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Interview with Robert Tapert

  • Uncategorized
  • October 19, 2008

ghost-dvdI recently got a chance to sit down and chat with legendary producer Robert Tapert, who you know best as Sam Raimi’s better half working with him on things like Hercules,  Xena, Evil Dead, and even producing some great horror films to hit theaters in the past few years such as The Grudge and 30 Days of Night. I talked to Rob about some of his newer projects, including The Ghost House Underground Collection, a collection of eght horror films hand picked by Tapert and Raimi, which we will be reviewing here in the coming weeks. We also chatted about his newest TV project,  Legend of the Seeker, and even a possibility of an Evil Dead remake.

ComicMix: The Ghost House Underground Collection recently was released on DVD and they are slated as being "hand selected by Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi". Is that true?

Robert Tapert: Sam and I picked the bulk of them. we are partnered with two other guys [Barry Brooker and Stan Wertlieb] who come from a long line of building DVD libraries. There was some guidance that was needed so that we didn’t pick all foreign flicks and had a wide enough variety to make the collection worth while. Overall, though, most of our picks made it into the final box set.

CMix: Were any of the eight films in the box set produced by your and Raimi’s production company, Ghost House Pictures?

RT: When we created GHP, [Sam and I] would be approached by dozens of directors and agents and young filmmakers who wanted to be hired. After a while we would follow up with them and hear terrible stories about how they got ripped off and lost tons of money through distribution. Then a little over a year ago, Barry and Stan came to us and told us that there is a business to be built in creating a Ghost House Underground consumer brand for direct-to-DVD movies. [Sam and I] were worried about becoming just another distributor who wouldn’t help these young filmmakers, but Barry and Stan said "as long as you pay the filmmakers what their due — wouldn’t you have been happy being payed what you were due when working on Evil Dead?" We agreed and have been happy with the outcome thus far. These films, and probably for the next incarnation are pre-existing films that are sent to us or we’ve at festivals or thousands of other ways.

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Saturday was 24-Hour Comic Day! Did you celebrate?

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

02-553290224 Hour Comics Day is an annual challenge for cartoonists to produce a 24-page comic book written, drawn, and completed in 24 consecutive hours. The event was founded in 2004 by Nat Gertler, prolific author and publisher of the About Comics company. Currently, the event is organized each year by the comic book specialty retailer trade organization ComicsPRO, and hosted by independent comic stores around the country.

The idea of the 24-hour comic comes from Scott McCloud, who originally came up with it as a creative exercise for himself and Steve Bissette. McCloud’s rules for the challenge were thus: The comic must be begun and completed within 24 consecutive hours. Only one person may be directly involved in its creation, and it must span 24 pages, or (if an infinite canvas format webcomic is being made) 100 panels. The creator may gather research materials and drawing tools beforehand, but cannot plan the comic’s plot ahead of time or put anything on paper (such as designs and character sketches) until he is ready for the 24 hours to begin. Any breaks (for food, sleep, or any other purpose) are counted as part of the 24 hours.

Numerous notable comic creators have attempted the challenge over the years.  Dave Sim published his 24-hour comics in the back of his popular book Cerebus the Aardvark. Neil Gaiman and Kevin Eastman tried and failed, and became the namesakes for the two varieties of “noble failures”: Gaiman stopped his comic at the 24-hour mark; Eastman continued to the full 24 pages. McCloud maintains a site for the challenge and also keeps an official list of recognized 24-hour comics. ComicsPRO reports that over 1,000 people have completed the challenge. Compilation books are available of the completed challenges for the past few years, and McCloud has a book on the subject as well.

While most participants are amateurs, many pro cartoonists take part as well. In addition to the most common black-ink-on-white-paper drawings, participants have done full color painted comics, computer-drawn comics, photo comics, comics made of pictures of posed action figures, a series of painted stones with captions, and a Daredevil superhero comic made by cutting pictures of Ben Affleck’s head out of magazines and pasting them onto stick figure bodies. The biggest single event was in Austin Books in Austin, Texas in 2005, with 70 cartoonists. 2006 saw event sites in 17 countries, and the reports for 2008 are still coming in.

