Okay, first things first!
- I am currently acutioning off some Theater Hopper #500-related artwork. The auction ends next Wednesday, so be sure to get your bids in now!
- get your bids in now!
- The archives are now SEARCHABLE! Enjoy this bounty!
- We have a brand-new movie review database where you can leave your thoughts on every movie Theater Hopper has ever spoofed. We’re adding movies into it all the time, so check back often for films to rank and comment on!
Now, where were we?
You don’t think our new buddy Victor actually cut off someone’s arm, do you? No way, man. It’s just an exaggeration. Or is it?
Victor is a brand new character added to the Theater Hopper mythos, so get used to seeing his face around the movie theater. It’s been a little while since I added someone new. I tend to do this arround milestone occassions.
One thing I’ve always felt was lacking in the Theater Hopper universe is a source of conflict to draw drama from. I tried to go that route when I introduced Charlie back in the day. But I didn’t think far enough in advance. So instead of making her a villian, she became merely misunderstood. There have been times that I’ve wanted to write her as the stone-cold b*tch I originally envisioned her as, but at this point it would see too far out of character. I still don’t know if I’ve developed her personality to the point where you can say "That’s Charlie. That’s what she’s about." So for the moment, she’s pretty much a gal-pal for Cami to hang around with.
Victor on the other hand is unrepentantly evil and I have no plans for watering him down. I just think it’s hilarious to create a Ukrainian movie theater floor manager who takes his job to a serious extreme. I mean, I think we’ve all had that co-worker who was ruthlessly efficient or maybe looked down their nose at you like you weren’t working as hard as they were. Victor is that guy times a thousand. I’ve already come up with a bunch of fun scenarios to use him in. He’s the perfect antithesis to Jimmy’s cheery optimisim. Every encounter the other characters have with this guy is going to be a living hell.
I have a mini story-line set up to introduce Victor a little bit more. Don’t worry – I’m not going to stretch this one out into some crazy multi-week arc. It’ll be short and to the point. He’s evil. What more do you need to know?!
No movie plans this weekend. There’s nothing much in theaters I care to see. Cami’s been advocating Pride & Prejudice for the last few weeks, but I’ve been dragging my heels. Now it looks like she’ll be going with a friend on Sunday and leaving me in the dust. I’m sorry, but in my mind, Colin Firth is the definative Mr. Darcy!
Aeon Flux comes out today and I can’t really bring myself to care. I used to love the cartoon shorts where Aeon died every episode back when it was broadcast on MTV’s Liquid Television. I had a harder time following the weekly half-hour series she had not long after that. What’s the point of seeing a live-action version when the original was so trippy and surreal? I’m a big sci-fi fan, but I’m having trouble seeing how the director of Girlfight could translate the property to the big sceen. And with Charlize Theron as Flux… well, that seems to be Halle Berry-in-Catwoman-level bad decision making.
What is up with all these actresses who win Oscars and then immediately turn around and do action films? What is the logic there? "I’ve been recognized by my peers and I’m being taken seriously in the industry! For my next film, I’m gonna play a superhero!"
Think I’m being too harsh on Aeon Flux? Paramount has elected to cancel all screeners for reviewers. So you guys won’t know if it’s good or bad until Roger Ebert plunks down $9 and sees it on his own time. Instead, they’re flooding the market with ads and crossing their fingers. Not a good sign. Have you been watching television at all lately? Seems like every third commercial is for Flux. I feel like I’ve already seen the movie! If any of you guys decide to see the movie this weekend, you’ll have to let me know about it. But I don’t plan on touching this with a 10 foot pole!
Here’s hoping everyone enjoys their weekend. Don’t forget to place your bid in the auction!ign: left;”>The archives are now SEARCHABLE! Enjoy this bounty!
Now, where were we?
You don’t think our new buddy Victor actually cut off someone’s arm, do you? No way, man. It’s just an exaggeration. Or is it?
Victor is a brand new character added to the Theater Hopper mythos, so get used to seeing his face around the movie theater. It’s been a little while since I added someone new. I tend to do this arround milestone occassions.
