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How much longer till they give up printing the books?
The updated numbers for Marvel’s The Avengers put it’s weekend box office haul at around $207.3 million, beating the previous number 1 by about $38 million. World wide box office to date is nearing $700 million. This got me thinking. Why does Marvel still print comic books? I know that there is still a small and loyal reader base out there, but I’m sure that somewhere in NYC someone at Marvel, or their owners Disney, are going to ask why they are still bothering. In the month of February 2012 Marvel sold about 220K new titles between five different books with the words “Avengers” in them. That works out to about $880K, or about 1/25th of what the movie made in the US just on midnight shows. If you were to add in all the figures for the other books starring characters from the movie it would of course be higher, but still. Just food for thought. I love reading comics books, but for how much longer
9/11 Remembered by Dr Squishy
It started out as any other Tuesday. I woke up and went to work. At the time I worked for Hollywood Video and remember putting in a Jimmy Buffet concert video while I was opening the store. To this day the song, “We are the people our parents warned us about” brings back memories of that morning.
Movie Review: Thor
This morning I went out and spent $7.75 on a matinee ticket to see the new summer blockbuster Thor. I suppose I could, quite rightly, gripe about the price of the ticket but maybe I’ll save that for another writing. I’ll get to the movie in a moment but first I wanted to comment on some of the trailers that came before it. This will add to the comic book meets movie tie in for Thor, and help pad out the
“pre-spoilers” section of this review.
Wrong Martial Art, Wrong Country, Wrong… Well a lot
I just watched a trailer for the remake of the Karate Kid starring Will Smith’s son as Ralph Macchio, and Jackie Chan as Mr Miagi. I have no problem at all with remaking the movie. It’s over 25 years old, and it’s not like we’re talking about Casablanca, Star Wars, or Caddyshack. It was a cheesy movie that is due for a remake. Frankly I’m amazed it took this long for it to happen. After all it has been 16 years since we saw Academy Award Winner Hillary Swank in The Next Karate Kid.
You may ask then, “What is your problem?”. For starters it takes place in China, Jackie Chan is Chinese, and the boy is learning Kung Fu not Karate (the spiritual nature of Kung Fu seems to be a central theme of the film). As my friend can tell you Kung Fu is a Chinese fighting style that is very different from Karate. China and Japan are very very very different nations who historically don’t like each other very much.
Make the movie, fine, continue to capitalize on my childhood, fine, but just call it the Kung Fu Kid. Honestly I think it looks like a pretty good flick that I’ll probably rent (OK watch at home wink wink). But please don’t make westerners look even more stupid. I can understand that the average American doesn’t know much about… well anything, but at least get the GIGANTIC parts of the story right.
Here is a link to the trailer, let me know what you think.
Is the world really crying out for this remake?
It’s a well known Hollywood adage, “If it’s worth doing once, rip it off again and again and again.” This is also what’s known as the “Disney” effect, or Direct to Video syndrome. It was revealed today that director extraordinaire Steven Spielberg has chosen his next project. He’s going to remake Harvey. For anyone who hasn’t seen the original it stars the late great Jimmy Stewart as a man who sees a six foot tall invisible rabbit. Yet despite the silly premise its a fantastic movie, what else would you expect from Stewart. While Spielberg is a fantastic director, I think one of the best, the question shouldn’t be Will he make a great movie?, but instead Should this be done at all?
In Memory of a True American Hero
(This is a repost of a letter written by a retired major in the United States Marine Corps. It eulogizes the late Ed McMahon who died this week at the age of 77. I only knew McMahon from my early years watching him as Johnny Carson’s wing man for years on the Tonight Show, Star Search host, and the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes commercials. In a week when several celebrities have died this is a tribute to a man who should be remembered and honored.)
COLONEL ED HAS DIED
He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at Boston College. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines.
