list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Iron Man on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Iron_Man/284746/default.aspx Title: Iron Man
Year: 2008
Director: Jon Favreau
Plot: From Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures comes Iron Man, an action-packed take on the tale of wealthy philanthropist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who develops an invulnerable robotic suit to fight the throes of evil. Gwyneth Paltrow co-stars as his secretary, Virginia "Pepper" Potts, while Terrence Howard fills the role of Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, one of Stark's colleague's whose military background leads him to help in the formation of the suit. Jon Favreau directs, with Marvel movie veterans Avi Arad and Kevin Feige producing. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 152
Number of Lists: 71
Number of blog posts: 88
Number of discussion threads: 13
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:44:21 GMTIron Man2008Jon FavreauFrom Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures comes Iron Man, an action-packed take on the tale of wealthy philanthropist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who develops an invulnerable robotic suit to fight the throes of evil. <a href="/players/P____54871/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Gwyneth Paltrow</a> co-stars as his secretary, Virginia "Pepper" Potts, while <a href="/players/P____33528/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Terrence Howard</a> fills the role of Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, one of Stark's colleague's whose military background leads him to help in the formation of the suit. <a href="/players/P____22880/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jon Favreau</a> directs, with Marvel movie veterans <a href="/players/P___242576/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Avi Arad</a> and <a href="/players/P___277762/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Kevin Feige</a> producing. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide152Tag Target (>10)7188134http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s284746.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Iron_Man/284746/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/laurenbailey63/archive/2009/9/23/44004.aspx Post By: laurenbailey63
Post To: laurenbailey63 Blog
Post Date: 9/23/2009 10:19:37 PM
Body: i did not like the film it was gay.
]]>Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:19:37 GMTlaurenbailey63laurenbailey63 Blog9/23/2009 10:19:37 PMi did not like the film it was gay. http://www.spout.com/blogs/hautecritique/archive/2009/7/18/43184.aspx Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/18/2009 6:01:14 PM
Body: I’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies, but I am decidedly a muggle. In fact, if you are not a muggle, you have already seen this movie and discussed it ad nauseam with fellow wizards. I don’t mean that pejoratively. My wife, Mrs. Gravity, is pure magic. It was with her and a few other magic folk that I went to the matinee showing of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Six posters lose the plot For a weekday showing, it was well attended. Once the strains of the familiar score started dancing in the dark, the theater was ready, more like longing, to be entranced. The familiar feeling doesn’t stop with the score. We begin with cryptic warnings of danger and doom from Professor Dumbledore. Harry, feeling cryptic warning fatigue, goes along with Dumbledore compliantly, and without a great deal of concern. And, so does the audience. Yes, there will be danger and the fate of the world will be decided in the balance. We understand all that, now let’s get on with the movie, shall we? It is a great first pitch. Movie after movie we start with a similar setup. We are older and wiser. So is Harry. This matched emotion between viewer and Harry, however, is quickly betrayed. In the first real scene of magic (Other than warping around Britain and turning a wand into a flashlight), Dumbledore goes Mary Poppins and cleans up someone’s house. Harry is *stunned*. Speechlessly he dodges plates returning to the cupboard. His jaw drops as light bulbs change themselves. Surely not! This can’t be possible!?! What happened to that world weary teenager that was a scarf and some eye-liner away from writing some brutally insipid emo poetry? Suddenly he is acting like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. This kid has fought demons. He has seen death. He owns a flippin’ invisibility cloak, but somehow an automatic garage door opener suddenly looks like the work of some unicorn woodland nymph fairy. That rant aside, the film looks great. The slick polish and epic transitions really do build an enveloping world. And whether it is Charlie’s Angels or Iron Man, all blockbusters look a little better through the green filter. The fantasy world looks fantastic, which by some mathematical principle distributes a genuine feeling of place. The stone walls are massive and the snow, pure white. Post production twinkle isn’t the only fairy dust on screen. There is a smorgasbord of puppy love and subdued horn-doggery. The giggling, flirting, crying and pouting are actually really well done; and so many flavors. There are more ‘love’ stories than I can enumerate. Each arc trickles through the first half of the film, like a Plinko chip on The Price is Right, it bounces playfully from peg to peg. Even when the outcome is formulaic, our inner school kid cracks a little smile. Eventually, Dumbledore sighs,”Oh, to be young and feel love’s keen sting.” (or something like that) All of the Sadie Hawkins romance does squeeze any momentum out of the macho storyline. Remember how the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Yeah, that thing. The straining balance totters back and forth. Once the doom and gloom really gets marching, the mushy bits are put on pause, never to be revisited. But the oscillating tone truly does damage to the crown jewel of the whole Harry Potter series. Like I said, I never read the books, but, almost everyone I know did. And when Half-Blood Prince came out, one scene was read and re-read through tear filled eyes. Not just eyes of babes, but adults who felt magic had been left behind long ago. In that moment, the Harry Potter spell was its most tangible. On the road to this revelation there are many scenes of graphic, jarring action and juiced up puppy love presented with flair and acumen. Then, when the time comes, the film simply doesn’t include the books climax. Oh, it happens (and if you have the faintest idea of the plot of this volume of the Harry Potter saga, you know what ‘it’ is). The team that made this picture gets to check that box. The deed is done. However, for someone that didn’t read the book, even being lit up with the spirit, primed for empathy, it seemed pedestrian. For my party of magic folk, it was simply heretical. To me, it was boring. Before we close the book, a couple of parting shout outs. The brightest spot for me was Luna Lovegood. She pops up as if she is a shared hallucination. An ephemeral, and not completely there, sprite. A bubbly lemon-lime refreshment that pops up when the rest of the plot starts getting dry. A bit of lunatic charm that says,”Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as me.” The other part worth mentioning is the liquid luck. It is a potion that brings success in all endeavors to whomever drinks it, until it wears off. We quickly imagine that the potion transforms the drinker into the toast of the town. The director then hints deeper that the effects include a hyper alertness and a suave macho aggression. Then a funny thing happens. We learn that the potion, in truth, gets you totally baked. That’s right. Drinking liquid luck is like pigging out at Willie Nelson’s brownie bar. And, for some viewers, it is another glimpse of the talent this director has with perfect empathy. Unfortunately, that too wears off. As we wandered out of the multi-plex, back towards parking spot 9 3/4, the magic folk cooly dismissed the effort. For my part, while liquid luck helped some of the film succeed, it wasn’t enough to catapult it into haute cinema. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique
