Angry Nerd does "Swordquest"

I'm assuming that most of us are familiar, at least by reputation, with James Rolfe - aka "The Angry Video-Game Nerd." If not, in brief: He's probably the first genuinely important video gaming commentator to emerge from the world of web videos. His hook: Rolfe - in character as a foul-mouthed nerd archetype - reviews infamously-awful vintage games, frequently as part of an over-arching comedy skit.

The humor and the ever-increasing retro-popularity for gaming obscura made the character an instant hit a few years back, though many initially dismissed him as yet another one-note Youtube phenomenon; he quickly revealed himself as something much more: A remarkably insightful critic and historian of gaming arcana. The Nerd's focus is almost-exclusively on games of the pre-Playstation era, and - by intent or not - the specific "game-is-bad-must-beat-it-anyway" rage that is his trademark is itself a recognizable relic to Gamers Of A Certain Age: The masochism of having bought/been given a stinker and forcing yourself through it anyway because... well, what ELSE were you going to play?

As part of that broader nostalgia trip, occasionally The Nerd lets (some) of the angry-cussin' veneer drop for episodes that are more like history lessons, and in his newest episode he's tackled a doozy: "Swordquest," the epic (failed) Atari 2600 experiment in which a (planned) series of four games were to be played as part of clue-hunt through tie-in comics that would yield players prizes in the form of real gold-cast "treasures" valued at tens of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, the Crash of 83 cut the whole event off in the middle; leaving behind dissapointed fans and a two decade long unsolved mystery involving - yes - a lost sword.

Just watch the video, which I'd say is easily one of the best episodes he's ever done...

Video Games ScrewAttack Angry Video Game Nerd: Swordquest

XBox 360 Playstation 3 Nintendo Wii

ScrewAttack Video Game, Angry Video Game Nerd: Swordquest Game Trailers & Videos GameTrailers.com

How nuts is that, right? It's like the pre-title backstory to one of the "National Treasure" movies!

Makes too much sense to be true...

...would be my reaction to this IESB rumor story about the "full" scope of Christopher Nolan's "shepherding" of future DC Comics superhero movies: http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8514:iesb-exclusive-big-plans-for-superman-batman-a-co&catid=43:exclusive-features&Itemid=73

Short version of the rumor(s), in general order:

1.) Nolan directs "Batman 3" and produces the Superman non-sequel/no-reboot currently being called "The Man of Steel."

2.) Nolan's brother Johnathan and good-buddy David Goyer are writing both the Batman and Superman films, with an eye on Johnathan Nolan making "Man of Steel" HIS directorial debut.

3.) In addition, Christopher Nolan is ALSO "in charge" (in some capacity, at least) of the currently fast-tracked "Flash" and "Green Lantern" movies, along with the other DC "mainline" hero projects yet to be set up (Wonder Woman? Aquaman?) with an eye on cross-franchise synergy leading up to...

4.) ...A franchise-unifying "Justice League" team-up movie to be directed by Nolan AFTER Batman 3 and Superman have come out.

...uh-huh.

From where I sit, this all makes a little too much sense to be true. See, people tend to forget that the DC characters are in a different situation than the Marvel guys, where the rights are spread among different studios and Marvel is only able to try the current "Avengers" experiment because they're doing it in-house. DC, on the other hand, is owned lock, stock and barrel by Warner Bros... ALL of it. In other words, the only reason you see or don't see ANY DC movie is because someone at WB simply said yes or no. They've been capable of greenlighting a Justice League movie, a series of crossovers, a Martian Manhunter rom-com, ANYTHING for decades now and have never managed to get their shit together in all that time. The Nolan bros. have a big Dark Knight shaped dick to swing around in Hollywood right now, sure, but I have a hard time believing that even having the current God of Fanboy Reassurance onhand to bless things is enough to suddenly kick everything so completely into place.

