Scott Pilgrim vs. The Girls

So, while I am a newcomer to the world of comic books / graphic novels, it is a medium that I have really enjoyed getting to know a little bit about, and that I am eager to spend more time acquainting myself with. I have never read an issue of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Canadian nerd saga, so I went into the Edgar Wright film adaptation with no expectations. I cannot really review the movie in the context of whether or not it was a good adaptation, but watching the movie definitely raised some questions about the series.

I'd like to first say that I really liked the casting choices - for all of the supporting characters. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was completely believable as the gorgeous and supercool mystery girl Ramona that guys fall in love with after just seeing her across the room. Kieran Culkin, Alsion Pill, Anna Kendrick, and Aubrey Plaza made a great team as Scott's long-suffering friends, and were entertaining whenever onscreen. Ellen Wong was adorable, annoying, and impossible to hate as Scott's scorned teenage girlfriend Knives Chau. And finally, all of Ramona's seven evil exes (well, the ones who had lines, anyway) fleshed out their caricatures well - Brandon Routh was a particularly nice surprise.

Arturo R. García wrote about the film's portrayal of Asian-descent characters on Racialicious, and I will quote the following as it pertains to Ramona's other evil exes:

"...other characters fare a lot worse ... the first of Ramona’s League of Evil Exes, Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) gets turned into a Bollywood joke during his fight sequence ... and the Katayanagi Twins (Shora and Keita Saito) go from being tech-savvy villains in the comic (they lure Scott into battle by kidnapping yet another ex of his) to their own QAS Daft Punk pastiche, complete with (ugh) dragons shooting out of their turntables."

Anyway, Jason Schwartzman will always have a place in my heart (did I tell you that I totally shook his hand once? It was awesome), Chris Evans was a well-played parody, and it was awesome to see Mae Whitman battle her former flame from Arrested Development.

Which brings me to Michael Cera. I guess he was well-cast? I don't know, you tell me. My friends who've read the comics did say that so much had to be condensed into the film, but I'd like to know if Scott Pilgrim is as devoid of personality in the source material as he is in the movie. Yes yes, Cera plays the same role in every movie. We loved it about him in AD and Superbad, and then immediately got tired of it. Wasn't he quitting acting or something? Whatever. I miss George Michael (not the singer-songwriter).

I guess if you strip away the flashy and cool fight sequences and just look at the story presented in the movie, it makes more sense. Boring unemployed 22-year-old in a band who lives across the street from his parents is believably edgy enough to impress a 17-year-old overprotected schoolgirl. And rightfully should incur the derision that it does from all of his friends. And while it's difficult to imagine that Ramona would want anything to do with this loser, I guess given the high drama of her past relationships, someone with absolutely nothing going on in their life might appeal. I'm just over the trope of an average-looking dude with very little to offer being the main obsession of multiple women who have a lot of promise.

Anyway, the fight scenes were exciting to watch, even for my parents and I who have extremely limited experience with video games and comics, where most of the stylized inspiration seemed to come from. I felt engaged throughout the movie with its frills that were surely culled from the pages of the comics. That said, Winstead and Wong were on a "Girls Who Kick Ass" panel at Comic Con, and given that they basically learned a limited amount of fight choreography for one movie, I do not think that title should necessarily be applied to those actresses.

So, the movie was just...fun enough. I would like to read the comics to see if there is more material there to be entertained by. Also I want Brandon Routh and Chris Evans to have a douchey buddy comedy, please.

am i the only person who didn't see that one coming?

I don't really know what to say about last night's season four finale of LOST, because it was such an excellent, complicated two hours of television that it's hard for me to string together a coherent discussion of one of the most divergent shows ever on TV. So, for the ease of muddling through all the thoughts that last night's episode - and this entire season, in fact - left me with, I'm going to break from tradition and write in bullet points today (storing up my energy for 2 and 1/2 hours of Sex and the City tonight).

Jin and Sun -- Oh man oh man, I was having quite a bit of trouble keeping it together for this whole section of the episode. First of all, I'd been holding out hope that Jin, despite not being one of the Oceanic 6, was still alive, ever since the ambiguous "tombstone" in the Ji Yeon episode. Somehow I still have hope that he survived the freighter explosion because a) it's LOST, and b) Jin is awesome. And Jack's a big douchebag. Yunjin Kim's acting was really spectacular, and totally sold the entire helicopter scene for me. I'm excited to see her start owning her grief and her destiny in her time after the island. She freakin' confronted Widmore himself!

