Posts Tagged ‘anger’
6 items.
I decided to take another swing at Anger Management today because it’s quickly become the only movie this season I’m excited to see. A lot of industry analysts are saying the same thing – it looks to be the first sure-fire hit of the year.
And it only took you four months to get around to it. Way to go, Hollywood. -yawn!-
That said, it doesn’t look like we’ll get a chance to see it this weekend unless we catch a matinee. Tonight I’m going out with friends to get drunk in an English-themed pub. Tomorrow I’m going out with a different set of friends to get drunk at a Japanese restaurant. Yes, I’m quite the continental fellow.
I should say that today’s comic is about as far as you can get from a fair representation of Cami – and for me, that’s what makes it hilarious. Plus, isn’t a girl picking a guy up by his throat, by default, funny?
Truth be told, Cami is far and away the more mellow between the two of us. I’m more likely to fly off the handle 10 times more often than she will. What can I say? I just live my life passionately!
I heard today that the guy who made Daredevil is signed on to direct Ghost Rider. Nicholas Cage is set to play the demon biker Johnny Blaze. I don’t know how to feel about that. Ghost Rider is one of my favorite comic book anti-heroes. He’s just a bad-ass character. I’m glad to see an adaptation come to the screen, I just hope they don’t muck it up. Isn’t Nicholas Cage getting a little old for comic book movies?
Speaking of comic book movies, you need to visit this site RIGHT NOW to download the new Matrix trailer. It looks so good, I can practically smell the leather overcoats.
When I asked interested parties to send me e-mails in regard to the poster I am working up, the response was strong and positive. You guys all sound on board for it, so I’m forging ahead!
I need to clarify something, however. I still plan to sell the posters for $5, but to this point, I’ve made no mention of shipping and handling. If you want a poster, I’m going to have to charge for that as well. I plan on shipping out the posters in cardboard tubes so they don’t crease, and shipping will cost a little more since it’s an irregular package. Expect to tack on another $2 to $3 to your purchase.
This is not meant to dissuade you, but I wanted to mention it in the interest of being forthright.
Truthfully, the whole set up is still a good value for your money. Especially when you consider that there will only be 100 of these posters made and I intend on signing and numbering each one. Just because I’m feeling generous, I’ll toss in a short personal note to boot!
Thanks again for all your enthusiasm. You guys really make this worthwhile. Have a great weekend.
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Oct20
C’mon. You didn’t think I was going to let the week slide by without taking some shots at our resident, Theater Hopper punching bag Ben Affleck did you?
If you REALLY want to see Jared blow his top, click here and vote for Theater Hopper at buzzComix to view the extra, incentive sketch.
Watching the trailers for Surviving Christmas, I don’t have much to complain about. The movie seems like a fairly harmless holiday confection where desperate people learn valuable lessons about themselves, their families and “THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS” ™. A pleasant distraction.
TOO BAD THEY’RE RELEASING IT IN FRONT OF THE WRONG, STINKING HOLIDAY!
Halloween is two weeks away. What business does a Christmas movie have cluttering up the multiplexes, confusing the issue? The Grudge, I understand. Saw, I understand. Surviving Christmas… I do not understand.
DreamWorks, what are you thinking? I don’t remember a disconnecting in marketing this bad since Disney released The Santa Clause 2 on October 27, 2002.
All I’m saying is that Surviving Christmas better be really funny if it’s going to get over the hump of not one, but two holidays in two months before putting it’s intended target – Christmas – between its sights.
Will the movie even last that long in theaters? It could potentially be on video and on sale for the holidays before it even makes it to the celebration of its namesake!
I was going to extend compliments to the considerable talents of Affleck’s co-stars James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Catherine O’Hara. But at this point, I’m having trouble circumnavigating the absurdity of it all.
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There are some pretty serious problems in the world. But, really – who cares, right? Britney Spears just Botoxed her forehead!
Okay, I know that’s a little sanctimonious. But I’m making fun of myself just as much as the culture that spawned me. Jared’s discriminating taste in regard to a celebrity he chooses to focus his hatred on is a fairly minor concern in the large scheme of things. But how many people do you know retreat into the world of celebrity-bashing when the Real World becomes too oppressive. Exactly. They have a whole network that revolves around it, for goodness sakes!
