Archive for December, 2005
19 items.
Carrying around all that extra monkey weight can sometimes lead to an uncomfortable situation.
Longtime fans of the strip will recognize the gag I’ve busted out of retirement for today’s comic. Can you believe the last time I used it was July, 2003? Seems like it’s been with us forever.
Cami and I were finally able to get our holiday shopping set aside and went to see King Kong on Saturday. We were really surprised that there weren’t more people in the theater. We went to the 7:00 show. We thought for sure it would be packed. Ended up that maybe a third of the theater was full.
Apparently this is happening in a lot of theaters across the country. Last Wednesday’s $10 million take wasn’t a fluke. It really was an indicator of audience interest in this picture. Instead of the film earning in the $80 – 90 million range over the first five days (an a minimum of $60 million over the weekend) it underperformed and took in a hair over $50 million.
It’ll be interesting to see how the film does over the Christmas holiday. Maybe families are waiting until they have more free time to show up en masse. Maybe it was a marketing misstep on the part of Universal to release the film the week before Christmas because now – as I’m hearing it – audience reaction has been mixed. It’s having trouble living up to the hype and all those glowing reviews.
What was my take on the film? I’m not going to martyr myself and say I hated it, but I will admit there were things about the movie that I didn’t enjoy. I mean, things about the movie that flat-out disgusted me.
Okay, I’m gonna dive into this a little now. So if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want it ruined, be warned…
HERE BE SPOILERS!
The first act of the movie is ponderously slow. EXCRUTIATINGLY slow. You could argue that they’re setting up the exposition, and that’s fine. But there was easily 20 minutes of footage here that could have been tossed out to tighten up the running time. The relationship between the First Mate and the young sailor, for example. They toss that in there to add emotional weight to one of the later scenes on Skull Island. Except when that scene finally rolls around, it doesn’t deliver because we never cared about these characters in the first place.
The best part of the movie hands down is the second act on Skull Island. It looks as foreboding as it sounds and the place is totally out of control. The half-possessed natives on the island were truly terrifying. The anguished faces carved into all of the rocks was a brilliant touch.
Kong himself was a marvel to behold. Andy Serkis’ motion-captured performance as the great ape was totally naturalistic and I bought into it. I think it’s safe to say that those blokes in the Weta Workshop in New Zealand are giving ILM a SERIOUS run for their money when it comes to effects work. All the little touches to the scars on Kong’s face to the debris in his fur felt totally right. I believed in him as a character.
The fight between Kong and the two Tyrannasaurus Rex is worth the price of admission alone. It’s choreographed brilliantly and is the exact turning point in the movie where you start to root for the monster as he shows his protective instinct toward Naomi Watts’ Ann Darrow. When Kong cracks open the jaw of the dinosaur, twists his neck around then stands triumphantly over the giant leathery corpse – you half expect a ring announcer to step out, microphone in hand and shout "WINNAH! KONG!"
That said, as good as the dinosaur fight is… really, as good as all the giant critter footage is – you watch it and get the sense that things just keep unspooling with no end. Some of these chase sequences and fights go on FOREVER. Watching them, you’re not really bored, but you wonder when it’s going to end. There are two possible arguments to this. Either Peter Jackson has no sense of control and decided to throw everything up on the screen… OR it’s Jackson’s way of re-enforcing part of the movie’s theme that mankind cannot control nature. When you think you’re on top of things, nature will always find a way to surprise you. Nature always wins. I haven’t figured out which one of the two I believe.
I’ll say this; The scene with all the bugs is probably one of the creepiest, grossest and most uncomfortable I’ve had to sit through all year. I don’t think it’s a bad scene. Watching Andy Serkis (as the ship’s mysterious cook Lumpy!) be consumed by giant earthworms isn’t something you see every day. What made it difficult is that we had to endure it immediately after the rousing Kong/dinosuar battle. You aren’t given a chance to come down from that before Jackson steers you headlong into an entirely different set of extreme emotions. I think this is part of what’s contributing to the "everything but the kitchen sink" feeling you get from the picture.
