Silent Bob

Oh god yes, I've been praying for the return of Veronica Mars for a long time. I miss her. We used to be friends... :(

Some more Iron Man II casting tidbits, Tim Robbins is being tapped to play Tony's father, Howard Stark, in flashbacks for the film. And British actress Emily Blunt is the frontrunner to play the role of Black Widow.

Also, due to "economic issues" (read: he's asking for too much money) Marvel has been unable to negotiate a deal with Samuel L. Jackson to reprise his cameo role as Nick Fury in any more films. Whether this will be resolved later, and the effect it might have on casting for Iron Man II, The Avengers and the proposed Nick Fury film, is yet to be seen.

Stilly made only a few changes (changing the dimensions, adding himself, and basically eliminating drinky duck, and changed Lindsay's image).

I still see Drinky Duck. Thank god.

Ditto.

It's nice to have a logo that fits the page, though.

Some Iron Man 2 casting news.

Mickey Rourke has joined the cast playing The Crimson Dynamo. Rumor is that the storyline involving his character will also introduce the Black Window in the Marvel film universe.

Word is that Sam Rockwell has also signed on to play Justin Hammer. Now it's been a while since I read an Iron Man comic, but I always thought Hammer was older, but it'd be cool if they turn him into kinda the anti-Stark, which is what casting Rockwell would seem to indicate.

Justin Theroux is still working on the script so all characters and casting rumors are subject to change if the story does.

Did anyone else get the feelings that the assassin villian in the movie was a rehash of the assassin villian from the series?

Eh. I can see it on the surface, but Early (the assassin from the series) was all about getting into people's heads and pushing their buttons and playing power games (I always thought it was implied that he was a mild Reader, like River). The Operative was simply cold efficiency all the way through. There were similarities but their personalities were very different. I think the Operative of the film was actually meant to remind you of Shepherd Book more than anyone else.

Yeah, I guess you could say it was an amalgam of the sensibilities of del Toro and Mignola (with Mignola's complete input and blessing) but Hellboy himself was still Hellboy. I dunno, I don't care much when a movie differs from the book it was based on as long as it makes sense for the movie.

The other thing I can see. But it felt like Part 2 of a trilogy to me, so I was ok with that too.

Ok, seriously, what do you all have against Hellboy II? I loved the thing.

I nominate Gerard Butler.

I'm really not too up in arms about the fact that it's Buck Rogers, just the fact that Frank Miller is being allowed to force his own unique (read: shitty and self-indulgent) on another project that isn't his. It was ok with Sin City because Sin City was his and that's what Sin City is about.

I assume you're asking if I'm joking about Buck Rogers, because I certainly feel no shock about The Spirit being a bad film. But if it's about Buck Rogers, no, sorry, not joking.

Well reviews are starting to pop up for The Spirit. For once, I hate being right.

Variety - Frank Miller's solo writing-directing debut plunges into a watery grave early on and spends roughly the next 100 minutes gasping for air. Pushing well past the point of self-parody, Miller has done Will Eisner's pioneering comicstrip no favors by drenching it in the same self-consciously neo-noir monochrome put to much more compelling use in "Sin City."

And The Hollywood Reporter - If we didn't realize this before, it's now clear: Movies must obey the immutable laws of cinema and cannot unfold like so many moving panels. For all its bold digital drawings, a comic-book movie must observe the narrative rhythms, scene construction, character development and dialogue delivery that cinema has honed for more than a century. "Spirit" does none of this, and it is truly a mess.

Goddammit, Frank Miller, you fuckhead! Remarkably, Miller already has his next directing project lined up. We got any Buck Rogers fans here? I hope not, because he's preparing to Sin City that one up too.

and somehow, Chow Yun Fat got suckered into it.

You mean the same Chow Yun Fat who starred in Anna and the King, Bulletproof Monk, and Pirates 3? Wow, yeah, how'd they manage that coup?

Man, this looks truly terrible. And it has what looks like some of the slowest martial arts fight scenes I've seen in a long time.

Also known as The Bourne Redundancy.

Sad part is, there's a fairly decent Bond flick buried in the few minutes when the director set the camera down and actually let the actors talk. But the rest of it - bleh.

