Archive for May 5th, 2009

Thank you, Brian.

If not for the SuDoku, I would stop buying the Post.

Tell me again about how fair and balanced you are, guys.

Unlike The Punisher, Wolverine does not have a simple origin. He was introduced in The Incredible Hulk without much backstory and over the years, his origin has been so thoroughly MacGuffinned that Marvel’s bluff was finally called and Paul Jenkins wrote the limited series Origin. The series was pretty well-done (the art – by one of the Kuberts – helped make it memorable) and included a few double takes (as a child, Wolverine lived as a nancy-boy in a ruffled bedshirt?) and the connection of many loose threads in what was now Wolverine’s definitive origin. But not all of the loose threads were connected. In fact, Wolverine (and the X-Men in general) continues to confuse readers by further obfuscating his backstory (Romulus, anyone?) which makes it seem that Logan lives in the tough-guy equivalent of a soap opera.

What are some soap opera cliches? How about one of the main characters having a doppleganger (that’s German for “has an eye patch”)? Wolverine has done that. The guy was even called Patch! Bonus!

Love triangles are pretty big in soap operas, right?

What about characters coming back from the dead?

Yeah… that happens every other week with mutants, especially the two people in the aforementioned love triangle who aren’t Cyclops. I still have no idea which Marvel Girl is currently alive and what her connection to Jean Grey and Rachel Summers is. And Wolverine… he’s Marvel Comics’ mutant cockroach. Nothing can kill him.

On top of all this, this new movie that I saw yesterday is a prequel. This means that no one can die if they appear in any of the three X-Men movies (Liev Schreiber will live to become Tyler Mane; Danny Huston will live to become Brian Cox). So the suspense (and the appeal) isn’t so much in the story itself; the reason I sat with 40 other people was to see how Hollywood could bring the story to life. We all knew Iron Man was going to win at the end of Iron Man. We all know he’s going to win at the end of Iron Man 2. People didn’t go to see The Dark Knight just to see Batman and the Joker fight — there are already thousands of comics, cartoons, movies, novels, video games, etc. that offer them that. And the #1 movie of all time, Titanic? Raise your hand if you were surprised that the ship hit the iceberg towards the end.

“Boy and girl fall in love on a boat doomed to sink” is not an exciting sentence. But with James Cameron’s vision, it became the biggest movie ever.

Likewise, I didn’t expect X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: It’s Complicated to clear up Logan’s history or streamline it into an easy-to-swallow-and-then-describe-in-20-words-or-less cinematic sound bite or even to surprise me with any plot twists. I just wanted to see how they would treat the characters that were slated to appear — including The Blob, Deadpool, Agent Zero and Gambit — and the images that artists like Barry Windsor-Smith seared into my eyes over the years.

I was… kind of… the movie was… it’s complicated.

Let’s start with the pre-movie commercials and whatnot. 1) No one I know uses movietickets.com. No one. The two-minute commercial with the pregnant lady and the cop? Not clever. Not funny. Not drawing traffic to movietickets.com. Please stop showing that awful commercial.com 2) Maybe I’m getting old, maybe Dolby has substantially improved in my lifetime, but every trailer I saw was loud and explosiony. Star Trek had a lot of explosions (and did I see Winona Ryder’s name on the cast list?!?) and brightly colored ray beams. Transformers 2 had even more explosions and an aircraft carrier loudly getting busted by noisy space robots. Even Night at the Museum 2, which had little to no explosions, was wall-to-wall yelling.

34 is the new 73. Now the movie.

First off, I have a brilliant idea for Marvel. I had it the first time I saw their logo (which has comic images “flipping” through it). Use images from the thousands of comics that actually contain the character(s) that are in the movie we’re about to watch. Then, if a kid that’s there to see Iron Man 2 sees Tony’s Hulkbuster armor and returns home after the movie to search for it online — and maybe even buying a comic book as a result — that might help keep the dying comics industry alive. And nerds like me could take pride in recognizing panels and knowing what issue they’re from, even as we take those secrets to our graves.

