eelbonjack's Blog

I don't expect many (if any) of you will care about this.....

(Tue 03/04/2008 08:42am)
This isn't something that I find many other people are interested in, but I can't get enough of it. One book that had a significant impact on me while growing up was a book called "The Snarkout Boys and the Avacado of Death". It was a young-adult novel about a group of three unconventional High-School kids who, by day, are in a high school where mostly everybody is a drone and life is dull, but by night, they sneak out to a repetory movie theater (a unique kind of theater, where all kinds of classics and art-house movies are shown, and any movie can be requested), and find themselves involved in a non-mainstream subculture where they truly do belong. The theater is called the "Snark" theater, and they call this ritual of theirs "Snarking Out". Although there was a cool repetory movie theater in Hartford CT (where they showed art-house animation festivals, classics, and other goodies) which is near where I grew up, I didn't live close enough to "Snark" out there, and have that kind of outlet there, and when I read this book when in the 7th grade (about 20 years ago) I remember I really wished I had such a sanctuary like that to which I could turn.

 I did a book report on "The Snarkout Boys and the Avacado of Death" back then, and the class laughed the whole time I summarized the book in front of everybody (as honestly as I could) and the teacher was so put off by the way it sounded, that she accused me of making it all up and not doing my assignment- as if anything that was unconventional was something to be feared. Yet, fortunately, there WAS another form of the "Snark Theater" that DID come my way.......in the form of a TV series. "Night Flight" was a show that I understand was on the USA network, although I was deprived of cable while growing up. Yet, for some reason, my local FOX station broadcast the show back in the day (circa 1991) at 1AM on Saturday nights. It had art house animation, alternative music videos, (when alternative really MEANT ALTERNATIVE), old commercials and odds and ends, stuff on TV that really was worth my time. Each opportunity to watch that show was a trip into a dimension where I wanted to escape to and leave my everyday dull surroundings behind.

 Although I personally couldn't get enough of this stuff, I found that anybody else who liked anything along those lines were few and far between. At the age of sixteen, I remember going to see the movie that set the standard for trash back then, "Terminator 2" with some other kids I hung around with, and hating every minute of it, and thinking "What am I doing here? What am I doing with THESE guys?" And, by contrast, around that time, seeing clips of "Fantastic Planet" on "Night Flight", which was the biggest breath of fresh air. When my personality was crystallizing back then, it gradually crept up into my consciousness that I was in a minority.

OK, I'm sure many of you disagree with me, and will want to burn me in effigy for bashing T2, and you might not care for "Fantastic Planet", but I'm just voicing my opinion here, that's all. If you disagree with me, fine. But this experience is somewhat like the way Tim Burton described seeing "Hammer" Horror movies on TV while growing up was inspirational to him in a similar sense. There comes an inevitable time when you see that you've been ingesting the same old corn syrup and crap that's been fed to you from day one, and then it occurs to you that life doesn't necessarily be that way if you can help it.

 I can't do the show justice by attempting to describe it here, so I'll have to cop out and give you the link to the site that exists as a memorial to it:

http://www.night-flight.tk.

You can also sample the YouTube videos there, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Some of you might not care, some of you might hate that stuff, but few of you might love it. If you also look at the amazon list I created which I have on my links on my profile here, there are DVDs that have some stuff I saw on "Night Flight", or stuff that's similar. Not many people have viewed that list......and I'm not surprised.

It clicks in your brain when you come of age. Another sign was when I found an issue of  "Eightball" in the dollar bin, of all places in my local comics shop. In one story, an adolescent girl was talking about a stupid magazine aimed at teens with "stuck up prep school bitches who think they are cutting edge just because they know who 'Sonic Youth' is!" As you may have guessed, that was Enid. This was maybe seven or eight years before the "Eightball" movie, and I knew I definitely saw the world in much the  same way as Enid did. But I digress.


In this day and age, there is a "Night Flight" yahoo email group, where the few fringe weirdo fans of the show like myself say stuff that's pertinent to the memory, preservation, and impact of "Night Flight". The twist in the tale is that somebody on that list claimed that Stuart Shapiro, who created "Night Flight" back in the day, is reviving it, and that he has an insider connection to confirm it, but I have seen no announcement of this news anywhere else.....and it's been a few months since I first heard the rumor. I hope the rumor is true, but in today's day and age, I wonder how the show could be revived, since we're living in a different world today. I like to think that there it could be reinvented for the present day, but it would be a worthy challenge.

