Posts Tagged ‘Halloween’
18 items.
I did a comic somewhat similar to this one back in August of 2007 when Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween hit theaters. For me, it makes no sense to release a movie CALLED “Halloween” two months before the holiday. You’d think that it was a marketing no-brainer.
Consider the thought that there are potential ticket buyers who have no idea what Halloween is about or who Michael Myers is. What are the odds that, come October, they might be standing in front of a box office somewhere, see “Halloween” on the marquee and say “Oh, we should see that because Halloween is next week.” You’d think the odds of that occurring would improve, wouldn’t you?
After the first remake of Halloween was released in 2007, it was explained to me later that the studio dropped the movie in August so they didn’t have to compete with Saw IV. They appear to be doing the same thing with Halloween II to stay out of the way of Saw VI being released on October 23. That makes sense. The Saw franchise has basically owned Halloween since 2004.
But why late August? Why not September? There are four horror movies being released in September – Carriers, Sorority Row, Jennifer’s Body and Pandorum. Each one is being released on a week separate from the other and none of them are franchise films and none of them appear to be serious contenders. It stands to reason that Halloween II could wipe the floor with any one of them.
Instead they’re going head-to-head with The Final Destination, the fourth movie of a popular franchise that decided to make their film 3D to boot.
To me it shows a real lack of faith in Zombie’s movie. If the studio had any stones at all, they’d at least slate it in the first week of October. No horror movies until Zombieland the following week (which is really more of a comedy) and maybe you stand a chance of taking the wind out of the sails of Saw VI.
If there’s something I’m missing, please explain it to me. Am I crazy? What about the rest of you guys? Any plans on seeing Halloween II this weekend? If you were forced to choose between Halloween II and The Final Destination (in 3D!!!), what would you pick? Leave your comments below!
[ 27 Comments ]
Sep09
GUEST STRIP – PAUL SOUTHWORTH
September 9th, 2009 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(20 votes, average: 8.75 out of 10)
Today’s guest comic comes to us from Paul Southworth, formerly of Ugly Hill and currently from You Are Dead over at Crispy Gamer.
Paul was a total rock star putting together this comic. He was quick to respond when I asked if he could help me out and was really excited about it along the way.
Before submitting it to me, he asked if I had anything planned for 9 and I had to admit I did not. Within a couple of hours, he sent the finished comic and I was blown away! I seriously need to pick his brain about how to do backgrounds. He only throws in a couple of details, but does a much better job of giving the characters a believable space to operate in than I do.
Oh, and the joke is funny, too! ;D
Be sure to check out You Are Dead over at Crispy Gamer and don’t forget to look up Ugly Hill while you’re at it. Paul isn’t updating Ugly Hill anymore, but the archives are still online and well worth your time.
If you have a Twitter account, I suggest following him there as well. I find his updates consistently hilarious and a fun addition to my Twitter feed.
Thanks again, Paul, for the excellent guest strip!
As for 9, I keep forgetting it’s in theaters today. I don’t know if it’s because it’s coming out on a Wednesday or because I haven’t seen ads for it or what. But it feels like it’s off my radar.
I want to see 9, but I don’t feel as excited for it as some people seem to. It looks interesting, but it doesn’t look like a must-see to me.
The movie is being billed first as “Produced by” Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov which doesn’t reflect the awesome team-up potential those names together might inspire. Basically all it says is that they liked the source material and put up some money to see the movie made. Shane Acker is the director and is essentially an unknown quantity with a handful of credits to his name.
I would say that I was impressed by the voice talent in this movie – Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly and Elijah Wood all star – but, truthfully, voice over work is such an easy paycheck for these actors, it’s hard to get excited about the movie on name recognition alone.
Basically I’m expecting to see a movie unlike anything visually put to screen before. But in terms of story and plot… well, the jury is still out.
What are your thoughts about 9? Are you going to try to see it today, or is everyone staying indoors to play Rock Band: The Beatles?
Happy 9.9.09, everyone! Remember: this will never happen again! Well, until 10.10.10 – which is basically the same thing.
Cheers!
[ 14 Comments ]
I always feel a little bit dodgey doing jokes about box office results. I always fear that it plays a little to inside and the numbers really aren’t that important to the average movie goer. Box office results only matter to the studios, the filmmakers and the movie bloggers desperate for something to talk about.
That said, I’m REALLY pleased that Paranormal Activity beat out Saw VI at the box office this weekend (I pretty much begged for these results on last Monday’s The Triple Feature).
Paranormal Activity earned $22 million over Saw VI’s $14.8 million. That’s quite a smackdown. Especially when you consider Saw VI was on over 1,000 more screens than its competitor and Paranormal Activity was in it’s second week of screenings. Smelling blood in the water, critics are already starting to wonder out loud if this is the end of the Saw franchise.
