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Alex Proyas, director of the 1998 noir fantasy film Dark City, had the opportunity to restore the film to his original version for the upcoming 10th anniversary DVD release.
Warner Brothers and Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way are in the early stages of seeking material for a new feature-film adaptation of the classic SF TV series The Twilight Zone, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
You've seen much of this material before, but here, FWIW, is a report on all the films in competition in the recent Neuchatel International Film Festival...
Once upon a time there was a little boy who dreamed of being on a film festival jury…naw, not really. When I was a kid I dreamed about the usual stuff, looting and pillaging and so on, but once I reached my majority and got into movies, I’d watch the juries at Cannes and think how cool it would be to sit on one. Well, as it happens, this past summer I finally got my chance. The Neuchatel International Festival of Fantastic Films (NIFFF) isn’t Cannes, but it’s a pretty classy event. They put the jury up in a five star hotel (my room came equipped with a Mite scooter that I occasionally rode around the halls late at night like little Danny in =The Shining) and gave us an expensive Swiss watch as a door prize and Neuchatel is a lovely medieval town on a gorgeous lake with lots of spectacular venues for the cocktail parties (of which there were many) including a castle. The festival was light on actors, but there were a number of interesting directors in attendance: Jamie Balugueros (=[REC]=); George Romero (you know); Lamberto Bava and Jess Franco, both responsible for dozens of Italian giallo, and many more. So that part of the jury experience lived up to expectations. The rest of it, the actual judging part of things…not so much.
There were twelve films in competition at the NIFFF, entries from Korea, Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Macedonia, the USA and elsewhere. Twelve films, you’d think, would be a snap to watch over four days, but it turned out to be fairly arduous, because our schedules were so packed and also because the majority of the movies were horror films and having to sit through munching and bleeding and splattering for approximately seven hours a day took a toll on one’s sensibilities. The jury consisted of myself and three directors: Joe Dante (=Gremlins=; =The Howling=), Xavier Gens (=Hitman=, =Frontiers=), Jens Lien (=The Bothersome Man=). Neil Marshall (=The Descent=) was supposed to participate, but was forced to withdraw due to an emergency. From my perspective, about half the films were eliminated early on, beginning with the crushingly awful slasher film, =Manhunt=, a retelling of =Deliverance= wherein two young couples are hunted and horribly slaughtered by Norwegian rednecks. This movie received a good deal of hype, mainly because it was the first such picture produced in Norway and the director was only twenty-five…doubtless the explanation for the film’s lack of depth and originality.
Also off the list in the early going were George Romero’s =Diary of the Dead= (too much been there, done that for my tastes) and Gregg Bishop’s =Dance of the Dead=, another zombie film. Though the latter had a few nice touches and a leading lady (Grayson Chadwick) with real star potential, its mix of Romero-esque grue, =Prom Night=, and cheap yucks ultimately came to nothing. Another easy scratch was Takashi Miike’s Spaghetti western with Japanese gunslingers, =Sukiyaki Western Django=. Featuring Quentin Tarantino in a minor yet crucial role (always a bad sign), the movie is a parody of a genre that has already parodied itself to better effect, and watching it to the end was a chore. Gunnar B. Gudmundsson’s =Astropia=, the story of a beautiful blond airhead who finds work at a geek video store when her boyfriend is sent to prison, opens promisingly, but then falls flat when our heroine finds both herself and true love through role-playing—the role-playing scenes (done as live action fantasy sequences in ridiculous costumed regalia) may remind many of just how dull their lives were in younger years. In-Ho-Yun’s =The Devil’s Game=, tells of a young man lured into a sucker bet by a dying old billionaire. The stakes? If he loses, he switches bodies with the septuagenarian. The film goes on far too long and has perhaps the most confusing ending in cinematic history. I’m still unclear as to its resolution.
Among the contenders, Milcho Manchevski’s =Shadows=, a ghost story set in modern-day Macedonia, also was too long (a half-hour at least) and suffered from its director’s apparent obsession with his busty leading lady—he seemed to be looking for opportunities to have her remove her blouse. Depending on your point of view, this tendency either got in the way of the narrative, or else the narrative interfered with the softcore porn. One way or the other, if you took out the extraneous material, there would probably be a decent (or indecent) movie left over. =The Cottage= is a brisk horror comedy reminiscent of early Peter Jackson by British director Paul Andrew Williams. It relates the misadventures of two bungling kidnappers (Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith) who repair to a rural cottage with their blond victim. The ensuing mayhem is carried out with humor and energy, but the film wasn’t sufficiently different from its many antecedents to win over the jury. =Eskalofrio=, Isidro Ortiz’s tale about a feral child, beautifully shot amid the gloomy forests of the Spanish Pyrenees, began well and appeared to be going somewhere new, but fell prey to the Hollywood penchant for laying on climax after climax after climax. =Tokyo=, a trilogy of short films about that city, featured good but slight work in the surrealist vein by Bun Jun Ho and Michael Gondry, and was centered by an amazing piece of film by Leo Carax entitled “Merde.” It tells of an eccentric, Dada-style terrorist, a man named Merde who lives in the Tokyo sewers, his crimes, his trial, and eventual end. As the title character, Dennis Levant creates a portrait that’s hard to forget.
The winner of the jury prize was =Sleep Dealer=, a science fiction movie about the effects of globalization by a young Mexican-American director, Alex Rivera, here making his feature debut. “Five minutes from now,” as Rivera puts it, a militarized barrier has been built along the Mexican border with the United States, effectively stopping all immigration, illegal and otherwise. To satisfy their need for cost-effective labor, US-based companies hire third-worlders to operate machinery in 12 hour shifts, shipping their consciousnesses across the border via a sort of virtual reality that requires the implantation of nodes in one’s arms, neck and back. This enables them to work themselves to death without ever entering the States—the nodes drain them of their vital energies and power surges frequently fry their brains. It’s cheap labor with no social responsibility: the American Dream.
Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) is a young hacker trapped on his family’s milpa (corn plantation) near Oaxaca, longing to be anywhere else. Because a US corporation has dammed their river, the family is forced to buy water at exorbitant prices under the scrutiny of armed guards. One night Memo hacks into a security transmission, is detected and mistakenly identified as an “aqua-terrorist.” A robot plane (operated by a node-wearing American soldier of Mexican descent) is deployed and attacks their house and kills Memo’s father. To support the family, Memo travels to Tijuana, now a sprawling, festering megalopolis, gets a black market node job, and begins working for a sleep dealer, an illegal job shop. Along the way he becomes involved with Luz (Leonor Varela) a young woman who sells her node-transmitted memories online. She begins to use his experiences and their relationship as fodder, selling the story, along with his feelings of culpability and remorse…to one very interested customer in particular.
Alex Rivera is going to be a big deal someday, that much is clear. His movie is hugely imaginative, both funny and tragic, and his future is utterly believable. Limited by a miniscule budget, however, his special FX were (to be kind) not up to par, and his ending was much too facile. =Sleep Dealer= is a very enjoyable picture, one destined for cult status among science fiction fans, and not in the least undeserving of awards; but it was not the best film in the competition at NIFFF. That honor belongs to an elegant Swedish vampire movie =Let The Right One In=, directed by Thomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Alvide Lindqvist from his best-selling novel. Set in 1980s Sweden, in and around a drab apartment complex in a mid-size town, the film focuses upon the relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and a girl of approximately the same age who moves into the apartment next door.
Quiet, poetic, sincere, and sweet are not words normally used to describe a vampire picture, but this—as Alfredson’s nuanced and layered direction details--is that rarest of animals, an original vampire picture. It’s also a love story, a coming-of-age-story, and a discourse on marginality and exclusion leavened with touches of black humor. Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is neglected by his single mom and bullied at school. He keeps a notebook of the things he like to do to his tormentors and is obsessed with newspaper articles on violent crimes. In the first scene, we see him--a blond, almost albino child standing in his bedroom in his underwear, thrusting a knife at the air and saying, “Squeal like a pig!” He keeps bumping into Eli (Lina Leandersson) outside their building at night and eventually she befriends him, urging him to strike back hard at the bullies. Eli is, of course, the vampire of the piece, “parented” by the bumbling Hakan, a middle-aged man who spends his nights collecting the blood that sustains her (though it is unstated, it becomes apparent that he does this in order to prevent the creation of new vampires.) He poisons his victims with halthion, hangs them upside down in a snowy park, slashes their throats, and drains the blood into a jerry can. It’s a testament to Alfredson’s skill that he manages to make this all seem like drudgery, not Grand Guignol, and thus sustains our sympathy for the killer and his ward.
More typical cinematic violence occurs, to be sure, when Eli is forced to seek blood on her own; but these sequences are inventive and wonderfully staged, and contrast so greatly with the film’s icy cinematography and deliberate, moody pacing, that when they arrive they impact the audience with a dreamlike intensity. The violence is further ameliorated by the trust and sweetness of the developing relationship between Oskar and Eli. They become each other’s fantasy--I’m not speaking of vampire and potential victim, but of the soul mate one improbably finds next door. The two leads give stunning performances. The slow unspooling of the movie allows them to render their characters with a bright specificity--the sultry, watchful Lina and the slyly optimistic Oskar—and this in turn lends their unconsummated, almost otherworldy love a poignant reality. They’re creepy and violent, yet compelling in their vulnerability. That’s why I was flabbergasted when one member of our jury said he found the children “inexpressive,” and another said there was something wrong with the pacing. I was so taken aback, I don’t think I managed a suitable response and I blame myself for not being more on the ball and putting up a better fight. I’m not sure what they wanted to see—perhaps they missed the jump cuts and histrionics that certainly will attend the American remake, due out in 2010.
The title, =Let The Right One In=, is lifted from a Morissey song and refers to the myth that vampires can only enter a home into which they have been invited. It presages a key scene in the picture, and it might also be seen as an admonition to those who sat in judgment: Let the right one win. Yet I don’t suppose I should feel too badly for Alfredson and Lindqvist. =Let The Right One In= has already won the award for best narrative feature at the prestigious Tribecca Film Festival, a remarkable achievement for a genre film, and been awarded major prizes at festivals in Denmark, Sweden, and Edinburgh. Its failure to win at the NIFFF stands less as a comment on the filmmakers and their brilliant movie than on the shabby performance of the jury.
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Once upon a time there was a little boy who dreamed of being on a film festival jury…naw, not really. When I was a kid I dreamed about the usual stuff, looting and pillaging and so on, but once I reached my majority and got into movies, I’d watch the juries at Cannes and think how cool it would be to sit on one. Well, as it happens, this past summer I finally got my chance. The Neuchatel International Festival of Fantastic Films (NIFFF) isn’t Cannes, but it’s a pretty classy event. They put the jury up in a five star hotel (my room came equipped with a Mite scooter that I occasionally rode around the halls late at night like little Danny in =The Shining) and gave us an expensive Swiss watch as a door prize and Neuchatel is a lovely medieval town on a gorgeous lake with lots of spectacular venues for the cocktail parties (of which there were many) including a castle. The festival was light on actors, but there were a number of interesting directors in attendance: Jamie Balugueros (=[REC]=); George Romero (you know); Lamberto Bava and Jess Franco, both responsible for dozens of Italian giallo, and many more. So that part of the jury experience lived up to expectations. The rest of it, the actual judging part of things…not so much.
There were twelve films in competition at the NIFFF, entries from Korea, Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Macedonia, the USA and elsewhere. Twelve films, you’d think, would be a snap to watch over four days, but it turned out to be fairly arduous, because our schedules were so packed and also because the majority of the movies were horror films and having to sit through munching and bleeding and splattering for approximately seven hours a day took a toll on one’s sensibilities. The jury consisted of myself and three directors: Joe Dante (=Gremlins=; =The Howling=), Xavier Gens (=Hitman=, =Frontiers=), Jens Lien (=The Bothersome Man=). Neil Marshall (=The Descent=) was supposed to participate, but was forced to withdraw due to an emergency. From my perspective, about half the films were eliminated early on, beginning with the crushingly awful slasher film, =Manhunt=, a retelling of =Deliverance= wherein two young couples are hunted and horribly slaughtered by Norwegian rednecks. This movie received a good deal of hype, mainly because it was the first such picture produced in Norway and the director was only twenty-five…doubtless the explanation for the film’s lack of depth and originality.
