You have to give credit to Dwight Frye, the underappreciated character actor who created the role of the hunchback Fritz, who aided Colin Clive’s Victor Frankenstein in the 1931 Universal adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel. In further Universal installments, the assistant was renamed Ygor and Frye was replaced with Bela Lugosi – but it is Frye’s portrayal that gave the world the stock character forever known to all as Igor.
In the re-envisioned world portrayed in Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), Igor is given an upgrade from simple lab assistant to brilliant physician and Frye has morphed into Daniel Radcliffe. Young Victor is actually still in med school as we meet out characters and it is Igor who proves to the brains behind the, ahem, operation.
Max Landis uses both Shelley’s novel and the Universal series of films as guideposts but charts a fresh, if not wholly original tale. Igor’s fascination with circus performer Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) propels the story especially once she is gravely injured and he thinks he can save her. Frankenstein, younger and more by the book at this stage, thinks otherwise.
The two become friends and Victor realizes Igor’s hunch is actually an abscess in need of lancing. Their bond grows deeper as Victor shares his research into the uses of electricity to reanimate dead flesh.
In short order, though, the duo’s life is complicated on multiple fronts, the most dangerous being policeman Roderick Turpin (Andrew Scott)’s improbable realization of the two are doing. There’s plenty here and it doesn’t all hang together terribly well and Landis’ script ultimately does not service the two leads terribly well. All in all, the ideas aren’t bad but the messy result leaves us longing for a faithful and melancholy adaptation of the source material.
McAvoy, Radcliffe, and Scott aren’t given enough to work with and despite their collective talent, the overall performances are flat and lack the manic energy that made us fall for Clive and his successors.
The film, out now as a Combo Pack from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, has a just fine high definition transfer with a solid lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack.
Given that the film was a box office and critical flop, the studio didn’t invest much in this release and the extras amount to a handful of Deleted Scenes (14:17) and an electronic press kit compilation The Making of Victor Frankenstein (29:27).
We love cat videos, superheroes, and comics, so when we met Rob Worley at Long Beach Comic Expo and he introduced us to his Eisner Award-Nominated adventures of a cat named Scratch how could we not pick up both Volumes 1 & 2?
So, Scratch is a cat who hates baths, but loves his human, Penelope. He’s your basic ordinary house kitty until he’s kidnapped by a mad scientist (whose name you’ll see Anya has problems pronouncing) and ends up with the ability to team up with any of his nine previous lives when he gets caught in sticky situations.
In Volume 1, The Pet Project & Cat Tails, you get to meet Scratch and his friends, but in Volume 2, Cat of Nine Worlds, things get crazy when a new cat, time travel and 9 magic stones that when brought together give ultimate power are brought into the picture.
This is a great series for kids (Anya says ages 4 – 12, while Maddy thinks this is all-ages fun — especially for cat lovers). Watch our video review for the deets!
Okay, let’s close the metaphorical door…no, let’s slam the door on my cutsey way of sneaking up on an answer to the question I posed last week, which was something like: If I can’t teach writing — and I admit that I can’t — why do respectable institutions pay me to teach writing?
We’ll get to that gibberish at the top of the page in a bit, but first, let’s make a distinction between writing and creativity. I don’t know of anyone who has sussed out a reliable procedure for teaching creativity and I’m sure multitudes are trying. So let’s just drop the subject.
But writing? Different thing, and that brings us to the gibberish, which is supposed to be the noise information makes when it strikes a student because that, dear companions, is what I have done while standing in front of whiteboards. No, not fabricate sound effects, but hurl information at the eager faces: give them everything I know about the subject of the day, hoping that they will remember some of it and that what they remember will be useful. I’ve found that I can talk for… oh say twenty hours over the course of a semester about facts pertaining to writing – left-brain stuff that will fit into English sentences. Then, if I allow myself a little blue sky, or bring in a guest, or have responsive students willing to enter into dialogues voila! job done and where’s the nearest Starbucks?
