the “choppy editing” criticism many times. I personally had no problem with The Begins sequences. I felt the montage gave Batman an almost mythic quality, a force of justice and fear that he never fully had onscreen. It made the “Batman sneaks up on crooks” scenes the way they should feel, frightening. Well it’s like Nolan heard the criticism from some and took it as the throwing down of the cinematic gauntlet. Most of Batman’s fights are choreographed in continuous long takes where you simply watch Batman just dismantle hood after hood on his path to his target. Nothing will get in his way. And it’s Bale, and you know he’s unstoppable. It was the biggest “take that” Nolan could do. There’s one scene where Bruce Wayne, in a tux no less, just tears through a henchman and dismantle’s his shotgun with the ease of rolling out of bed. It’s just one of the many badass moment’s within this film.

Another thing I simply have to mention is the pacing. In Begins, the first forty mintues flew by. And those first forty hold a lot of powerful stuff, so much to the fact, that on first viewing, I felt they almost didn’t have enough time. That’s a criticism that has changed over multiple viewings. However Dark Knight moves like a freight train. It hits the ground running and never stops. It’s a rollercoaster tragedy. The pacing, like the film itself, pulls no punches, and just constantly moves, grows and astounds you. This isn’t even a Batman film. It’s the ensemble of Gotham City. Every character, large to small gets their due. I’m talking about bit part cops on Gordon’s crew included. What the Nolan’s have done with these characters is make them real, and with giving each of them a spotlight to create a tangabile world. Gotham is a place of graft and greed like no other city you’ve seen. The only good people who survive it, do so with major causalities. But they do survive. And they continue on, even in the face of insurmountable odds. And because of that, despite all the death and darkness, The Dark Knight is actually about hope and the prices you pay for it.

So let’s talk about performances. Heath. Everyone will be talking about Heath. And rightly so. His Joker is electrifiying to watch onscreen. He totally disappears into the role. And does what so would deem the unthinkable, makes it his own in the face of Nicholson’s performance. That’s a bold task to achieve. And a achieve it he does. They way he deliver’s “Do you want to know how I got my scars?” is absolutely classic. His Joker has his own psychology that is totally askewed form a normal reality, yet wholly intact. The performance is beautiful to watch, down to the ragdoll like skipping away from the hospital. He just nails it. It’s such a shame that he’s gone. This performance would have shot him to superstardom.

And of course there’s Bale. He IS Batman. He now owns the role in my mind. Bale owns the psychology, the front of a goof playboy, the rage and force of nature that is Batman, and the moral compass that is the true Bruce Wayne. I love how it takes a village to make Batman too. Batman wouldn’t be Batman without the support structure he’s establish of Caine’s Alfred as his heart and conscisous, Freeman as his own personal Q, and Oldman’s Gordon as his partner in a war against crime. All of these men are stellar in their roles. Lets specifically mention Oldman though. Of the three of them, he is given the most to do, and God, does he do it beautifully. Oldman disappears into Gordon, one of the few good cops in a city of corruption. Who would have thought Drexel would become the truest representation of Gordon we’ve seen. This is the Gordon written about in Frank Miller’s Year One. The one that puts his job before everything, sometimes to the detreatment of his family. Can we talk about how badass and overdue it is to simply have Batman talk on a roof with the signal. Did it need to take five movies to make that happen?


Also great is Gyllenhaal, who brilliantly steps into the role of Rachel. Maggie has a thankless part here, but she plays it well. Her chemistry with Bruce seems real, and they look better together. Katie Holmes always looked to young for Bale, and I believed she was a an attorney about as much as I believed Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough. Maggie is real, and her relationship with Harvey totally logical. Apparently Rachel loves to get it on with coworkers, it was subtly hinted that Rachel and a thing with the now dead DA form Begins as well. Office whore. Anyway, when Gyllenhaal is called upon, she absolutely nails it, and its heartbreaking.

Which leads us to the films unsung hero, Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent. This is Eckhart’s role of a lifetime. I’ve always liked him, particularly in Thank You for Smoking and the little seen but tender Conversations with Other Women. Here, Eckhart shines as Gotham’s White Knight District Attorney. He is just a good man, trying to do his best in a dark world. His lines are instantly memorable and his work subtle. Eckhart gets to bring his nice guy image but add it with a hint of darkness that replaces the smartasses he’s usually called upon to play. His gentleness combined with his darkness creates a fascinating human being whose fall is Shakespearian in it’s tragedy. When Dent flips the coin, it really is a tossup as to what will happen. And Two Face, whoa, this ain’t your Tommy Lee Jones neon pink make-up. I’m so proud of how they have kept Two Face’s look hidden from the public. In this day and age of internet leaking, its astonishing and makes it’s reveal in the film all the more terrifying. This is Tim Sale’s Two Face all the way, and Eckhart owns the role, just as much as Ledger does his. I really can’t praise him enough, he’s almost the main character of the film and I hope gets recognized for his work.