But I do what I can to preserve what's left of the rainforest.

A moment for Steve Gerber

(Sun 02/17/2008 08:38pm)
For some reason or another that baffles me, there was no mention on this site whatsoever about the death of Steve Gerber, the creator of Howard the Duck.

ok, you hear "Howard the Duck", and you automatically think of that notorious bomb from the '80s.

But that wasn't the real  Howard the Duck created by Gerber. Gerber didn't care for that movie at all. Just look at one of those old telephone-book newsprint editions that Marvel puts out of their old stuff, and there's one on Howard. It's not like that movie. It was quite innovative.

Not long ago, a movie about the Hulk came out. It didn't do justice to the character, many believed, so another version of the Hulk is coming out soon, with nothing to do with the previous movie, starting from scratch.

Too bad there wasn't a chance to reboot Howard the Duck the same way in a better movie, one that Steve Gerber could have worked on.

But I guess life isn't fair.

Be Careful What you Wish For on your Wish List

(Tue 01/15/2008 07:20am)
To tell you the truth, I didn't feel like I had any points here to bring up or anything to say here for awhile lately....... but reading the Collector's wishlist got me thinking. Hypothetically, what would I want to see? Back in the day, circa 1990, I remember "Comics Scene" Magazine which was published by Starlog, which was before the world wide web days, and in the back of it, there was a list of comics properties slated to be made into movies. Various Marvels, DCs, and others. I remember thinking then, "Wow, it would be so great if these were all made into live action movies!!" Well many of them were.....and I'm thinking now, be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. While growing up, I also wanted to see "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Lord of the Rings" be made into movies. Well, those did happen. They had pros and cons, but were good overall, methinks. So after the saturation of the media and markets flooding all this, what's left? I was surprised to find that I do have a few in mind.

 In no particular order:

1. Plastic Man. My favorite superhero character. For awhile, I once thought that since Mr. Fantastic has the same abilities, and there are already two Fantastic Four movies, it wouldn't be likely. And I wouldn't want it to be screwed up like many other film versions of comics (such as Fantastic Four!).BUT.......In those movies, with the high cost of special FX on each character, and only so much i n a $100 million plus budget......you don't see Mr. Fantastic really.....well......stretch his wings one hell of a lot in those movies. There are a couple scenes of him restraining the Thing, and dancing at his bachelor party.......but you don't see him doing one hell of a lot compared to in the comics. So.......IF DONE RIGHT, a Plastic Man movie, just focusing on him, with a budget enough to utilize his stretchability and malleability and make him REALLY shine, would be amazing. I wouldn't want to use the script I read online from the brothers responsible for the Matrix trilogy......I would want it to be more faithful to the spirit of Jack Cole, using his comics for storyboards as much as possible. Unfortunately, since Kyle Baker's excellent revival of the character didn't pan out and got cancelled............I'm not gonna hold my breath.

2.Green Lantern. I'm not now and never was a Green Lantern fan. I know very little about him. But.....I don't think the Justice League movie should happen. I have a feeling that one's going to be a mess with too many characters. I think that with so many Marvel Movies happening, Green Lantern deserves a movie to himself, and the movie could work.

3. A Batman movie about an older Bruce Wayne that would be a mix between "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Batman Beyond". After we see "The Dark Knight", and Batman facing the Joker in yet another version, what will come next? Will we want to see (yawn) another movie revising Robin's origin? New versions of the Penguin, Two Face, and characters we've already seen on movie screens in the 90s? The current Batman franchise, I guess, is more truer to the comics, and features James Gordon more prominently, and so on, but its still basically the same damn thing. Just as there was a big surprise when "The Dark Knight Returns" showed us another dimension to Batman, I think THAT is the Batman territory left to adapt to a movie, Batman in the Future.