Also off the list in the early going were George Romero’s =Diary of the Dead= (too much been there, done that for my tastes) and Gregg Bishop’s =Dance of the Dead=, another zombie film. Though the latter had a few nice touches and a leading lady (Grayson Chadwick) with real star potential, its mix of Romero-esque grue, =Prom Night=, and cheap yucks ultimately came to nothing. Another easy scratch was Takashi Miike’s Spaghetti western with Japanese gunslingers, =Sukiyaki Western Django=. Featuring Quentin Tarantino in a minor yet crucial role (always a bad sign), the movie is a parody of a genre that has already parodied itself to better effect, and watching it to the end was a chore. Gunnar B. Gudmundsson’s =Astropia=, the story of a beautiful blond airhead who finds work at a geek video store when her boyfriend is sent to prison, opens promisingly, but then falls flat when our heroine finds both herself and true love through role-playing—the role-playing scenes (done as live action fantasy sequences in ridiculous costumed regalia) may remind many of just how dull their lives were in younger years. In-Ho-Yun’s =The Devil’s Game=, tells of a young man lured into a sucker bet by a dying old billionaire. The stakes? If he loses, he switches bodies with the septuagenarian. The film goes on far too long and has perhaps the most confusing ending in cinematic history. I’m still unclear as to its resolution.
Among the contenders, Milcho Manchevski’s =Shadows=, a ghost story set in modern-day Macedonia, also was too long (a half-hour at least) and suffered from its director’s apparent obsession with his busty leading lady—he seemed to be looking for opportunities to have her remove her blouse. Depending on your point of view, this tendency either got in the way of the narrative, or else the narrative interfered with the softcore porn. One way or the other, if you took out the extraneous material, there would probably be a decent (or indecent) movie left over. =The Cottage= is a brisk horror comedy reminiscent of early Peter Jackson by British director Paul Andrew Williams. It relates the misadventures of two bungling kidnappers (Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith) who repair to a rural cottage with their blond victim. The ensuing mayhem is carried out with humor and energy, but the film wasn’t sufficiently different from its many antecedents to win over the jury. =Eskalofrio=, Isidro Ortiz’s tale about a feral child, beautifully shot amid the gloomy forests of the Spanish Pyrenees, began well and appeared to be going somewhere new, but fell prey to the Hollywood penchant for laying on climax after climax after climax. =Tokyo=, a trilogy of short films about that city, featured good but slight work in the surrealist vein by Bun Jun Ho and Michael Gondry, and was centered by an amazing piece of film by Leo Carax entitled “Merde.” It tells of an eccentric, Dada-style terrorist, a man named Merde who lives in the Tokyo sewers, his crimes, his trial, and eventual end. As the title character, Dennis Levant creates a portrait that’s hard to forget.
The winner of the jury prize was =Sleep Dealer=, a science fiction movie about the effects of globalization by a young Mexican-American director, Alex Rivera, here making his feature debut. “Five minutes from now,” as Rivera puts it, a militarized barrier has been built along the Mexican border with the United States, effectively stopping all immigration, illegal and otherwise. To satisfy their need for cost-effective labor, US-based companies hire third-worlders to operate machinery in 12 hour shifts, shipping their consciousnesses across the border via a sort of virtual reality that requires the implantation of nodes in one’s arms, neck and back. This enables them to work themselves to death without ever entering the States—the nodes drain them of their vital energies and power surges frequently fry their brains. It’s cheap labor with no social responsibility: the American Dream.
Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) is a young hacker trapped on his family’s milpa (corn plantation) near Oaxaca, longing to be anywhere else. Because a US corporation has dammed their river, the family is forced to buy water at exorbitant prices under the scrutiny of armed guards. One night Memo hacks into a security transmission, is detected and mistakenly identified as an “aqua-terrorist.” A robot plane (operated by a node-wearing American soldier of Mexican descent) is deployed and attacks their house and kills Memo’s father. To support the family, Memo travels to Tijuana, now a sprawling, festering megalopolis, gets a black market node job, and begins working for a sleep dealer, an illegal job shop. Along the way he becomes involved with Luz (Leonor Varela) a young woman who sells her node-transmitted memories online. She begins to use his experiences and their relationship as fodder, selling the story, along with his feelings of culpability and remorse…to one very interested customer in particular.
Alex Rivera is going to be a big deal someday, that much is clear. His movie is hugely imaginative, both funny and tragic, and his future is utterly believable. Limited by a miniscule budget, however, his special FX were (to be kind) not up to par, and his ending was much too facile. =Sleep Dealer= is a very enjoyable picture, one destined for cult status among science fiction fans, and not in the least undeserving of awards; but it was not the best film in the competition at NIFFF. That honor belongs to an elegant Swedish vampire movie =Let The Right One In=, directed by Thomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Alvide Lindqvist from his best-selling novel. Set in 1980s Sweden, in and around a drab apartment complex in a mid-size town, the film focuses upon the relationship between a twelve-year-old boy and a girl of approximately the same age who moves into the apartment next door.
Quiet, poetic, sincere, and sweet are not words normally used to describe a vampire picture, but this—as Alfredson’s nuanced and layered direction details--is that rarest of animals, an original vampire picture. It’s also a love story, a coming-of-age-story, and a discourse on marginality and exclusion leavened with touches of black humor. Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is neglected by his single mom and bullied at school. He keeps a notebook of the things he like to do to his tormentors and is obsessed with newspaper articles on violent crimes. In the first scene, we see him--a blond, almost albino child standing in his bedroom in his underwear, thrusting a knife at the air and saying, “Squeal like a pig!” He keeps bumping into Eli (Lina Leandersson) outside their building at night and eventually she befriends him, urging him to strike back hard at the bullies. Eli is, of course, the vampire of the piece, “parented” by the bumbling Hakan, a middle-aged man who spends his nights collecting the blood that sustains her (though it is unstated, it becomes apparent that he does this in order to prevent the creation of new vampires.) He poisons his victims with halthion, hangs them upside down in a snowy park, slashes their throats, and drains the blood into a jerry can. It’s a testament to Alfredson’s skill that he manages to make this all seem like drudgery, not Grand Guignol, and thus sustains our sympathy for the killer and his ward.
