On Monday I talked a little bit about seeing a sneak preview of Whip It! last Saturday. I promised a review at some point. A review the never came. So, instead, you get this comic and I’ll kind of splice in portions of the review I was going to write here in the blog post.
I think I said on Monday that Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut has a certain level of enthusiasm that I think can be attributed by Barrymore’s usual rah-rah “Girl Power” mantra. Despite being a film about hard-nosed roller derby chicks, the film is optimistic and sunny.
Ellen Page as the film’s heroine is serviceable. Her character is a mousy beauty pageant competitor by day and a roller derby chick by night. Unfortunately, she doesn’t really fit into either of those roles very well.
To me she seems too sharp, her wit to acerbic, to be some mousy teen bullied into pageant life by an overbearing mother. Conversely, she doesn’t have the physical presence to skate around a rink and throw elbows.
The film explains away some of the later by acknowledging Page’s pocket-sized physique. Her roller derby alter-ego “Babe Ruthless” gets by on her speed and agility and less on her right hook.
Still, I think it would have been interesting to see someone like Kat Dennings in the role. Then I might have found the dichotomy between pageant queen and roller girl a little more believable.
As I mentioned in the comic, the cast for this film is amazing. Not just for the depth of the semi-recognizable names, but for the variety. In what other film are you going to see the stunt woman from Death Proof roller skate with the female rapper who was once First Lady of Ruff Ryders?
Gotta give points to the casting director for bringing Juliette Lewis into the mix. Sinewy, snide and possibly smelly, Lewis fits perfectly into the role of Page’s riot grrl nemesis.
Special acknowledgment, however, I think needs to be given to Kristen Wiig, who finally stepped out from behind the Nervous Nellie persona she’s perfected on Saturday Night Live and in supporting roles from films like Adventureland and Knocked Up.
Despite the eccentricity of being a roller derby competitor, Wiig plays her character like a normal, everyday person. At this point, playing someone normally was probably the most shocking thing she could do!
Story-wise, there’s nothing in Whip It! that you haven’t seen in a thousand other coming-of-age comedies. Basically, an awkward girl finds something she’s passionate about and comes out of her shell in opposition to her parents wishes. Do the parents come around at the end? Of course. Are valuable life lessons learned? You betcha.
But like I said, there’s a positive vibe reverberating off this movie and a certain zest of life to the characters. The live their lives on the fringe of society in an already liberal-minded alternate reality known as Austin, Texas. They skate in abandoned warehouses under pseudonyms, get drunk and listen to loud music. Their exploits are liberating and we, the audience, get to live vicariously through that.
That’s pretty much the role of any good movie. If you can watch the characters on screen and say “I wanna hang out with them,” or “I wanna do that,” then there has been some transformative effect that has allowed you to transcend whatever hang-ups or stress is waiting for you back in the real world. By that measure, Whip It! is a rollicking success.
So what about you? Any plans to hang out with Smashly Simpson and The Hurl Scouts this weekend? Does Whip It! look like a film that interests you? Did any of you manage to catch the sneak preview on Saturday? If so, what did you think? Leave your comments below!
Hey, guys. Sorry, I have some bad news. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, I’ve been stressing about it most of last night.
Basically, my desktop hard drive failed. This is the machine that has Photoshop, my scanner and everything else that makes Theater Hopper possible loaded on it. So, my hands are tied in terms of uploading anything new.
You might be asking how I’m uploading this blog post. Fortunately, our laptop still works and we’re able to draw a wireless signal from our router. But everything else is pretty much off the board at this point.
The good news right now is that I have everything backed up. So all of my old Theater Hopper artwork, family photos and video, all of our music, my job application data has all been saved to external hard drives. So I haven’t lost anything important.
Right now, it’s just a matter of finding the time to purchase and install a new hard drive before loading everything back onto it.
I’m watching Henry all day today and I have to study for my accounting mid term for Tuesday. So there is definitely a lot on my plate right now. All I can ask for is patience while I try to get myself re-situated.
The timing of this hard drive failure is kind of serendipitous. Some of you might remember that I experienced a similar situation last year and launched a huge donation drive to help me recover all of the data I lost.
