Posts Tagged ‘Johnny Depp’

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POTC: ON STRANGER TIDES – TRAILER

by Tom on December 13, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Posted In: Bonus Materials
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Johnny Depp's performance as Captain Jack Sparrow has become a cultural touchstone and the casting of Ian McShane as the pirate Blackbeard is inspired.

Yet, I can't seem to muster up the enthusiasm needed to properly anticipate the fourth chapter of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Maybe I'm still experiencing burnout from the back-to-back wallop of POTC: Dead Man's Chest and POTC: At World's End from a few years back. But I think I'm mostly cool to POTC: On Stranger Tides because it looks like such a blatant money grab, it fails to inspire.

If anything, it makes me want to go back and watch POTC: The Curse of The Black Pearl - a perfectly satisfying adventure film that was less concerned about establishing a perfunctory mythology that the characters could inhabit.

At any rate, here's the new trailer. What are your thoughts?

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SHOTGUN BLUES

by Tom on March 5, 2010 at 12:00 am
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(48 votes, average: 8.94 out of 10)
Alice in Wonderland, Johnny Depp, Mad Hatter, makeup, shotgun, Revlon

Pop culture savvy readers should have no trouble recognizing The Simpsons reference in today's comic. It's Homer's revolutionary makeup gun from episode 5F21 - "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace!"

Do I like The Simpsons? Um, yeah. Like, a lot.

I know it's kind of shameless to lift a joke like this, but I can't look at Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter and think of anything else. The makeup is so scatter-shot and sloppy. It looks like he visited a nursing home and told the ladies to "go wild" giving him a makeover.

I know this is kind of stupid, but the vacancy in Depp's stare as afforded to him by those contact lenses really bugs me. Yeah, I get that he's supposed to be, y'know, insane. So a little vacancy is appropriate. But what usually makes Depp's characters interesting to me is that they either know they're insane and play into it or they know they're insane and don't care. His characters have a foundation of intelligence that elevates them a little bit.

From what I've seen of Depp's performance in the trailers and commercials indicates to me that it's basically him prancing around, hooting and hollering for the length of the movie. There's no substance.

I guess that's my problem with Alice in Wonderland in general. I've never been a fan of the material. What is fun or interesting about portraying insanity in a way that is untethered to real-life circumstances. It's silly for the sake of being silly.

I read Owen Gleiberman's review in Entertainment Weekly and I thought he hit on a particular truth. "Once Alice tumbles into Wonderland, everyone she meets is, if not certifiable, then a blithely self-absorbed, nattering crackpot-narcissist. The book is a visionary satire of the newly emerging modern world, in which everyone is really babbling to no one but themselves. The challenge of adapting Alice in Wonderland is this: How do you create relationships, a story, a purpose out of a tale whose prime purpose is not to have one?"

I guess I'm skeptical that Burton and Depp can assign any significance to the material beyond the visual punch.

I've likely beat this dead horse into dust by this point, so I'll hang it up for now. If anyone here sees Alice in Wonderland, I'd love to hear your opinons. You can leave them in the comments section below!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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GREAT PAIRINGS

by Tom on March 4, 2010 at 12:00 am
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(22 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, reassurance, collaboration, Billy Wilder, Jack Lemon, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, John Ford, John Wayne, Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat

So here's the comic from Wednesday that I owe you. If you were keeping up with the blog, you'll know the reason the comic was delayed was due to a job interview I wanted to prepare for. I also wanted to make sure I got the proper amount of sleep.

I'm pretty sure most of you don't know what my schedule is like. Frankly, you don't need to know because it's boring and self-serving to share it. But in this case, I'll make an exception because I want you to understand.

Typically, I produce the comic the evening before it goes live on the site. Sometimes I'll be able to get ahead of it a little by doing the pencils and inks over my lunch hour at my day job. But when I get home, it usually isn't until after 8:00 that we manage to get Henry and Pearl settled down for the night. When you consider the everyday household chores that need to be done after that, there's actually a very small window that I can work on the comic.

On Tuesday nights, I have night classes, so that window is even smaller. Instead of beating myself up trying to get a comic done for Wednesday, I thought it made more sense to prepare for my interview and get a good night's sleep.

