Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

In case I don't have time to post again later because I'm eating all my son's candy...

Happy Halloween!



(Thanks to Jeff Smith for the video.)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1985)

Okay, last one of these for a while. Tomorrow we'll move on to something else. Maybe something spooky.

For the sake of completeness, I watched this 1985 animated Australian version of 20,000 Leagues. Not expecting much, by the way. I had in mind that it would probably be one of those cheap knock-off videos you see at the grocery store. Not really though. I was pleasantly surprised.

There's even a name actor in the voice cast. At least Tom Burlinson was a name actor back in the '80s when he starred in The Man From Snowy River. He plays Ned Land here and it strikes me that the more famous Ned (Kirk Douglas) was also in Snowy River. Interesting coincidence, if it is a coincidence.

The animation, while not Disney-quality, isn't too shabby either. At least the character designs are interesting. Nemo is kind of a fat guy, which is an interesting choice, but not invalid. I like how Aronnax and Conseil look like they come out of European comics, especially Conseil. Ned Land (a Canadian in the novel) is built like a lumberjack.



The Nautilus is a nice combination of the novel's cigar-shaped vessel and Disney's stylized steampunk version. There's nothing fancy about the way people and things move in general and most of the acting is choppy, but there are some nice animation moments where boats bob and float like they should and characters move underwater like they should. The giant squid is also nicely done with tentacles that whip around dangerously.



It's interesting that the squid fight is moved up in the story to pretty much right after Aronnax and Company board the Nautilus. The movie's only about 50 minutes long, so the story is super compressed and that's just about perfect. They keep the tension between Aronnax and Nemo as well as the conflict between Aronnax/Nemo and Ned. Conseil (as in the novel) pretty much agrees to whatever Aronnax wants to do. They also hit the most memorable parts of the novel like Ned's adventure on the island, the sinking of the warship, the undersea funeral, and Atlantis, while skipping over the boring bits.

And for Atlantis, they punch it up a notch by adding giant crabs.



All in all, not shabby in the least. The opening framing sequence is too long, but it's pretty to look at, so it's not awful. There's some slapstick for the kids, but most of it's genuinely funny instead of irritating. The sound is snazzy too, especially with surround-sound. Any time the characters are on board the Nautilus there's always background noise of clanking and humming as the ship goes about its work. It added a lot to the experience.

This would be a pretty cool introduction to the story for children. Not as cool as the Disney version, of course, but if time or attention spans are an issue (for you or for any kids in the audience), it's an enjoyable substitute.

Four out of five giant crabs.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997: the Michael Caine version)



SPOILERS BELOW

So. Michael Caine.

I love him, love him, love him, but the man digs acting so much that he's not always as picky as I'd like him to be about the roles he takes. And unfortunately, this is one of them.

Adding to the disappointment are a couple of other favorites from back in the day: Ferris Bueller's girlfriend and the kid from Can't Buy Me Love (aka McDreamy). I had the biggest crush on Mia Sara as a teen and I'm a big fan of Can't Buy Me Love (and Grey's Anatomy), so I was all ready to love seeing these familiar faces in 20,000 Leagues.

I think I've made it clear by now that I've got no problem with folks' tampering with Verne's novel. It needs tampering with. But there are a couple of things about it that aren't broken and it's exactly those things that this version throws out.

For example, Professor Aronnax is supposed to be a respected authority on marine life. That's one of the reasons Nemo keeps him and his friends alive when they're stuck aboard the Nautilus. There's this cool, sort of uneasy, but immediate respect between Nemo and Aronnax where each wants to win the other over to his point of view.

In this version, Aronnax is played by Patrick Dempsey as a young kid with extreme father-issues who's written a fantastical book about marine cryptozoology. He's respected by exactly no one, including his dad (John Bach, who played Nemo himself in the 1995 Mysterious Island TV show as well as Faramir's right-hand man in the Lord of the Rings movies), so when young Aronnax boards the Abraham Lincoln to go hunting for whatever's destroying shipping in the Pacific, he does it to finally make a name for himself and earn the admiration he craves so badly.

