Archive for October, 2007
20 items.
A lot has been made about Viggo Mortensen and his naked knife fight in Eastern Promises. I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know if it fits within context or not. It could be wholly gratuitous. Who knows? Typically you don’t see man-meat on screen unless it’s a sex scene so maybe that’s what all the talk is about. It seems somewhat out of place for an actor of Mortensen’s caliber to be running around nude for the sake of it.
Unless of course, you know… he’s a freak.
I talked to Cami about this movie and she wasnt interested in seeing it after we caught Mortensen and director David Cronenberg’s last collaboration A History of Violence on cable a few months ago. I consider it to be one of the more mild Cronenberg movie and it thoroughly disgusted her.
I *ahem* dangled the proposition of a naked Viggo on screen in Eastern Promisies and she didn’t take the bait. "I’m sorry," she said. "But girls don’t find that part of the male anatomy attractive." I’m glad she shared that with me. Now I know she’s only married to me for my money.
Just kidding. I’m poor.
Not much else for you at the moment. But I do want to encourage you to come to the site tomorrow. I have a DVD review for the John Cusack / Samuel L. Jackson haunted hotel room horror flim 1408 that I’m posting. Coincidentally, the 2-disc extended edition of 1408 comes out on DVD tomorrow. So it’s good timing!
I don’t know if you guys have noticed that I’ve been sneaking reviews into the archives recently. Last week I reviewed 30 Rock – Season One and that went over… okay. I’m hoping to do more and more of these as the weeks go on. Who knows? I might be able to turn out a couple of reviews a week if I’m lucky. Stay tuned!
I guess I haven’t been making a big deal out of that fact that I’ve been outputting comics three times a week just like I used to. Part of me feels like I need to go out there an promote it. But the other part recognizes that the transition has been somewhat sloppy. So it’s probably best to say "I’m back!" and leave it at that.
See you in the funny pages!
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So you guys remember that contest I was running last week for The Kingdom, right? On Friday I received the prize pack in the mail and I wanted to share this picture with you:
First of all, let me say that it is KILLING me to give this stuff away. I would happily keep all of it. But that’s not the agreement I made with you. One of the lucky folks who submitted their entry has been randomly chosen to receive these goodies and they are on their way this week!
Secondly, I wanted to post this to demonstrate that I am NOT FOOLING AROUND when it comes to these contests. I am giving away cool stuff here, people! In fact, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t make you guys jump through more hoops to be eligible for this contest. Since The Triple Feature talkcast was down last week, you didn’t have to listen to the broadcast for a clue or anything. Crazy!
And, by the way, another Triple Feature talkcast is on for tonight at 9:00 PM CST so you need to listen in to see what kind of crazy stuff we have cooked up.
At any rate, if you want to stay on top of these contests, I strongly suggest that you sign up for the mailing list. I’ll give you guys the advance notice on the upcoming contests I’ll be running along with weekly recaps of Theater Hopper news. Who knows – I might just offer my next DVD giveaway to my mailing list subscribers EXCLUSIVELY! But you’ll never know unless you sign up!
Talk to you all tonight during The Triple Feature talkcast. Take care!
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Oct02
Like John Irving or Alan Moore, Steven King is one of those writers who can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to the translation of his ideas to a visual medium. For every Misery, there’s a Thinner. One could argue that the best Stephen King adaptation contained the least amount of his vision. Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining stands a a beacon of psychological horror.
Maybe there’s less to be said about the filmmaker’s role in these adaptations as there is to say about King’s choice in subject matter. 1408 – originally a short story about a haunted hotel room – is another great piece of psychological horror that stands just below The Shining in it’s effectiveness.
In 1408 (on 2-disc DVD on October 2), John Cusack stars at Mike Enslin, a jaded author who abandons his wife after the death of their daughter writing travel novels about haunted hotels. He has become jaded in his travels and is thoroughly convinced that there is no such thing as an afterlife.
After another unsuccessful trip, he receives a mysterious postcard from The Dolphin Hotel in New York with the foreboding warning “Don’t enter 1408.” Intrigued, Mike begins to do research about the room’s grisly past.