One thing I’ve always felt was lacking in the Theater Hopper universe is a source of conflict to draw drama from. I tried to go that route when I introduced Charlie back in the day. But I didn’t think far enough in advance. So instead of making her a villian, she became merely misunderstood. There have been times that I’ve wanted to write her as the stone-cold b*tch I originally envisioned her as, but at this point it would see too far out of character. I still don’t know if I’ve developed her personality to the point where you can say "That’s Charlie. That’s what she’s about." So for the moment, she’s pretty much a gal-pal for Cami to hang around with.
Victor on the other hand is unrepentantly evil and I have no plans for watering him down. I just think it’s hilarious to create a Ukrainian movie theater floor manager who takes his job to a serious extreme. I mean, I think we’ve all had that co-worker who was ruthlessly efficient or maybe looked down their nose at you like you weren’t working as hard as they were. Victor is that guy times a thousand. I’ve already come up with a bunch of fun scenarios to use him in. He’s the perfect antithesis to Jimmy’s cheery optimisim. Every encounter the other characters have with this guy is going to be a living hell.
I have a mini story-line set up to introduce Victor a little bit more. Don’t worry – I’m not going to stretch this one out into some crazy multi-week arc. It’ll be short and to the point. He’s evil. What more do you need to know?!
No movie plans this weekend. There’s nothing much in theaters I care to see. Cami’s been advocating Pride & Prejudice for the last few weeks, but I’ve been dragging my heels. Now it looks like she’ll be going with a friend on Sunday and leaving me in the dust. I’m sorry, but in my mind, Colin Firth is the definative Mr. Darcy!
Aeon Flux comes out today and I can’t really bring myself to care. I used to love the cartoon shorts where Aeon died every episode back when it was broadcast on MTV’s Liquid Television. I had a harder time following the weekly half-hour series she had not long after that. What’s the point of seeing a live-action version when the original was so trippy and surreal? I’m a big sci-fi fan, but I’m having trouble seeing how the director of Girlfight could translate the property to the big sceen. And with Charlize Theron as Flux… well, that seems to be Halle Berry-in-Catwoman-level bad decision making.
What is up with all these actresses who win Oscars and then immediately turn around and do action films? What is the logic there? "I’ve been recognized by my peers and I’m being taken seriously in the industry! For my next film, I’m gonna play a superhero!"
Think I’m being too harsh on Aeon Flux? Paramount has elected to cancel all screeners for reviewers. So you guys won’t know if it’s good or bad until Roger Ebert plunks down $9 and sees it on his own time. Instead, they’re flooding the market with ads and crossing their fingers. Not a good sign. Have you been watching television at all lately? Seems like every third commercial is for Flux. I feel like I’ve already seen the movie! If any of you guys decide to see the movie this weekend, you’ll have to let me know about it. But I don’t plan on touching this with a 10 foot pole!
Here’s hoping everyone enjoys their weekend. Don’t forget to place your bid in the auction!
I’m feeling kind of spunky this afternoon and I wanted to share a few links to some other web sites that I think you guys should check out.
Used to be, back in the day, I would trade links with anyone who batted their eyelashes at me. These days… well, I’m a little more busy. But I don’t want that to be an excuse. I want to tell you guys what I’m into because that’s really the spirit of the web comics thing, isn’t it? I don’t want to stake off this little piece of internet and feverishly protect it like a frothing Gollum. "My web sitesee! Preccciiouuusssss!" Nope. Instead I’m gonna share the love. It’s good karma, doncha know?
THE PC WEENIES – Krishna Sadasivam is a great guy who produces a really sharp comic about the IT world. I don’t work in IT. I don’t know a lot about IT. But I kow a lot of guys who do, and this kind of stuff rings exceptionally true. I think he has a real strong sense of characterization. It’s just really easy to imagine what Bob and Grampa sound like.
MULTIPLEX – If you like Theater Hopper, you’ll dig Gordon McAlpin’s Multiplex. It’s about movies, but in a different way. Instead of having outsiders running around making commentary about movies, imagine if Jimmy got his own comic. That’s what Multiplex is like. It’s from the eyes of the people who work in the theater! Gordon has a way of taking really funny situations and playing them straight. Which, I think, makes them funnier. Plus, I like Gordon. I’ve chatted him up a few times online and he seems really into what he’s doing. I think that’s worth something right there.