Time travel -- Thankfully they've eased us into this being the true reality of the island, because if they'd just sprung it on us four seasons in, I think it would have fallen totally flat and nobody would have signed on. It would have been J.R. coming out of a dream sequence or something like that. I thought it was pretty bomb to see Ben turning the WHEEL OF TIME in the mysterious frozen core of the Earth, and another Dharma orientation video was long past-due. I can't wait for this to finally tie together the loose ends of Richard Alpert, polar bears, and four-toed statues. Also, I read a great theory online that the reason Widmore is trying so hard to find the island is because he moved it once himself and, like Ben said, the person who moves the island can't come back.

Desmond and Penny -- I was very surprised to see their reunion happen so early in the show's run. Considering the fact that Desmond was only introduced in season two, and the magnitude of their love story, I wasn't expecting resolution there until the final season. Of course, this just emphasizes the fact that their story is neither as interesting or as important as the raison d'etre of the island itself, and the conflicting groups who have found themselves there. It's a shame their union won't last forever. Come on, you know something bad has to happen there.

Ben and Locke -- Locke being groomed to become the new Ben was exciting, because it was finally a payoff to the strong connection he's had with the island. Locke being in the coffin at the end totally took me surprise (hence this blog entry's title), and opened up a lot of questions and possibilities for what could happen in upcoming seasons to fill the gap in Locke's life between last night's episode and his death. Ben had become my favorite character on the show long ago, and seeing what happened just before he landed in the Tunisian desert ("What year is it?") just made him even cooler in my book. Oh yeah, and he stabbed some dude in the neck a few times. Oh, and he is totally going to go after Penny now, and I'm sorry but Desmond is no match for Ben.

The "future" -- Okay, so now Jack, Kate, Aaron, Sun, Hurley, and Sayid have to go back to the island. And they have to bring back Locke's cold dead body. Does Ben get/have to go with them? Why doesn't Walt have to return? Or does he? How long (in TV time) is it going to take to get them back there? And how will Kate and Hurley be convinced? Will Jack ever stop being so insufferable?

The LOST Experience -- Another entry in the canon of LOST ARG-related websites. Did you catch the commercial for Octagon Global Recruiting? Watch it again at http://octagonglobalrecruiting.com. It's clearly something you can sign up to attend at COMIC CON 2008 because it says "San Diego" and "July 24-27." Yeah, even though I can't go to Comic Con this year, I still have the dates memorized. I can't wait to hear what they reveal!

the lasting reach of comic con 2007's influence continues...

Two nights ago my streak of finally attending movies this summer began with a crashbang! when I saw Iron Man. I enjoyed the mixed bag experience last July of seeing Jon Favreau, Robert Downey, Jr., Terence Howard, and Gwyneth Paltrow on a panel to premiere the trailer to a crowd of eager nerds. The downside of this mixed bag was that I managed to miss out on the goodie bag associated with this particular panel, and I didn't get one of their super-cool glow in the dark t-shirts. Before Comic Con, I had barely heard of Iron Man beyond peripheral nerd osmosis, and after one viewing of the trailer I was completely convinced that it had the very real possibility of becoming one of my favorite superheroes.

As someone with no experience with the comic book (or most comic books, really), my perspective on Iron Man is taken mostly from its place among other comic book adaptations. Plenty of superhero protagonists are anguished or tortured or conflicted, but Robert Downey, Jr.'s approach to Tony Stark was refreshing to see. In this post-Spiderman 3 world, watching Stark be proud and excited to be Iron Man, knowing that he's doing the right thing and having a great time doing it was invigorating, and made me root for him all the more, perhaps especially because of his alcoholism and womanizing. His transformation into Iron Man is totally believable, from his personal change to the changes in his relationships. RDJ, despite the unfortunate facial hair, is someone whose movies I'll be sure to look for (incl. upcoming Iron Man franchise installments).

My criticism of the movie is that for all of the very exciting action scenes, I didn't think there was enough. I was much more excited by the construction and gadgetry than I was by the fighting. The earlier action sequences, with Iron Man suit 1.0, Stark testing out his prototypes, and going to help the small village, built me up for a huge ending, which I felt the movie lacked. The Dude's skill in his power suit was pretty unconvincing, and I felt like we'd seen Stark become Iron Man in order to have a 1-on-1 fight that didn't excite me too much. If there had been more of a sense of Pepper Potts in extreme peril, or the terrorists thisclose to taking over everything, and a few more explosions and stuff, then I think the final set piece would have been perfect, and elevated the movie substantially.