More typical cinematic violence occurs, to be sure, when Eli is forced to seek blood on her own; but these sequences are inventive and wonderfully staged, and contrast so greatly with the film’s icy cinematography and deliberate, moody pacing, that when they arrive they impact the audience with a dreamlike intensity. The violence is further ameliorated by the trust and sweetness of the developing relationship between Oskar and Eli. They become each other’s fantasy--I’m not speaking of vampire and potential victim, but of the soul mate one improbably finds next door. The two leads give stunning performances. The slow unspooling of the movie allows them to render their characters with a bright specificity--the sultry, watchful Lina and the slyly optimistic Oskar—and this in turn lends their unconsummated, almost otherworldy love a poignant reality. They’re creepy and violent, yet compelling in their vulnerability. That’s why I was flabbergasted when one member of our jury said he found the children “inexpressive,” and another said there was something wrong with the pacing. I was so taken aback, I don’t think I managed a suitable response and I blame myself for not being more on the ball and putting up a better fight. I’m not sure what they wanted to see—perhaps they missed the jump cuts and histrionics that certainly will attend the American remake, due out in 2010.
The title, =Let The Right One In=, is lifted from a Morissey song and refers to the myth that vampires can only enter a home into which they have been invited. It presages a key scene in the picture, and it might also be seen as an admonition to those who sat in judgment: Let the right one win. Yet I don’t suppose I should feel too badly for Alfredson and Lindqvist. =Let The Right One In= has already won the award for best narrative feature at the prestigious Tribecca Film Festival, a remarkable achievement for a genre film, and been awarded major prizes at festivals in Denmark, Sweden, and Edinburgh. Its failure to win at the NIFFF stands less as a comment on the filmmakers and their brilliant movie than on the shabby performance of the jury.
On the East cost USA.
All the info for this show is here
http://artdonovan.vox.com/
Go if you can dressed to the 9's , if you can not go tell others of it so they may go.
All the info for this show is here
http://artdonovan.vox.com/
Go if you can dressed to the 9's , if you can not go tell others of it so they may go.
- Mood:awake
- 07:27 It would appear that summer is still with us! Yay! :) #
- 08:54 Listening to the _Escape From New York_ soundtrack. (Again.) #
- 08:54 I'm at Kirkland Ave & Kirkland Way, Kirkland, WA 98033, USA - bkite.com/012d1 #
- 09:53 Favorite track: "69th Street Bridge," I do believe. #
- 10:01 I'm already anxious for lunch time just so I can go outside and enjoy some sun (oddly enough). #
- 10:36 I have decided that I need to see _The Ususal Suspects_ again. #
- 11:04 Like fonts? Comment on my post about serif and sans-serif on my blog: ping.fm/8b6XQ #
- 12:32 No work tomorrow--can start nao plz? :) #
- 16:26 Very pretty day today! :) #
- 17:12 Augh! There's no reason for this traffic jam! >:( #
- 18:40 I'm at SE 184th St & SE Petrovitsky Rd, Renton, WA 98058, USA (Se 184th St & Se Petrovitsky Rd, Renton, WA 98058, USA) - bkite.c... #
- 20:01 Playing WoW while _Alien Apocalypse_ plays in the background. It just started this minute on the SciFi Channel. #
- Casual observation gained from speaking to customers 'n' employees: Dark Knight appears to be experiencing multiple views from moviegoers. I'm personally hearing from folks in the store who've seen the film twice, and a number who've seen it four times or more.
It's been a long time since I've seen a film more than once on the big screen...I used to do it a lot more when I was a kid, in those days before home video. I think I saw the original Star Wars about four times during its initial run, and again during its rerelease a year or two later (I think).
Even in high school I'd occasionally see a movie a couple of times, just wasting time with friends. I think I saw Sixteen Candles about a half-dozen times for no real good reason I can name. Well, "Molly Ringwald," that's one.
And in my misbegotten college years, my pal/former coworker Rob and I used to drag different groups of friends to go see Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure at the local dollar theatre.
But since then...no, I can't think of any other repeat big-screen viewings I've had since then. Even if I really like a movie, I know it'll be out on DVD in about four months, along with bonus features/deleted scenes/other extras. (Someone, I forget who, once said that the theatrical release of a film is essentially a commercial for the DVD's more complete film experience.) I'd rather spend my film-going money to see something else, and save the rewatch for the eventual Netflix rental, if at all.
Not that I'm against the idea of repeat viewings, or down on anyone who does. I personally just don't have the time or money or desire to do it myself.
By the way, I'm beginning to hear a lot more people saying they didn't like the film, which, you know, fair enough. We all can't like the same things, after all. - You'll be seeing lots of San Diego Con reports in the next few days, but there will be none cuter than the ones provided by Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull! Just keep checking this link for further updates, and great photos!
- From yesterday's comments section:
1. "Pere Ubu" asks me to identify the uber-violent Popeye cartoon I mentioned in my Twitter thingie. I think the cartoon I was talking about was "Organ Grinder's Swing" from 1937...I don't know that it really was any more or less violent than any other Popeye short, but it seemed like the usual Popeye/Bluto conflict was a little less...adorned, I suppose. More brutal than cartoonish. And again...great fun.
2. Reno Dakota asks if I've read the new issue of Ambush Bug, out this week at your finer comic book stores, and at ours, too.
First, it's a shame that the '60s-style go-go-check cover is the retailer incentive variant, because that has it all over the "extreme close-up of the Bug's face" cover that's generally available.
Second, I can see what Reno means when s/he notes "they practically could've included a 'Dedicated to Mike Sterling' caption at the end." Guess which muck-encrusted mockery of a man makes a cameo? C'MON, GUESS. Okay, he's oddly colored, but THAT'S HIM, baby. (And there are other Cameos of Note that were right up my alley.)
Third, the comic itself...it doesn't feel quite as anarchic as previous Bug adventures, but it's still amusing and it's nice to have the character back.
