Articles from Contributor
The Old Man and the C (Comic-Con)
I’ve been to 13 Comic-Cons. And every year I go back, I get this crazy feeling. It’s a combination of exhaustion and déjà vu and girls in costumes that warps me into a headspace where I believe that Comic-Con is my only true existence. The rest of my life – the other 364 days – seem like a dream. What I think of as “Real …
Bad Acronyms
On August 7, an action movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, opens against a cooking movie, Julie and Julia. To update the franchise for the new millennium, G.I. Joe now stands for:
Global
Integrated
Joint
Operating
Entity
Days before its release, Julie and Julia has also revealed its new acronym:
Jolly
Upper middle …
Dead Screenwriters Quiz
Three important screenwriters died recently. Which writer’s work will have the greatest impact on the future of movie-making?
A) Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront)
B) John Hughes (Ferris Beuller’s Day Off)
C) Blake Snyder (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot)
The answer, in the pattern of how these things always go, is C) Blake …
Obligatory Marvel-Disney Mash-ups!!!
FINDING NAMOR
HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNSTERS MUSICAL
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MARY POPPINS
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (HANK McCOY)
THE AVENGER DUMPLING GANG
SKRULL GOOFY
THE INCREDIBLES (already a FANTASTIC FOUR rip-off)
SLEEPING MUTIE
SNOW WHITE AND THE SINISTER SIX
POWER MAN AND LION …
True Tales of Conversational Vengeance
A few years ago, after a long day spent thinking of new nouns for Homer to say after “Mmm…”, my wife dragged me to the screening of a film directed by a friend. The film was fine. The rough part was the reception.
A room full of strangers is not my favorite social scenario. I prefer a room full of people who already think I’m great. …
Terms of Warner Bros./Tolkien Lawsuit Settlement Leaked
From The New York Times, September 8, 2009:
Harper Collins and the heirs to the author J.R.R. Tolkien reached a settlement with Warner Brothers in their suit against the studio over payments from films based on “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, according to statement from Warner, the publisher and the heirs today. The statement did
…
‘District 9’ Banned in District 9
DISTRICT 9, Johannesburg (AP) — In the wake of its recent Nigerian ban, the film District 9 has also been banned in District 9. Citing images of the district’s alien inhabitants as “filthy, violent, cat food-eating bug-monsters,” Hive Drone Overseer Prime Martin Anderson forbid the film’s showing within the perimeter of the penned-off …
Big & Tall Halloween Costume of the Year
Now That’s Abridged!
GTA IV: Inherent Vice City
Writing about the Grand Theft Auto video games for the Time 100 issue, I unpersuasively argued the following semi-flippant point: the Houser brothers who write and create these games are the spiritual successors to Balzac and Twain and Wolfe. They are societal super-reporters, stuffing the gaming experience with detailed observations …
A Fake Interview with Josh Lieb
Josh Lieb, Executive Producer of the Daily Show, has just published his debut novel, I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President. I know him and he agreed to write a fake interview with me so I wouldn’t have to write my blog. What follows is my fault as much as his.
SELMAN: Josh, thank you so much for …