This weekend, the fast-paced thriller GETAWAY hits theaters and both Selena Gomez and Ethan Hawke talk about how moist of the action took place inside the car. And have you ever seen IMPRACTICAL JOKERS on TruTV? If so, ever wonder why no one ever punched those guys. The Jokers themselves tell us why.
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Like my colleagues on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I have been confounded by the negative energy directed at Ben Affleck after the announcement by Warner Bros. that he would play Batman in the next Superman film.
The Internets almost always hate every announcement from Hollywood that has anything to do with nerd culture. I remember the howls when Christian Bale was announced to play Batman in the Nolan movies, and how Heidi McDonald ran photo number eight from this slideshow in her defense of the casting. Worked for me.
The objections seem to stem from fans’ displeasure with some of Affleck’s earlier work. They especially cite Daredevil, which I kind of liked, even though it’s overwrought, and Gigli, which I haven’t seen. And don’t intend to ever see.
I love Ben Affleck. I have loved him at least since Mallrats and definitely Chasing Amy. When I had a chance to talk to Kevin Smith at some industry event, I told him I thought Affleck would be a great Superman. He agreed. He even said Warner Bros. wanted Ben for the part. That was more than 15 years ago.
Which brings me to the reason I believe.
I can only imagine that the Internet complainers never saw Hollywoodland. It’s the story of a private detective investigating the death of George Reeves, the actor who played Superman in the original television series. Affleck plays Reeves in a performance that, in my opinion, should have earned him an Academy Award nomination. He not only creates a layered, believable portrayal of George Reeves, the man, but he vividly recreates the Reeves we knew from television. The way he holds his body changes when he is on-camera and when he is off.
This performance alone should tell us that Ben can be both The Dark Knight and Bruce Wayne. I’m not the only fan of the character who thinks so. The actor previously rumored to be the next Batman agrees with me.
So does Patton Oswalt, whom I love very dearly (and chastely, from afar). He said:
“A Batman portrayed by someone who’s tasted humiliation and a reversal of all personal valences — kind of like Grant Morrison’s “Zen warrior” version of Batman, post-Arkham Asylum, who was, in the words of Superman, “…the most dangerous man on the planet”? Think for a second and admit that Ben Affleck is closer to that top-shelf iteration of The Dark Knight than pretty much anyone in Hollywood right now.”
That quote should establish Oswalt’s geek credentials pretty well. And make his point.
Like Denny O’Neil, I have my qualms about a movie that features both Superman and Batman. It could be fun, but I’m not sure that Zack Snyder, the director of Man of Steel, is the person to direct it. He has cited Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns as his inspiration, and that’s not my favorite interpretation of the characters. I like it when Batman and Superman are friends, when Superman’s optimism lightens Batman, and Batman’s realism ground Superman.
I’m less happy when they fight. Especially if they aren’t going to team up and save the world together at the end.
The Hanna-Barbera machine was showing its age by the 1970s. After producing countless hours of programming for the three networks’ Saturday morning schedules, it was clear that the creative juices were drying up. They were also struggling to come with creative variations on the talking animals theme, especially as the hand-wringing parents were getting increasingly vocal about violence depicted on programming intended for impressionable children.
All of which may well explain the not-terribly-original Help…It’s the Hair Bear Bunch series that ran on CBS from 1971-1974 and has been only sporadically seen since. Still, that has not stopped Warner Archive from collecting the complete series and releasing it in a three-disc set.
