Michael Hutchison: January 2006 Archives
Oscar nominations were announced today and there was a stunning upset in the animation category:
And for the first time since the animated feature film category was added in 2001 that no nominees were made using computer-generated imagery. The nominees: the hand-drawn "Howl's Moving Castle," and the stop-motion films "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" and "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.""Wallace & Gromit" creator Nick Park said he was thrilled by the nomination.
"It's fantastic," Park said, toasting the nomination with champagne at Heathrow Airport as he waited for a flight to Los Angeles. "You never know with these things. It's so unpredictable.
"You make the film for its own sake really. You don't make the film for this reason. It's just a great bonus."
I recently discovered that Nick Park's Oscar-winning short film "Creature Comforts" was expanded into a full TV series in the UK. I recently bought the DVD box set and found it to be a lot of fun, though it doesn't have the same spark of the original film.
"Curse of the Were-Rabbit" was wonderful, though the shorts (available on DVD) seemed to pack just as much story into 1/3rd the running time.
Hmm...I was going to link you guys to the DVD set, but I really don't know which one to recommend.
** THIS ONE is out of print (available from resellers) but it features creator commentaries and other goodies.
** THIS ONE that is currently available does not feature commentaries but it is much cheaper.
** You can also get it as a box set packaged with the new Curse of the Were-Rabbit movie. However, this is the FULL-SCREEN version of the movie, not widescreen! YE BE WARNED.
**As for this other out of print one...HEY! I own this one...and now it's going for $90? Time to sell it, I think.
I don't want to get all "activist agitator" with you folks, but here's the problem: I want to support a coffee company but I don't actually drink coffee, nor does my wife. Our parents drink coffee at our house once in a blue moon, which means the one bag we own has lasted for some time. So if I'm going to help, it won't just be by buying a bag myself.
Texas Roast just announced that they are withdrawing their Google ads, even though those ads make a big difference for their company, as their protest against Google caving in to China's demands for censorship.
Good for them! It's not often a company chooses to do something that will hurt their bottom line because it's the right thing to do. Maybe Google can give Texas Roast the "Don't Be Evil" slogan since they're no longer using it.
So, if you're a gourmet coffee drinker, please add these guys to your bookmarks. www.texasroast.com
UPDATE: Chuck Dixon's already signed on! How about you?
I never mentioned Buzzscope before, and now twice in one day. Weird.
Seems they wanted to have "Busted Knuckles" to be written by a woman, but when Beau Smith went to the sex change operation they broke the saw. Until they can find something that cuts through brass, they opted instead to switch Beau with Buzzscope Columnist Ronée Garcia Bourgeois.
(Ronée Bourgeois. Didn't he play Odo?)
Oy. Beware the manly comic book cover this week!
Here's Beau's press release:
I haven't commented on the "Whatever Happened to Captain Carrot?" storyline in the recent Teen Titans because I was too disappointed in it. I'm not a basher of Geoff Johns, as you all know; I think he's been the best thing since Mark Waid in turning the comic industry back towards "fun" from the dark times of the mid-1990s. He writes modern comics but with an all-out love for continuity and classic comics.
In fact, until Identity Crisis I thought we'd turned away from the depressing angst of yesteryear. Unfortunately, Johns used a "return of Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew" story as a commentary on modern comics and instead just ruined a childhood fave. Appearing as only glimpses of the kind of comic book they must read within the DCU, we get a page here and there showing a Zoo Crew which is dispersed and depressed following the death of Roger Rodney Rabbit's fiancee Carrie (she's fed to Frogzilla), and it ends revealing that one of the team members was a bigot and murderer. Of course, all of this is wildly out of character if you read the books.
It's hard to explain why the story doesn't work. Perhaps it's partly due to the nature in which it is told, in that we only see moments here and there from the story, with a rushed ending and no real action scenes. And quite frankly, it has nothing to do with the Teen Titans story in which it takes place. Then again, I'm sure that a full story as a stand-alone comic would be just as depressing and unsatisfying if this is the story it's telling.