POPCORN PICNIC – Another movie-related comic. This one is just getting off the ground. Chris Shadoian’s artwork is really sharp. Like an Archie comic with a hipster bent. If you’ve read Acid Keg, you’re kind of familiar with the style. Chris is out there, quietly doing his thing and I believe it’s time someone made some noise about it. Incidentally, it was Gordon who tipped me off to this one.
DIGITAL PIMP ONLINE – In my head, everyone in the universe already knows about the great work Joe Dunn is doing with his myriad of comics. This guy’s level of talent seriously freaks me out. It scares me. His work with Mighty Mitch Clem on The Coffee Achievers is about to come to a close, but I think it’s probably one of the greatest colaborations in web comics. Nevermind his work on Matriculated, Free Lunch and Joe Loves Crappy Movies. The later being a movie comic that always comes up with jokes I wish I had thought of! Joe is all over the map with his work and I don’t think he gets enough credit. So check out each one of those comics that he works on and find out why I call him "The Hardest Working Man In Web Comics."
Anyway, those are a few sites for your bookmark folders. If you’re in the mood for some new stuff, I would strongly encourage you to check them out!
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When I started to put together today’s strip, it was much more complicated than it needed to be. Originally Cami was going to be lecturing Jared AND Jimmy. Tom was supposed to walk through the background of the last panel and deliver the punchline. There was much more anti-Sharon Stone commentary from Cami. There wasn’t one punchline, there was three. Each one threw a spin on the one before. It was a convoluted mess.
Thankfully, I was able to bounce a few ideas off Cami and we were able to parse things down to it’s core – which is essentially the insecurity of women.
I don’t pretend to have some profound understanding of the opposite sex. So it’s very handy to have a woman with whom you share your life to tell you, "That joke is out of bounds" or "I think you’re bordering on misogyny with that one." Saves me the trouble of sitting through a lot of boring litigation.
Basic Instinct 2 comes out today and just the thought of it acerbates me to no end. In my mind, it is nothing more than a soapbox for Sharon Stone to say "I’m in my 40’s and I’m sexy! I can do a nude scene and you can’t stop me!"
Not that a woman in her 40’s doesn’t have a right to be sexy. Sex it up! Be as sexy as you please! I insist!
No, what draws my ire is that this becomes a topic of media facination like it’s going completely against the laws of nature. "Maddona turns 40!" "Teri Hatcher is 40 and fabulous!"
And then along comes Sharon Stone. An actress who, despite protest, really never had very much going for her except her looks. I’m speaking in regard to her professional accomplishments. Since the original Basic Instinct, she’s been cast as the sex object. A shame, since I’ve read she’s a lot smarter than she lets on.
But agreeing to Basic Instinct 2 nearly 14 years after the original and proceed to tell anyone who will listen, "Yes, I will be nude in the movie and isn’t that AMAZING?!" comes off as the most desperate, self-promotional ego-trip I can imagine. It’s more than a little sad.
I’ve read commentary about Stone that she’s one of the last great movie stars we have. She’s overtly aware that it is her job to be a glamorous, iconic personality and to live larger than life. Maybe that’s true. But, not to be mean, her star is fading. If forced to watch Basic Instinct 2, I don’t think I could be objective enough to sit there and think "This is supposed to be sexy." Instead, I’m sure all I could think of would be "This is a political statement." The last desperate gasp from an actress facing the impending embargo against employing "women of a certain age" in Hollywood who get by mostly on looks. A big middle finger to the establishment that dictates not everyone can have a career like Judi Dench.
Jimmy Olsen is supposed to be "Superman’s Pal." Let me tell you – a REAL pal would clue you in to the bubble butt issue! Maybe Jimmy just hasn’t worked up the nerve yet.
Are you like me? Do you debate the practicality of comic book storytelling methods? The whole "costume under the civilian clothes" thing never worked with me when it came to Superman. I mean, okay… the skin-tight body suit I can kind of understand. Except, how does he go to the bathroom when you’re wearing three layers of clothes? Or does Clark Kent have a super bladder to hold it all in?
