Ida Lupino ponders her spooky pal.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Octoberama! Janet Leigh!
Janet Leigh would go on to have a terrific scare pedigree with appearances in Psycho and Halloween H20. Not to mention birthing Jamie Lee Curtis, who would launch the Halloween movie franchise.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Lazy Post - Intros of swiftly canceled 80's Sci-Fi shows
Here's the explanation/ origin story for TV's Automan.
When you think about all the work WB put into making Green Lantern's costume work in the movie, it all seems sort of silly. This looks just as good, really.
Here's the intro to a weekly episode.
When you think about all the work WB put into making Green Lantern's costume work in the movie, it all seems sort of silly. This looks just as good, really.
Here's the intro to a weekly episode.
Thinking out loud about a few things around DC Entertainment
Huh.
So, for the first time since probably 2003, I didn't look at the solicitations for DC Comics' coming books the day they were released. I just forgot to do so. But that's sort of where I'm at with DC these days.
It's time, once again, for my: "Something is Up at DC" Amazing Criswell Psychic Predictions.
Cartoons:
DC is part of WB, which also owns The Cartoon Network. About a year and a half ago, we first heard of the coming "DC Nation" block of cartoons, which never turned into a full block. It was an hour with some small cartoons tucked in, lasting about 80 seconds or so apiece. They were pretty great.
Season 2 of Cartoon Network started about three weeks ago, and then last Saturday - it just wasn't on. They showed a different program in that time slot. The same day we got an announcement that (a) they were pushing the show back to January and (b) DC Animation was releasing a few films, not the least of which was DC's Flashpoint story which led into the New 52.
I'm wondering - and this is just me talking out loud - if DC has decided that they don't want to do the New 52 in their new animated shows, but that was a last minute decision. DC had already released one Justice League movie based in the world of Young Justice, and I assume that Flashpoint would be the same sort of thing - spinning the New 52 Universe into the Young Justice world - or eliminating it so they could do a New 52 Justice League cartoon.
Maybe that isn't happening. Or maybe its a far greater problem to introduce the New 52 to a casual audience than devoted comic shop geeks and its causing all sorts of issues.
Or maybe they're finding that DC comics characters can't draw in an audience for a television program. Honestly, both the Green Lantern cartoon and Young Justice are really, really dark shows. Avengers may be dopey and badly voice-acted, but the characters don't all seem perpetually miserable, and that's the Marvel cartoon, about heroes with real-life problems. Go figure.
But DC and CN pulled the plug on Batman: Brave and the Bold, which was a terrific program, so what do I know?
Or, DC is holding off until the new Batman and other cartoons are in the can and they can have a true programming block of 2 hours or so. Which would be keen.
The bottom line is - WB's investment in DC as a multimedia IP farm just went kaput very publicly on DVR's all across the country.
Meanwhile over in comics - The Supersuit
I have to think someone noticed Superman's new costume is more trouble than its worth.
In the January solicits, Superboy seems to have inherited the current costume, and Superman is back to jeans and t-shirt.
My guess is he winds up with something more movie-centric without the collar, or we get something much closer to the original suit.
I don't think anyone liked that supersuit. And it would have been nice to see two artists draw it the same way. Ie: Do not let Jim Lee design your supersuits anymore.
Meanwhile, Steel's new look is spoiled on the cover for Animal Man. I like John Henry Irons, but have no fixed idea regarding his look except: it's gray or shiny metal. So, this is fine.
At the end of the day, no matter how many jokes you make about the red trunks, etc... Superman is an icon first and a character second. It's a bit like trying to hip up the Coca-Cola label or a Campbell's Soup can. It's a nice design exercise, but on the shelf, its not what people are looking for.
The Wonder Woman pants/ no pants debate was surely of some use to DC. At least they understood that when she's in pants, nobody has any idea what they're looking at and they're trying to mess with 70 years of brand recognition. Its just a bad idea (surely as bad as the current DC logo, by the way).