So, what other way can DC poop on everything I love? I got into comics reading "Captain Carrot" and they've ruined that. I've had a lifelong fondness for the carefree fun of Elongated Man and Sue Dibny, and they've ruined that. I mean, I love DC. I've loved DC comics all my life, and even in this dark era they're putting out some stuff that is top-notch. But it's gotten to the point where if I were offered the chance to work there tomorrow I wouldn't be able to find any of my favorite characters that are still in working order!
OK, I've thought of a couple. I'm not going to mention them for fear of instigating something. After all, on my Ralph Dibny site I mentioned that no one would ever kill Sue Dibny because it would wreck Elongated Man's viability as a character and Brad Meltzer apparently took that as a challenge.
There is one hope: this Zoo Crew tale was a story being told by a comic company WITHIN the DCU, which is in a dark trend right now. Perhaps it is not at all representative of what's actually happening on Earth-C.
Few things in comics are permanently wrecked. Hal Jordan, Oa and the Green Lantern Corps (including a half-dozen GLs who were killed off) have all come back. Adam Strange's horrible mini-series that killed off Alanna was undone by Mark Waid. Firestorm came back. Dove returned. The JSA book has spent six years revitalizing old characters and undoing damage from the dark days of comic books. Guy Gardner got his bowl cut back. Okay, Tora Olafsdottir is still dead and the Metal Men need work, but on the whole it seems like bad decisions don't last forever even if it causes people to fret about deaths not being permanent.
I know it would undo the whole pivotal plotpoint of Identity Crisis, but you have to think they'll do Sue justice someday.
As for Captain Carrot...sorry, Geoff, to be picking on you. I love all your other stuff.
Read more:
Howling Curmudgeons Review.
Anthony's Annotations to Part One and Part Two, plus a follow-up.
Comics Worth Reading says to ignore it.
Four Color Media Monitor has a review, too.
I'll admit, I hadn't heard anything about this story in the last month, but many of you may already know of it. I guess I'm late to the game on this one. The story started the day after Christmas, when I wasn't even near the Internet much, so I can see how I missed it. The Four Color Media Monitor has a good summary of what has gone on, but I'll do a quick recap:
Tom Cruise kills South Park episode
People in the UK will not be able to see the notorious South Park episode in which Tom Cruise is hiding in a closet because Stan, who Tom believes to be the reincarnation of Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard, says that Tom's acting is only OK, though he's no Gene Hackman or the guy from Napoleon Dynamite. Tom Cruise raised a stink with Paramount and the episode will not be shown again.
Now...the real question is, will the episode be suppressed when it's time to put the Season on a box set? I mean, if Tom Cruise doesn't want people seeing it, he'll be just as litigious about keeping it from being seen again via DVD.
Of course, the wonderful thing about Internet Piracy is that there is no such thing as suppressing a cartoon anymore. Anyone with a connection to the WWW, a copy of Limewire and a high speed connection can find the episode.
I'm just so jazzed to hear that Futurama is coming back (as earlier reported by Chaim Keller). I've missed Bender so much. There's nobody else like him. Who else could, upon winning a cooking contest, declare: "I decline the title of Iron Cook and accept only the lesser title of Zinc Saucier, which I just made up. Also, it comes with double prize money."
Who else can enter a room singing an original song to their own greatness?
I wish it wasn't animated, just because I hate the wait.
Beau Smith has been having a "Manly Cover Competition" with Chuck Dixon where each week they offer a comic from their collection and compare which one is mas macho. Chuck has a pic of Tarzan with a machine gun, then Beau fires back with a WWII superhero and his sidekick mowing down an entire platoon of Japanese soldiers with machine guns before rolling over them with a steamroller. Of course, there's never a winner. Each guy disses the other's offering and brags about their own...which is, of course, manly.
(OK, the steamroller cover wins. Steamroller always wins.)
I hear there's an archive of these covers on the way, but for now all you can do is join in the fun by checking the Busted Knuckles column and the Dixonverse message board.
Beau tends to favor the "fighting and loving" covers where wholesale slaughter is going on whilst a leggy blonde is fixing her hair.
Anyway, Beau has a new book coming out soon with artist Eduardo Barreto called "Cobb: Off the Leash." (Note: this is the only permissable way to use "coming out" in a sentence that includes Beau Smith.) Today, he posted the cover and I'm going to evaluate whether it qualifies as manly. The story concerns an ex-Secret Service agent and the Russian mafia.
