Stay on Target...
Flash developer Christopher Caleb put together this keen little X-Wing style targeting computer interface for his GPS. The spectacular results:
Sweet Christmas! I'm Awesome...
This Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice guy was born to play Luke Cage. Actually, Mustafar Spice there is probably a better fit than the character deserves.
Not super familiar with Luke Cage, though he does have a small role in the recent Fraction/Brubaker series The Immortal Iron Fist, which was spectacular (the series that is - the cameo was just ok).
Get hip to the Iron Fist scene with the hefty 560 page Omnibus edition.
Hunt the Dark Knight
Heritage Auction Galleries will be holding another large comic art auction this May. The auction will span several decades, and includes the work of Kirby, Crumb, Miller, and Gibbons, among many others. One of the highlights will be a splash page from the third Dark Knight Returns book:
"The iconic original art for the page 10 splash page from issue #3 of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson's The Dark Knight Returns, the comic series that almost single-handedly re-vitalized Batman, and defined the best of 1980s comics, is expected to bring $100,000+ when it comes up for auction as part of Heritage Auctions' New York Signature Vintage Comics & Comic Art Auction, May 5, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukranian Institute), 2 East 79th Street (at 5th Ave.)"
The official description drones on about the history and importance of the work, laying it on pretty thick. It's a great piece—a classic, no question—but Miller's series contained many a highlight. Batman and Joker in the Tunnel of Love, stomping Superman's head, tussling' with the Mutant Leader... One of Frank's better Daredevil covers brought down an impressive $100k last year, which makes me think the image above will have no problem reaching goal.
"Produced as an 8-bit mirror of the original, the music on this release was created using sounds from various old games consoles including the Sega Mega Drive and Nintendo Game Boy."
When It's Not Your Turn
"There are few works of greater scope or structural genius than the series of fiction pieces by Horatio Bucklesby Ogden, collectively known as The Wire; yet for the most part, this Victorian masterpiece has been forgotten and ignored by scholars and popular culture alike."
Not strictly opening credits - I spotted plenty of end credit titles in there (WALL-E, Dawn of the Dead, Iron Man - all of which were superior to their respective opening credits). Full list of titles right over here.
Superman Classic
Disney animator Robb "B-Deuce" Pratt has directed (and produced, and animated, and storyboarded) an old-school Superman short. Stick around for a nifty "making of" bit at the end. After a steady diet of Pixar-style CGI animation, it's nice to get a dose of a rough traditional hand-drawn cartoon now and again.
2010 Year End Movie Review
The glorious advent of reliable Netflix streaming gave rise to a veritable torrent of movies that surged into the TStation dojo last year. Those Red Box kiosks finally offering up Blu-ray rentals also padded out the "movie at home" numbers.
Trips to an actual movie theater, however, saw an all-time low. Two reasons: a serious shortage of "must see immediately" films, and our much beloved/maligned Briarwood Dollar Theater closed. It was a crummy joint, the screens were "tagged" by punks, many of the good seats were busted, and you could count on the films themselves being heavily besmirched with grime and tears by the time they were delegated to the dollar theater stratum. A paltry $1.50 per show still proved to be an irresistibly cheap night out. The ladies are always impressed with a cheap night out.
The 2010 grand total fell just a single movie shy of a two-per-weekend goal. Still, highest tally ever at the Movie Manifest.
There was a startling realization about half way through the year that I had never seen an entire Akira Korusawa film. We promptly amended that horrible cinematic deficiency with Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress. Then proceeded to bring down another dozen or so before the end of the year. Will post up a complete report once we've completed the entire Korusawa oeuvre.
Top Five:The big winners for the year were Inception, Moon, Tron, Seven Samurai, and True Grit. That mighty field held off the likes of Red Cliff, The Hurt Locker, Following, The Town, and a slew of Korusawa films.
Bottom Three: At the other end of the scale you had 2012, The Lovely Bones, and Losers. Could've easily added The Men Who Stare at Goats, Year One, and The Red Baron. All very disappointing, even when saddled with low expectations.
Looking into 2011, these qualify as "must see immediately": Harry Potter and the Deathly Finale, Duncan Jones' Source Code, J.J. Abram's Super 8, Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, and, at the end of the year, David Fincher's take on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see.
Had a chance to catch the new Tron: Legacy a time (or two) over the holidays. Enormous fun. Like the original Tron, the whole deal hinges upon the willing suspension of disbelief that a guy can get zapped into a computer. Which is fine. And that inside the computer is a glossy little city with avant-garde nightclubs and hot chick programs. Fine, again. And the program/citizens of the city are occasionally forced to fight to the death gladiator style in an arena full of crazy games, at least one of which involve futuristic motorcycles. Way more than fine, obviously. Here's the full GBU:
The Good:
It's difficult to imagine a better soundtrack + movie union. Daft Punk gives everything weight, with an electronic ambience that falls right into place with the story and visuals. Read somewhere that many scenes were cut to the music, rather than the other way around. The result is powerfully effective.
The industrial design of "The Grid", filled with dark, crisp spaces and fantastical networks of illuminated racing stripes, was a marvel to behold.
Solid in all the required areas: action, special effects, and action.
The Bad:
The story is a little thin, but by no means terrible. Hard to notice under all the pounding music and zippy fighting. The dialogue was often more difficult to ignore. In fact, I think it could've worked fine with no dialogue at all.
Definitely could've done without the over-the-top Ziggy Stardust nightclub owner.
The Ugly:
The "photo realistic" character animation FX that puts a young Jeff Bridges up on the screen isn't fully baked. The effect as it stands today is close, but "close" in this application is not nearly good enough. The result is amazingly distracting. They should've either owned the limitations of the technology with some manner of Tron-ical explanation (e.g. he's an antiquated Dude interpretation from the time before Flynn wrote the Believable-Face upgrade, whatever). Or, keep buddy in the shadows or under one of those awesome helmets, with a single big reveal of his youthful face (and no talking). Hopefully they'll have scaled the uncanny valley in time for the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Special Edition.