In fact, I hope that this film does get the recognition it deserves (I’m looking at you Oscar). This film should be lauded across the board. It’s not just a comic book film, it’s a piece of art. It’s one of the best films of the year to date, followed by Wall-E, Iron Man, and Snow Angels. Check out that list. Who’d have thought I’d see the day where two absolutely fantastic superhero movies come out in the same year and are amazing for the exact opposite reasons.

My only qualm, is where do we go from here? How do you top this, or continue on? Even a great third film will be slightly diminished compared to this. Who do you use? Will we see a Zodiac style Riddler take the stage, throwing Gotham into Chaos again and leaving Gordon cryptic messages signed only by a question mark? Might the Penguin pop up as a secondary mob boss on Gotham’s transition to freak town? By the end of Dark Knight, all our heroes have taken significant losses, some more then others. What will Wayne’s arc be? He’s at a pretty low point by the end of the film, what he needs in the third film is glimmer of hope. Will they do this by making a first true Catwoman? Don’t get me wrong Michelle Pfeiffer is iconic as the Catwoman she was cast to be, but that’s not the Catwoman of the comics. Not the jewel thief with questionable morals. Not the woman who is a female Batman of sorts, who is his equal, and who finds him as wildly attractive as he finds her. To go there would be to do what Ledger has done here, go a completely different route form their predecessor and make the role their own. That’s a tough act to follow.

And so is this film, but Nolan and crew are more than up for the challenge. It is always darkest before the dawn. And the dawn is coming!

Go see this film, then see it in IMAX, then see it again. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.


Sidenote: The Dark Knight grossed 66.4mil in it's openning day. The largest openning ever in 24 hours.

Watchmen! UPDATED! In HD Quicktime!

UPDATED. So here's the link to the amazing quicktime version of the Watchmen Trailer. It looks pretty freaking amazing. Quailty wise. Just seeing classic images makes me giddy. Watch it now. Or see it in front of the Dark Knight. Enjoy!

I can't guarantee how long this will stay up, but it will be online courtesy of Empireonline on Friday. Also its should be in front of the Dark Knight, inc ase that movie was not awesome enough. I love Alan Moore's Watchmen. Its one of, if not the greatest use of the comic form. It help inspire the term Graphic Novel. Let's hope this does it justice. 2009 is too far away.

Ridley. DiCaprio. Crowe.

Here is the new Ridley Scott film Body of Lies. I'm always excited about a new Ridley Scott film. They man puts out quality. And one of best friends loves him to death. Secret recommendation: Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven. Totally different film. Anyway, this looks pretty sweet, though oddly reminds me of Ridley's brother Tony's Spy Games. Thoughts?

Shameless Self Promotion!

Creatures


If there has been a lack of posts as of late, here's why. It might be tacky to self promote, but it's something that has comsumed my last month or so. The band is a great bunch of guys out of Buffalo called Settings. The song is "Creatures" If you dig them, be sure to check them out on Warp Tour.

Visit their Myspace page here.

Special shout out to my fellow crew members Russ, Dan & Jimmy for getting it done.

New Office Webisodes! Rejoice!

So since we got cut short on our potentially longer fourth season of The Office (thank you wirters strike, though I fully support it) we are treated to the return of NBC Office webisodes (ironically one of the things the writers strike was about.)

The first batch of these babies that hit the web were fantastic tidy overs til the next season. I'm sure these will be the same. Oh, Michael Scott, the fall is so far away...



Bears, Beats, Battlestar Galactica!

Iron Man Baby, IRON MAN!

First off, I never wrote a reviews of Iron Man (shame on me, I've been busy, more on that later) but it really is one of the best superhero to come out recently. Downey was the man, Favreau directed the hell of of it, Paltrow was hot and fun again, and Jeff Daniels was a bald badass! That's right, I said it. In summary, it was a great summer movie should be. It hit all the right notes and made you feel good. And want an Avengers movie.

After that, actaully before, it was release, people (EVERYONE including a very happy Marvel Studios) were talking about the eventual and worthy sequel based on its high praise and massive box office reciepts. Problem was, they were lowballing Favs. And thats just not right. Singer had a deal for X2 almost immediately. Rami, the same for Spidey. Favs got Marvel issuing a release date (one that he thought unattainable for quality) and Favs started publicly saying "Robert and I would love to do Iron Man 2, but they haven't signed me yet." Marvel didn't like that he said that to everyone who obviously called them out to get their shit together and get Downey and Favs locked with Fav's wish date.

Well, Marvel got smart people! Thank god. Good move. Cause I was getting a little worried. Go Favs! Go Downey! Start counting down to Iron Man 2!

By the way, Downey is going to be Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. Thoughts on that?