3. The Poser tells me that there's a Watchmen video game in the works. I did see this report earlier on Thursday, and it made me laugh and laugh. I want a first person shooter, featuring Rorschach and his assortment of grappling hook guns, spray cans and lighters, handsaws, et cetera.
Or maybe a racing game, with all the characters in Ed "Big Daddy" Roth hotrods. Sure, why the hell not? - Pal Cully reminded me of this commissioned drawing of Swamp Thing's Abby by Rick Veitch. Very nice.
- The things they used to advertise: came across this ad in the back of Wizard #27 (Nov. 1993) -
Kinda sums up the early '90s, doesn't it?
The Walt Disney Co. has renewed its first-look pact with POW Entertainment, the production company run by comic-book legend Stan Lee, Variety reported.
Harvey Keitel has agreed to his first-ever regular TV series role, joining the cast of ABC's upcoming time-travel series Life on Mars, Variety reported.
- 14:30 I think it's very good news for CBB (Celebrity Babies Blog): matter for more posts! tinyurl.com/6hplcp #
- 17:19 @mastooo ok, I'm gonna sue you for using this photo as your userpic without crediting and paying me royalty fees. PROFIT! #
- 18:03 @mastooo: you are the one using the photo :) deadlock. Recursive profit overflow... for lawyers! Let's make peace. #
Ouch!
My feet hurt.
My knees hurt.
My hips actually hurt (can't REALLY explain that one).
My throat is a little raw.
And in about 12 hours it starts all over again.
MUST be Comic Con!!
Yeah, the first day of San Diego Comic Con (or, as Wil Wheaton calls it, "Nerd Prom") was JUST what I expected: loud, crowded, chaotic, and WONDERFUL!
It started out, fittingly enough, with standing in line. I had to wait with a bunch of other related-industry professionals in order to prove that we WERE, in fact, related-industry professionals so that we could get badges to the otherwise sold-out convention. This was relatively painless, but I'd have LIKED to have done it YESTERDAY before the real crowds arrived ... but the people organizing it told me that this particular function was not available yesterday, which seemed a little strange to me. Sure enough, a sign posted on those kiosks listed the hours for "Pro Registration" and they included about 6 hours yesterday! NEXT year I'll know better and just show up early. Oh, except as I was registering a very helpful member of the staff gave me the tip that NEXT year they probably are going to ELIMINATE on-site Pro Registration. If you want to be a Visiting Professional at Comic Con in 2009 and beyond, you'll HAVE TO sign up online or you ain't gettin' in! (Guess there's no more being lazy about that for me!)
Oh, and the REALLY funny thing about signing up was the confusion I caused by asking if I could pay by check. It seemed to COMPLETELY flummox the poor girl who was helping me out. Apparently NO ONE pays by check anymore. And, even after it was determined that paying by check was one of the officially acceptable methods, she didn't even seem to know what to DO with the check. It was like some kind of alien artifact to her. Now, I KNOW that paying with cash is easiest ... and paying with credit card is most convenient ... but paying with check leaves a VERY nice paper trail for tracking my business expenses. I realize that most people are escaping from the use of paper checks ... and I'm a real HOLD-OUT for keeping it up ... but I still LIKE the ritual of signing over money rather than just electronically transferring it.
I see old age is coming for me FAST!
While standing in line, I ran into (or, actually flagged down as they were passing) six different people I was hoping to run into. Comic Con is NOT as filled with them as Gen Con usually is, but there ARE a bunch of friends, former co-workers, and colleagues that I only get to see at this show. I think the other people in line were a bit intimidated by me because I seemed to know EVERYONE in a building full of dozens of thousands of people. What can I say? I'm charming. ;^)
The Exhibit Hall itself is as huge and overwhelming as ever ... no, scratch that ... it's STILL managing to seem bigger and MORE overwhelming every year. And the Thursday crowds were nearly as thick as the weekend crowds used to be. I can't even IMAGINE how swamped that place is going to be on Saturday.
Oh, and since I blithely blew over the fact a few paragraphs ago ... COMIC CON HAS SOLD OUT!!! That's right, every ticket for every day was sold MORE than a month ago! Great gravy! It's just mind boggling to think about that. EVERY ticket was sold out MONTHS ago! Any local San Diegan who was hoping to come on down to their "local show" on the weekend and give the kids a thrill .... out of luck! And the WORST part is that this is only going to get WORSE in coming years. Once people KNOW that the show can (and will) sell out, they're going to start ordering their passes earlier ... and since the venue is filled, there's no way for the show to grow ... so it's going to SELL OUT EARLIER, too. (Certainly, this is at least a big part of why they are looking to eliminate on-site Pro Registration.)
But I digress.
I got to see a lot today. I at least briefly met the mad geniuses behind Web Comics Weekly and How To Make Web Comics, Scott Kurtz (PvP), Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc.), Kris Straub (Starslip Crisis), and Dave Kellett (Sheldon). I've interacted with several of them briefly at previous Comic Cons, but I've never had anything really interesting to say to them. Turns out, I really didn't have anything interesting to say to them today either. I got them to sign my copy of their book, told them each individually how much I enjoyed not only that but also the podcast AND their individual comics. I'm sure I COULD have had a terrifically interesting conversation with ANY of them ... but a) they were clearly busy and I wasn't going to buy anything (not today, anyway), b) I'm notoriously BAD at getting to know people in situations like a room full of 50,000 fans, and c) getting any kind of serious conversation started would have involved saying some form of "I'm a bit famous and successful like you guys ..." which ALWAYS comes out wrong and really isn't my style anyway. Anyway, I got to do what I wanted MOST, which was to meet them, tell them how much I like their work, and get them to sign their book ... which I HIGHLY recommend to ANYONE thinking about getting into web comics or even PDF game publishing. There is A LOT of GREAT info in there ... and it's a fascinating read.
I also got to see and catch up with a few of my friends who are still at Upper Deck Entertainment and see what their new convention booth looks like. (Really snazzy, actually.) Things there seem to continue to be chaotic ... no one really being sure what the future holds despite the fact that they've got some GREAT new products coming out. (The question, as those of you who have listened to me blather before know, is NOT whether the games will be good enough, nor even whether they will sell well enough ... the question is what unreasonable expectations upper management has for the games and the department AND what unknowable corporate machinations will be shaping the coming months in the Carlsbad office.) I wish them all nothing but the best of luck. The games, like the WoW Minis Game and Dinosaur King, and the recently announced Call of Duty TCG, are ALL very good games and DESERVING of success.