I didn't receive any complaints and you guys have been more than supportive, so thank you. I just wanted to explain because, well, I felt like I owed you at least that much.

As for the job interview... How did it go? Frankly, I thought it went great. It really couldn't have gone any better.

I don't want to get into details because I don't want to jinx it. Plus, as a rule, I don't like to talk about work-related things online. You can't be too careful.

Let's just say it went very well and I'll let you know how things turn out. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Now, let's talk about the comic!

I was really pounding my head against the wall on this one because I didn't know how to build on what I had established with Monday's comic. Complicating matters, I came up with a great idea for a comic that I could use on Friday. So I was kind of caught between and a hard place.

I have to admit I was surprised by the feedback I received on Monday's comic in the comments area. I expected some push back from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp fans. That's fine. What I didn't expect where the people who were saying "Thank you! I've felt this way about Burton and Depp for years, but couldn't find the words." That's kind of a weird feeling.

I try to address certain truths with my humor. After all, what generally makes something funny is when several people recognize the same truth that they don't typically address. The ol' "He's saying what we're all thinking!" formula. I aim for that, but it manifests itself in the relationship humor I explore with Tom and Cami. Usually it doesn't crop up in this kind of commentary about actors or directors. So it caught me a little off guard.

It sparked a debate, though - which I like. But I felt like if Tom was going to take the "anti" Burton/Depp stance, Jared needed to be the counter balance.

And, so, I did some research.

Check out this Wiki of director/actor collaborations. It's mind-boggling. Some of them get tossed out because the pairings worked together on a string of sequels. Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, for example. But some of these partnerships appear very genuine.

Of course, my complaint with Burton and Depp isn't that they've collaborated so many times. Just that there is a sameness to what they've produced. But, being fair, can I really argue that John Ford and John Wayne didn't do the same thing? Or Scorsese and DeNiro, for that matter. It's food for thought.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today's comic. If you have anything you'd like to add, feel free to leave your comments below.

Until then, be sure to come back tomorrow for a brand new comic!

Thanks again!

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IMAGINATION ON AN INFINITE LOOP

by Tom on March 1, 2010 at 12:00 am
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(34 votes, average: 8.59 out of 10)
Sweeny Todd, The Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, collaboration, Mark Wahlberg

...and, of course, everyone remembers that Tim Burton and Mark Wahlberg last collaborated with each other in 2001's disastrous remake of Planet of the Apes.

Before I begin with this rant, let me say that I love Tim Burton and I love Johnny Depp. I think they are two of the most interesting and idiosyncratic artists working in Hollywood today.

That said, regarding their myriad of collaborations, I think Depp is the one who is going to walk away with his reputation in tact when it's all over. Because, unlike Burton, he actually works with other people from time to time. He's still a risk-taker. He's still viable.

Meanwhile, Burton has been stuck in a loop for almost a decade. Big Fish was the last time Burton worked with anyone who wasn't Johnny Depp and that was in 2003. He's made 4 films since then and each of them feature Depp as a pasty, googlely-eyed weirdo.

I mean, it makes sense that Burton would continue to the well so many times. The formula works. When Burton and Depp last collaborated in 2007's Sweeny Todd, it resulted in huge box office receipts and Oscar nominations. It's hard to turn your back on that. I understand that.

My problem with the pairing is that Burton has branded himself as an inventive Hollywood outsider whose singular vision and creativity simply cannot be contained. But his track record reflects and artist who has become complacent and predictable. Not only is this exemplified by his partnership with Depp, but with his reliance on Helena Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman as well.

Certainly I understand the value of a director who prefers to work with specific artists. Scorsese had DeNiro (now, DiCaprio). Steve Spielberg uses John Williams's music in nearly every movie he makes. These elements become part of a director's style and help audiences to easily identify their work.

But when it comes to Burton, I don't look forward to his movies anymore because they all feel exactly the same.

