Posts Tagged ‘Planet of the Apes’
3 items.
The idea behind today’s strip is pretty simple: When in doubt, add monkeys. It’s a time-honored device that only the most highly skilled comedy writers bust loose when in a pinch. All you gotta do is watch the first season of Friends for proof. The writing wasn’t strong, so they hit this scene pushing the monkey to the fore. Smart move. Once the writing started to tighten up by the third season, no more monkey. Coincidence?
Not like I… watch Friends, or anything.
I read a report yesterday that said last weekend was the lowest-grossing movie weekend in 4 years. Considering that movie prices seem to keep going up, that’s quite impressive.
You see, this is what happens when studios front-load their summer schedules with blockbusters in a bid to outdo each other. Come the end of the season, we’re left to wallow in the immense crapitude of Serving Sara.
I look at the slate of new releases for the next few weeks – City by the Sea, Swimfan, Barbershop, The Four Feathers, Stealing Harvard, Moonlight Mile, The Transporter – Is anyone going to see these movies? Besides Moonlight Mile and maybe Stealing Harvard, I’m gonna say no for myself.
I hate to be down on the scene, but maybe August wasn’t the best month to start a movie strip, eh?
Good news is in the works, however. I recently raided my parents basement and found a box of really old comics I drew back in junior high. If any of you have been reading the forums, you’ll know that these doodles depicted earth-shattering battles between myself and Jared in toon-form.
I’m working on a way to get these posted to the site. Many of them are in poor shape and will probably need some sort of “commentary track” so you can understand the dialogue scrawled across the page by a manic 13 year-old. This stuff lays kind of close to the vest, so I want to give it a good treatment.
I haven’t decided if access to these forgotten gems will be contingent on a donation but it may happen. How open are the rest of you to a “Members Only Club”? If you want to give me some feedback, you can always e-mail me – also, the forums are always open.
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Is everyone understanding the Planet of the Apes reference in today’s strip? Just making sure. It’s a pretty old movie, y’know.
Man, who would have thought that a storyline that started out making fun of The Matrix would end up here? Sometimes you gotta go where the muse takes you… kicking and screaming…
As far as The Matrix Reloaded is concerned, I think I’m seeing it tonight. At least, I hope that’s the case. I don’t know how crazy the lines will be. I gotta squeeze in Down With Love at some point as well. I’m a big fan of those old Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies. Pillow Talk is a great flick.
But I digress. Back to The Matrix. It’s been getting some mixed reviews. Some critics are complaining that the film is hollow, that there is no human element and that it’s drowning in special effects.
I can’t decide if I’m going to give two squirts of piss over this or not. I mean, I’ll be honest. The first movie didn’t really clobber me over the head with it’s philosophical ramblings and peppering of Eastern mysticism. I thought it was cool they were aware of it, but audiences acted like The Wachowski Brothers (TM) freakin’ invented it!
In my opinion, it’s the concept that propels The Matrix. And granted, it’s probably lost a little bit of its power since the Y2K heebie-jeebies everyone was worried about in 1999 proved to be nothing but a technical boogeyman. The climate has changed. Perhaps our reaction to this material will change as well.
I also have to give the benefit of the doubt that the movie I see this weekend is only PART of the finished whole. I feel like most negative reactions should be put on pause until The Matrix Revolutions comes out in November. Until then, the jury is out.
Whatever the outcome may be, it’s evident that these movies have tapped in to a “trust no one” facet of the youth zeitgeist that has not had an outlet up to this point. I foresee The Matrix spawning all sorts of extra multimedia to support the mythology. They’re already off to a rousing start with The Animatrix and the video game Enter the Matrix which both expound deeply into the lore of the series. Pretty soon you’re going to start seeing cheap-ass novelizations. R.A. Salvatore, I’m looking at you!
If you haven’t already checked it out, we now have a forum and it’s off to a strong start. I encourage you to sign up. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
You may also notice that I stripped the images from the navigation bar up top and replaced them with text links. As the site progresses, I’m becoming more and more conservative when it comes to bandwidth consumption. I’m starting to dump some of the frills and setting my sights on more fluid design and download times. We’ll see what emerges.
I’ll be back later if I can think of more garbage to spout…
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I’ll say one thing about the NAACP – they’re very prompt in regard to the answering of correspondence.
Today’s comic is ripped from the headlines! Did Wal-Mart.com totally botch it when their online DVD recommendation service (ala Netflix, Amazon) blew up in their faces by suggesting Planet of the Apes as a "similar interest" to films about Malcom X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Dandridge, Tina Turner and other notable African Americans? Oooh, you betcha! Their excuse? "Human error." They don’t mention if the human wears a bed sheet and a pointy white hat.
Okay, that’s a little mean. It could have been an honest mistake. But seriously? How many bad public relations hits can Wal-Mart take before the Colussus topples over?
I’m not a fan of Wal-Mart, let’s put it that way.
I was very surprised by the interest you guys have shown in Clickwheel and being able to download comics for your video iPods. Do that many of you actually own video iPods? LUCKY!
At any rate, I feel kind of guilty that there’s just one comic out there right now, so I’m going to try and diversify the choices. I mean, there are over 500 comics to choose from, right? I should be able to dig something up! I’m kind of thinking of adding every single incentive sketch I’ve ever drawn to the site and break it out by month or maybe year. I’m not sure which. I’ve saved every drawing I’ve done and it might be a neet retrospective. Not as rich content-wise, but a fun little slideshow for you to scroll through. That is, if I can tear myself away from playing Guitar Hero with all my spare time. Let me know if the incentive sketch collections sound interesting to you!
If you guys enjoy a feature like Clickwheel, I’d love to see you invest some time in the Theater Hopper Movie Review Database. I’m trying to build something community-based for the site where your voice can really be heard. I know it might seem daunting to log into the system and leave a review, but it’s not supposed to be a formal thing! Be casual with it. Not *too* casual. We’d like to avoid "the swears" if possible. But this is something fun for you guys to use and participate in. I’m adding new movies all the time. In fact, there’s a new feature that lets you know what the last 10 movies added to the database were. Pretty handy! Give it a shot!
Not much else on my mind today. Thank goodness it’s Wednesday. I feel like I’ve been running around all week.
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