All the veteran animators, writers, and voice artists gave us a professionally looking and sounding series. It just wasn’t very original or funny or topical. The closest we get is Hair Bear, with his afro, at a time when afros were all the rage. The bears — Hair Bear, Bubi Bear, and Square Bear — operated out of a then- modern looking den with real beds, plus there was a laboratory, television, refrigerator, and even a pizza maker. Like Hogan’s Heroes, the comfortable surroundings were easily transformed back into their prison surroundings. Oddest of all, they used an invisible motorcycle,
The overall premise to the series was that the Bears were trying to escape the Wonderland Zoo or have some sort of adventure. Opposing their plans, of course, is the zoo’s director, Mr. Eustace P. Peevly. In between are the usual assortment of oddballs and comic relief including Bananas the Gorilla, Furface the Lion, Bumbo the Elephant, Slicks the Fox, Hippy the Hippopotamus, Hercules the Hippopotamus, George the Giraffe, Beaks the Pelican, Tiptoes the Ostrich, Gabby the Parrot, Melvyn the Monkey, Hoppy the Kangaroo, Zeed the Zebra, Ollie the Octopus, Einstein the Owl, Arnie and Gloria the Gorillas, Specs the Mole, and Pipsqueak the Mouse.
Typical antics can be seen in the very first show, “Keep Your Keeper” as Hair Bear convinces Peevly he has Zoolerium, thinking he would finally get free until the strict replacement zoo keeper shows up to spoil the fun.
The vocal cast is stellar featuring Hall of Famers Paul Winchell, Daws Butler, John Stephenson, Don Messick, and Janet Waldo in concurrent roles.
There are sixteen episodes for those who want the complete H-B library but there is little fresh enough to recommend this.
The Fly scared the crap out of me. Then, later, when I wrote the Star Trek and Justice League franchises in comics, I felt a morbid and uneasy fascination with the transporter idea, which I’d always thought had a greater potential for disaster than deliverance. But I never did much with it, because my early Vincent Price-induced trauma left me with zero interest in writing about steaming piles of misshapen, dying flesh. So I never thought I’d see the day when I’d write these words:
The great irony of this is that many of the people who stand to lose big-time if the USPS achieves its goal of total self-annihilation are Geeks.
If this painfully slowly-approaching disaster isn’t averted, no amount of muscular adblockers will be able to Improve Your eBay Experience. And there are still some comics publishers who don’t drop-ship everything from Canada by courier service. Moreover, there still exist certain types of vendors who think DHL is an even bigger nightmare than the postal system, and a few pesky creative dinosaurs who still have the temerity to expect payment for entertaining you. And they expect it from Accounting Departments who are already resentful enough as it is about having to generate all those 1099s at year’s end. Which is why their indulgent bosses reward them for never, ever suggesting that Talent can be paid via Direct Deposit, which is obviously evil and irresponsible, in addition to being too much trouble, because that’s how the government that needs to be shrunk in the bathtub now pays The 47% all that social safety net money they don’t deserve and which is obviously a Socialist plot.
All these nice folk will feel like they live in an even more dystopian alternate universe than they already occupy if those little paper things that are redeemable for cash and prizes stop showing up in their cobweb-infested mail boxes.
Yes, I know you know what “going postal” means. But you may not be old enough to remember why, despite the fact that many local P.O.s are named after famous people living or dead, there’s no such thing as a David Berkowitz Post Office. Which is why you may be blissfully unaware that you’re not getting half your mail because your letter carriers’ dogs talk to them and tell them what they should do with it instead of delivering it.
For you, USPS’ headlong rush to make the case for its own irrelevancy to modern life might have a greater significance, so it is my duty to helpfully call it to your attention.
In the interest of appropriate full disclosure, I should add that I’m uniquely qualified to talk about the USPS on a site that’s supposed to be about comics, and not just from having been tortured by them through a few decades as a freelancer (an old girlfriend once got so tired of hearing me bitch about the horrors they visited on me, she nicknamed me BMK, which stood for Bad Mail Karma).
Oh, no. There’s more. You see, I was once involved in creating comic books FOR the USPS, which was a little trip through Pinhead’s Lament Configuration all by itself.
Have I hooked you? Good. Then maybe you’ll come back here for that story next week. I mean, maybe you’ll deign to sample this column again. In spite of everything.