Even still, I'd be more "intrigued" to see this work than excited. If the follow-up to TDK, Superman, Flash and the rest are now supposed to be living in the same universe... how exactly does that work? Will the Nolans risk hacking off all the folks who've come to worship "Knight's" steadfast commitment to "gritty realism" by suddenly having "that" Batman hanging out with aliens, speedsters and Amazonian princesses? Or will it be everyone ELSE who has to get refitted into Batman's world - i.e. will they ALL be sporting underwhelming black robo-armor and chronic laringitis?

Karate Kid remake explains itself

The "international" trailer for the Karate Kid remake ("spiritual successor," more like) includes dialogue explaining/excusing the problematic title/content dissonance - i.e. the movie is set in CHINA and the "kid" is clearly using/learning KUNG-FU - and otherwise continues the alarming trend of the domestic trailers of looking actually pretty good:



What can I say? I'm liking the unromantic/unvillainous vision of contemporary China, and it looks like Jackie Chan has made a conscious decision to NOT phone this one in. Who knows, anymore...

Escape to the Movies: "Halo Legends"

Intermission: "Five Great Movies About Video Games" - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/7217-Five-Great-Movies-About-Videogames

Speedy Gonzales: The Movie

From the "movies that will suck but will be fascinating to watch develop" department comes this gem, courtesy Hollywood Reporter's "Heat Vision" blog: The remnants of New Line Cinema are doing a live-action/CGI "Speedy Gonzales" movie, scripted by the writers of "Garfield" and with George Lopez voicing the title character: http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2010/02/speedy-gonzales-george-lopez-film-new-line-jerry-weintraub.html

Yegh. No es bueno.

The big question hovering over this property was always going to be how they'd deal with the "delicate" matter of ethnic stereotyping. As it turns out, New Line's solution is to take "delicate" completely out of the equation. Ann Lopez speaks of "George's "Latino seal of approval.", which sounds like a flat-out admission that George Lopez is mainly on board as a "firewall" against innevitable criticism. I mean, let's be real here... Lopez has demonstrated almost no range, no notable skill for voices not his own (and he doesn't sound like Speedy), has no real following and isn't all that funny; so why WOULD they hire him but not for the "cred?"

Ann Lopez goes on to say that "We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s -- the racist Speedy," which probably tells all that needs be told about how this is being approached. One must, of course, be sensitive to Latino concerns about Hollywood bigotry... but I've got to ask if in this case it's A.) possible and B.) necessary to do anything about this.

The problem with the Speedy cartoons is that they weren't generally trading in ethnic-caricature in a big, showy, obvious way: The Mexican mice were the good guys, played as happy and wholly functional until bad guys - usually non-Mexican cats, Daffy or Sylvester - showed up to cause trouble. Plus, Speedy himself was a kind of a superhero, who thwarted villains and saved people/mice. The lone running "race joke" is of the ironic-reverse variety: Mexicans are "supposed to be" slow and lazy, so it's "funny" that the guy who runs fast and has all this energy is Mexican.

Here's the thing: Do people still "get" that that's what's supposed to funny about this character? What I mean is, is this one of those cartoon-caricatures that the march of culture has rendered no longer as "blunt" as it was originally intended? Audiences in the 1950s likely laughed along with the wink-wink-nudge-nudge "irony" of Speedy's supposed race/behavior dissonance... but did the 'gag' still hold in the 60s, 70s and 80s, or did Speedy just become "guy who runs fast, happens to be Mexican?"

My generation grew up watching "DuckTales," just for one example, and I doubt that any great percentage of us were especially cogniscent that Uncle Scrooge McDuck was a dated racial-caricature of a cheapskate Scotsman. Is this where Speedy is, or is there still genuine offense to be had? I suppose I should ask: Latino readers, IS there a "consensus" on Speedy Gonzales in Latino culture? Is it positive? Negative?

In any case, I doubt the movie version will have any room for Speedy's cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez...

Captain America casting...