Note: When imparting information, I never claim to be teaching the way to do anything. We have a mantra: There is seldom any one absolutely, inarguable, unimpeachably right way to do anything. There is just what’s worked for a lot of people a lot of times and maybe you’ll benefit from knowing about it.
Can I hear an Amen?
The matter of script format is sure to arise in any comics writing discussion and at first glance this seems like a no-brainer. I mean, a format is a format and all the instructor has to do is show one to the class and then take a bathroom break, right? That would indeed be the case if the subject were writing for television and/or movies. There is a widely accepted format for screenwriting and you’d best adhere to it. (But fear not: your friendly neighborhood software dealer will supply you with all you need.) Comics, though? I can’t show you the standard comics script format because there isn’t one. Every prolific writer seems to find, or evolve, a format that suits them and these range from the minimalist to the dense and detailed and I say blessings upon all. If it’s okay with your editor and with your collaborator(s), it’s okay.
We’ll probably revisit this topic, maybe not next week, but soon. For now, another amen and I’m off to play hooky.
Independence Day – 20th Anniversary Edition
Experience the original OSCAR®-Winning* sci-fi epic that launched a new era in blockbuster filmmaking. Director Roland Emmerich, producer Dean Devlin and an all-star cast including Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman join forces to deliver the ultimate encounter between powerful aliens and the human race. When massive spaceships appear in Earth’s skies and blast destructive beams of fire down on cities all over the planet, a determined band of survivors must unite for one last strike against the invaders before it’s the end of mankind.
*1997; Best Visual Effects
Special Features
Attacker Edition Gift Set Blu-ray™
Newly Restored Extended and Original Theatrical Cuts
All-new 30-Minute Documentary – Independence Day: A Legacy SurgingForward
Limited Edition Alien Ship Replica
Collectible Booklet
Includes Two Blu-rayTM discs and Digital HD
Blu-ray™
Newly Restored Extended and Original Theatrical Cuts
All-new 30-Minute Documentary – Independence Day: A Legacy SurgingForward
Includes Two Blu-rayTM discs and Digital HD
DVD
Newly Restored Theatrical Cut
Includes Digital HD
Digital HD
First time Digital HD Extras Including Newly Restored Extended Cut
All-new 30-Minute Documentary – Independence Day: A Legacy SurgingForward
Independence Day – 20th Anniversary Attacker Edition Blu-ray & Standard Blu-ray Street Date: May 3, 2016
Prebook Date: March 30, 2016 Screen Format: 16:9 (2.39:1) Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD-MA / Spanish 5.1 DD / French Parisian 5.1 DTS / French Quebecois 1.0 DD Subtitles: English / French / Spanish Total Run Time: Approximately 145 minutes (Theatrical Cut) / Approximately 154 minutes (Extended Cut) U.S. Rating: PG-13
Independence Day – 20th Anniversary DVD Street Date: May 3, 2016 Prebook Date: March 30, 2016 Screen Format: 16:9 (2.39:1) Audio: English 5.1 DD / Spanish 5.1 DD / French 2.0 Surround DD Subtitles: English / French / Spanish Total Run Time: Approximately 145 minutes U.S. Rating: PG-13
This week, I was totally stumped on a topic for this column. I turned to my fellow columnist, Joe Corallo, for help and he immediately mentioned the exact thing I’ve been chatting about for the past week. Not really sure why I blanked on it because it is such a big topic right now. So let’s talk about Young Justice.
Young Justice, in case you don’t know, follows a group of young DC heroes as they learn to work as a team and find their place amongst the Justice League. As the series grows through seasons 1 and 2, we watch the young heroes change into the heroes we always wanted them to be. Sadly, it ended on a cliffhanger. It is not based on the comic of the same name but does build off the DC universe.
The DC and Warner Bros. Animation partnership has put out some of the best animated shows to date. I’m confident in stating that Batman: The Animated Series is arguably the best animated show of all time. However, Young Justice is one of the shows that always pops up when people talk animation as the gone too soon. It’s like the Firefly of animated shows.