E3: 1st days thoughts
As most of you probably know this week is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3 for short. This time of year brings a huge amount of gaming news for all the latest and greatest games to come. Rather than link all of the awesome videos, and I assure you there are many (just keep reading if you doubt), I recommend you regularly check http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/index.html for all the latest news. In no particular order I’m going to talk a bit about some of the amazing things that have been announced so far. I’ll try to add new posts after each days news hits. Since it’s midday Teusday this will include all of the stuff from day 1, and some of day 2.
- There is a new model of the PSP coming with a slide up screen. Yeah I know, I don’t care either but it’s as good a place as any to start
- In sequel news we get a huge amount of artists confirmed for the latest Guitar Hero (number 5, depending on how you learned to count). In addition they’ve got DJ Hero coming so we can all pretend we’re Eminem. I suppose.
- Despite this the music game I’m most excited about is Rock Band: Beatles. Yes I know there music didn’t have the most complex solo’s, and that Ringo could have been replaced by a not so well trained monkey, but I’ve been looking forward to this one since I heard about it more than a year ago.
- The latest Lego game will head to Hogwarts to let us play the first four year of Harry Potter in plastic. Somehow I am excited for this one.
- Microsoft, in the continued efforts to rule the Internet, have partnered with Facebook to allow you to update your status, and other Facebooky things, while playing. I’m sure my Mom would love to know that I still haven’t found that cake I’ve been promised no matter how many portals I go through.
- In news that will certainly make Schmidty a happy little boy, two new Halo games were confirmed. Halo:ODST will launch Sept 22, and will include a code for the multi-player beta of Halo:Reach which will arrive sometime next year. (see the above website for links to the videos)
- Metal Gear Solid is coming to the 360, though not MGS4, we get Raiden in an all new adventure. To paraphrase a statement I once heard about the mythical Starcraft: Ghost, “It’s Kojima, it’s gonna be awesome. However it’s Kojima, it’s gonna take for ever to get here.” I should be thrilled, but somehow…
- Microsoft is working on a motion based system, think Eye Toy 2.0. It’s codenamed “Project Natal”, which I suppose is no more silly than Wii.
- There is a cinematic for the new Star Wars MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, which MUST BE SEEN!!! I’m seriouse it’s freakin awesome.
- Nintendo announced a solid lineup of new games that still don’t quite make me want to buy back the Wii. We’ve got two “new” Mario games, though one is a port of New Super Mario Bros., and the other is a sequel to Mario Galaxies, so new is apparently a rather loose term in Japan.
- A sequel to Wii Fit.
- As well as a new Metroid game being developed by Team Ninja. How Samus will be able to get in the torso section of her suit once the Ninja boys are done with her remains to be seen.
- And last but not least the game that made my mouth hang open almost as much as Star Wars: Old Republic did, Forza Motorsport 3. There is video out, and a release date of October. This looks great. For my money Forza is the best racing game out there, and yes I put it above the Gran Turismo series. This is one that I might actually pay full price for just to get it as soon as I can.
More to come as the great geek week continues.
The REAL Happiest Place on Earth
On a recent cruise vacation up the coast of the Western United States I found myself in Seattle WA. After the normal visits to the Space Needle, and Pike’s Place market, we found ourselves back at the Seattle Center. While there we found an incredible building. It was the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. They had numerous authentic, and replica, pieces of memorabilia from throughout the history of Sci-Fi. Despite their lack of Doctor Who it is a must for any geek.
Wolverine, and other movies coming soon.
This past Friday I saw the movie that claims to start the summer, X-men Origins: Wolverine. For years the back story of Wolverine has been incredibly confusing. However this all changed a few years ago with a min-series entitled, “Origins”. This finally put the beginnings of one of the Marvel universes most celebrated characters. The movie holds close to this part of the story. However when it comes to other bits of Marvel history it is far less faithful. There will be a few “spoilers” but lets face it, no one who goes to see this movie was expecting The Usual Suspects.