]]>Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:01:14 GMThautecritiqueThe Haute Critique on Spout7/18/2009 6:01:14 PMI’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies, but I am decidedly a muggle. In fact, if you are not a muggle, you have already seen this movie and discussed it ad nauseam with fellow wizards. I don’t mean that pejoratively. My wife, Mrs. Gravity, is pure magic. It was with her and a few other magic folk that I went to the matinee showing of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Six posters lose the plot For a weekday showing, it was well attended. Once the strains of the familiar score started dancing in the dark, the theater was ready, more like longing, to be entranced. The familiar feeling doesn’t stop with the score. We begin with cryptic warnings of danger and doom from Professor Dumbledore. Harry, feeling cryptic warning fatigue, goes along with Dumbledore compliantly, and without a great deal of concern. And, so does the audience. Yes, there will be danger and the fate of the world will be decided in the balance. We understand all that, now let’s get on with the movie, shall we? It is a great first pitch. Movie after movie we start with a similar setup. We are older and wiser. So is Harry. This matched emotion between viewer and Harry, however, is quickly betrayed. In the first real scene of magic (Other than warping around Britain and turning a wand into a flashlight), Dumbledore goes Mary Poppins and cleans up someone’s house. Harry is *stunned*. Speechlessly he dodges plates returning to the cupboard. His jaw drops as light bulbs change themselves. Surely not! This can’t be possible!?! What happened to that world weary teenager that was a scarf and some eye-liner away from writing some brutally insipid emo poetry? Suddenly he is acting like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. This kid has fought demons. He has seen death. He owns a flippin’ invisibility cloak, but somehow an automatic garage door opener suddenly looks like the work of some unicorn woodland nymph fairy. That rant aside, the film looks great. The slick polish and epic transitions really do build an enveloping world. And whether it is Charlie’s Angels or Iron Man, all blockbusters look a little better through the green filter. The fantasy world looks fantastic, which by some mathematical principle distributes a genuine feeling of place. The stone walls are massive and the snow, pure white. Post production twinkle isn’t the only fairy dust on screen. There is a smorgasbord of puppy love and subdued horn-doggery. The giggling, flirting, crying and pouting are actually really well done; and so many flavors. There are more ‘love’ stories than I can enumerate. Each arc trickles through the first half of the film, like a Plinko chip on The Price is Right, it bounces playfully from peg to peg. Even when the outcome is formulaic, our inner school kid cracks a little smile. Eventually, Dumbledore sighs,”Oh, to be young and feel love’s keen sting.” (or something like that) All of the Sadie Hawkins romance does squeeze any momentum out of the macho storyline. Remember how the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Yeah, that thing. The straining balance totters back and forth. Once the doom and gloom really gets marching, the mushy bits are put on pause, never to be revisited. But the oscillating tone truly does damage to the crown jewel of the whole Harry Potter series. Like I said, I never read the books, but, almost everyone I know did. And when Half-Blood Prince came out, one scene was read and re-read through tear filled eyes. Not just eyes of babes, but adults who felt magic had been left behind long ago. In that moment, the Harry Potter spell was its most tangible. On the road to this revelation there are many scenes of graphic, jarring action and juiced up puppy love presented with flair and acumen. Then, when the time comes, the film simply doesn’t include the books climax. Oh, it happens (and if you have the faintest idea of the plot of this volume of the Harry Potter saga, you know what ‘it’ is). The team that made this picture gets to check that box. The deed is done. However, for someone that didn’t read the book, even being lit up with the spirit, primed for empathy, it seemed pedestrian. For my party of magic folk, it was simply heretical. To me, it was boring. Before we close the book, a couple of parting shout outs. The brightest spot for me was Luna Lovegood. She pops up as if she is a shared hallucination. An ephemeral, and not completely there, sprite. A bubbly lemon-lime refreshment that pops up when the rest of the plot starts getting dry. A bit of lunatic charm that says,”Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as me.” The other part worth mentioning is the liquid luck. It is a potion that brings success in all endeavors to whomever drinks it, until it wears off. We quickly imagine that the potion transforms the drinker into the toast of the town. The director then hints deeper that the effects include a hyper alertness and a suave macho aggression. Then a funny thing happens. We learn that the potion, in truth, gets you totally baked. That’s right. Drinking liquid luck is like pigging out at Willie Nelson’s brownie bar. And, for some viewers, it is another glimpse of the talent this director has with perfect empathy. Unfortunately, that too wears off. As we wandered out of the multi-plex, back towards parking spot 9 3/4, the magic folk cooly dismissed the effort. For my part, while liquid luck helped some of the film succeed, it wasn’t enough to catapult it into haute cinema. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/3/5/40839.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/5/2009 10:00:20 AM
Body: Many smart cinephiles and comic book geeks will avoid watching Watchmen this weekend. Not to avoid the crowds of opening weekend, and not to patiently await word of mouth from friends and reactions from critics. No, these bright few will ignore the out-of-season blockbuster event because there is absolutely no reason to see this movie. They recognize that any Watchmen adaptation (particularly this one that’s been made) is completely unnecessary. Well, for anyone not out to profit from it, anyway. Of course, even Warner Bros. might have been better off not producing the thing, since the studio won’t be making as much money as it had initially envisioned thanks to that profit-participation settlement with Fox. The point of this post is not to call Watchmen watchers stupid. Rather, our list of five reasons the film is unnecessary is to help moviegoers get smart. After reading this, though, if any of you are still determined to waste your time sitting through almost 3 hours of redundant, rehashed, irrelevant, ridiculous and inescapably disappointing superhero cinema, we’ll be left with no choice but to consider you mindless sheep, the kind that deserve to be duped. And if Dr. Manhattan chooses to vaporize us (or fans choose to curse us out in the comments section) for exposing the truth about this enterprise of excess, then so be it. We believe we’ve served justice here. 1. Faithful adaptations of graphic novels are redundant Comic books and movies, though both visual and (for the most part) processive forms of storytelling, are certainly different mediums. Yet there is good reason for people to believe film adaptations of graphic novels are easy, particularly when they’re meant to be faithful reproductions. Recreating a comic panel exactly and then giving it motion isn’t necessarily a simple process, but it is a pointless one. In the past, such redundancy has been fully evident in the sinfully unnecessary movie Sin City, and now Watchmen is furthermore putting the super in superfluous with its attempt to mostly please fans of the classic comic by meticulously replicating Alan Moore’s script and Dave Gibbons and John Higgins’ artwork for the big screen. But in addition to indulging the narrowly satisfied fanatics, a movie as resembling of its source material as Watchmen is may be accepted as substitute and partly render the graphic novel obsolete to newcomers. This is of course a problem with adaptations in general, regardless of the type of medium being adapted. Yet it’s all the more potentially displacing when the film is both based on a visual work and intended to be as precise an imitation as possible. Recently, writing for ThePlaylist, Christopher R. Adams pointed out that, “the best comic book films (”The Dark Knight”, “X-Men 2″ and Iron Man) were not adapted word-for-word and panel-for-panel to the screen. They weren’t even culled from one single story!” So why would anyone think it a good idea to make an exact copy of a graphic novel? Well, defenders of both Sin City and Watchmen will undoubtedly argue that it’s “neat” to see the two-dimensional and relatively static images from the book given the added depth and movement, but then so is it similarly curious to see what happens when you drive a car into a wall. So, devout Watchmen readers, why not simply honor the graphic novel by letting it stand alone and experiencing it in its intended medium? 