 4.A movie about Syd Barrett. I know this isn't a "genre" film, but it would obviously be pretty psychedelic. Now that Syd's passing has given us a sense of closure to his legacy, I think the story can now be told on film, not that I'm glad things happened to Syd as they did. Surviving Pink Floyd members doing cameos, and a powerful ending with Roger Waters dedicating "Wish you were here" to Syd at Live8........only for Syd to die a year later. I hope Johnny Depp will do it, since he has said that he would like to.

5."Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron". The graphic novel is very cinematic, in a David Lynch sort of way (and Dan Clowes has not surprisingly noted him as an influence) that just rearranges your head. "Ghost World" was just fantastic, and "Art School Confidential".....well........it wouldnt' have been my first choice for an "Eightball" film, but "Velvet Glove" is perfect. Interestingly enough, Clowes did a comics story where a TERRIBLE movie version of "Velvet Glove cast in Iron" was made........

6.the Twin Peaks "Fire Walk with Me" extended cut. http://www.petitiononline.com/fwwmdvd.com/petition.html
I REALLY want to see this someday.......

7."The Golden Compass" extended cut I know I've already said enough about "The Golden Compass", but I've read that there is a cut of the film that was 30 minutes longer.......and I imagine the the film would have done better if that was the cut that was released.

8.A big budget Hollywood version of "Plan 9 from Outer Space". I think it would be a blast to see this one remade with the ominous title "Plan 9". with A-list actors, and ILM doing the effects. A reworked script that would revise the story enough to make it better. (hey, why not try to make something awful into something GOOD? Has anybody ever tried that before?) I'd want Tim Burton to do it, of course, and with Christopher Lee doing the Bela Lugosi role. But I dunno if Burton would want to return to this territory.

9."Demon with a Glass Hand". This was a Harlan Ellison story and "Outer Limits" episode that I really liked a lot, but felt that there was more to tell in the story. The graphic novel version was great fun, but I still felt like it could be expanded and fleshed out even more......perhaps to even where the story left off.

10. A "Tintin" movie........WITHOUT Steven Spielberg involved. Peter Jackson, sure. NOT computer animated. "Cigars of the Pharaoh" would rawk...........IF DONE RIGHT (which can be a tightrope act, but isn't impossible).

11. Kermit: Prince of Denmark.  I read somewhere that this was a movie written by the guys who created "Avenue Q". Henson associates wasn't interested, but from what I hear, this would have revitalized Muppet movies. (no, nobody dies in it like an actual Shakespearean tragedy. I had a dream not too long ago that the Kermit doll I had as a kid got possessed by the spirit of Jim Henson.

That's all that I can think of for this. I also have ideas in my head of movies that I NEVER want to see, i.e. TV shows, characters and so on, that I think would be a total waste, but I won't list them all here......(see a previous entry of mine) because I don't want to give anybody any ideas. As much as I would love to see what I listed here, and it is fun to speculate......beyond writing all this I won't go wishing my life away.

Another year rolling around, what do we expect...........

(Mon 12/31/2007 10:16am)
This entry from John Kricfalusi's BLOG struck quite a chord in me
(from  http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/) :

"I've used the words "humanity", "sincerity", and others to describe a quality in entertainment that I can't find the perfect word for. If you've got a better one, let me know!

It's a quality I find in The Honeymooners, All In The Family, The Three Stooges, Bob McKimson cartoons, Kirk Douglas movies, Johnny Winter music, early Beatles and many other entertainments and entertainers. It's not the artistic finesse or skill - although that comes with many of my favorite entertainers...it's more a quality of truthfulness, an open, no-bs view of the world, a way of communicating universal and real human emotions and sensory feelings that cuts through current trends and styles.

You won't find this quality in blockbuster animated features, Cirque Du Soleil, but maybe sometimes in the odd TV show.

Mike Judge has this mysterious quality of sincere, open minded truthfulness and he sees what's really funny about actual humanity versus phony popular trends- he makes fun of when humans lie to us about who we are. He speaks to real people.

When so much modern entertainment is polished insincerity, it's refreshing to watch something and laugh out loud.

When I watch King of The hill, I'm pretty sure I can tell which scenes are Mike unfiltered and which are teams of writers trying to evoke fake pathos. I'm caught off guard by Mike's jokes and laugh really loud, then it quickly switches to someone trying to manipulate me to cry over some writer's contrivance. It's a weird combination of elements."
end of quote.

