Wolverine: Origins Movie Leak

Can’t say that I’m quite shocked about this. But as a fan of watching action-movies on the big screen, with sound effects and explosions and audience response…I decided to pass on the opportunity to see a crappy screener version of this flick on my lap-top. Especially since it lacks a proper score and visual effects. Really? Are people that desperate?

If folks can’t stand to wait another month, it’s on them. But I don’t support Fox, the FBI and MPAA going balls out to prosecute someone about this. And I’m pretty leery about the response from a geek site like Ain’t it Cool News  although I do agree with quite a bit of what it has to say about the incident and it’s casting a negative-light on comic fans. You don’t see other genre films getting early-leaked and peddled around the net. Right? Am I right?

As a fan, I want to support X-Men films, and the best way to do that is throw my dollars behind them.

I am however, amused that this happened to Fox. After they pulled the crap move and leeched profit from Watchmen, this seems an appropriate kick in the balls to them. But in all other instances, where folks are claiming this was a PR stunt by Fox…I don’t see how or why. They don’t stand to gain much from the fake-release of an incomplete product, unless it’s really that good and they anticipate word of mouth and early reviews will generate buzz.

Frankly, I’m confused by their advertisement stunts for this film. I was seeing pretty long trailers for this movie on Fox about a month ago. Usually you don’t see TV ads until two or three weeks before opening. Are they really so concerned about this product that they would pre-leak it?

But the real question is – why would you watch an unfinished version of a film, anyway? And similarly, why would you read the incomplete, first draft version of Midnight Sun? Granted, I did the latter, but only because Meyer herself had posted it, claiming there would be no more versions.

Frankly – first drafts and rough cuts SUCK. I would rather pay money to see a crappy completed project than download a free version with all the wires and grammatical errors showing. To me, it’s not about piracy, it’s about common damn sense. Which apparently quite a few folks lack.

Much Love, Mindy C

Costumes in Real Life: Heroes and Villains

It seems odd that twice this morning I should be reminded of the impact costumed heroes and villains have on our lives. Not in a metaphorical way, but in real blood and guts instances. Yes, actual people dressing up as comic book characters. But in these cases, some are heroes and some are villians.

The first example is not so cheery: Soldier dressed as the Joker killed in standoff. Apparently this is not the first instance since The Dark Knight was released in theatres last year in which people have sought to portray this character for their own malicious purposes. One was a young girl attacking a teacher while wearing Joker make-up. Another is a young man dressed as the Joker trying to beat up a former girlfriend’s current boyfriend. These were all located for me at this blog, and I’ve been unable to find anymore examples of comic book villians high-jacked for violent real life intentions in my own brief internet searching. But I would be interested to know if this dressing as a villian and committing real world crime is a recent phenomenon due to the increase in popularity of comic book movies, or if this has been happening since the early days of Superman.

On a much lighter and heart-warming note: A firefighter dressed as Spiderman rescued a child in Bangkok. And in a whole other part of the world, two years ago – a young boy dressed as Spiderman rescued a one year old girl from a burning building. And a pizza delivery man dressed as Luke Piewalker came to the aid of a mugging victim in 2006.

Is this the result of comic books becoming mainstream? Of the increasingly ravenous popularity of superhero movies? Real people dressing as heroes and villians performing feats of rescue and plots of crime, not just in the United States, but across the globe..

If the result of ordinary folks dressing like superheroes and saving the lives of others, is that we have ordinary folks dressing like villians and killing or hurting others…is that a welcome trade off? Do we cease a successful element of pop culture because it encourages imitation in positive and negative ways? And how intriguing is it that we are asking this question – the same question posed by books like Watchmen and Marvels. Do superheroes create supervillians? Or are heroes a response to villians existing in the first place. Hhhmm.

What would Alan Moore think about these examples? What would Stan Lee have to say?

How about you?

Much Love, Mindy C

More Marvel Movie Mayhem

I’ll have to admit, after the Watchmen inspired frenzy the last few weeks – I’m surveying the rest of 2009’s movie playing field with only a few goals in mind – Wolverine: Origins and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

But fans are already shrilling that HPB is revolting, or at least revolt-worthy, sooo – what is a movie/fan-girl to do with all this idle screen time?

Plot her movie-going goals for the next three years, of course. Such a task is made imminently easier by this precious gem:

Marvel Studios Film Release Schedule. All the way through 2012, because you know our calendars run that long, and we all plan on being alive and financially solvent in time to catch The Avengers. But seriously, someone should tell IMDB to update  to reflect these changes, you know, one of these days. 🙂

I can’t say I’m crying about the Avengers release date being pushed up, because it doesn’t feature any heroes I’m especially fanatical about, but it might make some folks cry and get up in arms. I just won’t be one of them. Plus, Marvel has been good to the nerd herd the last few years. They need a breather. It’s taxing to be that good.

And, it might give DC an opening to get their act in gear. And on that note – What’s up with the Green Lantern?

Apparently not much, but it would be nice to see DC offer up more from their catalog. The Dark Knight, while not my favorite, was a promising sign of things to come.

Anybody have interesting movies slated for 2009 so my fan heart can become inspired once again? I’d love to hear ’em.