Has anyone noticed that I’ve been trying to mix things up with the panel arrangement in the last few strips? Something I overlooked during my time with Juice was creative panel arrangement. In the strips I would have to repurpose for the publication, I would have to remain really rigid about the four-panel layout. Because instead of the two-on-two stacked arrangement we have on the site, it was four panels wide in print.
All part of those pesky “patterns” I fell into.
At any rate, I’m really enjoying mixing it up a little. It’s weird to keep drawing Jared so exaggerated. But I suppose since now I’ve established that he’s aggressively bi-polar, I can get away with it.
I’m very excited because I finally scheduled a day off for myself Friday, November 9 to work on the redesign of the site. My good friend Brian Arnold has got us all hooked up through WordPress and now it’s just a matter of me sitting down and designing a page template that I’m going to turn over to a generous reader by the name of Keith Solomon who will transform it into something I can use for WordPress.
Believe me, this is going to be great. The archive system will be beefed up, there will be a calendar on the home page, the commenting system will be back and we have WordPress’s power running the whole thing.
Optimistically, once I get this up and running, I might bring the THorum back, too.
It’s time to circle the wagons. Theater Hopper had a great year in 2006, but 2007 was a little fractured for me. I really want to take the time to make this site a destination for people again – a community. Because that’s a big part of why I got into this in the first place.
Anyway, I guess I can’t share anything more exciting than “I’m taking a day off!” I can’t say for sure when the changeover to WordPress will occur. But I have my sights set for January ’08. Stay tuned.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend, everybody!
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It would be petty and small to hold against The Wachowski’s and refuse to see Speed Racer based on the mismanagement of The Matrix trillogy.
Still – I have to wonder if some of that was in play this weekend consider the movie’s second place finish at the box office. It’s share of the pie was $20.2 million. Under normal circumstances, that would be quite respectable. Even in the face of Iron Man’s $100 million bow a week ago (and it’s 50% drop off this week) you wouldn’t fault Speed Racer for making an honest attempt.
The clencher is that the Cameron Diaz / Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy boiler plate What Happens In Vegas… was nipping at their heels wth $20 million. Long term, this can’t be good for Speed Racer.
When I first saw the trailer for Speed Racer, visually I thought it was a marvel. If anything, the extensive and experimental CG work is what was going to get me through the door. The Wachowski’s pedigree in this era has already been firmly established. What would they come up with next?
But as time went on, my enthusiasm for the film faltered. The marketing of the film couldn’t seem to decide if it was a kids movie or a straight up action picture. As reviews started filtering in, the consensus was that it was a kids film – which is fine. But we were also being told that it was over two hours long – entirely too long for a film with a threadbare plot. After that, the bottom fell out and I lost interest.
After a while, however, I started to feel guilty about not wanting to see Speed Racer. It seemed unfair to hold it up against the last two Matrix movies. Maybe they were going in another direction? Maybe I would kick myself for missing it. The 35% positive score at Rotton Tomatoes seemed to reflect a williness for critics to hate this movie out of the gate and, admittedly, I saw a lot of that reaction online as well. I became convinced that Speed Racer wasn’t getting a fair shake.
I wasn’t able to make it to Speed Racer this weekend. Instead I saw Iron Man for the second time with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while. By the time I was weighing my options and considered going on Sunday night, box office reports were in and things looked dire.
I feel somewhat lame admitting that I was influenced by Rotten Tomatoes and box office figures, but I never felt a strong affinity for Speed Racer and – if I went at all – it would be more out of some sort of geek-cred obligation. The stats and figures eventually supported my decision in a way that I felt was fair. You can’t argue with the numbers.
I know some people will dispute me. After all, I’m the guy who was ready to follow Iron Man into hell. If the movie sucked, I would have denied it to my dying day. I’m sure there are some people who feel the same way about Speed Racer. Personally, I would love to hear that perspective. It may not be too late to change my mind. But we’ll see.
Tonight on The Triple Feature talkcast, we’ll be talking about Speed Racer and – from what I’ve heard – Joe loved it. Joe can sometimes be a little sensitive about explaining why he liked a film when he’s in the minority, so we’ll have to see if we can coax it out of him. I’m really most interested in understanding what I’m missing. Barring that, you can always go to his site and read his review.
We’ll also be talking about next week’s big release Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. More specifically, I will be talking about the re-release of the original films on DVD in stores tomorrow. I received advanced copies and Cami and I watched all three films last week. I have some particular insights about the extras included with this release and plan on sharing them tonight. There will also be a full review here on the site tomorrow.
