At last weekend’s New York Comic Con, Venture Bros. writers Christopher McCulloch (better known as his pseudonym Jackson Publick) and Doc Hammer revealed some Season 3 footage and answered some fan questions. I wasn’t there but thankfully Comic Book Resources reporter Jonathan Callan chronicled the event.

Dude, I can’t wait for Season 3!

UPDATE: Season 3 Preview posted at Geekanerd.

Venture Bros Season 3 Panel was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Yesterday at the Ritz, the fancy new downtown home of the Alamo Drafthouse, I attended my first big screen showing of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes. Using a new 35mm print from the original negatives, the movie screening was flawless with bright colors and fantastic sound. The action and overblown dialog literally screamed delightfully off the the giant screen. Charlton Heston has never looked so dynamic or sounded so forceful. The 40+ year old makeup effects remain effective and vibrant. The viewing further reinforced my love for this very influential film.

Plant of the Apes spawned four sequels, a television series, an animated series, action figures, books, comic books, a subpar 2001 remake, and many Simpsons parodies. A dystopian reflection of American society in the 1960s, real strength is the brilliant Michael Wilson and Rod Serling script, which was loosely based on Pierre Boulle’s Swiftian satire La Planete des Signes (Monkey Planet). The most original shock-ending of all time cements this movie’s place in film history.

The actual making of the Planet of the Apes is a fascinating story unto itself with several books and even a documentary on the subject. When producer Arthur P. Jacobs acquired the book rights, no one would take him seriously until Warner Brothers decided to take a chance with Blake Edwards (of Pink Panther fame) directing. Edwards first task was contacting the legendary Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling about writing the screenplay. For the next two years, Serling toiled with the screenplay while Jacobs secured funding for the feature. Michael Wilson was brought in to work on the screenplay as well. Although the two men never met, they crafted one of the finest film adaptations of all time.

While Serling and Wilson polished the script, Jacobs searched for a lead actor. He interviewed Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, and Rock Hudson. They all turned him down. Charlton Heston, who was already famous for playing larger than life characters, did not. When Warner Brothers learned the proposed budget of the movie could top $7 million, they opted out of the film, taking Edwards with them. Richard Zanuck of Twentieth Century Fox stepped in but not without reservations. He was concerned about the believability of the intelligent apes. After viewing a five-minute test film of Edgar G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius, Zanuck decided to go ahead with the project. Ironically, it was during the test that Robinson determined he was reluctant to endure the long, rigorous transformations that the role required. He was replaced by Maurice Evans.

Planet of the Apes premiered in 1968 to rave reviews and was a huge box office success. John Chambers, Ben Nye, and Dan Striepeke won a special Oscar for the makeup. By the mid-seventies there were five Ape movies, a television show, an animated series, and a plethora of other merchandise available.

Planet of the Apes with its line of action figures, books, and comics was the template used to even greater success by George Lucas upon the release of Star Wars. That model has been used by nearly every major science fiction movie ever since.

The Origin of the Planet of the Apes was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Evil ]
[  Currently: Eating kooks like Willie Scott for breakfast! ]
In response to:

Sci-Fi: WTF Couples
1. Indiana Jones and Willie Scott, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Poor Willie. She will always been seen as the also ran romance of the Indy series. Marion was Indy’s one true love as evidenced by Raiders and the forthcoming Crystal Skull. Willie was just a pit stop.
And it wasn’t hard for Indy to tell. She wasn’t good in the outdoors. She screamed every time anything happened. Clearly this woman should have been a booty call for Indy, but we were urged to think this would last forever. Probably had something to do with producer Spielberg making the actress who played Willie his one and only seven years after this movie came out.

I HATE Willie.

HATE.

Willie Scott and the wretched movie from which she spawned are proof positive that in 1984, for whatever reason, Spielberg and Lucas were wandering the desert of imagination in search of a creative idea.

There were plenty of other movies to see in 1984, and I saw at least twenty on that linked list. Man, 1984 was a good year for movies.

Indy sucked more than every one I saw that year, except The Woman In Red.