Watching the movie, you start to notice that there are several long stretches where there is almost no dialogue. I think when Kong and Darrow are up on the high cliff watching the sunset, when Darrow says "Beautiful," it’s the first word uttered in the last 30 minutes. It’s jarring. It took me right out of that scene.
There are a lot of little moments that broke the suspension of disbelief for me. Ironically, it wasn’t the fantastic over-sized creatures that I found distracting. I thought they were the most realistic things in the movie. Instead, it was the emotional stuff that felt fabricated to me.
I had a hard time believing that Adrien Brody’s screenwriter character Jack Driscoll could care so deeply about Darrow after only having kissed her once. We don’t really see any deep bond between the two. Just some awkward courtship. Now suddenly he’s willing to risk life and limb – being EATEN – to save this stranger? Maybe he’s answering to some more grandiose sense of chivalry that existed in the 1930’s, but I’m not buying it. Nor am I willing to buy that so many of the ship’s crew would also risk so much. As she’s written, Darrow doesn’t seem like anything special. If anything, she comes off a little dumb. What’s worth rescuing? The answer is they HAVE to because the script says they do.
I don’t believe for a minute that Driscoll could switch gears from big city screenwriter to balls-out action hero like he did. Kicking Velocoraptors in the face, firing machine guns. Nope. Sorry. Not plausable. I also didn’t believe that the actor character played by Kyle Chander could retreat in cowardace, only to return at the last possible minute as the leader of a rescue party, swinging on vines and shooting up the place like Rambo. Perhaps if Jackson had framed these heroics within the context that inside this fantastic situation, these individuals dug deep to uncover fantastic abilities and resources within themselves – but I didn’t feel like this was established.
Additionally, Darrow’s near-romantic relationship with Kong also felt forced. I can understand that they have this bond because she provides an emotional connection for him where there has been none for ages (Kong appears to be the last of his kind). For Darrow, Kong provides protection against and uncertain and dangerous environment. But once the action moves back to New York, that Darrow someone how instinctively knows to go to Kong when things go haywire seemed a little convienient. Also, that whole scene with them spinning around on the frozen lake like it was some kind of first date just felt weird.
Do you have any idea how cold it would have to be to freeze the ice to the point where it was thick enough to support the weight of a 25 foot tall gorilla? Meanwhile, Darrow in her little silk dress seems as comfortable as can be. Watching her in that costume – especially atop the Empire State Building where winds are probably, y’know… about 30 miles an hour – I kept thinking "Isn’t she cold?" Then I became annoyed. "WHY ISN’T SHE COLD?!"
I think the thing that really tweaked me about the movie and left me with a bitter taste in my mouth was the delivery of that last, classic line. "Oh no. It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast." They gave that line to Jack Black’s dispicable Carl Denham. The line is supposed to reflect that Kong wasn’t really a monster. It’s we, the humans who are the savages. But by giving the line to Darrow, it comes off less as commentary on humanity’s potential for cruelty and more like he’s trying to pawn off his responsibilty for capturing Kong and putting him display to a gawking public on Darrow. The act would be within character for Denham, but it kind of spits on the idea of the source material.
END SPOILERS
Overall, I thought the movie was good. I was wrapped up in a lot of the action seqeunces and certainly fell for the "WOW!" factor of it. But the emotional stuff really bugged the crap out of me. Maybe I’m off base. Cami thought that was the best part of the movie. She was totally captivated by Darrow’s relationship with Kong. I don’t know. Maybe I missed something.
If you have thoughts about King Kong or want to leave your own review, please check out our User Movie Review Database. You can leave your thoughts on nearly every movie Theater Hopper has discussed in the last three and a half years. We’re adding new movies all the time. Here’s the link to King Kong’s specific listing.
Review away!
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One might ask themselves, "How is a tiny primate like Dewey able to lift a full grown woman over his head?" The preliminary answer is because he works out. The secondary answer is because it’s a comic, silly.