Anyway, I can let the suit underneath slide… but where is that cape hanging out? Back pocket? Does he stuff it down the legs of his pants? Maybe that’s why he’s so clumsy? I had kind of forgotten about my pet theory until we went to see Superman Returns this weekend. That shot where Clark steps into the elevator and then flies straight up the elevator shaft, shedding his street clothes behind him, I started asking myself again… "Where did that cape come from?"
Another thing – is Clark just leaving clothes all over the city? In elevator shafts, phone booths, alleyways…. You’d think the Daily Planet would be reporting about a serial streaker in Metropolis! Wouldn’t he be leaving his wallet and ID behind everytime he soars into action as Superman? I imagine Clark Kent’s new clothes bill must be astronomical.
Heh, heh… I’m shattering the whole illusion for all of you, aren’t I?
Okay, enough of that crap. Onto Superman Returns. What did I think? Well, at risk of appearing lazy, I would say this recent strip from PvP sums up my opinion quite nicely. When we left the theater, I actually told Cami "I want to be Superman when I grow up." Dear God… Who doesn’t?
Something about that John Williams theme song just makes you want to leap in front of an out of control frieght train and stop it with your bare hands. All that zipping and zooming around the stratosphere makes me want to fly home.
The effects in Superman Returns were stunning. Absolutely seemless. Everything The Man of Steel did on screen was something I had been aching to see. Sure, the other Superman films showed him in flight, but not at 700 miles per hour. Amazing stuff.
Complaints? Nothing you probably haven’t read before. It’s a little long. It takes a while before we see Brandon Routh in costume. Kate Bosworth is nothing like any version of Lois Lane you’ve ever read about or seen performed by any other actress – and that’s not a compliment. Kal Penn is given NOTHING to do as Luthor’s henchman. NO SPEAKING LINES! Why is he even in the movie? He probably doesn’t care. Residuals from this flick will pay out for the rest of his life.
Good things about the movies? I felt both Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey were right at home in their respective roles. There was never a moment where I didn’t believe in Routh as Superman. He put an element of grace and calm into his portrayal that I found very comforting. Sure, he could stand to have been a little older to get that fatherly vibe that Superman exudes, but that’s a quibble. Really, excellent casting all around, except for Bosworth. Parkey Posey hits a home run as Luthor’s arm-candy, Kitty. She does a lot with a role that could have been one-note or insignificant.
The concept of a world without Superman is a great idea in terms of "re-introducing" the character, but it’s never fully explored. He went to see if Krypton was still around. It took him five years to find out it wasn’t. Bummer. They gloss over his exploration, but spend a little too much time in other areas.
The whole question about Lois’ five year old son? Probably not best for me to go into it here. But I have STRONG opinions about it. Trust me on that one.
Poor James Marsden. He should change his name to "James Marginalized." Get’s screwed over in the X-Men franchise, plays the guy that Rachel McAdams DOESN’T pick in The Notebook and he just shuffled to the side here again. The shame of it is, he continues to play increasingly more likeable characters. He just can’t end up with the girl on-screen.
Overall, I left the theater on a high note. Cami and I saw the movie on IMAX which kind of screwed up some of the composition of a handful of shots, so I wouldn’t mind going back and seeing it again on a "regular" screen so I can soak it all in a second time. Other than that, I can’t recommend the movie highly enough.
Hope you guys had a great weekend. I’ve got the day off today, so I’m going to work on a new design for Theater Hopper. It’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while, but it’s been difficult to find the time to take a swing at it. Wish me luck!
You might be wondering who the nebbish young man Jimmy is talking to in this strip. He is as Jimmy addresses him. His name is Cecil and he works at the movie theater!
I have no idea if I’ll ever use Cecil again. I would have used Victor, but since he’s the manager of the theater and in the position of authority, I would have been forced to use him to deliver all of the dialogue. I would have hated to do that. I prefer to keep Victor as mute and menacing as possible. So, to solve the problem, I put Jimmy in the driver’s seat and gave him someone that even HE could push around!
I don’t know if I got everything I wanted out of this joke. All I know is that when I saw the trailer for Code Name: The Cleaner, I could already imagine the sarcastic tone of the reviews. “Cedric The Entertainer is the star of Code Name: The Cleaner and he more than lives up to the title. He makes sure all the theaters are cleaned out on opening night!” Seriously, this thing has “DUD” written all over it. How do movies like this get the green light. It certainly can be on the limited charm of someone like Cedric The Entertainer.