Much Love, Mindy C

The World Watches the Watchmen

* Possible Spoilers*

This review is at the request of a few  friends who have asked for a more in-depth opinion than I can give with a few words or simple sentences. The scope of the movie and the book is too large, and I feel like I’m doing both a dis-service to sum my feelings about them up in a few phrases like “it’s good.”

I felt like the movie did the book justice in almost all of the areas where it should have. It eliminated bits that would NEVER have been able to work on film. The inserts of “Tales of the Black Freighter” would have added at least 30 minutes onto the three hour run-time, and confused the hell out of the audience. I’m not ashamed to admit I still don’t appreciate what purpose it served in the book. I’m sure if I really took the time to examine, it would become apparent to me – but at this juncture…*shrug*. Maybe one of you can better explain it to me than I’ve managed to discern for myself.

But really – the directors and writers and producers obviously took great care in determining what should be kept and what shouldn’t. And that is much appreciated by fans of the original source material. Well, this fan at least.

One bone of contention I had was with the gratuitous sex scene in the middle of the movie. It was alluded to in the graphic novel, but in a wise move, was not shown in needless detail. I’m going to chalk the inclusion of it up to the director Zack Snyder‘s penchant for sex scenes – re Dawn of the Dead 2004 and 300. I watched both Watchmen and 300 in the theatres – and both sex scenes played out to giggles and chortles with the audience. Completely destroying the mood it seems to intend and drawing the audience out of the film.

Portland Watches the Watchmen

Who watches the Watchmen?

About 300 or so lucky bastards in Portland, Oregon last night – yours truly and her husband NOT INCLUDED.

Here’s the scoop: The usual tom-foolery of my morning includes wrangling with a hot iron, finding relatively clean un-ironed clothes to wear, exercising the dog and ferret – AND surfing the net.

Wellll – the Comic Book Movie Rss Feed had this lovely gem to offer yesterday morning: Secret Watchmen Screening Thursday in Portland, Oregon . So, Dan and I quickly made plans to meet at the Lloyd Center Theater after work and try desperately to appear non-chalant in hopes of getting selected.

Turns out – about a bazillion other people read that article as well, and though they didn’t move the location of the screening, by the time we arrived, it was obvious they’d captured most of their “blind audience” elsewhere. It looks like the passes were handed out last Sunday, which is a pretty smart move if you want to avoid a fan-tainted audience. It worked well, and “regular folks” were lined up around the block with free tickets already clutched in their lucky bastard hands.

We were bummed at being turned away. Naturally.

Batman: The Dark Knight

This review is going to be tempered with the admonishment that I consumed one shot of alcohol, an alcoholic beverage – and three slices of pizza JUST before seeing this movie.

So – I was a bit giddy and giggly as I entered the theatre, and may not have been in my right mind for much of the first half.

And as with Hellboy 2 – it might be a statement of the movie itself if one of my favorite aspects was “The Watchmen” trailer – which had me in AWE! I’m sorry, but this film has the potential to become my all-time favorite comic book movie. It’s finally a film that I know the source material well, and it looks visually stunning. There is so much meaty content to this picture, even Zak Snyder could not fuck it up.

Another fun aspect of TDK was going to a Friday night release in a packed theatre, with people who actually seemed genuinely excited to see the flick. As opposed to the last couple of screenings I’ve endured, where the general audience response was fairly lackluster.

Batman knows how to pack ’em in.

As for the film itself – I am going to say it is a worthy runner-up to Batman Begins. It’s following the trend of “serious” Comic Book film adaptations that don’t mince around too heavily in cheese-pot dialogue and too many shots of spandex.

In fact – remove the silly names like “Batman, Joker, Two Face” etc, and you pretty much have yourself a modern day action movie. There were heavy themes such as terrorism, and a commentary on heroes and villains that I thought was intriguing. I’m not very familiar with the Batman comic mythos, or even the TDK source material, but I felt like it was doing DC’s favorite caped crusader justice. Ah, justice was a theme too! How proper.

I will admit to liking the Villains better than the bat. Heath Ledger pulled off an amazingly eerie performance, with so many disturbing and somehow unique character ticks…I think his portrayal will probably be legendary.

Aaron Eckhart breathed life and soul into Two Face – a villian I remember having sympathy and compassion for from the “Batman Animated Series” back in the yester-years of my childhood.

Also notable – Morgan Freeman (when is he NOT good? Oh yeah, Wanted) as Lucius Fox, and Michael Caine as Alfred were charming. Together these characters had some of the meatier dialogue in the film. In fact, I would say they were almost scene stealing.

Thumbs up to Christopher Nolan for recognizing their potential to spice up these bit parts, and bringing real heart to a film that was overall very dark.

It was dark, insanely fast paced AND LONG. Holy crap – I had no idea this film was three hours going in, but it definitely felt like three hours coming out. Not that I would say three hours wasted. It was worth seeing, but it had a little bit of “Return of the King“-itis, in that I spotted at least three to four distinct endings that were not really endings.

I’m a bit bummed by the ACTUAL ending, which I won’t divulge here…but I was hoping for more screen time out of this particular character. Nuts to all that, I suppose.