Tagged: comedy

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO MONOGRAM’S THIRD ‘SHADOW’!

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

“THE MISSING LADY”
Monogram Pictures
Starring Kane Richmond, Barbara Reed, George Chandler, et al.
Directed by Phil  Karlson
Written by George Callahan
Based on THE SHADOW stories by Walter Gibson from THE SHADOW Magazine
1946

Yes, Virginia, there was a SHADOW movie before Alec Baldwin (which, by the way, I enjoyed although many did not). Actually, there were three, all B movies turned out by Monogram Pictures in the 1940s.   ‘The Missing Lady’ is the third entry in the series, but the first that I watched, so hence the review.  

Now, for those not familiar with most movie adaptations of our beloved pulp types, they often usually go far askew of what we as fans are familiar with and enjoy.  This was true oftentimes in the days of early Hollywood, due in part to the inability to mimic many of the things that occurred in the written word, but also to often fit trends that were present in the movies at the time.  Not so different from today, this practice seems to be more prevalent in the 1930sand 40s, a period where ‘film series’ short 60-75 minutes movies were produced rather rapidly focusing on a central character.  The Saint, The Falcon, and The Lone Wolf are probably the best examples of ‘detective/hero/playboy’ types that dominated movie screens in the 1940s.   Monogram had an opportunity to jump into this genre with a totally different twist when it took on dramatizing Gibson’s THE SHADOW stories.  Unfortunately, this ended up being a very much missed opportunity.

‘THE MISSING LADY’ opens with the murder of an art collector and the theft of a Jade figurine of a lady, the absent diva of the title.  It jumps immediately to a month later, and I mean immediately with the use of a newspaper headline saying the murder we’d just watched was a month ago, and a whole host of people searching for the statue.  Included in this cast of characters is playboy and amateur detective Lamont Cranston, the only person seemingly investigating the murder.  Cranston and his cab driving roommate Shrevvie, along with their vapid bumbling girlfriends Margo Lane (yes, Margo is a jealous goofball throughout the movie) and Jenny Delaney, feel that the series of murders following the first one in the film, are all tied into the ‘Missing Lady.’  Throw in a police investigator that Cranston spars with for comedy, a list of two dimensional 1940 mystery stereotypes, and two kooky spinster sister elevator operators who have races in ‘Upsadaisy’ and ‘Downsadaisy’, their named elevator car and you have this movie.

Oh yeah, and Cranston becomes The Shadow twice and is the only person to ever mention his alter ego.

The acting was average for the most part for a B Movie from this period.  The storyline was convoluted, confusing, and way too crowded.   It was obvious that some characters, including the artist who lived in Cranston’s building, were simply thrown in so there would be more suspects.  The attempts at comedy fell flat for the standards of the period and due to that, are particularly dated for modern viewers.   The resolution of the murders was pretty good concerning the very first murder, although it was telegraphed five minutes into the movie.  The resolution for the others, however, was just as throwaway as most of the characters.

I did enjoy the way that they portrayed The Shadow the few times he was shown.  He was literally that, a black shadow in a fedora and something covering his face.  For the period, one particular effect was really cool.  The Shadow accosts a bad guy and grabs hold of him and the guy is pulled off screen.  The fight seen only in shadow added a little weight to the portrayal and had this continued in various ways, would have made this much more enjoyable.   Kane Richmond definitely fit the look for Lamont Cranston, but what was missing were many of the Shadow trademarks, like the creepiness and the laugh.   And let’s not even talk about the waste of both Barbara Reed and Margo Lane.  Reed shows promise to be a good Margo in a couple of scenes, but the writing makes Margo more ‘Lucy’ than ‘Lane’ and it just doesn’t work.

TWO OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-If you’re a Shadow fan who feels like you need to see, read, or hear everything THE SHADOW is in, then you need to see this.  Or if you have no idea who the character is, but you want to point and laugh at the old movie, then this is also for you.  Other than that, go watch Alec Baldwin.

RADIO ARCHIVES LATEST AND GREATEST!


Welcome to Another Weekly Newsletter from RadioArchives.com!