Let's see:
Smoking bullets: check!
Smoking guns, two of 'em, in the man's hands: check!
Big bruiser wielding a knife: check!
Mustache: check!
Commie: check!
Naked chick: chick! I mean, check!
Badge: check!
Bullet holes: check!
Babe with a bat: check!
Speeding car: check!
Steely-eyed bad guy in a suit: check!
Holsters: check!
Boots: check!
I dunno. It could use a steamroller. Maybe that's for issue 2.
I thought about hosting the image here, but nah...go give it a look at full size!
Plus, here's an interview Beau did with Sequential Tart.
8 pages of previews for the upcoming "Truth, Justin and the American Way" from Scott Kurtz and Aaron Williams are now up on Newsarama.
The Pet Professional online comic is looking for a new artist. It details the adventures of a hired gun who accepts contracts on animals.
Comics Continuum has the First Look of Ion #1. Ron Marz, creator of Kyle Rayner, retuns to writing Kyle as, One Year Later, he once again has more power than any Green Lantern.
Brad finally gets a kiss from Toni Daytona!
I've been a reader of the comic strip "Luann" for years, but I think Brad is infinitely more interesting than the main character, the boys-and-clothes-obsessed Luann.
In a case of Life Imitates The Onion, the November 14th issue of The Onion poked fun at cartoonist Greg Evans (who was known for having his strip address serious issues)... not knowing that Evans WOULD address 9-11 by having it permanently affect Brad.
After the destruction of the World Trade Center, layabout brother Brad decided to become a firefighter, and the strip occasionally shows his efforts to get his EMT training and then qualify as a fireman. Then it spends a few weeks on Luann complaining about boys or adopting a kitten, and then it's back to Brad.
I'd be happy if the strip was all about him.
A COMPARISON BETWEEN 'SPINAL TAP' AND OTHER HEAVY METAL BANDS is pretty funny...though I must disagree with the guy's analysis since I like Def Leppard.
Cox & Forkum are two of my favorite cartoonists, and now part two of a two-part SNN interview has been posted as a podcast.
Part One.
Part Two.
I've only listened to part one. Frankly, these SNN podcasts aren't really to my tastes, especially their correspondent in America (Warning: contains rated R language and general hickery), but I liked the Cox and Forkum interview. In part two, they refer to their personal favorites of their own cartoons, which are here and here.
Wikipedia reveals that Optimus Prime was named by Denny O'Neil.
Wikipedia has some new information about Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist:
In a recent interview on "The Sound of young America", H. Jon Benjamin mentioned he recorded a commentary track for the first season of Dr. Katz . Although nothing has been offically confirmed, its projected that the DVD is scheduled for a Fall 2006 release.
Thank goodness! I've been waiting years to see one of my favorite shows again, especially since I haven't even seen half of the episodes that exist. I discovered Dr. Katz the year that it was yanked from Comedy Central.
WCCO-TV's Video Library now features an interview with U of M Professor James Kakalios, author of "The Physics of Superheroes." I talked about his book in my 2005 FallCon article.
His book is thick, but a great read and it's clear he knows his stuff. He has a mindboggling explanation as to how Superman could come from a Krypton dense enough that he could possess superpowers upon reaching Earth. (The only other explanation would be that Krypton was larger than Jupiter.)
Our own Eric Spratling, long gone from these pages while doing his military service, is apparently considering supporting General Zod in the 2008 Presidential election!
Q. As a General, do you feel that your military experience will make you more a qualified candidate than your future (foolish and soon-to-be-crushed) opponents? Have you, for example, won any Purple Hearts? Speaking as a military man myself, I simply cannot wait for the day when I will be on the front lines to help obliterate any nation retarded enough to oppose you. — SPC Eric Spratling, US ArmyA. I have a deep admiration for strong men like yourself, who live to take orders in the name of their country. You have a brilliant future ahead of you in 2008. Though I do not have any "purple heart". I served with the military council of Krypton, where I devised a number of plans to overthrow the government and single-handedly rule the planet. I hope this assures you of my unquestionable honor, integrity, and service to country.
How strange to be reading a world-famous Internet site and find the name of someone you know. Way to go, Eric!