Remember, the show starts at 9:00 PM CST and you can participate LIVE. So if you saw Speed Racer over the weekend and want to chime in, please do so! We’d love to hear your thoughts!
See you then!
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For the record, I have to state that I do not PERSONALLY think Orson Welles is a failure. But in order to create conflict and move the plot forward, I have to put comic-Tom in an aggressive stance and have him say something inflammatory to provoke our guest – Brian Carroll from Instant Classic.
Comic-Tom is taking the short view on Welles’s career. One mired by depression, morbid obesity and borderline alcoholism. All of which are handily (sadly) represented in these infamous out-takes from a commercial Welles did for California Champagne company Paul Masson.
Of course, it doesn’t help that the most visible representation of Welles in the last 15 years comes from this parody piece from The Critic. Which, I have to admit, played a role in defining Welles as a individual for me several years before I studied him or even knew who he was…
This, of course, being a satirical twist on the also infamous audio outtakes from a radio spot Welles did for a company that sold frozen peas.
Think about this for a minute: The director of what is argued to be The Greatest Motion Picture of All Time arguing with some marketing guy about the copy he’s being paid to read in a frozen peas radio commercial. It’s just… bizarre.
Of course, these late-career foibles are easy to reach for when you’re trying to make an argument against Welles and his impact. Personally, I think he was a genius. If maybe a genius who got in his own way a little too often.
But put it in context. If you made Citizen Kane and followed up with The Magnificent Ambersons, I think that means you pretty much get a free pass career-wise for the rest of your life. Those were two big, important, stylistically rich films that everyone not only needs to see, but to own. It’s important film history – work the set the template for countless films that followed.
There’s a reason everyone recognizes “Rosebud,” even if they don’t know what it means.
I don’t know if I would have been compelled to add this disclaimer under normal circumstances. But I’ve already gotten a few people writing to ask “Why do you hate Orson Welles.” I don’t hate Orson Welles. I think he’s awesome. I’m just sacrificing my comic avatar for the sake of moving the plot forward.
I think I’m going to wrap up this story line on Wednesday, so be sure to come back for that. Afterwords, it’ll be back to making fun of what’s currently in theaters!
See you then. Have a great day, everyone!
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To follow up a little bit on the blog post from yesterday, I wanted to let all of you know how Pearl was doing.
Apparently, after being very cranky and moody at day care all day, she was telling us that her ear was hurting. Fearing an ear infection (and another night without sleep), Cami took her to our pediatrician and – sure enough – she had an ear infection.
This is the second ear infection Pearl has had in a month. She had one for Mother’s Day. Looks like she’ll have one for Father’s Day. Parenting is fun!
I don’t know what it is with Brazelton kids and ear infections. Between Henry and Pearl, I’ve lost track of how many they’ve had. They’ve both had tubes put in their ears. Henry’s ear infections were so bad, he eventually had his adenoids removed! I don’t know if we’re on the same path with Pearl or not. She just went to the ENT for a checkup last week and was given a clean bill of health. Just goes to show how fast these things knock the little ones out, I guess.
Anyway, I won’t bother you with that stuff anymore. Just wanted to give you a little background information.
I’m trying to move the ball up the field a little bit with today’s comic, getting closer to the finale. Feeling rejected, Victor takes out his aggression in the closet where he kept all his photos of Tom. This was a concept that was introduced in a guest strip by Brandon J. Carr back in 2006 and it totally changed the direction of the character for me.
I decided to adopt what Brandon had played off as a joke into the comic. Originally, I intended Victor to be a standard authority figure for Tom, Cami and Jared to play off of. But his secret infatuation with Tom made him more interesting. Can’t thank Brandon enough for that idea!
Incidentally, I’m still accepting guest strips from anyone who wants to say “goodbye” in their own artistic style. Keep it clean, 525 pixels wide and in a JPEG format and we should be cool. You can send it to me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com.
I’m trying my darnedest to increase the production schedule on the comic. I have the last few weeks plotted out in my head and I’m starting to worry I won’t make my self-imposed August 6 “deadline.”
I suppose if I go a little over, that’s not the worst thing in the world. But when I’ve been making the rounds since January telling everyone “I’m ending the comic on August 6! I’m ending the comic on August 6!” failing to hit that mark is kind of embarrassing.
I guess we’ll see how it goes! Keep your eyes on the site and I’ll talk to you soon!
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