* New in Old Time Radio: The Jimmy Durante Show, Volume 2
* New in Pulp Fiction: The Spider Volume 19, The Shadow Volume 48, and Doc Savage Volume 47
* The Best Deals are in the Radio Archives Treasure Chest
* Also New in Old Time Radio: The Adventures of Archie Andrews
* Coming Soon: Pulp Audiobooks from RadioArchives.com

New in Old Time Radio: The Jimmy Durante Show, Volume 2 The first half of the 20th century was a great time for entertainment, with amazingly talented performers dominating the Broadway stage, vaudeville, and nightclubs. But, in the annals of show business, few entertainers achieved the lengthy and enduring career claimed by Jimmy Durante.

Nicknamed “Schnozzola” for his oversized nose, Jimmy Durante first came to prominence as a teenager, playing New York’s restaurant and nightclub circuit as Ragtime Jimmy. Bitten by the show-biz bug, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade and soon teamed up with fellow entertainers Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson to form a musical comedy trio that wowed nightclub audiences with its boisterous unpredictability, Durante’s aggressive interaction with the musicians, and his penchant for destroying pianos in mock frustration. Clayton, Jackson, and Durante quickly gained a reputation as one of the most hilarious acts in town – and, by the mid-1920s, the team was being featured in vaudeville, culminating in a lengthy run at New York’s Palace Theater. In 1929, Broadway called them for a featured spot in “Show Girl” and, by the time Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” opened in 1930, Durante was a star.

Jimmy continued his Broadway success in a string of popular shows and revues throughout the 1930s, but it was his role in “Jumbo” that brought him the most acclaim, playing the brash owner of a circus in an extravaganza that brought all of the delights of the Big Top to New York’s massive Hippodrome Theater. But he didn’t limit himself solely to the Great White Way; thanks to appearances in a series of films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a guest star spot on Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann Hour, by 1933, Durante had taken over for Eddie Cantor as the host of radio’s “Chase and Sanborn Hour”. On the air, Durante’s broad delivery, overwhelming personality, and penchant for mangling his words only increased his popularity with laugh-hungry Depression-era audiences and his next radio series – “Jumbo”, based partially on the Broadway show – kept him a welcome visitor in American homes.

For a time, aside from an occasional radio guest appearance, Durante devoted himself solely to the stage and nightclubs. But, in 1943, Hollywood beckoned once again with the offer of comedic roles in a series of motion pictures. For this opportunity, Durante relocated to Hollywood, where he was also signed to headline a CBS series titled “The Camel Caravan”. The new series found the Schnozz co-starred with a fresh voiced young comedian named Garry Moore in what initially seemed to be an odd and highly unlikely pairing. As so often happens, however, the mismatched duo instantly clicked as a team, ratings went through the roof, and Durante’s patented brand of language mangling and outraged interaction with the orchestra introduced him to radio audiences all over again. Durante and Moore enjoyed four successful seasons together until Moore decided to pursue a solo career at the end of the 1946/47 season.

With Moore’s departure, in the fall of 1947, Jimmy Durante signed a contract to host a new series on NBC for the Rexall Drug Company, costarring vocalist Peggy Lee and character actor Victor Moore. Loud, boisterous, and wildly entertaining, “The Jimmy Durante Show” proved just as popular as its predecessor – so much so, in fact, that the following season found Durante back on CBS and back with Camel Cigarettes for another two years before the Schnozz finally moved full-time to television in the early 1950s.

The ten shows in this second compact disc collection, priced at just $14.98, showcase Jimmy Durante at his bigger-than-life best, complete with the fractured English, gravel voiced musical numbers, and warmhearted buffoonery that made him a show business legend. As an added bonus, this set includes two shows broadcast while Jimmy was in the hospital recovering from surgery – and it’s a mark of his reputation among show people that the personalities filling in for him include the Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan, as well as the World’s Greatest Entertainer, Al Jolson. Taken directly from original master recordings and fully restored for sparkling audio fidelity, this second volume of “The Jimmy Durante Show” offers an additional selection of shows that are just as fresh, alive, and vibrant as they were when they were first aired over sixty years ago. If you love a good belly laugh, you’ll want to stop by RadioArchives.com and pick up your copy right away.
New in Pulp Fiction: The Spider Volume 19, The Shadow Volume 48, and Doc Savage Volume 47