It isn’t long before Mike is in New York squaring off against Samuel L. Jackson as the hotel manager Gerald Olin doing everything in his power to prevent Mike from staying in room 1408. He offers to upgrade him to the penthouse, bribes him with an $800 bottle of cognac and even gives him complete access to the hotels files on all the guests who’ve perished in the room so he will write his story and leave.
Jackson delivers an expertly grim performance as Olin. But only do the production diaries (an extra on the DVD) reveal the genius of his casting.
As written, Olin was a short, chubby white man of European descent. It was Quentin Tarantino who first suggested Jackson when he was given first pass at the script. An interview with Cusack summarizes things quite well. “If a English bellhop tells you ‘Don’t go in the room.’ you’re gonna go in the room. But if Sam Jackson says ‘Don’t go in the room.’ you DON’T want to go in the room. He’s a good crypt keeper. If it’s enough to scare Sam, it’s gonna scare you. So he gives it a kind of existential street cred.”
For all intents and purposes, the movie is being held up almost entirely by Cusack’s talent. Trapped in 1408, he is given nothing to interact with except the environment. As the room starts taking the shames of his past and using them as weapons against him, there is only Cusack there to convince you of the harrowing plunge into his own mind.
The first half of the film is effectively terrifying as director Mikael Håfström squeezes every last drop of tension from the commonplace surroundings of 1408 to keep you on edge. In what the film refers to as “the banality of evil,” you feel more fear waiting for something to leap out from the shadows than you do when things finally come off the rails and the haunted room starts to throw everything it has at our hero. To put it another way, after watching this movie you’ll never feel the same about “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters ever again.
I have a great deal of respect for this film. Not just for the performances or it’s director, but for the expert production design and effects work. Again, the production diaries reveal a great deal of 1408’s secrets and exactly what went into making such a confined space work in a horror setting.
Additional extras on the DVD are standard fare. Deleted scenes, webisodes, trailers and commentary from the writers and director. The film comes with both the theatrical cut and the extended directors cut with an alternate ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but the alternate ending isn’t much different from the original. It just adds an extra joy-buzzer jolt. So including it to add value to the purchase is somewhat superfluous. Cleverly, the packaging comes with fake postcards from The Dolphin inviting guests to stay in the room of the dammed.
Ultimately, 1408 probably will not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a film like The Shining, but Stephen King should be proud of the adaptation nonetheless. It is great entertainment that represents him well.
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Oct03
So you probably can see where this week of strips is headed, but I’ve decided I’m going to run the joke into the ground anyway. In a way it seems almost fair. Viggo Mortensen’s nude scene in Eastern Promises seems to be the most memorable thing about Eastern Promises. Why not play it to the hilt?
You can expect more wang-talk on Friday. It’s all part of my orchestrated campaign to take "wang" away from Penny Arcade.
I guess it’s a little unfair to say that the ONLY thing people are taking from Eastern Promises is the naked knife fight. Gordon and Joe both saw the movie and we discussed it at length on Monday’s Triple Feature talkcast. If you missed it, you should download it. No technical problems this time! Yay! We’re quasi-professional!
I don’t have much else for you today except I think I made the decision to go forward with redesigning the site in WordPress with the ComicPress template plugin. I’m a little intimidated because I don’t want the site to look like every other site that uses WordPress. I understand that their code is very flexible, but then you get into the "Will I break it?" paranoia. I’ve got someone helping me on the back end, but does anyone have experience designing WordPress templates on the front end? If so, drop me a line.
I probably won’t have the site redesigned until the first of 2008 anyway. But I guess I just wanted to share with you that I’ve picked a direction. Hopefully making the switch will provide a spam-free environment for a comments section, the links to social networking that I want and a more robust search engine for you guys to use.
The one thing I hesitate about? Losing the Top 50 polling information. Man, I love that.
Oh, well. I’m sure there’s a mod similar to that somewhere, right?
Have a great Wednesday!
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Hey, guys!
I just wanted to send a quick note to everyone to let them know that we’ve recently upgraded the RSS feed for the site. Whereas before there would be one post with the link and title of the most recent comic and another post with the most recent blog, we’ve now compiled everything into a single post! As an added value, you can now also SEE the comic in the feed. It’s not a lonely link anymore!
