‘The Avengers’ SuperBowl Trailer Is Online Now

The Avengers aired its SuperBowl spot earlier tonight, and chances are you are one of the many who saw it. But just in case you haven’t, I’ll give you a very brief summary: It features some of the best footage we’ve seen outside of Comic-Con so far, lending more camera time to Loki, his yet-unidentified alien army and The Hulk. The extended version of the trailer is up on the Avengers’ Facebook page now. Check it out below:

This looks fantastic. Can’t wait to see more.

Harrison Ford In Talks For New Blade Runner Film

Wozz - BladeRunner

Ridley Scott will be reacquainting audiences with two of his most beloved film franchises in the next few years with Prometheus drawing ever-nearer and the announcement in early 2011 that he would be directing some kind of tie-in to Blade Runner. It’s enough to get fans incredibly excited, especially because  we know so little about both productions. Prometheus is only about four months away and surprisingly little has been revealed or leaked about the film, and this Blade Runner project has been flying so under-the-radar that the only thing we could say for sure was that Harrison Ford wouldn’t be reprising his role as Deckard. And wouldn’t you know it, that might not even be accurate.

BladeRunner

Previously the film’s producer, Andrew Kosove, had said this to say about bringing Ford back, in an interview with The L.A. Times:

In no way do I speak for Ridley Scott, but if you’re asking me will this movie have anything to do with Harrison Ford, the answer is no. This is a total reinvention, and in my mind that means doing everything fresh, including casting.

However Twitch debunked Kosove’s statement this week with a report that Mr. Solo is indeed undergoing negotiations for the film. The talks are in the very early stages, however, so this is far from a confirmation that he’ll appear. It’s also worth pointing out that we don’t even know how this movie will tie in with the timeline – It may be a prequel, sequel or something else entirely, so Ford’s casting could mean anything from a role as protagonist to a minor cameo.

Having Ridley Scott behind the camera really got me interested in this project. The approach he appears to have taken with Prometheus (A wildly different story than Alien, loosely tied to the same universe) might be an indication of the route he’ll take with Blade Runner, which I would love to see. I probably would have taken Harrison Ford’s involvement as a good sign as well, had I not seen the mediocrity-fest that was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

More on this story as it develops.

‘Watchmen’ Prequel Comics Announced

Considered by many to be the seminal story of the comics medium, and a work that singlehandedly changed the comics forever, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons has been a consistently successful story for over a quarter of a century. A complete deconstruction of the Superhero mythos using close facsimiles to classic Charleston Comics characters – Watchmen ushered in the grim and gritty narratives all to prevalent in comics today. Against the wishes of writer Alan Moore, but not by artist Dave Gibbons – Watchmen has spawned numerous merchandising opportunities and a Hollywood film in 2009 by director Zack Snyder. In just twelve issues, Gibbons and Moore constructed an intriguing world and very interesting characters, with back-stories largely untouched. Considering how widely revered the Watchmen comics are, the series has been considered a sacred cow of sorts, and its universe has for quite a while, not been expanded upon in anyway.

On February 1st, DC comics announced that they will be releasing several four to six issue miniseries set in the Watchmen universe, written and drawn by some of comic’s top creators.

USA Today reports:

 Who watches the Watchmen? This summer, it will again be a legion of comic-book fans.

Under its DC Comics banner, DC Entertainment is reviving characters from the beloved and seminal graphic novel Watchmen for seven prequels collectively titled ‘Before Watchmen’.

The comics will feature all of the heroes — and anti-heroes — who writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons created in the 1986-87 Watchmen series, which was later collected as a graphic novel. Those characters will star in miniseries by some of the company’s top writers and artists, including:

[pluslist]

•Rorschach by writer Brian Azzarello and artist Lee Bermejo

•Comedian by Azzarello and artist J.G. Jones

•Minutemen by writer/artist Darwyn Cooke

•Silk Spectre by Cooke and artist Amanda Conner

•Nite Owl by writer J. Michael Straczynski and artists Joe and Andy Kubert

•Dr. Manhattan by Straczynski and artist Adam Hughes

•Ozymandias by writer & original editor Len Wein with art by Jae Lee

[/pluslist]

Issues will be released so that there will be a new one every week, and each will include two pages of a separate, continuing backup story, Curse of the Crimson Corsair, by Wein, with art by Watchmen colorist John Higgins. A single-issue Before Watchmen: Epilogue will also be a part of the prequel series, featuring several of the writers and artists involved.  