I don’t have a lot to share today except to give you guys the heads up that we’re bringing back the talkcast next Monday, January 8th at 9:00 PM CST. There will be a little graphic in the upper left hand corner above the comic to remind you. That’s where you can expect to see important site news in the new redesign, so keep your eyes peeled.
I will be co-hosting with Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex. We feel like we really hit on something during the last talkcast we were all together in and this time we’re going to give it a try with a bit more spit and polish. We’re going to try to keep the show to an hour and we’ll have specific topics to cover. In between segments, we plan on taking your calls. For the most part, we’ll be talking about movies. But there will also probably be a little discussion about our web comics as well.
One problem we’re having is trying to figure out a name for our broadcast. We figure if we’re going to make a serious attempt at this, we need a catchy name. We’re tripping over ourselves trying to come up with one. I keep thinking of movies with the word “three” in the title. Three Men and a Baby. Three the Hard Way, so on and so forth. “Trifecta” was a word that cropped up that we all liked, but we can’t anchor it to a concept that says “Hey, we talk about movies and draw web comics!”
Do you guys have any ideas? If so, leave them in the comments.
I also want to take the opportunity to remind everyone to sign up for the mailing list. I’m making a habit of sending an update notice with every comic, so it’s a handy little reminder if you don’t make Theater Hopper a daily visit LIKE YOU SHOULD!…
Anyway, sign up and I’ll be sure to send you a note about the talkcast next week. We’d love to have as many people participating as possible! It’s a fun show!
Not too many movie plans for Cami and I this weekend. That is, unless one of her girlfriends gives the baby a DVD to watch, or something. Saturday is the baby shower. I’m looking at it on the calendar and saying to myself “Already?” The fact that the shower is tomorrow indicates that the baby will be here VERY soon. We weren’t really thinking about it at all during the month of December – what with the holidays and everything. But pretty soon January will be over with and then come Valentine’s Day, we can expect to bring our baby boy home. It won’t be long now!
That’s about it for me. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Sorry I didn’t have another Grindhouse comic for you guys today. But I think I ran through all of my ideas last week! Didn’t get a chance to see it and it doesn’t look like that many of you guys did, either! A disappointing fourth place take this weekend at the box office. Surprising, for one of the most heavily-hyped films of the year. No so surprising within the context of a major Christian holiday weekend. Whoops!
If you saw Grindhouse this weekend, leave your comments after the blog. I’d love to hear what you thought! Sounds like people are really responding to the ending in Tarantino’s Death Proof. Don’t spoil it – but what did you think?
I’m sure Gordon, Joe and I will talking about Grindhouse and it’s impact (or lack thereof) up and down The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST. If you have the druthers, join us over at TalkShoe while we take your calls and answer your questions. What went wrong? What went RIGHT?! Listen in tonight at 9:00 PM CST for the answers!
Disturbia starring Shia LaBeouf comes out this weekend and I know people who are genuinely excited to see it. To them I say “Good for you?”
Look, don’t kid yourselves. This is a total rip off of Rear Window. I’m not saying Hitchcock got their first with stories about voyeurs seeing things they aren’t supposed to see. But he did it best. CERTAINLY one of the best suspense films of all time, completely bastardized by filmmakers who are going to ratchet up the gore, throw in some lame T&A and occasionally have David Morse jump out of the shadows at you. This is Rear Window without a brain.
One of the best decisions Hitchcock ever made was to handicap Jimmy Stuart’s character with a broken leg. Smarter still, he doesn’t leave his apartment to confront the murderer until he absolutely has to – and even then, it’s for something like 5 minutes.
Disturbia tries to leverage something similar by putting their teenage protagonist under house arrest. They did this in a effort to make him edgy, I guess. Too far out of bounds and the cops come to haul our little punk to the pokey. Sure. Like that’s stopped anyone. Or like cops have nothing better to do than to patrol lazy suburban confines for the errant house arrest escapee.
