Cunning Man

If John says I'm obsessed with him than I am.

uh...

I have no strong feelings about it, but I miss the spitcurl because I have one, and I miss the briefs because they make it easier to pretend I'm flying in the pool. It's all wish fulfillment, I guess.

My life would be so different if I weren't in a self-imposed exile from my LCS.

I'm pretty sure Blu-Rays are like DVDs, and you can't read them.

That's true. I put my Special "Ballgames and Barbecues, Motherfucker!" Edition Anaconda Blu-Ray into my CD player and the display said "Can't read disc"...

When you download pirated data you're wastefully diverting BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of the electrons that we all agree define objective reality from their original and more urgent purposes, and causing serious wear on the calculators of mathematicians who tally them to keep the universe from disappearing into a swirling sea of fire. If you're fine with destroying Creation and slowing down Kardashian fan sites, then by all means please let your selfish activities continue.

I have a nicely stocked shelf of trades that won't disappear if X-1 dematerializes the recent branches of the Constantine universe. If anything I might get my wish in the form of a retcon in the event that occurs. RELEASE THE KRAKEN! I mean, COMMENCE THE BOYCOTT!

Also Anaconda (1997). That snake is deadly!

That letter is art. It's always nice when people try to lend weight to their nonsensical points with the gravity of real-life deaths. Stay classy, sharp guy.

On a lighter note, whatever is taking the form of the original Shade, Milligan's interpretation has found new life as Epiphany's jacket cuffs, and oh, to what a wacky series of events this will lead.

This is the dawning of SHADOWRUN.

To the Corporation, Moore is an enemy magician and the works of his Art must be devalued at any cost; even to the ruination of Their once great property, John Constantine. Their champion, Grant Morrison, practices a different style and his work must be exalted, even in titles like Batman where loopy far-out concepts really don't belong. John can still serve a purpose as a stock magic soldier character. He's got the charm of brand recognition after all, and his redevelopment in the New 52 will generate minor interest. He'll be kept in the second string. He'll say bollocks and smoke and drink alcohol. He'll serve as a reminder to people who know about comics how much better things used to be, and to the newcomers he'll be a boring oddity. In other words, Their plan will fail. The only unknown about it is whether Their seething resentment will rise sufficiently to the surface to make the layman aware of Their sad, low motivations.

Not until December 21st, however, when people start mutating into elves and trolls, and my dream of owning a mono-molecular garrote can finally be realized, will the wonders I describe above be apparent in their brilliant, awful totality.

Or not, whatever.

I agree; I miss the "a wolf howls..." line, but they ended it perfectly. Still not sure myself why they cut it in half. I want to watch the whole thing before I rate it against other movies.

Is it out then? Where did you see it?

Like love, it's wherever you find it.

Upon further reflection, David Selby's voice may have been too soft for Commissioner Gordon. And that lack of extras I mentioned above could hurt the second half, when everyone has to get together to deal with the EMP detonation in Gotham. It still feels like it's set in a ghost town, except for some very early scenes. Also some of the music seems to reference Escape From New York.

Well, that was awesome. To spoil; Peter Weller was very good, a lot of what they changed/added was good, the animation was very smooth and Batman came off as scary when he should have, and the violence was extremely sharp and brutal. It wasn't trying to be the book, but it did lose a few moments that I thought were poignant from the period before Frank Miller went (noticeably) nuts such as Batman's line that Harvey was his reflection. Altogether one of the better animated efforts. And it has... a bunch of old comics on a store shelf in one scene including some of Alan Moore's. The balance with the 300 easter eggs in the Watchmen movie has been struck, I would say.

8.733858568543753/10

With 80-odd years' worth of Batman comics to draw from, there are plenty of other approaches which would be creatively viable

I've wondered why they don't seem to realize this, outside of smaller projects like Batman: Brave and the Bold, which I love by the way. I guess it's laziness, or maybe film production entails excessive financial risk.

One way I look at it is where we fall in the waning of geek trendiness. At some point mainstream cinema will be saturated with things only comic book fans once cared about. Familarity with those old Batman stories won't be worth as much as it is now, to that statistical entity The Average Filmgoer. Thus dwindle the chances of odder scenarios being portrayed in film. Will those chances be irrelevantly small before the almost billion-dollar* paying crowd of TDKRi get a taste for something non-"realistic"? It's shocking to suggest it, but superheroes may not be in vogue at the movies forever.

Hardcore fans like myself will have to subsist (as I have) with DC's animated efforts, which are hit and miss.

*How did this fall short of the big Bill? It's like screwing up Star Wars! wtf

Descartes walks into a bar, asks for a beer.

Bartender brings him a beer, Descartes drinks it.

A little later the bartender comes back,

asks Descartes, "Would you like another?"

Descartes says, "I think not,"

and disappears.

-Unknown

I think the Lazarus/Pitt connection is tenuous.