I'd heard that the post-credits reveal would be "the coolest thing ever in a comic book movie," but it ended up being something that a comic book novice like myself would have to look up in order to appreciate. I think that the franchise that Favreau & Co. are looking into is going to be a very enjoyable addition to the genre, and I can see how a more action-packed second installment (now that the characters are introduced already) would be even stronger (a la X2). Hopefully the third movie, instead of sucking hard like so many other threequels before it, could be an Avengers exploit, which would give it the added dimension a threequel so often lacks.

And what a great state we are in, in this media-imbued society of ours, governed by a Hollywood industry of sequels and remakes, in which I feel confident enough to review films that have not even been brainstormed yet!

once more, with feeling...

Final day of my long-overdue recap of Comic Con 2007!


SATURDAY, JULY 28

This morning has been ridiculous. Esther and I got to the convention center at about 9:30 this morning - though it wasn't supposed to open until 10am, they opened up the main floor about 45 minutes early. We found our friend Brian and managed to get the freebies we wanted the most - the giant WB tote bad, the "Vote Petrelli" buttons (I wish I'd gotten more), and the 300 shield. We also got a ton of stickers and other trinkets - and Tshirts! Now we're in the longest line I've ever seen, trying to get in to see the entire cast of Heroes. It's at 12:45, we got in line at 11... and it was all the way around the building! Dear god.

*****

So, we didn't make it into the Heroes panel. I'm super bummed. We go to Hall H where we intend to camp out until the Superbad panel at the end of the day. We caught the tail end of the Rogue panel, where Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman were talking about The Strangers. Then Neil Marshall (The Descent) talked about the new movie he wrote/directed called Doomsday, which looked like a pretty cool post-apocalyptic thrilla starring Malcolm McDowell.

*****

The Disney/Pixar panel was kind of interesting... first there was a preview of some of the upcoming footage from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, including a live video feed of the director and title character from where they were filming. Then they showed a long clip from WALL-E and character bios. The sound designer (who was the "voice" of R2D2) gave a presentation of how and why the characters sound the way they do. The main brain behind Pixar was there, to great applause.

Then, there was a Marvel panel, where they showed Liv Tyler and Ed Norton from The Incredible Hulk, followed by a panel for Iron Man with debut footage and trailer. Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terence Howard, and Robert Downey, Jr. were all there, and then STAN LEE came onstage! I know I'm not the target audience for a lot of comic book movies, because I'm often not that familiar with the source material, but this movie looks like it is going to be so much damn fun.

The Columbia / Screen Gems panel was the highlight. Ali Larter and Milla Jovovich were onstage with debut footage from the new Resident Evil movie. AND BOB STENCIL WAS THERE AGAIN. Then, Josh Hartnett, Ben Foster, Sam Raimi, the director, and the graphic novel creators of 30 Days of Night came and showed an extended clip of a gruesome scene from the movie. Esther worked for Mandate pictures this summer, which worked on 30 Days of Night, and she said that the graphic novel and the screenplay were some of the scariest things she'd ever seen. I'm generally not really going to seek out non-zombie horror films, but this one looks great.

Then, of course, there was the highlight of my entire trip to San Diego. Esther and I staked out the best seats we could grab in Hall H, and we were SOOOOCLOOOOOOSE to Michael Cera that we thought we might puke. When he finally came onstage I stood up to scream, and my knees gave out. That's why all my pictures of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Mr. George Michael Bluth are all so blurry! Esther even had the cojones to go ask a question...I almost died.

Apatow also showed clips from Walk Hard, his new musician-biopic-satire starring John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer. It looks very funny, and I'm always happy to see Reilly given a lot of screen time. That man is a gem; he's like, second-in-line after Philip Seymour Hoffman in terms of ugly men who are super hot because of their talent.

*****

So, there are a few things that for some reason I didn't write down, but I remember happening and I have some pictures of. One is that Michel Gondry's new film with Mos Def and Jack Black, Be Kind, Rewind, looks really fun. The other is that Zack Snyder came to talk about 2009's adaptation of Watchmen. I can't wait to come to Comic Con again, because it was so much fun and I honestly feel like I can reference it every day. Also, I bought the graphic novels V for Vendetta and Watchmen, because I am really interested in learning more about this whole world, which is sure to enhance the experience the next time I go to the 'Con.

TO VIEW MY VIDEO DIARY OF COMIC CON 2007, PLEASE VISIT http://www.youtube.com/katexmachina

continued...

Now, for more of my long-overdue recap of Comic Con 2007!