At RadioArchives.com, we love the thrills, chills, and excitement that only a great pulp fiction story can provide. That’s why we’re excited to announce that three brand new reprints featuring the top heroes from the 1930s and 1940s are now available from RadioArchives.com:

Pulp fiction’s legendary Master of Men returns in “The Spider Volume 19”, featuring two classic novels written by Norvell Page under the pseudonym of Grant Stockbridge. First, in “Slaves of the Dragon”, white slavery is stripping America of its wives, sisters and sweethearts. Richard Wentworth, valiant champion of human rights, knows that an Oriental master criminal is captaining the slavery syndicate and has guessed the unspeakable purpose behind these wholesale abductions. Can the Spider outwit his most formidable foe and save America’s doomed womanhood? Then, in “The Spider and his Hobo Army”, murder and destruction has stupefied the nation. The zero hour has come and the vast and insidious Order of the Double Cross is ready to blast America from the face of the earth. Can The Spider crush the minions of the Double Cross, with only a handful of ragged hobos to aid him? This beautifully reformatted double-novel version of these two pulp classics, priced at just $14.95, features the original cover art and interior illustrations that accompany each story.

Next, in “The Shadow Volume 48”, the Dark Avenger continues the celebration of his 80th anniversary in an extra-length issue that pairs his explosive second adventure with a gripping novel of international intrigue. In “The Eyes of The Shadow”, the Knight of Darkness assumes the identity of Lamont Cranston to investigate a series of baffling serial murders in a groundbreaking novel that introduced the Shadow’s famous alter ego and his enigmatic agent, Burbank. Then, can The Shadow stop “The Money Master” before his financial machinations destroy the global economy? This instant collectors’ item, priced at just $14.95, showcases the classic cover paintings by George Rozen and John A. Coughlin, the original interior illustrations by George H. Wert and Paul Orban, two never-before-published articles by the Shadow’s creator Walter B. Gibson, and historical commentary by Will Murray.

Finally, in “Doc Savage Volume 47”, pulp fiction’s legendary Man of Bronze returns in three action-packed thrillers by Lester Dent, writing as Kenneth Robeson. First, when a man claiming to have found the secret of eternal life is murdered, Doc Savage journeys to Mexico searching for an answer in the remote “Weird Valley”. Then, only the Man of Bronze can provide a beautiful con artist with an antidote for murder in “Let’s Kill Ames”. Finally, a lost city of Incas battles over the strange power of “The Green Master”. This classic pulp reprint, priced at just $14.95, features the original color pulp covers by George Rozen, Modest Stein, and Walter Swenson, plus Paul Orban’s classic interior illustrations and historical commentary by Will Murray.

If you’ve been collecting these beautifully reformatted issues as they are released, you’ll want to place your order for these new books right away. And if you’ve never read a pulp novel – well, you’re in for a real treat! Be sure to stop by RadioArchives.com today and check out our pulp fiction section, where you’ll find more of the exciting and engrossing tales of Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider, the Whisperer, and The Avenger.
The Best Deals are in the Radio Archives Treasure Chest
If you’re a regular visitor to our website at RadioArchives.com, we don’t have to tell you about our Treasure Chest Bonus Deals. They’re right there on our home page, with new ones posted all the time, and they give you the chance to add something very special to each and every one of your orders with us.

But if you’ve never heard about our Treasure Chest, well, it’s high time that you did! You see, when you submit an order for $35.00 or more at RadioArchives.com, you get the chance to add a Treasure Chest Bonus Deal to your order. On the weekends following their release, you’ll find our newest compact disc collection there – and it will be priced at just 99 Cents! During the week, you’ll find other great deals, including pulp fiction reprints, books, DVD sets, and other CD collections containing hours of great sounding radio entertainment. But no matter what day you happen to stop by, you’ll find a great deal waiting for you on the home page of RadioArchives.com.