There was some concern about posting the comic and blog independent of the site. If you’re reading it in the feed, you’re not coming to the site and that kind of sucks because I’m missing out on the traffic. But then I figured “Who cares?” Because if the point is to get the comic in front of as many people as possible, it’s limiting to say “This is the only way you get to see it.” That’s like saying “I’ve got a great widget, but I’m only going to advertise it on radio!” Make the tools available to people to read your stuff the way they want to read it and let the chips fall where they may!
MAJOR credit goes out to my man Anthony DiSanti. He wrote the entire script and put up with several back and forth messages as we tweaked things. He did this all while taking Finance and Information Systems classes at NYU and working a part time job. He’s a friggin’ dynamo and I totally appreciate his hard work to help me bring this to you.
Anthony has a web site you can vist it at http://anthonydisanti.blogspot.com. Why don’t you swing by and say “Hi” and thank him for all his hard work! Thank you, Anthony!
You can subscribe to the RSS feed using the reader of your choice through FeedBurner. Here’s the link:
And, if you’re on LiveJournal, you can add Theater Hopper to your friends list here:
Happy reading, everyone!
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You didn’t think you were going to get away with a week of me talking about Viggo Mortensen’s wang without an appearance from Victor, did you? I mean, Mortensen’s character is Russian in Eastern Promises, after all. And, well, Victor is from the Ukraine, which is kind of like Russia and… maybe gay?
I swear, any more when I use Victor, his behavior gets more and more extreme while Tom’s reaction to it becomes more and more blind. I suppose I only have one person to thank for this – Brandon J. Carr. He’s the dude who came up with the Victor subplot in a guest strip way back in March of ’06. Guess what? Now he’s got his OWN comic to do that in!
You might have remembered Brandon wrote and drew the excellent Kenmore. His new comic is called Weird Adventures in Unemployment. Show him your support and get in on his comic early on. I know it’s already found a snuggly spot in MY bookmarks!
Tell you what – it’s the end of the week and I’m feelin’ kind of randy. This works out perfect because I’m also feeling generous.
I have three copies of The Sarah Silverman Program: Season One on DVD to giveaway. If you didn’t catch it earlier this year on Comedy Central, than you missed out. It was everything I like about Sarah Silverman packed neatly into 22 minute episodes. Because – let’s face it – sometimes a little bit of Sarah will go a long way.
But if your into off-color humor – you know, sort of like today’s comic! – you’ll get a kick out of this. The DVD just came out in stores this Tuesday. So if you win one, you might be the coolest kid on the block
I’m going to make this contest kind of hard on you. It has to do with the title of today’s comic – “PALOMINO.” If you can figure out the reference of the title within the context of today’s strip and e-mail it to me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com, then all of the correct answers will be thrown into a hat and three winners will be chosen at random.
Up to the challenge? Then get crackin’! It beats doing REAL work, that’s for sure!
Good luck and have a great weekend!
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I just had to leave a quick post to say that it’s been very entertaining reading some of the guesses for The Sarah Silverman Program: Season One contest giveaway. Some of you guys have guessed correctly and a few of you are hilariously off base – but God bless ya for trying!
Keep ’em coming, guys!
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Good day, all. Welcome to another exciting Monday!
Sorry if I’m drawing out this Eastern Promises-inspired S&M nightmare a little too long. But I love jokes that have that awkward pauses in the middle of them and when I thought about Tom’s prediciment in Friday’s strip, I couldn’t resist. It’s kind of a low pitch, but I take pleasure from rounding out the narrative. I promise we’ll move on to greener pastures soon.
I just wanted to take a moment to touch on the contest from last Friday where I announced that I would be giving away three copies of The Sarah Silverman Program: Seasone One on DVD. I made it a trivia contest of sorts – challenging readers to uncover the reference in the title of Friday’s comic (“PALOMINO”) within the context of the comic and e-mail me their guesses. From those that guessed correctly, three winners would be randomly selected.
Okay, first thing I want to say that this contest gathered more entries than another other contest I’ve run so far. I don’t know how much of that is due to it being the prize itself, the knowledge-flexing nature of the contest or what. But I think part of it has to do with notifying my readers about it in a weekly recap through Theater Hopper’s mailing list. I noticed a spike shortly after I sent the message.
If you guys are interested in signing up for the mailing list, you can do so here. You’ll get one e-mail from me a week – THAT’S IT. And I will be recapping the comics, and any contests or reviews that we run.
