So, I’m thirty-nine (and perhaps growing to look even more like David McCallum, as Francis Heaney, TV producer Marc Dorian, and others have suggested, when people aren’t suggesting that I look like Niles from Frasier). This birthday was already celebrated at Iggy’s Karaoke, where Gerard Perry — who argued for a tough line on […]
You know, it occurs to me that since successive Terminator texts have now (with the advent of the TV show) pushed the stated date of Judgment Day (the nuclear war started by the machines that kills most humans) to 2011 while pretty consistently giving 2029 as the date of Skynet’s destruction (and the launching of […]
I was writing an e-mail to Scott Nybakken of DC Comics, suggesting jokingly that Chris Nolan must have done a “deal with the Devil,” since his Dark Knight movie has made $400 million but most of the cast is now dead, fictionally-dead, arrested, or (in Morgan Freeman’s case) hospitalized from a car crash.
I could imagine […]
I’m not that hard to please movie-wise, really. And I’m not one to cry sacrilege every time something gets altered in the process of being translated onto the big screen. Sure, there are risky remakes, unnecessary sequels, and adaptations that make me nervous but turn out to be OK (the trailer and posters […]
Yesterday, I analyzed nerds and mentioned karaoke (since I’m gathering people at Iggy’s Karaoke this Tuesday, Aug. 5, starting at 8pm, for my birthday) — but an even nerdier musical fusion is apparently possible:
New York City’s Kelly Fenton is a jazz composer and band leader with beboppy compositions sometimes inspired by comic books, including an […]
•Like most people, I loved Dark Knight (despite the troubling fact that Batman-loving six-year-olds probably shouldn’t see it). It may well come to be regarded as the definitive depiction of two familiar characters (not necessarily Batman himself). One of many brilliant moments that may not have gotten much attention yet: despite all that darkness, there […]
After criticizing the literary establishment yesterday and planning to review a book on nerds this Friday, I should note for clarity that I was (a) a nerd and (b) an English major (or at least, half an English major — I double-majored in that and philosophy), but I was never an English major nerd, which […]
So, if all goes according to plan, at almost the same time that Grant Morrison is depicting the birth of the Fifth World (with inspiration from Jack Kirby, Hopi mythology, and elsewhere) in Final Crisis comic books this fall, he will also be depicting the story of the birth of the (Hindu) Fourth World, the […]
I should have stopped watching the show in the middle of season six, when a major conspiratorial cabal was exterminated, but like a dwindling handful of suckers (who wanted to believe Chris Carter had a coherent master plan, even though his characters’ basic motivations would sometimes change between episodes in two-parters), I kept watching for […]
So far, Jesse Ventura has said he’s not running for Senate against his fellow Minnesotans Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D), but Scott Nybakken informs me that one of his co-stars from the movie Predator, Sonny Landham (Libertarian, porn star), is running for what is now Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat. That makes three […]
While everyone’s seeing Dark Knight, a word about last weekend’s superhero:
Hellboy makes me realize one reason (besides Galactus not looking right, as noted Friday) that the Fantastic Four movies haven’t been fully satisfying: Ben Grimm (the Thing) should be every bit the cynical, funny, larger-than-life, cigar-chomping bruiser that Hellboy is — the comic book Ben […]
•Mark Millar (no relation to Smallville producer Miles Millar) claims he’s reinventing Superman for a 2011 film, if all goes according to plan, with the director yet to be named. Given that Millar is the man who gave us a communist Superman in the comic book Superman: Red Son and who gave us the […]
Spelunkers and cavers everywhere!
It just so happens that in the past two days, my friend Scott Nybakken saw Journey to the Center of the Earth and a certain already-acclaimed, very dark movie about a superhero known for living in a cave at times, and then tonight he and I both bid farewell to Ellie Hanlon, […]
With the reportedly-good but reportedly-glum (not to mention extra-snuffy, due to Heath Ledger’s subsequent death) Dark Knight coming out this week, I am reminded of the 60s Batman series’ memorable theme song, open, and overall design — great things, and let none of my over-serious comic-reading brethren tell you otherwise.
And I find myself thinking of […]
I try to refrain from personal blogging during work hours, but the Batmobile is parked in front of ACSH at the moment — or rather, is parked across from the IMAX-possessing Loews where they’re apparently doing an advance screening of Dark Knight at 68th and Broadway.
I fear the numerous cops and FDNY gathered may […]
