Super Mario Beats It: The Lessons of NYCC 2010

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JA from MNPP here. New York's Comic Con went down this previous weekend in the massive Javits Center here on the island of Manhattan, and if you were there amongst the stacks of dusty Fantastic Four comics and shiny samurai sword replicas and Jason Voorhees masks you might've seen me wandering around in a glassy-eyed stupor. Every Comic Con I've been to breeds the same overstimulated dullness - within a couple of hours my pupils dilate and seeing things like a ten-foot tall Orc tickling Wonder Woman just starts to seem normal. This happens every day! Still, a couple of things stood out this year and I shall now document them.

10 Random Things I Learned at NYCC This Year

01 Girls really like the Silk Spectre costume - Or maybe it's that they know the boys like seeing them in the Silk Spectre costume - either way, I saw about twenty different ladies wearing the slutty bumblebee ensemble from Zach Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's seminal comic book. The film hadn't come out yet when the last Comic Con happened here in NYC - in 2009 NYCC happened in February, while they moved it into October for 2010 (a permanent move), and Watchmen came out in March 0f 2009 - so I don't remember seeing the costume last year, but it was literally - literally! - everywhere you turned this time around. Does this make Malin "Baby Girl" Akerman a geek icon?

02 Danny McBride's a trooper - The panel for David Gordon Green's Your Highness was at the geek-freaking hour of 10:30am on Saturday. Keep in mind you've got at least an hour's wait to even get into the building at that hour, plus with the commute there... needless to say it took me some effort to drag my bum there, but I did. Then I heard through the press-vine that McBride & Co. had been partying hard until the wee hours of morning before the panel and I felt a little less super for my own efforts, since I'd been in bed by 11:30. James Franco seemed dazed, but Danny McBride was firing on all cylinders. Funny man.

And the footage they showed from the film, while definitely geared to the Comic Con audience - Natalie Portman's thong! Puppets smoking from a bong! (hey that rhymes) - was every ounce the bizarre mish-mash I could've hoped the film would be. It looks terrific. I don't entirely understand David Gordon Green's directing career, but it's been a pleasure watching it play out so far.

03 Geeks will stand in a very long line to watch a commercial - This is nothing new to Cons, I've seen it at every one I've gone to, but it always baffles me. The fine folks behind the upcoming release of the Alien Anthology, as they call it, had a booth where they'd close you up in a sleeping pod and right up in your face was a TV screen and it'd show a bunch of clips from the four Alien movies with some sound effects echoing in your ears. The end. And yet the line never stretched less than fifty people long! I suppose the T-shirt they gave you that cleverly stated "Want A Hug?" had something to do with it, but still. (I totally did it anyway, and I cherish my T-shirt.)

04 The family that geeks together, is adorable together - I wish my parents had dressed me up like a Jedi or Baby Yoda and taken me to these sorts of things. So I could immediately fall asleep. Damn you, parents!

05 In The Thing, There Be Tentacles - While I'm still unsure about a prequel to John Carpenter's brilliant 1982 film, itself a remake, the trailer for Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's film - which has made its way online in an exceptionally shaky, hand-held version - had a couple of quick glances of their take on the plant-animal alien monster things and they did excite this nerd's senses. Although only glimpsed, they look right, which in this era of lousy CG was a concern. Now let's just hope they can nail the right paranoiac tone needed too.

06 Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer are pros at this - I can only imagine how many of these events these ladies have entertained at this point, but the dynamic Battlestar Galactica duo had the audience eating out of their palms. They have a terrific rapport - they are apparently great friends in real life - and joked that they're waiting for the reboot of Cagney & Lacey to come along to showcase it. I would watch that.


07 But Michelle Forbes is scary - I don't care that she told us she's nothing like Admiral Cain in Battlestar of the maenad MaryAnn on True Blood or [insert the name of every character she's ever played] and that she's really a hippie-type in real life - there's a reason she's successful for playing harsh ladies, and she made me nervous. I had to keep checking to make sure everybody's eyes weren't going all black, because with all due respect the audience at a Battlestar Galactica panel at Comic Con is not the audience I want to be having an orgy with.

08 M Night Shyamalan, amiable dude - I defended M Night for a very long time, well past when most people had bailed ship - I liked The Village, and I liked parts of Lady in the Water - but the one-two punch of that book about him and The Happening (shudder) kind of killed any arguments I could make anymore. So I only sat through half of his panel by happenstance, in order to get a good seat for the panel following him (on AMC's The Walking Dead, which looks epic by the way). But he came off really well! It was for the 10th Anniversary of Unbreakable, a terribly underrated film, and you could tell he really loves the film and that its negative reception put him into a bit of a tailspin. He came alive showcasing the storyboards for the train scene at the start of the film - you can say a lot of things about him, but I don't think you can argue about the meticulous craft on display. And he was fascinating to watch in discussion of that.

