Hey Folks, Harry here with the West Coast Biological Thesaurus that we affectionately refer to as our "callous-kneed hungry hefer," but sometimes he's known as Mr. Beaks. He's only just returned from Comic Con. And we'll each clutch our dictionary and learn a lot from our callous-kneed hungry hefer, Mr. Beaks!
I harbored the noblest intentions of firing off this Comic Con postmortem upon my immediate return from San Diego last night, but the Sunday pints I knocked back before hitting the road (*as a passenger*) sapped my resolve. I mustered up one phone call before blacking out and rolling over to see the clock reading 7:04 AM this morning. Alas, my body required a recuperative slumber to mend itself from the ravages of a four-day Dionysian geek revelry that saw too few coherent hours as I zipped from interview to lunch to interview to dinner to drinks to Vizquel to Belliard to bed like Barry Allen with a press badge.
I’m up and running again, but the twelve hours of separation isn’t significant enough to provide a more wizened perspective on the whole bloody affair. It is and forever shall be a blur. Mentally, I still feel like I’m absently wandering the dealer room floor looking for… looking for what? I bought nothing this year – no comics, no action figures, no Region 3 DVD’s (I’ll have my own legally obtained copy of OLD BOY by the end of the week), no posters – not even a REVENGE OF THE SITH t-shirt!
If I felt out of place as a would-be consumer, I nevertheless felt snug in the bad-B.O. embrace of fandom (note to the event organizers: you can never have too much A.C. when tens of thousands of geeks are crammed together in a single room). Try as I might to claim the contrary, y’all are inescapably *my* people, and it was a pleasure to enthuse with old friends and new acquaintances over all things Geek. I also snagged surprisingly candid one-on-one interviews with a pair of beloved stars in the nerd firmament: David Goyer and Sarah Michelle Gellar (both of which will be posted this week). Best of all, though, I got to see two fantastic movies – one I can’t talk about (though someone else on this site has) and another called SHAUN OF THE DEAD that is worth every ounce of hyperbolic praise leaping from the lower depths of the online swamp to the vaunted cineaste-ial heights of FILM COMMENT.
As it has been over the last several years, the primary draw of the Con remains the studio presentations. How else, after all, to explain the newly constructed Hall F, a massive mini-arena capable of seating 7,000 footage-famished geeks pining for a glimpse of the latest BATMAN iteration (nothing doing) or the final heave of the chest for Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy in the form of the RETURN OF THE KING Extended Edition (plenty doing). Bailing out at the tail end of Robert Rodriguez’s engagingly scattered SIN CITY panel, I was shocked to see nearly every chair in the room occupied while late arriving fans entered from a steady flowing single-file line outside to discover their chances of finding a seat rested with their willingness to grease the palms of the already situated with a twenty spot (my group was actually offered fifty dollars per spot earlier in the day from a father eager to get his sixteen year-old, BUFFY loving daughter as close as possible for the Sony’s Gellar/GRUDGE panel). Looking forward to next year, with the predicted presence of Peter Jackson for KING KONG and, should the impossible happen, the SUPERMAN team, there’s every frightening reason to expect that fan fervor will amplify.
The quality of these glorified marketing exhibitions was as wildly inconsistent as any other year; therefore, considering my addled consciousness, I’ve decided to make it easy on myself by taking the trite route and breaking them down into “Winners” and “Losers”.
Before I start, however, I want to make clear that these assessments are not based entirely on the quality of the presentations themselves because, thanks to scheduling conflicts (i.e. my Goyer and Gellar chats), I was forced to miss the Paramount, Disney and 20th Century Fox shows. Being deprived of the first two stung in particular, as anyone who knows me will confirm that I have repeatedly cited THE INCREDIBLES and TEAM AMERICA as my two most anticipated films for the rest of 2004. That both became two of the most positively buzzed about pictures at the Con did nothing to assuage my sorrow. Such is my luck.
And if you didn’t know... this is called The Show.
Winners
Miramax
Shrewdly preferring not to dilute their presentation with the troubled likes of Wes Craven’s CURSED and, much as it pains me to say it, Terry Gilliam’s THE BROTHERS GRIMM (bumped to February 2005), Miramax was able to dedicate a full hour to manufacturing the first bit of tangible buzz on a hard-to-categorize project with a valuable assist from the only demographic that has the slightest idea as to what it is.
Luckily for the company, the project in question, FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY, is being co-directed by Robert Rodriguez, one of the most able pitchmen in the industry and, given the approving roar that met a question about a prospective “Man with No Eyes” spin-off, a still geek friendly presence thanks to the EL MARIACHI series, which somewhat surprises me since I thought last year’s duo of SPY KIDS 3-D and ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO represented a low-water mark for the digital mini-mogul. Notoriously cranky artist/scribe Miller joined Rodriguez for the entire panel, and while he did share a few amusing anecdotes about Robert’s tenacity, he mostly left the talking to his garrulous collaborator.