...is probably a few weeks or less away, given that they're now making casting shortlists public. Deadline Hollywood had the main list, which primarily included Chace Crawford, John Krasinski, Scott Porter, Mike Vogel, Michael Cassidy and Patrick Flueger: http://www.deadline.com/2010/02/exclusive-who-will-be-captain-america/#more-26473

So... mostly TV actors under 30, which makes a certain inevitable sense when you're "deal" is a $300,000 payday conditional on signing up for NINE MORE MOVIES plus the first one. Still, since none of them are square-jawed, barrel-chested, world-weary men who look like idealized daddy-figures (or Alex Ross paintings, same thing really) cue fan consternation... now ;)

Guys... can't we save time on these things at this point? Insert-superhero-here is NOT going be and will NEVER BE played by Bruce Campbell, Nathan Fillion, John Hamm, or whoever is "anachronistically masculine semi-famous actor of the moment." (Apparently Neal McDonough is a fan fave for Cap, too, presumably because he's... blonde?) Just repeat that to yourself every time a new franchise announced, and it'll make everything smoother. Here, you can start practicing now: Shane Black is going to write and direct the "Doc Savage" movie... NONE of those guys are going to be Doc Savage. See? Easy.

Meanwhile, Cinematical says that "sources" claim Krasinski essentially has the part, which would be... interesting, to say the least: http://www.cinematical.com/2010/02/24/exclusive-is-john-krasinski-our-captain-america/

For what it's worth, Krasinski has a tangential connection to the production already: His fiancee is Emily Blunt, who just made "The Wolfman" with director Joe Johnston.

Anyway, while I'm here, here's what I want to know: Is Bucky Barnes in this movie? And as a follow-up: Why is no one asking this but me?

Escape to the Movies: "Shutter Island"

Yes, I have a Boston accent. Isn't that WEIRD!!??


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1469-Shutter-Island

"Intermission" is about TV Tropes: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/7190-Trope-a-Dope

Spidey's Creek story of the day 2/19/10

From the beginning, Sony Pictures' hoped-for "fan salve" regarding the rapidly-developing "Spider-Man" reboot has been to tout it's supposed similarity to Brian Michael Bendis' "Ultimate Spider-Man" comics, which took a similar "send him back to school and start over" approach to the character with tremendous (financial) success as a result.

Now, apparently, it's looking like they're doing more than blowing smoke: Latino Review reports that Bendis has been tweeting about spending some time with the reboot's producers: http://www.latinoreview.com/news/will-the-spider-man-reboot-be-of-the-ultimate-kind-9246

This is... interesting, if there's anything at all to it.

I'm in the minority when it comes to "Ultimate Spider-Man" - it just never grabbed me. The whole "Ultimate" line comes with it's own built-in defense in these cases: Anyone who doesn't get into it is just "pissy" about tossing out long-term continuity or whatnot. Me, I just never cared for Bendis' approach to the character - overly drawn-out and tiresomely "hip." I actually like Bendis better when he's doing "event" books, possibly because the nature of the format FORCES him to actually have things happen.

In any case, like him or not it makes A LOT of sense that Sony would go to him - even if it's just to get a "fan favorite" Marvel writer to "bless" the franchise in an attempt to brush-off fan outrage - since Bendis' Spidey-approach is more or less EXACTLY what Sony is looking for: Light on action, heavy on inter-character-angst and quippy dialogue.

ETTM Special: "Bond Girls"

"The Escapist's" current issue is all about spy stuff, so they asked me to do a special-episode about the women of James Bond movies. So here's that:

Percy Jackson & The Cumbersomely-Lengthy Title

Evidently, Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" young-adult books haven't "broken through" with adults and older teens to the same degree that "Harry Potter" or even "Eragon" did (full-disclosure: I've not read them, myself) - otherwise I imagine it's movie adaptation would've been a bigger deal in the realm of movie-geek web buzz: Handily summarized as a more action-oriented "Potter" with Greek Mythology in place of witchcraft and playing out like mashup of Jonny Quest and "The Mighty Thor," (come to think of it... anyone following Marvel's Amadeus Cho/"Incredible Hercules" story would, I'm thinking, LOVE this) it's the sort of movie I can fully see myself considering "the coolest thing EVER" as a gradeschooler - as it is, I was shocked at how enjoyable I found it now. It's really solid fantasy/actioner, absolutely worth checking out especially if you've any fancy for repurposed Greek mythos.

