TheSinkingSpell

Chewing gum? Chaz(s) wings? Slow-mo fisticuffs?

Oh shit... I think I'm going to–

Aw fuck, I just puked all over the keyboard.

Sometimes, I just got to say...

"Bill! Something strange is afoot at the Circle K!"

What I got from these is that the supporting cast will be fine, the characters are very liberally adapted from the comic, and Keanu's performance of John Constantine is a total hack job.  And yeah, the cinematography will be flashy and contemporary because the film is directed by a music video director and not a film-maker.

 

All perfectly fair, apart from the 'hack job' comment. I'm not a fan of Keanu - I think he's an actor of cripplingly limited range, whose continued high-profile success in Hollywood perplexes and frustrates me in pretty equal measure... . Bottom line, I just don't like the word 'hack' as a term of abuse. It means nothing, pisses people off unduly, and rarely adds much to any debate.

 

I don't mean any offence to you, incidentally. This is just a personal bugbear of mine, and I've ranted about it on these boards before. On the whole, I'm entirely in agreement with everything else you said in your post. Honest.

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Hack or no hack, the poor bastard can't act his way out of a wet paper bag.

"Well, I think what immediately jumps out is the first paragraph.

They took the "dumbing down" approach. "We'll never get people to understand the comic book J.C., so let's make him Christian".

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I am sorry but i am still not buying any of this lame-legged half-arsed Hollywood bullshit, fair do's to Frank Capello answering some of the questions most of us begged an answer to but its pretty much the same smelling bullshit we've been fed for a while from the likes of Francis Lawrence.

Besides, i still can't shake off the fact that the writers of Suburban Commando and The Glimmer Man are responsible for scripting this movie and that will never change.

Ah well, the movie has been made now but at least the comic books are still there, and their lame duck script isn't worth one page of any Hellblazer comics i own."

You are precisely right. I live and work in Hollywood and it's all a steaming heap of dog shit. You wouldn't believe the mentality of most of the people here. Outrageous assholes sucking city blocks into their bowels and mechanical snakes everywhere.

According to Keanuweb, this film is banned in Brunei !

 

I bought Starlog today which has Frank Capello and Kevin Brodbin competing to see who has put the shittest idea into the script !

 

Actually they both talk a lot of sense, and unless they are lying, it's a shame they were not given a tad more freedom to create their John Constantein. However, I will type it up so you can see JUST how mad they think we are.

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That sounds glorious, Mr. Brown! I can not wait!

Hmm... but if I do go see it, I can talk more bonafide shit about it and make proper references... O! Rage and despair! I am torn apart inside!

Last night I caught Keanu on Letterman and Gavin Rossdale on Conan O'Brien.

Letterman built up to the interview by making multiple silly jokes about demons, obviously poking fun at the whole premise of the film, which he had seen a few days prior. Keanu talked about inane things in his life like ping pong and turning forty and riding his motorcycle and blah blah blah for the entire first half of his allotted time. Talking about the film, he never once mentioned HELLBLAZER. He referred to John C. as a supernatural investigator and I recall him describing the movie several times as "lots of fun." The clip they showed was of John and Papa Midnight about to perform a ritual on John, but all it really looked like was papa midnight electricuting Keanu in one of his typical look-at-me-in-some-kind-of-pain-and-sympathise-with-my-character-since-my-acting-is-so-abysmal moments.

Conan talked with Gavin Rosdale about his late band *BUSH* (B.I.H.), his wife Gwen Steffani, and the movie. Gavin described his character, Balthazaar as Keanu's nemesis and the emissary of Satan. He referred to J.C. as an exorcist. What? It was getting late and I don't recall many other details that he might of said because listening to him was terribly boring. He kind of drones in montone desuetude when talking. Awful. The clip they showed again had Papa Midnight and Keanu in Midnight's club or whatever which serves as an Elysium of sorts where all these whack ass character-types (half-breed nonsense) that I don't recall from the comic can hang out together under the banner of not being allowed to destroy one another on Papa Midnight's territory. Balthazaar enters and Keanu gets in his face. Keanu's acting left mountains to be desired, but Rossdale was surprisingly smooth and sinister. Especially compared to his interview where I had begun to peg him as some kind of mannequin or robot.

What I got from these is that the supporting cast will be fine, the characters are very liberally adapted from the comic, and Keanu's performance of John Constantine is a total hack job. And yeah, the cinematography will be flashy and contemporary because the film is directed by a music video director and not a film-maker. Damn. Now I'm depressed again. Guess I'll go lie in the bathtub some more and remember the good old days when my favorite comic was still wholesome and unspoiled.

