Author: Robert Greenberger

We have come to love Zack Snyder’s visual style, attention to detail, and ability to adapt comics to the silver screen. But, we don’t really have a sense of what he can do on his, without someone else’s work to rely on for inspiration. That is, until this March when he unveiled Sucker Punch, a personal project that had been gestating in his mind for years and he finally was given the opportunity to make it a reality.

Some reality. The mind-bending storyline is a visually and aural feast but is somewhat soulless and cold, not just from the over-reliance on CGI for background and texture but for the total lack of attention to characterization. Like the computer backgrounds, everything is on the surface, giving the cast little to work with, turning them into two-dimensional players on his digital chessboard. Most of that explains why the film fizzled both critically and commercially. In case you missed it, the movie is coming to DVD on Tuesday from Warner Home Video and packs a lot of meat into what feels like a snack.

The story, what there is of it, spotlights 20-year-old “Babydoll” (Emily Browning), confined to a mental institution in the 1960s by her abusive step-father (Gerard Plunkett). She’s locked away because she refused to submit to his unwanted sexual advances, although he claims she was responsible for the death of her younger sister. He exacts revenge by paying off the corrupt attendant Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) to have her lobotomized, allowing him to solely inherit Babydoll’s inheritance.

The remainder of the film watches Babydoll plot an escape, while befriending fellow inmates — Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), and Rocket’s older sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) — who are being taught sexually provocative dances by the lead psychiatrist Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino). Babydoll convinces them to help her plan their escape and she mesmerizes people with her own dances and each time she and the audience segue into an action-packed dream sequence. We never see Babydoll dance but there’s plenty of compelling visuals to occupy us while the girls steal the tools needed to enact the plan. Her dreams are directed by a Wise Man (Scott Glenn impersonating David Carradine). (more…)

Apparently the first case taken on by the television adaptation of Powers will be “Who Killed Retro Girl?” now that the title character has been cast. Sexy model Carly Foulkes, best known for the T-Mobile ad campaign of the last two years, has been added to the FX pilot.

Series co-creator Brian Michael Bendis revealed this casting tidbit when appearing on  on Sirius XM’s Geektime radio show over the weekend. The 23-year old Canadian model turned actress will leap from pretty-in-pink pitchman to geek immortality with this move.

She joins a cast already including Jason Patric and Lucy Punch as the Powers Homicide detectives in the drama series based on the long-running series by Bendis and co-creator Michael Avon Oeming.

Who Killed Retro Girl? is the name of the first Powers collection, including the debut storyline from the series when it was published in 2000 from Image Comics. The story remains in print as a hardcover or softcover.

DC Comics: The Ultimate Character Guide
By Brandon T. Snider
DK Books, 208 Pages, $16.99

DK continues their line of lightweight, visually interested Character Guides. Joining the extant Marvel Universe and Star Wars books is a volume dedicated to DC’s heroes and villains, or at least some of them. With a mere 208 pages, there was no way this could be considered an ultimate guide, what with 75 years of characters to work with.

These franchises all share the complication that they are organic universes, ever changing so the books can, at best, capture a distinct moment in time. In each case, DK’s editors fail to tell you where that moment in time is for the dedicated fan. This volume, for example, shows us the current version of Aqualad but also includes the currently deceased members of the Fourth World (yeah, I know, they’ve been resurrected on Earth-51, but this book focuses only on New Earth). And Dick Grayson appears here as Nightwing, not as Batman II.

The entries, from young adult writer Brandon Snider, are all surface, skimping on details and often avoids origins or focusing on the elements that make characters unique. Adam Strange is no longer a trained archaeologist and Animal Man’s family is entirely skipped.

Visually, the book is attractive with a relatively consistent modern day look so if it was drawn earlier than 2005, it won’t be here. Unfortunately, the text and art don’t always mesh so you see the Cyborg Superman as he appeared in the Blackest Night stories but the text makes no mention of his role. Wonder Woman turns up in her new outfit but the text doesn’t address the current confounding status quo.

Most of the groups have appearances here with an odd assortment of rosters presented so it’s more a hodge-podge of group. Many members don’t merit their own pages with the classic Justice Society members getting omitted (with Spectre being merely Crispus Allen with no mention of him being the Wrath of God). Other incarnations of characters are either briefly referenced or skipped entirely, such as the multiple Atoms and Green Lanterns.

This can be a primer to the DCU and it does merit flipping through to verify names, heights, weights, and the like but just about every fact appears to be rendered irrelevant or dated just two months after the book goes on sale. That’s a shame because this could have proven to be an immensely powerful tool to support the revamped line. If Co-Publisher Dan DiDio really had been planning this move for over a year, there was ample time to coordinate with DK and this is just another missed opportunity.

Given that far more detailed and comprehensive data can be found online, DK’s challenge is to make these books relevant and to date, they have yet to figure out how to manage this feat, which is a shame since they usually do stellar work.

Well, just over a year after Avatar encouraged the Hollywood machine to overhype 3-D movies to the point where the fad is already fading fast, the hunt is on for the next great thing. Dimension Films thinks they have the solution, announcing that this summer’s fourth installment of the Spy Kids franchise will introduce the fourth dimension with Aromascope.

