ABANDONING MARVEL COMICS.....AGAIN

Marvel Comics has become for me like the crazy ex-girlfriend you just can't get ride of. You try and try to separate yourself from her but the bitch entices you right back just to fail you once again. I used to be a huge Marvel fan when I was a kid. After Batman and Green Lantern the first hero I followed with any fervor was Wolverine. I loved Spider-Man, Alpha flight, X-Men all of it. Then slowly over time Marvel jus kept shitting the bed.

The first time I tried to leave Marvel was when they cloned Spider-Man, which was the fucking lamest thing ever. I came back a little while later but left again when Spider-Man became part of the Spider Lineage instead of just a nerd who got bit by a spider. Then I returned and was so let down by how long Civil War took to come out and the fucking bullshit "Oh gosh I was wrong" ending via Captain America I split once more. I came back a bit later and tried to stay but now, once again I'm leaving Marvel Comics and focusing on DC and indie stuff. Want to know why? OK let's chat.

First of all I'm tired of Marvel treating Spider-Man like the redheaded stepchild. Whenever they want to do something stupid they do it through Spidey e.g. Clone, Lineage, One More Day, etc. Spider-Man is now just a punchline, a hollow memory of his formers self.

Marvel has also forgotten how to write Wolverine. They spread him so thin in so many comics that he became watered down and post Wolverine the movie now he's supposed to be almost cuddly and yet crazy. Giving Logan back his memories was a fucking dumb idea, it zapped all the mystery right out of him. Instead of this dark enigma who appeared in a few books outside of the X-men he's become the Jonah Hill of comics. Every time you turn around there he is, it's annoying now. Mark Millar's Old Man Logan was the only thing in the last 10 years that's really captured the essence of what the character once was.

Marvel is also way to fucking busy doing event comics to make anything any good. House Of M, Civil War, Messiah Complex, World War Hulk (which was actually good), Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, it never ends. Most of them end of going on to long and only serving to lead into the next big even series. Dark Reign, the most recent one, is possibly one of the most pointless event series ever. It has gone NOWHERE!!!

They had some cool ideas with Skaar Son Of Hulk but ruined that quickly by bringing him to Earth. Jeph Loeb managed to destroy the great run Hulk had with bad writing and introducing the Red Hulk who just sucks. X-Men is still too convoluted to be enjoyable, the list goes fucking on and on.

Thor has dragged on with him sullen over being kicked out of Asgard, not to mention Thor is about the thunder god battling monsters and aliens and that kind of thing. For the last two years it's been about him in this Midwestern town and as with most Marvel stories it's gone nowhere.

Oh did I mention they stripped Dr. Strange of the Sorcerer Supreme title and gave it to a guy named Captain Voodoo who looks like a WWE Wrestler. I was also in hysterics over how they brought back Captain America. He was shot with a "Time Bullet" which sent him into a time void....RIGHT....GOTCHA.....FUCK YOU.

Now with Marvel being bought by Disney it's just going to get worse. Marvel will have to deliver the bucks to their corporate parents and that means more kitsch and less good, solid comic book work. So I'm out of the Marvel camp, I think for good this time.

HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF....WILLAMSBURG? ALLSTON?

I don't know who created this but the idea of the Masters Of The Universe as Hipster cunts is pretty awesome. Instead of a war-cat He-Man could ride a fixed gear, Skeletor could be the master of Greystove Tea & Coffee House, the idea really are endless. If the people putting together the He-Man movie used this idea I might go see it. It could be the greatest God-meets-man flick since Hercules Goes To New York!!

BATHROOM FASHION JEDI STYLE

Ever thought to yourself "Damn, my bathrobe sucks" or "How can I involve being a superdork with my morning routines?" If so then the above item is just what you (and I) have been looking for. The 100% cotton velour robe is a big heavy warm jam that will keep even the fattest jedi happy as he brushes his teeth or uses the "force" on himself during private time.

For more on ordering one click HERE.

This would definitely go under the Good because how much better could it really get?

DOLLHOUSE SEASON PREMIERE - MY REVIEW

I came very late to the Dollhouse party and mainly got there by accident. I was working one night and bored so I started watching Dollhouse on Hulu.com and about halfway through really began liking it. I don't care for Eliza Dushku at all, she can't act, she's not really that pretty and on screen she seems either fake or flat. That whole thing works in Dollhouse because she doesn't have to be anybody for a long period of time, right when she starts chewing up the scene she's gets a "Treatement" and we're back out again.

As season 2 kicks off everybody is still reeling from the effects of Alpha's (the bad Doll) violent visit to the Dollhouse. Echo (Dushku) is now on loan to Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Peniket) the obsessive FBI agent who invaded the Dollhouse at the end of last season and was then given a job helping to find Alpha. SOMEHOW that meant he and Echo go undercover to find an arms dealer. Echo's programming has led her to become the wife of the arms dealer which disgusts Ballard as he pines for her.