This week, for example, you’ll want to circle the dates on your calendar to remember to take advantage of these great deals:

* Today through Monday May 23rd, you can get our newest CD set – “The Jimmy Durante Show, Volume 2”, a $14.98 value – for Just 99 Cents when you submit an order of $35.00 or more.

* On Tuesday May 24th, the Man of Bronze and his Fabulous Five are featured in “Doc Savage Volume 16”, featuring two exciting adventures from pulp fiction’s Golden Age. First, in “The Secret in the Sky”, Doc journeys to Oklahoma to investigate the murder of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Then, in “The Giggling Ghosts,” a toxic outbreak of uncontrollable hilarity is causing New Jersey residents to literally laugh themselves to death. This beautifully reformatted double-novel reprint, chock full of special features, is normally priced at $12.95 – but you can enjoy these two exciting adventures for Just 99 Cents when you submit an order of $35.00 or more.

* On Wednesday May 25th, you’ll laugh along with one of radio’s most hilarious and innovative comedy teams in “Matinee with Bob and Ray, Volume 1”, an hilarious ten-CD set featuring 20 rare broadcasts from Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding’s earliest days at radio station WHDH in Boston, Massachusetts. This ten-hour collection of improvisational entertainment, transferred from the original one-of-kind transcriptions and fully restored for impressive audio fidelity, normally sells for $29.98 – but it can be yours for Just 99 Cents when you submit an order of $35.00 or more.

* In the 1930s, nobody combined high style, romantic comedy, and drama better than Carole Lombard. A talented comedic actress with the face of an angel, Lombard illuminated the silver screen with her sparkling wit and dazzling beauty. Now you have the chance to enjoy six of her most hilarious and heartwarming films in “Carole Lombard – The Glamour Collection”, featuring such top name costars as Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Fred MacMurray, William Powell, John Barrymore, and Ralph Bellamy. This set, offering two double-sided DVDs, normally sells for $26.98 – but on Thursday, May 26th, it can be yours for Just $3.99 when you place an order of $35.00 or more.

We’re sorry but, at these low prices, multiple orders cannot be combined into single shipments. Each separate order must be placed on the days on which the specials are offered and no early or late orders will be accepted.

Make it a habit to visit RadioArchives.com often and see what’s waiting for you in the Treasure Chest. It’s great way to stretch your entertainment budget and add to your personal library of radio, pulp, and movie favorites.

New in Old Time Radio: The Adventures of Archie Andrews When we look back at American family life in the late 1930s, many of us view it not through the eyes of reality but, instead, thru the rose colored glasses of popular culture. If you were young yourself at that time, you have a more realistic memory of those years – but, if you’re a baby boomer and beyond, you’re more likely to imagine a typical American home, circa 1940, as being in Carvel where a teenager named Andy Hardy lives: clean, pleasant, prosperous, and where every challenge, crisis, or misadventure is resolved in time for a happy ending – complete with the occasional musical number.

It’s not surprising that we have this rosy vision of the past; after all, every entertainment medium did its best to create and sustain this image. Hollywood gave us a seemingly endless series of Andy Hardy movies, the Broadway stage gave us “What a Life!” which introduced the perpetually teenaged Henry Aldrich, and radio quickly turned Henry and his friend Homer into comedy characters that would endure for over a decade. As the 1940s progressed, the trend continued: perky teenager Corliss Archer came to radio in 1943, as did “A Date with Judy” – both sit-coms featuring a typical teenage girl dealing with her boyfriends, her often baffled parents, and the overwhelming dramas of high school social life. But it wasn’t the stage, screen, or radio that would bring us our most enduring and innocent image of teenaged life; it was, instead, the comics.

In December of 1941, just two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Pep Comics introduced a new character that continues to entertain readers to this very day – and his name is Archie Andrews. From the beginning, Archie was the epitome of the American teenager of the 1940s: dressed in a polka dot bow tie with a letterman’s sweater that proclaimed his loyalty to Riverdale High, he drove a souped-up jalopy, hung out with the perpetually lazy Jughead Jones, and spent most of his time in a lovesick haze. Aside from occasional crushes on movie goddesses, Archie divided his affection between two teenaged beauties: Betty Cooper, a bright and down-to-earth blonde, and Veronica Lodge, a wealthy brunette who loved to toy with Archie’s affections. Hitting just the right mix of familiarity, slapstick comedy, and small-town warmth, Archie and his pals were an instant hit with teen readers – and, in less than a year, the characters had made their way from comic books to a daily newspaper comic strip and to radio.