In the past few years, Netflix has been the resurrection hotspot for a lot of TV shows. We got the final season of TheKilling, a new season of Arrested Development and even the love-or-hate Fuller House. Netflix has the capability to track well trending shows and cherry pick the best ones to revive. And for the most part, they are good at creating original shows, like their stellar partnership with Marvel or their independent creations like Orange is the New Black.
The reasoning for Young Justice being cancelled was poor toy sales. I do understand that; this show appeals more to an older audience, so they are less likely to buy basic toys and more likely to buy higher end pieces. On the other hand, Netflix only cares about streaming numbers and if there is enough interest to bring in some new subscribers. In that case, I think we can do it. There were rumors that Netflix was already considering this, but those are probably not true. However, that momentum should not be lost.
The producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti are ready to come back. Character designer Phil Bourassa sounds like he would come back. Illustrator Christopher Jones is supporting this push. Plus, a group of the voice actors have come out and said they are on board. We just need to show Netflix and the WB that it is worth it for them.
So for all you people out there who haven’t seen Young Justice, watch it. Don’t have Netflix? Find your friend that does and watch it with them. (Everyone knows someone with Netflix. Everyone.). Give this show a chance to grow again. #BingeYoungJustice
Sylvia Anderson oversees a design meeting for Stingray.
Sylvia Anderson, co-producer of the iconic Supermarionation series including Thunderbirds, passed away at her home in Berkshire at the age of 88, after a brief illness.
Her daughter Dee Anderson said of her, “Her intelligence was phenomenal but her creativity and tenacity unchallenged. She was a force in every way,”
Sylvia worked with her husband Gerry on all of their puppet shows, becoming a co-producer starting with Stingray. She voiced numerous characters for the shows, but is best known for portraying International Rescue’s London Operative, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward in the classic series Thunderbirds.
Her ex-husband Gerry passed away in 2012 after a battle with Alzheimer’s. The production company named after him recently produced three new episodes of Thunderbirds in the classic Supermarionation style, using soundtracks of audio plays released on record during the show’s original run. Sylvia made a return to the franchise via the new CGI series Thunderbirds Are Go, playing Lady Penelope’s (now voiced by Rosamund Pike) Great Aunt Sylvia. Sylvia was one of two members of the original cast to return for the series, along with David Graham, reprising his role of Parker.
Whereas ComicMix comments on all popular media – geek culture, as Ed Catto says – this particular commentary is about comic books. However, let me warn you: it is phrased in the terms of motion pictures. It could be applied to all mass communications.
There exists, and have always existed, groups of people with their noses so high in the air you’d think they’d drown in a drizzle. These self-appointed moral police seek to prevent everybody from experience media that they find objectionable. Of course, having an opinion and sharing that opinion is our constitutional right and I have no quarrel about this. Sadly, these people often attempt to have those books, movies, magazines and similar folderol removed from stores, libraries and theaters. They have held and continue to hold record burnings – for the past sixty-five years they have focused on rock’n’roll and particularly rock performed by black artists… although when John Lennon flippantly remarked the Beatles were “bigger than Christ” a whole lotta Beatles records went up in self-righteous smoke.
One of the first nationwide organizations to try to regulate our popular culture is the Catholic Legion of Decency. Since 1933 the Legion has “rated” every movie they could lay their hands on, outing those they don’t like as morally unobjectionable, morally objectionable in part, or outright condemned by the Legion of Decency. They also have positive ratings, but that’s beside the point. In 1995 they helped organize the Parents Television Council to do to teevee what they’ve done to movies.
Once again, I have no problem with organizations offering “advice” to their members, and the Legion of Decency and its ilk are no different. But ever since our media became mass, these groups have gone well beyond an advisory role and tried to get what they don’t like banned so that no one could think for themselves.
