Odd Moment of Realization of How Badly DC is Handling Themselves At the Moment - courtesy, Randy

So, Randy IM's me:

Hey, did you hear they're making a Guardians of the Galaxy movie?  With Rocket Raccoon?

And I wrote back about how I was excited, even though I hadn't loved the comic, but the movie might give the neat idea a second lease on life.

Then, about three minutes later I realized:

Rocket Raccoon will get a feature film before Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, or any of DC's other staple players.  


Rocket Raccoon.

Look, I LOVE Rocket Raccoon as a concept, and I loved his early appearances.  I read all that mid-00's Marvel cosmic stuff til I got bored at some point during some cross-over or other and noticed I wasn't really missing the series.  That, and having your cast just standing around glowering isn't characterization.  Just saying.*

Batman ain't got nothin' on Rocket Raccoon

But, man...  Despite Marvel's fairly well mapped ability to turn themselves into a brand and studio, DC just simply cannot get their act together enough to simply copy Marvel.  Even the comments at Comic-Con from WB employees read basically as "if Superman fails, we're done".  Now, they didn't say that exactly, but there's no bold plan on the table at DCE or WB.  It's all conservative number crunching - and the problem with that is that there's no magic formula for making a blockbuster.  Instead, you wind up with a paint-by-the-numbers movie like Green Lantern that's greatest weakness was the utter predictability and 90's checkbox storytelling mentality of the movie.  Every decision was a "safe" one, from casting the supposedly bankable Ryan Reynolds to the pat telling of the origin to casting Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller.  

In the end, the movie arrived as a lifeless husk.

And the hiring of Zack "I did comic movies before!" Snyder for Superman?  WB wears their risk aversion on their sleeve.

The fact is, Marvel has put out more duds than big wins, but the big wins help build the brand so you'll at least give their flicks a chance.  And they've been willing to do some interesting hiring, from Sam Raimi to the Crank guys on the latest Ghost Rider (wait, Ghost Rider has had two movies and Shazam has had none?), and all that means they're constantly mixing up the formula to get new blood and excited talent in there.

Anyway, if you told 14-year-old-me that I'd be looking at a Rocket Raccoon movie in 2014, I would have burned you for a witch.

*I went to high school in North Houston.  I associate standing around glowering with drunk red necks sizing me up to see if I'm some uppity city folk they might need to learn a few things

Happy Birthday, Ms. Barbara Stanwyck

Ms. Barbara Stanwyck would have been 105 today.

She played all sorts of rolls, and had an amazing career, from Ziegfield Girl to film and eventually to television.  But we'll always love her best for Double Indemnity.  

Playing it cool in the grocery aisle

Prep for Dark Knight Rises: The Danceable Batman

As we head toward Wednesday and the release of the much-anticipated Dark Knight Rises, I cannot help but reminded of a simpler time when the average person on the street did not associate inverted semi-trailers and Christopher Nolan with The Dark Knight Detective.

The comics are, of course, silent.  We imagine the lonely street sounds of Gotham, and we can believe the sound effects splattered across the page in beautifully rendered and colored lettering.  But never do comics cross over with music, not unless they're brought to the screen.

I was at basketball camp in the week before the release of Tim Burton's highly anticipated Batman.  In fact, I had read the novelization of the movie during my downtime at camp that year.  The session ended mid-day on Friday, the day Batman hit theaters and it was a whole thing making sure I got to the movie that night (which I did.  Thanks, Peabo's Mom!). 

It's hard to explain exactly how Bat-Crazy I was (very publicly) in 1988, and what a big deal the film felt like at the time.  I'd been following Batman's production via magazines, newspaper articles, notes in the comics and other places, had taped the trailer and watched it over and over...

The camp took place at the University of Texas and we stayed in the dorms at The Dobie, and I still very much remember everyone stopping in the cafeteria line to watch the video for "Bat Dance" (there was a TV on MTV for some reason near the door).   The video was appreciated, but not as much as in 1987, when the video had been for George Michael's "I Want Your Sex".



Like anyone else born in the 1970's, I had a warm spot in my heart for Prince, but found him an odd fit for Batman. It's only in cold hindsight that I have to assume this was neither Tim Burton nor Prince's doing so much as that of WB executives.  But who knows?  (Probably Prince, I guess.).

Signal Watch Watches - Crank 2: High Voltage

Ha ha ha ha.

Oh, mercy.

Happy 70th Birthday to Mr. Harrison Ford

Happy B-Day to my imaginary friend from at least three movie franchises, Mr. Harrison Ford.  On Friday the 13th he turned 70.  

Far be it from us at The Signal Watch to ignore the birthday of the Greatest Living American.

Movie Watch 2012: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

"Well," as Jamie said as we pulled away from the theater, "That was most definitely a Wes Anderson movie."

I have a hard time criticizing directors or musicians for continuing to employ some of their trademarks in their work.  Anderson's barely-there dialog direction, the same four or five shots he uses over and over in a rhythmic pattern (usually punctuated with a particularly lovely and well framed surprising shot: think the kid in the pool in Rushmore).