2. So many movies satirizing and subverting superheroes already exist Watchmen may or may not have been the first subversive twist on superhero comics, but the movie is hardly the first of its kind. From the really lame (Superhero Movie) to the really great (The Incredibles), films making fun of or merely playing on the concept of superheroes have been around for about as long as the Watchmen graphic novel has been in print. And so, like our list of movies that made the recent Get Smart obsolete, it would be quite easy to name examples of movies and TV shows that, whether or not they were directly influenced by the Watchmen comics in the first place, have seemingly superseded the Watchmen story and therefore made its film adaptation a stale, or at least surplus, endeavor. Why should anyone unfamiliar with the graphic novel need to see Watchmen after experiencing Hancock, Mystery Men, The Tick, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy, Unbreakable, The Specials, Sky High, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, The Meteor Man, Blankman, et al.? Well, there may be those superhero movie completists who will see any example of the genre, but such people are likely to be the most unimpressed with a story as seemingly dated and done before as Watchmen’s. Really, in a way, The Incredibles was the best possible movie to come out of the graphic novel’s wake, and The Dark Knight was the darkest and most realistic. Comparatively, even a decently made Watchmen adaptation should seem a pale wannabe. That’s why it’s easy to side with IMDb user Richard Brunton’s concern from years ago: “There is so much similarity to The Watchmen that those who haven’t read the graphic novel will be saying ‘That’s the Incredibles movie’ when Watchmen finally comes to fruition.” And already someone made the mashup trailer to encourage such a concern. 3. Watchmen has no contemporary relevance A movie of Watchmen in 2009 has a problem of relevance in two regards. One relates to the previous point about how plenty of subversive superhero movies have already been made prior to this adaptation. Yet even without the preexistence of all those titles the Watchmen movie, as it’s been made, would fail on other levels of innovation and relevance. Paul DeBenedetto of the comics blog Wednesday’s Child, writing us in defense of his decision not to bother with the movie, says, “The greatness of Watchmen (the book) lies not so much in the story as it does the storytelling. Thus a great adaptation of the book would not be a straight retelling of the story, no matter how accurate.” Indeed, when Watchmen was published it was groundbreaking in its medium, totally revolutionizing the art of superhero comics. But not just because of how it played with superhero character conventions, because it also deconstructed the superhero comic’s narrative style. True Watchmen fans, and likewise comics experts, should therefore see no purpose in a Watchmen movie that isn’t analogously cinematically groundbreaking. This Watchmen movie will unfortunately have no notable affect on the film medium, despite being helmed by an alleged “visionary director” (as the film’s marketing has labeled Zach Snyder). The other way in which a current and faithful adaptation of Watchmen is problematically irrelevant is due to its retention of the book’s setting. The book’s themes might not translate completely were the story updated, but the movie could be better off for developing its own themes, whether to modernize certain elements (Vietnam becomes Iraq; Bush is substituted for Nixon) and comment on contemporary abuses of power or to hypothesize how real-life superheroes might deflect the desire for a super-president like Barack Obama. Such a movie would barely be recognizable to fans of the book, but again, adaptation is best when not directly lifted. As the movie was in fact directly lifted, it only functions as a curiosity, like a “What If…” comic or an alternate history novel, both of which are slightly interesting though mainly dispensable works. 4. What was once intended for realism now comes off as ridiculous Considering how the Watchmen comics aimed to take superhero conventions and adapt them to see how they’d function in the real world, it’s a great shame that the Watchmen movie looks and is being criticized for being quite silly (one indirectly reported response compared the adaptation to the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, while The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt labeled it campy soap opera). But it shouldn’t be surprising that directly lifting from the pages of a dark, serious and relatively realistic comic would result in camp. Because realism on the page is hardly the same as realism on the screen. And because many literary techniques, even those working with visual cues, don’t translate well to audio and visual media. A Watchmen movie shouldn’t look as cartoonish as this one does, but due to the artificial feel of the sets, the stylish cinematographic style and the garishness of the costumes, it seems to have more in common with Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies than with Christopher Nolan’s. 5. There was only ever room for disappointment As with anything as highly anticipated as the Watchmen movie, there isn’t much room for satisfaction. Even if the Star Wars prequels weren’t as bad as they are, for instance, they’d still have been unavoidably disappointing to a majority of fans. Maybe not to the biased diehard fanatics, who will forever defend The Phantom Menace, the Matrix sequels, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Godfather Part III or Watchmen, but certainly to those whose expectations were so high they could only focus on whatever flaws the respective films have. Last month, Graeme McMillan wrote at io9 that only the fans will be disappointed due to how much they’ve been building the film up in their minds, and that Warner Bros. should have therefore concentrated the marketing at mainstream audiences. Yet really, for those familiar with the Watchmen comic, the movie might not be as faithful (i.e. as redundant) as hoped or it might be too faithful (i.e. irrelevant and silly looking), but they will enjoy it for the most part. However, those unfamiliar with the comic are likely to be the most disappointed, because they’re the ones going into this in response to the immense hype and recommendation that’s come with the book for more than 20 years. It’s the same reason that some of us who read the graphic novel late had a “that’s it?” response. Those bypassing the book, however, won’t get at least the benefit of reading a quality work that merely seems overrated (due to the unfortunate perspective of high expectations). And their “that’s it?” will be, to them, even more of a “that’s all it will ever be.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:00:20 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/5/2009 10:00:20 AMMany smart cinephiles and comic book geeks will avoid watching Watchmen this weekend. Not to avoid the crowds of opening weekend, and not to patiently await word of mouth from friends and reactions from critics. No, these bright few will ignore the out-of-season blockbuster event because there is absolutely no reason to see this movie. They recognize that any Watchmen adaptation (particularly this one that’s been made) is completely unnecessary. Well, for anyone not out to profit from it, anyway. Of course, even Warner Bros. might have been better off not producing the thing, since the studio won’t be making as much money as it had initially envisioned thanks to that profit-participation settlement with Fox. The point of this post is not to call Watchmen watchers stupid. Rather, our list of five reasons the film is unnecessary is to help moviegoers get smart. After reading this, though, if any of you are still determined to waste your time sitting through almost 3 hours of redundant, rehashed, irrelevant, ridiculous and inescapably disappointing superhero cinema, we’ll be left with no choice but to consider you mindless sheep, the kind that deserve to be duped. And if Dr. Manhattan chooses to vaporize us (or fans choose to curse us out in the comments section) for exposing the truth about this enterprise of excess, then so be it. We believe we’ve served justice here. 1. Faithful adaptations of graphic novels are redundant Comic books and movies, though both visual and (for the most part) processive forms of storytelling, are certainly different mediums. Yet there is good reason for people to believe film adaptations of graphic novels are easy, particularly when they’re meant to be faithful reproductions. Recreating a comic panel exactly and then giving it motion isn’t necessarily a simple process, but it is a pointless one. In the past, such redundancy has been fully evident in the sinfully unnecessary movie Sin City, and now Watchmen is furthermore putting the super in superfluous with