Because in that tale – from the ‘90s, mind you – lies an insight into the monumental and long-customary – and therefore ineluctably irreparable – bureaucratic ineptitude that will inevitably result in USPS’s demise. This, despite a Congress that, while having done nothing else of substance, has managed to reinstate the possibility of its remote mail centers receiving Ricin-laced envelopes on Saturdays.
Hmm. The dogs I live with are barking. That must mean the mailmoron’s here. But that’s impossible. It’s not even dark yet. Must be a new person on this route. Excuse me while I go peer out at him or her suspiciously through the venetian blinds, like one of those crazy old people who’s about to run outside waving a broom to shoo the neighborhood kids out of the driveway. That’ll inspire continued excellent service, I’m sure.
Whoah.
The mailmoron has just delivered six pieces of mail, only four of which are for people who don’t live here. Plus, unlike her predecessor, she actually noticed the large banker’s box under the mailbox. The one with the sign on it reading, in 72-point type, outgoing mail. Which means she actually took the prepaid packages and stamped letters that have been sitting in it since Tuesday. And will do whatever her dog tells her to do with them.
I never thought I’d see the day.
Next week: Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor gloom of night can possibly make anything worse.
Gawdy laws! What is all the commotion?! Somebody find out about the attack on voting rights? The bloodshed in Egypt? In Syria? The shrinking food stamps program?
Oh. An actor was hired to do an acting job. And a lot of moviegoers are unhappy about it. Well…
The angst might be a little premature. A special effects film doesnât find its final form until shortly before it graces your closest multiplex and so we canât know how casting Ben Affleck as Batman will parse out. We have no idea how the character will be used, where he will fit into the screenplay, whether or not he may have some quality that the filmmakers will find useful.
When the world learned that Michael Keaton had been chosen to drive the Batmobile in director Tim Burtonâs 1988 Batman it seemed like a highly questionable pairing of performer and role. But what we didnât know, all of us inclined to say nay, was that Mr. Burton had his own vision of what the character might be and proceeded accordingly. Not my vision, but a vision that was valid on its own terms. Burton made a pretty good movie and then he made another. Not great flicks, but Iâll generally settle for pretty good.
Unless youâve been on a digital media fast for the past several days (and if you have, good for you!) youâre aware that the next movie adapted from DCâs comics will team the companyâs two signature heroes, Superman and the aforementioned Batman and if I were looking for something to fret about, that teaming would be it. Since both cape wearers are immensely popular, it makes marketing sense for the movie guys to costar them, just as it made marketing sense for the comics publishers to put them under the same covers, way, way back in the 1940s. We all know that more = better. (Donât we?) But Iâm not a marketing guy, Iâm an editorial guy, and I will claim that, really, Superman and Batman donât belong in the same story. Thereâs a problem of proportion. Superman, at his mightiest, could haul planets around. Batman… gee, heâs real smart and strong and â
â and he doesnât partner well with Superman. The problems and antagonists appropriate for one are not appropriate for the other. In putting them both at the center of a story simultaneously the storyteller can either ignore the implicit contradictions (or be blissfully unaware of them) or devise separate story arcs for each, different but interrelated, which is how we usually dealt with company-mandated crossovers that had to involve Batman and Superman and whoever else had to be in the mix.
Or â best case scenario â the writer can be so clever and sly and ingenious that he solves the problem in a way that has never even occurred too me.
Casting is a big part of film making â there are highly paid professionals whose sole task is to help directors with the chore â but its not the only part; let us not forget writing and editing and production values and cinematography and locations…
Iâve liked Ben Affleckâs recent work behind the camera â Gone, Baby, Gone is surely one of the best private eye pictures â and so Iâm willing to forego prejudging his forthcoming incarnation as Batman and, what the hell, wish him luck.
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OMG! OMG! Did you hear who they’ve signed to play Batman in a whole bunch of movies, starting with Man of Steel 2? No, not Anthony Weiner. And not Ann Coulter –she’s already signed to play Nick Fury in the S.H.I.E.L.D. teevee series. No, Warner Bros. found somebody far worse. They hired the very personification of celluloid evil: Ben Affleck.