They make this

And there's not a god-damned thing anybody can do about it.

I love you, cunning man.

Black Fortress of Slayers

Krull?

 

(That's some mad nerd skills, sir! Kudos!)

Thanks for the kind words, gents.

 

Also, you have two super computers in KITT & VICI, that could hack they enemies systems.

 

I wanted Zero Cool in my 90s movie League (along with Peyton Westlake and Buffy Summers) but they were all I could think of. It's a really desolate decade. And I've already used a vampire slayer.

Directed to the London extraterrestrial disturbance of 1985 by controller Burton L. Cooper, the American arm of the rebuilt League- Peter Vincent, Leroy Green, and Alex Rogan- acquires the remains of a large batlike creature with the help of special British operative Colonel Caine. A check of its DNA against files amassed by the late Dr Quatermass reveals a match to fossil remains discovered in the Amazon rainforest, dating back to the tenth century BCE, firmly establishing that the aliens had been to Earth before. Transported by Alex in his Gunstar (modified to accept personel instead of extra weapons payload "Death Blossom" after the cessation of Kodan hostilities) the team arrives in the Amazon in hope of finding descendants of the strange creature for reasons Cooper refuses to divulge. After destroying a secret Soviet ninja training base, the League locates one of the large aliens in an Ayahuaska-fueled orgy and eventually coaxes it to reveal the coordinates of its home planet. With this information finally secured, they depart for the world of the Beastmaster, whose powers are given to him by cannibalistic reptilian mystics that the team discovers had often been confused for vampires on Earth. Having helped Dar to secure his crown against the machinations of the Beast and his Black Fortress of Slayers, the team returns with their new member so they may use his peculiar animal telepathy skills to locate Dr Jessup, a once renowned psychiatrist turned drug abuser, who in the form of an oranutan named Clyde has been working the bareknuckle boxing circuit with a drifter named Philo Beddoe. Returned through chemistry to his human form, Jessup joins the League, which is then sent on a mission to locate new members.

My 80s movie League:

Bruce Leroy, Veronica Sawyer, Peter Vincent, Egg Shen, Eddie Jessup, Alex Rogan.

I don't know of a time Joker ever played second fiddle to another villian.

He pretended to be one of what's his name's goons in the bank robbery.

Ledger spent a month in a hotel room filling up journals to get the essence of the Joker character (think of those doodles on the movie poster and dvd case) so I don't think he'd have much trouble reassuming the role. As for his function in TDKR, I can't imagine what it would have been except perhaps filling in for Crane. If he sees Order as futile and false then condemning "schemers" to a traitor's fate from Dante's Inferno wouldn't have been too much of a stretch for him. That still leaves the question of what would have become of him.

His appearance was tied to Batman's and the Groovy Ghulies were old business. The only supervillain that came into existence independently of the bat was Scarecrow, and with Bruce's body being wrecked I doubt there'd be much chance of seeing Batman after the events of the third movie.

Did you write Planet Caravan?

[ Spoiler :

]

I love it when he spares the ducks.

Is anyone else constantly getting the wrong books in the mail?

I think Avengers was better and I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man more, but I doubt TASM will survive repeat viewings. TDKR can't even touch Raimi's Spider-Man 2. It's looking to me like The Dark Knight was a fluke, now. Batman Begins was a great comic book movie, and The Dark Knight Rises was carried along by its scope, and momentum from the last ones. TDKR felt like it had something to prove, but I don't think it succeeded.

Bale's Batman was the best thing about it. That's why it bothered me that he was in it so little. When he takes out the guys on the motorcycles, it's like he's really Batman. In The Dark Knight, when he flips the truck, it's Batman's cleverness, Batman's tactics, his timing and attitude. When Ledger terrorizes a penthouse full of Gothamites, and puts a clown mask over clown make-up, it feels like the Joker. So Liam Neeson was never Ra's to me, and Anne Hathaway just a shadow of Catwoman, and I don't know what Bane was. I'm able to identify now what I like about Nolan's Batman movies. All the bullshit about realism aside, they're great because Nolan gets the comics, and can put them on the screen, when he isn't getting bogged down with other concerns. For instance often his Batman shows a martyr complex the comic book version seldom does: twice driving between innocents and danger to make himself a shield in TDK, and flying a superbomb out to the sea. Immortal comic book Batman would find other solutions.

The Avengers were actors I recognized playing superheroes, but the movie was non-stop awesome. It even got me past my frustration with the bungling of the Red Skull's character in the Captain America movie. TDKR online apologists who say it was inferior because it lacked gravity are, in my opinion, wrong. Critics of TASM who think it's nothing but a cash grab have to ignore that we're getting the Stacys and (finally) the Lizard. Also, it helps to view it with younger eyes. Some of the negativity may be old-fan crankiness. It's for a younger crowd.

I smell a cameo by Lord De Loup.

Bad dog! Not on the carpet!