Personally, I never got much into Mike Judge, and I don't have the same exact choices of entertainment that John K mentions there and I have my own point of view that isn't a photocopy of his, but when John K speaks of authenticity, it reminds me of when I think about what is worth my time (and I'm not telling anybody what they can/can't watch, read, or whatever, even if I have strong opinions) when I think about the new entertainment on the horizon, and I look at the "must see" stuff coming up, the question in my mind is:

Are we excited about the next big franchise, or are we excited about entertainment that is worthwhile and makes us glad to be alive? (can we have both? Maybe. But, as H.W, Janson pointed out, art and business have had a troubled relationship since the dawn of time).

As I read news online about what's coming, and something interests me, I get warmed up,  and when the movie comes out, I find, with increasing frequency, that I  am sometimes disappointed, sometimes not.  (but more  frequently disappointed as of late).  It's a self-reinforcing cycle that  happens as I have been reading news on this site, among others, and it's been building up and increasing as "genre" movies (as they are called here) have been getting more and more abundant. And I find myself getting burned out after awhile. 

What's coming up in 2008? As you all know,  among others,"The Dark Knight", and "Indiana Jones 4." Many people (myself included) plan on seeing those.  But I don't feel like my expectations are too high.
About a year from now, you'll be seeing those films on a rack on DVD near the checkout counter of your supermarket. And, since by then, those movies will have come and gone, like the "Star Wars" Prequel Trilogy, like the Marvel Comics big screen adaptations, and so on, and so forth, they won't seem like such a big deal anymore.
But what will be? How many sequels can you get excited about before a series' novelty wears off, and..........then what?
Since "Harry Potter" holds the record as the most profitable franchise, I've read that movie studios are now scrambling to find the next big thing that will be as profitable.
Weren't there many "Star Wars" knockoffs from the 70s and 80s that were trying to imitate the success of "Star Wars" as a result of that kind of thinking? Was that success ever replicated then?

There is a weird kind of deja-vu to the coming year, reminding me of 1989- only in that there was a Batman movie and an Indiana Jones movie on the horizon then, like today.

I remember clearly seeing "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" at a movie theater back then, and the "Batman" trailer blowing me away. This was shortly before the Bat symbol was on T-shirts everywhere (including my own), and seeing the gold stylized Bat-symbol on the big screen then was such a big thrill that really got me excited.

Today going to the movies can not be as thrilling in some ways as it was then. The COMMERCIALS that they now show before movie trailers, and the insanely long and too numerous blockbuster trailers played of computer-animated or computer-generated effects that hit me over the head and attack my senses as the more blatant consumerism is shoved in my face can be a bit much. (I mean, "Horton Hears a Who" was great to read in the waiting room of my Doctor's office as a kid, but I never felt the need  or curiosity to see it expanded into a 2-hour feature!) This stuff takes away from the enjoyment of the feature presentation, and the overall fun of the moviegoing experience.

I'm not at all saying that back in 1989 everything was perfect and great, and we lost our moral standards since then. It's just that certain ugly realities are more ubiquitous.

When "Batman Begins" came out- I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I thought it would have been better to wait longer before reviving a Batman film franchise, when more of us would be hungrier for it.  Although when I saw "Batman  Begins" I actually DID appreciate how it was  done to  do a movie that explained Batman's origins in greater detail,  well after that, what now?  We have another movie where Batman faces the Joker. All that we have left now after the origin is the basic formula: some costumed psycho terrorizes Gotham City. Then Batman stops him. There are only so many permutations and villains to use per movie of this that one can come up with to keep it interesting, which was IN PART why the "Batman" movie franchise of the 1990s petered out.  I LIKE to think that "The Dark Knight" will be more interesting and give us a new take on Batman, but is it more likely that this will basically be another formulaic, forgettable $200 million "Batman vs. Joker" outing?

I dunno. I guess we'll all see.

And what about "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"? Will that be taking any chances, and be an innovative story, or will it just be more of the same crap that will lead you to buy a whole ton of movie merchandise, only to try to get rid of it a few years later at your yard sale, realizing that you bought it all because you were swept up in the moment when the hype got to you when the movie seemed like the coolest thing ever (but turned out not to be?)