I almost started listing the names of other old friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I bumped into today ... but then I realized that I don't have the energy to say something meaningful about ALL of them ... and just listing them off really smacks of name dropping. Suffice it to say, it was great to see them and I was reminded of how lucky I've been to get to know and be friends with so many truly talented people.
I did more shopping than I'd intended to on Day 1 ... but that may be a good thing. (I think I'll wait until the end of the show to go over my favorite purchases.) There are a lot of seminars I wanted to see tomorrow, Saturday is going to be an absolute madhouse, and I'm not sure I'm going back on Sunday ... so this might actually have been my big spending day. I did WANT to see a couple of seminars today, but the lines for them were SO long that I just passed them by and went back to the Exhibit Hall. Tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a lot more standing in line, though.
One thing I DID miss tonight, which I'm very sorry about, was the panel on Repo!: The Genetic Opera. I just didn't have the energy to stay until 7:30. But I DID get some promotional material INCLUDING a preview CD of music from the soundtrack!!!
Well ... I'm running out of gas here ... and I'm running out of easily told stories, too. So that's it from Comic Con, Day 1. I'm not sure I'll be making DAILY posts like this ... but I'll try to say SOMETHING. And when it's all said and done, I'll have some kind of wrap-up.
Now it's off to bed with me ... so I can get up in the morning and do it all over again!
My feet hurt.
My knees hurt.
My hips actually hurt (can't REALLY explain that one).
My throat is a little raw.
And in about 12 hours it starts all over again.
MUST be Comic Con!!
Yeah, the first day of San Diego Comic Con (or, as Wil Wheaton calls it, "Nerd Prom") was JUST what I expected: loud, crowded, chaotic, and WONDERFUL!
It started out, fittingly enough, with standing in line. I had to wait with a bunch of other related-industry professionals in order to prove that we WERE, in fact, related-industry professionals so that we could get badges to the otherwise sold-out convention. This was relatively painless, but I'd have LIKED to have done it YESTERDAY before the real crowds arrived ... but the people organizing it told me that this particular function was not available yesterday, which seemed a little strange to me. Sure enough, a sign posted on those kiosks listed the hours for "Pro Registration" and they included about 6 hours yesterday! NEXT year I'll know better and just show up early. Oh, except as I was registering a very helpful member of the staff gave me the tip that NEXT year they probably are going to ELIMINATE on-site Pro Registration. If you want to be a Visiting Professional at Comic Con in 2009 and beyond, you'll HAVE TO sign up online or you ain't gettin' in! (Guess there's no more being lazy about that for me!)
Oh, and the REALLY funny thing about signing up was the confusion I caused by asking if I could pay by check. It seemed to COMPLETELY flummox the poor girl who was helping me out. Apparently NO ONE pays by check anymore. And, even after it was determined that paying by check was one of the officially acceptable methods, she didn't even seem to know what to DO with the check. It was like some kind of alien artifact to her. Now, I KNOW that paying with cash is easiest ... and paying with credit card is most convenient ... but paying with check leaves a VERY nice paper trail for tracking my business expenses. I realize that most people are escaping from the use of paper checks ... and I'm a real HOLD-OUT for keeping it up ... but I still LIKE the ritual of signing over money rather than just electronically transferring it.
I see old age is coming for me FAST!
While standing in line, I ran into (or, actually flagged down as they were passing) six different people I was hoping to run into. Comic Con is NOT as filled with them as Gen Con usually is, but there ARE a bunch of friends, former co-workers, and colleagues that I only get to see at this show. I think the other people in line were a bit intimidated by me because I seemed to know EVERYONE in a building full of dozens of thousands of people. What can I say? I'm charming. ;^)
The Exhibit Hall itself is as huge and overwhelming as ever ... no, scratch that ... it's STILL managing to seem bigger and MORE overwhelming every year. And the Thursday crowds were nearly as thick as the weekend crowds used to be. I can't even IMAGINE how swamped that place is going to be on Saturday.
Oh, and since I blithely blew over the fact a few paragraphs ago ... COMIC CON HAS SOLD OUT!!! That's right, every ticket for every day was sold MORE than a month ago! Great gravy! It's just mind boggling to think about that. EVERY ticket was sold out MONTHS ago! Any local San Diegan who was hoping to come on down to their "local show" on the weekend and give the kids a thrill .... out of luck! And the WORST part is that this is only going to get WORSE in coming years. Once people KNOW that the show can (and will) sell out, they're going to start ordering their passes earlier ... and since the venue is filled, there's no way for the show to grow ... so it's going to SELL OUT EARLIER, too. (Certainly, this is at least a big part of why they are looking to eliminate on-site Pro Registration.)
But I digress.
I got to see a lot today. I at least briefly met the mad geniuses behind Web Comics Weekly and How To Make Web Comics, Scott Kurtz (PvP), Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc.), Kris Straub (Starslip Crisis), and Dave Kellett (Sheldon). I've interacted with several of them briefly at previous Comic Cons, but I've never had anything really interesting to say to them. Turns out, I really didn't have anything interesting to say to them today either. I got them to sign my copy of their book, told them each individually how much I enjoyed not only that but also the podcast AND their individual comics. I'm sure I COULD have had a terrifically interesting conversation with ANY of them ... but a) they were clearly busy and I wasn't going to buy anything (not today, anyway), b) I'm notoriously BAD at getting to know people in situations like a room full of 50,000 fans, and c) getting any kind of serious conversation started would have involved saying some form of "I'm a bit famous and successful like you guys ..." which ALWAYS comes out wrong and really isn't my style anyway. Anyway, I got to do what I wanted MOST, which was to meet them, tell them how much I like their work, and get them to sign their book ... which I HIGHLY recommend to ANYONE thinking about getting into web comics or even PDF game publishing. There is A LOT of GREAT info in there ... and it's a fascinating read.