Despite the rudementary finishes on today’s comic, it took me forever to draw and put up on the site. I was really dragging my heels. I think part of it was because the punchline was part of a foregone conclusion. At least in my mind. But it serves it’s purpose in advancing the story arc to the point we can wrap things up on Friday. After that, it’ll be business as usual, I swear.
Truthfully, I think today’s incentive sketch is funnier, but that’s just me.
Another reason I think I was dragging my feet last night is because today is my birthday and Cami and I are taking the day off. Working on a comic with the knowledge that you don’t have to be alert for your day job the following morning is freeing in a sense. But it also removes the threat of a deadline, which is also dangerous. How these guys who produce five times a day keep up with it is beyond me.
Then again, if I didn’t have a day job and were able to take my time with a comic over the course of the day, maybe I wouldn’t feel so rushed in the last four hours I spend awake before starting the cycle all over again.
Not much special planned for my birthday. Basically just kicking back and spending the day with Cami. We’ll get lunch, probably buy comics, hang around the house for a while, get dinner. Then, this evening, we’re going sledding. There’s a place south of Des Moines with a 16-story hill and a tow line that carries you to the top. We don’t have a lot of snow on the ground right now, but this place makes their own snow every day. I’ve wanted to go there since I was in high school, but it’s never worked out. This time, I’m MAKING people go!
Thursday we’re going out for dinner and drinks with Jared and his wife. Jared’s better half also has a late December birthday, so we’re kind of doing the joint celebration thing. It’ll be fun.
Friday we’re going to see Fun with Dick and Jane with my parents and in-laws before going to dinner together. I don’t know why I keep falling for Jim Carrey movies. I should know better by now that when he’s in manic-crazy mode, there’s a certain quality deficiency. Am I weird because I tend to prefer him in dramatic roles? Don’t get me wrong – I think he’s funny. But these kind of movies tend to become all about *him* and I think the rest of the production suffers.
I shouldn’t think so hard about it. I just wanna laugh.
At some point this weekend I’m sure we’ll see The Family Stone and possibly Rumor Has It… if the reviews are any good. Those are a couple of warm, fuzzy, non-threatening movies for the holidays.
Check in with you guys later. If you’re stuck at work today, hang in there!
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My occassional e-mail buddy Fenris over at Aikida got linked by my chum Mitch and he made some sort of comment about possibly breaking his one-day unique hit record. I thought I would toss him a link from the front page to see what happens. Plus, Aikida is a really great comic that I’ve been following for years. If a little more link-a-tude convinces Fenris to stay the course and keep pumping out excellent comics, then it’s time well spent!
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Truman takes to the skies! Afterwords, he takes a little nap. He deserves it.
Apologies for the tardiness of the strip. Thursday night I went out with Jared, his wife Patti and Cami as part of a joint birthday celebration. We didn’t get in until way late and I wasn’t able to start working on the comic until yesterday morning. Then, yesterday afternoon we went out with my parents and in-laws to see Fun With Dick and Jane and then have dinner. It’s been hectic!
I suppose there was something to be said for the complexity of this strip. For some reason, I was under a total block in terms of how to stage the panels. Plus, not really knowing what a bi-plane looked like and being too stubborn to do research made me keep second-guessing my design. I suppose it turned out well.
And with that, we conclude the Dewey/King Kong storyline? What was Dewey’s ultimate fate? We may never know. Will Dewey ever return? Perhaps.
One of the great things about the holiday break is catching up on movies you’ve missed. Cami and I have been watching stuff at home like Roman Holiday as well as going out to the theater to see movies like The Family Stone as well.
If you haven’t seen The Family Stone, I would recommend it. The ending is a little sappy and, frankly, a bit of a downer. But I liked how the movie unfolded in these interested ways. Basically, it’s the story of a very liberal Massachusetts family coming together for the holidays. The eldest son brings home the very stuffy, uptight businesswoman he intends to marry and everyone butts heads. That’s the high level look. But what motivates the characters reaction to this interloper are very interesting. The ultimate conclusion I felt was pretty satisfying.