According to the Guinness World Records, Watchmen is the best-selling graphic novel of all time, with more than 2 million copies sold. However, Azzarello first read the series when it came out monthly in the ’80s and was a huge fan 10 years before he broke into the industry.

Azzarello says he “dropped the phone” when DC co-publisher Dan DiDio called him last summer and asked if he’d write the fan-favorite character Rorschach, the vigilante clad in a mask with shifting ink blots who investigates the death of his old friend, The Comedian, in the original Watchmen story.

“He’s the face. The guy who covers his face is the face of the franchise,” Azzarello says. For the four-issue Rorschach series, he’s teaming again with Bermejo, the artist from his Joker graphic novel.

“You’re going to get the Rorschach that you know and want. It’s a very visceral story we’re going to be telling,” Azzarello says.

Set in a bleak version of 1980s America where Richard Nixon is still president and powered beings have changed the fabric of society but are now considered outlaws, Watchmen created a legion of fans with its rich storytelling and deconstruction of the superhero genre. The phrase “Who watches the Watchmen,” spray-painted on buildings in the original book, has become iconic.

Many of those readers view Watchmen as a sacred text that shouldn’t be touched. Moore himself publicly stated that he wanted nothing to do with the 2009 movie adaptation by director Zack Snyder, or any sequels or prequels.

Gibbons, who was an adviser on the movie, has given his blessing. “The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell. However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire,” he says in a statement.

That approval, however, isn’t as important as making sure all the Before Watchmen books work on their own, Azzarello says. What’s key is “that we all get in there and we tell the best possible stories we can and we reconnect these characters. It’s 25 years later. Let’s make them vital again.”

All around the tubes, nearly every forum, such as Bleeding Cool and those annoying hipsters over at comics alliance, are rife with comments of hot frothy hatred over the notion over such a blasphemy. Most comments are about how perfect the original series was and what not, and that no one is as brilliant as Alan Moore blah blah blah, you get the picture. A perfect example of how much people already hate this project is over at Topless Robot, but then again the folks over at Topless Robot epitomize the irrational bitter fan stereotype that never enjoy anything, regardless of how good it might actually be. One talking point is that somehow these prequels could possibly taint the experiences of the original, which is a logical farce. The “Star Wars” prequels are utter garbage, but that doesn’t sully the original trilogy in anyway, but if one were to continue to watch said prequels out of an obsessive need even though they hate them- that could make the experience sour. However, issues like that are less in the content and more in the viewer. It seems as though the negative fan will probably be the greater driving force though, as they will need to validate their judgments on how bad it sucks. Much like how Howard Stern rose to the top from having a great number of listeners who found him appalling and listened to field complaints as opposed to those who wanted to listen to naked lesbians on the radio,

Are these books a bright idea? Perhaps, perhaps not; however, the talent they have compiled for these projects rival some of the best in the business. Brian Azzarello is one of the greatest writers working in comic books today, and author of “100 Bullets”, a series I believe is the greatest of all time. Plus having artists such as Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner, Lee Bermejo, Jae Lee and J.G. Jones on these titles means they will also be some of the best looking comics this year. I personally don’t care about Watchmen prequels, since over time I have grown to dislike the original “Watchmen.” It’s slow, it’s rather derivative and isn’t entertaining- I appreciate what the work has done for comics as a whole, but just because it’s influential doesn’t mean I’m obligated to sing its praises. Just because I listen to The Police doesn’t mean I must listen to Bob Marley as well.

The fantastic Michael Avon Oeming tweeted it best:

Oeming hit the nail on the head: comics are not scripture, they’re fictional, the stuff that happens between the pages of these books never actually happened. Things like Canon and Continuity are bullshit, nothing is truly official or unofficial in the land of make believe. Adding to the universe that Moore and Gibbons created does not in any way, change the story or anything about the original Watchmen. Any of these prequel comics can be as official or fan fictional as you, as the reader want them to be – if you don’t like them, forget about them and read the original all over again, and enjoy it for what it is. If you believe that there is absolutely no goddamn chance you could even fathom liking these prequels, then just don’t read them! It’s that simple, don’t piss and moan and then buy all of them anyways just so you can break down and nitpick every single minutia of things you hate about them, just ignore them. Some very talented people with bills and families are getting paid possibly the best money they’ll ever see in their careers to tackle these projects and perhaps, put enough money aside to not worry about expenses for a while to make a completely original property that might even be more significant than Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and Hellboy combined, they don’t need you belittling them over trying to make an honest living.