We'll see what happens, but I suspect we'll get something much more familiar in our supersuit before all is said and done, whether it's the George Reeves look or the Henry Cavill speed suit. I will not miss the Lee design.
So, for the first time since probably 2003, I didn't look at the solicitations for DC Comics' coming books the day they were released. I just forgot to do so. But that's sort of where I'm at with DC these days.
It's time, once again, for my: "Something is Up at DC" Amazing Criswell Psychic Predictions.
Cartoons:
DC is part of WB, which also owns The Cartoon Network. About a year and a half ago, we first heard of the coming "DC Nation" block of cartoons, which never turned into a full block. It was an hour with some small cartoons tucked in, lasting about 80 seconds or so apiece. They were pretty great.
Season 2 of Cartoon Network started about three weeks ago, and then last Saturday - it just wasn't on. They showed a different program in that time slot. The same day we got an announcement that (a) they were pushing the show back to January and (b) DC Animation was releasing a few films, not the least of which was DC's Flashpoint story which led into the New 52.
I'm wondering - and this is just me talking out loud - if DC has decided that they don't want to do the New 52 in their new animated shows, but that was a last minute decision. DC had already released one Justice League movie based in the world of Young Justice, and I assume that Flashpoint would be the same sort of thing - spinning the New 52 Universe into the Young Justice world - or eliminating it so they could do a New 52 Justice League cartoon.
Maybe that isn't happening. Or maybe its a far greater problem to introduce the New 52 to a casual audience than devoted comic shop geeks and its causing all sorts of issues.
Or maybe they're finding that DC comics characters can't draw in an audience for a television program. Honestly, both the Green Lantern cartoon and Young Justice are really, really dark shows. Avengers may be dopey and badly voice-acted, but the characters don't all seem perpetually miserable, and that's the Marvel cartoon, about heroes with real-life problems. Go figure.
But DC and CN pulled the plug on Batman: Brave and the Bold, which was a terrific program, so what do I know?
Or, DC is holding off until the new Batman and other cartoons are in the can and they can have a true programming block of 2 hours or so. Which would be keen.
The bottom line is - WB's investment in DC as a multimedia IP farm just went kaput very publicly on DVR's all across the country.
Meanwhile over in comics - The Supersuit
I have to think someone noticed Superman's new costume is more trouble than its worth.
In the January solicits, Superboy seems to have inherited the current costume, and Superman is back to jeans and t-shirt.
My guess is he winds up with something more movie-centric without the collar, or we get something much closer to the original suit.
I don't think anyone liked that supersuit. And it would have been nice to see two artists draw it the same way. Ie: Do not let Jim Lee design your supersuits anymore.
Meanwhile, Steel's new look is spoiled on the cover for Animal Man. I like John Henry Irons, but have no fixed idea regarding his look except: it's gray or shiny metal. So, this is fine.
At the end of the day, no matter how many jokes you make about the red trunks, etc... Superman is an icon first and a character second. It's a bit like trying to hip up the Coca-Cola label or a Campbell's Soup can. It's a nice design exercise, but on the shelf, its not what people are looking for.
The Wonder Woman pants/ no pants debate was surely of some use to DC. At least they understood that when she's in pants, nobody has any idea what they're looking at and they're trying to mess with 70 years of brand recognition. Its just a bad idea (surely as bad as the current DC logo, by the way).
We'll see what happens, but I suspect we'll get something much more familiar in our supersuit before all is said and done, whether it's the George Reeves look or the Henry Cavill speed suit. I will not miss the Lee design.
Octoberama! Myrna Loy!
Ms. Loy reads the cards and hangs with a friend as we head into the spooky season.
Monday, October 15, 2012
October Watch: Ed Wood (1994)
In 1989 I caught my first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which featured the movie Bride of the Monster. At the time I had never heard of Ed Wood, and I wasn't terribly aware of the sea of terrible monster movies out there. But I like to know that my adoration of terrible movies sort of begins and ends with the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr.