Something I wasn’t expecting however was how easily Luke Wilson walked away with the whole movie. I don’t know what it was about his performance that I found so enjoyable. He was essentially doing the same laid-back philosophy dude he does in every movie. But perhaps the chemistry was right this time around. Compared to the other actors, he certainly sticks out.
Something else? Dermot Mulroney isn’t looking very well these days. Looks a little rough around the edges. That’s a scary proposition for an actor who’s pretty much cast in roles for his looks, because it CERTAINLY isn’t his acting. The stairwell banister has more personality than he does.
Beyond that, nothing more insightful. I don’t really have any strong opinions about Fun With Dick and Jane (which I mentioned earlier). It was serviceable, but not laugh out loud funny. Kind of disappointing for a Judd Apatow screenplay, really. I mean, compared to the strength of Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year-Old Virgin, this one doesn’t really register on the Richter scale. If you’re a fan of Jim Carrey, you’ll probably enjoy watching him mug across the screen. There’s a manic vibe that he emits that becomes contagious to the rest of the cast and that picks up the pace of the storytelling, which is good. But I pretty much forgot everything I watched immediately after leaving the theater.
I’ll be away from my computer for the next two days. Going over to the in-laws tonight for our Christmas, then over to my parents house the next day for another round.
If you’re celebrating this weekend, stay safe and have a happy holiday!
If you’re not celebrating, know that I love you just the same!
Best wishes to all!
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Apologies for the lack of an update or any forewarning on Monday. After being with my family for a full weekend, Cami and I both pretty much crashed Sunday night. Monday was reserved for doing darn near next to nothing.
It’s dissapointing to me in a way because I always trick myself into thinking "Oh, boy! A holiday! Time off from work! I’m gonna get SO MUCH STUFF DONE for the site!" and then it never happens because prior commitments and exhaustion set in. Right now, I’m so thrown off my routine, I don’t know what’s what…
There will be a comic on Wednesday. I promise.
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Dec28
When you’re married, you’ll put up with a lot of crap in the name of love.
Today’s comic is kind of true and kind of false. Yes, I did score an awesome haul in Christmas DVDs and yes I did receive all those mentioned. Cami’s reluctance to watch is where the comic embellishments come in.
All weekend long I kept talking about how awesome Sin City was when I saw it back in April. But I didn’t run out and buy it when it came out on DVD in August because I knew that it wasn’t the full version. There would be another version released before Christmas with tons of behind-the-scenes extras and deleted scenes added back into the movie. I knew I wanted the FULL experience, so I patiently waited.
I get the extended edition for Christmas and I’m chomping at the bit to see it. But here’s the thing – I don’t want to half-ass this. I don’t want it on in the background. I don’t want it to be part of the din in our holiday festivities. When I sit down to watch this thing, I want to totally dedicate my attention to it. I want to study it.
Plus, it’s not like people getting their heads cut off and their intestines ravaged by wild dogs is really the kind of holiday-themed entertainment we want penetrating the bubble of a Rockwellian family gathering. Sorry, we’re just not that kind of clan.
Imagine my surprise yesterday when Cami e-mailed me at work on a couple different occasions asking me "So, do you want to watch Sin City tonight?" What a gal!
Part of today’s comic that’s half-true deals more specifically with Fantastic Four – a movie I didn’t see when it was in the theater, but was curious enough to ask for this Christmas. I guess there was a bit of eye-rolling involved when Cami saw the film on my Wish List. She was with her parents when they bought it for me and she said "I don’t know why Tom says he wants that. He said it was lame when it came out this summer."
It’s strong logic. Why would I want my own personal copy of a movie that I’ve never seen? One that could potentially ruin the good memories I have of a comic book franchise I grew up with? The honest answer? I don’t know. Morbid curiosity, I suppose. I mean, maybe it’s bad – but it can’t be any worse than the Roger Corman version from 1994, right? And I’ve seen that one at least twice. I guess if there was a movie out there that I wanted REALLY badly, but couldn’t justify spending the cash on, Fantastic Four would be that movie. THERE’S a ringing endorsement for you!
