Reminder: Comics on Friday
A reminder to Nerdage readers that, due to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, new comics will ship on Friday this week. Happy New Year!
– Matt Price
“Terminator” joins classic films registry
WASHINGTON (AP) – One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most famous one-liners will be back for generations to come, now that 1984’s “The Terminator” has been selected for preservation in the nation’s film archive.
The low-budget film directed by James Cameron set a new standard for science-fiction and made Schwarzenegger, now California’s governor, a star. The Library of Congress announced Tuesday morning that it’s one of 25 films being added to the National Film Registry. The formal unveiling was scheduled for 8 a.m.
The move will guard Schwarzenegger’s deadpan, “I’ll be back,” against deterioration, along with the sounds and images of the other culturally significant picks. Other titles being added to the registry include the groundbreaking all-black-cast film “Hallelujah” from 1929; Richard Brooks’ 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”; and the 1972 film “Deliverance,” based on James Dickey’s novel about four businessmen on a nightmarish canoe trip in the remote Georgia wildnerness.
“The registry helps this nation understand the diversity of America’s film heritage and, just as importantly, the need for its preservation,” Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing his 2008 selections. “The nation has lost about half of the films produced before 1950 and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920.”
As time passes, older nitrate- and acetate-based films begin to deteriorate, Billington said. The Library of Congress is working to digitize and preserve endangered film and audio files at its new Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, an approximately $250 million facility built in a bunker in the hills near Culpeper, Va.
With Tuesday’s additions, the total number of films in the registry will reach 500.
The registry, established by Congress in 1989, works with film archives and movie studios that own the rights to the selected films to ensure original copies are kept safe. It also acquires a copy for preservation in its own vaults among millions of other recordings.
Curators select films based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic significance, saying their picks wouldn’t necessarily overlap with those of a movie critic. And some aren’t feature films at all: This year’s list includes a family’s home movie, “Disneyland Dream,” which documented a trip to the newly opened park in Anaheim, Calif., in 1956.
“The selection of a title for the registry is not meant to duplicate the Academy Awards or anything like that,” said Patrick Loughney, head of the library’s audio-visual center.
The library accepted public nominations for the film registry selections online and issued a specific call for lesser-known films, including amateur and home-movie footage.
Some films were selected for their historical value, such as “Hallelujah,” the tale of a cotton sharecropper made by MGM as the studio was transitioning from silent to sound films. The 1910 film “White Fawn’s Devotion,” the oldest film selected this year, was made by James Young Deer. He was the first documented American Indian movie director, a member of the Winnebago tribe.
Other movies inspired the nation during times of trouble, such as “Sergeant York” from 1941, which told the story of a Tennessee pacifist who captured 130 German soldiers in World War I. The film, starring Gary Cooper, was released just months before the United States entered World War II.
Gates, Supergirl to be watched in 2009
Newsarama named Supergirl a character to watch in 2009, and named Sterling Gates, who writes the series, as one of its creators to watch in 2009 as well. Gates is a University of Oklahoma graduate who grew up in Tulsa. Check the links for the full lists, which include characters like Wolverine and Batman and creators including Jason Aaron.
– Matt Price
Movie review: Valkyrie
Director Bryan Singer (”X-Men”) reunites with screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote “The Usual Suspects” for Singer, with “Valkyrie.” Tom Cruise stars as Claus von Stauffenberg, a member of the German resistance during World War II who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander wrote the film, based on the true story of Operation Valkyrie, which was Hitler’s emergency plan to stabilize power in case of his death. Colonel Stauffenberg and other military members of the German resistance planned to use Valkyrie to instead stage a coup d’etat, removing Hitler’s cronies from power.
Stauffenberg, who lost an eye, a hand, and two additional fingers in the war, is promoted into a position where he has some contact with Hitler. As such, Stauffenberg moves from being the man who will help stabilize a post-Hitler government during the coup into the man who will deliver the bomb.
Singer builds suspense throughout, despite most of the audience knowing the eventual outcome. The main complaints will no doubt be related to Tom Cruise – despite playing a German officer, he looks and sounds like Tom Cruise. (The real von Stauffenberg, however, did resemble Cruise.) I didn’t find the non-German accents distracting in the course of watching the film, but some may. Cruise is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. Also portraying members of the resistance are Kenneth Branagh as Major-General Henning von Tresckow, Bill Nighy as General Friedrich Olbricht and Terrence Stamp as Ludwig Beck.
Matthew Price
MOVIE REVIEW
“Valkyrie”
PG-13
2:00
3 stars
Starring: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice Van Houten
(violence and brief strong language)
Movie review: Doubt
John Patrick Shanley wrote and directed “Doubt,” based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. In the film, Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) befriends the first black student at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964. After the student gets in trouble for drinking altar wine, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) has her suspicions about the charismatic Flynn.
Sister Aloysius runs the school with a strict adherence to rules and propriety; Father Flynn is in favor of loosening up some stodgy mores. The two were in conflict before Sister Aloysius’s suspicions. She can’t abide that Father Flynn insists on using a ball-point pen, for example. But after her suspicions are aroused, the situation worsens.
Sister James (Amy Adams) first noticed the alcohol on her student’s breath, but she doesn’t want to suspect Father Flynn of taking advantage of the boy. Sister Aloysius, however, is certain, and begins a campaign to ferret out the truth.