In its first incarnation, “The Adventures of Archie Andrews” was a daily fifteen-minute radio series, aired over the Blue Network. Ratings were respectable and, after a brief move to a half-hour weekly slot, the five-a-week format returned on Mutual in 1944. But the series really hit its stride in June of 1945, when a largely new cast was introduced and it premiered over NBC in a Saturday morning slot that it would happily occupy for eight years. For the majority of the Saturday morning run, Archie was played by Bob Hastings, a talented young actor who had already made his reputation playing juveniles on dramatic programs. Woman-hating food-loving Jughead was played by Harlan Stone, perky Betty was played by Rosemary Rice, and the honey-voiced Veronica was played by Gloria Mann. If you were looking for subtlety or teenaged angst, you were never going to find it on “The Adventures of Archie Andrews”; in typical sit-com fashion, the plots usually revolved around some simple misunderstanding that quickly turned into bedlam. Aimed straight at a pre-teen audience, the programs were designed to be nothing more than loud, goofy, and fun – and, from the reactions of the studio audience that attended each live broadcast, the show was clearly adored by its listeners.

Priced at just $20.98, “The Adventures of Archie Andrews” offers fourteen original NBC broadcasts, taken from the original network master recordings and fully restored for sparkling audio fidelity. If you’ve enjoyed the other comedy collections released by RadioArchives.com – and especially if Archie and his pals were a big part of your youth – this is a collection you simply won’t want to miss.
Coming Soon: Pulp Audiobooks from Radio Archives

You’ve thrilled to their exciting adventures in print! Now enjoy your favorite pulp stories in a whole new way in a brand new series of audiobooks, coming soon from RadioArchives.com!

For decades, the novels of Doc Savage, The Spider, and other classic heroes have occupied a special place in the hearts of readers everywhere. Now, by special arrangement with the authors, owners, and publishers of these thrill-packed adventures, Radio Archives.com will soon be offering full length unabridged audiobook adaptations of these timeless tales.

The first series of audiobooks, scheduled for release in the late Spring of 2011, will be the Doc Savage novels written by renowned writer Will Murray – starting with his classic adventure story, “Python Isle”. Future series will include the exploits of The Spider, the Master of Men, and Secret Agent “X”, as well as other well-known crimefighters from pulp fiction’s Golden Age. These new audio productions will feature the talents of some of the top voice actors in the country and will be produced and directed by Roger Rittner, who created the “Adventures of Doc Savage” full-cast radio series, now available from RadioArchives.com.

For more information on these exciting new releases, click here: Audiobooks from RadioArchives.com

Be watching for updates on our website and also special features in our weekly newsletters as we begin the “Countdown to Adventure” with pulp audiobooks, coming to you soon from RadioArchives.com!

National Graphic Novel Writing Month, Day #6: Four-color, true grit, or somewhere in between?

  • News
  • October 6, 2010

By now, you should have an idea for a story, and you might even know who some of the characters are. Your next question: how are you going to present the story?

To quote the greatest criminal mastermind of our time: “Some people can read War And Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story.” How you present the story is very important.

Let’s say you were writing a Batman story… why not, everybody else has. What type of Batman story are you going to tell?

Remember, this is a character who’s a cheery Saturday morning cartoon on The Brave and the Bold but he’s also beating people to a pulp in The Dark Knight, a film that pushed the limits of PG-13. He’s a toy for toddlers, a sociopath in Frank Miller’s work, and sometimes just flipping weird in Grant Morrison books. And it all works.

But more on point, the tone of your story has to be considered. It’s easy to contemplate a noir Batman story, but you could just as easily write a science fiction Batman story. Or a comedy. Or a spy story. Or a fable. Or horror. Or musical comedy– okay, it’s tough to do musical comedy in comics, but it’s been done in other media.