If you enjoy the Saw movies, then that’s your prerogative. I guess what I’ve resisted is the ritualistic behavior of “Whoops! It’s Halloween! Time to see another Saw movie!” It doesn’t leave a lot of room for innovation. Considering what a jolt to the system the original Saw was, I think it’s a disappointing fall from grace for the franchise to be another by-the-numbers torture porn money maker for Lionsgate.
Then again, Lionsgate as a studio isn’t really known for restraint. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they will run this franchise into the ground after wringing every last possible dollar from it.
It should be noted that Paramount is already considering a sequel to Paranormal Activity. Considering it cost about $15,000 and has earned nearly $64 million at the box office so far, that’s not surprising.
I don’t think fans have to worry about Paramount running this franchise into the ground like Lionsgate has with Saw, though. With an eye toward history, the last time this kind of word-of-mouth phenomenon occured, it was for The Blair Witch Project. When Artisan Pictures turned around a sequel immediately following the original, they gave us Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and it tanked… hard. I could see something similar happening to Paranormal Activity if Paramount isn’t smart.
When phenomenon like this occur, people are reacting to more than just a really good horror movie. I think they’re connecting with the authenticity of it. More than other splatter-fests with no-name actors and unkillable boogeymen, I think the reason Paranormal Activity is crossing over from traditional horror fans into the mainstream is because of its rags to riches story compounded by the excellent word-of-mouth. The idea being “If they can scare the living daylights out of hard-core horror fans with a budget of $15,000, then this must be something to see.”
Long story short, I think if Paramount tries to put lightning in a bottle twice, they going to get electrocuted.
In other news, Theater Hopper: Year One and Year Two were reviewed over at This Week in Webcomics – which is timely, becuase I’m planning another major push to get Theater Hopper: Year Three published by the end of the year.
Noting the success of my friend Gordon’s fund raising for the first print collection of Multiplex using Kickstarter (not to mention the success of Spike from Templar, AZ in her fund raising efforts has convinced me to utilize Kickstarter as a tool to help me meet my goals. So stay tuned for news there.
In the meantime, please go read the book reviews over at This Week in Webcomics. They put a lot of thought and effort into them and I think you’ll enjoy their insights.
In the meantime, I hope you make plans to listen to The Triple Feature movie podcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com. We’ll be talking about Saw VI and, well… I’m not sure what else! But it’ll be a good time, that’s for sure! I look forward to it every Monday night. Be there!
[ 11 Comments ]
The Michael Jackson concert documentary This Is It comes out today for a limited two-week run. Without getting into the sticket-wicket of commenting on the singer’s personal life, I will say that I’ve always enjoyed Jackson’s music and obvious talent. But as an “event”, This Is It doesn’t feel like something I need to participate in.
The movie is a compilation of interviews, rehearsals and backstage footage assembled as Jackson was preparing for a series of sold-out shows in London. That’s great – I mean, who wouldn’t want to see the behind-the-scenes footage of what was meant to be one of the largest concert spectacles of the last 20 years. But from a narrative standpoint, what exactly is going to be the payoff?
I mean, it’s not like we’re going to see the result of all this hard work and preparation. We’re not going to see Jackson on stage in front of tens of thousand screaming fans, pouring his heart and soul into the music and delivering the performance of a lifetime. We’re going to see him on stage at the Staples Center standing in front of a bunch of backup dancers wearing wifebeaters and track pants.
At least, that’s my impression of it.
From an entertainment perspective, I’m not sure what the audience is meant to take away from This Is It. At the end of the day, the man is dead. We’ll never know what could have been. So is the movie meant to memorialize him in some way or are the producers counting on some kind of morbid curiosity on the audience’s part to investegate Jackson’s last recorded performance.
There is a stop-and-look-at-the-car-crash element to this that I am skeptical of.
But to each his own. If you plan on checking out This Is It during its theatrical run, I’d love to hear what you thought about it!
As for the movie’s release, so precariously close to Halloween? I don’t really think anyone would show up at the theater dressed up like Zombie Michael Jackson. But if you’re going to any Halloween parties this year, I bet you’ll see more than one.
To a certain extent, it’s unavoidable. Certainly Jackson himself didn’t help matters any by setting the template for a zombiefied “look” with his video for “Thriller” over 25 years ago. Of course there is the bigger-than-life persona of the man himself. A celebrity of his stature is simply going to attract this kind of weird homage.
But if you take the macro view, it’s kind of weird dressing up as a dead celebrity for a holiday, isn’t it? I mean, how many people are going to go to a Halloween party dressed as Ed McMahon or Farrah Fawcett? Maybe they’re just not as iconic. Food for thought, I suppose.
What about the rest of you? Any ambition to see This Is It this weekend? What about Halloween? Going to any parties? What about your costumes? Share your comments below!