Meanwhile Dr. Claire Saunders (Amy Acker) is having a complete mental breakdown. Since discovering she was a doll reprogrammed to be the house Doctor and that her face was cut up by Alpha because he wanted Echo to be number one, she's been focusing her rage on overly dorky Dollhouse brain Topher Brink (Fran Kranz). Echo's former handler Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) grows more concerned about Echo's evolution and her ability to resist the mind wipes. He's also grown fond of Dr. Saunders which makes her even more unstable.

That's essentially the opening episode and to be honest it's kind of a clunker. It isn't bad per-say it just isn't great, it isn't the episode that should have kicked off the season. Season 1 ended with such a great high that this even toned episode is almost boring. I realize it's the first episode but there's little done with the relationship between doll's Victor (Enver Gjokaj) and Sierra (Dichen Lachman) which was one of the best things about season one. There's a cool little ending bit with them but I wanted to see more.

The main problem with the story is the arms dealer thing which goes from stupid to absolutely unbelievable in record time. There is supposed to be this tension between Echo and Ballard that isn't there mainly because both Dushku and Peniket are one note actors. Dushku does sexy/confused and Peniket does angry/bitter and that just doesn't make for good chemistry. There's also the wrap up of the arms dealer story which is so beyond believable that it feels like the writers stuffed it in to give a reason for Paul Ballard to become Echo's new handler.

The thing that does really work is the weird venomous tirade of Dr. Saunders against Topher Brink. She hates him and it is obviously hurting Brink each day. Amy Acker is awesome as the ruthless Dr. Saunders and as each mind game gets worse she gets better at being a bitch. At the same time Acker plays the Dr to where you feel bad for her and riding that line is never easy. Even Fran Kranz brings his A-game to his portrayal of Topher in this episode. The final confrontation between the two of them is the best scene of the episode and the most well written thing on the entire show so far. Amy Acker is leaving the series and that will leave a considerable hole.

What Joss Whedon and the other writers for Dollhouse need to be careful of is losing the humanity of each player. Paul Ballard has started to suck so badly as a person you don't care what he does or who he is, in fact when he's on screen I tend to doze off. They also need to make sure they don't vilify too much Claire DeWitt (Olivia Williams) the cougar-like head of the entire Dollhouse. Last season she had a lot of sides and layers but in this episode she struts around like Cruella DeVille and that's kind of beneath who she is.

I've been a big fan of enough of Joss Whedon's stuff to realize he's the master of the slow-roll-and-boil. Things creep along and then BANG take off so I'm still excited to see where season 2 goes as the year progresses. With this episode I just saw some of the same cracks in the armor that started towards the end of last season and I'd hate for those to become giant holes that consume an otherwise good show.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET MIGHT NOT SUCK?

So as you all know I don't fancy much the remake ideal and no matter how good a movie might be a remake just doesn't strike me as a good idea. That being said if the remake doesn't mouth rape the original and is a good time I have no issue with it. For example Halloween was so fucking pants shittingly awful I feel Rob Zombie should be bludgeoned to death but the Friday The 13th remake was actually pretty fun. In that vein here's the trailer for the Nightmare On Elm Street remake.

A Nightmare on Elm Street in HD



I may be more forgiving on this because I never really cared about the original Nightmare On Elm Street movies. Sure the first one was scary but by the third one Freddy Krueger was JR Ewing, the man we love to hate complete with snappy one liners. While this new one lacks the dirty, grimy film quality of the Wes Craven original and it's produced by die-soon-please-god Michael Bay, it does have Jackie Earle Haley as the new Freddy and I love that guy.

we'll see how it goes

CTHULHU HAS FOUND CHAT ROOMS

I would have to put this as booth good and bad because it's good to see the big C but bad for pre-teens with dumb ideas about finding love on the internet.

SMALLVILLE SEASON PREMIERE-MY REVIEW

Tonight was the Smallville season premiere and I, like many fans, were hoping it was going to restore some confidence in the show. The last two or more seasons have been a real lesson in how to watch something die an agonizing death and when the big fight with Doomsday turned out to be a whimper instead of a bang Smallville seemed all but lost. Still though we as fans are always optimistic so we pressed on, waiting for the new season to bring us back to what made us love Smallville in the first place.

Yeah, well, we're still in trouble.

If the season premiere is any indication Smallville has gone completely off the reservation, fallen into a well and broken its leg. Sadly there is no Lassie to help us rescue Smallville, we have to simply watch it limp to its death. The Smallville season premiere has amped up that which was destroying the show to begin with, darkness, melancholy and general doom and gloom. Smallville was a fun show, it had monsters, story arcs with aliens and Clark running around discovering a new power each week. The townspeople were involved. Clark's parents were there (apparently being a Senator means Ma Kent is NEVER coming home), it was a fun show to watch. Now it's like One Tree Hill with Superpowers and that just doesn't work.