its attempt to mostly please fans of the classic comic by meticulously replicating Alan Moore’s script and Dave Gibbons and John Higgins’ artwork for the big screen. But in addition to indulging the narrowly satisfied fanatics, a movie as resembling of its source material as Watchmen is may be accepted as substitute and partly render the graphic novel obsolete to newcomers. This is of course a problem with adaptations in general, regardless of the type of medium being adapted. Yet it’s all the more potentially displacing when the film is both based on a visual work and intended to be as precise an imitation as possible. Recently, writing for ThePlaylist, Christopher R. Adams pointed out that, “the best comic book films (”The Dark Knight”, “X-Men 2″ and Iron Man) were not adapted word-for-word and panel-for-panel to the screen. They weren’t even culled from one single story!” So why would anyone think it a good idea to make an exact copy of a graphic novel? Well, defenders of both Sin City and Watchmen will undoubtedly argue that it’s “neat” to see the two-dimensional and relatively static images from the book given the added depth and movement, but then so is it similarly curious to see what happens when you drive a car into a wall. So, devout Watchmen readers, why not simply honor the graphic novel by letting it stand alone and experiencing it in its intended medium? 2. So many movies satirizing and subverting superheroes already exist Watchmen may or may not have been the first subversive twist on superhero comics, but the movie is hardly the first of its kind. From the really lame (Superhero Movie) to the really great (The Incredibles), films making fun of or merely playing on the concept of superheroes have been around for about as long as the Watchmen graphic novel has been in print. And so, like our list of movies that made the recent Get Smart obsolete, it would be quite easy to name examples of movies and TV shows that, whether or not they were directly influenced by the Watchmen comics in the first place, have seemingly superseded the Watchmen story and therefore made its film adaptation a stale, or at least surplus, endeavor. Why should anyone unfamiliar with the graphic novel need to see Watchmen after experiencing Hancock, Mystery Men, The Tick, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy, Unbreakable, The Specials, Sky High, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, The Meteor Man, Blankman, et al.? Well, there may be those superhero movie completists who will see any example of the genre, but such people are likely to be the most unimpressed with a story as seemingly dated and done before as Watchmen’s. Really, in a way, The Incredibles was the best possible movie to come out of the graphic novel’s wake, and The Dark Knight was the darkest and most realistic. Comparatively, even a decently made Watchmen adaptation should seem a pale wannabe. That’s why it’s easy to side with IMDb user Richard Brunton’s concern from years ago: “There is so much similarity to The Watchmen that those who haven’t read the graphic novel will be saying ‘That’s the Incredibles movie’ when Watchmen finally comes to fruition.” And already someone made the mashup trailer to encourage such a concern. 3. Watchmen has no contemporary relevance A movie of Watchmen in 2009 has a problem of relevance in two regards. One relates to the previous point about how plenty of subversive superhero movies have already been made prior to this adaptation. Yet even without the preexistence of all those titles the Watchmen movie, as it’s been made, would fail on other levels of innovation and relevance. Paul DeBenedetto of the comics blog Wednesday’s Child, writing us in defense of his decision not to bother with the movie, says, “The greatness of Watchmen (the book) lies not so much in the story as it does the storytelling. Thus a great adaptation of the book would not be a straight retelling of the story, no matter how accurate.” Indeed, when Watchmen was published it was groundbreaking in its medium, totally revolutionizing the art of superhero comics. But not just because of how it played with superhero character conventions, because it also deconstructed the superhero comic’s narrative style. True Watchmen fans, and likewise comics experts, should therefore see no purpose in a Watchmen movie that isn’t analogously cinematically groundbreaking. This Watchmen movie will unfortunately have no notable affect on the film medium, despite being helmed by an alleged “visionary director” (as the film’s marketing has labeled Zach Snyder). The other way in which a current and faithful adaptation of Watchmen is problematically irrelevant is due to its retention of the book’s setting. The book’s themes might not translate completely were the story updated, but the movie could be better off for developing its own themes, whether to modernize certain elements (Vietnam becomes Iraq; Bush is substituted for Nixon) and comment on contemporary abuses of power or to hypothesize how real-life superheroes might deflect the desire for a super-president like Barack Obama. Such a movie would barely be recognizable to fans of the book, but again, adaptation is best when not directly lifted. As the movie was in fact directly lifted, it only functions as a curiosity, like a “What If…” comic or an alternate history novel, both of which are slightly interesting though mainly dispensable works. 4. What was once intended for realism now comes off as ridiculous Considering how the Watchmen comics aimed to take superhero conventions and adapt them to see how they’d function in the real world, it’s a great shame that the Watchmen movie looks and is being criticized for being quite silly (one indirectly reported response compared the adaptation to the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, while The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt labeled it campy soap opera). But it shouldn’t be surprising that directly lifting from the pages of a dark, serious and relatively realistic comic would result in camp. Because realism on the page is hardly the same as realism on the screen. And because many literary techniques, even those working with visual cues, don’t translate well to audio and visual media. A Watchmen movie shouldn’t look as cartoonish as this one does, but due to the artificial feel of the sets, the stylish cinematographic style and the garishness of the costumes, it seems to have more in common with Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies than with Christopher Nolan’s. 5. There was only ever room for disappointment As with anything as highly anticipated as the Watchmen movie, there isn’t much room for satisfaction. Even if the Star Wars prequels weren’t as bad as they are, for instance, they’d still have been unavoidably disappointing to a majority of fans. Maybe not to the biased diehard fanatics, who will forever defend The Phantom Menace, the Matrix sequels, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Godfather Part III or Watchmen, but certainly to those whose expectations were so high they could only focus on whatever flaws the respective films have. Last month, Graeme McMillan wrote at io9 that only the fans will be disappointed due to how much they’ve been building the film up in their minds, and that Warner Bros. should have therefore concentrated the marketing at mainstream audiences. Yet really, for those familiar with the Watchmen comic, the movie might not be as faithful (i.e. as redundant) as hoped or it might be too faithful (i.e. irrelevant and silly looking), but they will enjoy it for the most part. However, those unfamiliar with the comic are likely to be the most disappointed, because they’re the ones going into this in response to the immense hype and recommendation that’s come with the book for more than 20 years. It’s the same reason that some of us who read the graphic novel late had a “that’s it?” response. Those bypassing the book, however, won’t get at least the benefit of reading a quality work that merely seems overrated (due to the unfortunate perspective of high expectations). And their “that’s it?” will be, to them, even more of a “that’s all it will ever be.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/2/27/40717.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:08 PM