I have to live vicariously through you this year because we’re staying at home on Beggar’s Night. Immediately afterwords, I will be watching the live 7-hour lockdown of the Ghost Adventures crew on The Travel Channel – because I am a nerd.
[ 15 Comments ]
I was beating my head against the wall yesterday trying to come up with an idea for today’s strip and was really strained for ideas. Between This Is It (which I covered Wednesday) and Boondoock Saints 2: All Saints Day, Gentlemen Broncos and The House of the Devil were the only other new releases this week.
Feeling those last two movies were too thoroughly obscure to reference, I decided to settle on Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day.
Of course, your enjoyment of today’s comic is completely reliant on whether or not you’ve seen the first Boondock Saints. So, if you haven’t… sorry about that.
If it helps you at all, here’s a picture of Willem Dafoe running around in drag. I won’t spoil the reason why. You should probably see it for yourself.
Check out this link as well to help further paint the picture. There’s audio, but don’t worry. It’s safe for work.
The Boondock Saints was a movie that people have told me for years to check out. But by the time it had really taken off as a cult picture, I kind of stopped renting movies. I finally got around to watching it earlier this summer, and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it to be the cultural phenomenon that others have.
I think it’s a question of timing. I wasn’t really there when the movie took off on DVD, so I didn’t experience that sense of discovery that is so key to making something like this feel like it was “mine.”
Does that make sense? I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it. Think of it like being the last one to hear the story behind a particularly delicious inside joke your friends are all sharing. By the time you get clued in, everyone is on to something else and looks at you like an idiot for making any references to it. That’s what The Boondock Saints is to me.
I think if I were a freshman or sophomore in college in 1999 and not graduating from school that year, I probably would have been all over this. As one with Irish heritage, I instantly felt a kinship with The MacManus Brothers. But the depravity, gunplay and violence liberally sprinkled throughout the movie kind of made it feel like a Pulp Fiction knockoff to me.
Ironically, I had seen Overnight, the documentary about the making-of The Boondock Saints long before I saw the actual movie. If you haven’t seen Overnight, I strongly suggest you check it out. The movie is about writer-director Troy Duffy who came from nowhere, sold his script to Miramax and then promptly imploded in a nuclear blast of egotism and arrogance.
Watching that film makes you wonder how Boondock Saints 2: All Saint’s Day ever got made. But Duffy himself explains the situation quite well in this interview with Movieline (thanks to Mike Russell at Culture Pulp for the link). As always, it boils down to money.
“The fans made Boondock I successful. Whether they know it or not, they got the sequel made, because at a certain point these [studios] are like, ‘It’s financially irresponsible not to make this movie.’ Boondock I has been a financial juggernaut since Day… One, and it’s put up numbers every single year for a decade. How many films are even viable after 10 years to make a sequel at all? Boondock just never… died. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And finally the powers that be went, ‘We gotta make this thing.’”
So, on the one hand, it’s pretty cool that the support of a dedicated fan base over the course of a decade led to a sequel being made. But on the other hand, if money is the primary motivator for everyone involved, can it be a genuine experience.
Granted, the movie has reassembled its principal cast and the majority of it’s crew who – according to Duffy – are working for very little money. But like I said, in the end, it all comes down to money and I’m curious if the fans who made the original film a cult sensation are going to pick up on that. I imagine it would be a real turn-off.
If you’re excited to see Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day, I don’t mean to be a buzzkill. All I’m saying is keep your expectations in check.
That’s it for me today. I’m looking forward to tonight. We’re taking Henry out for trick or treating. Wanna know what he’s going as? Lightning McQueen from Cars and it was totally his idea.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it’s a Disney thing, but Cars is a movie, by George. So I can’t help but feel like I’m putting him on the right track toward a proper pop culture obsession.
Leave your thoughts about The Boondock Saints, Overnight, Troy Duffy or anything else that might be on your mind in the comments below.
Cheers!
[ 14 Comments ]
I know this is nothing new, but I am increasingly frustrated by our consumer society forcing the holiday season down our throats as early as they do. I really think there should be some kind of law that says stores need to keep Halloween decorations up at least until 6:00 AM on November 1. I think I went to Target looking for candy to give out on Beggar’s Night two days before Halloween and they were already selling Christmas trees. Slow down, Target!
Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol is symptomatic of this kind of “FIRE, READY, AIM!” pre-holiday mentality. I think they’ve pretty much acknowledged it in the commercials I’ve been seeing for the movie. I swear I heard the voiceover guy say something along the lines of “Celebrate the holidays early!” Yeah, dude? They’re a month and half away.
I don’t know about you, but I enjoy watching holiday movies AROUND the holidays. Watching a Dickensian classic 6 weeks out isn’t going to put me in the holiday mood any eariler. More than likely, I’m just gonna Scrooge it and forget about it completely.