So for everyone who was saddened by the death of the HBO Preacher project, there's a ray of light. Preacher still won't be coming to HBO, but the Preacher film is back on the table. And this time it has a director we can be excited about - American Beauty/Road to Perdition/Jarhead's Sam Mendes.

From IMDb:

Director Sam Mendes is desperate to turn cult comic book Preacher into a movie - if only he could find the perfect script.

 

The American Beauty filmmaker was rumoured to be working on bringing the graphic novel to the big screen, but he admits the project is, for now, just a dream.

 

He tells Empireonline.com, "I'd love to make Preacher. But there's no script.

 

"This is a typical (industry paper) Variety announcement. 'Mendes to direct Preacher' - I wish! Basically they should have written, 'Mendes in development with Preacher'. What I'm doing is, I've gotta find a script. I've just got to get it written."

 

But Mendes insists he is working hard to turn it into a reality because he's a huge fan of the series, about rebellious preacher Jesse Custer who embarks on a quest to find God and hold him accountable for crimes against humanity."

 

He adds, "It's brilliant, it's an incredible twisted vision. There's so much of it you couldn't possibly fit it all into one movie. It's just about what you keep and what you leave out, and how you structure the story.

 

"But just to have that toy set again, being able to paint on a big canvas and to say, 'I am gonna do crazy crane shots and massive action sequences again because I want to,' it's exciting."

Well I imagine they'd just take the basic premise and run with it, ala Wanted.

I'd heard about it but I'd say it's a longshot right now. Maybe if Watchmen proves to be crazy successful next year and the studios decide there's a market for R-rated superhero flicks, it might have a chance, but until then...

From all that I've read and heard though, it wasn't as big a deal as the press made it out to be. I hadn't heard anything about them fighting over how the character should be played, I thought all the dispute was during editing...

Yeah I've heard the same. It was just a disagreement over the final cut. Norton and Leterrier wanted a little bit more character development, while Marvel wanted it a little leaner and more action-oriented to differentiate it from the previous Hulk flick. But it wasn't a huge blow up, there weren't any shouting matches, no one got fucked over or had their feelings hurt and it doesn't seem like there's any bad blood between Norton and Marvel.

That said, I'm not sure if the film was successful enough for Marvel to be clamoring for a sequel like they are with Iron Man. That may change if the dvd ends up selling well in the next couple months, but it doesn't seem to be on the books right now. And even if they don't have a Hulk 2 and hire Norton again, they can still use the Hulk in the Avengers film.

And in the end, remember that the whole reason Marvel started their own film producing studio was so that they could maintain tight control over how their characters are portrayed and used. I wouldn't blame them for sticking to their guns to get what they want. And to be fair, so far they've done a bang-up job.

Seeing as how you can't get any further away from Hollywood than New Zealand, AND the fact that dark lord Sauron lives there, the likelihood that this story is actually true is suspect.

Actually, considering the most recent director attached to Doctor Strange is Guillermo del Toro, and considering del Toro's current project is The Hobbit, having that news come from New Zealand kinda makes sense. I think it would be pretty good casting, but at some point people are gonna get tired if Christian Bale getting every cool role (did you guys know he was originally supposed to be the lead in W?). At least he's already played a magician. I think that other Prestige-er, Hugh Jackman, would make a better Strange but he's too busy snikting around.

Reason I read it though was because prior to today I was completely oblivious to The Spirit in any capacity other than another Will Eisner book I've never read. I picked up this best of trade from the library outta curiousity, and i'm pretty impressed. It's a good book/character that surely doesn't deserve the Miller treatment(even before I read the book I think I commented on the trailer). Idunno, Just thought I'd mention it.

Welcome aboard!

I'm not sure who Mike Watts of filmthreat.com is, but he basically echoes everything I feel about the new Spirit film in this lengthy but impassioned rant.

While some in my family and all of my friends insist that I’ve already raised enough of a ruckus, I just can’t keep quiet about The Spirit movie any longer. Having been subjected to the new trailer in theaters twice now, I really have to voice my concern: in the hands of uber-ego Frank Miller, Will Eisner’s groundbreaking and inspiring character has been rendered parody. This isn’t a simple matter of artistic license or Hollywood insensitivity. This movie is shaping up to be nothing short of heresy.

