Seen for the First Time

• The Big Lebowski – I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. It should have been funny, but was just tedious.
• Slumdog Millionaire – Fascinating, both in its exploration of poverty in India and in the theme of showing how seemingly small and unrelated events can all contribute to someone’s future.
• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies – Had its moments, but overall was pretty much a standard superhero film.
• Clerks 2 – Kevin Smith seems to hit about 50/50 with me. I loved the first Clerks, hated Mallrats (except for the “Jedi Mind Trick” payoff), liked Chasing Amy and Dogma, but Jay and Silent Bob was mostly annoying (though it had its moments). Clerks 2 was mostly gross-out humor wrapped around a Broken Aesop in which the happy ending is for the indecisive guy to let the a—hole make his decisions for him.
• Battlestar Galactica: The Plan – They did a decent job of trying to pull together a consistent story from elements that were originally unconnected, but it still ended up playing too much like a clip show — especially the segments in the Colonial fleet. The segments on Caprica worked much better, though I did find it interesting that they re-cast the Cylon infiltrators as a tiny, isolated guerrilla force rather than the tip of an iceberg of espionage. It relied way too much on the audience remembering what happened in the series.
• Liar, Liar – Pretty much what I remember from the previews, except longer. Funny. Worth seeing at least once.
• Synecdoche, New York – A metafictional examination of living life vs. imitating it that doesn’t quite live up to the scope of its ambition…but then, part of the point of the movie is that it can’t. (Note: not a good choice for watching while eating.)
• Evil Dead 2 – Nice camera work, but I’m not a horror fan. Also, this makes absolutely no sense as a sequel, but works just fine as a remake. You can explain Ash’s actions at the beginning with evil-enforced amnesia, but the timeline with the professor’s discovery of the book just doesn’t mesh with the first movie. I posted some thoughts on Army of Darkness last week.

Rewatched

• Up – Second time, watched in a second-run theater. Holds up, even without 3D. Bring tissue.
• Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero – still a better Mr. Freeze movie than Batman And Robin. Not that it would be hard.
• Coraline – Third time, but first time on small screen or in 2D. Still works, though of course not nearly as impressive visually. Still, great animation & story. Kind of like Up in that way.
• Conan the Destroyer – The first movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger was very good and holds up well almost three decades later. This one was almost self-parody.

“…ah yes, I thought. That’s the sequel, all right. CORALINE APOCALYPSE”

I used to run into this with TIFF images when building websites. (No big surprise, given that there are a million variations on the TIFF format.) I think it was around 2000 or so that I was working on a website for a law firm, and they sent me their logo. The logo, as I received it, was yellow on light blue, so I built a site with black text on a white background for the main areas, and yellow on light blue (matching their logo) for the title, navigation, and borders.

I sent them a link to the test site. They looked at it, and said it was very nice, but could I try to match the color scheme on their logo instead?

It turned out that red and blue had gotten switched around (and possibly more, because I can’t remember how the yellow ended up in there), but anyway it was supposed to be white on light brown. I switched the channels, redid all the graphics and styles for the site, and they stuck with it for several years.

Back on the subject of Coraline, Gaiman adds in his post that the film has become “the second highest grossing stop-motion film ever” after Chicken Run. So why does it seem to be forgotten already? Just two months ago, commentators were falling all over themselves to say Coraline was the turning point for 3-D animation being part of the storytelling and not just a gimmick. Now everyone’s talking about how Monsters vs. Aliens is the turning point for 3-D animation being part of the storytelling and not just a gimmick.

Somehow, I don’t think that being a mall cop is a good choice for a self-confessed shopaholic.

Also, “Coraline: Just Not That Into You” has a faintly amusing ring to it.

Speaking of Coraline, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that not only is it still in a lot of nearby theaters after ~6 weeks, it’s still out in 3-D in a lot of theaters. I may have to take advantage of that fact at some point…

It’s kind of hard to read, between the pixel size and the printing, but the funniest bit is the blue sidebar on “Finding the Tastiest Beetles:”

Beetles are delicious creatures that live close to home. If you use beetles from your backyard or basement, check them for shiny and fully developed thoraxes (beetles still in larval stage will be chewy and bland). The most mouth-watering kind, with translucent shells and large veins, can be found in the forests of Zanzibar.

It’s so perfectly Martha Stewart for the Macabre.

Movies: Coraline

YouTube also has the trailer in HD.

I discovered Sandman late, borrowing the trades from one of my (younger) brother’s friends around 1998 or so, then immediately tracking down my own copies. I lucked out and got a complete set on eBay for something like $70. Since then I’ve devoured most of Neil Gaiman’s work, be it in comics, prose, or movie form. The original novel of Coraline was very good, and it’s been adapted by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is among my favorite movies…and what I’ve seen of the film suggests that they get it. It’s hard to believe it’s only two weeks away!

Other movies: Oddly enough, I’m only mildly interested in Terminator: Salvation, Transformers 2: Can’t Remember the Subtitle, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the films have been steadily deteriorating after peaking with #3, IMHO), Star Trek, and Watchmen. I’ll probably see all of them, but none of them have me nearly as excited.

Comics, books, music, etc. after the cut:

Comics: Scott Pilgrim, Ignition City, and Fallen Angel

First up is the fifth volume of the Scott Pilgrim series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, coming in just a few weeks. This series is just plain fun: mindless action with a video-game sensibility, something of a coming-of-age story, and a huge dose of absurdism.

