TheWorkingDead
Posts 238
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11/30/2007 9:43 AM
posted awhile ago
Four Color Movies
Sorry I'm not linking to all of these movies, but the 'link a movie' option isn't working for me at the moment, so I'll come back and do it later. Comic films aren't really recent inventions, although it can certainly seem that way when you notice the sheer number of films out there these days. There were, of course, the old Batman and Superman serials, as well as Shazam and some others. The seventies saw a big explosion of superhero related filmed entertainment, although most of that was for television. But aside from the big ones like Tim Burton's Batman or Richard Donner's Superman comic book properties have been languishing in direct-to-video hell for the last couple decades. Bryan Singer's X-Men is obviously the turning point, the film that made superheroes cool again. Looking back, it's seems kind of a shaky start, at least when compared with the next film in the series, or the first two Spiderman films. For proof, look at the scene where Wolverine uses his claw to spin around on the Statue of Liberty. That clearly wasn't as cool as they thought it would be. For the most part I've really enjoyed this resurgence in comic book movies. Being a DC fan when it comes to comics, I've enjoyed Batman Begins and Superman Returns a bit more than some of the Marvel films, but those first two Spiderman films are top-notch. Batman Begins and Superman Returns were both almost exactly what I wanted to see, and in the theatre I almost cheered myself when Superman caught that airplane in the baseball field. That stuff comes off as corny to people who don't normally like Superman, and I have no real defense for it. But Superman was the best example of superheroics yet filmed, with Kal-El lifting a goddamn island into outer space. It isn't quite flying around the Earth and making it spin backwards in order to reverse time, but it's still pretty impressive. Of the upcoming films, I have to say that Iron Man is exciting me the most. Robert Downey, Jr. is an actor I'm always excited to see, and his performance, as much as I've seen in the preview, looks to be spot on. I was thinking it was a bit cheesy to include that Black Sabbath song, but then Iron Man kicked in and I was all 'Hell yeah!' The Incredible Hulk could be pretty good, because I enjoy Edward Norton. But I'm a bit upset they're ignoring the Ang Lee version, which I think was criminally underrated. People expecting a "Hulk Smash" film found a movie devoted more to personal relationships and dark brooding. People expecting an Ang Lee movie found a bit too much mindless smashing... and irradiated poodles. But I think it's a damn good story, and visually has a really cool comic book style. I particularly like the transitions where the camera pulls back to show all the characters in comic book style panels only to zoom in on the next scene. Enough from me, what are some of your favorite superhero movies? What are the ones you're most looking forward to? What do you just want them to start making now?
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 238
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12/5/2007 6:20 PM
posted awhile ago
Re:Re:Four Color Movies
I second indieabby's recommendation of Mignola's work. I haven't read all of the Hellboy stuff, because I started reading after several graphic novels had already been out, but I have a pretty good basis for all of the mythology. BPRD, which follows the adventures of the other agents in the, well, BPRD, is good. Some of the issues not written by Mignola aren't very vital, but it's still fun. There's a very large scope to the comics, with some pretty world-shattering events happening in them. It's rare for an ongoing comic series to change the status quo so fundamentally, and pretty damn cool, too.
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 238
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12/7/2007 8:33 AM
posted awhile ago
Re:Re:Re:Re:Four Color Movies
 Risselada:Thanks for the feedback everyone. Actually I have bee thinking of maybe sticking my toe in the vast waters of the comic book / graphic novel world, and I wonder if Mignola's work might be a place to get a first sample.
First off, indieabby's recommendations are all spot on. I own everything she mentioned. And, of course, I always tell people to buy something by Allan Moore. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is unbelievably awesome. If you want something more typically comic-booky, you can go for Tom Strong, which is his version of those science-hero types from the fifties and earlier. Top 10 is very awesome, but it's so steeped in comic book stereotypes that it probably isn't a very good place to start(but still worth checking out eventually). Here's a couple of my recommendations:
Y The Last Man: This month marks the end of the series, a pre-planned 60 issue epic concerning Yorick, the last man alive after a mysterious plague whipes out everything on earth with a Y chromosome(except for him and his monkey). Brian K. Vaughan is a pretty good writer, but this is definitely the best thing he's done so far(although Ex Machina is getting up there). Much more intelligent, and deliberately paced, than most comics out there, without any cheesy super-hero/super-villain theatrics going on. Planetary: Warren Ellis is almost as high in my regard as Alan Moore. He's so amazingly prolific that my true belief is that if he didn't have a writing implement in his hands he'd be holding a gun and inflicting damage on either himself or anyone who came near him. He isn't really that misanthropic, but there's something very compulsive about how much he writes... constantly. The downside to this is that he puts out stuff that seems a bit half baked simply because he has so many ideas and doesn't really edit which are the bad ones and which are the good ones. Planetary is one of the good ones. The Planetary team are a group of insanely well funded scientist heroes who are out to preserve and catalog the more bizarre elements of the world, which feature things like Monster Island, giant insects, stranded inter-dimensional beings and aging superheroes. One more. The Goon: This one is worth it for the art alone. Eric Powell is one of those artists where I'll pick up books he illustrates even if I'm not normally interested in the series. The Goon is his own creation, and it's a mix of 40's pulp crime comics, bathroom humor, and zombies. Actually, the supernatural elements of this series go a bit wider than just zombies, but they're the main protaganists. Not contagious zombies, but zombies controlled by a mad magician type. Full of plenty of laugh out loud moments(and this coming from someone who rarely laughs out loud while reading), but also with a very deep undercurrent of emotion and a slowly developing storyline that would make it interesting to people not just interested in punching zombies. There are more, of course, but I'll save those for later, if your still interested.
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