Tagged: movie

Transformer Title Fights: Bumblebee!

  • News
  • June 18, 2009


Transformers… more than meets the eye. This, we know. But what happens when the mighty all-spark malfunctions and sends the Michael Bay Monstrosities to wage war against the Autobots and Decepticons of our shared youth? We’ve got a few battles in our back pocket ComicMixers… let’s let ’em duke it out, shall we?

Round One: Plucky Bug or Caring Camaro?

Next to Optimus, he’s the fan favorite who always wants to be your buddy. Touted as the recon vehicle of the G1 series, Bumblebee took form as the lovable VW Bug. And while yes, he was the “little brother bot” to most of the other ARK crew-members… Don’t shortchange his abilities in battle. Because of his smaller stature, Bumblebee uses fuel 1.8 times more effectively than his Autobot brethren. Suffice to say the gas guzzling Michael Bay Bot would not be able to boast. And with his trusty sidearm laser blaster… he’s got some firepower to back his sharp tongue!

Who’d want to be a compact anyways? Some twenty years later, young Bumblebee gets a bit of an upgrade for his movie version… taking form as a new (and still impossible to get in the dealer) Chevy Camaro. But what about a quick wit? As you recall, the lad is mostly mute, as he was “damaged” during battle. Of course this time around, Bumblebee will be repaired! Voiced by ComicMix‘s own Amazing Mark Ryan (writer of the amazing series The Pilgrim), who will hopefully add the spunk to the character so missed in Michael Bay’s first outing. The movie incarnation of the ‘Bee comes to the party with a powerful “combat mode” that the G1 ‘Bee won’t see coming. So, let’s open the gates and let ’em duke it out!

So… who takes the crown in the yellow metal throw-down? Generation One’s Spunky Chunky Clunker, or Shia LeBeouf’s LeBaby? Only you, the cosmically-conscious Comic Mix commenters can conclude! Now cast your votes!

… And don’t forget to vote in the previous round, for your favorite Vocoder-voiced-villain Soundwave!

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Review: ‘The Wrestler’ DVD

wrestler1-1290019In our world, there are costumed champions fighting the good fight against costumed evil doers, done in public and for our entertainment. We call them professional wrestlers but given their names, attire, and storylines, they truly are comic books brought to life.  Unlike comic heroes, though, these players age and fade away, to be replaced by a new generation with new names, not retreads.

Frank Miller’s [[[The Dark Knight]]] was the first real look at what happens to an over-the-hill hero. The body is slower to heal, the acrobatic daring-do that came so effortlessly leaves the body drenched in sweat.

Wrestlers, especially those doped up on steroids, watch their bodies break down and get reduced to the independent circuit for a few hundred bucks a night or signing autographs at lightly attended local events. It’s a sad life, ripe for exploration as a film and Darren Aronofsky wonderfully covers this in The Wrestler. While everyone made a big deal about Mickey Rourke’s comeback performance, the film itself was the real revelation. It felt like a documentary, entirely shot with handheld cameras, sparing in its soundtrack, and unflinching in the portrait of an aging star who seems good at only one thing. If anything, the movie is a bookend to [[[Rocky]]]. While the Sylvester Stallone film ended with the once-in-a-lifetime championship bout, [[[The Wrestler]]] ends with a rematch of two former warriors 20 years past their prime.

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‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ release date changed again

  • News
  • April 16, 2009

Movesto datum releasum!

The release date for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is on the move again as Warner Bros. has shifted the HP6 release date to Wednesday, July 15, 2009 from Friday, July 17. The move should please those of you who have already waited an extra 8+ months for the movie, which had originally been set to release in November 21, 2008. 

The new Wednesday release date for HP6 shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given that Warner Bros. released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Wednesday, July 11, 2007.

Review: ‘The Odd Couple’ on DVD

You know the music. You know the set-up and you’ve seen it played out in countless variations.  Still, there is nothing like the original.  Paramount’s Centennial Collection continues today with two more classic releases, including Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

Based on his box office smash play (which in turn was inspired by his brother’s life), Neil Simon took the story of two mismatched divorced men trying to live together and made a sad state of affairs hilarious.

On Broadway, the inimitable Walter Matthau was matched with Art Carney, fresh from his run with Jackie Gleason, but for the film, Paramount exec Robert Evans went for Jack Lemmon, who played previously with Matthau in [[[The Fortune Cookie]]]. On screen, the two had chemistry in spaces and it was necessary to make this work.  One is a sports writer slob, the other a high-strung metrosexual (long before the word existed) news writer. When Lemmon’s Felix Unger is tossed out of his house, he makes several attempts at suicide before turning up at Oscar Madison’s pigpen apartment during the weekly poker game with the guys.  Madison takes pity on Unger and invites him in.

Over the course of three weeks, Unger spruces up the apartment, saves Madison a ton of money (so he can finally catch up on his alimony), and quickly drives his best friend nuts. And when they try a double date dinner with the Pigeon sisters, you see just how hurt Unger is, something Madison never seems to note until then. It just takes him longer to understand what to do.

The movie has a supporting cast of poker buddies filled out with the late John Fielder and Herb Edelman among the quarter. They show how the circle of friends are shades of Oscar and Felix and why they put up with—and support–one another.