Another big change is Nemo. They don't really focus on his destroying ships. There's a lot of talk about freedom (for example, in this version Conseil is a freed slave named Cabe), but for the most part, Nemo is a mad scientist. The reason he's traveling around the world is to check on some explosives he's planted on the ocean floor all over the globe. When detonated, the bombs will shift the Earth's crust in such a way so that there will never be earthquakes again. That's not entirely altruistic, because Nemo's also building an underwater city in the ruins of Atlantis and he doesn't want another earthquake to mess it up again.

Okay, taking a second look at Nemo, that's actually pretty awesome. I wish Verne had thought of all that. I mean, Verne's Nemo is very cool, but it's hard to beat New Atlantis and shifting the Earth's crust. They even pay homage to Journey to the Center of the Earth by wondering if the explosives might accidentally break through to the Earth's hollow core, draining the oceans into it, and throwing the Earth out of its orbit. That's pretty frickin cool.

So, Nemo's not the literary Nemo, but he's okay in hindsight. It's Aronnax who's the real problem. He's far too mopey in general and his relationship with his dad is so damaged that it's ridiculous and unbelievable. The filmmakers wanted us to know so badly that these two men don't get along that they pushed their interactions over the edge into absurdity.

And because young Aronnax is so immature and issue-laden, we don't get the uneasy respect between him and Nemo. Or we do, but it's not convincing because there's no reason for it. That relationship is the one thing I really liked about Verne's novel (and a huge reason for the Disney version's rocking so hard), so - as cool and pulpy as Caine's Nemo is - the movie's weakened by not having a good Aronnax to play against.

I should say out loud though, that none of this is Dempsey's fault. He's a fine actor and totally convincing in the role he was given. I actually did feel badly for him; even while I was wishing he would man up. It was his dad who was cartoonish in how resentful he was of young Aronnax, and even then, that wasn't Bach's fault. It's the writing.

The writing also fails to give us a good squid fight, by the way. There's a tentacled beast, but it's bad CGI and it only attacks part of the cast in a quick, throwaway scene.

Speaking of special effects, the producers must have learned film-making from Stephen Sommers. Why actually shoot something as easy as cannons firing at a submarine when you can suggest it with crappy computer animation? Get some stock footage of a flat ocean, have your intern PhotoShop in a ship and the top part of a sub (don't worry about having the water lap up around the sub either, surely no one will notice), and then drop in fakey little CGI water bursts wherever you want the cannonballs to hit. I mean, how sad is it that the 54-year old Disney version kicks this film's ass in the special effects department just by filming models in a frickin water tank?

I need to mention Mia Sara because she's a bright spot in the movie and I need to calm down. She plays Nemo's daughter and doesn't appear until about half-way through because Nemo keeps her hidden from Aronnax, Cabe, and Ned Land (adequately performed by Bryan Brown, but he's no Kirk Douglas) in another part of the sub. By the time she comes on, we need a lift in spirits as badly as Aronnax does, and Mara (Mia's character) succeeds in bringing us both up. She's the fan of Aronnax's cryptozoology book and she helps him grow out of his father-issues by loving him for who he already is.

At that point, the rest of the plot becomes believable because there's a good reason now for Aronnax to want to stay on the Nautalis regardless of Cabe and Ned's feelings. And those of the hot, island pearl diver who accidentally discovered one of Nemo's explosives and was forced to come along on the voyage in spite of the captain's speechifying about liberty. (Her relationship with Cabe was sweet though, so I'm glad she was around.)

I've spoiled a lot of the movie, but I'll leave the end for you to discover if you're still interested. It's a crazy ending and I didn't like it, but I can see why the writers thought they needed to go in that direction. They didn't, but I can see why they thought they did.

Three out of five hot, island pearl divers.

Off-Topic: Bruce Campbell Live

Guess what I just bought tickets for?



I'm giddy right now. I haven't been this excited since "Mystery Science Theater Alive!"

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Rankin Bass' Festival of Family Classics version)


Growing up in the '70s, Rankin Bass was the ultimate in TV animation, especially where the holidays were concerned. They're the guys responsible for about 95% of my favorite Christmas specials as well as Mad Monster Party (which I sadly had to wait until adulthood to discover). So we thought it was very cool in 1972 when Rankin Bass came out with a weekly TV show called Festival of Family Classics where they'd adapt classic stories in their unique style.

