"Thank you, Monkey Woman..."

Just replayTV'd the premiere episode of WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO? Pretty frickin fried. Up for immortalization in his or her own Dark Horse comic, we've got a toymaker, a bodyguard, an ex-exotic dancer, a raw-foodist(?), and of course, a comic shop comics nerd. In the first episode, the team-up of 12 finalists is infiltrated by a spy! And after dealing with the traitor in their midst, they must demonstrate their clandestine quick-change abilities in public (to superhero creator Stan Lee's satisfaction)!

Next episode - overcome and/or endure a pack of attack dogs! Sure to be a guilty pleasure for anyone who digs superhero anything.

For some more SciFi-DarkHorse crossover action, check out THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD, the animated surreal action-comedy adaptation of Mike Mignola's comic book creation!


When the world needs defending from the secret forces of evil, whether they be demon-possessed hummels, minions of C'thullu, lycanthropic librarians, re-animated Nazis, or any other baddies from the Tim Thomerson/Full Moon video catalogue, you call on President Abraham Lincoln's most trusted and accomplished special agent - Screw-On Head!

The entire pilot is available online at SciFi.com and should be playing a few more times on the SciFi channel in the coming weeks. The graphic and illustration style is totally faithful to the original Mignola goodness, with some poppin' Colossal Pictures-looking animation applied to it. Chock full of the obscure historical occult, steampunk tech engineering, extraterrestrial encountering, and old country folk talesy kitbashed storytelling that Mignola is so damn god at spinning, with class 1000 absurdity and brilliant comic phrasing and timing.

Thanks to Jeff for reminding me this brilliance was hittin SciFi.

Excelsior!

Keep on keepin on~

in the air tonight...

I can feel it coming in the air tonight... oh lord
I've been waiting for this moment, all my life... oh lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight... oh lord, oh lord

Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand.
I've seen your face before, my friend,
But I don't know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did,
I saw it with my own two eyes...
So you can wipe off the grin, I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies

And I can feel it coming in the air tonight... oh lord
I've been waiting for this moment for all my life... oh lord
I can feel it in the air tonight... oh lord, oh lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life... oh lord, oh lord

Well I remember, I remember don't worry
How could I ever forget,
it's the first time, the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up,
no you don't fool me
The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you or me

And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord...
I've been looking forward to this flick since a serendipitous convergence of targeted marketing caught me in its crosshairs back around Christmas (I'll try to explain in a next blog soon).

I've heard an edit of the cover of "In The Air Tonight" in the TV ads and hafta say I'm not loving the whiny rock of it, bleah. I wanna believe it was forced on Michael Mann by some boardroom music-film industry synergy. I much prefer Stewie's version, from when he's sucked into the television set by the poltergeists. Much truer to the original.

Keep on keepin on~

Neither rain nor snow nor super villain...

Meanwhile...


Frack. I'm gonna hafta start writing real letters so that I have something to send with these Justice Leaguer stamps!

Okay, okay. What I really mean is I'm gonna hafta start printing out emails and putting them in envelopes and dropping them into mailboxes... "Writing real letters," heh.

Thanks to JAJenn for the, "Hey, look at this!"

Keep on keepin on~

LOOK BOTH WAYS@the Brattle tonight

Way short notice, but maybe some Boston local w no Monday night plans will blink into this page in the next hour or so...?


Aussie indie flick LOOK BOTH WAYS is playing it's last show in its stint at the Brattle this evening at 7.30. Check it out if you can! It's a beautiful little film. I'd missed it at the Boston Independent Film Festival due to scheduling conflicts and thank the Brattle I got to make up for it this weekend. =) I saw it Sunday afternoon with maybe a dozen other patrons. I know it's not great for the theater itself, but I hafta admit, I do enjoy catching some movies in near-empty rooms there.

It points up all my inappropriate laughter.

Heh.

And lots of opportunities for that in this flick, which grows out of the intersection of a sweetly, almost inappropriately, rambling painter who happens to witness a man vs. locomotive fight (the man loses) on her way home from her father's funeral, and a thoughtful and talented photojournalist, at the scene of the accident, on assignment for the local newspaper just hours after being diagnosed with cancer. The jokes just write themselves, don't they?

Okay, they don't, really, but against the background of this conjunction of morbid situations, the way these two personalities trip into each others lives is kind of sweet, maybe even a bit magical, and creates moments for laughs, both dark and bright.

Mostly dark. =)

From time to time the audience is given peeks into these characters' heads, seeing what each is imagining, and each in their own "native" artistic language. The painter, Meryl, sees deadly alternate realities, of random assaults, terrible accidents, and shark attacks, in painted animated visions. The photographer, Nick, sees death on the move everywhere, but for him, it's through the camera's lens, from wide-angled natural disasters to the macro warning signs of toxic materials and radiation to the microscopic single-mindedness of cancer cells. Wait til you see where their imaginations go when the prospect of sex is raised. Good times! =)

I was surprised when the picture became more of a multiplayer story, one of those that follows several threads of plot and character touched or triggered by a person, event, or series of events. In this case, spiderwebbing out from the death of the man on the railroad tracks. Not quite MASSIVELY multiplayer, like CRASH, more... ensemble, like STATION AGENT.