Nor can you hold the fact that none of his narratives ever really see closure against him.  His are not movies that end with a wedding (well, maybe Royal Tenenbaums) but suggest that this is a particularly important juncture in the lives of many people: now let us observe.

If any of Anderson's affectations irritate you, you've been put on notice by his prior work, and this film is not for you.*  This is most definitely not the movie where he changes things up and goes for a Dogma 95 verite style.  If you're familiar with his work and somehow still keep paying to see it, then this may be a movie for you.  I'm fond of Anderson's aesthetic, which may have overwhelmed The Life Aquatic and, to a degree, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I appreciate that he's got his own thing going on.

In some ways, much as I wanted to grab 15-year-old me and take him to see Rushmore, I would have loved to have had 12 year old me in tow for this one.  It definitely understands the inevitability of a Lord of the Flies scenario when dealing with boys of that age, of how confusing and useless adults can seem (and how they have their own messes) and even the passion you might have applied to reading X-Men comics or scouting skills that you might also turn to a girl who actually pays you heed at that awful stage in life.  Imagine were love requited at that age...

The cast is better than I'd heard by word of mouth, and Tilda Swinton was typically amazing even in her small part.  But Jason Schwartzman's small role, no doubt written specifically for him, is pure gold.  The herd of child actors, especially the two leads, are pretty great.  And the moment of decision for the Khaki Scouts in their treehouse was the sort of monumental scene for kids that felt true, even in its ludicrousness.

In short, I enjoyed it.  No real surprises, even down to <spoiler> the needless death of a pet </spoiler>.  But it was a lovely film, and a nice bit of counter-programming to all the sci-fi and superhero stuff of the past year.  This I say with tickets bough to see Dark Knight Rises next Saturday.




*seriously, if I hear any of you tell me you didn't like anything since Royal Tenenbaums but you still went to see this and you're complaining?  What are you doing?  Also, the people who trapped us so they could watch the credits?  Stop it.  You're not impressing anyone seeing who 3rd Best Boy was on the movie.  I assure you he'd already left the theater before his name rolled.

Book Watch: SuperGods by Grant Morrison

In some ways, I feel like I could send the dozen or so regular readers of this site a copy of SuperGods by Grant Morrison and call it a day with The Signal Watch.

The basic breakdown of the book is equal parts comic book history and Grant Morrison's personal journey and how it associated with comics, eventually becoming his career, which, he reports, is fairly lucrative.  If you read your fair share of comics history and Grant Morrison interviews (and I do), then there's not a whole lot new in the pages, but what Morrison manages to do is what he does so often in the comics he writes: takes an existing idea and takes it on a new journey with a new thesis statement.

The bits of bio about Morrison are what's been reported in comics press: working class Scottish upbringing, hippie anti-nuke parents, punk-era-living under Thatcher, bands, a really vocal attachment to his cats (man, I hear you), early comics he's still talking about, etc...  And if you've read your David Hajdu, Lee Daniels and Gerard Jones, the comics history stuff is mostly known.  However, it's interesting to hear about it through Morrison's filter, what grabbed him as a kid, what grabbed him as a young man, and as a guy at the tipping front end of Generation X (I consider myself the last, dying gasp of the X'ers before Y came along assuming the internet was a foregone conclusion), how we looks at Miller and Moore's books in relation to the industry.  And, of course, he gets to talk a bit about the guys he works with who have been making comics history for the past two decades and more.  

Austin, I am Returned

Well, that was most certainly a trip to Ohio and back.

Flew back this evening, fortunately experienced no delays, no shenanigans, etc...  I am really tired, I ate terribly today, and as always happens when I'm sort of watching Comic-Con news just tic by, I'm a little irritated that I've never gone.  But then I remember how I do in crowds and meeting new people and...  yeah.

Work today was interesting.  Got to do a little cheerleading, shoe on podium banging, and do a lot of listening.  And Columbus is a lovely town.  We recommend.

Your Mid-Day Dietrich Moment

and that, people, is how you wear a hat.

Columbus (Ohio) Day, Comic-Con Stuff and a few words on Music

Columbus, Ohio

Tomorrow I present in front of a bunch of folks from a consortium of libraries here in sunny Columbus, Ohio.  The trip had been rumored since I was in Boston, but I didn't get confirmation that they actually wanted me here until last week.  With the mad scramble to get paperwork done during a holiday week, it wasn't really all locked down til Tuesday that I was actually going.  

So here I sit in a Springhill Suites in Columbus, Ohio.  I've seen only two slivers of the town.  The route I came in on and then the route I took to a nearby comics shoppe, something I like to do when I'm a-travelling.  I have to give a thumbs-up to Laughing Ogre Comics, not just for the great name of the shop (it sounds like they really want to open a pub where people can play RPG's with no fear of wedgies), but to their shop itself, which was professional, friendly, well-stocked and well laid out.  If in Columbus, we recommend.