 

Granted, I am judging this movie solely by the trailer and the two previous teasers that had already burned a hole in my gut. Perhaps it’s unfair to level criticism this early. But what are trailers for, anymore, but giving the audience a capsulated synopsis of an entire movie? Therefore, judging solely by the trailer, the movie’s title is an egregious irony—there is nothing about The Spirit movie to suggest that it has maintained “the spirit” of The Spirit.

 

Obviously, it’s no co-incidence that it took until the first full-length trailer for creator Will Eisner’s name to even be mentioned in connection with this Sin City-celebratory train wreck. I could easily see Will posthumously wanting his name removed from this movie.

 

Before any of you start shouting “it’s just a movie”, let me clear something up here: no, goddammit, it’s not. And before the comic fans and anti-comic fans start lining up on opposite sides of the battlefield, as they do before every comic-to-film adaptation is announced, allow me to go further. For readers growing up in the post-depression, pre- and post-WWII eras, The Spirit was a mainstay. An argument can be made that this weekly seven-page newspaper insert, the first of its kind, was among the first comic books to be considered art. The idea was brought to Eisner, who was already making money in the industry with his Eisner-Eiger company, by Everett M. “Busy” Arnold of Quality Comics with the idea of getting the newspaper industry into to the comics business. Eisner gave up his part of his successful company to do something that mattered to him. To Will, superheroes were already an old cliché. Superman and his immortal offspring and their superpowers meant little to him. When Arnold asked if Eisner’s creation could be a superhero, Eisner’s response was to draw a mask over his policeman character “John Law” and rename him “Denny Colt – aka ‘The Spirit’.”

 

The outrageous origin: young detective Colt goes up against the villainous “Dr. Cobra” and while victorious, is placed into a state of suspended animation where he appears dead. Mourned and buried, Colt “rises from the dead” metaphorically and chooses to remain dead and become an avenging spirit, aiding police in the capture of criminals who would attack the city (New York and “Central City” are interchangeable in the series).

 

Aside from that bit of science fiction, The Spirit only rarely ventured into the realm of comic book cliché. He went up against a rogue’s gallery of bad guys and bad girls both mundane and outrageous. And his only superpower was, in Will’s words, “having a harder head than those who were hitting him”. Over the course of many years, he was routinely shot, stabbed, blinded, beaten into a pulp, romanced, confounded, conned and dropped off of buildings. At least one famous story has the Spirit lying wounded and bleeding in an alley behind an urban tenement apartment, waiting for the urchins playing in the street to come find him. Often, he took no active role in a story, serving as little more than a narrator while we followed the exploits of a crook or, in the case of Gerhard Schnobble, a little nebbish who could fly and yearned to prove to the world that he was somebody.

 

The Spirit included a memorable and colorful cast of supporting characters. Most notorious was that of his sidekick and partner “Ebony White” (who Miller refers to as an “ugly, best-forgotten stereotype of an earlier age”), a cab driver and jazz musician (in the beginning) who, over time, evolved backwards somewhat into a younger school-age kid. Ebony was typical of the “minstral” caricatures of the time, with his Amos ‘n Andy diction and large white lips. But he was never an object of ridicule for his race and was often the hero of the stories. The hew and cry over Ebony that developed in the ‘60s came not from African Americans, but from liberal guilty whites. Eisner has, on occasion, apologized for his depiction of Ebony, but there was little need.

 

Above all, The Spirit became zeitgeist because of Will’s visual acrobatics and constant vigilance for experimentation in the manner of graphic storytelling. Birds’ eye views of the city buildings spelling out the strip’s title, an entire story told literally through the eyes of a killer, or told silently, depicted solely by images and sound effects. These were the innovations that Eisner brought to comics and every comic artist and writer working today owes a debt of gratitude, in one way or another, to Will Eisner.

 

Frank Miller, not only included and admittedly, but especially. Beyond his clumsy, sticky Mickey Spillane-slapdash scripting central to his Sin City series, you can see where Miller learned at the graphical feet of Eisner with his use of perspective and character introduction. But Miller never absorbed Eisner’s sense of humor, or wit, or grasp of character. Where those in Eisner’s world, even the bit players, are invariably well-rounded people, Miller’s are, invariably, two-dimensional beings that live solely in Miller’s head, unrecognizable (physically, emotionally, or pictorially) as real human beings. Eisner’s villains could be understood, even redeemed. Only the hulking, psychotic Marv of Miller’s “The Hard Goodbye”, has any perceivable depth. Take a minute; let that sink in.

