* Because I am now an old man, I pussied out on the midnight screening of Ryuhei Kitamura’s Clive Barker adaptation Midnight Meat Train during Comic-Con. Obviously this was a huge mistake, because Lionsgate is finishing off its thorough rogering of this film with the donkey punch of releasing it only in dollar theaters. This way they can keep within the letter of their agreement to release the movie theatrically while being maximally insulting to filmmakers and filmgoers alike. I’ll tell you, I am privy to some behind-the-scenes gossip about the goings-on at Lionsgate under its new-ish boss Joe Drake, and the joint sounds like an absolute nightmare. This is just ugly no matter how you slice it.
* Over at Tom Spurgeon’s joint, I’m part of a roundtable on comics publisher IDW’s kinda sorta decision to stop going to the San Diego Comic-Con.
* Heidi MacDonald posts her even-tempered post-Con wrap-up. She directly addresses how the show’s egalitarianism is frequently its own biggest problem, while admirably avoiding advocating policies that would reward her comparatively privileged place in the hierarchy. She does call for a press day, though, something I’ve now heard from a couple of disparate quarters. (As I mentioned in my report, I just can’t imagine how that makes financial sense for retailers and publishers who retail, but I guess it’s a thing that is done at some shows.)
* Does the fact that Ronald Reagan did not, in fact, ignite a nuclear holocaust adversely affect art made with the underlying assumption that this was a real possibility, like Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen? Matthew Yglesias has some thoughts.
* I thought Rob Humanick’s piece on The Dark Knight is different from most such reviews in what it emphasizes and how much weight it places on it.
* Top Shelf 2.0 editor and swell guy Leigh Walton bemoans the upcoming Garfield Minus Garfield book because of how it attributes authorship for a meme (to someone who came late to it, to boot).
* Jon Hastings takes a look at how Grant Morrison “rescued” DC’s Silver Age from its Bronze and Modern Age contradictions.
* Finally, Bai Ling explains [sic] the time she asked to meet the Burger King.
On Watchmen and Reagan: I’ve neer had a cut, scrape, or airborne disease make a limb so infected it rotted and had to be amputated. This doesn’t make antibotics a scam. Same deal, with responses to the movement conservative idea of foreign policy.
I’ll be seeing MMT tonight. I’ll let ya know how it is.
Saw it.
Ehhhh. Pretty predictable. Usual blue-washed subway scenes. Vinnie Jones was nice, in a Terminator way, using his intimidating physical presence to do all his acting. The CGI is where the skimping shows: plenty gory, very unevenly effective.
See it if you’re curious, but it can wait for rental.
Bruce, I see what you’re saying, but I think it’s more complex than that here. For one thing, Regan’s policy vis a vis the USSR is akin to the cut/scrape/airborne disease HEALING the limb. For another, Moore’s “voice of reason” analysis of the Soviet Union in Watchmen, the “Super-Powers and the Superpowers” article, posits an undeterrable, suicidal government along the lines of the current neocon conception of Iran, which I think is in retrospect just plain wrong. (Of course Moore’s prescription for dealing with the situation is 180 degrees away from the neocons’ for dealing with Iran.)