I also got to see and catch up with a few of my friends who are still at Upper Deck Entertainment and see what their new convention booth looks like. (Really snazzy, actually.) Things there seem to continue to be chaotic ... no one really being sure what the future holds despite the fact that they've got some GREAT new products coming out. (The question, as those of you who have listened to me blather before know, is NOT whether the games will be good enough, nor even whether they will sell well enough ... the question is what unreasonable expectations upper management has for the games and the department AND what unknowable corporate machinations will be shaping the coming months in the Carlsbad office.) I wish them all nothing but the best of luck. The games, like the WoW Minis Game and Dinosaur King, and the recently announced Call of Duty TCG, are ALL very good games and DESERVING of success.
I almost started listing the names of other old friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I bumped into today ... but then I realized that I don't have the energy to say something meaningful about ALL of them ... and just listing them off really smacks of name dropping. Suffice it to say, it was great to see them and I was reminded of how lucky I've been to get to know and be friends with so many truly talented people.
I did more shopping than I'd intended to on Day 1 ... but that may be a good thing. (I think I'll wait until the end of the show to go over my favorite purchases.) There are a lot of seminars I wanted to see tomorrow, Saturday is going to be an absolute madhouse, and I'm not sure I'm going back on Sunday ... so this might actually have been my big spending day. I did WANT to see a couple of seminars today, but the lines for them were SO long that I just passed them by and went back to the Exhibit Hall. Tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a lot more standing in line, though.
One thing I DID miss tonight, which I'm very sorry about, was the panel on Repo!: The Genetic Opera. I just didn't have the energy to stay until 7:30. But I DID get some promotional material INCLUDING a preview CD of music from the soundtrack!!!
Well ... I'm running out of gas here ... and I'm running out of easily told stories, too. So that's it from Comic Con, Day 1. I'm not sure I'll be making DAILY posts like this ... but I'll try to say SOMETHING. And when it's all said and done, I'll have some kind of wrap-up.
Now it's off to bed with me ... so I can get up in the morning and do it all over again!
Confessore in the Times ...
Four Spitzer administration officials violated the state's ethics law when they used the State Police last summer to gather travel documents they hoped would tarnish Joseph L. Bruno, then the State Senate majority leader, according to a report released on Thursday by the State Commission on Public Integrity.
I'd been thinking I might skip evening class tonight due to ongoing exhaustion, but got talked into going out for $1 beer and then the class marshmallow roast. $1 beer is Bud Light, which is less nasty than I'd expected... having almost no taste with which to offend my delicate beer palette. (Remember that I'm the girl who doesn't think you should see through beer.) The marshmallow roast was pretty fun, and while I am now up way past my bedtime, I think it was worth it.
- Location:Drudur on the road
- Mood:
bouncy
The probability of someone making a mathematical formulation on a non-mathematical subject is inversely proportional to its usefulness.
(Originally posted at Words Words Words by skzb. Please leave any comments there.)
In the post immediately below I referred to Obama's audition for the role of 'head of state/commander-in-chief'. And as a potential wartime president and in the rhetorical universe we're now living in, this CINC test is inevitable and important for Obama to pass. But we should not forget how novel and in many ways pernicious the elevation of this term is.
At some points during the Republican primary campaign especially, CINC was being used almost as a synonym for president -- much as we might substitute 'chief executive' for president. And the growing use of the term in this sense is an effective barometer of the progressive militarization of our concept of the presidency and our government itself.
We see it here in its semantic form but we can observe its concrete effect in the Bush administration's claims of almost absolute presidential power well outside of war-fighting -- almost as if the president is a kind of warlord simultaneously directing the military and the civilian governments with similar fiat powers.
We need to re-familiarize ourselves with the fact that the point of the constitution's explicitly giving the president the title of commander-in-chief was not to make him into a quasi-military figure. It was precisely the opposite -- to create no doubt that the armed forces answered not to a chief of staff or senior general or even a Secretary of Defense (originally, Secretaries of War and Navy) but to a civilian elected officeholder who operates with the constrained and limited power of that world rather than the unbound authority of military command.
We've gotten the relationship seriously out of whack.
After it became clear that Obama's trip through the Middle East was not only error-free but wildly successful (because of Maliki's gambit), there's been a third wave of press chatter and fretting to the effect that Obama's trip may now be too successful, that voters on the home front would rather have him stateside addressing their concerns than being feted by adoring Europeans. Joe Klein actually had a good post on this at Swampland yesterday. In the short term sense, I don't think watching Obama walk on water in Europe (or in whatever lakes or rivers they have available) will goose his poll numbers. It may even have a bit of the reverse effect. The key was banking a solid trip abroad, an audition for the head of state/commander-in-chief role, that he'll be able to refer back to (mostly implicitly, sometimes explicitly) during the tough weeks ahead in the fall.
So I don't think anyone should be surprised that his numbers aren't spiked. The reverse might even happen. But it's still a key step since fundamentally this election is about hiring Obama, and overcoming the residual doubts (about his newness, youth, funny name, whatever) that are allowing John McCain even to stay in contention.
It's not Obama v. McCain. This is about Obama, with McCain as the alternative.
According to this post by Matt Stoller at OpenLeft, every major Democratic senate challenger this year (judged by very expansive criteria) supports Net Neutrality.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures announced that it has signed Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain) to direct and David Self to write a new installment for its RoboCop franchise.
Lee Pace, who plays Ned the piemaker on ABC's fantasy series Pushing Daisies, offered a few spoilers for the upcoming second season and added that the show will move to some offbeat locations when it returns.
Deanna Russo, who reprises the role of Sarah Graiman in NBC's upcoming Knight Rider series, told SCI FI Wire that her character has changed dramatically from the two-hour pilot film: She's less of a bookish nerd and more of a kickass member of the team.
Fantasy author Lilith Saintcrow told SCI FI Wire that her latest novel, Night Shift, is the first in a new series, which features Jill Kismet, an ex-teen prostitute who now makes the world safe for normal people by battling the forces of hell.
Nevertheless, it's what I've got. A few good things, a few depressing ones:
- My mom sent me a copy of Rock Climbing Minnesota and Wisconsin, which makes me really happy. I want to check this stuff out now! I need some outdoor climbing buddies in Minnesota, so if any of you know of any, hook me up.
