Year: 2004

Newsarama has put up a preview of the first eight pages (plus cover) of the first issue of “Madrox.”

PAD

I hadn’t watched the JLA animated series for a while, mostly ’cause I was watching so many names of people I know scroll past in the credits and getting bummed out that no one’s ever asked me to write a script for them. But I tuned in last week because, hey, Supergirl was on it, so I just had to.

And then I watched last night’s and we’re about a minute into the episode, with Batman and Wonder Woman entering the Fortress of Solitude talking about Superman’s birthday, and I’m thinking, Dang, this seems familiar for some reason. Then the moment I saw Superman with the tentacled thing on him, I realized it was the Alan Moore annual story.

More than that: An astoundingly faithful adaptation by DeMatteis, right down to the key dialogue phrases that I remembered (including Superman’s terse “Burn” as he switches to heat vision and nearly lasers Mongul in half).

It was seriously cool, and if you missed it, check Cartoon Network listings to try and catch it.

PAD

It has come to my attention that you are putting out a film called “The Sound of Thunder,” based upon the work of Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury has made a number of public comments and expressed opinions about a variety of topics, including women, that I find personally offensive.

Therefore I want you to know that henceforth I will be boycotting all Warners films and anything having to do with AOL-Time Warner, including: AOL; the entire television line-up of “the WB;” all Warner DVD; Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and all spin-offs; Nickelodeon (since they air “Pinky and the Brain”); Warner Books; and the entire line-up of DC Comics plus anyone who is associated with them, including myself.

Yours in outrage,

Peter David

It’s an irony of cinema that you can actually wind up having a better time at a film if you go to see it with absolutely no positive expectations at all than if you have high hopes. In the latter case, you can be disappointed. In the former, all the film has to do is hold your interest and you come out ahead.

That was the case with “Catwoman.”

Seeing the film out of a sense of obligation to keep current with comic book films, Kath and I found a movie that was better than expected…probably because we thought it would suck.

The complaint that it has no relationship whatsoever to the DC Catwoman seems somewhat pointless since that ship sailed years ago with “Batman Returns.” Instead “Catwoman” endeavors to follow-up to, and provide some sort of coherent backstory to, the loopy origin of Catwoman as seen in BR, a film in which the only resemblance she bore to DC’s Catwoman was that she was named “Selina Kyle” (and could just as easily have been called “Patience Phillips” as she is here.)

The plot itself is astoundingly dumb, centering on a new cold cream that’s actually lethal. Naturally that’s what any company would want to produce: A product that will get them sued into bankruptcy and beyond. It’s Patience’s overhearing of this nasty plot device that gets her killed and then revived as the titular heroine.

Plus the dialogue is repeatedly wince worthy, with ostensibly clever lines landing all over the place like hairballs.

But what makes the thing go is Halle Berry and Benjamin Bratt. Berry is all pelvic thrust and feral intensity, and just a lot of fun to watch, while Bratt as the love interest (fleshed out about as much as the female love interest usually is in male-dominated actioners) takes a nothing character and makes you care about what happens to him.

As for Sharon Stone, with her ham-handed acting and arch detachment, she seems to be rehearsing for what is, to me the inevitable role for her: Nora Desmond in a remake of “Sunset Boulevard.”

PAD

When she did an appearance at the San Diego Con, Sarah Michelle Gellar recited a top ten list of why she had never attended the con before. Does anyone have a link to it or can just list it?

PAD

There’s a certain type of individual whom I refer to as a FAB–a First Amendment But-head (FABhead). This person can always be spotted by speaking a variation on the following sentence: “I completely support the First Amendment but…” There’s always a but, at which point all the words that come after the but undercut everything that comes before. Because, putting aside such limits as slander and libel and, God, please, the falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater example that’s invariably misquoted, there should be no “but.” You either support it or you don’t.

The reason I bring this up is because I want to give you guys a little taste of what I have to deal with, simply because some people disagree with me. This is, unfortunately, only the latest example, of someone endeavoring to cost me work or shut me up. Come inside and see…

Continue Reading “First Amendment But-heads” →

Once upon a time there was a small convention held in a hotel in San Diego. And then it grew and grew…

…and this week coverage of the San Diego Con is on the front page of “Variety,” for God’s sake. “Variety.” The front page where, y’know, they cover the Oscars and stuff like that.

Geez. Some “geekfest,” huh?

PAD