09 According to Frank Darabont, Zombies are the new Vampires - Which seems like an odd argument to make, right? The last decade has seen every iteration of zombies you could ever imagine - it's not like they need to make a comeback to be the hip thing. I get that he was selling his Zombie TV Show, and it does look terrific. But isn't it really Frankenstein Monster's time to shine again? I want sexy Frankenstein, dang it. (Yes, SNL got there already.)

10 You haven't lived until you've seen Super Mario dancing to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - This one is self-explanatory, and true. You might not know it's true. But then you see it happen, and you understand its truth. The fundamental sort.

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The Freshlink 15

<--- USA Today Zoinks. It's the first official pics of Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. ♥
Journalistic Skepticism Luke reviews the entire 1990s in Best Actress. I'd do this myself if I didn't have 141 other ongoing movie projects to worry about. I'm overscheduled, I am. [Sigh]
The Big Picture M. Night Shyamalan thinks that the cynical view of his career (that his movies are getting worse and worse) will be "eradicated" by history. Even more alarming: he says he would kill himself if he thought his movies were getting worse. Oh M. Night. Self awareness and self critique is necessary to growth as an artist. If you think you're incapable of bad work, you're bound to do bad work.
Some Came Running Ellen Page is an early riser.
Towleroad I'm incredibly disappointed in writer/director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) and his comments on gay actors playing straight "distracting." He wins some points by using straights playing gays as his prime examples of this off-sexuality distraction (I mean, if you're going to be stupid about what acting is, be stupid in both directions! Thanks) but his own words are so hypocritical since he always has gay characters in his movies and always hires straight actors to play them. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies and the gay community is certainly proof of that in the movie business.
Lazy Circle on The Atlantic's piece on celebrity scandal, tougher on women (like Lindsay Lohan) than men (Mel Gibson). I can't get behind any piece (The Atlantic's) that calls Elizabeth Taylor a joke, though. La Liz is legendary. Those who laugh at her have very little understanding of her epic wing in Hollywood's mansion.
I Need My Fix shares a Goop item, a heartfelt piece from Bryce Dallas Howard on post-partum depression
Serious Film Come back Charlie Kauffman


off cinema
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing on event television and a real life event. A must read.
Playbill Barack Obama's tribute to Broadway. Love the Mel Brooks quote that musicals "blow the dust off your soul."
Backstage|Blogstage Maybe the all things Mad Men fever has finally jumped the shark... or at least driven over someone's foot with a lawnmower. Of of my favorite recurring bit players has posed for Playboy recreating old 60s pinups.
Movie|Line Have you been reading the Emmy Spotlight here? It's fun. I had totally forgotten about that Gossip Girl themed 30 Rock episode. When I die I want to leave something in my will for Jane Krakowski because she's given me so much raucous laughter in my life.

daily Inception freakout
EW's Owen Gleiberman says he doesn't "get" Inception. And then proceeds to describe it in thorough detail indicating that he totally got it but just didn't like it very much. Yet his constant "I didn't get it" apologetic refrains invite everyone -- sometimes literally -- to disregard his points. Who does Owen Gleiberman think he is? A Democratic politician. Find your backbone!
FourFour Rich (who hated the movie) has a conversation with a friend (who loved it). It's all very interesting but even Rich, who is totz brilliant, falls for the "didn't get it" hedging, before saying lots of smart things indicating that he got it.


I still sorta like the movie (I initially gave it a B and this intermittently glowing review) but the things I did dislike about it such as the entire character of Ariadne (Ellen Page), the literal mindedness of a dream movie, and the direction/editing of some of the action sequences keep bothering me and the things I liked about it (the 'man as builder' vertical aesthetic, the team dynamic, the zero gravity bits, the f/x, the Tom Hardy) aren't totally compensating.

My point is this: I'm glad that someone made a movie that is inspiring this much discussion but I will yet be driven mad by the dynamic of weird hyperbole vs. embarassed apologies embedded in seemingly all Inception conversations. I am sending Nolan my next therapy bill.

Finally
Have you tried this "35 Movies in 2 Minutes" short? It's whimsic-hypnotic but I have to admit I didn't even get half of them on the first run through. Try it.

35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

Before Link Falls

I have failed to mention that Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are now married. You've probably heard this by now. But since the Film Experience loves both of them muchly, and has since 2006 and 2000 respectively, we throw virtual rice in their general direction (Spain is east, right?). To make things even more special we like to remember that Cruz made her first movie (Jamon Jamon) with Javier Bardem way back in 1992. They've known each other forever. They also both have acting Oscars which is quite rare in movie couples. Newman and Woodward did it but Newman has left this mortal coil. Even the Bening-Beattys won't be able to say they do when Annette wins since Beatty won his for directing.

Cory's Curiosities "magical pic of the day" awwww, Kermit.