Body: In episode #108, we posed a simple question: Which movie should be turned into a graphic novel? Your responses to the question became the fodder for a great conversation. Turning the typical page-to-screen progression on its head, we dig into the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. We discuss the possibility of seeing Mystery Train, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Zardoz, Hero, Die Hard, and Gangs of New York crammed into little action-packed drawings. We check in with Karina for a hindsight conversation about awards season. She poses the question: Who would win in a fight, Benjamin Button or Iron Man? The answer is as obvious as it seems, but not for the reason you think. Want to win a copy of Watchmen: The Official Film Companion? Send us an e-mail telling us what film you think has the best production design in entire history of cinema. It’s that simple. E-mail filmcouch [at] spout [dot] com. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:22 - From film to comic. 26:40 - The Oscars. What happened? filmcouch-110 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:08 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/27/2009 6:02:08 PM In episode #108, we posed a simple question: Which movie should be turned into a graphic novel? Your responses to the question became the fodder for a great conversation. Turning the typical page-to-screen progression on its head, we dig into the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. We discuss the possibility of seeing Mystery Train, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Zardoz, Hero, Die Hard, and Gangs of New York crammed into little action-packed drawings. We check in with Karina for a hindsight conversation about awards season. She poses the question: Who would win in a fight, Benjamin Button or Iron Man? The answer is as obvious as it seems, but not for the reason you think. Want to win a copy of Watchmen: The Official Film Companion? Send us an e-mail telling us what film you think has the best production design in entire history of cinema. It’s that simple. E-mail filmcouch [at] spout [dot] com. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:22 - From film to comic. 26:40 - The Oscars. What happened? filmcouch-110 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/2/27/40678.aspx Post By: paul
Post To: paul on spout.com
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:01:09 PM
Body: In episode #108, we posed a simple question: Which movie should be turned into a graphic novel? Your responses to the question became the fodder for a great conversation. Turning the typical page-to-screen progression on its head, we dig into the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. We discuss the possibility of seeing Mystery Train, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Zardoz, Hero, Die Hard, and Gangs of New York crammed into little action-packed drawings. We check in with Karina for a hindsight conversation about awards season. She poses the question: Who would win in a fight, Benjamin Button or Iron Man? The answer is as obvious as it seems, but not for the reason you think. Want to win a copy of Watchmen: The Official Film Companion? Send us an e-mail telling us what film you think has the best production design in entire history of cinema. It’s that simple. E-mail filmcouch [at] spout [dot] com. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:22 - From film to comic. 26:40 - The Oscars. What happened? filmcouch-110 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Paul Moore
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:01:09 GMTpaulpaul on spout.com2/27/2009 6:01:09 PM In episode #108, we posed a simple question: Which movie should be turned into a graphic novel? Your responses to the question became the fodder for a great conversation. Turning the typical page-to-screen progression on its head, we dig into the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. We discuss the possibility of seeing Mystery Train, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Zardoz, Hero, Die Hard, and Gangs of New York crammed into little action-packed drawings. We check in with Karina for a hindsight conversation about awards season. She poses the question: Who would win in a fight, Benjamin Button or Iron Man? The answer is as obvious as it seems, but not for the reason you think. Want to win a copy of Watchmen: The Official Film Companion? Send us an e-mail telling us what film you think has the best production design in entire history of cinema. It’s that simple. E-mail filmcouch [at] spout [dot] com. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:22 - From film to comic. 26:40 - The Oscars. What happened? filmcouch-110 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Paul Moore http://www.spout.com/blogs/scswngr/archive/2009/2/22/40589.aspx Post By: scswngr
Post To: Film Obsessed
Post Date: 2/22/2009 6:39:44 PM
Body: As I scramble to catch the last couple of films that will complete my Oscar Watch List, I am prematurely making my picks for the statuettes tomorrow night. I will save judgement on the Foreign Language and Documentary Short categories, neither of which I have had the opportunity to get into since I live in a town where you can see 4 screens of Rambo, but you're lucky to get to see an independent or foreign film only months after it comes out on DVD at the local film club. That being said, I have also not had the chance to see 3 of the Documentary Features, but am confident in my decision in that category nonetheless. Otherwise, by tomorrow night's Academy Awards ceremony I will have seen every single movie nominated in every other category.So, onto my picks: Screenplay, OriginalShould Win: MilkWill Win: MilkMissing: The WrestlerScreenplay, AdaptedShould Win: Doubt or The ReaderWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireVisual EffectsShould Win: Iron ManWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonMissing: Speed RacerSound MixingShould Win: WALL-EWill Win: The Dark KnightSound EditingShould Win: The Dark KnightWill Win: The Dark KnightShort Film, Live ActionShould Win: Grisen (The Pig)Will Win: Spielzeugland (Toyland)Short Film, AnimatedShould Win: PrestoWill Win: PrestoOriginal SongShould Win: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog MillionaireMissing: "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen from The WrestlerOriginal ScoreShould Win: Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMakeupShould Win: Hellboy IIWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonFilm EditingShould Win: Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireDocumentary FeatureShould Win: Man on WireWill Win: Man on WireCostume DesignShould Win: The DuchessWill Win: The DuchessCinematographyShould Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMissing: Brideshead RevisitedArt DirectionShould Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonAnimated FeatureShould Win: WALL-EWill Win: WALL-EDirectingShould Win: David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: Danny Boyle for Slumdog MillionaireMissing: Darren Aronofsky for The Wrestler Actress, SupportingShould Win: Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina BarcelonaWill Win: Viola Davis in DoubtActor, SupportingShould Win: Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightWill Win: Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightActor, LeadingShould Win: Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerWill Win: Sean Penn in MilkMissing: Leonardo Dicaprio in Revolutionary RoadActress, LeadingShould Win: Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married or Meryl Streep in DoubtWill Win: Kate Winslet in The ReaderMissing: Kate Winslet in Revolutionary RoadBest PictureShould Win: MilkWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMissing: The Wrestler, Doubt, and The Dark Knight
]]>Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:39:44 GMTscswngrFilm Obsessed2/22/2009 6:39:44 PMAs I scramble to catch the last couple of films that will complete my Oscar Watch List, I am prematurely making my picks for the statuettes tomorrow night. I will save judgement on the Foreign Language and Documentary Short categories, neither of which I have had the opportunity to get into since I live in a town where you can see 4 screens of Rambo, but you're lucky to get to see an independent or foreign film only months after it comes out on DVD at the local film club. That being said, I have also not had the chance to see 3 of the Documentary Features, but am confident in my decision in that category nonetheless. Otherwise, by tomorrow night's Academy Awards ceremony I will have seen every single movie nominated in every other category.So, onto my picks: Screenplay, OriginalShould Win: MilkWill Win: MilkMissing: The WrestlerScreenplay, AdaptedShould Win: Doubt or The ReaderWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireVisual EffectsShould Win: Iron ManWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonMissing: Speed RacerSound MixingShould Win: WALL-EWill Win: The Dark KnightSound EditingShould Win: The Dark KnightWill Win: The Dark KnightShort Film, Live ActionShould Win: Grisen (The Pig)Will Win: Spielzeugland (Toyland)Short Film, AnimatedShould Win: PrestoWill Win: PrestoOriginal SongShould Win: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog MillionaireMissing: "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen from The WrestlerOriginal ScoreShould Win: Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMakeupShould Win: Hellboy IIWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonFilm EditingShould Win: Slumdog MillionaireWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireDocumentary FeatureShould Win: Man on WireWill Win: Man on WireCostume DesignShould Win: The DuchessWill Win: The DuchessCinematographyShould Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMissing: Brideshead RevisitedArt DirectionShould Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonAnimated FeatureShould Win: WALL-EWill Win: WALL-EDirectingShould Win: David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonWill Win: Danny Boyle for Slumdog MillionaireMissing: Darren Aronofsky for The Wrestler Actress, SupportingShould Win: Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina BarcelonaWill Win: Viola Davis in DoubtActor, SupportingShould Win: Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightWill Win: Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightActor, LeadingShould Win: Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerWill Win: Sean Penn in MilkMissing: Leonardo Dicaprio in Revolutionary RoadActress, LeadingShould Win: Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married or Meryl Streep in DoubtWill Win: Kate Winslet in The ReaderMissing: Kate Winslet in Revolutionary RoadBest PictureShould Win: MilkWill Win: Slumdog MillionaireMissing: The Wrestler, Doubt, and The Dark Knight http://www.spout.com/blogs/newalternativerock/archive/2009/2/3/40183.aspx Post By: NewAlternativeRock
Post To: NewAlternativeRock Blog
Post Date: 2/3/2009 12:02:49 AM
Body: Screenwriters Arthur Marcum and Matt Holloway wrote a very cool script (based on the comic book) about a mechanical genius CEO of a major weapons manufacturer, who goes on a trip to Afghanistan and is mortally wounded and captured by the bad guys. So he invents his Iron Man persona. Directed with a superb style by Jon Favreau, IRON MAN gives us exhilarating action sequences, but also because of Favreau's involvement, some well defined characters and excellent acting performances. Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Gwyneth Paltrow along with Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges act with great craft in this movie.
]]>Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:02:49 GMTNewAlternativeRockNewAlternativeRock Blog2/3/2009 12:02:49 AMScreenwriters Arthur Marcum and Matt Holloway wrote a very cool script (based on the comic book) about a mechanical genius CEO of a major weapons manufacturer, who goes on a trip to Afghanistan and is mortally wounded and captured by the bad guys. So he invents his Iron Man persona. Directed with a superb style by Jon Favreau, IRON MAN gives us exhilarating action sequences, but also because of Favreau's involvement, some well defined characters and excellent acting performances. Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Gwyneth Paltrow along with Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges act with great craft in this movie. http://www.spout.com/blogs/mrevens11/archive/2009/1/22/39806.aspx Post By: mrevens11
Post To: mrevens11 Blog
Post Date: 1/22/2009 6:44:21 PM
Body: www.mrevens11theaterspout.com
]]>Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:44:21 GMTmrevens11mrevens11 Blog1/22/2009 6:44:21 PMwww.mrevens11theaterspout.com http://www.spout.com/blogs/risselada/archive/2009/1/22/39786.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Risselada Blog
Post Date: 1/22/2009 12:05:56 PM
Body: Jesus Camp Some folks at the church community I'm a part of, MissioDei (it's Latin for Mission of God, I'm just saying because a lot of people ask), set up a monthly gathering to watch a movie and discuss. The guy who arranged it picked this movie to start with. The idea for each movie was to have a certain theme within it to discuss afterwards, not necessarily picking apart the movie so much as expanding the idea of the themes to how they relate to our lives and neighborhoods. The movie we actually did after this one was Iron Man where we talked about redemption. I was sort of dreading this movie because so many people talked about how angry it would make you. I guess I was prepared for something a lot worse. I wasn't too surprised that stuff like this was going on in our country though. It wasn't any kind of revelation to me. Not that it isn't upsetting to see children indoctrinated from such a young age into an "us vs. them" kind of mentality with all of the battle metaphors. But the consideration as Christians in our community wasn't to point at these people and say, "Wow what a bunch of wackos. They really give Christ a bad name." but to say how much are we really like them in some of the ways that we would like to criticize. We had some really good and long conversations about different church communities each of us had grown up in. How much of what we believe is something just because we were taught it at a young age, and how much if it is something we have come to know and believe through our own adult experience and person journey through our spiritual life? When do we try to mix up church with our political beliefs and try to use one of them for or against the other? I guess some of the most shocking stuff in this movie is the political stuff. Abortion is such a flagship political issue for so many people that embody an entire larger set of political agendas. (See the fantastic documentary Lake of Fire which I will blog about at a later date). To see these kids basically used for the political purposes of adults is rather frustrating. At one of the anti-abortion rallies or whatever you call them, they had all of the children there with big strips of tape over their mouths. I can't remember exactly their reason for doing this. Maybe to represent the unborn children that had been silenced by being aborted. But to me the image of these children with tape over their mouth seemed more to reveal how these children had no voice of their own. Their own voice was covered up so other people's words could come out of their mouths instead. So again, maybe this will be an eye opener of a movie for some people, although not anything as shocking to me as I was anticipating from what I'd been hearing. What I would find interesting though is a documentary made maybe fifteen or twenty years from now showing what some of the primary children featured in this movie are like by that time in their lives. Will they retain their zeal? If so will their opinions on many of these political issues become more varied? I guess everyone is different, but there's no doubt that what happens to you at a young age will shape to some extent forever. Rating: 7/10
]]>Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:05:56 GMTRisseladaRisselada Blog1/22/2009 12:05:56 PMJesus Camp Some folks at the church community I'm a part of, MissioDei (it's Latin for Mission of God, I'm just saying because a lot of people ask), set up a monthly gathering to watch a movie and discuss. The guy who arranged it picked this movie to start with. The idea for each movie was to have a certain theme within it to discuss afterwards, not necessarily picking apart the movie so much as expanding the idea of the themes to how they relate to our lives and neighborhoods. The movie we actually did after this one was Iron Man where we talked about redemption. I was sort of dreading this movie because so many people talked about how angry it would make you. I guess I was prepared for something a lot worse. I wasn't too surprised that stuff like this was going on in our country though. It wasn't any kind of revelation to me. Not that it isn't upsetting to see children indoctrinated from such a young age into an "us vs. them" kind of mentality with all of the battle metaphors. But the consideration as Christians in our community wasn't to point at these people and say, "Wow what a bunch of wackos. They really give Christ a bad name." but to say how much are we really like them in some of the ways that we would like to criticize. We had some really good and long conversations about different church communities each of us had grown up in. How much of what we believe is something just because we were taught it at a young age, and how much if it is something we have come to know and believe through our own adult experience and person journey through our spiritual life? When do we try to mix up church with our political beliefs and try to use one of them for or against the other? I guess some of the most shocking stuff in this movie is the political