Hey folks, Harry here with a report from Ben Evans on how he spent his day at Comic Con. Sounds like a few good things here and there. But personally, the info spilled at the Batman panel - overall though, he's dead on... I mean, he gets SHAUN OF THE DEAD 100%. Great film! Here ya go...
Shaun of the Dead review/COMIC-CON Report
By Ben Evans, a "I've Been Burned by Warner Brothers" fan boy
Let me just start by saying Warner Brothers sucked ass with there panel on Batman Begins. Oh it sucked so bad, they didn't show anything except a dumb-ass video greeting by Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan, who basically say we can't be there, so sorry. What the hell is that about! Then the guy who is in charge of the panel says sorry we can't show you anything from the movie because we haven't filmed enough. What a liar! Shit, Bryan Singer was there in 2002 and had only been filming for two weeks, and his ass had a teaser for us to see. I see how it is, Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan don't give a shit about the fans and neither does Christian Bale. Fuck those guys, but you know I will be plunking down the ten bucks to see Batman next year. But shit really, they could've at least got me excited with some footage or something, hell, I would've been fine with some slide show of the pics that have already been released on the net. But no, here's Cillian Murphy and David Goyer to bore your ass to death! I bet more than half the film geeks in there know more about the production than David and Cillian were willing to share. These guys sucked! They didn't even look like they gave a shit about the fans. So after that then it's time for trailers of the crap fests of Exorcist: The Beginning and A Sound of Thunder. Exorcist looks okay, but we know who directed this, thank you Renny Harlin. Ray Bradbury bless his heart for introducing the trailer for A Sound of Thunder, but man, they raped your short story for this movie. It looks horrible! The CGI doesn't even look good, it looks like a Sci-Fi made for TV Movie. Mark my words, this movie will be a piece of shit. Ok, then it's time for the Constantine panel, and the guy says before the panel starts we are going to see a montage of scenes from the film, 28 minutes worth! So I think to myself, hey things are looking up, but the footage is edited with no coherent sense! They should've just showed the first rough 28 minutes. Some cool images, but what they add up to I don't care, I mean who gives a shit! It's the same sort of performance we are guaranteed by Keanu. But hey, he was there at the panel and he seems like a guy you could hang out with, but the movie doesn't look that great.
So Comic-Con started out pretty cool, I went to the Sci-Fi booth and got my pass to see Shaun of the Dead which I have been waiting to see for quite some time, after I had heard about it on Aint it Cool. Then I headed upstairs to a panel which was a Spotlight on Tim Thomerson, an actor who has acted in a lot of bad movies, such as the Trancers movies and some Full Moon Entertainment films, however he has been in some okay movies such as Air America, Uncommon Valor, and Iron Eagle. He's a San Diego native and was once a stand up comedian for a short time. The guy was hilarious and was the best personality I have encountered on any panel. He really is a guy who loves to act because it's fun and he has been able to make a living doing it. I really think he is a good actor on the level of say Robert Forester whose career was revived by Quentin Tarantino in Jackie Brown. I really hope Tarantino or some other smart young director finds him and gives him a plumb dramatic role.
Next up it was the DVD Producers panel where people who were involved with various DVD releases. I was really impressed with Javier Soto who was the DVD producer for several Guillermo Del Toro movies such as the upcoming Hellboy and The Devil's Backbone DVD's. He showed a clip from the 2 and half hour documentary on the making of Hellboy which looks to be on the level of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition documentaries which is a great thing. The clip was Jeffrey Tambor grabbing the camera and interviewing Ron Perlman in his makeup. Plus we will get a glimpse at the genius of Guillermo.
And now to SHAUN OF THE DEAD
and let me just say right now this is THE BEST HORROR COMEDY I have ever seen since American Werewolf in London. It's a great homage to George A. Romero and plus it's funny, a little dark, and GORY AS HELL. What's even greater was Simon Pegg, the star and co-writer, along with the director Edgar Wright were there to introduce the film. There is nothing like watching a movie with film geeks because the energy is electric! Simon Pegg's performance in the film is funny and even heartbreaking. You actually feel for the character of Shaun, which surprised me because the trailers advertised it as a wacky Zombie Comedy. Now of course there is not a lot of drama, but the scene where he has to shoot his mother in the head because she has become a Zombie, let me just, whoa. The music, the editing, the acting. This is how you do it people. This is the film that beat 28 Days Later and the Dawn of Dead remake in the U.K. I can only hope it does that kind of business in the USA, but it probably won't. It is a different kind of film than 28 Days Later or the DOTD remake, but it is a lot closer to Romero's work, which is good news for us Zombie fans. It's just amazing what they were able to pull off with only 4 million pounds.
Other than Warner Brothers pissing on the fan boys, I look forward to the rest of the panels I will be going to
Hopefully Steve Sansweet blesses us fan boys with something really cool at the Star Wars Spectacular! But one thing is guaranteed, Robert Rodriguez on his panel on Sin City will not disappoint, he cares about his fans.
Ben Evans
