Sorry I didn’t have another Grindhouse comic for you guys today. But I think I ran through all of my ideas last week! Didn’t get a chance to see it and it doesn’t look like that many of you guys did, either! A disappointing fourth place take this weekend at the box office. Surprising, for one of the most heavily-hyped films of the year. No so surprising within the context of a major Christian holiday weekend. Whoops!
If you saw Grindhouse this weekend, leave your comments after the blog. I’d love to hear what you thought! Sounds like people are really responding to the ending in Tarantino’s Death Proof. Don’t spoil it – but what did you think?
I’m sure Gordon, Joe and I will talking about Grindhouse and it’s impact (or lack thereof) up and down The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST. If you have the druthers, join us over at TalkShoe while we take your calls and answer your questions. What went wrong? What went RIGHT?! Listen in tonight at 9:00 PM CST for the answers!
Disturbia starring Shia LaBeouf comes out this weekend and I know people who are genuinely excited to see it. To them I say “Good for you?”
Look, don’t kid yourselves. This is a total rip off of Rear Window. I’m not saying Hitchcock got their first with stories about voyeurs seeing things they aren’t supposed to see. But he did it best. CERTAINLY one of the best suspense films of all time, completely bastardized by filmmakers who are going to ratchet up the gore, throw in some lame T&A and occasionally have David Morse jump out of the shadows at you. This is Rear Window without a brain.
One of the best decisions Hitchcock ever made was to handicap Jimmy Stuart’s character with a broken leg. Smarter still, he doesn’t leave his apartment to confront the murderer until he absolutely has to – and even then, it’s for something like 5 minutes.
Disturbia tries to leverage something similar by putting their teenage protagonist under house arrest. They did this in a effort to make him edgy, I guess. Too far out of bounds and the cops come to haul our little punk to the pokey. Sure. Like that’s stopped anyone. Or like cops have nothing better to do than to patrol lazy suburban confines for the errant house arrest escapee.
Everything about the trailers for this movie make me want to retch. From the blood splatter across windows and torture implements in the basement, to the too-cute punny title, to the over-earnestness of Shia LeBeouf begging to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, this film reeks of cheap tricks and imitation.
Do yourselves a favor – instead of seeing Disturbia this weekend, rent Rear Window and see how it’s done. You can keep your MTV and your fancy iPoo-poos! I’ll take the classics!
That is all!
Sorry, guys. Today’s blog post will be somewhat delayed as my brain is total mush.
I’m at home right now on a “staycation” that requires me to lug furniture up several flights of stairs, rearrange rooms and clear out storage areas. Cami and I are basically JUST NOW getting around to our Spring Cleaning and it’s killing me.
It’s probably what lead me to reference a near 60 year-old Jimmy Stuart movie in today’s comic. Don’t as me why. I know for most of you, this joke is going to go right over your heads. But it’s my hope that people who know a little bit of film history will get a kick out of it.
What I would really like to do is talk in depth about The Dark Knight. Cami and I got to see it on Monday and I was blown away.
The performances were all great, as to be expected. But I was really caught off guard by the excellent questions the film presented in regard to humanity’s true nature and what one must do to battle evil – both inside and external to oneself.
Spider-Man 3 made a big deal about "the enemy within" but Sam Raimi only wishes he could conjure up a fraction of the moral quandry Christopher Nolan boxes Batman into during the course of The Dark Knight.
Anyway, like I said, my brain is mush right now, so I don’t feel like I can go much more into it. But if you’re looking for a little insight in the meantime, download Monday night’s episode of The Triple Feature podcast. The crew gets into a pretty good discussion about The Dark Knight that I think you’ll enjoy. Check it out.
Oh, and for those that wrote in Monday with suggestions about whether to see The Dark Knight in IMAX or a regular theater, thanks for you input. The vote was pretty evenly split. Cami and I decided to see it in a regular theater mostly because of the bad experience we had seeing Superman Returns in IMAX.
Plus, our regular movie theater is five minutes from our house. So convenience won out!
Take care. I’ll talk to you soon!
So here’s the comic from Wednesday that I owe you. If you were keeping up with the blog, you’ll know the reason the comic was delayed was due to a job interview I wanted to prepare for. I also wanted to make sure I got the proper amount of sleep.
I’m pretty sure most of you don’t know what my schedule is like. Frankly, you don’t need to know because it’s boring and self-serving to share it. But in this case, I’ll make an exception because I want you to understand.
Typically, I produce the comic the evening before it goes live on the site. Sometimes I’ll be able to get ahead of it a little by doing the pencils and inks over my lunch hour at my day job. But when I get home, it usually isn’t until after 8:00 that we manage to get Henry and Pearl settled down for the night. When you consider the everyday household chores that need to be done after that, there’s actually a very small window that I can work on the comic.
On Tuesday nights, I have night classes, so that window is even smaller. Instead of beating myself up trying to get a comic done for Wednesday, I thought it made more sense to prepare for my interview and get a good night’s sleep.
I didn’t receive any complaints and you guys have been more than supportive, so thank you. I just wanted to explain because, well, I felt like I owed you at least that much.
As for the job interview… How did it go? Frankly, I thought it went great. It really couldn’t have gone any better.
I don’t want to get into details because I don’t want to jinx it. Plus, as a rule, I don’t like to talk about work-related things online. You can’t be too careful.
Let’s just say it went very well and I’ll let you know how things turn out. Thanks for your patience and understanding. Now, let’s talk about the comic!
I was really pounding my head against the wall on this one because I didn’t know how to build on what I had established with Monday’s comic. Complicating matters, I came up with a great idea for a comic that I could use on Friday. So I was kind of caught between and a hard place.
I have to admit I was surprised by the feedback I received on Monday’s comic in the comments area. I expected some push back from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp fans. That’s fine. What I didn’t expect where the people who were saying “Thank you! I’ve felt this way about Burton and Depp for years, but couldn’t find the words.” That’s kind of a weird feeling.
I try to address certain truths with my humor. After all, what generally makes something funny is when several people recognize the same truth that they don’t typically address. The ol’ “He’s saying what we’re all thinking!” formula. I aim for that, but it manifests itself in the relationship humor I explore with Tom and Cami. Usually it doesn’t crop up in this kind of commentary about actors or directors. So it caught me a little off guard.
It sparked a debate, though – which I like. But I felt like if Tom was going to take the “anti” Burton/Depp stance, Jared needed to be the counter balance.
And, so, I did some research.
Check out this Wiki of director/actor collaborations. It’s mind-boggling. Some of them get tossed out because the pairings worked together on a string of sequels. Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, for example. But some of these partnerships appear very genuine.
Of course, my complaint with Burton and Depp isn’t that they’ve collaborated so many times. Just that there is a sameness to what they’ve produced. But, being fair, can I really argue that John Ford and John Wayne didn’t do the same thing? Or Scorsese and DeNiro, for that matter. It’s food for thought.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today’s comic. If you have anything you’d like to add, feel free to leave your comments below.
Until then, be sure to come back tomorrow for a brand new comic!
Thanks again!