As distribution methods became more ubiquitous and independent thinking spread, the effectiveness of these organizations began to wane. They’re still around, there are still censorship boards (non-government; I use the word censorship in its broader use) of all sorts, and people still lose their jobs for propagating such art. But the glory days of censorship are mostly behind us. Case in point:
This month, Turner Classic Movies is presenting a series highlighting movies found objectionable by the Catholic Legion of Decency. Lots of great stuff – pre-Code movies such as Condemned, M, and Babyface and later flicks such as And God Created Woman, Kiss Me Stupid and The Carey Treatment are among the 27 films being featured.
Equally significant in the “passage of time” sweepstakes is that these movies will be
hosted by film critic Sister Rose Pacatte, who also is the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies. She can provide perspective for those whose upbringing was not influenced by the Legion.
Of course, history has taught us we must constantly deploy and defend out rights. Each week, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fundhttp://cbldf.org sends out an email noting various acts of censorship across the world, and I know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Zealots – a separate entity from those who are religious – do not give up. Ever.
Nor can we.
Kudos to Turner Classic Movies and to Time Warner, its parent company. Such courage always is welcome.
I am not prepared to be this afraid of John Goodman.
I don’t remember a time in my life before the Roseanne show. It was a staple growing up, even if I didn’t start watching it regularly until the last few seasons. John Goodman is a lovable funnyman, and no amount of playing shady characters in Coen Brothers movies was ever going to shake me of that conviction. I was not prepared for the sheer mesmerizing terror that was Goodman’s performance in 10 Cloverfield Lane, a role I never would have expected for him but one that he embodies so totally and perfectly that pushes everything to another level. This is the kind of performance that should win awards but never will because every award-giving body has decided to become self-parody at this point and only send home statues for ludicrous acting clichés.
There’s such a pervasive feeling of menace coming off of Goodman in this film and it is honestly incredible. He spends 80% of the time playing Howard as a quiet, almost nervous, man and so his violent outbursts feel so much bigger because of the contrast. There’s also something to be said for the way the sets are laid out and the film is shot, it makes his physical presence feel so much bigger, like a tiger in a subway tunnel a perpetual threat with no way around it. Howard ebbs and flows from genial host to quiet threat to barely contained rage to completely uncontrolled like some kind of inscrutable tide on an alien planet. 10 Cloverfield Lane would be tense even reading the screenplay, but the way Goodman dominates every frame he’s in turns everything up even higher and makes for some unbelievable tension.
I don’t want to underrate John Gallagher Jr’s contribution to this film (he does fine work and has a devastating monologue) but Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the other half of this film. She plays opposite this dominating presence and holds her own. Where Howard is imposing dangerous force, Michelle is calculating and clever. She doesn’t always know what’s going on but she’s always looking for the next thing, the way out, she never lets herself get too complacent. The two feel like equals in an asymmetrical game of chess, but so too does Winstead feel like the equal of Goodman, and that is the highest praise I can give an actor this week.
It’s hard to praise anything else about the movie because it all just seems to serve these performances. It’s well shot, but it isn’t particularly dynamic or new feeling. The script is a fine effort and has enough levels that I was arguing about character motivations on the car ride home, but there isn’t that much that happens. It has the kind of score that seemingly every remotely scary movie has these days saved by a couple great needle drops on the soundtrack. It’s a sign of good filmmaking that these things fade in to the background, there’s more craft in appearing to do nothing than in being as flashy as possible.
The billion-dollar question for Bad Robot and Paramount here is “Does this make Cloverfield in to a credible anthology horror series?” and the answer seems to be a solid maybe. I’ve seen so many social media posts this weekend comparing the twist ending in 10 Cloverfield Lane to The Twilight Zone, and while that’s not giving the former enough credit and grossly oversimplifying the latter it would need to be the model. If they’re all going to be as compelling as 10 Cloverfield Lane, I would happily watch a movie under this umbrella every few years. If they’re going to be more like the original I’m dramatically less interested and there’s the problem; I do not trust the people at Bad Robot to make enough good movies in a row without a prominent franchise to prop them up. I hope they can prove me wrong.
There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this. – Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett was, in the above as in everything, a wise, wise man. The most valuable things in the world are often ones we should hold onto lest we lose them; and not only hold onto, but treasure.