The set pieces are brilliant, with terrific comic timing that remains funny even today. On the other hand, the 1968 movie is based on a 1965 play and completely is self-contained so you have no sense of the changes going through Manhattan and American society. As a result, it has a somewhat dated feel regardless of the fine direction by Gene Saks.

As with the first six releases in the set, the second disc comes with an assortment of original production commentary. Unlike the 1950s offerings, this one feels very thin with several short pieces interviewing the surviving production crew and cast, starting with Saks. Simon is nowhere to be seen.  Matthau and Lemmon’s sons talk about their fathers and what it was like growing up with them.  The shorts celebrate the brilliance of Simon and his script but it still incomplete.  Even though Brad Garrett is on screen talking about his part in the most recent revival, everything in between is ignored.  Not a word about how the concept gave birth to the first great sitcom of the 1970s, with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall taking these great roles and running with them for six seasons. Nothing about subsequent revivals of the play, nothing to show how it has endured.

Also missing were features that linked this disc to the overall centennial celebration which is a disappointment.

Still, the movie makes you laugh out loud and it’s nice to have a pristine edition for repeated viewing.

The Un-Ethics of Watchmen, Part 1: A Bird’s-Eye View

  • News
  • March 2, 2009

drmanhattan-8414138Editor’s note: With the imminent release of Watchmen, we thought we’d try and get a different perspective. So we asked Alexandra Honigsberg, a professional ethicist and genre author, to read the book for the first time and delve into the ethos of the world created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

If super-hero comics are the literature of ethics, then Watchmen is the literature of un-ethics. It is the template for what not to do and makes Batman look like a Boy Scout, even at his darkest Dark Knight. They make Dirty Harry look clean. There’s a new saying on the street that Bitch is the New Black, it Gets Things Done. Well, these guys and gals are certainly the biatch. But is there any way to redeem their actions so that the ends justify the means? Or, more importantly, that even the most inhumane or inhuman retains some sense of what it means to be human?

The study of ethics is the exploration of the good life and how to live it. Now by the “good life” I don’t mean the bling life. I mean a life that is honourable, virtuous and, on a profound level not shaken by the winds of change, happy. Happiness (or pleasure or joy or The Good). That’s the end, the ultimate goal, or what Aristotle calls “that at which all rational beings aim.” Ari makes a fine distinction between the acts of a man (animal, non-rational) and the acts of a human (rational) or what some of us might term the mensch (gender neutral). One of the biggest invectives that Laurie hurls at Dr. Manhattan/Jon Osterman is that, after working for so long in the lab and being so all-powerful (the man not only to end all wars, but end all worlds), he ceases to be human. Moore emphasizes this with quotes from Nietzsche, who claims that when we become evolved enough we will not need rules, we will have become extra-moral – the superman (not the Nazis’ bastardization thereof) who has no need of ethics as we now know them. But are we still human? Extreme means change the agent and therefore change the end (e.g., The Comedian’s total amorality). Can we still give a damn if we’re all god-like? Or in the midst of so much horror that no human could reasonably be expected to survive unscarred (think of the Holocaust), are we still human? What’s human? What’s life? What’s good and who decides? Who gives authority to whom and why?

 

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ComicMix Quick Picks – February 8, 2009

noelclarke-3506472The collection of non-NYCC posts that have come in over the last few days while we’ve been on the floor at Javits.

Anything else we missed? Consider this an open friend.

Amy Goldschlager is an editor for FindingDulcinea.com.

Star Trek setting licensing phasers on stun

  • News
  • January 30, 2009

As Yogurt the wise teaches us, "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower." CBS has learned their lessons well, one could even say it’s a paramount lesson.

CBS Consumer Products has cranked its Star Trek licensing up to 11 in preparation of the new Star Trek movie, which will debut on May 8th.  In addition to the IDW comics tying the movie to Next Generation continuity, the Pocket book publishing license, and the previously announced Star Trek Barbie Dolls, Mattel has also acquired the rights to create radio-controlled flying vehicles for its Tyco subsidiary, a Star Trek Scene-It DVD movie/TV game, and a 20Q Star Trek Trivia Game. (Bob Greenberger’s on our team, we take on all challengers.)

 

Other game tie-ins include a Star Trek-branded Monopoly edition from USAopoly, and co-branded games for UNO, Scrabble ("Ferengi" is a 61 point word, "Klingon" is 62– no ruling on whether words from their languages count), Phase Ten, All About Trivia, and a Magic 8 Ball. If only the good Kirk from "The Enemy Within" had one.

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 15, 2009

Today’s installment of comic-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…

* From, of all places, New Jersey Jewish News: "I’ve come to the realization recently that Israel and Batman have a lot in common. And in order to make sense of one, we can look to the other." Yes, I can just imagine Israel quoting Frank MIller dialogue with regards to Gaza. "Sure we’re criminals. We’ve always been criminals. We have to be criminals."

* ICV2: "Marvel has filed suit against MGA Entertainment for alleged violations of its licensing agreement with the company, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The suit asks for $1.88 million, alleging unpaid licensing fees and that MGA made toys based on Spider-Man and Ghost Rider, which were not included in the companies’ licensing agreement." Gee, MGA isn’t having a good year, between this and getting Bratz shut down…

* Want to buy yourself the Hugo Award for your work? It might be cheaper than you think. It’s certainly within any movie company’s marketing budget.

* Like that Coraline poster over there? Order it here and help the American Library Association.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

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