Anyway, after I get back from working out at 7:00 o’clock tonight, Cami and I are going to settle in for some stark-contrast and watch Sin City together. It’ll be her first viewing, so I’m very interested in her reaction. I’ll let you guys know what she thinks.
Later!
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As promised, I wanted to come back in today and blog about Cami’s reactions to Sin City.
We hunkered down with a big bowl of popcorn last night and watched it together. It was a lot more violent than I remember. I think when I watched it for the first time back in April, I was more under the spell of it’s visuals. Anyone who reads comics knows its probably the most literal adaptation of any franchise put on film. At that initial viewing, I think I was geeking out so hard, I kind of glossed over how brutal it actually is.
So as this revelation comes to me, I’m thinking to myself “Cami’s hating this. It’s gory. It’s too grotesque. She’s hating this.”
As the credits rolled, I sheepishly asked her “What’d you think?”
“I liked it.”
Imagine my surprise! I asked her what she liked most about the movie.
“The yellow blood!”
Looking back, Cami was pretty engaged in the whole thing. She would ask me questions throughout.
“Wait, wasn’t that girl dead?” “Why is that guy yellow?” “How come Elijah Wood is sitting on the porch when he was killed earlier?” She seemed pretty engaged.
Turns out she liked the segment with Bruce Willis the best. That was my favorite part, too. I think it’s the most poetic and probably the best use of Willis as an aging action star yet.
Of course, for pure vicreal thrills, nothing beats watching Mickey Rourke as Marv lay waste to a bunch of no-name cops. Watching him bust through that windsheild? Man, I get chills just thinking about it!
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That’s kind of a gross image to end the year with, isn’t it? Some old white guy wiping his ass with stationary? I thought I could do better than that, but really – I can’t.
At any rate, please enjoy this sketch for the new year.
For what it’s worth, this has been a terrible year for movies and I think most of you would agree. Even when I talk to my friends that aren’t hard-core into cinema like I am, I hear the same sentiment. "Man, there just hasn’t been any good movies this year, has there?" I die a little inside when I’m forced to confirm their suspicions.
I’m pretty sure there is some kind of statistic floating around out there that spells out just how awful this year has been. I think if you add up the number of crappy sequels, pointless remakes and movies made from lame televisions shows, it would have to be upwords of 80% of Hollywood’s total output this year.
You could accuse Hollywood of having run out of ideas. But fundimentally, we’ve been gathering around the proverbial campfire listening to the same stories of horror, drama, romance and comedy since mankind developed spoken language. In other words – Has everything else been done before? The answer is a resounding "YES." So what I’m saying is, don’t get mad because there’s been a lack of new ideas on screen.
What Hollywood has FAILED to do is find a way to say new things about old ideas. I can’t imagine anything more insulting to a thinking person’s sensibilities than to take a television show that aired 50 years ago like The Honeymooners, retool it with black actors, film it and dump it into theaters and claim that you’ve done something original. I choke at the thought that anyone felt strongly enough to make Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and then said, "We really don’t have a plot for this. Let’s just rip off that old John Candy movie The Great Outdoors. That’ll do."
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know and I hate to look at the glass as being half-empty. Will 2006 be a better year? I don’t know. But I guess the fun is trying to figure that out, isn’t it? After all, it’s why we keep going back. Or at least why I keep going back.
It’s funny. People (and by "people," I mean me) bitch and moan about the state of things, but yet keep filing back into the theaters. As angry as I get watching bad movies from time to time, I can’t imagine ever seeing something so awful that I would write off watching movies entirely. Because for every Herbie: Fully Loaded, there will be a Walk the Line. And as your tastes refine, the challenge becomes weaving your way through the traffic and finding that one piece of film that communicates with you directly and reflects something about yourself you never considered.
That’s what good art does. It helps you grow as a person. Who would turn their back on that?
I have some more thoughts regarding the end of the year, but I kind of like the tenor of this post, so I’ll leave it at that. I’ll be back later in the day with more thoughts relating to 2005, Theater Hopper and our direction for 2006.
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Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and before I partake in the libations that will help to wash away what was 2005, I like to take a moment to look back, take stock and examine where things started and how they ended.