And more importantly, you can tell the same sequence of events, but you can frame it in different ways. You can look at your buddy’s romantic troubles as tragic or hilarious– or both, if they’re like my friends.

This will also affect who your choice of artist will be. Granted, you may or may not have control of who will end up drawing your story, but you can write as if you are picking the artist. A Batman story drawn by Jack Kirby will feel much different than one drawn by Neal Adams, and that will feel different than a story drawn by Timothy Truman. But again, you can use that to your advantage. No one will expect a story drawn by, say, Gene Colan to be a laugh riot. And yet, there were a few funny Batman stories that he drew.

Tone is your secret weapon– people expect a comic book story to be told a certain way. Surprise them.

Remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here!

Review: ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show – The Complete Sixth Season’

There were many groundbreaking television series as the 1970s arrived and most have been extensively written about because of their casting or long-term cultural impact. Norman Lear made the sitcoms more relevant by making his characters more like us and Larry Gelbart helped make sitcoms comment on issues of the day by adding an edge to the humor. But James L. Brooks, Allan Burns and company helped bring about a revolution in character-based comedy with [[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]].

Running from the 1970-71 season through the 1976-77 season, the series was built around Mary, a single, independent working girl. Initially, she was to be divorced but CBS wasn’t ready for that but she still broke ground. She had friends at home and at work, she dated, she gave terrible parties, but was exceptionally competent at her job, producing the evening news at WJM.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment finally released the penultimate season this month and as with the best of comedy, it’s all in the timing. One of the show’s best writers, David Lloyd, died recently and just about every obituary singled out his episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust”, which is included in The Complete Sixth Season three-disc set so now we can see it once more.

By the sixth season, neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) had been spun off into her show as was her landlady Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) so the series focused more on the newsroom. By now, the relationships and inter-personal dynamics between Mary, her boss Lou (Ed Asner), the news writer Murray (Gavin McLeod), and anchor Ted (Ted Knight) had been sharpened. The ensemble worked well together and their comic timing is strongly evident here, especially when they’re all together such as at Chuckles’ funeral. The supporting cast had been broadened allowing Betty White’s salacious Su Ann Nivens and Georgia Engels’ innocent Georgette to gain more screen time and each get showcased during the 24 episode season. It may have been MTM’s name in the title, but she graciously allowed everyone to take their turn.

The season opens and closes interestingly on characters not Mary. “Edie gets Married” is a terrific spotlight for Asner as he watches his ex remarry while “Ted and the Kid” shows how Ted and Georgette struggle to conceive only to wind up adopting (spoiling the episode was the pat pregnancy at the end). In between, we see Mary date and fall in love, only to have her heart snapped in two. She meets new neighbors, recurring characters played by Mary Kay Place and Penny Marshall (just as she gained fame as Laverne). Place, by the way, also wrote for the series so her contributions were strongly felt.

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Manga Friday: The Dregs

  • News
  • January 16, 2009

Manga Friday took a little holiday for the last couple of weeks, and it may take more holidays in the weeks to come. Looking back on my recent columns, I’ve said an awful lot of “and here’s the next volume in a series I’ve reviewed four times” and “this week’s books have nothing in common” – and neither of those are quite what I’d hoped. I think I’m reviewing too many of the same manga, too often, so I expect to cut back on Manga Friday substantially in 2009, unless I start seeing more different things.

I expect to keep reviewing stuff here on Fridays, but there may be somewhat less of the specifically Japanese/Korean stuff for a while. (Or possibly not – whenever I try to predict something like this, I’m usually wrong.) But I’ll save the name “Manga Friday” for when I’m looking at books that would be called manga by that legal construct, the “reasonable man.”

So, for this week, I have three books, arranged in ascending order of volume number:

The Manzai Comics
Story by Atsuko Asano; Art by Hizuru Imai
Aurora, January 2009, $10.95

This opens with an odd hint of yaoi, as large, athletic, energetic, popular student Takashi Akimoto begs small, weak, timid (generic manga hero Type 1) Ayumu Seta to “please go out with me” and “do it with me.” Takashi actually wants to form a manzai comedy team with Ayumu, but he’s either too dim or too focused on himself to actually say that for several pages.