It's probably been since 1972 that I've seen an episode, but my memory about them is that they were never quite as cool as they should've been. Certainly not as thrilling as the opening title sequence suggested with its parade of awesome characters. There was something thrilling about seeing Johnny Appleseed and Sleeping Beauty share a rainbow bridge with a dragon, a Jack O'Lantern-headed guy, and another dozen or so famous characters from various stories and fairy tales. The adaptations couldn't possibly live up to that.

Seeing the two-part episode of the 20,000 Leagues adaptation again, the trustworthiness of my memory is confirmed. Rankin Bass abandoned their signature style of animation for it and adopted something closer to Hanna Barbera. That's pretty cool, actually. A story about a tough guy whaler, a crazed sea captain, and a world-traveling submarine should look more like Johnny Quest than Frosty the Snowman. Where the adaptation goes wrong is in its pandering.

I don't recall if this was my problem with the show as a kid, but Rankin Bass chose to dumb down the material a significant amount. They turn Conseil into a young boy and make him the focus of the story. Not Ned Land, not Captain Nemo, not even Professor Aronnax. Those guys are all just background characters in Conseil's story. (I forget if they kept the name Conseil or changed it. I'm thinking they must have changed it.)

The problem is that "Conseil" still doesn't have anything to do. The real story is going on around him, but he doesn't participate in it a whole lot. He's the character we're supposed to identify with, but all he does is observe, so we're extremely distanced from the action.

Also, there's an annoying dolphin named Fifi that follows the Nautilus (whose design is pretty much plagiarized from the Disney version, not that that's a bad thing) around the world because it's inexplicably taken a liking to "Conseil." This becomes important (but no more believable) in the climax when the Nautilus is headed down into the whirlpool and the main characters need saving. So this version does improve on the book in that it at least tries to explain how Aronnax and Company escape the maelstrom.

Other than that though, Rankin Bass follow the novel pretty closely. Too closely, considering my feelings about the book. It's mostly a series of unrelated stories as the Nautilus travels around the world. There's no real drama; just a boy and his tag-a-long dolphin friend.

Two out of five giant octopi.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Usually by now I'd be feeling the urge to watch some horror movies, but I'm not. I'm still stuck on undersea adventure, so I've been watching a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea marathon. I'm about halfway through, so this and the next couple of posts will be about the three I've seen so far (not counting the Richard Crenna one that I saw back in August).



I had to start with the classic. Not because it's classic, necessarily, but because it was the first one (not counting this one, which I've already reviewed), and that's the kind of geek I am. In addition to looking at story choices, I also groove on noting influences and the Disney version influenced the crap out of all the rest of them.

As well it should. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it as much as I remember doing as a kid, but if anything, I liked it more. It's not a faithful adaptation of the book, but as I've said before, that's a good thing. The book sucks.

Of the five versions I've seen so far, Disney captures the steampunk quality the best. The Nautilus looks and feels like a real place and it's a place you'd actually want to live in. It's got the coolest ship design probably ever, including every spaceship I've ever seen. I'd rather have Disney's Nautilus than the Millenium Falcon and that's saying a lot.

James Mason as Nemo is also cool. He's suave and - though creepy - very charismatic. He's exactly the kind of guy who would build a ship like the Nautilus and who could inspire men to leave their old lives behind and sail her with him. Mason does a fantastic acting job too. When the Nautilus rams a military ship, the conflict on Nemo's face as he beats the crap out of his pipe organ is powerful. I really believed that Nemo thought he was doing the right thing, but hated it at the same time.

When I talked about the Richard Crenna version, I praised it for introducing an interesting plot that wasn't in the novel. The novel needed something to pull the story along and the Crenna 20,000 Leagues added a love-triangle between Nemo and Professor Aronnax's daughter (who took the place of Aronnax's servant Conseil in that version). It was a good move, but Disney doesn't have to change the story that significantly to stay interesting.