More on that later. But for right now, I want to get back to the Sarah Silverman contest.
So like I said, this has been our most successful contest so far. Of all the enteries, half of you caught the reference and the other did not. In some respects I was surprised at how many people knew what I was talking about. It’s somewhat obscure unless you’re a fan of late night comedy.
Oh, alright. I won’t torture you anymore. Here’s the answer to Friday’s contest giveaway trivia question:
It’s the opening sketch from the November 11, 2006 Saturday Night Live with Kristin Wiig as newly elected Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi. In it, she congratulates voters for ignoring warnings from the adminstration of Democrats “San Francisco values” and for turning out to the polls in record numbers to send the message that “‘stay the course in Iraq’ is not a plan; that our health care system should serve ordinary citizens, not pharmaceutical companies; that so-called rough sex can be a necessary and fulfilling adjunct to a better sex life – partiularly when it involves fantasy role-play scenarios, such as kidnapping or forced interrogation, provided, of course, that both participants are willing and disease-free, and have agreed on what we call a “safe word” – for example: ‘Palomino’…”
I don’t know why, but the sketch stuck with me and, well, that’s the reference!
As entertaining as I found the sketch, I found some of the answers equally entertaining. Some of you took the meaning of the comic title literally and thought I was refering to horses. Some people extrapolated that conclusion and referenced Hidalgo – a movie about an international horse race that Viggo Mortensen starred in back in 2004. Some people took that idea, flipped it and got more personal with it. Suggesting that since Mortensen rode a Palomino stallion in Hidalgo and because he’s naked in Eastern Promises that he must be “hung like a horse” and that was the reference. Yikes!
Some people were very matter-of-fact about what they thought the reference was. Since Tom was asking about the safe word in the punchline of Friday’s comic, they assumed “Palomino” was that word. In a general sense, they’re right. But for the purposes of the contest, I needed them to be more specific.
Probably the most out-there guess I recieved was when someone talked about a strip club in Las Vegas called the Palomino and surmized that might be a place Victor would frequent. I thought it was crackers until two or three more people submitted entries with the same guess. I gotta get out more.
At any rate, it was a fun contest and the winners have been notified. My thanks to everyone who entereted.
For those of you who didn’t win, don’t worry. We’ll have a new contest up and running on Wednesday and this one will only be made available to those of you who are currently on the mailing list.
It’s going to be pretty straight forward. I send a message to everyone on the mailing list with a clue. If you want to be enterted, mail the clue back to me and you’ll be chosen at random! I’ll be delivering more specifics about WHICH DVD I’m giving away on Wednesday. But you probably want to sign up for the mailing list now to hedge your bets!
Remember, only one recap message from me a week and occassionally there will be mailing-list only contests that will not be made available on the main site!
The Triple Feature talkcast – Monday, 9PM CST, TalkShoe.com
Before I forget, I want to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. This evening, Gordon, Joe and I will be discussing the films of Wes Anderson in honor of his latest release, The Darjeeling Limited. I don’t think we’ve ever concentrated an episode around one filmmaker, so it should be a lot of fun. Whether you have opinions about Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tennebaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or are eagerly anticipating The Darjeeling Limited, be sure to listen in tonight LIVE as we broadcast at 9:00 PM CST and talk about all of them! See you then!
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Just when you think you’re through the thicket, there is always another snag.
I have to admit that when I first saw the posters for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I thought it was a re-release of the 1998 original Elizabeth that introduced Cate Blanchette to American audiences with her Oscar nominated performance. I thought it must have been a director’s cut or extended edition. It never occured to me that it could be a sequel. A sequel to Star Wars you expect. A sequel to Jurassic Park you expect. I don’t think there are that many people looking for sequels to historical dramas. It would be like doing a sequel to Joan of Arc. “Ooo! What happens next?”
Of course, when you look at the cast for this film, it becomes clear how they got it off the ground. In addition to Blanchette, it boasts Samantha Morton, Rhys Ifans, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh. Impressive, to say the least.
So maybe Tom’s reaction in the comic is a bit extreme. It’s not like he’s being asked to sit through Rush Hour 3.
You guys have been listening to me squawk about a special mailing-list only DVD giveaway in this space for a couple of days now. I wanted to finally let you know what the fuss was about.
