* Want to reignite interest in your bloated, overlong, shit-the-bed-in-the-third-movie Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy in two easy steps? Cast Ian McShane as Blackbeard and break open the fuckin’ canned peaches.
* Though she is a supporter of motion-capture performances like that of Andy Serkis as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, Kristin Thompson writes a compelling essay about why they nevertheless shouldn’t qualify for the traditional acting Oscar categories. This is a mitzvah, as the argument really should be hashed out by people with an appreciation both for the technology and the reasons why it’s different than traditional acting, and not as some Internet-style “LUDDITES VS. THE FUTURE” flamewar. One thing though: Zoe Saldana was getting Oscar buzz for her performances as Love Interest in Avatar? I thought that character and everything she brought to it was just as rote as everything else in the movie.
* I haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, though it’s very very high up on my list of “next big prose series I’m reading.” (Right now in my head I’m going through a long digression about how there’s only so much time in the day and how much my Comics Time reading and reviewing prevents me from reading long serialized works of both comics and prose, and moreover how I’ve had the first two discs of Mad Men Season One in my backpack for like four months, and how I’m only up to World 5 of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and god only knows how long it’s gonna take me to get through all of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster now that I have all 18 volumes finally, and hey what about the long-promised revision of my anti-Jaime Hernandez Love & Rockets thing that would require me to read all those digests, and for Chrissakes I’m not even up to First Bull Run in the John Keegan American Civil War book, and on and on and on. But you can take it as read.) But it seems to me that an HBO grown-up fantasy series could be to die for, and casting Sean Bean in the lead seems like a great way to start. The whole rest of the cast can be seen at that link, too. Maybe readers can chime in as to who’s good and who sucks in the comments.
* Marc-Oliver Frisch sings the praises of Soldier X. My great hope is that all this Internet attention will spur someone at Marvel into saying, “Ah, what the hell, let’s collect the damn thing.” Help us, David Gabriel–you’re our only hope! Anyway, here’s a nice bit from Marc-Oliver’s review:
This is the point where Soldier X reveals its kinship with Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes’ Omega the Unknown, but also with Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis. Like those works, Soldier X treats superheroes as a metaphor for the literal limitlessness of the human imagination–easily the single most compelling aspect of the genre, as well as, unfortunately, the single most overlooked one.
* A shadowy cabal of my chums from one of my ex-employers has started up a sketch blog called We Are The LAW, where we’re taking turns drawing characters we like. We’ve actually kicked things off with two characters of our own devising: Justin Aclin’s Geist from Hero House, and mine own Destructor from my comics with Matt Wiegle. I want to emphasize that only a handful of us can actually, you know, draw, but hey, what the hell. Below is Geist by me, Destructor by Ben Morse, and Destructor and friends by T.J. Dietsch. Click the links for the full-sized versions.
* Elsewhere, Rickey Purdin draws the Black Flame from B.P.R.D. The sequence where he walks into the Zinco boardroom in full Nazi supervillain regalia with his head on fire and announces “You’re all fired” is one of the all-time great comic book moments I’ve ever read. Full stop.
PS: I wonder if Zinco and Cinco have any connection?
* A good way to prep for tonight’s Lost is to read what Kiel Phegley’s mom Lynn thought of last week’s episode. Imagine a recap column written by Lapidus and you’re pretty much there.
Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
Actually, I was so disgusted by the second PIRATES that I never watched the third, yet I was interested the moment I heard that they were using Tim Powers ON STRANGER TIDES as the basis for the fourth. This Blackbeard thingy is just icing on the dead man’s chest.
Speaking as one of 50 zillion GRR Martin fans, I think the HBO show has a good chance of being reasonably awesome. I don’t know most of the cast, although they look about right, but Bean and Dinklage are absolutely right (and Dinklage is a major major character, possibly the most interesting in the series); Lena Headey is a non-obvious choice but I like her a lot. And although Martin’s not writing the script, he’s producing and he knows his way around TV – the books already have a great narrative structure that should work just fine as a serial.
As for the new Pirates of the Caribbean, the other thing about that is that it’s an adaptation of Tim Powers’s On Stranger Tides, a fucking good book which has been out of print forever because it was too early for the current pirate craze. Apparently Disney had been sitting on the rights to it for a while and decided to merge it into PotC, since it would’ve been mistaken for a PotC homage anyway. If they’re actually using the story rather than just throwing a credit to Powers, then that’s a good thing.
Wrote the above before seeing Matt’s comment, hence the redundant redundancy.
I’ve been tearing through the Ice & Fire books for the first time over the last couple of months–I’ve got a list of things to read/watch as long as yours, but thanks to getting my ass canned a while back I’ve had some free time (hooray?)–and I’ll second Eli’s opinion that this casting is pretty great. Tyrion Lannister is, no hyperbole, the role Peter Dinklage was born to play. I’d imagine the real worry is cost: it’s LOTR-esque in terms of scope and spectacle, and seems like it would be even more expensive to produce than Rome.
Not so sure about that last part. It doesn’t have nearly as much creature stuff and things going boom as LOTR; CG would be used more for backgrounds and maybe battle scenes, and there really aren’t a ton of the latter in the books. And (I think) part of the super-expensiveness of Rome was due to not only the amount of set construction and costuming, but the fact that they did it in Italy. I hope they wouldn’t try to do ASoIaF too cheaply though– Rome is pretty much how it ought to look.
I didn’t like the Game of Thrones books I read; I thought they were obvious in parts, manipulative in others and the prose didn’t resonate with me. It felt like one of those works where things happened because the writer was tweaking expectations of the genre, not because they arose naturally from the world created and story told — I realize I’m in the tiny minority on that one. They’ll sell it as Sopranos meets Lord of the Rings, but what I read was much more like Mark Millar’s Ultimate Lord Of The Rings.
Could be a super-fun TV show, though. Dinklage in particular could be a blast in that role. Casting the kids must have been difficult.
I talk a little bit about the Song of Fire and Ice thing here:
http://noloanforjohnny.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/junkpile-02-24-10/
But, yeah, I agree with Tom as far as casting the kids for the series. There’s a lot of time spent with those rugrats. Wouldn’t quite say the series is as fan-service as a Millar take on LotR would be, but that’s just me. If anything, I think it has a danger of being an utter bore to people who want more dragon slaying than political back-stabbing from their fantasy.
And that Black Flame bit is one of my favorites too. That, and his small “I think I made a mistake.” a few issues later.
I agree with most of what Tom says about the Game of Throne books, except that Mark Millar’s Ultimate LotR sounds like it would be a lot more fun (and probably wouldn’t take as long to read).
If Mr. Millar is one thing, it’s easy to read.