Wolvie is treated fairly well, but the same cannot be said for his costars. So many different mutants are put on screen that it is sometimes hard to keep track of them. I think that the only reason I was able to track some of them was due to the years that I’ve spent reading comics. To summarize a few of my fanboy problems I’ll provide a small list. Someone who is not a comics fan would likely find no problem with any of these changes, and would merely enjoy all the fun explosions. However I wouldn’t be a true geek if I didn’t nit pick.
- What the hell did they do to Deadpool? He was the best part of the film’s first 20 minutes then they “kill” him offscreen. I’ve read some stuff online that points to possible spin-offs with his character, and I can only hope they come true.
- While Gambit’s character is introduced in the Big Easy he doesn’t sound like a Cajun. While it’s nice to not see an actor try to Costner their way through an accent I’m sure that they could have found someone to teach him. The accent was a huge part of the characters cool factor from the old cartoon, and was missed on screen.
- Emma Frost is NOT Silverfox’s sister. That was a silly plot point that added nothing to the story and was put in just to irk fanboys. Job well done.
- While I’m on Ms Frost, the diamond form was NOT her primary mutation. She was a telepath only eclipsed by Professor X, and Jean Grey, and a few others. It looked cool onscreen, so that one gets a bit of a pass.
- Liev Screiber is one of my favorite actor’s working today, and he did as much as he could with his role as Sabertooth, definitely more than Tyler Mane did in X-men. However there just wasn’t that much for him to work with. He kicks the hell out of Logan, then Wolvie gets cutlery for claws and is unstoppable? Yeah that didn’t make much sense to me either.
- He was called Logan by several characters, but they never explained why. It’s a small thing but an example of the lazy approach they took to the story.
- And most important of all, What the hell did they do with Deadpool.
As I said non comic fans will probably enjoy the generic summer actionness of the movie. Comic fans will find plenty of room to gripe, but its a slow comic summer so we’ll let that go.
7/10
Other movies coming up, and quick thoughts on them.
Star Trek: It’s gonna be great, we all can’t wait to enjoy the geekgasm that will erupt this Friday.
Angels and Demons: Dan Brown’s book is superior to the more lauded Da Vinci Code, my hope is that the movie will follow. Also Christians, and Catholics need to relax. Really all you’re doing is providing free advertisement.
Terminator Salvation: I’m not sure if the world was really crying out for another Terminator movie, but this one looks like it should deliver on the action front. Christian Bale hasn’t made many bad movies so I’ve got high hopes. It’ll probably be the only Terminator we get cause the TV show is on the chopping block.
Transformers 2: Should be good action. ‘Nuff said.
UP: It’s Pixar, it’s gonna be great.
Public Enemies: Johnny Depp stars as real life bank robber John Dillinger. It’s directed by Michael Mann, who I’m a huge fan of, so you know it’ll be good. If there was ever a better time to root for the guy who’s ripping off the banks I don’t know when.
Harry Potter 6: Will also be great, but really we’re just waiting for 7 at this point. All this one will be is filler.
Inglorious Basterds: Tarrintino’s look at WWII. It stars the man of both mine, and my wife’s list Brad Pitt. Should be fun and ultra violent
Julie & Julia: The bio-pic of famed chef, and professional alcoholic, Julia Child will be what my wife goes to while I’m reliving my childhood in G.I. Joe. Then I’m sure I’ll see it a few weeks later, cause lets face it I’m fan of both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.
G.I. Joe: The one I’m most excited for after Star Trek, and also the one that no one is really talking about. I know it doesn’t come out till August, but I’m really looking forward to this one. Any chance to see Christopher “Doctor Who” Eccelston chew up the screen is a rare treat.
Did I miss anything?
BSG Finale thoughts
I figure this would be a good place to share any thoughts, ideas, feelings, ratings, rantings, etc about the finale of the show. Feel free to put in any spoilers you want into your comments so that we can discuss what happened. BE WARNED!!! There WILL be spoilers in the comments so either don’t read them or don’t complain if it gets spoiled.