(Apparently – I have no personal knowledge of this, but several references agree – the dominant form of comedy in Japan is manzai, two-person acts, rather than sketch comedy or stand-up or improv. Think Abbot & Costello or Crosby & Hope.)

Ayumu is not just an ordinary shy boy – well, he’s a manga hero, so you know there’s got to be some horribly dramatic thing in his past – he considers himself responsible for the car-crash death of his father and older sister because he was clinically depressed (and completely untreated as well). So he has the standard “I just want to be normal” complex of the dweeby manga hero in spades. (more…)

‘Sherlock Holmes’ Up Next for Downey Jr.

  • News
  • July 11, 2008

Variety is reporting that Robert Downey Jr. has signed up to play titular detective Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming Warner Bros. movie to be directed by Guy Ritchie.

Shooting starts this fall, which means it shouldn’t get in the way of Iron Man 2, which Downey also has on the table with a prospective 2010 release date. Marvel also apparently just brought back director Jon Favreau for that sequel.

Strangely, this is one of two competing Holmes movies, Variety says:

With Downey aboard, the film will go into production before a comedy that just coalesced at Columbia Pictures, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing Holmes, and Will Ferrell playing his crime-fighting partner Dr. Watson.

Columbia is fast tracking its project, which is being written by Etan Cohen ("Tropic Thunder") and produced by Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller.

One might wonder, then, what this news portends for Downey’s supposed interest in a film version of Cowboys & Aliens. Platinum Studios leaked word of that, going so far as to say the film would have a 2010 release.

File that one under "doubtful."

Review: ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’

If there is one absolute statement that can be made about [[[Hellboy II: The Golden Army]]], it is that this is easily director Guillermo del Toro’s lightest and funniest film — which may just be its greatest downfall. If the first film were to be classified as a “horror/action with comedic relief”, this film is most definitely a “horror/comedy with action sequences,” and that could be what hurts the film the most.

The story picks up about a year from where the first film leaves off: the [[[B.P.R.D.]]] has grown, with the addition of Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), who is now Hellboy’s live-in girlfriend. Tom Manning (Jeff Tambor) is still in charge of the team and is trying his hardest (“trying” being the operative word) to keep it all a secret from the public. There’s all of this, and then there’s also an epic war being forged between a renegade elf prince and mankind.

The film starts off sweet enough, on a military base on Christmas during one of Hellboy’s adolescent years.  A cameo from John Hurt gets the audience excited right off the bat. Hurt then tells a young Hellboy the story of the first Human/Elf war. This is where we set the mood for the rest of the film. The story is told using computer-generated wooden dolls, rather than actual elves or humans. While Guillermo is known for his imagination with monsters and/or children, this may have been a bit much in the direction of puerility. Instead of giving the impression of a childhood story, the CGI comes across as sloppy and unfinished.

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Review: Futurama – The Beast with a Billion Backs

futurama_billionbacks1-1455062

Coming up behind their first direct-to-DVD film, “[[[Bender’s Big Score]]],” Futurama’s next title certainly fills the void that series junkies need but can’t get from running their season DVDs bare. And while “[[[Beast with a Billion Backs]]]” is certainly not as deep or emotional as “Bender’s Big Score,” there is definitely enough to keep you entertained for 90 minutes.

The premise of the “movie” (which is technically four interwoven episodes) begins up with a tear in the sky, seemingly to another universe. When panic ensues and the world’s two smartest minds battle it out to figure out who gets to explore it first, our hapless hero, Fry, jumps in the hole and stumbles across something Earth-shattering. There are several other subplots that all come together in the end a la [[[Seinfeld]]], but the main focal point is this interdimensional “beast.”

Each of these films seems to have a central theme, and if the theme of “Big Score” was time travel and friendship, the theme here must be love and jealousy. Even stated by Bender in the film: “You can’t have complete love without complete jealousy,” which may be poetic, but is still hilarious. The structure follows that of a cheesy romantic comedy, while still mocking itself by having the “romance” occur between the titular beast and every being in existence. (It’s your typical “beast meets everybody, they fall in love, everybody feels betrayed, they break up, then try to fix the relationship” story… but with robot pirates.)