The new season opens with Chloe (Alison Mack) trying to find Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley). Seems Ollie and the other JLA members went into hiding after Jimmy Olsen's death last year (though apparently he wasn't the real Jimmy Olsen but his brother). Racked with guilt the JLA members are in the wind and Chloe is left in her righteous Watchtower pad looking forlorn. Meanwhile Lois, who vanished into the future via Legion Of Superheroes ring, has reappeared again with no memory of where she was but also not alone. With her is another Kryptonian woman who seems to be itching to kill Lois (ain't we all). Clark is being trained by Jor-El which seems to mean he watches flashing Kryptonian words and tries to act tough.

That's one of the main problems with Smallville's turn to the dark side, the actors just aren't good enough to carry it. Clark is supposed to be battling between being inhuman and human, trying to turn his back on his humanity and yet not being able to. That's an almost Shakespearean theme that actor Tom Welling just isn't up to. The producers have also decided to allow a lot of the emotional power of the show rest on Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and WHOA is that a bad idea. All these scenes that are supposed to be dark or sadly emotional just come of as silly. Erica Durance has no range so everything is just sarcastic or pouty and MAN does that get old fast.

Then there's Clark's new "Superman" suit which I've already railed against on my blog. It's just so badly thought out. Superman doesn't wear a black club kid outfit with a long coat, it just doesn't look right. Again what is supposed to come off as new and exciting comes off as wrong, like the producers and writers have no idea what Superman is all about.

I also wasn't a big fan of the new villains. Brain Austin Green isn't quite a super villain yet (that's next episode) but his attempts to be dark and mysterious are largely held up by the constant reminder that this was the white hip hop kid from 90210. It renders his menace as a super villain next to nothing. Worse still is Callum Blue who plain out sucks as General Zod. Blue is about as menacing as an ice cream cone plus his acting "chops" leave him little in the way of choices. To make Zod seem regal and maniacal Callum simply over enunciates words in a thick British accent. When Zod and longtime scene-killer Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) decide to work together the sinkocity goes through the roof.

I'm also tired of the show under using Chloe Sullivan. I've been a big proponent of her dying to give the show some emotional weight and that's mainly because she's the only one worth caring about. Sure she has some lame one-liners but Chloe carries a scene, she makes you care about her and in turn that makes you want to follow the show. If the rest of the cast were that good Smallville would be the new Friends. If this is Chloe's last season I hope they put her out front for it. I worry though, her last scene with Clark in the season premiere comes out of nowhere and is totally out of character for Chloe. It felt more like the producers needed to create tension so they tacked it on.

As always the giant hole left by the absence of Lex Luthor screamed at me through the entire episode. The premiere had Metallo, Zod, a Kyrptonian chick, Zod's personal army and STILL they couldn't hold a candle to Lex Luthor. Get the blank check ready guys, it's time to bring the man back to the fold.

Smallville's season nine premiere tried to introduce too many elements and none of them really worked. The cast looks tired, the writing feels tired and the whole thing limps along like Superman chained to green Kryptonite. I'm going to watch the whole season and I hope by the end I'm eating a big bowl of crow and Smallville kicks ass once again.

Somehow I doubt it.

CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME DOCUMENTARY & CONTEST FOR WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

So one of the few movies I'm actually excited about this year is Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are. I grew up with that book, my dad made me the Max costume as a kid and I'm wicked protective of it. When I heard it was being done as a movie I cringed like most folks of my generation. However reading up on the production, watching interviews and seeing the trailer I feel really good about the movie. Jonze launched a blog awhile back called WE LOVE YOU SO all about the production of the movie and other cool tidbits. I came across two things on it today that got me so excited I had to post them here.

First up is a documentary premiering on HBO on October 14h all about Wild Things author Maurice Sendak. Here's the release on it:

A Tribute To Maurice Sendak

In 1963, with just 10 short sentences, a dark and dreamy emotional landscape of hairy monsters and tropical jungles, and one wannabe feral child, Maurice Sendak created one of the most critically acclaimed and popular childrens’ books of all time– “Where the Wild Things Are”. In this loving tribute to everyone’s first favorite author, the Cinefamily will show original animated adaptations (on 16mm!) of “Where the Wild Things Are” and “In the Night Kitchen”, along with new short films made by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze while the new live action adaptation of “Wild Things…” was in production. Jonze had been friends with Maurice Sendak for more than five years before he began working on his feature film, and these new short films capture a sometimes melancholy but always wickedly funny Sendak as he reflects on his Depression-era childhood in the Brooklyn shtetl, a joyous day at the World’s Fair, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, his books “In The Night Kitchen” and “Higgledy Piggledy Pop!”, his two beloved Hermans (Melville, and his German shepherd namesake), and a long-buried secret.