When I watch a movie like Birdemic: Shock and Terror, a movie so abysmally, ineptly put together that those watching it assume it has to be a put on, I think of Ed Wood and his sincere belief in his projects, and while I understand the desire to refuse to believe anyone could be so myopic... no. We're funny things, us people, and we have rich visions that we are often unable to translate.
Ed Wood was released in 1994, and among the folks I worked with in film school, it was a bit of a totem. We quoted from the movie endlessly, and we believed in the central conceit of trying to follow your uncompromised dreams to make the product you want to make. And sometimes that meant exactly using pie-plates on sting to recreate a UFO crash.*
This scene (language NSFW), is more or less every project I ever did in film school in a nutshell.
When I watch a movie like Birdemic: Shock and Terror, a movie so abysmally, ineptly put together that those watching it assume it has to be a put on, I think of Ed Wood and his sincere belief in his projects, and while I understand the desire to refuse to believe anyone could be so myopic... no. We're funny things, us people, and we have rich visions that we are often unable to translate.
Ed Wood was released in 1994, and among the folks I worked with in film school, it was a bit of a totem. We quoted from the movie endlessly, and we believed in the central conceit of trying to follow your uncompromised dreams to make the product you want to make. And sometimes that meant exactly using pie-plates on sting to recreate a UFO crash.*
This scene (language NSFW), is more or less every project I ever did in film school in a nutshell.
Octoberama! Clara Bow!
Felix Baumgartner Space Jumps into the History Books
I had tried to watch this guy, Felix Baumgartner, jump several times, and he kept getting delayed. So I was quite pleased when PalMatt posted to Facebook that Felix was about to jump yesterday. I tuned in just as he was about to exit the capsule.
In case you missed it, Austrian Felix Baumgartner attached a capsule to some balloons, went up 24 miles above Roswell, New Mexico, and then tossed himself out and over the side of the capsule with naught but a parachute between himself and the record for largest crater formed by a human body.
It was AMAZING.
 |
| Holy @#$% |
In case you missed it, Austrian Felix Baumgartner attached a capsule to some balloons, went up 24 miles above Roswell, New Mexico, and then tossed himself out and over the side of the capsule with naught but a parachute between himself and the record for largest crater formed by a human body.
It was AMAZING.
October Watch: The Phantom of the Opera (1943)
It speaks volumes about the work done in the 1925 silent version of Phantom of the Opera that its still the version of the story most people are familiar with, and which evokes images in the mind somehow more powerful than a smash Broadway musical that's been running for 250 years.
For reasons as mysterious to myself as anyone else, I read the original novel by Gaston Leroux when I was 15. The book was a spirited, if creepy, adventure story about a very odd, very deadly music enthusiast living in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House.
If you've never seen the Chaney-starring version of the movie, you absolutely should. I saw it the first time in high school when I bought a copy of the movie out of a bin of movies which had seen their copyrights expire and I've tired to own a copy in whatever has been the latest video technology. You can watch the film now at Netflix!
However, that's not the version that came with my new Universal Monsters boxed set, likely because of the lapsed copyright. Instead, I got this 1943 version starring the always terrific Claude Rains as The Phantom.
For reasons as mysterious to myself as anyone else, I read the original novel by Gaston Leroux when I was 15. The book was a spirited, if creepy, adventure story about a very odd, very deadly music enthusiast living in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House.
If you've never seen the Chaney-starring version of the movie, you absolutely should. I saw it the first time in high school when I bought a copy of the movie out of a bin of movies which had seen their copyrights expire and I've tired to own a copy in whatever has been the latest video technology. You can watch the film now at Netflix!
However, that's not the version that came with my new Universal Monsters boxed set, likely because of the lapsed copyright. Instead, I got this 1943 version starring the always terrific Claude Rains as The Phantom.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
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