Well, things aren’t as bad this time around, but there are still several of you that I owe artwork to as part of your donations.
Believe me, I’m embarrassed that it has taken me more than a year to get this artwork to you. But I want everyone that I still owe artwork to know that I haven’t forgotten about them. I still have everyone’s information and fully intend on completing my end of the bargain. All I can say in my defense is that 2009 has not been a very good year for me and it has been very, very difficult just to keep my head above water.
No one is putting pressure on me, or anything. So I have to say thank you for everyone being so understanding. But I’m putting pressure on myself and I want to get the work done. So I will do my best to deliver the artwork that I owe people in the near future.
Thanks again for your patience and understanding, follow me on Twitter if you want the latest updates and I will be in touch with everyone soon.
In the meantime, if you have suggestions or want to leave comments about how I can amend my hard drive situation, please feel free.
Hey, guys. I’m back!
In case you missed the blog post on Monday, there was no comic due to my experiencing another hard drive crash. The same thing happened to me a year ago and I lost a TON of important information. There was less of an impact this time around because I’ve been backing up all of my art files, music, movies, photos and what not to a pair of Western Digital external passport drives. So once I went out and bought a new intern drive, I was up and running again fairly quickly.
One thing I’ve learned, though, is that I still don’t have enough redundancy on these files. I never used to have hard drive problems like this. In the past, I had machines that slowed down to the point of not functioning from years of disk rewrites and things picked up along the way surfing the internet. But I’ve never had machines outright fail like I have these last couple of years. So now I’m looking at online storage houses like Mozy and CrashPlan to help insure my data further.
I guess in the past I didn’t have as much important data as I do now and I’m finally to the point where I’m not going to take chances with it any more. A monthly investment in off-site data backup has finally penetrated my miserly bubble that kept me from springing for the service in the first place.
Anyway, I’m back and at full strength, so let’s talk about the new comic!
I was very excited to see Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D over the weekend. But monitoring Twitter (as I do) and reading all the posts from people wetting their pants about Zombieland, I started to experience a little buyers remorse. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you missed out on a cool, new movie. Especially after the extended dry spell we’ve been having at the multiplex lately.
Here’s something messed up that happened: You know how the advertisements for Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are all “Two movies for the price of one?” Yeah, not for us.
Looking at the start times for our local theater, we saw that they had a 7:00 and 8:55 showing. Assuming that they were playing the movies in two theaters, we figured that we’d go to the 8:55 showing (to reduce the chances of encountering a bunch of screaming kids at the theater). When we went to buy tickets, I said “Two for Toy Story, please” and the teenager behind the counter mumbled something about Toy Story 2.
Maybe it was my fault for not listening more closely, but I thought she was trying to tell me that I wasn’t buying a ticket for just Toy Story, but Toy Story 2 as well.
“Yeah, yeah. The whole package,” I said.
We went to the ticket taker who instructed us to wait as they cleaned the theater. “Great! A fresh theater!” I thought.
Imagine my surprise when they finally let us in and half the seats were already filled. Wait, what? How did these people get in?
We grabbed some seats and tried to make sense of the situation. I talked to some people sitting behind us. “Were you guys in here for Toy Story 1?” I asked. “Yeah,” they said. “This is the intermission part. We’re waiting for Toy Story 2 to start.”
Son of a bee! They sold us a full-price ticket for one movie!
I wanted to stir up trouble, but Cami told me not to. It worked out anyway because as great as Toy Story is, we were really more interested in seeing Toy Story 2. When it was all said and done, I don’t know if we would have lasted through two movies anyway.
I was a little peeved that I missed the intermission stuff. I heard there was some trivia and original Pixar content buffered between the two movies. But I did get to see the trailer for Toy Story 3 – which they won’t release online until after Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have finished their two week theatrical run – and the movie looks great.
If you haven’t heard the plot synopsis yet, basically they’ve followed the toys in real-time after the 1995 original. It’s 15 years later and the toy’s owner Andy has grown up. Since he’s outgrown his toys, he’s donated them to a children’s daycare center. The toys are sad to see Andy go, but are excited to be played with again. That is, until they wake up in the daycare and it is total mayhem! The rest of the trailer is the toys running around screaming about how they have to get back to Andy. It doesn’t give away a lot, so it should be interesting to see not only how they toys escape, but if they’ll be accepted back into Andy’s life.