I certainly treasure the experiences I’ve had while writing my weekly column for ComicMix. Chief amongst these is the valuable experience of actually having to sit down and write something out of my own head for publication on a deadline week after week (despite it having been, hrm, occasionally a somewhat negotiable deadline (thank you, Mike and Glenn, for your patience!). And through the weekly column I’ve had the opportunity not only to develop my discipline as a writer, but also to trot out and work on polishing up several different styles of writing; to continually improve my abilities as an interviewer; to sporadically embark on flights of whimsy and ridiculousness that have nevertheless been surprisingly well received; and to determine just what my opinion was on a variety of relevant comics and genre entertainment subjects, and then how to share it in the way that most reflected my true feelings and yet seemed least likely to result in reams of angry comments.
Of course I also enjoy traveling to different conventions with or as a representative of the ComicMix family; interviewing creators and recapping events, and making new friends through my writing, my travels, my interviews, and my work with other ComicMixers. Writing (almost) every week for ComicMix since May 1, 2012 has opened my horizons, allowed me to have amazing experiences, and certainly changed me for the better.
However, occasionally you have to let go of the things you treasure, even if just for a time. And unfortunately, I find myself at one of those times, due to a convergence of factors; and am thus going to be taking a hiatus from my weekly column here at ComicMix. The main factor is actually one that I’ve been dealing with for over seven months. In short, last July I had a bad fall, and I’ve been living with the repercussions ever since. And while I am generally on the mend, regular doctor visits, medical tests, and twice-weekly physical therapy have sucked a lot of my time away; not to mention that, goshdarn it, this “healing” thing kind of hurts and takes a lot out of you, physically. And, well, then there’s the possibility that I may have to have surgery to fix my thumb because of this (side note: did you know that one of the side effects of getting an MRI on your thumb is to have your entire arm fall asleep? Ooooh, it feels so weird). The sum total of this is that one morning I had to look in the mirror and remind myself that I am not actually a superhero (although if I was I would be awesome) and that sometimes, it’s okay not to be able to do all the things at once, and that if you find yourself, e.g., being very tired and having trouble making your deadline week to week, perhaps you need to take a break from having said deadline.
You might wonder why it took me approximately seven months to realize this. However, as always, Sir Terry has a quote that is particularly apropos:
The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
And then suddenly, all the clues come together, and you’ve solved the mystery of life!
Just kidding.
What really happens, maybe, if you’re lucky, is that you eventually figure out one step you might need to take to improve a current situation. Of course even then there’s no guarantee that it’s the right step. And if you take it, and you let go of that balloon you’ve been treasuring, the fear is that it will be lost forever up in the vast unknowable sky, never to return. All of the work that went into those weekly columns; the vast readership, so painstakingly built (hello, all several of you!); friendships formed in part from my identity as a genre entertainment columnist – gone! Just gone! It’s enough to make me want to hold on tightly to the balloon’s bright ribbon and never let go. But fortunately, columns and readers and friendships aren’t actually balloons that will disappear forever if you let go for a bit; and change can be good, and it can be necessary, and it can lead to new adventures and, after all, sometimes, you must make the hard choice to leap fearlessly off a cliff (or at least move your life onto a slightly different path) because:
If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.
And nobody wants that.
Not that my story is actually going to be too different around here. Because despite taking a hiatus from the weekly columns, I am not leaving you entirely, dear readers! I fully intend to remain as Your Faithful Convention Correspondent for all of the conventions I attend (which this year looks to include Awesome Con, San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con).
Also, depending on circumstances, I hope to return to the weekly posts at some as-yet undetermined time. So actually, it’s less like I’m letting go of my balloon, and more like it’s just been tied onto an extremely long ribbon which I can still hold onto, and we’ll still be connected by that ribbon, and really, that’s not so scary after all.
That said, I will miss my weekly interactions here, and wish that I had infinite time and energy to do the infinite numbers of things I constantly want to be doing. But as a wise man (I bet you can guess who!) once said:
So much universe, and so little time.