Skilled as Robert is on the mic, the whole presentation could’ve easily capsized without footage, and while the film is too much in its infancy to allow for any substantive evaluation of its visual or narrative merits, the demo reel he (reluctantly, I heard) brought along at least suggests that the directors have a good shot at fully capturing the misanthropic kink of Miller’s universe. The first sequence, featuring Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton reenacting “The Customer is Always Right”, was probably the most visually striking of the bunch. I loved the garish backlighting of the actors with the harsh interior lights of a high-rise apartment building, while Hartnett capably conveyed the mournful practicality of the hardnosed hired killer. Other vignettes showed off Mickey Rourke as Marv (yes!), Bruce Willis as Hartigan, Nick Stahl under heavy prosthetics as the disgusting Yellow Bastard, Jessica Alba as stripper Nancy Callahan and, most indelibly, Rosario Dawson in full-on S&M getup as gun toting hooker Gail. Eventually, Dawson, Alba (both disappointingly sporting dyed-blonde hair) and Jaime King, who plays Goldie, made their way out to the stage. They’re not unattractive.
Having witnessed firsthand the rich textures that can be applied to these greenscreen heavy productions over time via SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, I’ll give Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt, and trust that the requisite grit and sleaze will ultimately wind up onscreen. This is a film that needs to look like it just got scraped up off a dingy barroom floor, but, right now, it looks like a teenager’s glossy imitation of an Abel Ferrara flick. Still, whether or not Rodriguez gets there is irrelevant for the time being; the buzz has been planted and it is good. Now, it’s up to fandom to spread the gospel.
Paramount
Is SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW a heartfelt, low-budget homage to the same Saturday morning serials that inspired STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, or a pricier-than-admitted albatross around the neck of a foundering studio? Time will tell how the film is ultimately perceived, but, after this weekend’s triumphant presentation, geek enthusiasm is higher than ever for this labor of geek love from rookie director Kerry Conran, which could very well allow the film to acquire crucial momentum as it nears its September 17th, 2004 release date.
Quint will be covering SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW at length, so I’ll bow out for now, though I will say there’s a reason this film has been covered extensively *and* excitedly by every major contributor to this site. It’s the kind of exhaustive AICN coverage normally accorded stuff like THE LORD OF THE RINGS, KILL BILL or HELLBOY. That’s an encouraging track record. Somehow, I have a feeling the enthusiasm is warranted.
I really can’t say much about TEAM AMERICA, either, since I was talking to Sarah Michelle Gellar directly above Hall H while the footage unspooled, but it’s probably not a bad thing that no one could describe the two scenes – one featuring a decidedly inelegant puppet brawl – without laughing their ass off. Paramount hasn’t exactly torn it up this summer (though that might change with THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE), but given the warm reception that greeted these two films at Comic Con, their fortunes should be changing very soon.
Disney
It’s no surprise that THE INCREDIBLES was *the* talk of Friday night, though outside of admonishing “Of course it was, it’s Brad Bird and Pixar, you moron”, I’ve precious little evidence with which to explain why. As mentioned before, I was off in a press room with David Goyer when this went down, and though I love Goyer a whole bunch, and emerged with a great interview, words can’t convey my sadness at having missed seeing these clips (perhaps that picture of JFK, Jr. saluting his father would do the trick. Yes, I’m well aware that’s insanely inappropriate.)
Rogue Pictures
First, the surprise: SEED OF CHUCKY looks like an absurdly entertaining mélange of filthy dark comedy and gore-soaked horror. This represents the first time the series’ creator, Don Mancini, has been at the helm (it’s also his feature directorial debut), and it appears he’s responded with a colorful, visually assured work. Charged with selling the film to weary Comic Con-ers on Sunday, the entertainingly daffy Jennifer Tilly carried a less oratorically polished Tony Gardner, the film’s animatronic/special effects supervisor, and capably filled her forty-minute panel without the extra beneficial padding of a Q & A.
Of the two clips shown, the most amusing found a paparazzo played by John Waters taking compromising photos of Tilly, playing herself, and actor/rapper Redman, appearing as the born again director of THE PASSION OF THE MARY. As he blasts away with his camera, he quickly realizes there’s all manner of debauchery going down in the house; Chucky, in silhouette, is masturbating in front of a second floor bedroom window, while Tiffany appears to be engaging in a threesome with the two cavorting humans. Jennifer did her best to set the clip up, but it still came off as a bit inexplicable. Nevertheless, I was laughing, which, for something this weightless, is all that really matters. Of the three films scheduled for release on November 10th, I’ll happily opt for SEED OF CHUCKY over THE POLAR EXPRESS and SURVIVING CHRISTMAS.
Next up was known quantity SHAUN OF THE DEAD, which I had seen for the first time (and loved) two nights prior. The crowd was disappointing thin for this presentation, but those that stayed were rewarded with one of the Con’s most entertaining panels. As their television show and sole (for now) film suggest, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are two very funny bastards.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the solid new trailer for SHAUN OF THE DEAD that put the audience over the top, but a clip from SPACED featuring a make-believe gun fight scored to “Adagio for Strings” that *really* sent the crowd into hysterics. I’ll be reviewing SHAUN OF THE DEAD shortly (actually, I’d like to see it again before I do), but I will note that the telepathy existing between Edgar, Simon and the fans recalls the gradual relationship fostered by Peter Jackson. These guys have just begun their upward ascent, and Rogue Pictures stands to benefit in a major way should this picture catch on the way it should.
That’ll have to do it for now. Convention “Losers” and the one break-even studio will be discussed tomorrow. Also on the way are my interviews with SMG and DG.
Faithfully submitted,
