Yearly Archives: 2011
Geek Does Good, Gets to Make New Mortal Kombat Film
Fear the fury of the front-flips! Shriek at the ferocity of the finishers! Quiver at the capacity of the…catch phrases! New Line Cinema is making a new Mortal Kombat movie, and they’ve hired the guy who directed the recent Glee concert movie to be in charge! Does that sound like a winning combination or what?
Get over here!...and sing me a song!
But seriously, it’s actually a pretty cool story and I have high hopes. The director Kevin Tancharoen got the job by being the biggest Mortal Kombat fanboy ever. While the video game series is pretty cool, the Mortal Kombat movies in the 90s were train wreck of idiotic costumes, horrible acting and groaningly stupid dialogue. They were cheesy and campy because movie studios are idiots. So two years ago, Tancharoen got his pals together and some actual Hollywood actors and made his own Mortal Kombat fan film. He made it realistic and brutal, with actual stakes and no silly costumes.
He called it Mortal Kombat: Rebirth.
It’s actually pretty badass.
The Interwebs loved that little video, and it garnered enough attention that New Line Cinema hired Tancharoen to produce a series of Mortal Kombat webisodes. They were short little mini-movies that ran earlier this year, featuring rebooted or retooled versions of the classic Mortal Kombat characters. For some reason, it wasn’t an exact take off Mortal Kombat: Rebirth. In a lot of places, he relied more on the original video game origins and characters than on his rebooted versions, which I found weird. But for the most part, the short films were pretty good.
And now, after that first series of webisodes, New Line Cinema has hired Tancharoen to just make a full blown movie! That’s pretty damn awesome. A geek who loves a property enough to make his own fan film does such a good job and earns such acclaim that a movie studio hands him the keys to the franchise for reals.
That’s every geek’s dream come true. That’s like writing a Batman fan fiction story on the Internet and then DC Comics letting you write an issue of Batman because your story was just so neat.
I guess I need to start working on my Strawberry Shortcake fan film…
Hey Look, It’s the Avengers!
Hey, hey we’re the Avengers, and we like to Avenger around. Check out these awesome official photos from Entertainment Weekly. We get a mix of publicity photos and set photos of the Avengers. They’re not the greatest of photos…but just seeing them in good definition, non-grainy images is a thing of beauty.My favorite is this one of Tony Stark standing around with Captain America.
A possible movie bromance?
Just the sight of them together…it’s hard to wrap my head around. That’s Captain America hanging out with Tony Stark! This is real. They look great together. The image really works. I can’t wait for a full reveal of all the Avengers together in costume. It’s going to overwhelm the Internet.
Here we have Hawkeye and Black Widow shooting at something. Maybe aliens!
I hope it's aliens
The funniest picture is of the cast just hanging out in costume with director Joss Whedon. I don’t know if it’s just me, but Joss Whedon has been aging terribly.
Oh how I wish I was there
The weirdest picture of them all is the character profile of Bruce Banner, played by Mark Ruffalo. This is supposed to be the Incredible Hulk, and this was the best face he could make?
You won't like him when he's pouty
Riding the Nudey Train All the Way to Nudesville to Sell DC Comics
Boobs sell comics. I realize this, I’m not a fool. Big, happy hooters have been at the forefront of superhero comics ever since Wonder Woman put on her first gold-emblazoned bustier. I have no problem with nudity and sex in comics. If it’s tasteful and serves a purpose, it can enhance the story or the character. But the extent to which DC Comics is trying to sell a lot of their female characters by putting them in the buff in their new #1 issues is making me feel leery about the whole line.
And the new Voodoo #1 this week may win the prize for the most exploitative.
Just look at that come-hither claw
Two-thirds of this issue take place in a strip club, where the title character is either on stage taking it off or in a private room giving a lap dance to a very sleazy guy. The fact that the guy is some kind of secret agent and the titular Voodoo is a space alien seems almost secondary. This is a comic about a strip club, and I felt as creeped out reading it as I did the last time I went to a strip club and got to sit next to a big, drunk guy who was not only really enjoying the show, but also had to keep telling me about it. DC Comics spends about as much time introducing us to Voodoo and the plot as it does telling us that there’s a good chance she’ll be naked or nearly naked in every issue!
So clearly all us lonely, geeky, basement-dwelling fan boys should buy Voodoo.
Because boobs.
Further Scarlet Spider Teases
A new teaser image of the Scarlet Spider (or a version of him) was released by Marvel Comics today and it looks pretty cool. You may recall back at the San Diego Comic Con, Marvel released an image of his iconic sweatshirt on fire. I posted it then, excited that Scarlet Spider may return. He’s a clone of Peter Parker, and was a big deal when my brother and I first got into reading Spider-Man comics. Well he’s been dead since the mid-90s, so any hints that he might be coming back are pretty cool.
Check out the imagine and a new costume…though the same iconic blue hoodie.
Apparently he'll be teaming up with Bargain Basement Daredevil
Review: Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #2
The spidery world of Miles Morales grows a little bit bigger in this second issue. Some of it is welcome and exciting, and some of it is too much too soon. But once again writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli knock one out of the park in terms of character and storytelling. Miles takes a few big steps in this issue and learns some important life lessons – not to mention spider lessons. That the reader gets to go along for the ride is the real treat.
Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #2
The All-New Ultimate Spider-Man is off to a good start. But I don’t think the characters have yet earned the heavy drama in this issue, at least not Miles’ father.
There will be spoilers!
Once again, decompression is the name of the game. Bendis is taking his time introducing us to new star Miles Morales, and he’s also taking the time to introduce Miles to his new spider-powers. We all saw Miles get bitten by the bug last issue. Now it’s time to see what that means. I do not mind the decompression, especially not from Bendis. He practically introduced the concept to the world of comics with the original Ultimate Spider-Man. He writes great dialogue and really delves into the personality of his characters. Unfortunately, we only get a taste of Bendis’ usual snappy banter in this issue. Too much is given over to a long speech by Miles’ father. It’s a nice speech, but we don’t yet know the character enough for it to matter.
At least the rest of the issue is Miles having a goofy, youthful conversation with his dorky friend Ganke.
Henchman-4-Hire 