stuff. Abortion is such a flagship political issue for so many people that embody an entire larger set of political agendas. (See the fantastic documentary Lake of Fire which I will blog about at a later date). To see these kids basically used for the political purposes of adults is rather frustrating. At one of the anti-abortion rallies or whatever you call them, they had all of the children there with big strips of tape over their mouths. I can't remember exactly their reason for doing this. Maybe to represent the unborn children that had been silenced by being aborted. But to me the image of these children with tape over their mouth seemed more to reveal how these children had no voice of their own. Their own voice was covered up so other people's words could come out of their mouths instead. So again, maybe this will be an eye opener of a movie for some people, although not anything as shocking to me as I was anticipating from what I'd been hearing. What I would find interesting though is a documentary made maybe fifteen or twenty years from now showing what some of the primary children featured in this movie are like by that time in their lives. Will they retain their zeal? If so will their opinions on many of these political issues become more varied? I guess everyone is different, but there's no doubt that what happens to you at a young age will shape to some extent forever. Rating: 7/10 http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/13/39467.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/13/2009 4:02:06 PM
Body: As we crack open fresh calendars for a new year, we’re treated to a predictable rash of blog posts: 2009 technology predictions. I’ve read a number of these, and prognostications about Microsoft buying Yahoo make me want to light my laptop on fire just to cure the boredom. As an anecdote to lame, ‘what’s the next Twitter?’-style tech prediction lists, I’ve decided to make a list 2009 tech predictions entirely inspired by movies. 2008 was the year in which widely available real-world gadgets were just as good as what James Bond had. Sure, Daniel Craig kicked some ass in Quantum of Solace, but his only real piece of tech was a phone with a camera and GPS! (Hope you got a good texting plan with that, James.) I predict this trend will continue in 2009. We’ll see even more real-world gadgets that used to be the sole domain of Hollywood special effects gurus. Sure, some of these technologies will require minor miracles to become a reality in the coming year, but others are closer than you think. Strength-Enhancing Exoskeleton Armor In Iron Man, Tony Stark creates a crude, internally-powered suit of armor to escape his terrorist captors. Once he’s safely at home in his billion-dollar laboratory, he hones the suit into a golden ass-kicking machine, and becomes Iron Man. This story isn’t that far from the truth. Rather than a single billionaire playboy, teams of research scientists are developing robotic suits that significantly increase the wearer’s strength. And the end goal is goal is the same: beating the hell out of terrorists. Almost five years ago, UC Berkley researchers announced a DARPA-funded project called BLEEX, the Berkley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (pictured at left). If you’re thinking that giant backpack is full of the machinery that runs the thing, you’re wrong. That’s the 70 lbs. pack the wearer can hardly feel, thanks to his robot legs. Assuming secret military technology is always ahead of publicized military technology, and considering that the BLEEX is five years old, I think it’s safe to say that in 2009 President Obama will personally don an Iron Man suit and kill Osama bin Laden. Levitation Levitation in movies is usually some sort of magical or paranormal phenomenon, like Yoda using the force to lift Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing out of the swamp. But there are examples of technological levitation in fiction, especially flying saucers and other craft that can stay aloft without forward momentum. A technological version of the Force is still a long way off, but there are plenty of forms of levitation that are quite common. Magnetism can be easily harnessed to levitate certain objects, and just last week, scientists added another method to the growing list of levitation technologies. Harvard physicist Federico Capasso has effectively reversed the Casimir effect, which causes metal objects to become attracted to one another when they’re very close together. As exciting as this sounds, the reversal only works on extremely small pieces of metal. But it’s still a step in the right direction. Invisibility Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak relies on magic rather than technology, but this hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to replicate its effects. While one would hope that researchers’ interest in invisibility technology goes beyond their fondness for the boy wizard, they invariably mention Potter’s cloak in every news story about advances in invisibility technology. The development of meta-materials that can redirect lightwaves around an object have made steady progress in recent years. In a National Geographic article from November of last year, researcher Ulf Leonhardt claimed that invisibility cloaks are now “feasible.” Of course there are a few catches. The phenomenon alters visible light slightly while it bends it, and it can only work with specific shapes, meaning that a coat of invisible paint on a spy plane or a stylish cape are still out of reach. With the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in July of this year, I’m sure Potter-loving invisibility scientists will pursue their study with renewed fervor. X-Ray Vision The most popular depiction of x-ray vision is of course Superman, but the Man of Steel doesn’t need a gadget to see Louis Lane’s underwear. There are examples of technological x-ray vision in movies, like the all-but-forgotten 1996 Schwarzenegger vehicle, Eraser. The film featured an advanced weapon called a rail-gun, which had a scope that could see through solid objects. X-ray vision, like levitation, has existed in certain forms for long time, but making it as practical as Superman’s vision is another matter. Thermal imaging goggles used by police and military can see through certain objects that block visual light because of their ability to see infrared light. A new technology being employed in security situations is terahertz imagery, which can see through fabrics and plastic. While the mail-order x-ray specs sold out of comic books in the ’60s were a sham, back in 1998 Sony sold thousands of consumer video cameras whose “night shot” feature allowed users to see through clothing, especially swim wear. Time Travel Debating the physical and philosophical effects of time travel is a favorite passtime of sci-fi buffs and people who edit Wikipedia entries. The scientific consensus is that Back to the Future-style DeLorean time travel is not possible, but Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity do allow for certain types of time travel. For example, the phenomenon of time dilation allows for something akin to traveling into the future. If there were twins, and one stayed on Earth while the other went on a long trip on a spaceship at nearly the speed of light, the traveling twin would be younger when he returned. From his perspective, his trip lasted one year, while his twin would insist that he’d been gone for ten years. So this means that the DeLorean would have to travel much faster than 88 miles per hour, and once they traveled to the future, they could never go back. There is another theoretically possible form of time travel, which involves constructing an infinitely long cylinder in space and rotating it on its longitudinal axis. This would bend space time around the cylinder, allowing a spacecraft to essentially fly back in time. But since there are no infinitely long cylinders laying around, time travel in 2009 seems unlikely. Unless a time traveler from the future decides to come back to 2009 and share his knowledge with us. He’d probably kill his own grandfather, too, just to mess with our heads. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:02:06 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/13/2009 4:02:06 PMAs we crack open fresh calendars for a new year, we’re treated to a predictable rash of blog posts: 2009 technology predictions. I’ve read a number of these, and prognostications about Microsoft buying Yahoo make me want to light my laptop on fire just to cure the boredom. As an anecdote to lame, ‘what’s the next Twitter?’-style tech prediction lists, I’ve decided to make a list 2009 tech predictions entirely inspired by movies. 