The movie starts in a scene straight out of Origin. Wolverine is in bed. His brother, who has very long fingernails sits with him. Wolvy’s dad comes home. There’s a noise downstairs! A fight! The father exits. When Logan rushes from his bed (his nightshirt not quite as gaily ruffled in the comic, nor as pink), a majestic crane shot (the first of 8,402) carries us over his head and shows us his dying father. Logan rushes to his side! He dies. The man who killed him tries to explain as bone claws slowly grow from Logan’s fists. Logan looks skyward, balled fists at his side, as he screams (this is not the last time this character will do this), eventually leaping up and killing his father’s killer. The killer barely has time to tell Logan that his father wasn’t his father — his father’s killer was his actual father, and he had just killed him (now you know what readers of Wolverine comics went through over a 20-year span — on a monthly basis). Wolverine’s mother seems disgusted by her newly-discovered-father-murdering son and he runs away. The older boy follows and tackles him, explaining that they were brothers and had to run from everyone else and take care of each other. Also, we learn that Wolverine’s real name is James and this older boy calls him Jimmy.

Thus begins the best credit sequence since Watchmen. The two boys are now Liev and Hugh and we see them fighting in The Civil War, WWI, WWII and Vietnam.

Unlike Obsessed, there’s no reason to spoil the entire movie. All I’ll say is this:

1) The guy playing Fred? Someone needs to tell him that Ted Levine already used that voice for Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.

2) Explain to me how the Turn Off The Light booth makes money. Especially if the bulbs keep breaking.

3) It’s less than 20 minutes later and Wolverine is kneeling by a corpse while looking skyward, fists clenched at his side, and screaming (this is not the last time this character will do this).

4) If this was done intentionally, then bravo! If not, then shame on all of you. What am I talking about? I’m talking about co-opting Superman’s origin. You heard me. The 20-minute sequence where Wolverine gets rescued by Ma and Pa Kent? Even if I excuse the terrible CGI during the “so this is what my new claws look like!” scene in the bathroom, it still stuck out like a sore thumb. This is what happens when you try to be everything to everyone. You cannot please both die-hard fans and the general public. Even The Dark Knight had its detractors. And if DC tried to please them, then it would have alienated a large chunk of the casual fans that adored it. By adding so many familiar characters to the film implied that you were using a lot the source material. Superman shouldn’t have been included in that.

5) So Pa Kent’s son’s leather jacket is the basis for the design of the X-Men’s uniforms? Professor X will see Logan in this jacket and think “hmmmm… with the right leather pants…”? Sore. Thumb.

6) I added It’s Complicated to the title as a tip of the hat to The Soup and their always calling Denise Richards’ TV show “Denise Richards colon it’s complicated.” But it actually works because, in trying to please everyone, Wolvy’s origin makes little to no sense. This part is very spoilery, so skip to 7 if you don’t want to know some (additional) major plot points. Wolverine and Sabretooth are arrested in Vietnam by the army because Sabretooth tried to rape a lady and the army intervened and Logan intervened on Sabretooth’s behalf. They are shot by a firing squad, but they don’t die. So Danny Huston asks them to join his elite squad of super-soldiers. They fight evil people. But they gradually start fighting not-so-evil people and they’re doing some questionable things. Wolverine quits. He falls in love and becomes a lumberjack. Seriously. Years later, Danny Huston shows up and tells Logan that someone is killing members of the squad and he wants Logan to come work for him again. He declines. Then Sabretooth kills Logan’s girlfriend. Then Huston tells Logan that he can help Logan defeat Sabretooth. So Logan goes to a secret lab and has his bones laced with adamantium. This makes him indestructible (this coupled with his accelerated healing factor, makes Logan super-dangerous). Logan hears Huston say he wants Logan’s memory erased and Logan escapes. He is tracked down by the people who made him indestructible and they try to kill him but find THAT HE IS INDESTRUCTIBLE. Turns out Huston just liked experimenting on mutants. He’s trying to create the ultimate soldier. Logan was Weapon X (Roman numeral ten). Weapon XI is the combination of all the powers of every mutant Huston has kidnapped over the years. Including the head (and sealed-shut mouth) of Deadpool (who steals the movie). He is referred to as “The Dead Pool.” And instead of claws, Weapon XI has gigantic adamantium swords. Which should make it impossible for him to bend his arms when they’re retracted. Maybe if I watch the movie again, I can figure out how Huston’s actions/goals make sense, but even for a comic book nerd like me, the story was jumbled and confusing at best.

NUMBER EIGHT) A bald-headed Englishman makes a cameo at the end and the CGI of him (why they needed CGI I don’t know) is even worse than the farmhouse bathroom scene. Everything about him looks CGI (and believe me… I saw EVERYTHING.).

9) I got the Deadpool bonus ending (which seems to indicate that he’ll get a spin-off… yay!… except now he also has the powers of all mutants? buh?) and I’ve seen the Logan in a bar ending online… neither one os worth waiting through long credits for.