Everything about the trailers for this movie make me want to retch. From the blood splatter across windows and torture implements in the basement, to the too-cute punny title, to the over-earnestness of Shia LeBeouf begging to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, this film reeks of cheap tricks and imitation.
Do yourselves a favor – instead of seeing Disturbia this weekend, rent Rear Window and see how it’s done. You can keep your MTV and your fancy iPoo-poos! I’ll take the classics!
That is all!
Happy Friday the 13th, everyone? Doing a good job of avoiding black cats, ladders and Jason Voorhees? Good for you!
As you can see, this is the continuation of my Perfect Strangers comic from Wednesday. I don’t know why, but I just thought it would be funny to cast Victor as a being from a village small enough in the Ukraine that they might actually worship a character from a 1980’s sitcom. No offense to anyone of Ukrainian heritage. Call it the Borat effect. People don’t really think Kazakhstan is like that. It’s all in good fun.
I’ll fess up and admit that Wednesday’s comic was pretty much the exposition needed to get to today’s punchline. I came up with “Thou shalt not be ridiculous” and worked backwards from there. Yeah, it’s kind of the same joke. But there’s humor in repetition sometimes. Give me a break. It’s a slow week!
Here’s some good news: I learned this week that my local comic book shop will be playing host to a 24 Hour Comic Day event next Saturday and I’m going to participate! I’ve always read the exploits of my contemporaries who do the 24 Hour Comic thing and I was always jealous. Finally, someone has taken the steps to organize our own event and I’m not going to miss it.
Originally I was planning on putting together the Theater Hopper origin story that’s been bouncing around in my head for a few years. But after consulting a few good friends, they talked me out of it. The catch in participating in this thing is to have 24 sheets of 11 x 17″ paper drawn, inked and lettered. I don’t want to hand-letter this story. It’s too important. Plus, there’s a strong likelihood that I’m going to run out of gas around hour 22 and I don’t want the last two pages looking like I was asleep at the wheel.
So, anyway, I tried to come up with a few other options. I had an idea for a story about Jimmy getting the day off. Except he doesn’t want the day off and keeps trying to sneak back into work. Not really original, but it’s a start.
Then I had an idea about Tom literally theater hopping into another dimension or into the movies themselves. He would take on the characteristics of people in the films he “jumps” into like Quantum Leap before going into another one. I couldn’t figure out what the point of that one would be, though.
So I talked to Cami about it and she suggested doing something completely different – a comic about our lives in 2006. A more personal story. Cami getting her Master’s Degree, our trip to Europe, our pregnancy and end it with Henry being born. I’m really warming up to that idea. I think it would be something special.
I don’t know. What do you guys think? Want to brainstorm with me a while? Leave your ideas in the comments field. Tell me what you think!
I’ll admit that the idea for Ocean’s 1 through 10 as verbal confusion probably isn’t a new one and that most of you probably look at this joke like “Yeah, and?…”
But you know in the back of your mind that somewhere out there some dim-witted fella is sitting in a shack somewhere HONESTLY trying to figure out why he can’t remember seeing Ocean’s 1 through 10.
Whatever. I’m enjoying the concept of today’s comic – that Jimmy longs so hard to fit in, he tries to engage Tom with some sarcasm. But it’s just too forced. I like that Tom is kind of playing along without flat out calling him an idiot.
Jimmy isn’t really an idiot, of course. It’s just that wit isn’t his stock and trade. Being nice is what he’s best at and that’s pretty much it.
Ocean’s 13 comes out this weekend and Cami and I are excited to see it. Ocean’s 11 was a film we admire for it’s relaxed, high-polish cool. Even though most critics lambasted Ocean’s 12 as being bloated and overdone, we still enjoyed it’s Euro-trash sensibilities.
Admittedly, I was a little surprised that they brought the action back to Vegas. In this installment, Ocean’s gang isn’t out for money, but out for revenge when their financier played by Elliott Gould is muscled out of a new casino by the oily Al Pacino. So while I questioned the location as an attempt to undo what went wrong with Ocean’s 12, the revenge concept captures my attention more than if it were a straight up heist film.
I guess they managed to wrangle up David Levin and Brian Koppelman to do the screenplay. Their names might not be familiar, but they were the two writers who did Rounders – another movie about gambling with Matt Damon in it. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Ed Norton delivers a great performance it in as well.