FRIDAY, JULY 27

So, this morning was the Warner Bros. panel. First, they showed a reel from Get Smart, and then the director brought out some dude from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, MASI OKA!, THE ROCK!, and STEVE CARELL!!! It was excellent. At some point I went "WOOOO!" very loudly, and The Rock said, "Some guy is like, catcalling, haha." I am that guy! There was a video greeting from Nicole Kidman who is in Australia filming Australia! with Baz Luhrmann. Then they showed a clip of her movie with Daniel Craig, Invasion, a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There was also a trailer for Trick 'R Treat, which looks lame but has Anna Paquin in it. The trailer for 10,000 B.C. looked like it might be pretty entertaining, actually. Shannyn Sossamon, Ed Burns, and the director of One Missed Call answered questions that nobody had about their movie. Shannyn looked high. Then they showed the trailer for Whiteout, and Joel Silver, the artist of the graphic novel, and the director, and star Kate Beckinsale came out, and made the movie actually look really good. Now, we're just waiting in the same hall for "trailer park," followed by Clive Owen and Shoot 'Em Up. I think it's interesting how the buses around here all have nerdy bus ads for stuff like Stargate Atlantis, Spaceballs: The Animated Series, and Dead Like Me: the movie (!)...

*****

Here is a list of links to all the trailers that they showed during trailer park: The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, Mr. Woodcock, Eastern Promises, I Know Who Killed Me (LOL), Resident Evil: Extinction, Rush Hour 3, Bee Movie, The Heartbreak Kid, Balls of Fury, Right at Your Door (this looks cool), Dragon Wars, Across the Universe, The Kingdom, The Bourne Ultimatum, Vantage Point, American Gangster, 30 Days of Night, Superbad, Shoot 'Em Up, The Golden Compass, and Stardust

*****

So, watching the trailers was a nice diversion, and then after that we saw writer/director Michael Davis and star Clive Owen (mee-ow) present their film Shoot 'Em Up. The film screened twice last night, but we were way too exhausted and hungry to be able to go see it. They showed a five-minute clip of the movie (Clive Owen delivering a baby while slaughtering a huge group of nameless hitmen. Monica Bellucci and Paul Giamatti are in it as well. It looks amazing! Michael Davis was a really cool nerd who was just about to abandon hopes of making it in Hollywood when his script got picked up by New Line. They showed a second clip and also some of the animated "storyboard" that Davis had made in order to pitch his movie. Then we navigated the floor for a little bit, buying some crappy and exorbitantly overpriced sandwich. We got back to the place where Kevin Smith is going to be talking later. We caught the tail end of the Blade Runner anniversary edition DVD discussion, and now we're sitting in a "Star Wars at 30" thing.

*****

Despite the fact that I have never seen the original Star Wars movies, the LucasFilms/ILM presentation was still kind of neat. Mostly they showed trailers for upcoming video games, but they also showed two short clips from the upcoming hour-long season premiere of Family Guy which is a satire of Star Wars. Seth McFarlane actually came onstage to talk about it, which was pretty funny. They also showed some on-the-set footage from Indiana Jones 4, which made me feel better about missed the Paramount panel yesterday. Next up: Kevin Smith!!!

*****

So, last night's Kevin Smith panel was really cool. He came onstage and basically did stand-up got about half an hour before screening for us the pilot of this fall's new show Reaper, which Smith directs. It's about a slacker 21 year old whose parents sold his soul to the devil, and now he has to capture escaped souls and send them back to Hell. Then, the writers (two women, yay!) and two of the cast members came onstage for a Q&A, but obviously pretty much every question from the audience was about Kevin Smith's previous work. One guy asked to hear a funny story, and we were all treated to a tale about the time his lab started having sex with his toy dachshund. Another man started trash talking Smith's earlier work, which brought on a hilarious tirade about not making fun of your betters. Even a deaf guy with a translator got in with poking fun at Smith. After that was all said and done, we all went out to Little Italy for some great pasta and gelato, and then crashed pretty hard.

TO VIEW MY VIDEO DIARY OF COMIC CON 2007, PLEASE VISIT http://www.youtube.com/katexmachina

oh jeez

Okay, so the first week of senior year of college is behind me, and now I need to get used to the actual schedule of having classes and work and still trying to spend some of my free time to blog instead of just watching TV on DVD all day long. So, okay, let me try to jump back in headfirst. As far as school is concerned, I am taking James Joyce, Film and Literature, Media Sketchbook, and writing my thesis! Looking forward to it all!

Now, first I'm going to transcribe the journal I took during COMIC CON all those weeks ago, and then in the next few days I'm going to try to catch up on all of the movies I've recently seen. Now, get ready for day one of the LONG overdue Comic Con 2007 recap...


THURSDAY, JULY 26

"You don't understand, Michael Cera is my soulmate."
"No. Michael Cera is my soulmate."
"... Michael Cera split his soul into horcruxes so that he could be both of our soulmates."