My favorite 24-hour comic? Scott Kurtz’s take on Batman.
 

‘W.’ Feels “Payne’

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

Max Payne is the first video game-inspired movie in a while and it did something its predecessors failed to do, capture the number one spot in its first weekend and get reasonable reviews.

The film opened with $18 million in tickets sold, according to Box Office Mojo. It was clearly the number one film for the weekend, with Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua clawing onto second place with $11.2 million in its third week of release.

Oliver Stone’s much-talked about W., starring Josh Brolin and a well chosen cast, opened in fourth place, collecting just $10.55 million Washingtons. "For me, an Oliver Stone film about George Bush doesn’t necessarily scream big box office," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers told the Associated Press. "A film like this is very tough to gauge, but this is exactly what I thought it would do."

In third place was the debut of the civil rights-era film, The Secret Life of Bees, taking in a respectable $11,050,000. Rounding out the top five was Eagle Eye, adding an additional $7,343,000 in its fourth week, bringing its total to $81,335,000.

The other newcomer was Sex Drive, which took in just $3,566,000. Films in their second weekend slid by about half with Body of Lies taking in $6,880,000 and Fox’s Quarantine    scaring up just    $6,300,000. City of Ember, which looks great, seems to be turning away audiences and took in just $1,725,000.

As fall settles across the country, clearly diversionary films are in order.  Payne could have easily played over the summer but is the dose of fresh air people want as they tire of the economic nightmares and political mud slinging.  Clearly, high minded efforts such W. and Bees may be Oscar bait but they may be too serious today.

Movies that have okay word of mouth and marquee names seem to be hanging on but none are doing spectacularly well or poorly. The freshest of the bunch, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has garnered a nice buzz, is diversionary and was produced on the cheap so its haul of  $26,707,000 after three weeks means its almost at the breakeven point which is good news for Sony.

The Dark Knight is just about out of gas and its worldwide total stands at $990,869,000  so breaking the billion mark will be tough as it sheds screens in favor of holiday fare.

Review: ‘Incredible Hulk’ DVD

025195039918-z-incrdcrfu-21-2312374Ang Lee’s [[[Hulk]]] film failed because he spent too much time on the Jekyll/Hyde aspects, the very ones that inspired Stan Lee.  After all these years, people wanted to see the Hulk leap and smash things.  When he leapt, we cheered, but there just wasn’t enough of it.

Director Louis Leterrier achieved a far better balance in this year’s [[[Incredible Hulk]]] which builds on the mythos while firmly settling into the new Marvel Cinema Universe. He wisely covers the obligatory origin materials during the title sequence and then gives us a story.

Unfortunately, the story just wasn’t as gripping as we had hoped.  The film, arriving Tuesday on DVD, is largely the Army hunting the Hulk as Bruce Banner searches for a cure.  While that worked fine in the 12-page [[[Tales to Astonish]]] stories, it’s not nearly enough for a feature film.  The biggest problem with Zak Snyder’s story is that the Super Soldier formula that is now linked to the Hulk and the Abomination is clearly able to turn people into weapons of mass destruction and all the military sees is a weapon.  Not a single person in uniform saw it as anything else and frankly, we’ve seen this theme before and done better elsewhere.

The notion that Emil Blonsky is a soldier towards the end of his career, with nothing to lose, and therefore more than willing to become the Abomination is a nice way to integrate the character from the comics to the film.  But, he’s as single-minded as everyone else in the story, which is a shame.

Penn’s script lifts the Mr. Blue character from Bruce Jones’ celebrated run on the title but reveals him to be Dr. Samuel Sterns, and frankly, I just didn’t buy their connection or the way Sterns suddenly switches from dedicated scientist to Colin Clive in [[[Frankenstein]]]. The fact that in the comics Stearns evolves into the Leader complete with big green head means he’s around should the movie franchise continue so hopefully he’ll be rounded out.

As presented, Leterrier’s film is pretty much A to B to C with pauses for Hulking out and destroying things until the climactic fight in Harlem.  I’ve certainly seen worse, but had hoped for something better considering [[[Iron Man]]], released just weeks prior, showed that serious issues could be addressed through fantastic means.
 