The thought of a real-time sequel to the movie is very interesting to me. I hope they find a way to work in Sid, the sadistic toy-destroying neighbor from the first movie. Hey! Maybe he’s driving the Pizza Planet truck now!
As for Toy Story 2, the movie looks great in 3D, even if it doesn’t have a lot of effects that capitalize on the 3D technology. There aren’t really very many scenes that reach out and grab you. At the same time, there isn’t that gimmick exploitation of people pointing stuff down the lens of the camera or cheesy effects of things whizzing by you.
I will say this: I noticed A LOT more detail in the movie than I have in previous viewings. The opening sequence with Buzz Lightyear on the alien planet was a particular standout to me. I mean, I was noticing pebbles and stuff rolling around on the planet’s surface that I had never really noticed before. It looked great.
I could go on, but this blog entry is long enough. If you want to listen to a couple of thought provoking ideas about the Toy Story 2 universe, I encourage you to watch my uStream of this comic from last night. I was up very late working on it and came up with a few crackpot theories as to what it means to be a sentient toy.
Specifically, I discussed the main conflict in the movie for the toys – being abandoned. What happens when no one plays with them any more? They go into storage or into a landfill. Jessie (played by Joan Cusack) is very adamant in the second movie about NOT going back into storage. Her character is written as a little off-kilter, suggesting that all the time she’s spent in storage so far has made her a little nutty.
What does this mean? Does this mean that the toys are self-aware while they are locked away in darkness, immobile and trapped? Does this do something detrimental to them psychologically or do the toys “reboot” themselves between their animate and inanimate states?
Also, considering that Jessie, Woody, Stinky Pete and Bullseye are toys that a roughly 50 years old, does this mean they are immortal in some way? How long will they continue to live and what are they really?
Perhaps they are reincarnated souls? Imperfect people from a previous life reborn into the bodies of children’s toys to bring happiness to the world? But if that’s the case, how can you explain Buzz Lightyear – whose every single iteration of the character seems to share the same clueless template by assuming they are a real space ranger?
I think the concept of the Toy Story movies is charming and plays directly to the heart of the child in all of us. Who among us didn’t think of their toys as alive when we were young? Who among us didn’t wonder if they sprang to life while we weren’t around?
I’m not saying that the magic of the Toy Story universe needs to be thoroughly explained. All I’m saying is that if you follow the logic of sentient toys, it leads to some pretty disturbing questions.
Okay, okay. One more for your breadbasket. In Toy Story 2, Woody is completely oblivious to the fact that he is a toy based on a pop culture phenomenon that was popular 50 years ago. How does he live his life without the information and yet Jessie, Stinky Pete and Bullseye all see seem to be aware of their relevancy?
It could argued that they only know of their importance because they are surrounded by the artifacts of this phenomenon in the collector’s apartment. But if Buzz Lightyear emerges from his packaging thinking he’s the actual Buzz Lightyear, how did Woody emerge from his packaging and who did he think he was?
I’ll stop there because I’ve infected the internet enough with my particular brand of crazy this morning. But if anything I’ve said interests you, feel free to comment on it in our comment area below. I would be interested to hear your responses and maybe some theories of your own!
Thanks again for your patience as I got my hard drive situation figured out. See you back here again on Friday!
It’s all food for thought.
I know that I did a comic about Zombieland last Monday. But since I had an opportunity to actually see the film on Wednesday, I had to do another comic about it today.
Y’see, what’s depicted in today’s comic is based on real events. Allow me to explain.
I went to a 12:30 showing of Zombieland on Wednesday and I was the only guy in the theater except for one other dude that was sitting in front of me.
I’m not a big fan of zombie movies. I don’t like gore and I don’t like cheap “GOTCHA!” scare tactics. So I busted out my iPhone and started updating to my Twitter account to distract me from some of the carnage on screen and the anxiety that was building up inside of me as I waited for the next zombie attack.
This is not normally something I would do during a movie. But, like I said, I was having anxiety attacks and there was only one other guy in the theater with me.