Oh yeah, and they both talked about J.C. working to save his soul. Rubbish.

I'm not going to see it until I can get one of my cinema pals to get me in for free. I'm reluctant though, because I'm still pretty sure that the whole ordeal will upset me and leave me feeling very weak indeed. The more I learn about it, the farther it is from the comic, and the more bothered I get that it is even associated.

I suspect Moore's apprehension about the film/comic industry crossover is that he is not a film maker. He's a reclusive writer and magician who refuses very stalwartly to leave his hometown. He notices that something is always lost in the comic to film translation and has made up his mind about his involvement. You pick your battles. Perhaps he sees the battle with the studios as un-win-able. I have an easy time understanding that because their primary concern is not art, it's money.

Someone at Vertigo - another group that has to care about money - should have "grown some balls" and set things right a looong time ago before this film was actually in production. I would love to know who's responsibility that should have been so I can mail this stack of angry letters that has been threatening for months to crush my apartment.

Personally, I do not believe the movie will do well in box offices. The subject matter is too inaccessible for most audiences. It will probably make enough money, not for a sequel, but enough to not be considered a failure. It's a shame that no one involved in the bastardizing process will learn their lesson (unless they pop on this forum and have a read) and may very well go on to do it to another work of art in the interest of the almighty dollar. I will not pay to see it. I'm stubborn and principled like that. It will be entertaining, but also incredibly frustrating to me.

Lastly, if the print title begins to show that it is taking from the movie, and changes from what I have loved for years to something that spites me and is focused on selling more issues to a less intelligent audience, then I'm getting seriously mad and sending what I call "rotten meat in the mail."

Well put, MojoPin! You must live here in lovely Hollywood. Or do you just watch lots of TV? Those movie people love their cocaine for sure though. And boys' asses too.

Ron Perlman might be good, but he strikes me as perhaps too relaxed.

Oooo, who would play the delicious lady, Abby?

Well, Christian,

I wouldn't say that sounds very good. Maybe I ate some wrong gin earlier.

Dear Rogan,

It's a hypothetical as if the movie were awesome and Swamp Thing was everthing you wanted him to be. Like how, if it were all mine, he'd be huge and bored and lumbering goofily big trays of drinks to me on my sunny beach. Or whatever.

Does anybody in the L.A. area want to protest the opening. I've still got a lot of "booooing" in me; I'd love to share it.

So let's imagine that this movie was going to be done well – it's a stretch, I know – and by that there very well might be a Swamp Thing cameo. If I was the supreme high dictator of the universe, the man-sized Swamp Thing would be in prosthetics, while the transforming/big crazy/in-the-green Swamp Thing would be CG. So who's to play the Swamp Thing?

My girlfriend just asked me what I was doing. I told her about this post.

Her answer was, "Duh, Jude Law. He's in everything!" She's partially right, and wholly funny!

Personally though, I'm not sure. Gary Oldman is pretty much utterly triumphant at everything he does. But is there someone out there born to play Swamp Thing. The guy (sorry, I forget his name) who played Swamp Thing in that wonderfully campy old film was good but probably much too old now. I know the voice and delivery are key, and the posture and composed movement are also extremely important. What thinks the forum?

Oh shit, I think I'm going with Klaus Kinski. Is he even still alive?

Was that a book review or a review of the movie? Maybe a little of both.

So, we all know about the ultra lame holy gun that Keanu uses in the film, but a contact of mine saw the movie and said he's also got holy brass knuckles. Strikes me as somewhat uncharacteristic of our anti-hero, dunnit?

Naturally, all the positive reviews are coming from individuals totally unfamiliar with HELLBLAZER and who are fully ready to declare thier newly discovered darkness to all the norms around them. Golly, won't mom be shocked. My teachers will be afraid of me. Being an angsty teen should really get me some attention.

Sorry, lost the plot.

Constantine will get some good reviews because it's different and experts on the metaphysics addressed in the film are few and far between. Educated and original readers of the comic will buy into the movie only if the subliminal mind control messages are stronger than their good sense.

One of the most grotesque things I remember from the book was when that shitty occultist made one of John's exgirls his "Babylon Girl," and eventually killed her. John's revenge was to lock the asshole in the fridge with the corpse, heavily dosed with LSD, turned off the refrigeration, and left him there for 12+ hours. Brilliant! Somehow I doubt that made it into the movie...