Viola Davis has an excellent supporting role as the student’s mother. But the acting in “Doubt” is fine throughout. Streep could receive yet another Oscar nomination. Hoffman moves the audience in and out of his corner, never letting the viewer get a firm handle on his guilt or innocence.
Shanley, who wrote 1987’s “Moonstruck” but hasn’t directed a film since 1990’s “Joe Versus the Volcano,” isn’t without his flaws in “Doubt.” And some will be frustrated by the film’s lack of definitive answers. But what is accomplished in the film is provoking a lot of questions: about tradition, religion, and sexual politics, among others. But ultimately, there are no easy answers given – only doubt.
- Matthew Price
MOVIE REVIEW
“Doubt”
PG-13
1:44
3 ½ stars
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, Amy Adams
(Thematic material)
Fox says it will try to stop “Watchmen”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will continue to seek an order delaying the release of ‘Watchmen.’
U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the superhero flick, scheduled for release March 6.
Feess said Monday he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues.
Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner Bros. in February. Warner Bros. contended Fox isn’t entitled to distribution.
Warner Bros.’ attorney said Monday he didn’t know if an appeal was coming, but thinks a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.
Science Matters mobile museum coming to Science Museum Oklahoma
Starting Tuesday, a mobile museum makes its debut at Science Museum Oklahoma. This discovery-based mobile museum will travel to schools in rural Oklahoma.
”Science Matters creates a highly immersive environment, transporting Oklahoma students into a state-of-the-art, multi-sensory learning atmosphere that encourages participation and inquiry,” said Sherry Marshall, Director of the Oklahoma Museum Network, in a release. ”Filled with hands-on experiments, Science Matters engages students as they measure, investigate, create and deduce, allowing them to experience true discovery learning.”
See the full release after the break.
Monday movie quote challenge #12
“‘Needlenose Ned’? ‘Ned the Head’? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show?”
Identify who said this quote in what film in the comments!
Critic Tucker Stone interviewed at Comics Reporter
I’m alternately impressed and irritated by comic-book critic Tucker Stone. But either way, I feel I understand him better after reading Tom Spurgeon’s interview with him at the Comics Reporter. Spurgeon and Stone discuss 2008 in mainstream comics, but also talks about Stone’s philosphy of reviewing, and what he thinks is right and wrong about comics as an artform and an industry.
I found his take on “Batman R.I.P.” very interesting, and spot-on in a lot of ways:
When it’s Grant Morrison on a heavily-marketed Batman event comic, on the most successful superhero character of the year, it has to be better then this. For it not to be — for it to be a niche comic that appeals to a specific type of Grant Morrison fan — that’s what I’d call a miserable failure. When it comes to Grant Morrison, I go in with expectations, because he’s written some of my favorite comics of recent memory. And when I find the work disappointing, which I did, then I don’t see any reason to temper that disappointment any more then I would when I read something like Superman and Batman Fight Aliens And Predators Plus A Vampire.
I also agreed with him on his rant about people on the internet assuming they know more about marketing than professional marketers. And while I found these statements sad, there was also some truth in what he said about those working in comics for a love of the medium versus people who work solely for money.
The only people who work in comics are people who like comics, and you can’t build a national business that deals with millions of consumers the way television and film does just on a staff of people who like comics. That’s never worked, for any industry. You need smart, bloodthirsty business people to pull off wide-ranging sales to a large audience, and you need those people to be telling the artists what to do, and you need enough talented artists that you can tell the big-name people “no” when they come up with something that isn’t going to work. You need people who work in comics and view them as a product that has to be sold to people despite them not needing it, the same way they don’t “need” pretty much anything but house, transpo or food. I think a lot of people don’t understand that — I didn’t until the last few years — but that’s the main way consumer-based business works. … You can’t have people in the room selling that stuff who care about the consumer, who care about “fans”, who care about creators.
I suppose I’m actually glad that most of the people who work in comics like comics, and that when I go to the comic book store, the guy there is going to tell me about what’s actually good instead of whatever corporate is telling him to sell, but Stone’s larger point is valid. If comics are to be a huge industry (I’m not sure they should ever be), then part of what makes that happen are people who are very good at getting people to pay for things they don’t need, whether or not those people have any particular affinity for the product being pushed.
Now, I also don’t think comics doesn’t have a history of being bloodthirsty — I mean, look at what happened to Siegel and Shuster, or Kirby, or any number of Golden Age artists — but I do think he’s right that comics aren’t commodified and pushed down people’s throats like much of consumer culture these days. Whether that’s good or bad is where my opinion differs with Stone’s.
– Matt Price
Will we be watching the “Watchmen”?
Ruling could put ‘Watchmen’ in jeopardy
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that 20th Century Fox owns a copyright interest in “Watchmen,” potentially jeopardizing the superhero movie’s March release.
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess of Los Angeles disclosed the decision in a written order Wednesday, The New York Times and Variety reported. “Watchmen,” based on the popular graphic novel of the same name, was shot by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures.
Fox sued to prevent its release and Feess had set a Jan. 20 trial, but reversed course in writing that Fox at least owns the right to distribute the film. Fox claims it never fully relinquished its rights to the story from a deal made in the late 1980s.
Warner spokesman Scott Rowe declined to comment on the latest ruling.