Gene Wilder, you let me down, man.

The horrible, erroneous gun/sword joke reference in the prequel is proof that Lucas and Co. had started filking with their own material in dangerous ways, long before the E.T. walkie-talkie fiasco. Indy meets with two swordsmen, instead of the one in Raiders, which is supposed to happen several years after Temple, yet he grabs for his pistol, and finding the holster empty, gives a knowing, almost 4th-wall-breaking, smile!

I blame Willie Scott.

Geekdom! I submit to you: we weren’t taking notes! We should have seen Episodes I, II, and III coming at that moment, and we should have initiated prepartions to prevent it!

The lonely dvd sitting in the Indiana Jones Trilogy box, behind Raiders, Crusade, and the extras dvd? I don’t look at it more than your average commuter looks at a traffic accident on the highway. It’s unfortunate that it happened, and it’s taking up space in my life, but I really wish I could just get the hell past it and not have to worry about it bogging down part of my day.

I blame Willie Scott.

I hear some of you, just a few of you, out there in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles, saying “But what about Short Round? You can‘t not like Short Round.”

Grammatically questionable as that last statement is, those very words have come out of at least one person’s mouth when I dug in my heels about IJATTOD sucking. It’s not a fond memory, as now, whenever the subject is broached, that’s the way I hear the question when anyone mentions Short Round.

Short Round doesn’t do anything for me, but I don’t have time to dig into that can of worms for the proper bait right now. Jonathan Ke Quan was, is, and will always for me be Data from The Goonies.
There is no Short Round.

Willie Scott is the reason there are only three Indiana Jones movies in my mind, my world, and just two in my dvd library.

Those movies are as follows.

Raiders, which showed me that cool swipe from the Paramount logo in the beginning, then got better from there. Only Coming To America made better use of the Paramount logo, and only Boogie Nights made better use of Alfred Molina.

Raiders also proved that John Williams’ best work was not The Imperial March. I know, it’s the Star Wars theme to lots and lots of geeks out there, but it pales in comparison to the Indy theme.

The Last Crusade, while touted as THE last Indy movie so many years ago (hey, who knew Harrison just needed the right script to get the hat back on?), was also the best of the three so far, for three reasons.

1. River Pheonix as young Indy. I weep every time I watch the opening to the movie, and every time I hear this song by Natalie Merchant, that she wrote for him posthumously.

2. Sean Connery! In the words of Stan The Man Lee, ‘Nuff Said.

3. Humor! Sure, one might argue a short asian kid who uses telephone books and KISS boots to drive a car, a woman who is scared of the wild and thinks elephants stink, and the poor attempts at slapstick all make for rollicking good fun at the movies. But where Raiders tempered its drama and action with comedy, and Temple added unnecessary song numbers and bad jokes to pad the feather-light story, Last Crusade found a very nice balance between humor and pathos.

And damn it, the movie makes me cry, OK?! It’s a good estranged father-son fantasy story, wrapped in an action yarn, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery!

“Let it go, Indiana.”

Last Crusade just seemed so effortless when weighed against the albatross that is Temple of Doom.

I blame Willie Scott.

Hell, if Wikipedia is to be believed, check out this quote: “After the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg decided to complete the trilogy in order to fulfill his promise to George Lucas, and ‘to apologize for the second one’.”

Maybe Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is Spielberg’s way of saying, “Let’s make a real trilogy, and in a year or two we’ll mint more money after releasing the NEW dvd box set, sans Temple of Doom! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! Eh…ha?”

Still, let’s hope Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is at least as good as Raiders,.

Which is to say, pretty filking awesome.

I want it to be the summer’s blockbuster movie, taking a righteous swing at the biggest moneymakers the past summers have seen and knocking them sideways.

The movie already has some good things going for it, long, Fiona-Apple-esque title aside. OK, it’s more U2esque.