Was it action-packed? There were some cool fights. Can Will.I.Am act? Not really. Does The Blob look good? Not really. Is the movie better than X3? Yes. Are Hugh and Liev good? Yes (though Hugh’s facial hair and chin tushy are distracting). Is it worth seeing? I guess. Look – if you want to see a popcorn summer movie, this one could have been much worse. Emma Frost pops up, so does Toad, Iceman is Chinese and has two different eyes for some reason.

But I don’t think I need to see this ever again. For X-fans, I’d give it a B. For non-fans it’s more like C+/C.

I think next week will be Star Trek, which will be interesting as I loathe the franchise and know almost nothing beyond who’s who.

Until then, my balcony is closed.

I am getting an inordinate amount of spam replies in one particular entry. I have no idea why I am getting them, but if anyone reading this knows the answer and/or has some solutions, kindly come forward and be heroic.

B’also? As much positive feedback as I’m getting, I want to spruce up this place. That means re-reading everything and correcting typos (I hear I’m not as OCD as I thought). But my HTML knowledge is limited to pushing a button and wishing for the best.

Anyone know of a good beginner’s guide to HTML? Gracias en advancitito.

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This week’s movie review will happen after this, so check back in an hour (unless you’re reading this over an hour after I posted it, in which case, shut up).

(SPOILER: It wasn’t as bad as I feared, nor was it as good as I’d hoped.)

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I don’t often make huge errors in this blog (unless my only source is the Post, in which case, I often make huge errors) but when I do, I own them. The Yankees aren’t playing in Boston. Last night they played (and tonight they are playing) the Red Sox in their magical new stadium. They lost last night and another pinstriped legend got hurt and left the game. More on all that later (if you usually skip the Yankees stuff because you don’t care or aren’t a Yankees fan, you’re probably thinking, “Hey, wordbox! Whycome you talkin’ on the sportings at the tippy-top this time?”).

(All non-Yankees fans — with the exception of Cubs fans and some Mets fans — are Appalachian inbreeders. Look it up.)

Well, tonight’s pitcher for the Yankees is Joba Chamberlain. In addition to the Yanks being 0-4 against Boston so far this season (and trailing them in the standings), Joba will have even more reason to feel uncomfortable on the mound.

His mother’s mug shot (if Momma from Throw Momma From The Train and Joba had a daughter, she’d grow up to look exactly like Jacqueline Standley) graces the front of today’s post, along with the news that she sold meth to a Nebraska police officer.

Since Boston fans usually aren’t very funny (see: Denis Leary), I thought I’d help out any Red Sox fans going to the game tonight. Here are some signs you can make and bring with you (ask yuhmah fuh puhmisshin):

DO THE METH, JOBA!

LET’S GO, METH!

JOBA’S FACING NINE TONIGHT WHILE HIS MOM’S FACING LIFE!

JOBA’S MOMMA LOVES TO USE METH!

HEY, JOBA! DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR MOTHER WAS ARRESTED FOR SELLING METH TO A COP? YOU PROBABLY KNOW THAT BY NOW, BUT I FIGURED I SHOULD LET YOU KNOW JUST IN CASE. ALSO, YOU SUCK.

ARE A-ROD’S COUSIN AND JOBA’S MOTHER THE SAME PERSON?

METHinks the pitcher stinks!

BOSTON IS RETAHDED!

Jackie (as I call her) sold “1 gram” of meth to the cop in her home on Saturday (the police weighed it as 0.6 grams) for $110. She faces 1-50 years in jail (not a typo — she could get 1 year, 50 years or anything in between). She left Joba and his father early on in Joba’s life, so it shouldn’t hit him as hard (she’s been arrested and hospitalized before), but I don’t know if I could stand in the middle of any ballpark knowing that my meth-addict mom’s mug shot was on the front page.

Please stop using meth, Eileen, so I can pitch for the Yankees (I think they need me).

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Julia Roberts got her three children’s names tattooed on her back.

No, lower.

Not there. Lower.

There. That’s right. First there’s a butterfly that appears to be perched on the crack of her ass, then there’s the names of her kids. A semi-genealogical tramp stamp! Well done, Julia!

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Madonna challenged a Malawian judge’s ruling yesterday, insisting that she wasn’t just some celebrity adopting children willy-nilly between concerts and fashion parties.

Well, she didn’t. Her lawyer did. She had to go to the Costume Institute Gala at the Met. This is what she wore:

The prosecution rests, your honor.