Broadly, it's an "ordinary troubled boy is actually special" superhero origin-story. The basic idea is that the Olympian Gods (Zeus etc.) are still around and still in the habit of fooling around with mortals, frequently - as before - resulting in the birth of super-powered "demigods." Said demigods go about incognito, while the rest of the Hellenistic bestiary (minotaurs, titans, hydras... damn, but I LIVE for this stuff) slinks around on the margins of the "modern" world. As one-stop foundations for a "world of super-beings" go, I've heard worse.

Main character Percy Jackson happens to be the son of Poseidon, which makes him a gifted swimmer and able to telekinetically-manipulate water. That second part, along with his lineage, he's largely unaware of - to say nothing of how many people in his circle of friends and relations are secretly-magical helpers keeping an eye on him. He gets clued in as the plot steps on the gas: Someone stole Zeus' (Sean Bean) lightning bolt, which is the sort of thing that Wars of The Gods get started over. For some reason, Percy is suspect #1, so he has to get schooled in his true nature sooner than expected - spirited away to a summer camp dedicated to molding demigods into modern-day Hercules.

The plot contrives to send Percy and a pair of sidekicks on a fetch-quest to Hades, necessitating a magic object scavenger hunt through the various modern-day hangouts of mythic bad-guys. Kids (or adults, speaking for myself) familiar with the mythology in question are going to love these bits, since they'll catch the references earlier: One detour lands them in one of those chauncy roadside landscaping shops where you can buy tacky statues for the garden... lots of statues, come to think of it... Guess who. The cleverest - and most obscure - bit involves a Vegas casino, and feels like something Terry Gilliam would've popped into a Baron Munchausen sequel.

A big part of the charm is how - despite doing the Thor/80s-Fantasy-in-general thing of staging mythic dustups in modern urbania - defiantly "traditional" it treats the mythic stuff in the visual sense: The monsters all look (and "work") like they're generally supposed to, and there's no attempt to update or rationalize the Olympian Gods themselves - they appear as you'd expect: Giant-scale humanoids stomping around marble temples in togas and sandals. Even Zeus' bolt appears, literally, as a sparking shaft of lightning you can hold like a staff.

It does have most of the same problems that similar "trying to start a franchise" movies have, along with it's maddeningly silly full title "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief." Most of the non-main characters are forced to introduced themselves, explain their entire backstory, motivation, arc and then promptly excuse themselves with a casual wave of "bye for now, I'll probably be important two or three movies from now." But I will say that it's much less clumsy about this than, say, the first two "Potter's" (with whom it shares director Chris Columbus) were.

I'm not going to call it a rush-out-and-see sort of thing, but I dug it - and I'd definately be curious to see where it's all supposed to be going. I do have to wonder, though, if the makers of "Clash of The Titans" and "Thor" are at all annoyed that a bunch of their likely setpiece scenes and "big ideas" are already being done here...

Escape to the Movies: "The Wolfman"

"INTERMISSION," meanwhile, is about alternative Valentine's Day movies: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/7152-Strange-Love

Christopher Nolan becomes DC Movies' "Godfather"

Nikki Finke etc. report that Christopher Nolan, late of "The Dark Knight," has been officially made "supervisor" of the next "Superman" movie - whatever it might be - and that he's "hatched an idea" for a 3rd "Batman." Shocker.

Full story: http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/its-a-bird-its-a-plane-its-chris-nolan-hell-mentor-superman-3-0-while-preparing-3rd-batman/

The main takeaway here is that he HASN'T immediately committed to actually DIRECTING a 3rd Batman movie, which leads me to continuing thinking that he won't (losing prospect, trying top an unplanned phenomenon, no win situation, etc.)

