Friday Night Fights: The High Price of Hubris

A life lesson, courtesy of the Justice Society and Bahlactus:

 

FNF Atom's pride causes Hourman pain

So, remember, kiddies, taking pride in your new found powers make cause your teammate to be knocked unconscious.

And also remember, Always Bet on Bahlactus.

 

My take on Miss South Carolina Teen

Has every one heard about Lauren Caitlin Upton? She is Miss South Carolina Teen who was asked by Mario Lopez during the Miss Teen USA contest, ""One fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map; why do you think that is?" Let's see if we can go to the tape:

 

Uhhh...what did she just say?? Miss Teen South Carolina 2007

 Hopefully, that worked. Regardless, she funked up her response.

I have an opinion on the whole thing. Hopefully, I'll be gentler.

1. First off, I agree pretty much with everything Peter David says, and I will probably parrot him several times in this blog post.
2. I am not a big supporter of beauty pageants, especially when it comes to young girls. I believe that when a woman could be anything she wants, from the president to a stripper. If an adult woman wants to be in a beauty contest, more power to her. But when you are 18 and under, in my opinion, most times it becomes less about what you want and more about what someone else wants.
3. That was a pretty stupid question to ask a beauty pageant contestant. The answer is simple: because enough emphasis is not placed in geography in our schools. And the fact that people are stupid, but we won't go into that. Neither answer is fit for a beauty contest answer. The judges want positive and peppy.
4. I consider myself a Supergenius but I don't know much about geography. I CAN find the US on the map though. Canada and Mexico too. And England. And France. Spain, Germany too. Russia and China as well. After that, it's a crap shoot. Seriously. I'd wager a bet that most people have a hard time find stuff on maps. If anybody can place every country on the map, they are too scary to be associated with.
5. I bet Dubya would stumble just as bad if he had to answer that question on the spot. Heck, he'd probably screw up a prepared statement about it.
6. Public speaking is nerve wracking, whether it's a board meeting of 12 people of an audience of 150 people, like the Miss Teen USA pageant gets.  
7. Is there anything that Mario Lopez won't do?

This week's new releases.

I. Balls of Fury (3,052 Theaters, Rated PG-13, Opened Wednesday): Ah, will Hollywood ever run out of sports to parody? I think ping pong falls somewhere between Ice Dancing (Blades of Glory) and Dodgeball (DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story) on the sport/not-a-sport scale.

This film also apes that Jean-Claude Van Dam classic Kickboxer in it's premise. Dan Fogler stars as Randy Daytona, a down and out ping pong player who must train with a mysterious Asian master so he can enter an illegal, underground table tennis tournament. Every win in the tournament brings him one step closer to Feng (Christopher Walken), the man who killed his father, and also, to vengeance.

If you are not familiar with Dan Fogler, you might think that he is just a "Jack Black-type" the producer got on the cheap. But Fogler is a TONY Award-winning actor, known most for his role as William Morris Barfee in Broadway's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. So, he got acting chops.

Another reason to see the film is the fact that it's written by Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the creative minds behind Reno 911 and former members of The State, one of the best comedy troupes of the 1990s.

2. Halloween (3, 472 Theaters, Rated R): The original Halloween was one of the first slasher films, was one of the most well received of the genre, spawned numerous sequels and served as inspiration for the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.

So, it was only a matter of time before it was remade. I'm not saying that it needed to be remade, only that it was bound to be remade, eventually.

If you believe that the Horror genre could be home to a distinct cinematic vision, then Rob Zombie is a director with one. His work on House of 1,000 Corpse and The Devil's Rejects were original takes on Horror and have acquired Zombie a fanbase.

So, we are almost guaranteed that Rob Zombie's take on Halloween will be unique. But we have to ask, as we do with all remakes, will it be better than the original. And will Zombie's unique take separate it enough from the John Carpenter version.

4, Death Sentence (1,822 Theaters, Rated R): A man sees his son killed by a gang. When the gang is put on trial, the prosecution gives them a plea deal of 6 months. This does not make the father happy and he decides to inflict his own punishment by tracking the gang members down and killing them.

A man disenchanted by the legal system taking the law into his own hands? That sounds a lot like Death Wish, doesn't it?

Well, it should. Death Sentence is loosely adapted from a 1975 novel by the same name from Death Wish author Brian Garfield.

How loose is the adaptation? Well, the novel was a more direct sequel to the Death Wish novel and followed the main character Paul Benjamin to Chicago. According to Wikipedia, it followed Benjamin as he continued his vigilantism. No family, no gang, no dead son.

This movie is also marks a departure for Saw director James Wan, moving from the horror genre to crime thrillers.

So, what about predictions, first let's take a look at what I predicted for last week:

1. Superbad
   
2. War
   
3. Nanny Diaries
   
4. Rush Hour 3
   
5. The Bourne Ultimatum.

And here's how it really was:

1. Superbad
   
2. The Bourne Ultimatum
   
3. Rush Hour 3
   
4. Mr. Bean's Holiday
   
5. War

A weak week, performance wise, from the new releases. Mr. Bean's Holiday did better than I expected, but nowhere near #1. This makes me 44 for 85 and an accuracy percentage of 51%.

What do I think of this week?

1. Halloween
   
2. Superbad
   
3. Balls of Fury
   
4. The Bourne Ultimatum
   
5. Rush Hour 3

I think Halloween might pull in enough for the top spot, but Superbad will be able to hold on to the second spot. What do you think?

A different version of this post appeared on the FilmBuffOnline website.

Holy Bad Headline Writing!

I get a bunch of RSS feeds on my home page, along with alert e-mails, on the topic of comics. There is an article that has come across my hard drive more than once that I feel the need to comment on.