I think if you had told me Burton was going to do a version of Alice in Wonderland 10 years ago, I would have been over the moon. The subject matter fits perfectly inside his wheelhouse. What is Burton if not a modern-day equivalent to Lewis Carroll? A fanciful dandy bursting with imaginative visions trapped by insecurity? Burton has carried Carrol's flag for a long, long time. There is no other living director that could possibly do Alice in Wonderland justice like Burton could.

But now, with so many "dark" and "twisted" fairy tales under his belt, I feel like Burton is incapable of bringing anything new to Alice in Wonderland. Certainly not to the extent that it could overcome what is probably most widely considered the strongest visual reference point for the book - that being Disney's 1951 animated version. At least, that's what I first think of when I first think of Alice in Wonderland.

At this point, any addition arguments I make would just be me circling back on myself. Like I said, I GET why Burton and Depp continue to work with each other. There's clearly an audience for it and I understand why audiences would be invested in it. Who hasn't felt like an outsider at some point in their lives? Burton and Depp speak to this explicitly.

All I'm saying is that Burton's brand as an inventive film maker doesn't really hold water under scrutiny because he makes the same movies over and over again.

So, in my opinion, he should either stop adapting the work of others and go back to telling original stories or he should work with different actors to at least create the ILLUSION that he's branching out.

Because if you aren't growing as an artist, what's the point? If it's just about the paycheck, you might as well be McG.

What are your thoughts about Alice in Wonderland? Are you looking forward to it? Am I wrong about Burton? Leave your comments below!

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I’VE BEEN TWELVE FOR 20 YEARS

by Tom on July 1, 2009 at 12:00 am
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(51 votes, average: 5.39 out of 10)
Public Enemies, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, pubic, lick, mispronounciation, immaturity, twelve

I could have gone one of two ways with this comic. But since I already went with the "obvious porn title" gag in my comic for Inside Man, I decided to indulge my immaturity by having fun with phonetics. Yeah, it's kind of a cheap gag. But no one seems to complain when Family Guy appeals to the lowest common denominator!

I'm excited for Public Enemies for a myriad of reasons. Mostly because I'm a huge Michael Mann fan and I'm pretty much convinced Johnny Depp and Christian Bale can do no wrong.

It'll be interesting to see how Mann adapts his auteur style to a 1930s period piece (if he bothers to adapt it at all) and I hope he doesn't pull another stunt like he did in Heat where he kept his two principal leads apart for all but 5 minutes of the movie. We'll just have to wait and see.

Oddly, Cami has no interest in seeing this movie because she's pretty much convinced that Christian Bale is the biggest tool on Earth. She formed this opinion years before his infamous rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation. She's never liked the guy - which I think is a shame. I think we need more actors like Bale. Even when he delivers a performance that misfires, he never does anything half way. I admire his discipline.

Not much else for me to talk about this morning, but expect a post later in the day talking about my pre-order drive on the Spoiler Alert! t-shirt and the Theater Hopper: Year Three book. Instead of the graphic I created for the blog, I'm going to make a little cosmetic change to the site in the header to call more attention to this initiative.

Talk to you soon!

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DVD REVIEW – POTC: AT WORLD’S END

by Tom on December 4, 2007 at 7:42 pm
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, DVD, review, Johnny Depp, Geoffery Rush, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightly, Orlando Bloom

Just in time for the holiday season, the studios are trotting out their summer blockbusters on DVD. Disney proves the rule with it's release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End out on DVD today.

Much like it's sometimes murky and crowded predecessor, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End plays a little bit better on the small screen. The amazingly rich details of the sets and effects work are kept somewhat more within a controllable scope on the small screen. It really allows you to drink everything in an appreciate the more subtle aspects of what is otherwise a bombastic action thriller.

Unfortunately, some things don't improve with a reduced scope. While the performances of Johnny Depp, Geoffery Rush and Bill Nighy are largely bulletproof. Rush particularly attacks his roll of Barbosa with zeal. Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom are as wooden as ever. Dialog is stilted, themes are muddled and there are so many interwoven plot points, it's difficult to keep track (or care.) The issues I had with how the film was put together back in May still hold true here. For more detail on those opinions, you can read my original review here.