Color me... mixed. Love Nolan. Love his movies. Love "Dark Knight." But the "other shoe" that's been hovering SINCE "Knight" was the prospect that Warner Bros. would decide that Nolan's dark, "realistic" Michael-Mann-pastiche approach to Batman would work for ALL of their prospective superhero movies... which would be a DISASTER. Dark/serious/realistic doesn't work for Superman, or The Flash, or Wonder Woman, or... well, pretty much anyone other than Batman - and even then only for a handful of prospective Batman stories (seriously, if you're going to cut Batman off from the more scifi/supernatural aspects of even his OWN universe, where is there really to "go?") Hopefully, Nolan is as "with it" as he seems to be and recognizes this.

The natural assumption, of course, is going to be that having Nolan "overseeing" multiple DC character movies is WB's move toward aping Marvel's still-unfolding "shared universe" movie concept - which makes a lot of sense, but I don't know. Nolan/WB/etc all seem universally enamored of their "down to earth" Batman... can you really imagine Superman stopping by for a visit in THAT Gotham City, or Christian Bale's mecha-suited-asthma-sufferer Bruce Wayne going to Justice League meetings?

STILL MORE from Captain America!

Holy shit.

I kinda figured that once Joe Johnston hit the junket circuit for "Wolfman" we'd start getting Captain America news, but this is a literal DELUGE so far. Yesterday the LA Times reported on the "solution' to the tricky issue of costuming, and now Chud's Devin faraci has quotes from Johnston about how they plan to solve the OTHER massive hurdle of putting this character onscreen: Namely, selling it in places other than America: http://chud.com/articles/articles/22433/1/CAPTAIN-AMERICA039S-INTERNATIONAL-CO-STARS-THE-INVADERS/Page1.html

Let's face it, while any fanboy worth his salt can tell you quite plainly that Captain America is pretty-much the exact OPPOSITE of the flag-waving, jingoistic douchebag you might imagine him to be from the name and the outfit - but try telling that to audiences in Europe, Asia and the Middle East who're at best cynical and at worst reflexively-hostile to the idea of an "All-American" superhero. Marvel Films' solution: European/Allied co-star heroes...

...more, specifically: THE INVADERS, a (retconed) Marvel team of WWII-era heroes who counted Cap as a member (if not "leader") and fought alongside him against the Nazis. Think of them as "Avengers: Mark I." In the comics, MOST of them were also Americans, but could be made multinational with very little revision. Johnston tells Devin they're "the whole second half" of the movie... I bet meeting a slew of OTHER costumed-adventurers fits nicely into the aforementioned "oh, NOW I get the point of the dopey suit" angle.

The INVADERS... in live-action?? To borrow a line from Patton Oswalt... what god did I please!?

One sticking-point yet to be elaborated on: TWO of the most-prominent Invaders - Sub-Mariner and Human Torch (not the Fantastic Four one, a different guy who's also an android. It's... complicated) have their 'rights' still tied up at Fox, not Marvel Films. They're both pretty "weird," though, so I doubt we'd see them anyway. Probably a mix of original Invaders, other characters that'd "fit" and newly-created fellows. I'd love to see Union Jack (he's exactly what he sounds like) in there for England.

Johnston talks Captain America

That whooshing sound you hear is a heavy sigh of relief coming from your's truly. The LA Times' "Hero Complex" blog has an interview with "Wolf Man" director Joe Johnston up about his NEXT film, "Captain America." Surprisingly, for a non-typical-web-geek source the questions VERY quickly turned toward stuff you usually have to wait for, well... US to cover: Origins and costumes. And from the sounds of things...

...Johnston etc. GET IT.

Check out the full article here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/02/captain-america-will-be-a-uso-performer-in-the-movie-director-says.html

These, in my estimation, would be the "bullet points" for fans:

1.) Setting IS WWII. It's an origin story for the Steve Rogers Cap.

2.)From the sounds of things the character is hewing VERY close to the standard model: Super-Soldier Program, innability to make "more" of him, Rogers as a "98 lbs weakling" before being transformed, etc.