If you take the long view, Zombieland isn’t all that gory or scary. At least not after the first act. Once it gets it out of its system, the film makes room for more pop culture zingers and character development.
At any rate, something happens in the second act that I thought was AMAZING and I tweeted about it – generally lamenting that I wasn’t watching the film with a larger audience because it would have been neat to see their reaction.
Checking my phone maybe 15 minutes later, I saw a bunch of reply tweets from people like Gordon McAlping Multiplex and Paul Southworth from Not Invented Here having a conniption fit because what I tweeted about was apparently spoiler material.
Now, in my defense, I had read a few reviews of Zombieland and was already aware of this spoiler, so I didn’t think I had done anything wrong by mentioning it. But as more and more people began to reply with sarcastically toned “Thanks a lot, Tom!” tweets, I knew I had stepped in it.
I made reparations quickly. I deleted the offending tweet and asked forgiveness. Shortly thereafter, people started to pack away their torches and pitchforks.
Now, you know me… I’m not exactly the guy known for flinching when it comes to giving away spoilers. But I genuinely felt bad about this one because a.) the movie has been in theaters less than a week and b.) the event I got so excited about is so thoroughly awesome, I really, really, REALLY want people to check out Zombieland to experience it on their own.
Obviously, I won’t go into any more details than that. So I STRONGLY encourage you to see Zombieland if you already haven’t and – if you go – don’t do what I do. Don’t see it by yourself. Take a bunch of friends and see it with a large audience. Because I have a sneaking suspicion the movie will pay dividends if you do.
By the way, be sure to stay through the credits for an extra scene. You won’t regret it.
So, as I have now deftly danced through my explanation of today’s comic, I plan on using my faux pas as inspiration for a short storyline! As you can see, there is the tiny “To Be Continued…” disclaimer at the end of today’s strip and I think you’ll like where things are going.
I hope Gordon doesn’t mind his unauthorized cameo, but I’m sure if you visit his excellent comic Multiplex, he will forgive me. Be sure to contribute to his fund raising efforts to put together the first print collection of Multiplex, too!
That’s all I have for today. Be sure to check us out on Monday for the continuation of the story line!
Have a great weekend!
So here’s the follow up to the cliffhanger I left you with on Friday – the continuation of Tom’s misadventures after sharing spoiler information about Zombieland on Twitter.
Friday’s comic was based on real-events. Things from this point on are entirely fictional. I felt compelled to share that just in case anyone was confused.
In case you happen to be new to the site, this isn’t the first time the Nerd Police have slapped the irons on Tom. Their first appearance was WAAAAYYYY back in 2005 when Jared rats him out for confusing Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy with Doctor Who. Much hilarity ensues.
I had been looking for an excuse to bring the Nerd Police back, even though the characters undergo no development in any way, shape or form. They’re just a couple of nameless thugs with horn rim glasses and I like ’em that way! The concept is funny, at least. Well, funny to me, I guess.
Anyway, not much else to talk about with this comic except to say stay tuned for Wednesday’s comic and watch where the story line goes.
In the meantime, be sure to listen to The Triple Feature movie podcast live tonight at 9PM CST over at TalkShoe.com
We took last week off after my hard drive crashed and Gordon had a biopsy taken off his tongue which left 5 stitches in his mouth. Good times!
But this week I know we’ll at least be talking about Zombieland and probably more. Also, I know that Joe just got back from Baltimore Comic Con this weekend, so maybe he has some stories to share about that.
So be there to listen LIVE at 9PM CST. Participate in the live chat, ask us questions and even get on air with us (if you are so inclined.) We hope to see you there!
I had a hard time with today’s comic largely because I didn’t want it to be a retread of the same joke I wrote when I first introduced Judge Cann 4 years ago.
But at the same time, bringing Tom to Nerd Court was necessary to move the plot forward. And if Tom is going to be in Nerd Court, he’s going to be in front of Judge Cann – because I couldn’t think of another name-that-sounds-the-same-as… name that would elicit that kind of response from anyone.
You know how it goes. If someone references “Khan” or anything that remotely sounds like “Khan,” the proper response is always “KHAAAAAAAAANNN!!!”
It just is. Don’t refute me.