2005 was a difficult year for me in a lot of ways. Lots of personal stresses. Cami got a new job. We sold our first home and bought our second home. Moving… THAT’S never fun. I lost my Grandpa and tried to guide my family through the aftermath of that. Still have a few relatives in the hospital. Somewhere in there when I was stressed out to the point I was banging on the steering wheel in traffic (it happened!), I decided to make a change in my personal health, started working out and lost 25 pounds.
So, yeah… lots of personal change. So it feels good to have moved beyond it.
As far as the comic is concerned, I don’t know if I was as dedicated to it as I could have been this year. Looking back through the ’05 archives, I’ve had more guest strips this year than any other. And while I’m proud that Theater Hopper is at the level where there are enough readers and other creators aware of the comic to help support me through a rough patch… honestly, that shouldn’t be happening to that degree.
Then again, I only blew off two updates this year. One was because my monitor fried on me, and the other one was just this week because I was still coming down from Christmas. So that’s not bad!
2005 was a year for milestones. We celebrated our 400th comic, our 3rd year anniversary and our 500th comic. All big successes. Incidentally, our 400th comic was also the introduction of our first new character in a long time – Charlie. Which could be considered successful or unsuccessful depending on your level of patience for slowly-unfolding storylines…
In the spirit of further transition, 2005 was the year that Theater Hopper moved away from Dayfree Press – the web comic collective we helped to establish – and onto greener pastures with Boxcar Comics. As much as I learned from the Dayfree guys – and I respect all of them – I think the camaraderie I have at Boxcar is a little more tightly knit as I was already good friends with Zach, Mitch and Joe. So it was a pretty smooth transition. Incidentally, I had a blast with those three jokers at Wizard World Chicago this year and hope to do it again next year!
Probably our biggest success this year wasn’t even something I did. The proper accolades go to Dave Buist from Taking the Bi-Pass for helping get our content the most organized and efficient it’s ever been. And I mean EVER!
Dave devised a new archiving system for the comics and the blogs built off keywords. So now you guys can search for your favorite strips, characters and movie references with greater ease. This has been something I’ve wanted for A LONG time. Not only for you guys, but it was even getting hard for ME to find the comics I was looking for. And I created the dumb things.
But Dave took his work one step further by also developing our Movie Review Database – and application so brilliant, I’m still grinning over it’s potential. I haven’t talked about it in a while because I’m still adding to it all the time. New movies, images of posters, cast information, links to the Internet Movie Database, plot descriptions, the works.
The idea is amazingly simple. All you have to do is create an account through the THorum. One you’re logged in, you can search for any movie that you would like to comment on and leave your own review! How cool is that! Like I said, I’m adding movies all the time. Eventually, the hope is that you can leave your two cents on virtually every movie Theater Hopper has ever referenced! How many other web comics are doing that!
There’s still a few layout glitches in the database that Dave and I are working on. Cosmetic stuff. Nothing serious. The guts of this thing work like a charm and it’s all thanks to Dave’s expert code knowledge. Once again, Dave – thanks from the bottom of my heart!
I think 2006 is already shaping up to be a great year. With my personal trials out of the way, I have more time to dedicate myself to the comic and push some projects through that I’ve been wanting to accomplish for years. I’ve designed the initial layout of the FIRST THEATER HOPPER book which will collect the first 52 strips in one handy volume. Eventually there will be two more volumes and the entire set put together will represent the first year. I plan on producing books in a similar fashion for Year Two and Year Three.
It might sound odd to offer three volumes for the first year, but I’m going that route to help me keep costs down. When it’s all said and done, the individual books will only be $9.99. When compared to other web comic collections I’ve seen, that’s pretty cheap. I want to make sure you guys get a copy for yourselves because it’s going to look really nice. More news on that in the future.
In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for sticking around and making Theater Hopper the success that it is. I’m continuously humbled by your interest in my work and only want to bring you more and better work in the time ahead.
Happy New Year and best wishes to you and yours!
THANK YOU!
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