So why review At World's End on DVD? Presumably for the extras! After all, this is a special 2-disc "limited edition" copy of the film that is apparently going back in the vault on September 30, 2008. If it's so limited, one would think that the extras are spectacular, right?

Well, not quite.

"Bloopers of the Caribbean" is your standard collection of actors flubbing lines, tripping over the set and asking to "go again" - but not saying anything particularly clever or entertaining. There are only two deleted scenes that were cut for good reason and are equally as boring.

The rest of the bonus features are largely behind-the-scenes documentaries. Some are total fluff, meant to stroke the egos of their subjects - one about Chow Yun Fat and the other about Keith Richards. Much has been made about Johnny Depp's inspiration for Jack Sparrow coming from the perennial Rolling Stone's guitarist. But it's evident in their interview while sitting side-by-side, Depp is trying to extend as much courtesy and politeness to Richards as possible. Meanwhile, his eyes are screaming "THIS GUY IS NUTS!"

I suppose, in hindsight, that's kind of entertaining.

A few documentaries were interesting, but not entirely up my alley. "The Pirate Maestro: The Music of Hanz Zimmer" and a documentary about Penny Rose, the film's costume designer were expertly done and add another layer of enjoyment to the film, but didn't fire up my imagination.

The documentaries under the "Masters of Design" series focus on the propmasters behind Sau Feng's map, Teague's Code Book and the dressing of the Singapore set shot for the opening of the film are fascinating explorations into the level of detail provided for the film. The short on Crash McCreery and his design work on Davy Jone's and his cursed crew was breathtaking. As spoken by one of the interviewees during one of the documentaries "these guys are winning Academy Awards for a reason."

The big documentary is "Anatomy of a Scene: The Maelstrom" and it has to be seen to be believed. Two full-scale replicates of The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman were built inside a warehouse for the film's climatic sea battle. To see the amount of detail, practical effects and integration with computer effects is mind-boggling and a real treat for people who are looking for ways to deconstruct scenes. Everything from the filming to the editing is on display here and it really gives you a sense of the enormous amount of strategic planning that goes into orchestrating these things.

In fact, I would even go so far to say that it bumped up my respect for the film a few notches. Sure the script had holes in it and the characterization was a little weak. But that's not exactly why you watch these movies, is it? When you see the great level of care that comes into the process of creating something that has never been seen on-screen before, it forces you to reassess what it is you're trying to take from the experience. In this way, the bonus features succeed.

Is the film worthy of your collection? Completionists like me will demand it, but frankly, it's no go without it's first half - Dead Man's Chest. Disney had great success with the Pirates franchise. Consider how long it had been since the last pirate film of any sort or the likelyhood that another director will attempt to come along and try to top what's been done here, it might be a while before we see another entry in the genre ever again! So, yeah - pick it up. It's a good time.

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REVIEW – PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END

by Tom on May 28, 2007 at 12:00 am
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(3 votes, average: 8.33 out of 10)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Rush, review

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's EndThe Golden Age of Hollywood pirate adventure movies consisted of swash-buckling, swordplay, thin mustaches and derring do. Occasionally, the hunt for buried treasure was thrown in before the hero sailed into the sunset with the girl on his arm.

In the formative years of the franchise, the first film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl did a great job of breathing new life into the genre by mixing in a dash of supernatural tonic. It's tale of cursed Aztec gold and undead skeleton pirates made for a frolicking popcorn blockbuster.

It's sequel, the overlong but technically superior Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest upped the ante by constructing mythology around the Pirates universe and branding an indelible mark on film history by introducing one of it's most memorable villains in the entirely CG-created Davy Jones (performed brilliantly by Bill Nighy).

In the third (and possibly last) movie in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, there was very little territory left to cover and the film dives deep into the metaphysical and surfaces with six kinds of weirdness. What made the originally Pirates inventive and the second compelling feels overdone in the third movie.

At the film's onset, our merry band of sea-faring adventurers - including Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly and Geoffrey Rush - meet with the Pirate Lord of Singapore, Sao Feng (plays with a craggy slither by Chow Yun-Fat). From him they seek an ancient map that will lead them to the the so-called "End of the World" that will literally plunge them into the barren limbo of Davy Jones's Locker. Contained therein is the perpetually loopy Captain Jack Sparrow, whom they seek to rescue.