Of course Alan Moore, who hates everything involving other creators involved in his works told the New York Times, “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.” 

Moore, Author of such works as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which stars characters like Bram Stoker’s Mina Harker, H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Batman: The Killing Joke featuring characters made by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, is no stranger to using the ideas of others to craft stories. Alan Moore also received his breaks from his runs on “Marvelman” a character created by Mick Anglo, and “Swamp-Thing” a character co-created by Lenn Wein for DC Comics, who at the time was roommates with Gerry Conway, one of the collaborators whom created Man-Thing, a similar character at Marvel comics who premiered prior to Swamp Thing.

In addition, “Watchmen” wasn’t originally going to star original characters. Moore and Gibbons originally wanted to use characters such as The Question, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, who were properties recently acquired by DC Comics form the defunct Charleston Comics. DC comics decided they would rather integrate the Charleston universe into their soon to be rebooted comics universe (sound familiar?) leaving Moore and Gibbons to create thinly veiled analogues of their initial idea.  Had Moore and Gibbons been able to use the Charleston Characters like they originally intended- Moore wouldn’t have an argumentative leg to stand on. To be fair, DC could have easily done these miniseries with the Charleston Characters, but due to the success of “Watchmen,” the new analogues are more recognizable to audiences than the Charleston originals.  While it’s certain that these prequels will go against what Moore’s artistic vision of “Watchmen” should be, Moore himself has done the same with a multitude of properties in his career, granted many have been public domain and he can do with them as he pleases. However, in one of his most recent stories League of Extraordinary Gentleman: 1969, Moore has written a scene where a Wizard named Tom who’s “ . . .middle name is a marvel and my last name is a conundrum” in an effort to use the character without violating any copyrights, sexually assaults Mina Harker in a scene. This is certainly not something that JK Rowling would have envisioned even her most heinous of villains to do in her successful series of children to young adult novels. Of course, the other collaborator- the artist, who is always the more important creator (it is a visual medium, and artists typically get a majority of the royalties) Dave Gibbons, has given his consent to DC comics to make these prequels.

Seemingly, all Moore’s opinions of his work gives off the impression that he feels as though he is some sort of creative zenith, that no one could ever craft a story as well as he. Moore lambastes every film adaptation of his work, or in the case of the Watchmen film adaptation, refusing to even see the film or acknowledge it in any way. One of my very first articles I had published at the website of the great Armenian flake, I wrote of how I felt the ending of the Watchmen film was actually better than the source material. Without spoiling anything, the movie ending ties in better with the core themes of distrust and paranoia rather than the random ploy used in the books. Alan Moore will never see this, thus he will never have to concede that others can perhaps, craft a better story with his own ideas than he could. Instead of denying the chance, it would be bolder to see these adaptations as a challenge for both the author and his colleagues to do better. Batman: Year One is one of the greatest batman stories ever told, but one of its sequel series that is based on Miller and Mazzucchelli’s story is Batman: The Long Halloween, is a superior story made by an entirely different creative team, and the original creator makes neither. Ego is one of the greatest hindrances in the realm of fiction.

However, from a moral standpoint- DC comics should have never been in the position to create Watchmen prequels in the first place. Even though Nite-Owl, Dr. Manhattan and the rest or the cast is analogous to Charleston Properties, they are in fact original characters because of this. The legends say Gibbons and Moore had a contract that specified that Watchmen would be a work for hire project, meaning they were compensated up front to create the book, instead of creating the book at their own expense: which would have made Watchmen creator owned. However, DC comics also stipulated that once Watchmen was no longer in print by DC, the copyrights would revert to Gibbons and Moore.

