The cartoon blog of Andertoons cartoonist Mark Anderson. He discusses his cartoons, cartooning, comics and, oddly enough, LEGO.
I’m such a huge fan (250 pounds!) of Mystery Science Theater 3000, so I was very excited when the good folks at Drawn! pointed out this collection of MST3K posters. What a hoot!
It reminded me of this great Eegah-themed site I found while wasting time pretending to work at one of my day jobs some years ago.
ROXY!
(OK, so this post is not exactly cartoon related, but at least it was inspired by an artsy sorta site. Kinda a six degrees of separation thing…)
[posted with ecto]
Two pretty good, one mediocre, one looks nice in spandex.
(If you can’t tell I’m still about chest deep in illustration work. More later…)
And I really like the original Burton film. Heck, I even like the 1963 Adam West movie with the noble porpoise. But this one’s got ‘em all beat.
I’m no Batman afficiando, but Batman Begins seems to have recaptured what’s great (and disturbing) about Batman without seeming so comic-booky.
I’m so glad at least some of Hollywood has discovered that special effects and costumes do not a superhero movie make. Good writing, good directing, good actors – all these can and do help comic book flicks immensely.
There’s some nice nods to the comic, but never anything that feels like “this is for the comic fans!†There’s also some clever outside references that the director is smart enough to not beat you over the head with.
One thing that did bother me was a certain constant perkiness on Katie Holmes. Come on people; she can’t always be freezing cold in the chestal area. You’d think Gotham was located in Alaska for crying out loud! (Maybe this was an homage to Batman Forever?)
Anyway, go see it. Go see it now!
Policeman to Blade – “You can keep doing your song and dance as long as you want, Blade – It’s not gonna play.†(Oh I do so love being able to use a quote from a movie to begin a review!)
Blade – Trinity is an unfortunate mishmash of film styles, genres, and clichés that ends up neither laughably bad (Catwoman) or simply boring (Elektra), but instead is just a garden variety piss poor action movie.
The idea here is that the vampires have decided they need Dracula’s blood for some reason or another. They find him hiding spider hole style in Iraq and talk him into killing their hybrid nemesis, Blade (Wesley Snipes).
First, the good guys: Snipes is OK, but you can sense that even he knows Blade is now more caricature than character. Jessica Biel (Abigail Whistler) is pedestrian, but adds a nice bit of babysitter next door meets Mia Hamm athletic sex appeal and a pointless slow motion shower scene. Ryan Reynolds (Hannibal King), while the least action-oriented, is probably my favorite of the trinity and occasionally lends a nice comedic touch.
Now the baddies: Dominic Purcell (Dracula) is boring from beginning to end and played the vampire patriarch with more of a 70’s open shirt macho than the metro vibe I think would have worked better (Goyer, gimme a call next time!). Parker Posey (Danica Talos), completely wasted as she continues to try to find her way in non-Guest vehicles, plays the pouty bitch-pire with fangs in her naughty bits. (Yes, you read that correctly.) You can tell she’s waiting to cash her check.
The film steals blatantly from a number of movies including The Matrix (‘come and get me’ hand wave close-up and general soundtrack timbre), Predator (Dracula’s jaw), and Alien (extra thing attacks from inside bad guy’s mouth). I was initially surprised it didn’t try to lift anything from AVP, but if you’ve seen AVP you’d know why.
There’s plenty of slow motion walking to rock music, meaningless multi-angle explosions and trite semi-ironic dialogue to keep your average Bruckheimer-ite remarking “Dude, that part where the guy blew up the thing was so freakin’ wicked!†for a good week or so, but not much else.
The DVD apparently has two discs, although after watching the first I think I’ll pass on the additional behind-the-scenes tripe. The movie disc has two commentaries, one of which I can only hope is the cast and crew chanting “we’re sorry†Gregorian style.
Blade – Trinity is just a shame. The franchise seems to have followed the Wachowski trilogy model and, in the end, bites the hands that feed it, and bleeds them dry.
(Note – For clarity’s sake, I reviewed the theatrical version on the DVD, not the extended version; a fact that I was later very pleased about.)
Just in case you’ve been living in a cave (but not a batcave), there’s a new Batman Begins trailer at Apple’s Quicktime site.
Atomic batteries to power…