They keep the manservant, let Peter Lorre play him, and focus on his alliance with Ned Land as the two scheme to escape the Nautilus. The conflict comes from Aronnax's thinking he can convince Nemo to share his technological advances with the world, if only he has the time. Land and Conseil's plans threaten Aronnax's, so the three are constantly challenging each other as Nemo takes them into situation after dangerous situation. I enjoyed that conflict infinitely more than the passionless romance in Crenna's version.

A huge part of the reason I liked the conflict was because Kirk Douglas is so damn charming. His Ned Land is rough and not that bright, but he knows what he wants and you can't help but love the guy and that stupid "Whale of a Tale" song he's always singing. He also has more chemistry with Nemo's pet seal than, well, anyone did in the Crenna version. (Honestly, I liked the Crenna version at the time, but after seeing this one again, I pretty much hate it in comparison.)

This one's got the giant squid fight over Crenna's giant eel too. There's no explosive harpoon is the Disney one, but they more than make up for it in tentacles and rain and just the sheer manliness of the battle. The special effects also hold up remarkably well. It's obviously not a real squid, but it moves pretty naturally and is actually scary as it silently races up towards the Nautilus from the depths. It's much more convincing than the crappy CGI beast in the Michael Caine version, which I'll talk about later.

The movie ends a lot better than the book. In the book, there's a whirlpool that sucks the Nautilus down and Verne totally cheats on how Aronnax and Company escape. One second they're going down with the ship; the next they're lying on a beach somewhere with no memory of how they got there. The movie finishes with a dramatic battle at Nemo's island hideout and when the Nautilus and the Aronnax Group go to their separate fates, it's all believable.

Five out of five giant squids.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Off-Topic: Duffy's Bond Theme



Duffy's "Rain on Your Parade" should totally be a Bond song.

Thanks, Grant!

Introducing Black Canary: Flash Comics #86



Black Canary's first appearance was pretty humble. She showed up in a back-up story in Flash Comics #86 and she wasn't even in a Flash story, but a Johnny Thunder one.

If you don't know Johnny Thunder, he was a comedy character who hung around Flash and the other members of the Justice Society of America in the '40s. His gag was that he was incompetent and mostly blundered his way through adventures with the help of a magic, genie-like character called the Thunderbolt. If Johnny ever said the magic word "Cei-U" (pronounced "say you"), the Thunderbolt would appear and grant Johnny's wishes for an hour. Of course, Johnny didn't know the magic word; he would just accidentally say "say you" at the right time ("Who'd you say you were?") and he'd be covered.

Anyway. Black Canary.



In her first story, Black Canary is sort of a criminal. I'll explain that "sort of" in a minute, but as you can see from the panel above, they introduced her as a straight-up crook. Johnny meets her when she's having trouble getting into a second floor room to steal something from a vault.



I'm not sure why she didn't just go after it herself. She's certainly capable. But for whatever reason, she decided to use a patsy and Johnny's the very definition.

In the Foreword to the Black Canary Archives, Carmine Infantino talks about his influence in designing Black Canary's look. He mentions Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, which I can totally see. He was 20 at the time, so he basically just created his fantasy woman. He doesn't mention her, but based on the panels above, I have to think that Veronica Lake also did some muse work.



Johnny steals the mask with no problem, but Canary gets rid of his escape route and strands him in the room. I'm still not sure what that's about, but the mask's owners soon show up and interrogate Johnny. That's when we learn that the Canary has a particular m.o. She only steals from other crooks.



Don't worry. With the help of his Thunderbolt, Johnny will be fine.

Meanwhile though, Canary's using the mask to get into an exclusive masquerade ball being thrown by a local gangster. He gave out the masks ahead of time to his guests and they also serve as invitations. At the party, Canary tries to complete her real mission, stealing back a famous jewel that the gangster has recently stolen.



Johnny and the Thunderbolt show up long enough to provide a distraction and give Canary a chance to fight back.



And all is well. That wraps up the story except for one last gag between Johnny and his magical friend.



There are a lot of unanswered questions about Black Canary here. For one thing, we're not told why she only steals from criminals. Did she return the diamond to its owner or did she lose control of it in the fight and Johnny turned it in? Once we get to know her better in future stories, we can figure out that she must be the one returning the stolen merchandise once she gets it, but you can't tell that with any certainty from this adventure. As far as we know here, she's just a crook who steals from other crooks. And she's not afraid to put innocent fellas in harm's way to do it.