At any rate, seeing those two attached to Ocean’s 13 also excites me simply because Rounders did such a good job with the double crosses and the sharp dialogue. If you consider the law of diminishing returns on most sequels, it’ll probably be an appropriate shot in the arm to have these two on duty.
I don’t know if you had a chance to listen to Monday’s broadcast of The Triple Feature, but if you didn’t you missed a doozy. I think we had a great show on Monday and we really covered a lot of ground. The show went long by about 20 minutes, but not one of them was wasted. If you want to get our opinions about Knocked Up, Once, Mr. Brooks and Day Watch, go to our profile page at TalkShoe.com and download the most recent episode. Your ears will thank you for it.
Just want to give everyone the head’s up now that next Monday will be our 25th episode and we plan on celebrating by discussing the best movies of the year so far and the movies we’re most looking forward to before closing out 2007. We figured it’s just about the half-way point, so now would be a good time to do it.
We really want a lot of people to call in and give us their opinions about what movies they think have been the best so far this year. So if you want to participate, all you have to do is sign up for a TalkShoe account – don’t worry, it’s free – call 724-444-7444 about 15 minutes before showtime. It’ll ask you for the show’s Talkcast ID which is 7738 and your password – which will probably be your phone number when you create your account.
You don’t need a complicated set up on your computer to listen to the show. You can call in with a cell phone or land line if you want. But if you want to let us know that you’re interested in talking to us live, you’ll need to utilize the TalkShoe application to notify us.
If anyone is scared about how to set things up, there are tons of resources on the Talkshoe site. Or you could e-mail me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com and I’ll help walk you through it. What’s important is that we want everyone to be there. We want to spread the word and make it a big party!
In honor of the occassion, we’ve launched a MySpace page for The Triple Feature that you can access here. Friend us and we’ll send you a reminder the day of the show.
Sound cool? Cool!
That’s it for me. Have a great Wednesday!
Gone Baby Gone comes out this weekend and it’s about a pair of Boston cops whose personal and professional lives unravel as they try and solve the mystery of a missing 4 year-old girl.
If the setting and the police procedural sound somewhat familiar, it should. The author of the novel from which the movie has been adapted is Dennis Lehane – the same guy who wrote Clint Eastwood’s 2003 award-winner Mystic River.
Not only is true that Ben Affleck is behind the lens on this one, but he also adapted the screenplay, finally returning to the screenwriting roots that won him an Oscar ten years ago for Good Will Hunting.
I have to give points for the casting on this one. Any movie with Ed Harris gets my attention. That goes double for Morgan Freeman (as long as it isn’t Evan Almighty). I’ll tuck in for a Morgan Freeman movie even if he’s narrating.
Casey Affleck is getting good notices for his performances in this one. It’s odd that my mind doesn’t leap to nepotism when Casey Affleck is starring in a Ben Affleck film, but he’s just that good. Who would have guessed that Casey Affleck would not only have grown out of the shadow of his brother, but have Oscar talk swirling around two performances in one year (the other being The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the elder Affleck lately and how he plugs into the Theater Hopper mythology. Long time readers of the comic know that he’s been a punching bag for us going on four years.
It was all good fun for a while. Remember, this was at the height of the whole “Bennifer” media craze. Plus, he was churning out a lot of crap movies at the time. So he was very easy to hate.
Clearly his time with Jennifer Lopez has made him a little camera shy in recent years. I think he’s done the smart thing by marrying Jennifer Garner and not talking about it, having a baby girl and not talking about it and keeping a low profile by taking bit parts in movies like Hollywoodland.
That said, it’s becoming harder and harder to hate Ben Affleck for the things he does. These days he doesn’t DO anything! That’s why I’m wondering out loud if I should maybe transfer Jared’s hatred onto a more timely celebrity.
I think I have a storyline in me that will tackle this subject and I think I’m going to try and make a play for it next week.
This actually dovetails into something else I wanted to talk about. I hinted at it on Wednesday and now I need to spill the beans.
As you may or may not know, Theater Hopper has been regionally syndicated in the youth publication Juice for the last year or so. It’s available in and around the Des Moines area and is a sister publication to the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register.