I won't go into the details of the other threads, but will say they all lead to very thoughtful, quirky, entertaining, and crossover-powerful places. The movie springs out of these people's being confronted with death, but in the telling it's about how they live and want to live.

Also, Meryl becomes pretty adorable. That don't hurt none.

Keep on keepin on~

a fabulous day at the beach!

Although it might not look like it to the untrained eye, THIS...



...is a really good day for volleyball at the beach! I'd mustered a party of eight with a couple of maybes to show this morning for some doubles at Nahant. Alas, half that crew never showed. Keri got in touch to let me know that she wasn't in shape to play today. I'm guessing the rest were scared off by the beautiful weather. Foo. Really too bad, cuz days like this turn out to be grand for volleyball. The wind isn't harsh, if it's blowing at all. The beach is quiet and parking is not a problem... and FREE! (at least today =) No sun to burn the eyeballs or the skin. A fine day for volleyball.

O well, half of eight still leaves us with doubles =)

Yoon, Kurt, Rowan, and I, along with Kurt's son Alex, got in a good three and a half hours of doubles—finishing up with the help of special guest star, Steve—before the clouds finally gave it up and the rain finally started dropping. Actually, we played the last two games in the rain, and it turned out to be a fine way to finish the day, as high tide had happened at about 10am and by 3pm the water was very far away and probably not all that warm.

The rain *was* a bit rough on our stuff. I've got my volleyball net system airing/drying out by the front door, and just got done with a load of laundry that was probably one third sand and rain water by weight when it went in. After laundering and changing into comfy clothes, sad to say, I'm WAY unmotivated to catch up w the Zombie March going on in Boston tonight. I was not at all ready to re-animate myself, but was thinking of following along from downtown into Cambridge and snapping some photos, and probably-maybe running into people like Jeff or Russ or maybe some familiar Brattleheads. Maybe stand alongside the route and hand out some cups of refreshing brain juice for the dead-tired shamblers. Brattleheads cuz Zombie Pride leads into the second night of the Brattle's Zombie inFESTation.

I went and caught Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE last night with Rowan (what a trooper!) at the Brattle after catching CLERKS 2 together with Joe. A helluva a movie night, I gotta say! Big on human-animal relations, with C2 showing (or at least, describing =) not-your-typical example of ass-to-mouth, and ZOMBIE featuring a pretty impressive and outrageous encounter between zombie and shark (and topless scuba diver)! Just like on the Discovery Channel!

That's right, I said "not-your-typical" ass-to-mouth... As opposed to your typical. You've really gotta see the movie to understand, and hopefully before anyone ruins it for you. =)

I DO think the C2 trailers and ads give away a little bit much. If you haven't seen CLERKS 2 yet, I strongly recommend you not look for trailers online and tivo/ffwd past any ads during your favorite shows.

In general, I really do despise the way trailers give up the goods these days. Bleah.

I'd like to rally and put together a full-on CLERKS 2 review, but I'm just not feeling it now, and probably can't get into it without dropping a sorta-spoiler here and there. Bottom line - if you've enjoyed your previous visits to Kevin Smith's Askewniverse, you will LOVE this movie =) Sure, you've gotta *know* the movie will be chock full of easy, dirty, offensive, crass, politically incorrect laughs, set up by performances that are NOT gonna make ANYone's Oscar list, and perhaps cares more about STAR WARS than you ever will, but, y'know, I think you might be surprised by its big old heart. It's a damn good buddy picture.

Don't you WANT to see the movie that prompted Joel Siegel to abort a press screening 40 minutes in, announcing to his movie critic colleagues as he leaves his seat - "Time to go!'' and "This is the first movie I've walked out of in 30 fucking years!''

THAT's gotta be the best review for any movie I've heard in years!

Rosario Dawson doesn't hurt any, either. =)

And Jay gettin his SILENCE on to that Q. Lazarus song... frickin GENIUS! =)

Alas, dunno WHEN I'll hunker down and write something like a real review... I've had one for SUPERMAN RETURNS percolating for weeks as a saved draft here...

The short version: go see it! It mucks a bit with the Superman mythology, but plugs into and plays with the earlier Christopher Reeve flicks in some pretty interesting and satisfying ways. A great jump-start of a next series.

Wishful thinking: Routh's Kent and Bale's Wayne team up in a crossover sequel in six years or so, scripted by Kevin Smith and Frank Miller. =)

Keep on keepin on~

"Bubbles in your bathtub..."

THE VADER SESSIONS - check it out! Thanks to AKJAK's Steven Frailey for the brilliance and Jessie for the link! =)

Keep on keepin on~