2008 was the year in which widely available real-world gadgets were just as good as what James Bond had. Sure, Daniel Craig kicked some ass in Quantum of Solace, but his only real piece of tech was a phone with a camera and GPS! (Hope you got a good texting plan with that, James.) I predict this trend will continue in 2009. We’ll see even more real-world gadgets that used to be the sole domain of Hollywood special effects gurus. Sure, some of these technologies will require minor miracles to become a reality in the coming year, but others are closer than you think. Strength-Enhancing Exoskeleton Armor In Iron Man, Tony Stark creates a crude, internally-powered suit of armor to escape his terrorist captors. Once he’s safely at home in his billion-dollar laboratory, he hones the suit into a golden ass-kicking machine, and becomes Iron Man. This story isn’t that far from the truth. Rather than a single billionaire playboy, teams of research scientists are developing robotic suits that significantly increase the wearer’s strength. And the end goal is goal is the same: beating the hell out of terrorists. Almost five years ago, UC Berkley researchers announced a DARPA-funded project called BLEEX, the Berkley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (pictured at left). If you’re thinking that giant backpack is full of the machinery that runs the thing, you’re wrong. That’s the 70 lbs. pack the wearer can hardly feel, thanks to his robot legs. Assuming secret military technology is always ahead of publicized military technology, and considering that the BLEEX is five years old, I think it’s safe to say that in 2009 President Obama will personally don an Iron Man suit and kill Osama bin Laden. Levitation Levitation in movies is usually some sort of magical or paranormal phenomenon, like Yoda using the force to lift Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing out of the swamp. But there are examples of technological levitation in fiction, especially flying saucers and other craft that can stay aloft without forward momentum. A technological version of the Force is still a long way off, but there are plenty of forms of levitation that are quite common. Magnetism can be easily harnessed to levitate certain objects, and just last week, scientists added another method to the growing list of levitation technologies. Harvard physicist Federico Capasso has effectively reversed the Casimir effect, which causes metal objects to become attracted to one another when they’re very close together. As exciting as this sounds, the reversal only works on extremely small pieces of metal. But it’s still a step in the right direction. Invisibility Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak relies on magic rather than technology, but this hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to replicate its effects. While one would hope that researchers’ interest in invisibility technology goes beyond their fondness for the boy wizard, they invariably mention Potter’s cloak in every news story about advances in invisibility technology. The development of meta-materials that can redirect lightwaves around an object have made steady progress in recent years. In a National Geographic article from November of last year, researcher Ulf Leonhardt claimed that invisibility cloaks are now “feasible.” Of course there are a few catches. The phenomenon alters visible light slightly while it bends it, and it can only work with specific shapes, meaning that a coat of invisible paint on a spy plane or a stylish cape are still out of reach. With the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in July of this year, I’m sure Potter-loving invisibility scientists will pursue their study with renewed fervor. X-Ray Vision The most popular depiction of x-ray vision is of course Superman, but the Man of Steel doesn’t need a gadget to see Louis Lane’s underwear. There are examples of technological x-ray vision in movies, like the all-but-forgotten 1996 Schwarzenegger vehicle, Eraser. The film featured an advanced weapon called a rail-gun, which had a scope that could see through solid objects. X-ray vision, like levitation, has existed in certain forms for long time, but making it as practical as Superman’s vision is another matter. Thermal imaging goggles used by police and military can see through certain objects that block visual light because of their ability to see infrared light. A new technology being employed in security situations is terahertz imagery, which can see through fabrics and plastic. While the mail-order x-ray specs sold out of comic books in the ’60s were a sham, back in 1998 Sony sold thousands of consumer video cameras whose “night shot” feature allowed users to see through clothing, especially swim wear. Time Travel Debating the physical and philosophical effects of time travel is a favorite passtime of sci-fi buffs and people who edit Wikipedia entries. The scientific consensus is that Back to the Future-style DeLorean time travel is not possible, but Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity do allow for certain types of time travel. For example, the phenomenon of time dilation allows for something akin to traveling into the future. If there were twins, and one stayed on Earth while the other went on a long trip on a spaceship at nearly the speed of light, the traveling twin would be younger when he returned. From his perspective, his trip lasted one year, while his twin would insist that he’d been gone for ten years. So this means that the DeLorean would have to travel much faster than 88 miles per hour, and once they traveled to the future, they could never go back. There is another theoretically possible form of time travel, which involves constructing an infinitely long cylinder in space and rotating it on its longitudinal axis. This would bend space time around the cylinder, allowing a spacecraft to essentially fly back in time. But since there are no infinitely long cylinders laying around, time travel in 2009 seems unlikely. Unless a time traveler from the future decides to come back to 2009 and share his knowledge with us. He’d probably kill his own grandfather, too, just to mess with our heads. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/war/MemberTagFilms.aspxwar
Number of films tagged: 6176

Number of people who tagged: 179

Number of times used: 607

]]>Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:50:24 GMT6176179607Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/dark/MemberTagFilms.aspxdark
Number of films tagged: 223

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]]>Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:40:47 GMT223137390Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/action/MemberTagFilms.aspxaction
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]]>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:49:02 GMT319111460Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/drama/MemberTagFilms.aspxdrama
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]]>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:38:30 GMT526102626Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/sci-fi/MemberTagFilms.aspxsci-fi
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]]>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:33:53 GMT217102375Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/adventure/MemberTagFilms.aspxadventure
Number of films tagged: 228

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]]>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:49:03 GMT22895368Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/escape/MemberTagFilms.aspxescape
Number of films tagged: 2868

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]]>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:51:44 GMT286876279Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/thriller/MemberTagFilms.aspxthriller
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]]>Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:39:42 GMT285149172Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/terrorism/MemberTagFilms.aspxterrorism
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]]>Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:04:22 GMT98149117Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/underrated/MemberTagFilms.aspxunderrated
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]]>Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:34:46 GMT13948156Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/book/MemberTagFilms.aspxbook
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]]>Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:55:43 GMT68345114Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/hero/MemberTagFilms.aspxhero
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]]>Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:55:16 GMT63843141Tag