As for right now the only theatrical release is a one shot screening in Los Angeles but hopefully it'll either get wide release or come out on DVD soon.

Secondly the blog is having a photoshop contest for people to submit cool ideas for the movie or movie posters or what have you. The contest ends Friday so head on over there if you want to be involved. I picked some of the best submissions so far:

THAT ANNE FRANK IS JUST TOO DARN SAD

Hollywood never ceases to amaze me, like EVER. Just when I think they can't get any more ridiculous they pull some shit like this and knock me on my ass again. Read this little bit of news and then the studios reaction. It's about David Mamet (one of my favorite writers) writing a screenplay about Anne Frank.

"The writer who took on ethnic politics in the play “Race,” and sexual politics in works like “Oleanna,” takes on modern anti-Semitism in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” But the screenplay is not a retelling of the famous Holocaust drama taken from the diaries of Frank, but about a contemporary Jewish girl who goes to Israel and learns about the traumas of suicide bombing. “It’s very intense, and dark and scary,” said the executive. “It’s not a film version of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank.’ The story evolved into something more intense.”

Here's the best part, the script wasn't rejected because it didn't follow the book to the letter, the studios were fine with that. Mamet's script was rejected because it was too dark.

I will repeat that

The script about anti-Semitism, Nazis and the death of a little girl was TOO DARK. TOO DARK, TOO DARK, TOODARKTOODARKTOODARK, TOOOOOOO DAAAAAARRK!! Say it over and over again it will always sound stupid.

I'm guess the studio will want to re-touch the script so the Nazi's are Bears and the Jews Deer, that way it may be scary but at least they'll all be cuddly and soft. Hey maybe Anne Frank could be a Jewish teacher who is sent to a Nazi school to teach and through diary writing and open conversation she helps the Nazi soldiers win the Essay Writing Contest and show they deserve more Government funding?

The choices are endless.

I hate everything

CRONENBERG TO REMAKE THE FLY--AGAIN

Y'know the longer I do this the more often Satan slips into my window and pulls a bit of my soul out through my ass. Sometimes I wonder why I bother and then I remember that if I don't write these things down I'll end up dressed as a clown with an automatic weapon at a Multiplex making Colombine look like a day at the beach. Yeah it's a tasteless thing to say but fuck it, it's a tasteless world. Speaking of that the once great David Schoenberg has decided to re-make his version of the The Fly...OUCH SATAN WATCH THE HEMORRHOIDS!!

First and foremost this sucks big dirty asshole because Cronenberg's first crack at The Fly was already a fucking remake. The original movie was a fifties saturday matinee horror film so this would be a re-make of a re-make. Secondly Cronenberg's Fly kicked incredible amounts of ass, it was so good it even manged to survive the pants shittingly awful sequel starring Eric Stolz. The Fly was one of a handful of horror movies that was actually just a great film, end to end. Jeff Goldblume's portrayal of the doomed doctor was funny and sad and created so much sympathy that the end was really devastating. Christ the movie managed to make Geena Davis hot which is no easy task.

So what could Cronenberg possibly think he can do with this remake? He won't make a better movie I promise you that and with studios clamping down on sad endings and experimental films he's going to have to make it way less dark. Is this going to be the new trend? Directors re-make their movies for no reason. I can just see it all now, in fact here is how I figure remakes will go.

JAWS:
Spielberg directs this return to Amity Island where people are turning up dead on the beach seemingly eaten by a shark. 16 year old Martin Brody has secretly made friends with a wounded great white whose fin he patched up. It turns out that another shark is doing the killing and it's up to the two new friends to stop him. Martin turns to his new summer friend Hooper who is a science geek and the neighborhood bully-turned-buddy Quint where they steal Quint's dad's boat and set off on an adventure that ends with them beating the bad shark and letting the good one...that they named Bruce....back into the open ocean.


ALIENS:
After an entire colony disappears a marine unit is sent to investigate. Little do they know that the android on the ship holds a deep dark secret. When the marines get there they find a group of bizarre aliens who have become obsessed with busting-a-move. Having challenged and won the big dance off with the colony the aliens seized them and cocooned them up so as to impregnate them with more alien dancers. The Marines are forced into a dance off they can't possibly win until their android reveals his secret, that he was the head of the Robotic Droid Comittee, the best dancers in the world. After a tragedy left his programmer dead he swore to never dance again but now he may be forced to. Can he over come his past and help the Marines bust-a-move to save themselves, the colony and the entire universe?

Yeah, it'll be something like that.

I hate everything