Mr. Shamamalan LaBootay, who, even if he blows it in a bunch of art house films while living off his last four paychecks, will still appear in the next Michael Bay FIOS commercial, guaranteed.
His LaBoothness plays Mutt, who is potentially Indy’s son by Marion. Or actually is. Whatever, I’m not digging into the spoilers to find out. I’ll learn it all on day one in the theater.

And it’ll have some pudgy pasty white guy instead of Salah, it appears from the trailer. That’s its first strike in my book. I can just imagine Salah saying, “So, Indy, you have A SON!”

Not unlike Brian Blessed’s Hawkman exclaiming something exclamatory in Flash Gordon.

Kingdom touts Nazi-ish villains led by Cate Blanchett! No Indy film is complete without the good ol’ stormtrooperish villainy!

Indy is being portrayed as Indy, twenty years on. Not Harrison Ford’s likeness pasted digitally onto a young stunt man’s frame, with Harrison providing voice talent to lip-sync the dialogue.

Come to think of it, that’s probably what Frank Darabont’s script suggested…after all, the man wrote, directed, and allowed to be released this piece of crap.

I don’t blame Willie Scott for The Mist.

Yes, Frank, I am bitter. I’ll need about three more Shawshank Redemptions to put you back on the “trust me” list.

But Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull wasn’t written by Darabont, Thank Shatner, so it won’t have Short Round, but it will have the wonderful, beautiful, still-hot Karen Allen! Marion returns!

I’ve missed Marion. I’m glad she’s back.

And I’m so very very glad Willie Scott will not be in the new movie. For that reason alone it has a better-than-good chance of success.

Unless it blows like Willie screaming. In which case…

I blame Willie Scott.

I sincerely hope it won’t.

[  Mood: Hypnotized ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
Virginia is an overweight sixteen year-old in a skinny, perfect family. Her best friend has moved to Walla Walla and she is having trouble fitting in. She has written the Fat Girls’ Code of Conduct and it reads like a bad low self-esteem playbook. Stuff I see all the time in my job.

Carolyn Mackler has created a very believable young adult novel, where Virginia struggles with her weight, fitting in and coping with a family that thinks she should just lose a few pounds.

I can see why the ALA made it a Michael L. Printz Honour book. Good stuff.

[  Mood: Distorted ]
[ Currently: Drinking Organic Black Ginger Tea ]
Once again, I find myself reading a relationship book, not because there are any problems in my marriage, but because the authors are funny people.

This book is written by a former writer for Sex In The City (Liz Tuccilio) and a consultant for the same series (Greg Behrendt). Greg’s the guy who also co-wrote It’s Called a Break-Up Because It’s Broken.

The basic message of this book is, Ladies, if he ignores your phone calls, doesn’t want to have sex, can’t make a commitment or for any other reason doesn’t want to be around you, he’s not into you. No amount of you caving, whining, hanging around, looking pathetic or crying is going to change that. He is not going to change. Basically, if a man is into a woman, he will move Heaven and Earth to be with her.

Greg is very blunt about this through out the book. He even has a survey of 25 men at the end of each chapter where he asked them the question that section was examining. Harsh words from the men to back up the tough medicine.

Women need to hear this message, cause we have been trained to believe that we can change men, that we should sit by the phone and wait for him to call, that we should make a billion excuses for men. Basically, that we should settle, cause we aren’t getting any younger, rather that wait for Mr. Right to come along.

Good book – message delivered with humour, which means it tends to stick in your brain better. I may be buying this as a gift for many people this year.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
Pretties is the sequel to a previously reviewed Uglies. It finds Tally after she has had her operation to become a Pretty. She now lives a dilettante life of parties and drinking of which Lyndsay Lohan only dreams.

Into this life intrudes her past, the escape to the Smoke, the fight against the tyranny of the city and Tally’s own actions. Pretty soon, Tally is questioning her new life and trying to make some changes.

Once again, Scott Westerfield has produced a marvelous piece of dystopian writing for teens, with a twist at the end that you don’t see coming but sets up for the next book.

Good stuff.