Nothing about Davy Jones's Locker makes sense. Not the ego-driven hallucinations it seems to inflict on the increasingly unhinged Jack, not the fact that his ship, The Black Pearl, seems to have survived the cross-over in tact and certainly not the oddity of a million rock-shaped crustaceans that billow under the hull of the Pearl, pushing it toward water. All of this non-sense is representative of the bigger problem in At World's End. There's a lot of stuff in the movie that looks really cool, but all of it feels inconsequential because the film either changes the rules of it's universe (or worse) makes it up as it goes along.

Discussing the plot of the movie will do it no service. There are so many double-crosses, hidden agendas and obscured half-truths uttered throughout that it makes it difficult to follow which characters have allegiance with another at any given point in the movie. I wasn't bothered by that so much. I haven't yet mistaken a Pirates of the Caribbean movie for a David Mamet film and I'm not about to start.

What bothered me most about the film is that never once did I feel that any of the characters were in any kind of danger. Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbossa came back to life at the end of the second film. It gives nothing away to say that Captain Jack Sparrow matches the feat when he is rescued from Davy Jone's Locker in this movie. Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio wrote too many loopholes of supernatural origin into the mix. Between the mystical map that leads to the Locker, to Jack's compass that lead's you to your heart's desire, to the 9 pieces of 8, to the sea-goddess Calypso bound in human form to the voodoo priestess Tia Dalma, to the contents of the Dead Man's Chest... Too often characters seem to pull these trinkets or pieces of information out of their back pocket at the last minute to make bargains or back out of sticky situations. In more capable hands, it could be clever. In this instance, it just feels tacked on.

Particularly when we're informed that killing Davy Jones won't end his curse, that his ship - The Flying Dutchman - will ALWAYS need a captain... It's a set up for an emotional payoff later in the film. But it feels like a contrivance that Jones is no longer a singular scourge of the seven seas. That his is some kind of mantle passed down from cursed sailor to cursed sailor. It strips the character of a great deal of individuality and makes it less satisfying when he is finally dispatched.

Geoffrey RushThat's not to say that there aren't a lot of things that the film gets right. The humor that is peppered throughout the film hits it's mark and, as always, the performances from Depp, Rush and Nighy push everything forward. All three of them seem to be having a hell of a time and they're a great deal of fun to watch. Rush, especially - who seems to have returned to his role as Barbossa having sharpened his flinty gaze and reveling in a cathartic madness that is four sheets to the wind.

Visually, the film is astonishing. The Pirates universe has always been one that is very tactile. Set design on this film is beyond compare. The Pirate stronghold of Shipwreck Cove is breathtaking. Davy Jones is an even more emotive, slobbering menace and the sight of a 30' tall woman on the deck of The Black Pearl dissolving into a wave of crabs looks great even if it doesn't make any sense. Anyone who goes to At World's End expecting a feast for the eyes will not be disappointed.

The film has been taken to task for being too long, but I found it much more brisk than Dead Man's Chest even when the film seemed to linger (as each of the scenes set within Davy Jones's Locker.) The only time I stopped to look at my watch was during the final battle - which probably isn't a good thing since this was the sequence that was meant to send the franchise out in a spectacular blaze of glory.

When it's all said and done, the third installment of the Pirates franchise is serviceable as both a conclusion to the series or a potential continuation of it. They left a window open, let's say that. Those of you who might have been frustrated by the first two films will probably have the same complaints with this one. But for those of you that like to play in the sandbox along with all the other unique characters of the series, you'll have a good time.

For more discussion regarding At World's End, be sure to tune in to The Triple Feature talkcast at TalkShoe tonight at 9:00 PM CST where myself, Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex will discuss our reactions of the film. If you saw the movie this weekend, call in with your opinions! We'll be taking your calls live! See you then!