After next week, Theater Hopper will no longer appear in Juice. The publication does not have a local reviewer due to the difficulty they’ve had working with local theaters. As such, they’re scaling back their movie section and expanding their style section and Theater Hopper has been dropped as a result.
I realize that, for the majority of you, this information does not impact you in the slightest. But what you don’t know is that if you’re a fan of this comic, it affects you significantly.
In the last year or so, have any of you noticed that I haven’t attempted a significant or lengthy storyline? Sure, there’s been the occasional 3 or 4 strip arc. But nothing in terms of character progression like Jimmy losing his job, introducing Charlie or the time Tom got a monkey?
There’s a specific reason for that.
While Theater Hopper was running in Juice, I made the conscious decision to avoid lengthy storylines or continuity of any form largely due to the fact that I only had enough time to produce three strips a week and one of them was being repurposed for Juice. I couldn’t do a longer storyline because the people reading Juice didn’t know anything about the character histories and would not understand the narrative. So, instead, I stuck to a gag-a-day format and fell into a pattern.
If you were a cynical bastard, you could call this “selling out” – limiting one’s creative output for monetary compensation.
You would be right. I wouldn’t argue you on that point.
Don’t misunderstand me. I was grateful for the opportunity to have my comic in a print publication that was produced locally and shared with a wider audience that I would never have access to otherwise. I will ALWAYS be grateful for that.
But it never sat well with me that I couldn’t do a longer storyline or that I didn’t have the free time or creativity to come up with another solution.
I could have walked away. I could have quit at any time. But I didn’t. What would you do if someone was giving you free money? I was a sell out.
I’m actually kind of relieved that my comics are no longer appearing in Juice because it takes the decision out of my hands. I could have never willfully walked away from the opportunity or the compensation. But now that they’ve made that decision for me, it’s a lot off my mind.
So now Theater Hopper is going in another direction. I suppose there was no reason to tell you why. I could have just let the change in the storytelling speak for itself. But I guess I wanted to get it off of my chest. If there was ever anyone out there reading the comic and thinking I was just going through the motions, I wanted to let them know the reasons why.
Now that everything is out on the table and I can go in any direction I want, I feel liberated. I just wanted to share that.
I think I’ll leave it at that.
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you here Monday, fresh as a daisy!
So today’s comic is a continuation of the story arc I kicked off last Friday in which Jared has a crisis of faith in the wake of Ben Affleck’s directorial debut of Gone Baby Gone. Lest you think I’m pumping up the quality of this picture to service the needs of my story, check out the 93% positive rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. It’s got to count for something.
I know today’s comic doesn’t exactly deliver the funny. But sometimes you have to sacrifice a day for the greater good of the story. Jimmy getting thrown out of his house (lo, those many years ago) didn’t exactly illicit chortles, either.
Exposition, folks. Exposition.
As to why I’m going back to storylines, if you didn’t read last Friday’s blog, I strongly encourage you to do so. I posted it a little last week and it explains a lot. Including stuff going on behind the scenes that prevented me from doing what I’m doing now.
Back to movie talk (sort of), I didn’t get a chance to see Gone Baby Gone this weekend. I mostly spent my time catching up on household duties after being in Chicago last week. I had kind of let the grass grow in our yard a little too long before I left and then we got a full week of rain. So I spent about 2 hours mowing, re-mowing, raking up clippings and fertilizing the front yard and another 3 hours the next day doing the same in the backyard. Plus, I had to clean out the garage and, well… isn’t the minutia of suburban living interesting?
At any rate, if you want to see some photos of a walkabout I took in The Windy City, I posted them to my Flickr account. I was bitching and moaning about it in my personal LiveJournal about it all last week, if that interests you. It might give you some context, especially about the crap-tastic Congress Hotel, where I stayed.
Incidentally, while I was in Chicago last week, I hung out with Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex and we tried to get our weekly installment of The Triple Feature talkcast off the ground with our good friend Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Talkshoe was broken, or something, so we had to abandon the show. But we’re giving it another try tonight! So be sure to participate this evening at 9:00 PM CST. Hopefully we won’t have any problems!
That’s about it on my end. See you Wednesday!