Of course, adding smells to movie (as opposed to movies that just smell) is nothing new, dating back to 1906 when canny filmmakers scented cotton wool and placed them in front of ventilators. Much as is happening now, after 3-D faded in the 1950s, people sought new gimmicks ot keep people away from the television and flocking to the theater. Italian director Carlo Lizzani called his process “AromaRama” and used it to screen Behind the Great Wall, a travelogue through China.

Hans Laube created Smell-O-Vision used in 1960’s Scent of Mystery. Thirty different odors were released at key points during this thriller.

And there was John Waters weho had people scratch and sniff in the 1980s.

So really, everything that’s old is new again.

For the curious, here’s the Dimension release:

New York, NY, June 24, 2011 – Dimension Films announced today that SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD is taking moviegoers to a whole new dimension in 4D with Aromascope.

Cutting edge filmmaker and director of the highly popular SPY KIDS franchise, Robert Rodriguez, was one of the first to re-introduce audiences to 3D since its inception in the 1950s.  After many years away from the cultural mindset Rodriguez brought back a whole new wave and rebirth of 3D into mainstream cinema in 2003 with SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER.   The film impressed and entertained audiences and went on to gross close to $200 million. (more…)

Enchanted forests, haunted hillsides, secluded cabins and the creatures that reside in dark places – have had us biting our nails since the early German Expressionist film era.  Witches, werewolves, monsters and maniacs can be lurking ‘round the corner just about any place you can imagine.  With Nicholas Cage’s Season of The Witch out on DVD and Blu-ray next week, we’re going to take a look at some of the most iconic and eerie locales in thrillers and horror films that make for the best places to splatter, slice and slash.

Lakes

Crystal Lake is well-known from the beloved Friday The 13^th and even though those films are set in New York, there so happens to be a real Crystal Lake in the San Gabriel’s near Los Angeles that many horror fans like to claim as their own.  Lake Placid is home to a killer crocodile and movies like Eden Lake, Zombie Lake, Rogue, What Lies Beneath, Lake Dead and of course Sleepaway Camp will make you want to go out and purchase a life vest and/or take some self-defense classes.  Deliverance and The Host are set on rivers and Ghost Ship is on the ocean, but we won’t hold it against them.

Cabins & Hotels

Cabin Fever, The Shining, Hostel, and Vacancy are just a few of the great films set in secluded vacation spots. Of more recent fame, Lars Von Teir’s Antichrist took the cabin in “Eden” to a whole new level of crazy.  No one can of course touch the masterpiece Evil Dead, where incantations read in the basement of the cabin wake up some flesh eating demons that no one forgets.

The Woods

The Blair Witch Project, Wrong Turn, Sleepy Hallow, Dreamcatcher, Shrooms all take us on a journey along streams, mossy banks and haunting willows that creep the living daylights out of you.  Taking it to the jungles, The Ruins and The Island of Dr Morteau receive honorable mentions.  Season of The Witch, out on DVD and Blue-ray June 28^th crosses over into the supernatural into perilous terrain that makes way for a terrifying and powerful force that determines the fate of the world.

This could be why the canny Joss Whedon wrote the forthcoming thriller The Cabin in the Woods. No fool he.

Your House

Scream, Paranormal Activity, The Amityville Horror, The Grudge, The Others, The Haunting in Connecticut and The Last House on the Left are just a few of the films that really take it to the next level and bring the horror and gore way past your comfort zone.   Funny Games could easily fit into the Cabin category but it still hits way too close to home.  And grandpa’s house most certainly counts for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Hills get a runner up location nod due to films like The Hills Have Eyes and the 1959 B Movie Classic, House on Haunted Hill.  And sure Silent Hill even though we know it doesn’t really count.

Jason Patric appears to have nabbed the lead in the FX adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming’s Powers. Initially, Kyle Chandler was rumored in March to be eyed for the part of Christian Walker but the news of Patric’s signing broke late last night.

Patric would be partnered with British star Lucy Punch, playing Deena Pilgrim, in the pilot which Bendis said should be shooting over the summer. At present, FX has not confirmed its interest beyond the pilot, which Bendis wrote before being rewritten by “Chick” Eglee.

Previously cast was Charles S. Dutton, playing Captain Cross, head of the Homicide Division where Walker and Pilgrim work. Also in the cast is 11-year-old Bailee Madison (Just Go With It.), playing Calista, a girl raised by her stepdad Eagle, a man with powers. She will come to live with Pilgrim after Eagle’s wife is murdered and the stepfather vanishes.

Powers was launched in 2000 from Image Comics where is earned the Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2001. Bendis subsequently won Eisners in 2002 and 2003 as Best Writer. By 2004, Bendis’ value to Marvel was such that they created the Icon imprint for creator-owned material with Powers being the first series to launch under that umbrella.

The book has evolved slowly through the years now publishing its third volume, which launched in November 2009, with just seven issues published since then given the creator’s other obligations. (more…)