Evan Almighty was released on DVD yesterday and I have one copy on DVD to giveaway to subscribers to the mailing list. A message with a special clue has already been sent to subscribers. Those interested in being eligible need only reply with their name and mailing address. All entries will be thrown into a hat and a winner will be selected at random. The contest ends this Friday.
From the press release: “Funnyman Steve Carell (The Office) is at his hilarious best as Evan Baxter. When his simple wish to change the world turns into a baffling request from God (Academy Award® winner Morgan Freeman) to build an ark, Evan’s seemingly perfect life is turned upside down. With the help of his family and a comical cast of animals, Evan’s unbelievable adventure becomes a life-changing experience filled with laugh-out-loud moments. Co-starring Lauren Graham (The Gilmore Girls), John Goodman (Cars), Wanda Sykes (Monster-in-Law), Jonah Hill (Knocked Up) and Molly Shannon (Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby).”
Bonus features on the disc include:
And, for giggles, here are a couple of exclusive clips from the movie for your enjoyment:
As I said, the message to subscribers of the mailing list has already been sent. So if you weren’t on the list before reading today’s comic, you missed out.
But don’t worry! There will be more mailing list exclusive giveaways in the future. To be eligible, all you have to do is sign up! In exchange, one little e-mail from me at the end of the week recapping all the goings on here at Theater Hopper. A small price to pay for free stuff!
That’s all I have for today. Have a great Wednesday everyone!
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So lately my comics have kind of de-evolved into weird sexual deviancy, haven’t they? I blame these early fall indie films. They all try to be so quirky and idiosyncratic. What with their loose morals!
Oh, who am I kidding. I’m a freak. Lock me up and throw away the key.
Lock me up in the basement, mistress.
Ugh.
Actually, Lars and the Real Girl looks like a real winner to me. Believe it or not, whenever the commercials come on, Cami speaks up immediately and tells me “I want to see that!”
In case you haven’t heard the plot, Ryan Gosling plays a kind of lovable dufus who purchases a very authentic looking sex doll off the internet and tries to pass her off as his girlfriend. It sounds twisted. Kind of like if Jan Brady saw her invention of fake boyfriend George Glass taken to it’s ultimate conclusion. But for Gosling’s character, it’s not about sex or deviancy. It’s about forging a deep emotional connection with someone – something. Sad and pathetic in it’s own way, but also very honest and brave. So, his family and friends indulge him.
I think it’s pretty smart of Gosling to take a role like this. It’s still in that “daring” category that he like to frequent, but it’s less dour and “Serious” with a capital “S” like his roles in Half Nelson or The Believer. Heck, that moustache alone is comedy. Since when did the Burt Reynold’s late 70’s porn ‘stache become instant comedy? For reference, see My Name Is Earl.
I’m going to tell you right now that next week is going to be kind of squirrely for me. My day job is sending me to Chicago for a three day training seminar in ActionScript. I’m looking forward to learning something new, but it’s going to suck to be away from Cami and Henry for so long. Maybe my good friend Gordon from Multiplex will keep me company. We’ve talked about trying to be in the same room together for our weekly broadcast of The Triple Feature.
At any rate, the point is that updates are going to be screwy next week. Because of my responsibilities at home, it’s difficult for me to work ahead. So I don’t have any comics on deck. I’ve sent out a few e-mails asking for guest strips, but I’m having trouble. If anyone thinks they can knock one out of the park, e-mail me before Sunday.
I will mention that next week Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror comes out on DVD and I have a review copy sitting on my desk at this very moment. I didin’t get to see Grindhouse in theaters earlier this year and I regret it. But at the same time, I’m a little worried about sitting down and watching Planet Terror because I’m not a big fan of zombie movies or excessive gore. But what I’ve heard from friends is that the gore is so comicly over-the-top, it’s not as bad as I’ve probably built it up in my head. So, with any luck, I’ll sit down this weekend to watch it and have a review for you next Tuesday. If there are no comics, in the very least, you’ll have that.
Oh, and I have another contest lined up next week related to Planet Terror you might be interested in. No, sorry. I don’t have extra copies of the DVD to give out. But I do have something… unique.
See for yourself…
Stay tuned for details on how to make this yours.
Have a good weekend everybody!
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