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ComicMix Six: Celebrity Team-Ups

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In previous editions of ComicMix Six, our contributors have given you their lists of comics’ top political campaigns, the best and worst movies based on comics, and even a few reasons why a Skrull invasion isn’t anything to worry about.

This week, we have a special guest contributor, Vinnie Bartilucci, whose name can often be seen in the comment sections here on ComicMix. We thought he had a great idea for this week’s list, so without further introduction… Take it away, Vinnie! -RM]

Comics work fine all by themselves, in their own little universe. But at some point, just like on television, someone always says, “Hey, let’s bring in a guest star!” 

Maybe it’s because the star in question is a comics fan, or they thought it’d bring the book some publicity if the star help it up on The Tonight Show, or any of the other inspirations that come after a late night of pacing the floor with a stomach full of pastrami. But the real world and the world of comics clashed a lot of times over the years.

sman62-tm-4127706Sure, comics creators would often put themselves in the books – Julie Schwartz made more than a few appearances in the DC titles after the discovery of Earth-Prime, and Stan Lee almost deserves his own ComicMix Six for all the times he appeared in the books. Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis even had their own titles for many years. But it’s the one-shot, “Hey, did that just happen?” crossovers I’m honoring in this article today.

So here they are, in no fixed heirarchy, my ComicMix Six list of the The Best Celebrity Team-Ups in Comics:

 

SUPERMAN AND ORSON WELLES: One of the earliest examples I’m aware of, the creator of Citizen Kane and later spokesman for the Paul Masson Wineries Orson Welles appeared in Superman #62. While working on his latest film, Black Magic, Welles accidentally stumbles across the launch site for an unmanned rocket to Mars, and while exploring the ship, it varooms off to the red planet, not as unmanned as previously presumed.

On Mars, he is confronted by the Martian’s tyrannical leader, “Martler.” Martler had taken that name because of his admiration of the Earth Dictator, and patterned his armies after the Nazi example. Apparently he didn’t get the last few news items… Welles naturally refuses his offer to become propaganda minister of Earth, and forces them to show him how to broadcast to Earth. He beams an impassioned plea home with news of the coming invasion, but you guessed it, thanks to his little prank a few years earlier, people don’t believe him this time. Well, nobody but Superman.

Superman arrives in the traditional nick of time and helps stop the “Solazi” invasion fleet, while Welles keeps the soldiers on the ground spooked with a few cheesy magic tricks, a skill that would serve him well later in life on Merv Griffin. He eventually knocks out Martler, and using him like a puppet, fakes a broadcast (irony!) to the people of Mars telling them to stand down. Martler is banished to an unpopulated asteroid, where we must assume he remains to this day.

 

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Reviewing Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s ‘Essential Thor’

I don’t normally post links to reviews on other comics news sites, since we have so many of our own hitting the site here every day, but I had to make an exception for Tom Spurgeon’s recent review of the third volume of Marvel’s Mighty Thor "Essential" collection.

Thor has never been a favorite character of mine, as his dialogue always seemed a bit hokey and he’s pretty much the definition of a deus ex machina. But Spurgeon’s review of the collection, which features Stan Lee and Jack Kirby doing exactly what made them legends in the industry, has me contemplating a change of heart.

He describes the collected stories’ overall tone as "verily, there are asses over yon we doth must beat" repeated ad infinitum — which is a big selling point for me.

Spurgeon goes on to summarize the collection as follows:

It’s quite fun. The panels where Thor is not punching people so hard their light source changes are stuffed to the brim with either a) cool-looking Kirbyana almost always in the form of monsters and machinery, b) Volstagg, a fat coward who can bench press a bus, providing J. Wellington Wimpy-style comedy relief, or c) Thor screaming at someone about how awesome he is in preparation of punching them so hard their light source changes.

I love a well-written review, and this is certainly a great example of one. Head over to The Comics Reporter to read the rest of it.

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