Yes, I’m sure you heard of this. So did literally tens of thousands of “fans” who were so upset they signed a petition condemning the action. And seemingly hundreds of thousands went to Facebook, to Twitter, hell some even reactivated their My Space accounts to express their extreme displeasure. Yea, verily, Ragnarök is upon us!
To quote the immortal William Shatner, get a life. You’re entitled to your opinion; if you don’t think Ben Affleck is a worthy actor, that’s your opinion. In my opinion, you’re wrong – Ben Affleck is a perfectly fine actor on his worst day. Besides, it doesn’t matter who’s inside the rubber suit. Lassie would look fine in the Batsuit, as long as she didn’t try to lick herself.
The question is, can the performer handle the role of Bruce Wayne? Quite frankly, this is not a tricky part to handle. Any handsome high school senior who did The Great Gatsby can do it. It’s hard to imagine Affleck turning in any less a performance than Michael Keaton – who I thought was fine – and a better performance than Keaton’s first two successors.
I realize it’s heresy to say this, but that’s never stopped me before: Christian Bale didn’t have all that much to do as Bruce Wayne. When he did, he was fine but nobody was wailing about his being cheated out of an Oscar (Registered Trademark, AMPAS, All Rights Reserved, Watch Yer Ass).
I’ll even defend the Daredevil movie. Ben Affleck wasn’t what was wrong with that movie, and, honestly, in my opinion it wasn’t a bad movie. We had come to expect better Marvel superhero movies, but it was better than both Hulks and either Fantastic Four. More important, the director’s cut was actually a good movie. Not Spider-Man 2 good, not The Dark Knight good, but a solidly entertaining movie with some fine performances. Direct your wrath at whomever cut the theatrical print.
Besides, Affleck can’t help but walk all over Henry Cavill. It’s the approach to Man of Steel 2 that concerns me. The first one was totally misguided. It wasn’t Superman. Actually, it was Batman.
I’ll say one thing for the hiring of Ben Affleck. It shows that Warner Bros. is willing to put their money where their, well, their sundry body parts are. Signing him to a multi-movie contract shows they’re in it for the long haul. It shows they understand what Robert Downey Jr. did for the Marvel movie universe.
And if there’s ever a Marvel/DC crossover movie – calm down; this is just a what-if – I can’t think of a more enjoyable pairing than Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Affleck.
Besides, we already know Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark sit on each other’s board of directors.
This week Host Tommy Hancock welcomes Publisher and Author Milton Davis, the man behind MVMedia. Â Leading the charge for Sword and Soul as well as Steamfunk, Davis is the vanguard for African American Genre and Pulp Fiction. Â Listen in as he talks about how he became a writer, why MVMedia exists, the myriad worlds that he and others have woven, future plans, and gives his own insights into the state of Black Speculative Fiction! Â Hang on to your hats as Milton Davis Gets PULPED!
The Shadow Fan podcast returns for his 46th episode! This week Barry Reese takes a look at a classic novel (“The Crystal Buddha” from January 1, 1938) and the newest issue of The Shadow/Green Hornet: Dark Nights! It’s an action-packed episode, made all the more so by the announcement of just who will be appearing on our landmark 50th episode in a few weeks! That’s right – at the end of the episode, you’ll find out if your guesses have been correct.
If you love pulp’s greatest crimefighter, this is the podcast for you!
Starting September 1, AudioComics will begin taking pre-orders for the audio drama adaptation of Moonstone Entertainment‘s “Battle for LA,” starring the Phantom Detective, the Black Bat, the Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and Airboy.
“Battle” will be released as a digital download October 1, available exclusively through the AudioComics website at www.audiocomicscompany.com!
Between September 1 and October 1, you can preorder the “Battle” MP3 for $6.45 ($1.50 off the retail
price of $7.95).
Plus you will receive a FREE episode from AudioComics’ “Horrorscopes” series!
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