Over at the entertaining blog Comics Should Be Good, some 700 comic book fans submitted their ten favorite comic book runs. Here are the results, broken into easily digestible five entry chunks. As of this posting, #100-#51 have been announced. It appears they are posting two entries a day.

Some interesting findings so far:

*Two Roger Stern runs (58. Avengers #227-279, 281-288 and 55. Amazing Spider-Man #224-227, 229-252)

*The shockingly meager rankings of League of Extraordinary Gentleman at #64, Kirkman’s Invincible at #76, and Lee and Ditko’s Dr. Strange at #88.



*The fact that Christopher Priest’s Black Panther even made the list (73). It is easily the worst book mentioned so far.

*Preponderance X-books:

90. Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr Uncanny X-Men #175(partial), #176-197, 199-200, 202-203, 206-211

81. Peter Milligan and Mike Allred X-Force #116-129, X-Statix #1-26

74. Chris Claremont and Alan Davis Excalibur #1-24, 42-52, 54-58, 61-67

71 (tie). Chris Claremont and Paul Smith Uncanny X-Men #165-170, 172-175

71 (tie). Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri Uncanny X-Men #218, 220-222, 224-227, 229-230, 232-234, 236, 238-244, 246-247, 249-251, 253-255, 259-261

69. Peter David X-Factor #70-90

66. Chris Claremont Marvel Graphic Novel #4, New Mutants #1-54, Annuals #1-3

I’m definitely curious about the rest of the list.

Top 100 Comic Book Runs was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
In my family, politics was a blood sport. My father and stepmother are very politically active. The news was watched and debated. They were card carrying members of the Conservative Party of Canada at one point, and attended political conventions. I learned a lot about the inner workings of government sitting at the dining room table listening to the two of them.

So I enjoy watching a political horse race. And let me tell you, what is happening in the US, actually is way more exciting than most races up here.

We Canadians like to see ourselves as progressive and liberal. We also like to compare ourselves to the US and say "we are so much more progressive than you!". But in terms of this election, the US has us beat by a mile.

You have a black man and a woman battling it out to see who will lead one party. Oh, sure we’ve had a female Prime Minister, but she was appointed and is a bit of a national joke. And one of them, Barak, actually talks to the voters like grown ups! His response to the "race issue" was so calm and rational, it was refreshing.

And your other party is lead by a guy who spent years in a bamboo cage in Vietnam and has views that can be considered quite left. Although McCain may be courting the religious right from time to time, he seems to represent the Republicans that have grown tired of their nation and party being hijacked by zealots.

Oh sure, their are pockets in the US who are clinging to the old ways, and the candidates are not perfect, but I think Canadian politicians have a lot to learn from this election. Diversity, not division, is a good thing. Ideas, not ideologies, are important.

Bravo my American cousins! Bravo!

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Watching Days of Our Lives ]
This novel was adapted into the recent movie with The Incredible Hulk, Jordan 2 Delta and Queen Amidala. I picked it up because the book is always better than the movie.

I don’t know if the movie was any good, but this is a very nice piece of historical fiction. I am normally not a fan of historical fiction cause it plays fast and loose with the facts and I have two history degrees. Frequently, they attribute modern sensibilities to historical figures.

Now, this is still a novel so there are facts that change, but Greogry manages to represent the Tudor period’s attitude regarding the place of women and the literal pimping of daughters to advance a family’s position.

I enjoyed this. I plan to pick up some more of this woman’s work.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching Fresh with Anna Olsen ]
So CBC had announced that there would be no nightly showing of the long running British soap opera Coronation Street during the NHL Playoffs. The two and a half hour Sunday Omnibus would still happen, but no Weeknight Corrie.

Now fans were a little stressed about this. Corrie is an an institution here in Canada. It draws numbers similar to Hockey Night in Canada. We are about eight months behind the Brits, so if you are not a spoiler lover, you have to watch out. And we lose it every playoff season and during the Olympics, frequently putting us further behind.

Now CBC has announced that they will be streaming the omnibus online during the week for people who can’t wait until Sunday.

This is amazing news. Again, CBC has seen the technology light and is not afraid to follow it.