Well, here we are. The New Year and the launch pad for the new direction I’m taking Theater Hopper as outlined in last Friday’s blog. Kind of kicking things off with a mystery here. Are you intrigued? Are you hooked yet? Are you? ARE YOU?!

Can you smell the desperation rolling from your computer monitor? Can you? CAN YOU?!

For those of you that want to take a closer look at Charlie, I’ve posted my original rough outline of her as the buzzComix incentive sketch. You can see a tiny sliver of it in that handy graphic in the upper-right hand corner of the blog. Click on it to see the whole thing.

Part of Theater Hopper’s new direction is presenting it to a wider audience. So if you could take the two seconds to click on that little graphic, I would appreciate it.

So, who is Charlie? Where does she come from and how does Cami know her? The answers may surprise you. Be sure to check back Wednesday as we chip away at this ICEBERG OF MYSTERY^TM!

In movie-related tidbits, I went to see The Aviator yesterday with Cami and my sister-in-law. What can I say? It’s a long one?

I thought the movie was pretty good, but wasn’t left with the best impression. Leonard DiCaprio’s obsessive, repetitive muttering sometimes gets the better of the story. After a while, you start feeling nervous and a little obsessive compulsive yourself!

I suppose that’s the sign of talent – when you feel what the character is feeling. But sometimes I don’t want to feel half-crazy.

Of course I have to tip my hand to Martin Scorsese. His flair for visuals is as strong as ever. He even dips into the well of computer generated effects for some amazing shots he wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. What I love about Scorsese is that he has a firm grip on how much of that stuff to use. There are some really impressive visuals that don’t look like a Macintosh barfed on the screen. In other words, they don’t really get in the way.

If anything, watching The Aviator certainly piqued my interest in seeing Hell’s Angels. The $4 million dollar war epic Howard Hughes filmed once and refilmed again for sound during the 1920’s. Looks like a real barn-burner.

Beyond that, I’m still processing things. The film spends a lot of time on Hughes early days in Hollywood. Which makes sense for such an avid film historian as Scorsese. Hughes really went a long way toward presenting film as a more realistic art form including graphic sex and violence, so it’s interesting to see where some of the conflicts between artists and censors first took root.

However, there’s very little attention paid to the loony, tissue boxes on the feet, piss in milk jars Hughes that I think many people recognize Hughes for. His eccentricities. His illness. The film is called The Aviator for a reason. Scorsese wants us to remember him not only as a filmmaker, but as a man who set distance, speed and time records in aircraft – developing some of the fastest machines to ever travel the planet. Never mind what he did with commercial aviation when he bought TWA. All in all, pretty interesting stuff.

I don’t think The Aviator will clean up with any awards, which is kind of a shame considering how long Scorsese has been overlooked. But it is an ambitious picture and if you’re at all a fan of Scorsese, you should see it. All of his films are required viewing in my book.

That should cover it for now. See you on Wednesday!