That moral ambiguity adds a sense of mystery to her though and I don't wonder that DC liked her enough to use her again in the very next issue.

Fishnet Facts

Too much of a good thing?



Illustration by Chad Crayton.

The solicitation copy for December's issue of Birds of Prey makes it sound like Black Canary's also going to be in the November issue, even though the solicit for that one doesn't mention her. I'm not going to read anything into that, but it's such a non-chalant mention of her that I admit my first thought was to wonder if Black Canary's coming back to the series. And to my surprise, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea.

Mostly, I think my attitude has to do with money. I'm doing just fine reading about Black Canary in Green Arrow/Black Canary and Justice League of America. I'm not so deprived for stories about her that I'm interested in a paying another $3 a month for more of them.

On the other hand, she'd get a lot more focus in Birds of Prey than she does in Justice League of America, even though she leads the JLA. If I was only going to read two Black Canary comics, I'd be tempted to switch Justice League out for Birds of Prey.

I'm sure it's a moot point and that there aren't any plans to put Canary back in BoP on a regular basis. It just got me thinking is all. I'm thrilled that she's finally a popular character, but I wouldn't like having her become as well-liked as, say, Batman, so that I've got to make choices about which of her numerous comics I'm going to read.

How to make a Zatanna costume



Meagan VanBurkleo at the Girls Entertainment Network chronicles her creation of a Zatanna outfit. I got to see the finished product at MicroCon this year, so it's cool to see the thought that Meagan put into making it.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Wonder Woman #25



Lots of SPOILERS BELOW. I pretty much ruin the whole issue, so skip this whole post if you haven't read the comic yet and don't want to know.

So, in the previous issue, Wonder Woman was visting the production of a movie being made about her and learned that an old enemy of hers, the Queen of Fables, is behind the horrid film. Why the Queen is trying to pervert Wonder Woman's story isn't so important. What's interesting is what the conflict reveals about Wonder Woman. Gail Simone makes a few cool points about Wonder Woman, feminism, and Hollywood in this issue.

Witness this scene as Wonder Woman is thrown into the movie and learns the movie's version of the Amazonian message.




There's lots of cool fighting after that, including an arena battle between Wonder Woman and some centaurs. Eventually, Wonder Woman of course wins and shuts down the film. Not before one of her gorilla knights gets to play film critic though.



When Wonder Woman does show up, she's encouraging to those of us who've been impatiently waiting for a Wonder Woman movie in real life.



My favorite part of the issue though is when Wonder Woman goes back to talk to the studio's lawyer. If you'll remember, this woman objected to Wonder Woman's status as a role model and I thought it was too bad that last issue didn't explore that more. I also hoped that they'd get around to it in this issue, and they did. It has to do with the single lawyer's own daughters.



We also learn that the "real problem" the lawyer's dealing with is drinking. Diana says that she knew about it last issue because she has "a sense about secrets." I'm not sure what that means, but it implies that Diana doesn't always need her lasso to divine the truth. Interesting.

Finally, we get this awesome scene showing Wonder Woman being an inspiration to the person in the story who needs it most.



That's how it's done, Diane von Furstenberg.

Wonder Woman Comes to America: Sensation Comics #1



Sensation Comics #1 picks up right where All Star Comics #8 (Wonder Woman's introduction) left off. It opens with Diana's transporting the still-unconscious Steve Trevor back to the US. There she plans to help save the world from the Nazis and the threat they pose to the Amazonian ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality.

We also get our first look at Wonder Woman's plane, though here it's not invisible, but merely "transparent." I guess that plastic version in the TV show was more accurate than I thought.



She lands in an abandoned field outside of Washington and finds a place to hide her plane, then she delivers Trevor to the military hospital.

Shortly after that she foils a robbery and draws enough attention to herself that she gets an offer to perform her "Bullets and Bracelets" act before an audience. She makes a bit of dough that way, but when she reads in the paper that Trevor's recovering, she quits the act and goes to the hospital.