3.) As to the costume: The way Johnston lays it out, he'll be wearing BOTH the traditional "classic" costume and a more armor-like outfit (presumably) closer to the "Ultimates" version. The logic behind this: The "classic" one is something the Army/Goverment puts him in to "show him off" in USO productions, he thinks it's dumb, then he comes to realize the tangible value of the "living symbol" aspect and fashions a combat-functional version.

Immediate reaction: I like it. No, wait... I don't just like it, I REALLY like it. I think this is sounds like a fucking great solution.

The costume was going to be THE big obstacle with this character, precisely because the whole "guy wearing a flag" concept is just patently ridiculous and people - especially those not already fans of the character or genre - are probably going to think it looks silly. That's why this angle strikes me as so brilliant: You'll have the main character basically "agreeing" with them that "this thing is stupid"... but then (it sounds like) a major point of his arc will be realizing (and communicating to the audience) "no, wait, it's actually AWESOME."

I'm feeling very good about this right now.

Escape to the Movies: "Oscar Nominations"

INTERMISSION is a profile of "Frozen" director Adam Gree: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/7128-Freeze-Frames

Oscars 2009

I'm more-than-likely doing a "nominations piece" for "Escape" on Friday, but for now my immediate reaction is as follows:

1.) Let all who doubt that putting-on-a-good-show "narrative" ever enters into the nominating process gaze on the dual 9 nominations for Hurt Locker and Avatar - turning the cutesy "battle of the exes" meme into a literal dead-heat. As of right now, my money would be on the safe bet: "Avatar" for Best Picture (annointing the now-official biggest-movie-ever, it IS a game-changer and putting the cherry on the new audience-friendly 10-nominations angle) and Bigelow for director (first female win, oh-wow-girl-who-makes-boy-movies, everyone was pissed when the Globes passed her over for her ex-husband, etc.) NEITHER is the best of the year in my estimation, but whatever.

2.) The 10 Nominations thing is, as far as I'm concerned, a HUGE success here in terms of getting good "big" movies into the running AND breaking open the genre-ghetto. True, "Avatar" probably would've been nominated anyway being such a juggernaut, but "District 9" and "Up?" AWESOME...

3.) ...Almost awesome enough to take the sting out of "Blind Side" being up there - which is a fucking disgrace. People will be pissy about "Avatar" being up there "just because it's popular" - but let's be clear here: "Blind Side" is the undeserving movie nominated as a sop to the cheap-seats this year.

4.) The Academy clearly loves "Inglorious Basterds," Christoph Waltz is going to win and I think Tarantino is a good bet for Original Screenplay... so where's Melanie Laurent? I know, I know, Best Supporting Actress already has Mo'Nique's name on it, but still. Penelope Cruz was sex-on-legs in "Nine," but it was a nothing role and the movie was horrible. I'd prefer to see Anna Kendrick win, solidifying her as the breakout star of the year (and officially the first person from "Twilight" to be 'safe' from having it ruin their career)

5.) The performances in "Precious" were so good that it's Best Picture nomination is... okay, I guess. It's an akwardly-made, overwrought movie, but whatever. Plus, let's face it, NOBODY wanted to see the headlines if it didn't ("Oscar even prefers BLUE PEOPLE to Black People!!!") But Lee Daniels shouldn't be up for director, not when it could've gone to Neil Blomkamp.

International "Clash"

IGN provides the "international" trailer for "Clash of The Titans."

More Clash of the Titans (2010) Videos

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62879

Heavy-Metal, drumming-scorpion and most of the money shots you've already seen are all intact, but it's our first look at the broader story concept. Short version: They aren't kidding with the "Damn The Gods" tagline - this very-much seems to be about humanity VERSUS the Olympians... think a role-reversed "Left Behind" with more visually-dynamic deities.

Fuck. Yes.

PLEASE don't suck.

Alright, Barack - NOW I'm pissed off...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8489097.stm

...not pissed-off enough to, y'know, vote Republican or anything, but still pretty fucking annoyed to be reading that.