Maybe, maybe not, we'll see.

This has been a public service announcement. Don't confuse arsenic and toothpaste.

Golden Compass Aftermath

(Fri 12/14/2007 02:00pm)
6 years ago, I felt a need for something I needed to experience in a good read. It was an experience I hungered for for years. I came across a story on this site, back in the day when it was known to me as cinescape online. Around that time, there was a story on this site about  New Line Cinema purchasing the rights to  the "Dark Materials" trilogy (which they described as "like Harry Potter, but darker"). That sounded like my cup of tea, and I was looking for an enjoyable read. The titles of the books("The Golden Compass", the "Subtle Knife", and the "Amber Spyglass") sounded magnetic, so I bought "The Golden Compass".

And I got more than I bargained for.

This was just what I needed to experience.. .......and then some. I had never seen the parallel universe concept been used so well. This was a universe that somehow felt real, with different laws of nature from our universe. It was a separate reality from our own that said something about ours, and vice-versa. The idea of daemons as animals that are beside us, yet at one with us felt like a strange idea........ .but somehow, also seemed innate at the book's beginning.

But by the time I got to a part where a sinister woman with a Golden Monkey daemon was luring children away and taking them to obviously not a pretty place, it hit me that I had been waiting my whole life to read this story. From way back when, I could remember when I was little, being drawn into "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as my babysitter was reading it to me in my bedroom. And this was the further evolution of that, for lack of a better way of putting it.

the second and third books got into more exciting territory. The third book was a conclusion that did not disappoint. So, ever since then, I've been buying the books for friends, and calling people's attention to the books.

And after all these years of following the progress of the movie, I saw the movie a week ago, and on Tuesday.

Visually, it looked very close to the way I imagined everything to look when I first read the books about 6 years ago.
Yet, the way the story unfolded in the film felt wrong to me. (the timing, i.e. events moved too quickly before they could sink in).
At first I was annoyed at how the order of events between. the armored bear fight and Lyra's undercover operation at Bolvangar were reversed, but I later came to understand how Bolvangar was the true evil in the story, and was the right climax. But the transition between the two events could have been better written.
The extra action scene with Lord Asriel was kinda neat, but Lord Asriel came off a bit like Han Solo then.

what irked me the most:
we don't see what happens to Billy Costa. We don't see his death, so we don't get the full impact of what happens to him, and sense how horrible the intentions of the gobblers truly are.

Mrs. Coulter wouldn't be so stupid to leave evidence of the truth of the Oblation board in the trash. She's the cleverest, most cunning kind of evil bitch imaginable. If there had to be a different way of Lyra finding that out than in the book, fine, but like the transition from the bear fight to Bolvangar, that could have been better written.

Kaisa. It really sucked that Kaisa the goose daemon wasn't in it. At least he was mentioned, but I guess something had to go, with a film going way over budget in the $200 million ballpark.  

I could go on about the whole Church/Magesterium issue. Metaphorically, I felt like the idea was still there, much like in the way that Galileo was persecuted like Lord Asriel for his discoveries. Yet there just seemed to be all kinds of gaps.

I really wanted to love it. When I first read Pullman's books, I saw this wasn't just your generic fantasy, but something distinctive, textured, and unique. Somehow, that didn't come across like I thought it should in the film. I hate to say it,  but when I read that some people felt like it was just another forgettable movie......I can see why it would look that way (especially to the uninitiated).  The book does have a cinematic feel to it that just wasn't totally captured. I give everybody involved in the movie an A for effort, but it missed its mark. But better that than the movie not being made at all.

And.......to add further insult to injury, the movie isn't doing as well as hoped. I guess there's a silver-lining in the way that the foreign box-office is better, but the film just  is not all it could have been.

I guess it's just the nature of the business. It costs an insane amount of money even to BEGIN to do the book justice on film.  And  you have to make  somewhere near $100 million the first weekend, or you bomb. Insanely high stakes indeed.

It doesn't look likely that there will be sequel movies, made, although I think those would be even harder to adapt. It would have been neat to have seen the cliff-ghasts, mulefas, specters, Citigazze, and so on. (and no doubt things like the gay angels would be toned down. Maybe it's just as well.)

But at least the books are still there.