It's disconcerting to see, but she really does seem to be smitten with Trevor. Like, lovesick smitten. She stands outside the hospital and thinks about how she's going to get past security. "Steve... Steve... I've got to see him - be near him - but how?"

I don't know why that bothers me like it does. I guess, deep down, I don't want Wonder Woman to need anyone that badly. But what's the harm really? Is it weakness to be in love? I don't believe so. And Trevor really is a good, capable guy (at least at this point in the comic).

Probably though, I'm reacting to Diana's not knowing Trevor at all. She's all ga-ga over him, but she's never actually talked to him. And all he's said to her was some delusional mumbling about her being an angel who rescued him.

Then again, he's the first guy she's ever seen and she's clearly heterosexual. Maybe it's natural that she thinks she's in love with him. It's just different from the modern Wonder Woman I've gotten to know. Then again again, contrasting those differences is a big part of my reason for going back and reading these early adventures.

Anyway, she decides to try to get into the hospital.



I always thought that Diana Prince was a name Wonder Woman created for herself, but she bought it from this gal and replaced her in society. That's weird. I wonder if they ever followed up on the real Diana Prince.

Anyway, once Steve Trevor wakes up, he learns about a Nazi plot to bomb Americans with a new poison gas and discharges himself from the hospital. Wonder Woman finds out about it too and decides to help.



"The impetuous darling." She really is giddy about him, isn't she?

Trevor bravely flies his plane into the poison gas bomber and bales out at the last minute. His 'chute doesn't open, but fortunately Wonder Woman is close by.



Together they defeat the Nazis, though Trevor is injured again in the process. Back in the hospital, he can't stop talking to his new nurse Diana about his infatuation with Wonder Woman.



And so we have another fake love-triangle like the one between Lois Lane, Superman, and Clark Kent. This one's a bit easier to take than Superman's though, at least at first. Diana needs to disguise herself to stay close to Trevor. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if Wonder Woman was hanging around all the time, but the hospital might.

As the series progresses though, I imagine it'll be more and more difficult to explain why she keeps up this ruse. We'll see.

Next time: Wonder Woman gets her first recurring supervillain.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

It's Wonder Woman Weekend! Yay!

(The first three images are all from the Wonder Woman Day 3 site. There's more stuff there that's just as good, so check it out.)

No Companion for Wonder Woman



Illustration by Mauricio Dias.

While trying to get more information on this Wonder Woman Companion book that Johanna mentioned, I checked the author's webpage and learned that it's been cancelled with no further information. Which is really, really disappointing, because it sounded great from Johanna's post.

Wonder Woman movie Dos and Don'ts



Illustration by Guy Davis.

SciFi Scanner has a list of things they'd like to see and not see in a potential Wonder Woman movie. I disagree with every single one of them.

Wonder Woman's origin story is a mess, but that's exactly why it would be cool to define it for the screen version.

I agree that the current comics are great and that it couldn't hurt to draw inspiration from them, but adapting them directly? I'd rather see something new. No complaints from me if they want to throw in some talking gorilla knights though.

And why all the hatred for the invisible jet? It's not just SciFi Scanner; I see this a lot. The invisible jet is cool. Way cooler than just having her fly around by herself like every other superhero.

The worst though is the suggestion to give her pants (or leggings?!). Just take the red underwear off the outside of Superman's costume while you're at it. And that cape of his is so impractical.

Wonder Woman Delineated



Illustration by Mark Bloodworth.

Here's an article that's infinitely more useful. The Fractal Hall Journal admits to not knowing everything there is to know about Wonder Woman, but they're incredibly insightful about her anyway. After scratching their heads over how best to capitalize on her fantasy connections, they offer some wonderful suggestions about what a good Wonder Woman story (movie, comic, or otherwise) should focus on.
A) Truth. Truth truth truth truth truth.
B) The hunt.
C) Magical gadgets
D) Super-strong, super-fast.