I mean, I know that Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol is getting good reviews, but do they really expect it to have the momentum to carry it to December 25. I don’t care how many digital bells and whistles you strap onto the thing, everyone has heard the story a million times. It’s played out!
Frankly, my interest in the film is purely technical. I want to see what kind of improvements Zemeckis has made in the motion-capture animation technology that brought us the dead-eyed automotons from The Polar Express and Beowulf. It doesn’t hurt that it’s in 3D. That’s the cherry on top.
I know it sounds like I’m down on this film. I’m not. Frankly, I hope it does quite well. Because the IMAX theater we have downtown trotts out The Polar Express every year for the kids and every time I see an ad for that movie, I wanna scream. Hopefully Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol will replace it. Find another cash cow to float you over the holiday season, local IMAX theater!
Humbug?
What about you? Are you excited for A Christmas Carol? Does it look like an improvement over what we’ve seen from Zemeckis so far? Does anyone else find it weird that he is the ONLY proponent for this technology?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
[ 20 Comments ]
Hey, everyone. Apologies for the delay on Monday’s comic. I had it finished and uploaded, but the blog wasn’t posting with it and I couldn’t get things sorted out until late Monday night. I would have gotten to it earlier, but I had a bunch of house stuff to take care of first.
It’s been a little more than a month since we moved into the new house, but it seems like we’re constantly addressing issues inside the house. Nothing serious. But a lot of little things that cumulatively make us feel like it’s not OUR house yet. So after we get the kids to bed, we work and toil and try to erase any trace of the former owners. We’re installing light fixtures, door handles, painting rooms… everything.
But like I told Cami earlier tonight, “Every time we replace a light bulb or cook a meal in this place, the more it becomes ours.” So, there’s that.
Of course, on top of things, I’m wrapping up my Master’s degree. I also had to do a little work this evening on an outline I’m putting together for a group project due in a couple of weeks. I have class this weekend and then finals on November 19 and 20 and then I’m done – DONE, I tell you! No more night classes. Free time unencumbered by thoughts of marketing initiatives and ethical practice. It will be a glorious day, I tell you.
Don’t tell Cami, but with my Master’s out of the way, I’m toying with the idea of bringing Theater Hopper back maybe twice a week at the start of the year. Don’t hold me to that. Obviously I need to figure out a schedule that allows me to do that. But I kind of figured since it will be Winter and we’ll be in the house much more, maybe that’ll be a good time to explore my options.
I have to tell you, I haven’t enjoyed updating the comic once a week. I’m the kind of guy that usually does better with a little momentum behind him. I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that sometimes Theater Hopper feels like a neglected chore.
I don’t WANT it to feel that way, though! I like Theater Hopper. I want to continue doing Theater Hopper. After 8 years in the game, I’d really like to make it to our 10 year anniversary – even if that means hanging on by my fingernails for the last 6 months.
Anyway, this took kind of a weird turn into personal confession territory. But sometimes I like to paint a picture for you guys with where I’m at in my life and I feel like I haven’t been communicating that very well lately. I want to re-establish myself. Not just for your benefit, but for my own. Like I said, once I have that momentum, it’s easier for me to stay focused and get other things related to the comic accomplished. Until then, it’s kind of a waiting game.
Lets talk about Saw 3D for a second, shall we? It’s the 7th movie in the franchise, right? I can’t even keep track anymore. They say it’s the last one. I’m very “meh” about it. I mean, I guess it’s good that they’ve tried to weave a narrative through the movies, but at this point, is anyone invested except the die-hards? I hope the ending was satisfying for them because the Saw franchise pretty much painted itself into a corner in terms of attracting new fans.
Who among you watched Saw 3D? Was it what you expected? Were you satisfied? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
If you didn’t watch Saw 3D, tell us about your Halloween weekend? Go to any cool parties? Have any good stories? What was your costume? Share with us in the comments below!
If you want to know what I did this Halloween weekend, I walked Henry and the neighborhood and took him trick-or-treating. He wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. I decided to coordinate with him. It went over pretty well.
[ 10 Comments ]
Oct24
I really don’t have anything to say about this week’s comic except that I decided to take the themes explored in last week’s comic and ran with them.
I guess as I thought more and more about a horror movie with social media elements, I figured that there had to be some kind of boogeyman to really stoke audience’s fears. Y’know, like Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger. Facebook’s Privacy Policy seemed as logical a choice as any to depict the embodiment of walking evil. So, there you go.
That said, if you’re not following Theater Hopper on Facebook, what’s wrong with you?
Oh, and also, please use the ShareThis plugin below to spread the comic around to all your friends – preferably the Facebook share button.
Y’see… that’s what evil DOES. It creeps into your heart and becomes commonplace. You come to depend on it for strength. Before you realize it, the evil has consumed you… FROM WITHIN!!!
Happy Halloween, everyone!
[ 5 Comments ]