The Q&A section is hilarious, with many excellent questions: What does Zod think of the son of Nicholas Cage being given the name "Kal-El"? Does Zod worry that the Spin Doctors carry Kryptonite? Will he debate Christopher Walken in the 2008 election?
Zod's politics are curious, to say the least, with a little something for everyone of every political stripe. Actually, most of his statements about the present state of the country sound like they're cribbed from Laurie David. He believes that disarming the USA first would lead Iran to follow our lead... clearly, a policy only an invulnerable man with heat vision, or an idiot, could endorse. Yet, just when you think Zod could write for the Huffington Post, he also states he believes in nuking the moon!
This a cappella group stole my bit.
Believe it or not, this is what I used to do at talent shows in the 1980s.
This was my laugh for the day (and well done!): CTU Agent Samwise Gamgee
It all started two weeks ago with a questionable newspaper article in the Stockton Record, Family finds comic book gift offensive.
William Shatner Sells Kidney Stone for Charity
Get a piece of the rock!
A new poll will impact the way we all view the world. Click this link now to see it.
Put these people in charge of the "Do Irish people drink and wear green on St. Patrick's Day?" investigation, quick! They only have two months.
Okay, seriously, this is a good study by a trusted team of researchers. Their "Examination of Ursine Defecation Locations" was groundbreaking, quickly followed by "Humor Quotient Analysis Regarding Papal Headgear."
Tip of the hat to Condiment King!
I'm sure there are some of you who set your VCRs to tape "24" last night and forgot to set it to go over the hour, and thus you missed the last 10 minutes due to the football game running over. (And for some of you, your local TV news may have cut it off!) For the benefit of folks (like Blue Spider) who are dying to know what happened, I'll give a very brief recap.
If you got hooked last night and need to catch up on the first four seasons, here's your link:
Angry Alien Productions has just made a new announcement about their "reenacted by bunnies in 30 seconds" movies. (We talked about these last month.)
The following movies are in production and will appear on Starz on Demand in 2006.
Casablanca
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Rocky
Caddyshack
All of the cartoons are later hosted on Angry Alien after they've run their time on Starz. These three are scheduled to appear (and hopefully I'll remember to link to them when it happens):
01/31/06 - Night of the Living Dead
02/21/06 - King Kong (1933)
04/07/06 - Reservoir Dogs
SCI FI Channel announced Jan. 12 that it will air the first season of the BBC's hit SF series Doctor Who, starting in March. The 13 episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, will air as part of SCI FI Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
So, for any of you out there who didn't know how to download it via BitTorrent, you can finally see the show.
I was in error earlier when I thought that the last season of Teen Titans had ended without resolving the Brotherhood of Evil storyline. It ontinues tonight with a new episode called Titans together.
I'm attempting to breathe new life into our Forum, so click on over to participate in this fun discussion: What movie did you like DESPITE...
I hope to have a new discussion topic every Friday.
Some of you may not know about the recent controversy over James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces." It's supposedly a dramatized account of his history of drug abuse and alcoholism and his stay at a Minnesota drug treatment facility (obviously meant to be Hazelden).
That's right. It's on. Despite what Mr. Marsh says.
This is a fun song (but disturbing) with PG-13 animation about the ultimate showdown between everyone in pop culture.
If your exclusive hunting lodge needs a fine cherrywood storage system for the protection of members' comic books, then Stan Pike's Comic Book Storage Cabinets is for you. At $200 per one-foot drawer, one will want to discriminate as to which fine comics get stored. (Actually, you won't want FINE, you'll want to restrict it to near-mint.)
Hat tip again to Pipeline's excellent, informative column on those stackable shelves.
Robert Kirkman's advice on breaking into comics is harsh, funny and very true: YOU PROBABLY SUCK.
Randy Lander has stepped down from comic reviewing at the Fourth Rail. As someone who made a similar decision three years ago, I totally understand where he's coming from and wish him the best.
(Hat tip: Augie De Blieck Jr.'s Pipeline column)
"I agree with Michael Hutchison."
Sweet! That was in the comments section below mine in a discussion of an early review of V For Vendetta.
I'm sure many of you are Battlestar Galactica fans, but I've never watched the show so I don't talk about it here. Sorry about that. Maybe this will make up for it: Ron Moore, creator of Battlestar Galactica, gives his top five sci-fi books.