So until that time in the distant future when I’m back each week: Vigilate!
As many of you know, Nancy Reagan recently passed away at the age of 94. Her legacy, as well as her husband’s, invoke incredibly powerful emotions from both ends of the political spectrum. We’ve been reminded of that this past Friday. Some of you reading this may not be aware of Nancy Reagan’s connection to comics. It’s a very loose connection, don’t get me wrong, but it’s there. I’ll try not to embellish this connection to avoid having the townspeople show up at my doorstep with pitchforks and torches in hand.
Anyone aware of the Reagan’s and life in America in the 80s knows of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, which, ironically is my stance on the Republican Party today. What you might not be aware of is back in September of 1986, Nancy Reagan was greeted by members of the Defenders of the Earth including Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Lothar and Mandrake the Magician. No, not the “real” Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Lothar and Mandrake the Magician. They were merely actors portraying the characters on a five-day coast-to-coast tour to help kids say no to drugs. I imagine the real Defenders of the Earth were too busy saving us all from Ming the Merciless to tour the country themselves.
At the time, Defenders of the Earth was a cartoon produced by Marvel Productions in association with King Features Entertainment. King Features owned the above mentioned comics properties used in the cartoon. They added a bunch of kids to the mix to make it more relatable to them (I guess) and in turn we got a cartoon that was good enough for one season. In that one season we got the episode titled “The Deadliest Battle”. The deadliest battle, of course, was against drugs.
Yes, drugs. In this episode, Rick Gordon (Flash Gordon’s son) is being pressured not only by school to make good grades, but by his father to be a better hero. Randomly, a suspicious juvenile at Rick Gordon’s school offers Rick drugs unsolicited and for free in the middle of the school’s busy hallway. I can’t quite tell if that was a lack of understanding on how these things happen or a cynical assumption that kids would actually be that stupid. Anyway, we then have a scene in a classroom with a teacher going over D.A.R.E. which stands for drug abuse resistance education. We even get a nice shout out to Nancy Reagan with the teachers saying, “Just say no.”
Rick takes the drugs anyway which do in fact make him feel a whole lot better, but it comes at a high price. The drugs also make Rick absent minded, causing him to forget to finish setting up their new defense system. This allows Ming the Merciless to come right in to take out the Defenders of the Earth once and for all.
After Flash Gordon uses some excessively harsh words with his son, one of the other kids on the team is able to help save the day and teach Rick a valuable lesson about responsibility and how it’s never okay to take anything that will get your mind off of how the walls of your life are closing in on you.
Flash Gordon does at least acknowledge that he’s been too harsh with his son Rick, which was a nice touch. I was expecting something that put the entire weight of the drug problem on Rick and the dealer.
If it wasn’t for Nancy Reagan, we might have never been able to experience this animated gem. If you want to experience it for yourself again or for the first time, you can check it out here. Many other cartoons also tackled drug prevention at the time including Thundercats, He-Man, Jem and the Holograms, and many others. And the drug war legacy still plagues us to this very day. However, Nancy Reagan didn’t meet with the Thundercats, or He-Man, or Jem and the Holograms. When she got a chance to meet the heroes to help kids say no, she chose comics heroes. Or her scheduler did. Either way, when she wanted help getting her message to kids she met with classic comics heroes that have stood the test of time to this very day. To some of us at least.
Did Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign help people? Maybe a few. Did it give people a false sense of security and a cramp in their arms from patting themselves on the back too much for doing something about an issue that over time ended up destroying countless more lives than it ever saved while also wasting an unbelievably large amount of our taxpayer dollars?
You bet! Maybe she should have asked the Defenders of the Earth to help end the Cold War instead.
You have to give credit to Dwight Frye, the underappreciated character actor who created the role of the hunchback Fritz, who aided Colin Clive’s Victor Frankenstein in the 1931 Universal adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel. In further Universal installments, the assistant was renamed Ygor and Frye was replaced with Bela Lugosi – but it is Frye’s portrayal that gave the world the stock character forever known to all as Igor.
