Armchair Thinkers podcast

Quick head's-up: The Armchair Thinkers podcast has yours truly as a guest for the most recent episode (Feb 3 2011) and we get pretty into depth on stuff like The AntiThinker, Other M, etc. Check it out HERE:

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That'll Work

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Escape to the Movies: "The King's Speech"

Sort of.

Intermission sez: Happy Birthday George Romero.

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Best Shot of Captain America Yet

Scans from Empire, via ComingSoon.

I really want to see it move at this point, but thus far I think this might be the best solution to an "impossible" superhero costume ever attempted (as opposed to say, Batman or Daredevil's movie-outfits, which were overly-complicated solutions to very simple and quite-possible costumes.) It's as though the approach was "okay, if a human being had to wear this, what would it be made of?"

The problem with Cap is that, comics/cartoons being abstract mediums, it's generally been kind of hard to get a handle on what he's actually supposed to be wearing - the "blue part" of the suit is usually supposed to be some kind of armor, until-recently that was usually "visualized" by drawing little curve-mark "scales" all over it. When Alex Ross paints him, it usually ends up looking like plate-mail. Most of the time artists just say "eff it" and treat it like the standard painted-spandex onesie.

But I REALLY like this. You almost never see one of these made out of practical-fabric, which really makes the "muscle-padding" work a lot better than they do in rubber. Above all else, you can tell it was built to MOVE, so hopefully it won't have the Batman Problem where the fight scenes all happen "around" a main character who can (very obviously) barely lift his own feet.

ALSO: Samuel L. Jackson confirmed on Jimmy Fallon's show (so that DOES exist!) that Nick Fury is set to turn up in both "Captain America" and "Thor" - the Thor part is news, previously it'd been said that he wasn't in there. This would also seem to confirm that we'll see Cap's arrival in the present-day in the movie (or at least after the credits) since Fury couldn't possibly have appeared in WWII.



Although... this does bring up the still-wonky question of how OLD Nick Fury is actually supposed to be in these. In Iron Man 2, he says he knew Stark Sr., who has been dead a good amount of time already as that series opened. Movie-Fury looks like the "Ultimate" version, who's just a regular secret agent; but the traditional Fury is actually slightly older than Cap is, and has been kept artificially young(ish) by a serum derived from the stuff that created Cap in the first place - he was original a WWII-era character, "Sgt. Fury," and some version of his team "The Howling Commandos" have been rumored to turn up somewhere in the Cap movie, so... who knows.

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BREAKING: David E. Kelley Has Heart, Will Merely Humiliate 70 Year-Old Woman Instead Of Mangling Her

Bleeding Cool has the pilot-script NBC bought for David E. Kelley's "Wonder Woman" reboot. How does it look? In some respects, better than many were probably expecting. In other respects... much much worse. More after the jump:

Amazingly, if your "hangup" was the admittedly-logical prospect of Kelley junking the source material entirely... you can relax a bit - if anything, it looks as though the main problem is "shitty TV-writing" as opposed to "disrespect for the material": At least according to BC's report, pretty-much all the "weird" stuff I would've expected them to throw out actually made it in: Lasso, bracelets, Amazons, magic island, super-powers, etc.

The "general" backstory seems to have arrived intact: Steve Trevor crashes on the Amazon's Island, brings Diana back to Man's World, etc - she goes by "Diana Themyscira," and Wonder Woman appears to be her "title." The big change is to the interim: At the point at which the "present day" story kicks-in, Trevor is now "the one that got away," and in addition to acting as a superhero she's founded a super-wealthy corporation ("Themyscira Industries.") That the CEO of said corporation is a superheroine on the side is general public knowledge - so, pretty-much a copy-paste of "Iron Man," but with a female lead. If nothing else, this pretty-much screams "older actress" (say late-30s and up), yes? If so, that's a refreshing development.

It IS kind of funny how much it lays bare the shamefully narrow definition of "strong female character" in TV terms, though - the character is a (literal) superhuman, described in the script as being able to throw a truck around... but, dammit, you've GOT to find a way for her to also have a glamorous-yet-taxing White Collar job - otherwise, how will anyone know she's supposed to be tough and independent!!?? Yeesh.

On the less-good side, while she's not doing the secret-identity thing between her two "careers;" she DOES still have the Diana Prince (hair up, glasses, "girl Clark Kent" basically) second-self for a "walkin' around" identity; which seems to exist mainly as a place for trite "women-as-imagined-by-David-E-Kelley" idiosyncracies: Singing along with the radio, "girlfriends" who behave like grade-school BFFs into their 30s, "cute" pining for Steve Trevor (a'la "Big") and, of course: Ice Cream Buddy-Binging. Ho ho! Women bonding over junk-food! That bit NEVER get's old...

Incidentally, Veronica Cale is named as the main baddie. A fairly recent creation in the comics, she was a scientist whose "thing" was trying to destroy WW for not being a good-enough feminist role model ("it's easy to be accepted when your already a goddess," that sort of thing.) In terms of appearances in comics people might've actually read, she was the blonde doctor who seduced Will Magnus and then had a "what have I done!?" breakdown in "52."

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in "Batman" after all

Huh. Whaddaya know.

It's utterly-impossible to "predict" who or what he'll be playing, because that's not how Nolan and company roll: He could be playing anyone, re-imagined into anything, and it'll probably work out (and if not we'll spend years pretending that it did anyway) because Nolan Can Do No Wrong.

In any case, might as well make a game of it: Who can come up with the most preposterous rumor as to who he's playing?? I'll start:

He's Dick Grayson... but NOT Robin!

He's Clark Kent... but NOT Superman!

He's Bane... BEFORE the experiments!

He's Jack Ryder, alias "The Creeper" (short version: What if Keith Olbermann was secretly The Joker, and a good guy.)

He's Harley Quinn - Nolanverse Joker is even more "reimagined" than we thought!

The Joker: 2.0!

Azrael! (good god, I hope not...)

The new Ras Al Guhl!

Vic Sage, alias "The Question!"

The Riddler - Turns out the Nolan's really, really liked your photoshopped fan-poster!

The Ventriloquist! (I love that guy)

Superboy Prime - he suckered-punches reality, thus explaining why the various DC movie heroes don't live in the same universe now!

Surprise! The vaugely Robin Hood-esque bandit Alfred supposedly killed back in the day had a son! And he likes to hire Luchadores and kitty-cosplayers to fuck with his enemies!

Clayface. Why the hell not?

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The Big Picture: "Magneto Was Right"

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