So began our conversation the night before we left for Comic Con. We had a little bit of a late start leaving from Beverly Hills this morning, so we didn't get to San Diego until about 11:30am. We checked into our hotel, took the shuttle to the Convention Center, and cut in line with a friend in order to claim our badges. Then we cut in line to try to get into the Paramount Pictures panel. Though we had another friend saving us seats inside the hall, apparently we haadn't cut far enough ahead in line because we were about 25 people past the point where we couldn't make it in. But now we're waiting in line to get into the same hall for the Lionsgate panel. We won't be able to stay for the duration of that, because we'll have to leave early to get in line for the LOST panel, which is upstairs in Ballroom 20.

*****

So, the Lionsgate panel was okay...we saw Dane Cook and Jessica Alba talking about Good Luck Chuck. But the most important part was Bob Stencil, who asked a really lame question of Jessica Alba, dressed in a 70s outfit complete with airline pilot's wings and a pornstache. As Esther and I were obsessing over him, we left the hall afterwards and saw him on the escalator! We were like totally geeky fangirls and I took a picture of him doing this great pose, then Lizzie, Esther, and I took a great posed photo with him. Now we're sitting in the LOST season 4 room! He said he was staying at the Ramada Inn, room 3312. Also, Optimus Prime in a Su-Fi t-shirt asked Dane Cook a question.

*****

So, the LOST panel was amazing. A few days ago, it was released that Harold Perrineau will be returning to the cast full-time playing Michael. The creators of the show had intended to release that news today at Comic Con, but its early release did not make it an less thrilling when he walked onstage (!) to join Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. (Lizzie, Esther, and I were the only ones who stood up and screamed our heads off.) They answered audience questions and then showed a great 2-minute clip of "lost" Dharma Initiative training footage where that Asian guy said "Station 6, the Orchid, is not a botanical station. Sorry you've had to lie to your family," and the he was holding a bunny marked with the number 15 which seemed to have a "smart" clone which knocked a light bulb off the ceiling. "They've learned!" shouted that Asian guy. And there were some split-second images of a tall office building and a frame with some unrecognizable words, one being "Jacob"!

Then, we went to dinner at the Corvette Diner. We split a basket of spicy fried pickles, a peanut-butter-bacon-cheeseburger, and all ordered entrees and milkshakes. The '50s style diner was very kitsch (Bazooka gum instead of after-dinner mints), and the waitresses were too much - doing little birthday girls' hair with plastic straws, dancing, making balloon animals, and having alternate personas named Doris, etc. It felt like that time Brenda Walsh worked at the Peach Pit. I'm so full I feel like dying.

TO VIEW MY VIDEO DIARY OF COMIC CON 2007 PLEASE VISIT http://www.youtube.com/katexmachina

updaaaate

So, after having come back to work directly after an exhausting cross-country long-weekend, I am now in full busy-planning mode for this weekend. It's my birfday on Sunday, and so I am incredibly busy getting everything figured out. Sorry I haven't devoted much time to the blog lately, but I thought I could get a little overview of things to come here:

-OUTFEST: I may be going to see the documentary The Believers at LA's Outfest this week - I'll let you know what I think, as it's made by an alumna of my school, and I'm always looking to give some support!

-COMIC CON 2007: That's right! I'm only going for Friday and Saturday, but it's going to be amazing. I've been waiting for this my whole life. As a first-timer (I went once as a little kid to meet Lt. Diana Troy from Star Trek: TNG, but that barely counts), I will not be dressing up or anything like that. But rest assured, I will be constantly taking photos, and jotting down notes about every event I attend!

-TRALIERS: I really want to get back into posting trailers! For now, just watch "Fido." It looks awesome.

-FALL SEASON ANTICIPATION: In which I judge upcoming TV shows without knowing anything about them. Expect it to turn into a profanity-laden rant about the goddamn Cavemen.

-HARRY POTTER: Okay, so I probably won't even see the fifth movie until it's on DVD, because I honestly don't care enough about the movies, and Daniel Radcliffe pisses me off. But I will be cloistering myself next weekend to read the final book in the series, and I can't wait to write out a retrospective about this series I began reading when I was 11 - the same age as Harry is in the first book! Sidenote: Emma Watson is a stone cold fox, and I have just got to put out there that - baby girl, if you are ever looking to crash with some cool people in LA...call me.

Yeah...there's other stuff, I'm sure, but I just wanted to check in. I saw Blades of Glory on the airplane, and it was a lot better than I thought it'd be. I was expecting Anchorman levels of stupidity, but Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, and Jenna Fischer kept me from being disappointed!