Anyway, I think the joke worked out in the end with Gordon getting it wrong. I kind of wanted Judge Cann to hold him in contempt of court in Friday’s strip. But I also want to put a cap on this arc sooner rather than later. And besides, as evident from the original strip I linked to above, it’s funnier if Judge Cann doesn’t know why he’s persistently greeted with “KHAAAAAAAAANNN!!!” when people learn his name.
There’s not much more for me to talk about today except that I encourage you to download and listen to Monday’s recording of The Triple Feature. I think we had a really good show. We talked about Joe’s recent appearance at Baltimore Comic Con as well as comic book conventions in general. Joe also spoke briefly about Couples Retreat and Gordon discussed the advanced screening he caught of Where The Wild Things Are.
The rest of the show we spent talking about Zombieland, with my own dramatic re-telling of the minor Twitter controversy I instigated while watching the film – which ties directly into the story line you’re reading right now.
SYNERGY!!!
If you’re an iTunes user, you can subscribe to The Triple Feature by following this link. Or if you’d rather follow us with your RSS reader, you can do so by following this link. As always, you can also download the individual shows from The Triple Feature home page.
One last thing I’ll mention: I know this is short notice, but I forgot to mention it on Monday…
If you’re in the Des Moines area, please come to The Des Moines Social Club at 1408 Locust St. at 8:30 where I will be interviewed for The JG Faux Show. The show is performed in front of a live audience and I don’t think it’s broadcast anywhere else. But I’ll see if I can bring my video camera and maybe post the interview to YouTube.
I’m a little nervous to do the show because I’ve talked to people who have been on it. They’ve told me to prepare to be embarrassed. But I volunteered myself. So I guess I have no one else to blame.
But anyway, if you’re in town, come check out the show. I could use a few people in my corner.
That’s all for now! Talk to you soon!
It seemed appropriate to me that punishments handed down in Nerd Court would be medieval in nature. Not just for the obvious Dungeons and Dragons connection. But have you ever seen a nerd in a position of power meter out justice? It’s brutal. Call it reparations for a youth spent on the receiving end of a hundred locker room swirlies.
That’s pretty much the end of this little story arc. That is, unless I can figure out a way to make Tom’s new scar fit into the comic somehow. If not, I hope you enjoyed the arc.
I know I mentioned on Wednesday that I was going to videotape my interview on The JG Faux Show from Wednesday night. I have footage, but it’s kind of from the back of the room and a little bit obscured.
I heard from the show organizers that they bought a Flip camera to record the show and that they would put their video online soon. They’re camera was right up front, so it’s probably a little bit better of a vantage point. Apparently I am the first guest they’ve had that they’ve recorded. I’ll let you know when it shows up online.
As for the interview itself, I thought it went really well! I have to give these guys credit. They did a good job of researching me and putting embarrassing pictures of myself up on the wall behind me, beamed from a large overhead projector. These were all pictures that I uploaded to MySpace or Facebook or whatever, so I really have no one to blame but myself.
It wasn’t that embarrassing, actually. But the experience kind of tears down the veil between you and your audience. I mean, you upload pictures to these social networking sites and it feels kind of like a one-sided affair. But when there is a room full of people looking at these pictures together in real time, it kind of brings it full circle. I guess I’m finding the experience hard to explain.
I don’t mean to focus on that, though. I had a great time during the interview and would love to go back someday.
Cami was in the audience (and manning our video camera) and after it was over, said that she was very proud of me and that I did a very good job holding my own with the interviewer and making it entertaining. So, long story short, I didn’t embarrass my wife in public. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
I don’t know if I have much more to share. Hopefully Cami and I can find an opportunity to see Where The Wild Things Are this weekend, but we’re having trouble lining up a babysitter for Henry. I’ll be a little bit bummed if I miss it, but a calm weekend at home doesn’t sound bad to me, either.
I hope things are well on your end and I’ll see you here again on Monday!
Cheers!
I realize there might not be a lot of punch in the punchline of this comic. But I felt like authoring it because it was based off an actual conversation Cami and I had after leaving Where The Wild Things Are on Saturday and it got a laugh out of me.