Watchmen has also continually been reprinted in trade paperback since 1987, thus preventing Gibbons and Moore from ever receiving ownership of their work. Thanks to dirty pool, DC has taken the control of Watchmen from Gibbons and Moore, and ensured they will never have it. Watchmen will never cease to be reprinted; it’s for too influential and lucrative for DC to ever want to let it go, so in essence, any support of any Watchmen related material aids in DC Comics’ theft of Watchmen from two very talented individuals. Eric Stephenson, publisher over at Image Comics, wrote an article for ‘It Sparkles’ that I insist you read because it perfectly illustrates what DC did wrong and the plight of the comic book creators.

Whether or not you’re enthused or incensed about Before Watchmen, it really matters not, since DC is going to make them regardless, there’s money to be had and they’ll get every little bit they can from Watchmen until they’re blue in the face and run around with their weenies exposed. However, what does matter is whether you buy them, it won’t stop these projects, but it can stop or continue any other Watchmen related projects in the future. Regardless, at least these books have top talent on them; DC could do much worse:

Superbowl Sunday: The Preview

Giants (12-7) versus Patriots (15-3) 6:20 ET on NBC (if we’re lucky kickoff will be before 7)

If you have been paying any attention at all to this weeks upcoming Superbowl game between the Giants and the Patriots there are two things you are probably sick and tired of hearing about. The health of Rob Gronkowski and the sequence of events that led up to David Tyree’s amazing catch in Superbowl XLII.

Unfortunately for you, dear reader these are unavoidable topics when it come to analyzing this impending match up.

Revenge. There has been a lot of people predicting that the Patriots have the revenge factor going for them in this game because of the way the Giants ruined their perfect season. While I’m sure there is some serious residual sting from that loss for the Patriots players, it’s a losers lament and something that affects the fan base more than the players. Bill Belichick is not the kind of coach that is going to allow his players to blame anyone other than themselves for getting unexpectedly punched in the mouth by the Giants. The greater motivating factor for this years Patriots team is that the Giants were the last team to beat them this year. The teams are on a combined 15-0 run but as I chronicled before the Pats haven’t played a lot of talented teams and just barely got out of the Baltimore game alive whereas the Giants are gaining momentum at just the right time and have been beating the cream of the NFC.

Rob Gronkowski on the other foot is the other major story of the week. I have no doubt in my mind that the Gronk is going to play in the Superbowl. Whether they numb him up, he just plain guts it out, or he goes out of his mind on cocaine like L.T. used to do in the 80’s, he is going to be on the field this Sunday.The big debate is as to how effective he will be. If the Patriots can drive the field and get into the red zone I feel that Gronkowski with his freakish size will still be an effective end zone threat, a place that he has thrived all season. The Giants should be able to limit his impact on the rest of the field however by jamming him at the line and taking advantage of the fact that his speed should be hobbled.

Vegas has the Patriots listed as favorites giving three points to the Giants however I feel like this is the Gee Men’s game to lose. The Giants are better than the Patriots in every category except Quarterback. The trio of Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham is deadly and doesn’t allow defenses to key on any one guy. Big Blue’s running game has been much maligned all season and just hasn’t been the game-changing strength that it has been in previous years but I’m still taking Bradshaw and Jacobs (Thunder and Lightning) over Green-Ellis and Woodhead (The Law Firm and Mighty Mouse) especially the way the Offensive Line has been coming together for the Giants. Both the Patriots and Giants secondary has been questionable all season but now that the Giants are healthy they have this category in the win column and have the extra edge of being able to use more defenders on the strength of what could possibly be the best front four in the NFL.

That leaves us with the last X-factor of the game being Brady versus Manning. When you think of Brady v. Manning the first image that comes to your head is the Elder Manning, but this year he will again be watching from the luxury boxes as Eli battles on the field. In years past this would be a match up that you didn’t even have to really think about. Brady was the better and more consistent Quarterback with all the experience and  swagger to go with it and Eli was the on-again off-again sufferer of the “Manning Face” who could either throw for 350 yards or throw for three picks.

This year we have seen a different Eli. The Manning Face still creeps up from time to time but I have been really impressed with the consistency of Eli’s game this year and last week against the Niners he showed some serious toughness as he shrugged off sack after sack without letting it affect his pocket presence. Tom Brady on the other hand is starting to show a few chinks in the armor and had a self-admittedly horrible game against the Ravens  and there is a reason it’s not the same old Brady versus Manning this year. These guys are getting older and with all the hits and injuries you have to endure it’s hard to have a long career in the NFL. That being said Brady doesn’t have bad games two weeks in a row, he has the backing of one of the greatest game planners in the game with Bill Belichick  and the Patriots won’t make the mistake they made in 2008 of underestimating the Giants.