 

And it’s this misanthropy of Miller’s that underlines my complete outrage at what he’s doing to The Spirit. Denny Colt, Ellen, Dolan—they don’t live in Sin City. They never went up against tattooed clowns with machine guns more at home in Schumacher’s Gotham than Central City. The Spirit’s arch-enemy, the shadowy and never-seen Octopus, was not a flashy, loud, flamboyant lunatic with heavy-artillery and “eight of everything” as portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, who seems to be wearing the flayed skins of both Siegfried and Roy in this new trailer.

 

‘But, Mike, you asshole, movies always update the sources, to make them more accessible to the audience! That’s why Spider-Man has organic webshooters and Batman wears body armor. That’s why the Joker has facial scars and Electra was played by an actress not even remotely Greek. Stop being a comic nerd.’

 

Trust me: I have no problem with updating. Miller wants to make The Spirit “timeless” by setting Central City down into his unmistakable Sin City chronological anachronistic setting, fine. Whatever. Have The Spirit answer a cell phone. Who cares?

 

But with so many over the years—Miller included—concerned that Hollywood would ruin Eisner’s creation (a fear held by Eisner himself, who had a disappointing—but thematically sincere—brush with the Sam J. Jones made-for-TV adaptation in the mid-‘80s), why would Miller allow his own ego to take control and stomp all over something that so many revere?

 

Denny Colt was not, ever, the brooding “What am I? My city screams” angsty, naval-gazing, self-righteous prick that Gabriel Macht seems to be playing. Where is that growling voice-over coming from? The Spirit, for over 50 years, was a highly-ethical boyscout, usually seen with a smile on his face and with both lipstick and bruises smeared across his kisser. He was the guy who swung into open windows to break up jewel heists and kidnappings. He didn’t dive from rooftops—more often than not, he was thrown off of them.

 

I’ve heard the arguments: “Audiences aren’t that familiar with the character any more.” No one knows that more than I do. I’ve been boring my circle of friends for months now, and few of them have any frame of reference for what I obviously hold so dear. But this is how you introduce the new to the classic?

 

“Audiences need more glitz. More glamour! It needs to be bigger!” Then do something else. Do a Sin City pastiche with a similar character. Alan Moore had no trouble reimagining The Spirit as “Greyshirt”. Do your own thing.

 

“But it’s a recognizable property!” Which invalidates argument number one, doesn’t it? Why alienate the people who do recognize it when the people who don’t will likely go anyway? Why?

 

“It’s Frank’s vision and we respect Frank’s vision.” No. It’s Will Eisner’s vision. This is Frank Miller’s ego and his sexual fantasies run through CGI processors.

 

I’m gonna get personal here:

 

I know you took pages from specific issues to use as storyboards. Good for you. But you missed the whole point, Frank. People didn’t love The Spirit just because of Will’s art. They loved The Spirit because of its spirit.

 

Sez Miller in Entertainment Weekly: “The character has a terrifying side to him. This is a man who’s died and come back to life.” No, Frank, he doesn’t have a terrifying side to him. He’s a guy in a mask trying to make the world better. Not because he’s driven to revenge and not because he has a God complex (that, apparently, would be you). Because he feels it’s the right thing to do. When did doing the right thing become something cliché and taboo? What is this need to put everything into a shadow or to make it ugly? Who hurt you, Frank? “This is a scarier Spirit than you’re used to.” I don’t want a scarier Spirit, Frank. Nobody else really does, either. Check that, the jittery Red Bull addicts who yearn for “cool” above all other things of substance, I’m sure they’re on your side. But as soon as they discover real girls, you’re going to lose allies.