This is the headline in question:

Holy plastic slab! Untouchable comic books

Encasing them in plastic increases their value, but at a terrible price.

Clicking the title should take you to the article in question.

Now, alow me to air my greivances with the article.

1. The Title: People, people, please. The Batman TV show was 40 years ago. Okay? It is no longer the most recognizable comic book representation in the mainstream media. Is it my fault that the Spider-Man movies didn't come up with any catchphrases as catchy as "Holy this!" or "Holy that!". No!

It's not that I have a problem with the Batman TV show. It's just that I wish these writers and editors would use some originality when it came to thinking up titles for comic related articles.

 

2, The Topic: CGC has been around for, what, about 5 years? At least? At any rate, it's nothing new. I don't know if the preson who wrote this is a freelacer or on staff, but this article smells of desperation, if not filler. "Hey! Do you know what crazy things they are doing with comic books? They're sealing it in plastic! How wacky! Wait a minute. There could be a story in this!"

3. Write the article to support the headline/tagline: Yes, by reading the headline, you'd think this would be an examination of the very real discussion in the comic book world about the value of slabbing your books. Namely, the criticism that comics should be read, not encased in plastic. That's what it seems the focus of the article will be, right?

Well, they do discuss the issue in two paragraphs with interviews with two people: a retailer and artist Frank Miller. Both have dismissive things to say about the topic. The rest of the article describes the process and is an interview with CGC;s Steven Borock, who, by default, acts as the pro side of the arguement. Oh, and there's one small, non -commital statement from another dealer. 

But where are the interviews with that fans? Where are the interviews with the people who will not buy slabbed books and those will but nothing else? I mean, if you are making the point that slabbing is "a terrible price" to pay, shouldn't you make that the driving point of your article? Or, at least, provide more evidence of it?

Improvements to NYCC announced for 2008.

Let me just say, that I, like Heidi MacDonald, do root for the New York Comic Con. She calls the convention "her backyard convention". Well, I don't live in New York, but I do live only a 40 minute train ride outside of it. So for me, it's not a "backyard" con but "a few streets over" con.

And I really want a great con, one one the level of the San Diego or Wizard Conventions with only a train to ride, not an airplane.

But, in my experience, NYCC hasn't become that. I aired my grievances here and here, so I won't re-air them here. But I do want to talk about the article about the NYCC at Publisher's Weekly.

In the article, show organizer Greg Topalian announce that he will be making an effort to add more indie publishers such as Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly. I say all well and good. Some might raise concern about a conflict of interest with the MoCCA fest but I think NYC is big enough to support and Indie only event and to also have the indies at NYCC.

The article also states that the convention will increase in floor space by about 50% and there will be three entrances and the press and professional guests will have their own way in. Also, there will be more staff on the floor to answer questions and hand out maps.

On paper, this would help some of the situations I spoke about in the above reviews. But there is still more to be done. The floor staff needs to be better educated. Crowd control needs to be loosened. Three entrances are good, as long as they are used to the most effect. Last year, they had two entrances, two big archways about twenty feet wide. They only had one open for guests and had people line up in a pen to essentially enter the entrance in a straight line. This is what the pass looks like:

 

Convention pass

Have a few volunteers or security guards at the front of each entrance. Have them look at the passes. It clearly says what type of pass they have. If they don't have a pass or have the wrong pass, don't let them in. If their pass is okay, let them in. Yes, there are a lot of people going to the con. But there are a lot of people going to the Wizard World cons and that is the way they do it.

That way would be better than having everyone stand in line, make their way through mazes, or have to get wristbands each day to get in.

Like I said, I really want the NYCC to be the biggest con in the land. It's good, but it definitely needs improvement.

 

New Guiding Lines column up!

There is a new Guiding Lines column up. This week I cover Teen Titans #50, The Last Fantastic Four Story, Brit #1, Amazons Attack #6, Miriam #1, Action Comics #855, The Mice Templar #1. Check it out!

 

Bill

Things I learned by watching the ads during the Steelers/Eagles game.

• NBC is the new SCI-FI Network: Let's see, there's Chuck, the computer tech who gets embroiled into a spy caper when some information he sees is "downloaded' into his brain, you have Heroes, which is about superheroes, Bionic Woman, which is about a female cyborg, and Journeyman, aka Quantum Leap 2007, about a man who travels through time helping people out. I could very well have found a new favorite TV network.
• The drunk driving PSA makes me want to drink: Only to wash the utter stupidity of it out of my mind. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't shown every half-hour. You know the ad, three guys are driving erratically, we close up on the car and the car is filled with a liquid representing beer, a martini, and, perhaps, some fruit girly drink. They of course are pulled over, and when the cops open their door, the alcoholic beverage spills out. The idea is that people could tell when you drive drunk. We got the point when the cars swayed across all the lanes of traffic. We don't need the special effects guy to make the car water tight and fill it up with beer colored water. That is stupid and irritating. The point being made isn't "wow, when you are drunk, it's like you beer is filled with whatever you drank", it's "wow, how did they do that?". Kind of defeats the purpose of teh ad, doesn't it? Oh, and the looks on the guys faces when they are arrested are goofy too.
• I'm glad that Elvis is dead: Because I don't want him to have to go through the torture and agony of watching that "Viva Viagra" ad. Rumor has it that Elvis once shot out a TV set when Robert Goulet was on it. If this is true and Elvis was alive today, Best Buy would be coming to his house everyday and he might have had to move up to automatic weapons. Because, as my wife says, " he wouldn't want to listen to a bunch of old guys singing about how Viagra fix their winkies."