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THE ROMANTIC TENSION IS THERE

by Tom on May 23, 2007 at 12:00 am
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars
(7 votes, average: 8.43 out of 10)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Captain Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, heart, kiss, fan fiction

C'mon guys. You can't deny it. Davy Jones is totally hot for Captain Jack Sparrow. Why do you think he let him go all those times? It's because he wants him to come back to him. A classic tale of unanswered love.

Think about it. What does Sparrow spend more of second movie looking for? Davy Jones's treasure. And what's in Davy Jones's treasure chest? His still-beating heart! Davy Jones is one of the most unintentional emo movie villains of the last 5 years? Don't believe me? You should totally check out his MySpace page. It's full of bad poetry and blog posts about how "the world doesn't understand him." His lists Evanescence as his favorite band.

Loser.

Do you guys like today's comic? I had a lot of fun working on it. Although, I must admit, getting the costuming details right on Sparrow and Jones was difficult. Can't forget that nodule hanging off Jones's face! I think I might have gone a little overboard with the eyeliner on Sparrow, but I like the way the barnacles turned out on Jones. It was a treat to figure it out.

Like most of the free world, I'm planning on seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End this weekend. We have a babysitter lined up. We're going.

I don't think Cami is entirely over the moon about it. When we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, we showed up a little late and had to sit in the front row. You guys know how long that movie is. That's a long time to be staring up Orlando Bloom's nostrils. By the end of it, we had such cricks in our necks, we were miserable. To add insult to injury, Cami was pregnant with Henry at the time. So whenever one of Davy Jones's slimy crew members slithered into a shot, she wanted to blow chunks like she just ate at Long John Silver's.

Switching gears for a second, something I didn't get to talk about in Monday's blog due to my Diggers review was Shrek the Third's $122 million dollar weekend. Interestingly enough, it ranks third as the film with the best opening weekend behind Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Call me cynical, but is anyone else afraid that we're entering into a future where ever few years there will be a new Spider-Man, Shrek or Pirates movie? Consider that between these three movies alone, nearly HALF A BILLION dollars was made in a three day time period. Ignore the complete theatrical run. Ignore the DVD sales. HALF A BILLION for three movies in three days. Insane. I don't think Hollywood can turn their back on that kind of money. These characters will have longer lives than Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees combined!

The Triple Feature talkcast

Something else I neglected to mention because of my review on Monday was the recent installment of The Triple Feature talkcast. I know it's too late to participate in this week's show, but you can always download a copy from TalkShoe. This week we talked about Shrek the Third, At World's End, Diggers and another small movie called Waitress. Joe was back from his vacation tanned, rested and ready to go. We were back up to full strength and it felt good. I really like doing these shows with Joe and Gordon. I look forward to it every week.

Hey, if you're interested in getting a reminder sent to you VIA e-mail when new show times are posted, send me an e-mail and I can add your contact information through our listing at TalkShoe. For some reason, you can't input it yourself, but I can manage contacts in my account settings. I just thought I would put the offer out there if anyone was interested. I get a lot of e-mails from people saying, "Darn, I missed the show!" This would be just an extra reminder.

If you're not interested, just by a monthly calendar and write down "The Triple Feature - 9:00 PM CST" every Monday for the rest of the year!

Site news

Speaking of the variety of e-mails I get from you guys, I received quite a few in my mailbox this week regarding a certain t-shirt design...

For those of you who are fans of the t-shirt manufacturing / artist community Threadless, you may have noticed a new shirt design that was announced by the company that shares a certain thematic similarity to some shirts I've been selling on the site for a while.

The shirt is called "Spoilt" and it was designed by Oliver Moss. Here's the design:

As you can see, the shirt spoils the various plot twists of a number of different movies in a manner similar to a couple of shirts I've been selling from Theater Hopper for the last few years:

It was interesting to read some of the e-mails that people sent. A lot of you were outraged and labeled Moss a theif. I appreciate your support, as backwards as that sounds. It was actually very comforting to know that I had a lot of people out there watching my back. But here's the scoop and I'm putting it out there to hopefully put things to rest.

Oliver Moss is not a thief and it's unfair to label him as such.