- Except for this: it's starting to look a LOT as if my foot is not osteoarthritis but is, in fact, gout. I'm showing all the signs at this point and, while I'm not an obese port-drinker from a Georgette Heyer, my high-fat, high-protein diet could well be a problem. Going into the details is both boring and depressing, but what I am willing to whine about is how stressed this makes me. Even the test to find out for sure is pretty unpleasant, so I am in the unpleasant middle stage: symptoms too new to do much yet, but anxious and unhappy about the possibility, and not brave enough to find out for sure.
- Another good thing: I did buy the pair of DUX arm chairs. They have beautiful bones, but they do need new upholstery eventually. For the moment, I have one of them draped with a heavy black wool shawl, and even thus it looks good.
- Feeling generally out of sorts and sorry for myself tonight. Say pleasant things to soothe me.
If you don’t wish to set aside your favorite character in order to start up a new 4th Edition campaign, some amount of conversion will be attempted. To that end, Andy Collins put together the following recommendations. Today: Tome of Battle.
You know what it's like when there's a wasp buzzing in your ear? Darting at your eyes, making threatening swoops toward your nostrils and the back of your neck? Now imagine that it's 8 feet long and drones as loud as a freight train.
Shelly runs her first session. See how the game went and what this aspiring new DM learned on the job!
Stumped for an idea on your next character? Need a new PC in a hurry? In Character Concepts, we'll give you sample characters, built out in detail from levels 1 to 30 using the existing rules of the game.
the moving comfort cara sports bra is brilliant.
no contortion required to get it on or off.
no uniboob.
no flesh squeezing out around my arms.
sweat wicks away. while it and my shirt may be soaked when i take it off, my skin is always nearly dry.
i've been running it through the washer and dryer with no ill effects. yay!
no contortion required to get it on or off.
no uniboob.
no flesh squeezing out around my arms.
sweat wicks away. while it and my shirt may be soaked when i take it off, my skin is always nearly dry.
i've been running it through the washer and dryer with no ill effects. yay!
I thought I'd seen some pretty bad names given to kids... But this is undoubtedly one of the worst, ever. According to this article, nine-year-old Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii, was so embarassed by that horrible name that she didn't even tell her closest friends about it, and instead opted to be called "K" -- assumably a middle initial.
Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. What in the hell were her parents on when they came up with that?
Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. What in the hell were her parents on when they came up with that?
The New York Times reports that scientists have discovered what triggers the northern lights. They picked up the story from the journal Science, where you can read the original report. This, my friends, is pretty damn cool.
I admit, however, that the romantic in me is a little sad. Another mystery of the universe is no longer quite so mysterious. It's still cool, though. ::grin::
I admit, however, that the romantic in me is a little sad. Another mystery of the universe is no longer quite so mysterious. It's still cool, though. ::grin::
Jim Dwyer reports on a new digital exhibition on Yeats, which may/may not come to the US. But Dwyer also writes: The readers include Seamus Heaney, Sinead O’Connor and Theo Dorgan, but it is the voice of Yeats himself, reciting “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” at a sing-song pace, that comes as a revelation. If by "revelation," he means, "an experience freely available online at the Norton Anthology of English Literature's website," then, yes, that's true. Yeats's reading is certainly powerful--don't wait for a trip to Ireland to hear it! The Norton site has a ton of audio available. (You can also try the Broadview Anthology's website, which has the Yeats recording.)
Excellent fun: Robert Browning as the murderer of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: By then Browning had some experience of the stresses of a mature sexual, as opposed to an epistolary, relationship. He and Elizabeth quarrelled frequently about politics, about her interest in spiritualism, about how to bring up their son. Robert wanted Pen to wear trousers and short hair; Elizabeth preferred him in velvet pantaloons and candle curls. Elizabeth won. Awkwardly, her money supported the entire household: husband, servants, dog, child, clothes, food, pet rabbits, the writing of poetry, holidays abroad in the hot months, and her addiction to laudanum, which she took daily for pains in her spine and chest. She never complained. We all know the temptation to kill our spouse (especially a saintly one).
One more thought on Kay Ryan, from Adam Kirsch.
An early (1996-2005) online journal of experimental poetry, flim, has re-posted its archives. There's a lot of great stuff here, although for purely private reasons my favorite is this excerpt from Arnold Bennett's How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day reprinted as a prose poem. (Via Lime Tree.)
The editors of the Best New Poets series have announced their list of 2008 winners, selected by Mark Strand. One of the poems, Karen Rigby's "The Lover," is featured this week at Linebreak. A few of the 50 are available online: Seth Abramson's "Nebraska"; Keith Eskiss's "Pima Road Notebook (II)"; Rebecca Morgan Frank's "Rescue"; Patrick Ryan Frank's "Virginitiphobia"; Darren Morris's "Counting Down the Night"; Jonathan Rice's "Momento Mori"; Alexandra Teague's "Adjectives of Order"; and Rhett Iseman Trull's "Everything From That Poem On." (And honestly, Best New Poets editors: if you know the poems are online, provide the links in your announcement! It will only help interest people.)
For the weekend: "Your nose is like an unscented emergency candle."
Chapters 12 and 13 are done.
I hope that 14 will be half as powerful as these last two have been.
Since I last updated, Revisions and expansions have also happened to Chapters 8, 15, 16, 17 and 19.
The Manuscript now sits at 90K contiguous words, but I know how much I’ve put into the teens listed above this week.
I’ve now written a trashy adventure novel, and over half a Turtledove.
I’ve also not played video games since Monday night. I’ve generated almost half my November output in three days, and I’m at this exact moment forcing myself away from the keyboard to make food.
Just as I’ve done three other times today.
I sure hope this thing does not suck.
I’ve been so consumed by the work that there is a glass of water in front of me that I pours over two hours ago.
I forgot it was there.
Time for a break, I think. Chapter 14 is important enough that it may become 14 AND 15, but I’m not afraid to go long if I have to. As I mentioned to friends today, these chapters are getting longer, and easier to put down on “paper.”
If I write more about writing, I’m going to pick it up again. Time for meal # 4.
And some Water. It’s good stuff, don’t ya know?
Originally published at Bhagwan @ Large. You can comment here or there.