For those of you looking for something a little snappier, I already have a joke in mind for Wednesday’s comic related to Where The Wild Things Are in general.
While I was swept up in the emotion of the film, Cami was apparently distracted enough by her boredom to make note of the film’s color scheme. Ultimately she came to the conclusion that – while she enjoyed the movie – it wasn’t anything she felt like she needed to see again anytime soon.
She’s right, though. There WAS an awful lot of brown in this movie.
Maybe Jonze was going for something deliberately organic to reflect the raw, untapped “otherness” of the Wild Things, but it’s not expressly overt. To that end, if you’re making mental notes about the color scheme of the film, maybe the emotional content is not reaching you in a way that it should…
For me, Where The Wild Things Are does a great job capturing the feeling of childhood. The feeling of being invincible, of having so much energy you don’t know what to do with it. Of running in a thousand different directions, making up (terrible) ad libbed stories about your adventures, talking to yourself and having all of it feel absolutely real.
That Max runs away from home one evening and traverses rough seas before landing on the island home of the Wild Things is purely incidental and deliberately unexplained by anything conventional or imaginary. Jonze is communicating clearly that we are entering into Max’s imaginary world. But he doesn’t draw a line in the sand, either.
I think what I liked most about Max, the Wild Things and the land they inhabit is even Max himself is caught off-guard by how thoroughly he’s rendered these imaginary characters. For the audience, the subtext that each one of the Wild Things reflects a component of Max’s personality adds another level of enjoyment.
From a technical standpoint, the Wild Things themselves are amazing creations. The mix of puppetry and CGI was completely seamless to me in the way that all good CGI should.
Watching the film, I knew that the Wild Things were actors running around in giant furry suits. But the way their CGI faces communicated their emotions made me believe they were real.
A by-product of the scant narrative in the original childrens book, there are a lot of open spaces in the dialogue of this movie. That leaves a lot of room for furrowed brows and concerned glances across camera. I believed in every single one of them. The Wild Things are the result of movie magic at its best.
Beyond that, I’m not sure I can do the film justice by trying to explain it any further. Not to go all New Age on you, but either it’s going to speak to your inner child, or it’s not. Anyone that ever fancied themselves an explorer or an adventurer – a creator (or destroyer) of imaginary worlds – this movie is for you.
If not, maybe all you see is two hours of brown? I don’t know. All I know is that it spoke to me and I thought it was great.
Gordontalked a little bit about and advanced screening he saw of Where The Wild Things Are on last week’s The Triple Feature. But expect Joe and I to be up to speed this week with a more thorough examination to follow during tonight’s podcast at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com
If you saw Where The Wild Things Are this weekend, I strongly encourage you to listen to the show live and contribute your .02 cents. Leave comments in the chat filed or call in to the show LIVE as we’re recording it! We’d love to hear your opinions.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed today’s comic and I will see you here again on Wednesday!
No sensible person would ever confuse Wild Things with Where The Wild Things Are – and therein lies THE COMEDY!
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Okay, admittedly, it’s a cheap set-up to the joke. But I like the dialogue in this strip. I like the back and forth between Jared and Tom. So I had a lot of fun writing it.
Am I alone in the Wild Things/Where The Wild Things Are connection? Was I the only one that tripped a trigger for? One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. I’m just trying to figure out on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird I am.
I don’t have a lot to say about Where The Wild Things Are in today’s post, so I’m hoping you greatly enjoyed today’s comic and I can coast by without a blog.
If you’d like a little more in-depth discussion, I suggest you download Monday night’s episode of The Triple Feature. We had a very productive discussion about Where The Wild Things Are as well as Paranormal Activity. I think you will enjoy our broadcast.
In the meantime, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to the two blank Project Wonderful ads we have near the top of the page, to the right of the comic.
I recently dropped the minimum bid from $2.50 a day to $1.70 a day. That’s a steal no matter how you slice it, so I’m a little perplexed as to why I’m not seeing more advertisers in that spot. Is it the irregular ad size? Tell me it isn’t so!
If you have a web site you’d like to promote, please consider the open Project Wonderful spots on my site a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the exposure it gives you.
And I’m talking about the GOOD kind of exposure. Not the creepy kind of exposure you get from that guy in the trench coat at the bus stop.