So who takes home all the enchiladas on Sunday? Homerism aside, sort of,  I am staying with the New York Football Giants. All of the factors seem to be in there favor. The only category the Patriots dominate the Giants in is at TE and their most important TE is hobbled. You can argue successfully that the Pats have the edge at Head Coach and Quarterback but the margin is not that wide. The Gee Men have a great Defense right now and unlike teams who have been carried to Superbowl victories on defense alone, see 2000 Ravens, the Giants also have a great offense. Defense wins Championships but it doesn’t hurt to be able to sling some arrows too. The greatest factor the Giants have going for them is that they are peaking at the right time and that has been the blueprint for winning Superbowls for years now. The Giants rode a similar kind of wave in 2007, the Saints and the Packers did the same thing the last couple years and look for the Boys in Blue to do it again this year. One more thing Patriots fans. Try winning a Superbowl without Adam Vinatieri! The Patriots three Superbowl victories were each decided by three point and two of those were game winners by Vinatieri who has also since won another Superbowl with the Colts.

Final Score: Giants 27, Patriots 20

Grizzly Review: Red Tails

There’s nothing like two hours of hokey, old-fashioned, and exciting entertainment. Ridden with clichés and one-dimensional characters, big budget blockbusters are the foundation of American entertainment. I mean, what would we do if pretentious art films were the only things hitting the megaplex? You know what we would do? We would poke our freaking eyes out, and beg people like Spielberg and Lucas and Jackson to just get back behind the director’s chair, and give us the goods. But not Michael Bay. No, Michael Bay is on a permanent time out after the Transformers sequels.

George Lucas announced his retirement from big budget filmmaking, saying that he’ll be going out with Red Tails, a fictionalized telling of the Tuskegee airmen, the first all African-American pilot group. Serving as Executive Producer for the project, it was a story that Lucas was very eager to tell. He felt that the Tuskegee pilots were extremely underappreciated and wanted to bring their story to life in the most entertaining way possible. Now, in 2012, he’s achieved that goal, finally releasing Red Tails after twenty-odd years in production.

Red Tails’ main pilots are ladies’ man, Lightning (David Oyelowo), the “best pilot in the whole damn world”, Joker (Elijah Kelley), Junior (Tristan Wilds), and their leader, Easy (Nate Parker). Together, they make up the most talented and fiercest pilots in the military, but because they’re colored, they’re forced to do minuscule surveillance jobs where no enemies have been spotted for months, as they aren’t trusted to handle real combat due to the belief that they have “inferior mental capacity” to the other pilots.

The group’s leaders, Major Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and Colonel AJ Bullard (Terrence Howard), land them a mission that involves escorting bombers across enemy territory. They nail it with no US casualties which catapults their status into the top air league in the entire military.

TV director Anthony Hemingway makes his feature film debut with Red Tails, and the directing is definitely the first thing I want to talk about, because it’s f***ing awesome. Granted, this is one of the most heavily produced movies you’ll ever see, but it’s damn cool to look at, and the CGI is quite realistic. The dogfight scenes are breathtaking, and Hemingway makes use of steady cam, immersing us in the action instead of flip-flopping the camera every which way so that we see nothing.

The screenplay is the definition of cheesy, but I really didn’t care because the corny one-liners and unrealistic dialogue is just a part of what makes Red Tails the old-fashioned action fest that it is. In fact, the film borders on Chaos Cinema, with the extended dogfight scenes and thin plot, but it’s Chaos Cinema done right. Unlike 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the MoonRed Tails know how to balance action and plot well enough to the point where the resulting product actually comes off as a movie and not a commercial for explosives.

I had an amazing time watching Red Tails. It’s a fun, family friendly movie that can appeal to all ages, races, genders, and anything else you can think of. It’s an inspiring tale that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously and being a George Lucas skeptic, I was surprisingly impressed by this movie’s capacity to entertain and inspire all at the same time, while still not losing its edge. The surprisingly bad reviews can be called “racism”, but I call it opinion, and by definition, Red Tails isn’t necessarily a “good movie”, but it’s an extremely fun one to watch, and isn’t that all we really need sometimes?

4/5 Bears