I’ve only read a fraction of Warren Ellis’ work, but I’ve subscribed to his “Bad Signal” email list for years, and he’s been talking about the ideas that became Ignition City for a long time. Basically, take all the old space hero archetypes (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, etc.) and look at what happens when the future passes them by. I think someone described it as Flash Gordon meets Deadwood. I tend to like Ellis best when he’s doing science fiction, so this is a must read. Coming in April.

And finally: the relaunch of Peter David and J.K. Woodward’s Fallen Angel in July, with a crossover with Angel‘s Illyria.

There’s also Flash: Rebirth, which I’m looking forward to with a mix of excitement and dread. On one hand: Geoff Johns returns to the Flash and writes all of them, with Ethan Van Sciver on art. On the other: the more I learn about it, the more I get the feeling that the subtitle should be “Barry Allen is teh gratest Flash EVAR.” If that’s it, then no, thanks, I’m not interested. *sigh*

So, yeah, DC seems to be doing its best to push me away from anything they publish that doesn’t have “Vertigo” on the cover. I’m hearing rumors of a Welcome to Tranquility miniseries, but then that’s Wildstorm, so still not much DC-branded appeal. And the one Marvel series I read, The Twelve, is on hiatus (and it’s a mini anyway). Not going to be much coming out from the Big Two.

TV: Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Flash Forward

Of the TV shows returning for the spring season, I’d say Battlestar Galactica is the one that has me most intrigued. They’ve managed to throw new wrinkles into the Human/Cylon conflict and make viewers question basic assumptions about the show in the lead-up to the series conclusion. Next up is Lost, which has successfully moved past the Gilligan’s Island/Voyager problem of getting them off the island.

I’m also watching Heroes and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, though neither of them has me champing at the bit for new episodes just yet. (Actually, I’m more interested in SCC than the new Terminator movie, which is kind of odd to realize.) What I’d really like to see is the last few episodes of Pushing Daisies. I’m still torn between bitterness at the show’s cancellation and knowing that at least it got to go out while it was still good, rather than after deteriorating.

As for future shows, the one that I’m most interested in seeing is Flash Forward, based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer, in development for next fall. I’m also curious about Dollhouse, which starts in February, mostly because of Joss Whedon’s involvement. And I’ll certainly check out the BSG spinoff, Caprica.

Books

Not a whole lot, actually. There’s Robert J. Sawyer’s new book, “Wake,” (part 1 of a trilogy) coming in April, but I haven’t decided whether to buy his stuff in hardcover or stick with paperback. And the final book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time epic, A Memory of Light (being finished by Brandon Sanderson) may be coming out by the end of the year, or it may not.

Other than that…I haven’t heard anything about Greg Keyes’ plans now that Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone is done. I don’t think Neil Gaiman’s got any new novels planned for this year, though I’ve only caught about half of his blog posts over the past few months. Naomi Novik might have a new Temeraire book by the end of the year, maybe.

Music

Tori Amos, Vertical Horizon, and Butterfly Boucher all have albums coming out, though I haven’t heard anything beyond “spring/summer 2009″ on any of them. Tori Amos has basically never slowed down, except for a break between record companies, and it’s only been a year and a half since her last album, American Doll Posse (which was very good). Vertical Horizon has been out of the picture for a few years, though their stuff still gets played. (I heard “When You Cry” at the mall yesterday when I went to lunch.)

You’ve probably never heard of Butterfly Boucher, but Katie and I caught one of her songs on Indie 103.1 when it first launched. Then she opened for two different concert tours that we saw over the next year (IIRC, Barenaked Ladies and…Sarah McLachlan?), and we picked up her debut album, Flutterby. She’s been playing a lot of music, but this will be her second album. (A few weeks ago she posted a note about how she was finally free of her record contract, which meant she could finally release the album she finished two years ago.)

Cross-posted at Speed Force

• Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time prequel is being adapted to comic book form. WTF?
• A movie of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is in the works—and They Might be Giants may be doing songs. Cool!

MirrorMask came about when Sony noticed that while Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal didn’t do very well in theaters, over the years they’ve become strong, steady sellers in the home video market. So they went to the Jim Henson company and asked if they could do a fantasy film in the same vein, on a budget. So Lisa Henson called up Neil Gaiman by way of asking for Dave McKean, and explained the situation: They only had a $4 million budget, but they wouldn’t have any studio interference. They went on to say they knew they couldn’t afford Neil to write the screenplay, but could he at least come up with a story, at which point he said (Edit: corrected quote) “If Dave’s directing it, I’m writing it.”

The story (what we know of it) is reminiscent of Labyrinth as well as Gaiman’s Coraline and Sandman: A Game of You: A teenage girl, Helena (who wants to run away from the circus and join the real world!), dealing with parental issues (in this case her mother being in the hospital), dreams her way into another world. At least, she thinks it’s a dream. But she realizes that, whether it’s a dream or whether it’s real, she still needs to complete the quest set before her.

Most of the sets and non-human characters are being done with computer graphics, which means they can really let loose. If you’ve ever seen Dave McKean’s work (he did all the Sandman covers, among many, many other projects), you know what to expect. The clips they showed look exactly like Dave McKean illustrations set in motion.

There was a screening the night before (with scenes switching into bluescreen action from time to time), with one of the Sony execs reportedly saying, “That was like Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast… on acid… for kids!” (Edit: more quotes are available)

They kept the shots with actors to a minimum, probably to keep the story under wraps, but what was there looks good.

Current plans are for an art-house release sometime next spring, if post-production is finished by then. I know I’ll be in line.