Factor A is more subtext than explicit, but I think it’s fair to say that any Wonder Woman story has to have a theme of honesty or a counter-theme of dishonesty to it. I say this is because a lot of her stories can be a bit unfocused; she needs something to define her. It’s unfortunately easier with the others in the ‘Trinity’ thanks to their admirably efficient origins (baby in a rocket, super-rich orphan). I’d argue that B is absolutely essential, although we don’t seem to see much of it in Wonder Woman stories. Yet it’s right there in her name: the goddess of the hunt. It’s what superheroes do, and Wonder Woman should embody it. Hunting crooks- uncovering the truth of their deeds- make A and B her method of putting her antagonists into context. C and D become her method of interacting with them.
That bit about the hunt is frickin genius. There's so much more to the article than that, but you should click through and read the rest. As much as I disagree with SciFi Scanner above, this one is dead on.

This just makes me sad.



Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg has created a line of Wonder Woman-inspired clothes and accessories, but that's not the sad part. The sad part is the comic that goes along with the line and shows how Wonder Woman can inspire women to get major-label record deals after a night of karaoke and win cooking contests by hiring babysitters. Go, Women!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Adventureblog Gallery: Wonder Woman

I can't believe it's been a year since the last Wonder Woman Day, but it has. Tomorrow is Wonder Woman Day 3. In honor of this awesome cause, today's gallery is all Wonder Woman. Click either of those Wonder Woman Day links for even more.

Jessica Hickman




Katie Cook



Otis Frampton



Kyle Baker



Jaime Hernandez


Josh MC

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Top Ten Pirate Movies

As promised.

10. Dodgeball (2004)

I know, I know. I'm starting off with a cheat. But the only reason that Dodgeball is this low on the list is that it isn't really about pirates. It's just about one, awesome pirate named Steve played by Wash from Firefly. That's good enough to bump it above most "real" pirate flicks. Garrr!

9. Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

I've got no objectivity when it comes to Peter Ustinov's Blackbeard trying to help Dean Jones and a bunch of old ladies save an ancient, pirate-themed inn from being destroyed by crooked landlords. This was one of my favorite childhood movies, but it does hold up fairly well. There's lots of goofy slapstick and Ustinov is thoroughly charming. And Disney doesn't spare any expense on the awesome, old, pirate inn.

8. Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)

Dude, it's Abbott and Costello. That's all you really need to know. And Charles Laughton is surprisingly hilarious reprising his role from the much less fun Captain Kidd. Anyone who can hold his own against Lou Costello deserves some recognition. It's too bad it's not available on DVD.

7. Tie: Disney's Peter Pan (1953)/Peter Pan (2003)

If I really had to pick between the two I'd choose Disney's version because it's awesome and it defines Peter Pan for so many people. But man, you can't ignore Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook. You just can't.



6. Treasure Planet (2002)

I don't care what everyone says about this being the movie that killed traditional animation at Disney for a while. It wasn't because Treasure Planet was bad, it was because Disney had been releasing too much stuff and folks were just getting tired of it. Treasure Planet is actually an awesome, well-designed, faithful adaptation of Treasure Island. Or as faithful as it can be and still be set in outer space. It got a raw deal is all I'm saying.

5. The Phantom (1996)

This might be another cheat, but the Singh Brotherhood are undeniably pirates - and very piratey pirates at that - so I'm counting it (even if it is impossible to find pictures of the pirates online). This is another movie that gets a bum rap by people who have no souls. It's better than every Indiana Jones movie except Raiders of the Lost Ark. I seriously don't get the negative reputation.

4. The Princess Bride (1987)

At last one we can all agree on. Cary Elwes held onto the title of World's Coolest Pirate for a nice, long time and there's no dishonor in having it taken away by Johnny Freakin Depp.

3. Treasure Island (1950)

Classic. Robert Newton's Long John Silver defined the word "pirate" for everyone who came after him.

2. Captain Blood (1935)

Of course, Errol Flynn defined "pirate" for everyone who came before Newton. Newton may be more influential over the popular perception of pirates, but Flynn's a lot more fun (and that's saying something, because Newton is fun). Plus, Flynn gets to smooch Olivia de Haviland.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy (2003-2007)

They took everything I ever loved about pirates and sea adventures and rolled it all into three awesome films. Sure, it would've been cool if they'd added another hour to At World's End and shown some other stuff I wanted to see, but they more than made up for it, all things considered.

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