I've only read "Stranger In A Strange Land" and I hated it, but a couple of them sound interesting.
Scott Rogers of Shooting Star Comics has made it past the first round of Sony's Silent Hill Poster Contest and he needs your votes! Just click on that link and then hit the button above his poster. Thanks for your support!
The votes are in as to what episodes the fans wanted to see in the next Mystery Science Theater 3000 release. We posted about this back in July.
According to the results, the top ten were:
EPISODE
903- PUMA MAN
910- THE FINAL SACRIFICE
813- JACK FROST
1013- DIABOLIK
706- LASERBLAST
1001- SOULTAKER
212- GODZILLA VS. MEGALON
521- SANTA CLAUS
817- HORROR OF PARTY BEACH
904- WEREWOLF
You may also enjoy this interview with Michael J. Nelson which I recently found.
I just saw the Hoodwinked trailer. This opens on January 13th, 2006? I haven't seen a single ad for it. The computer animation looks somewhat cheap in spots (judging by the IMDb comments, many people agree), but I'm not one to hold that against a movie if it's funny. Looks like it could be quite funny. Still, you wonder if this is one of those anticipated underperformers that the Weinsteins were sitting on when they were Miramax.
Why is it that all the actors I like are never the ones that the studio cares to mention? Glenn Close, James Belushi and Anne Hathaway get promoted in the trailer, but Patrick Warburton and David Ogden Stiers are by far the more interesting voice performers. (Heck, Warburton's performance in "The Emperor's New Groove" made it one of my top five Disney movies.)
Ultimate Avengers (click to view trailer) will be out on DVD on February 21st. Amongst the goodies on the DVD is a preview of "Ultimate Avengers II," so the sequel is already in the works.
What do you all think of straight-to-video animated superhero movies? Would you like to see more?
Amazon's price is not the cheapest (DVD Pacific has it for about 90 cents cheaper), but if you spend another $11 on other merchandise the shipping is free. Need a suggestion? May I once again recommend the recent Showcase Presents Jonah Hex collection?
PRICES SLASHED! - 2006 COMIC BOOK SALE!
Scott Beatty is selling all of his comic books for 50 cents each. The list of comics for sale includes many modern $3 comics and $5 Secret Files and Specials, so get your bargains while you can!
If anyone is trying to e-mail me, I may be slow in responding. When I woke up, I retrieved my e-mails to find that I had 150 e-mails from 2AM-6:30AM. I got home 8 hours later, and received 211 e-mails. It's just a flood of spam lately.
For some reason, my Thunderbird adaptive e-mail filter doesn't work well at all. I tag an e-mail with the subject line "HEY LITTLE DICKER GROW THREE INCHES" as being spam, but for some reason, the next day the filter won't remove the thirty more e-mails with the same subject line! I mean, how much Artificial Intelligence do you need to identify an exact duplicate e-mail as being spam?
All this spam is getting past Powweb's hosting filters, too. I don't know why; there doesn't appear to be anything all that difficult to discern in this new wave of spam. It's strange.
Anyway, sorting my e-mail is now going to entail a half-hour of work, so if you've sent an e-mail and not gotten a reply, that's why. It'll just take me longer.
Anyone else having this problem?
Unfortunately, teen cutie Lindsay Lohan has in real life been pushing her body and life to great extemes, and now she admits to Bulimia, Drug Use.
She seems to be trying to hide her drug use, although when she hosted SNL her monologue was entirely centered on how she is "partying" too much. (Nobody in the media ever uses "partying" to mean eating cupcakes and playing pin the tail on the donkey.)
Some good DID come out of the SNL appearance, and I have to spotlight this because it's the best thing I've ever heard about Lorne Michaels:
She suffered from the eating disorder bulimia as recently as last May, forcing herself to throw up and turning a frightening skin-and-bones in the process."I was making myself sick," the actress says.
She adds that "Saturday Night Live" guru Lorne Michaels staged an intervention after she appeared on the show.
"I just started bawling. I knew I had a problem, and I couldn't admit it," Lohan says.
"I saw that 'SNL" after I did it. My arms were disgusting. I had no arms."
Comics Continuum reports that new episodes of Justice League Unlimited will not air until SUMMER! Currently, the show is only four episode