Movie|Line I knew Pixar would eventually have to come down to earth. Seems they're joining the franchise and Direct to DVD markets with abandon. Sigh. The only studio that still prized total originality is giving up. I knew that Cars would be the chink in their armor. Ugh, that movie. It torments me still.
Oscar Tracker Machine Gun Preacher pairs Gerard Butler with Marc Forster for a crazily eventful sounding biopic. Oscarable?
I Need My Fix has photos from the set.
The Big Picture more on the David O' Russell saga involving the unreleased Jake Gyllenhaal/Jessica Biel picture Nailed. Killer last line in this article.
The Exploding Kinetoscope I marvel at this review of The Last Airbender. I love.


Movie|Line so we're talking about a Janis Joplin biopic again? That happens once every three years or so. This time it's Amy Adams but Movie|Line looks at the long history of casting rumors. P.S. If Amy Adams plays this won't she win the Oscar in a slam dunk (against type, singing, biopic, mimicry, deglam, addictions. It's got EVERYTHING)
A Socialite's Life I kind of love that I can never keep track of Jude Law & Sienna Miller's love life. They're together again? I've lost track of this roughly 62 times in my lifetime. I want a bunch of filmmakers to get together and make an omnibus film about this relationship. An experimental biopic with Jude & Sienna playing themselves.
Movie Marketing Madness on the challenges of marketing Inception.
/Film to play a live action Tink. Disney is marketing the hell out of this character which makes me sad because each time they use her, I love her less. Hopefully Elizabeth Banks can rescue this.
MNPP obsesses over Thomas Kretschmann again. We understand. Where's he been hiding?
Hollyscoop Lindsay Lohan back to rehab. Reading the quotes on this makes me ever more worried for her. Not only does she need to get rid of these people from her life, she needs to get rid of the other people who think she needs to get rid of those people. Complicated! Clean house, including your mooch parents! P.S. I realize this is mere conjecture and we can't know what the Lohan family is really like but methinks Lindsay herself would be better off starting fresh, period. She's the one with the talent after all. If she finds sobriety, she'll find everything else she needs (including the lost talent) afterwards.

Finally...

Reuters is reporting a huge box office weekend for Inception (my review). I swear to god box office reports are getting earlier and earlier. The movie doesn't even open till midnight tonight! Soon they will just have box office reports beamed directly from psychic hotlines.

The Last Linkbender

Angry Asian Man has been covering the racist casting of and boycotts of The Last Airbender movie and rounding up links. I think this one from Racalicious about "race bending" is a good overview of the controversy though I have two nitpicky responses that have nothing to do with race.

1. It's not accurate to claim that Hollywood clings to a "mindset from the 30s" when it comes to pleasing the male demographic. Hollywood was just as interested in women in the 30s. The 'please the boys at all costs / ignore everyone else' mandate isn't really unmistakable in cinema until the modern blockbuster era.
   
2. Though it's true that race is a trickier subject than gender, the statement that it's "easy" to combat media driven gender stereotypes is not accurate at all. Those media messages are still pervasive and confusing in 2010 and still shape people's ideas about what's of value (men and their p.o.v.) and what's not (women and anything deemed "feminine"). American culture is still f***ed up about gender and Hollywood reflects that back to us and reinforces it all the time.

I guess anyone protesting this movie has to be happy that the reviews have been so very terrible. Too bad about the box office, though. M Night Shyamalan isn't exactly respected these days but his movies still open well. To make matters more complicated, M Night who is of Asian descent himself claims that the casting decisions were entirely his. I'm not sure I'd want to claim credit for that myself if I were him but he's not exactly known for having perspective about his own projects... or for not taking credit for everything.

Dev Patel, the only non-Caucasian of the four lead roles.
Naturally, he's the antagonist. Business as usual for Hollywood.

Andrew Wheeler has a good piece on the controversy, too, at his dependably interesting blog
The Post-Game Show. I love this bit on M. Night Shyamalan's 'I'm Asian so it can't be racist' style defense.

This is the minority author as the sole arbiter of minority identity. Last time we heard that response, it was from Torchwood writer Russell T Davies on the subject of Ianto’s death on that show, and that time it was even less elegantly expressed; “We’re talking about issues in my entire life here, not just one small television program. … [Critics] should simply grow up, do some research, and stop riding on a bandwagon that they actually don’t know anything about.”

Never mind that critics of Davies were often gay, and critics of Shyamalan have often been Asian; because Davies is gay and Shyamalan is of Asian-American, it is the audience’s ‘misunderstanding’ that’s to blame, and no reflection on the author or director’s insensitivity.

The whole piece is a really good overview of the problem and the massive gaps in the logic that attempts to justify the preproduction casting decisions.

I was actually interesting in seeing this movie. I have a largely undiscussed weakness for sci-fi/fantasy (and four elements stuff) and I find Shyamalan fascinating in a dichotomous talented/idiotic kind of way. But the reviews suggest there isn't much of worth in the film. Did any of you see it over the weekend? If so, do you agree with the excoriation it received?