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Review: Zuda Comics’ October Competition

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  • October 19, 2008

ad63176st1sz225sq275172v0id93-5111091Every month, Zuda Comics, the online imprint of DC Comics, holds a competition featuring 10 different webcomics. The winner is selected based on a combination of factors including amount of votes, how often it’s been “favorited” and its overall user rating. The winning comic receives a contract to continue the series for 52 more pages on Zuda’s Web site.

For October’s competition, the Zuda editorial staff is punching out and handing the reins over to Peter and Robert Timony, creators of the Zuda comic Night Owls. In the spirit of Halloween, this month’s competitors are loaded with terrifying creatures, tantalizing mysteries and eerie landscapes. While every book doesn’t chime in on the holiday-inspired horror, each one has unique qualities that make for a month of fierce competition.

We’ve got the breakdown on all 10 of October’s Zuda books. Find out what’s good and what’s not so good, then go to Zuda to read and vote for your favorite book!

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Interview: Bryan Talbot on 30 Years of ‘Luther Arkwright’, Part Two

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  • October 19, 2008

Yesterday, we began chatting with British creator Bryan Talbot about the creation of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, now celebrating its 30th anniversary. Today, we look at the remastered edition and more.

hofe-frontispiece-mid-1-7304433CMix: You actually went back after 20 years and did a sequel, Heart of Empire, but that doesn’t seem to resonate in the same way.  How do you view it today?

BT: I’m very proud of the story and the way I  told it. I wasn’t interested in repeating Arkwright. I wanted to use the sequel to tell a different story in a different way. Perhaps, if I do another Arkwright, I’ll go back to experimental mode and just let rip. Any sophistication in the storytelling techniques of Heart of Empire is beneath the surface, not in your face. It shouldn’t be consciously visible.

CMix: Luther Arkwright has endured and you even adapted it for BBC radio with a Pre-Doctor Who David Tennant as the lead.  Was it easy to adapt?

BT: I didn’t adapt it. They used their own scriptwriter. I sent a list of suggestions as to how they could make it work better as audio but when I eventually met the writer, after it was produced, they hadn’t passed the suggestions along. I still quite enjoyed it though. David Tennant and the other actors were great, the music and sound FX were fine. My only criticism is that it was too faithful to the original. Most of the dialogue was my speech balloons word-for-word. While these work fine on the comic page I feel that they should have made them more naturalistic for the spoken word.

Big Finish have also bought the rights to adapt Heart of Empire and Tennant has agreed to reprise his role as Arkwright but they’rehaving to fit into his now busy schedule.

CMix: There’s been talk for years about a film adaptation. What’s taking so long?

BT: That’s the film industry for you. Things seem to move at a glacial pace.

There’s always something supposed to be just about to happen, some big name writer’s become involved or a big production company is desperately interested but nothing seems to actually happen. Hollywood people seem to suffer from verbal diarrhea. About a year ago a producer got in touch with me to say how passionate he was about The Tale of One Bad Rat and how he had a director on board who loved it and so forth. I’ve never heard a thing from him since.

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‘Sarah Connor’ gets Full Season Order

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

After all the hubbub in recent weeks, it’s somewhat of a surprise to see Fox quietly announcing the full-season pickup for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just last week, the show was given a sign of hope when additional scripts were ordered but now the full complement of nine episodes have been ordered bringing the full season total to 22.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Monday night series has seen only modest ratings in a tough time slot. Just 5.7 million viewers saw the most recent episode which sounds like a lot but in television terms is not.

Details will be formally announced Monday.  Speaking of tomorrow, the show’s blog has a post from Denise Thé, who wrote the episode and says, “’The Tower’ is the first of our episodes to be directed by a woman – the very talented Tawnia McKiernan. In the episode, Cameron fights a female Terminator – our first female-on-female Terminator fight. It’s a knock down, blow-your-hair back, jab-your-eye out (literally) fight scene. Be sure to watch closely – the arm and leg twists are not special effects! It’s also the first peek at The Turk since Samson and Delilah. The first insight into Weaver’s relationship with her daughter, Savannah. And at long last… the first time we address the mystery of who killed Sarkissian.”
 

