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Posts Tagged ‘4th of July’

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Jul07

YOU NEED TO BE ACCOMPLISHED

July 7th, 2008 | by Tom
  • Comics
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(7 votes, average: 8.57 out of 10)
YOU NEED TO BE ACCOMPLISHED

I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing with the punchline of today’s comic or why I decided to throw in a very timely reference to Cool Hand Luke. I think I’m trying to maintain a level of wackiness and randomness that is simply not sustainable. If you want to read a funnier comic about Hancock, check out Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Their comic has references to Kate & Leopold, Themla & Louise AND Mallrats! View it here.

Oh, well. At least The Paper looks kind of good rendered like that.

Hancock was the big box office winner over the 4th of July holiday with a $66 million take. I kind of rolled my eyes when I heard the news. For the reason why, read my anti-Will Smith rant from Friday.

This is completely petty, but I was kind of hoping it would fail. Or, in the very least, not outpace Wall-E by two to one. Wall-E took in $33 million, down almost 50% from it’s opening weekend.

Cami and I finally had an opportunity to see Wall-E on Friday and I am over the moon about it. Without a doubt one of the smartest Pixar movies to date. I don’t even feel like I can review it properly because I’m still kind of processing it.

The film is a visual feast and looks almost photo-realistic in parts. If you go back and compare Wall-E against Toy Story, it makes Pixar’s first attempt look absolutely plastic by comparison. And, yes – I know the movie is about toys made of plastic, but you know what I mean. It looks lifeless. Even roaming around on a dead planet, Wall-E’s environments look more thorough, alive and immersive than anything Pixar has done to date.

I question whether the movies themes about environmental responsibility, personal accountability, the over-reliance of technology and the threats of mass consumerism run amok goes over the head of children. I don’t meant to marginalize Wall-E with the stigma of being “a chlidren’s film” The success of Pixar’s formula has always been scripts that pitch their concepts a little higher than your average animated fare. But with Wall-E, have the overshot the target completely?

Kids are smarter than we give them credit for and understand much more than we recognize, but I still think an adult will find Wall-E more cinematically nutritious than a child would find entertaining. There are LARGE gaps in the story where there is *no* dialogue being exchanged and 20 minutes of nothing happening can feel like an eternity to a kid.

All I know is, Wall-E is a movie that I’m going to have to see twice because I was getting to lost in the universe director Andrew Stanton created, I fear there were details that I missed. Any movie that creates a world as epic as Wall-E and entices you to come back to revisit it deserves a second look. Never mind the fact that Pixar basically got me to become emotionally invested in robots. Inanimate objects! AGAIN! How do they do it?

We neglected to share too many specifics when Gordon and I talked about Wall-E last week on The Triple Feature. We wanted to hold back a little bit until both Joe and I had seen it because we mutually felt that we’d be on the same page with our reactions. With a week and a holiday under out belt and recovered from Wizard World Chicago, I think we’re ready for the deep dive this week.

Be sure to listen to The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com as we talk more about Wall-E, Wanted and, of course, Hancock.

See you there!

└ Tags: 4th of July, Cool Hand Luke, eggs, Hancock, jealousy, Paul Newman, The Paper, weekend, Will Smith
[ No Comments ]
Jul03

THE GUNPOWDER IS LIKE SALT

July 3rd, 2009 | by Tom
  • Comics
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(43 votes, average: 8.26 out of 10)
THE GUNPOWDER IS LIKE SALT

Even though they aren’t explicitly movie-related, I love drawing comics about the 4th of July because I love making fun of the absurdity of Americans.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my country and I understand the significance of the holiday. But as Americans, we have a certain proclivity of abstracting holidays and assigning new meanings to them.

President’s Day has become more about buying cheap linens at JC Penny’s then celebrating George Washington or Abe Lincoln. Memorial Day has become more commonly recognized as the official kick-off of summer rather than a solemn remembrance of those in the Armed Forces. Hell, in this country, the Super Bowl is practically a holiday! The 4th of July has basically become an excuse to celebrate our country by means of blowing up a small chunk of it.

At any rate, I’m cutting this blog short because I was up WAAAAY too late applying effects to today’s comic and my mind is shot. I had planned on posting a review of Public Enemies (which I saw on Wednesday), but that will have to wait.

To tide you over, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version – The movie is surprisingly long at 2 and a half hours and it isn’t traditional popcorn fare. If you’re a fan of Johnny Depp, you’ll love the movie. He owns it and pretty much 80% of it features him in some context. It makes sense to me now why Christian Bale wasn’t promoted more in the advertising and trailers. He’s barely in this movie. Similar to how Michael Mann yanked us around in Heat, Depp and Bale have only one scene together and it’s about 2 minutes long. So if you were looking forward to Bale going head-to-head with Depp like he did with Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, prepare to be disappointed.

I have a little bit more to say about the supporting performances and the interesting gangland-era personalities that were mixed into the story. Oh, and the “controversy” of Mann shooting the film with digital video. But I’ll leave that for later. Right now, I have to go to bed. Gotta rest up for Saturday so I can put a crater in my backyard with high explosives!

Everyone in America, enjoy the holiday. For Theater Hopper readers elsewhere in the world, have a great weekend!

Talk to you soon!

└ Tags: 4th of July, fireworks, Orville Redenbocker, popcorn
[ 12 Comments ]

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