 

And what’s scarier than crime, Frank? What’s scarier than a gun shoved in your face? Someone invading your home, stealing your possessions, trying—succeeding—in killing or raping the people you love? Most of the criminals in The Spirit were just ordinary bad guys, some misdirected, some screwed over by poverty and society—only the larger than life ones were actually evil. But, oh yeah, Hollywood kissed your ass when Sin City came out, so you had to make everything bigger, darker, louder. Problem is, Frank, Will had nuance to his work. Maybe his messages were a bit heavy-handed—crime doesn’t pay, be nice to people, don’t judge—but he was a product of his own times. (What times created you, though?) And Frank, you have no nuance. You’re stuck in adolescence. You see only big guns, big tits, big dicks.

 

You want to make the Octopus into a maniacal carnival show? Well, you’re the one who hired Samuel L. Jackson, what choice did you have in the portrayal? But Frank, I’ll say it again, “The Spirit” does not live in Sin City. More people live in Central City than your trussed-up prostitutes and your Mike Hammer uber-males. The Spirit lived in Will’s New York and he represented “the spirit” of the city. Half the time, New York was barely aware of The Spirit’s existence. You turned him into the city’s protector. The innocent lemmings who live there can’t exist without him. “My city screams for me.” Do you really, really believe that’s the voice of Will’s “Spirit”?

 

I can list more outrages—are we supposed to believe that Denny Colt is the Crow now? That he has healing powers ala Wolverine, taking away the idea that any of us could be Denny Colt, should we don the mask and hat and embrace a strong moral code of right and wrong? You took away the everyman boy scout that was The Spirit, and yet you left out Ebony because “he was too controversial”? Did you really give The Spirit superpowers?

 

Frank, if the trailer is any indication, you spit on your own mentor and basically lied to him all these years. You weren’t his friend. You only cared about your own ego and took something that represents good and hope—something we so desperately need right now more than another grumpy, shadowy, self-righteous narcissist vigilante—and threw him into your Sin City cesspool. (And please, don’t get me wrong. I loved the Sin City movie, but for its visceral rush, not for its depth and its narrative or its single-minded characters.) Your ego kicked Will to the curb. And I have this deep, cynical hunch that this is all revenge for the way Will treated you and your fine Ronin in front of a room full of your fans at the Art Students League in New York, as dramatized in your blog of 4/29. “He won most of the arguments,” you write in that same blog. “[he] won not each and every one of them, but most.” And this seems to be your final word on the ones that he did.

 

Now, back to the rest of you:

 

Back issues of The Spirit are not that hard to find. The Kitchen Sink issues are easily had at comic book stores and they don’t run that much. Try to avoid the new series, at least until you’ve had a chance to savor Will’s original work. (At the absolute very least, go here to Will’s own site and check out the samples there.) If you find it old or stale, fine. We’ll agree to disagree, but don’t go into this movie blind. Don’t go because you think it looks cool. Have some history to back up your decision to plunk down the money at the box office. I have no doubt that it will be dazzling and fantastic and thrilling. But my terror, based, again, on the trailer, is that it will not be The Spirit.

 

I desperately, desperately hope that I’m misinterpreting what I keep seeing. That the Octopus and his machine guns are all a joke, made just for the trailer. That Macht doesn’t actually say, in full Spirit regalia, “I’m going to kill you all kinds of dead!” I’m dying to be wrong. I’m dying that “Somebody get me a tie—and it sure as hell had better be red!” isn’t the height of wit to be found in the dialogue. I hope and hope and hope—let me be wrong.

 

But if I’m right, and the trailer is faithful to Miller’s “vision” and “interpretation”—“not a rusty, dusty old monument to the work of my beloved Mentor” sez Frank (in the blog of 5/30)—of this fifty-year-plus body of work that stood for decency and the idea of a virtuous hero in a world that was basically good but took wrong turns on occasion, then I will do nothing short of standing on the rooftops and call for all comic and movie geeks alike to rise up, in a single body – and slay Frank Miller.

 

It’s apparently what his Spirit would do. And if Central City is Miller’s now, I see no high road to take.

I expressed disappointment about the first Half-Blood Prince trailer. This one, however, looks great.

I like the music in the Spirit trailer. I actually even like the trailer itself and I think the visuals are great on their own. I just don't like that it's supposed to be "Will Eisner's The Spirit".

Yeah I love when they get the fourteen year olds in the screenings. When does a guy get his arms chopped off and an axe to the skull? I don't remember that... But then I haven't read the book in a couple years. Rorschach and the child-killer maybe?