The Theory of Webcomics: The Daily Grind

  • News
  • October 19, 2008

The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge is a competition between online comic artists to see who can maintain the longest Monday to Friday update schedule, following a strict set of rules. Each artist lays $20 USD on the line. The last man left standing takes the entire pot. The competition started on Monday, February 28, 2005, and is still going with ten contestants remaining.

Webcomics giants like Scott Kurtz, Chris Crosby, Steve Troop, and Jennie Breeden have all missed updates and been beaten out for the top spot. Conversely, none of the remaining contenders feature on Wikipedia’s list of Self-Sufficient Webcomics. Does this seem counter-intuitive?

Any successful webcomic creator will tell you that regular updates are important — in order to build an audience, you need to provide regular content to keep people coming back to the site. And very few comics have come into success with only one comic a week — you could pretty much count them on one hand — so you’d need at least two or three updates each week. If you can stretch it, five is optimal, because it gets the working world checking your site as part of their daily routine.

If your readers have the right sort of personalities, an irregular update schedule could work in your site traffic’s favor. Studies of gamblers has shown that irregular rewards — that is, receiving a reward only sometimes, and seemingly at random, for the same action — play all sorts of fun games with human brain chemistry. This is pointed to as the cause of the Las Vegas zombies who sit at slot machines for days. Is that any different from checking Order of the Stickevery day hoping that one of the three weekly updates will be there?

(Well, how different it is depends on how much of a reward you consider a new OotS comic to be. Money is a pretty universal reward. The comic needs to be good enough to trigger a “reward” response, because a sporadic, unfunny comic quickly gets dropped, rather than obsessively watched.) (more…)

Warner Bros. Releases Complete Flintstones Box Set

flintstonesThose of you who are like me and impatient when it comes to the World of DVD’s knows what it’s like to buy each season of a TV show on DVD and then miss out on a glorious looking box set with better extras and a shinier box for your collection. Well, out next week is definitely one box set you won’t want to miss, as Warner Home Video is realasing The Complete Flintstones Series on DVD. The set will include all 166 episodes from six seasons (1960-66) on a whopping 24 DVD set in a cool looking "stone age" style box. No word on whether the box will include any of the films such as A Man Called Flintstone, but you can still hold your inner child over with hours of bonus footage never before seen on DVD.

Here you can check out a clip from one of the extras where the original writers and animators of the beloved series discuss how The youngest Rubble, Bam-Bam came to be and how the voice talent created the characters we know and love to this day. 

 

You can finally get your Yabba-Dabba-Doo on with the box set on October 28.

Hulk Smash RiffTrax! For Free!!

  • Uncategorized
  • October 19, 2008

hulkRemember sitting through any particularly bad episode of The Incredible Hulk and thought to yourself, "Boy, this would be great for Mystery Science Theater!"? Well, look no further because Mike Nelson and his band of riffers from RiffTrax.com have decided to take on the very first episode of season one entitled "Final Round".

RiffTrax, for those not in the know, is a website where you can buy MP3’s of the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy) doing what they do best for movies that deserve it. After purchasing the Riff MP3, you then synch it up to the movie you purchased, like a makeshift commentary. With a selection ranging from Plan 9 From Outer Space to Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, you can purchase each "podcast" and watch it along with your DVD in the comfort of your own home. In a new deal, Rifftrax has partnered up with Overcast Media who will pre-synch the RiffTrax onto content posted for free by Hulu.com. This episode of Hulk is being offered for free as a Beta test and those who check it out are asked to give their feedback on how the service worked.

In the episode, Bruce Banner, going under the name David Benson (ugh) gets saved from muggers by local boxer "Rocky" (no relation) . Later Banner becomes Rocky’s friend and corner-man and uncovers a plot by Rocky’s manager for him to mule drugs. Not only do we get Martin Kove playing "Rocky", who is best remembered as the instructor who told Johnny to "sweep the leg" in Karate Kid, but we also get Ferrigno in green jumping in the ring to beat on the baddies!

Enjoy the full episode with RiffTrax commentary here.

 

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