I knew about Oliver's design back when the shirt was still going through the voting phase. I'll admit that it freaked me out because I actually thought Oliver did a really good job with it and (being somewhat familiar with what the Threadless audience looks for in a design from prior business relationships with them) I knew it was going to be a hit. Someone pointed out at the time the similarities between Oliver's concept and my own and Oliver defended himself by stating that the similarities were never intentional and that the concept stemmed from a forum post he made over at Yay Hooray almost two years ago. Oliver and I even exchanged e-mails over it and he again expressed no ill intent. I believe him. Moss has more than a few designs that have been sold through Threadless and other clothing vendors. He's not stupid. I don't think he would intentionally expose himself to these kind of indictments.

I know the web comic community just fought a round with the plagiarism boogeyman after the whole Todd Goldman incident, but my attitude regarding the similarities between my shirts and Moss's shirt is this: It was a coincidence. It happens. In fact, it happens a lot in web comics where people covering similar genres come to the same conclusions on jokes. Usually it's not intentional. Just great minds thinking alike.

Obviously Moss's design is visually different, so he has no worries there. And, in regard to the number of similar movies "spoiled" in our designs, the fact of the matter is there just aren't that many well-known movies with twists in their plots to expose. So, again, another happy accident.

If anything, I think Oliver and Threadless probably have more to fear from LucasFilm for Moss's rendering of Darth Vader's helmet. If R. Stevens was sent a cease and desist letter for the pixelated R2-D2 he tried to put on a shirt and sell, I can't imagine how long Threadless is going to skare by before the Lawyers from the Dahgobah system catch wind of this...

PERSONAL THOUGHTS: I've been on a weird emotional roller coaster regarding these events. When I found out that Threadless had moved forward producing the shirt, my heart sank. I figured that this was the end for Spoiler I and Spoiler II because if I tried to continue selling them, I feared people would look at them and say "You stole this from Threadless!'

Sure, I have the date stamps of when my design was created and the PayPal receipts for the first batch of sales to prove that I got there first. But I didn't imagine that having much sway in the court of public opinion. Moss's design is flashier. Mine is plain. Threadless is a HUGE online entity that most savvy web surfers are at least peripherally aware of. Theater Hopper is a mid-sized web comic that's be silently chugging along for a few years. I felt the distinct feeling of obsolescence. Was this the universe sending me a sign? Should I stop producing the Spoiler shirts? Should I do something different? Should I get out of web comics altogether? It really sent me for a loop.

Then, things got worse. Voters made the post about Moss's design the second most popular story on Dugg. Then BoingBoing picked it up. I was almost... angry. It didn't help that Threadless's prize for winning designs is $2,000 which would have come in REALLY handy for me right now after being slammed hard for taxes I owe. I felt my hands were tied. There really wasn't anything I could say to defend myself without coming off like a hater and - really - it's not like I was the first guy in the world to think of spoiling movies and putting it on a t-shirt.

But then things started to turn. The story showed up on You Thought We Wouldn't Notice (soon to be deleted). Although it was overly harsh and their editors didn't do any fact checking (the reason for the deletion), people were aware of what I had been doing and there was some validation in that. Then the BoingBoing article was revised to include a link to Theater Hopper in reference to my original designs.

And then the flood came.

Traffic from BoingBoing was overwhelming the server. I couldn't access the site through most of the day. This is always a good problem to have and it was very exciting. Several people were coming to the site that might not have otherwise. On top of that, some of them were even buying the Spoiler I and II shirts! Amazing!

And then I realized something profound. "So what?"

This shirt thing is so much bigger than me and so far beyond my control. I'm happy with the recognition that I have. I cherish all of the e-mails of support that were sent to me and thankful to those who stood up for me on the Threadless and Dugg comments board even when they didn't have to. I'm thankful for the free market that let's people decide what shirt they would rather have and some people decided to take advantage of it and back the little guy. Ultimately, I'm impressed that there are opportunities for BOTH Moss and myself to carve out a niche for ourselves artistically and that there are people out there who will support it.

For those of you who are new to Theater Hopper - welcome. For those of you who continue to support the site - sincere thanks.

This has been another interesting chapter in the history of this site. I never could have predicted it.

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