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The James Frey/Oprah Winfrey story just got a whole lot more interesting.

Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning will be released in paperback shortly, but the softcover version will include 2 chunks that were omitted from the hardcover version. One is an X-rated story about an affair (yawn) and the other is about a man who is involved in a controversy and fears the TV show he is set to appear on will go badly for him. So he tapes his phone calls. Including one with the host of that show. And the host tells the man an extremely shocking secret about herself.

Frey insists the story is pure fiction.

However, he also insisted that A Million Little Pieces was pure non-fiction until he revealed that it wasn’t.

So I will now assume that what he means to say is that he has a tape recording of Oprah telling him she’s gay.

Moving on…

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Bebe Neuwirth got married! And guess who performed the ceremony. I’ll give you a hint: a penis howling at the moon.

Give up?

Peter Coyote!

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Just when you thought Governor Magoo’s approval rating couldn’t get any lower, it did.

Paterson now has a 19% approval rating (that’s 19% more than Esther Ginsburg has, and she’s dead).

Poor David Paterson.

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Teresa and anyone else I care about: STAY AWAY FROM TEQUILAVILLE ON VANDERBILT (across from Grand Central Station) TODAY.

Agave 99 (the kosher tequila I spoke of weeks ago) is celebrating Cinco de Mayo by giving out free pastrami burritos.

Not only do I never want to taste that, I also never want to be around people eating them. You shouldn’t either.

You’re welcome.

A spokesman for Agave 99 said, “You know the song ‘Hava Nagila’? We’re saying Have A Tequila!”

Wow! Did you come up with that yourself, Martin Silver? Let me try.

“One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!”

Hey! Look what I did! By myself! All I have to do now is copyright it!

Oy.

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Not content with merely fucking up access to my subway line, Nicolas Cage and everyone else involved in the worst movie idea since Tron 2.0 (currently filming) almost killed two people yesterday when a car driven by Cage’s stunt double (pussy!), Jeremy Fry, spun out of control, jumped a curb and landed in sbarro. It also knocked down a utility pole that hit two people.

What more do you need to hear, Disney? God doesn’t want a live-action version of The Sorceror’s Apprentice.

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I wasn’t going to talk about Jamarr Brown. He’s 24.

The other day, he tried to stab his girlfriend with a butter knife. He missed. Instead, he stabbed their 3-year-old son. In the head. The knife was successfully removed (it was 3″ in) and the child is in serious but stable condition.

Jamarr escaped and went into hiding. I wasn’t going to talk about this because it isn’t funny and it makes me sad and angry. And then I read the follow-up.

Cops found Jamarr on Sunday (thanks to an anonymous tip) on Pulaski and Marcy in Bed-Stuy. He was dressed in women’s clothing.

I hope they booked him as is. They will love him in the holding cells. Early and often.

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A 22-year-old was walking on Broadway and 79th St on Sunday afternoon. A man walked up to him, stabbed him in the face with a sharp object (twice) and ran away.

Keep your guard up, Teresa. Lotsa crazies on the Upper West Side now.

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Remember when I bet you that Carla Bruni’s CD’s would sell record numbers following her sex tape leak? Well, I was right.

The French treasury is buying thousands of copies of her albums to give away in packages that also includes wine and cheese vouchers and a corkscrew.

The French treasury is silly (and has a tin ear).

(in Groucho voice, tapping cigar ashes onto the floor) Personally, I’d rather have the wine and cheese and a voucher for the music.

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Finally! A Republican I wholeheartedly agree with.

“I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”

I, too, wish there were only 30 Republicans in the Senate. Then they would be pure and good and untainted by any other semi-Republicans who didnt agree with them 100%. They would also be a silent minority that would have to effect on policy.

Well said, Jim DeMint of South Carolina!

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The first major league pitcher to get 6 wins this year is… Zach Greinke? Of the Kansas City Royals!?!?

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Posada left last night’s game with a hamstring injury. A-Rod might play as soon as Friday. Teixeira hit 2 home runs yesterday and we still lost 6-4 (Cano had bases loaded in the ninth, but struck out.

If we lose tonight, Bahston fans will be so happy they might momentarily stop beating their wives.

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Oprah’s Harpo Studios is putting together another talk show. Joining Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray and Dr. Oz (who all started under the Harpo shingle) with her very own talk show is…

Jenny McCarthy?!?!

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Dom DeLuise is dead.

Rest in piece, Dom.

It should have been Burt.

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Happy Monday!