Since I have nothing else to say at the moment, I’ll wrap things up here.
Thanks and I’ll talk to you again soon!
I realize the premise of today’s comic is kind of gross. But to me, designing a robot to take the place of your dead son running around without a shirt and in short pants is a little more disturbing.
Also, once the phrase “shirtless charms” wormed its way into my head, there was no way I was NOT going to us it.
FUN FACT: “Shirtless charms” is a phrase one can also use for Matthew McConaughey.
I have been seeing trailers and promotional stills for Astro Boy for months, but it didn’t really start to catch my attention until this week. I think it looks like a servicable kids film and since I learned that the team behind the CGI T.M.N.T. movie from a few years back were the ones that had put Astro Boy together, that earned it a few points in my favor.
I dunno, though. Astro Boy is an animation classic. I always flinch when producers try to reintroduce these properties to modern audiences. I mean, if it’s done well, what’s the harm? A new generation is exposed to a great character. But if you mess it up, you risk alienating generations of fans who grew up with the character.
I will say this: From the stills and trailers I’ve seen, it appears that they’ve solved Astro Boy’s wardrobe problem in this film. I notice him running around in pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt. So maybe the producers of this film were a little creeped out by Astro Boy’s semi-nudity as well.
What about you guys? Any interest in seeing Astro Boy this weekend? Any hard core Astro Boy fans out there? Or, with Halloween creeping up on us, is everyone going to see Paranormal Activity instead?
I know that Saw VI comes out this weekend. But I’m more interested to see how it holds up against Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity has all the buzz around it right now. When it comes to Saw VI, all I read are people’s complaints about how Tobin Bell shows up as Jigsaw after DEFINITIVELY being killed in Saw III. I kind of hope Paranormal Activity puts an end to the Saw franchise’s stranglehold over Halloween – or at least puts a dent in it.
As for me, I’ve pretty much determined that I am too much of a weenie to see Paranormal Activity in theaters. I would go, but I can’t find anyone to watch it with me and there is NO WAY I’m going by myself.
I guess that’s why I wasn’t too upset with myself when I spoiled the entire film for myself after reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. On paper, the film doesn’t sound that scary. The things that the supernatural entity does to torment the protagonists seems kind of lightweight. So after I finished reading it, I was left asking myself “That’s it? This is what people are freaking out about?” Although, I’m sure if I was in the theater watching it, I would feel much differently. I’m no tough guy.
I guess I compare it to the horror films that I have seen that have shook me. Films like The Exorcist and The Shining. Films that were once books and are very lyircal, convincing and visceral about the true horror the heroes in them experience. If someone wrote a Paranormal Activity as a book first, I don’t think it would scare me.
I know a few of you have seen Paranormal Activity. Leave your thoughts about the film in the comments below.
Beyond that, I don’t have much more to share except Cami and I went to see our doctor yesterday and we have a birth date for Baby Brazelton. Cami will undergo a repeat c-section at 8:30 AM, Thursday, December 10. We’re thrilled to know that we have a delivery date. It’s been a hectic year and I’ve personally been distracted by a lot of things swirling around in my life. I’ve sometimes felt guilty for not anticipating the new baby’s arrival as much as I should. But with a date in mind, it really gives us something to look forward to.
I made Baby Brazelton’s birth date announcement on Twitter yesterday and joked that there would be no new comic on Friday, December 11. A lot of people came back with offers to submit guest strips and I was very encouraged by the show of support. I’ve decided that I’m going to open the flood gates and accept ALL guest strips in advance of Baby Brazelton’s arrival in December. In fact, I’m planning on taking the month of December off (I’ll still update the blog, though).
December is hectic enough with holidays and family gatherings. A new baby is going to splinter things even further. I’d rather put my focus where it is most needed – tending to the baby – and put the comic on the backburner for a while.
I think I’ve run less than 10 guest strips all year, so I feel like I deserve a little break. If you are interested in contributing to guest comic month, shoot me an e-mail at theaterhopper@hotmail.com and I will put you on the list. Since December is a long way away at the moment, I’m going to keep everyone’s contact information together so I can send reminders.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you here on Monday!