* Against nerd-culture hegemony: Parts one, two, three, four, five, etc., etc….
* Seriously, read Matt Zoller Seitz’s anti-superhero-movie piece in Salon. It’s no secret what an admirer of Seitz’s I am, but I hope you’ll believe me any way that it’s a cut above the screeds you’ve seen along these lines from, I don’t know, Roger Ebert or Ron Rosenbaum, or a Comics Journal message board user in 2002, or whatever. It’s the kind of thing where you can disagree with several of his specific assessments of superhero movies–I love Burton’s Batman and hate Spider-Man 2, just for example–and still agree wholeheartedly with his conclusion. For me, the prosecution could present the Fantastic Four movies as Exhibit A in The People vs. Superhero Movies and rest their case immediately–you have access to the definitive work of one of the greatest visual thinkers in any medium of the entire 20th century, and that’s what you come up with? Anyway, I talk a bit more about Seitz’s piece on Robot 6. Suffice it to say I’ve been thinking and chatting a lot about the goonish conservatism of nerd culture for the past few days–ever since Wilson came out, I believe–so this piece was a nice bit of synchronicity.
* Elsewhere on Robot 6: Sexy superhero art from Canadian cartoonists. Here’s Jillian Tamaki’s Catwoman:
* Comic-Con’s David Glanzer talks to Kiel Phegley about the Con’s big decision on location. I was struck to see him publicly batting down at least one claim made by L.A. Inc’s Michael Krouse in that Jeremy-Piven-in-Entourage interview yesterday. Also, to hear Glanzer tell it (and contra Krouse and Chris Butcher), San Diego’s offer was a fine one, although of course that’s what he’d say.
* Actual, honest-to-God new reader Curt Purcell says Blackest Night was plenty new-reader friendly, thank you very much, for whatever its other faults.
* Tom Neely is the best there is at what he does.
* Despite its lack of anything from The Wizard of Oz (flying monkeys!!!), this list of disturbing moments in kids’ movies from Topless Robot’s Ethan Kaye has a strong blend of iconic horrors (Willy Wonka’s tunnel is the predictable and deserving #1, you’ve got the Child Catcher and Bambi’s mom) with offbeat and personal choices (the clown nightmare instead of Large Marge in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, also-ran animated features like Scruffy and The Black Cauldron, which reminds me I wanna reread the Prydain Chronicles).
The Seitz piece seems at once very true and pretty underwhelming. Expensive event/tentpole movies tend to have all the edges shaved off by the interminable Hollywood process; it seems like I’ve been reading variations of this critique for years, usually pitched at “summer blockbusters” generally. The only difference now is that the summer blockbuster is a superhero movie rather than Return of the Jedi or Cliffhanger.
The better point of comparison is thus not zombie movies but, say, romantic comedies. The former are still, it seems to me, made for a fringe; the latter are built to appeal to the widest possible demographic. Because it is understood that a zombie film exists within the ghetto of horror rather than the world of the “mainstream” it’s got more freedom to play; the mainstream romantic comedy by contrast has to follow the lockstep logic of the focus group(though of course given the lack of money needed to make a romcom vs. a superhero film, even romcoms have more room to play). Fiore may have had a point when he bitched about not wanting superheros to become a mainstream presence.
Anyway. I’m pretty divorced from nerd culture these days–though not nerd cultural products–and film studes was never my strong suit, so, you know, feel free to ignore/laugh as warranted.
Has Seitz seen Unbreakable or The Incredibles?
Dave: I think the aesthetic interchangeability of superhero movies with tentpole blockbusters is sort of his point.
Hilker: I’m told he talks about that in the comments in the Salon piece.
I like Seitz a lot too– he even got me to keep reading the freaking NY Press for a while. My reaction was pretty much like Dave’s though. Fantastic Four, The Vaguely Movie-Like Object, was inevitable once there had been enough really successful Spandexers to convince even the dumbest executive that there was money in these things. And once they get that idea, you’re just going to get 10000 times more unimaginative crud than nifty craft.
Oh yeah, also, did you know you can get a little book of 13 of those Neely covers? I plug it thus.
Sean: but if that’s the point, it’s a pretty underwhelming point as a specific indictment of superhero movies (although, again, an accurate point insofar as most of them suck for the stated reasons). I mean, it’s sad that the freedom and weirdness of some of the books doesn’t make economic sense on the screen, but it’s not really a problem that can be solved if it is an inherent constraint on most popcorn movies, absent a super-strong willed director/actor willing to do their own thing. Doesn’t everyone already know the emperor has no clothes? What does Seitz tell us that we don’t already know, vis a vis spectacle movies?
Dave: Even if I grant your overall indictment of his take on the superhero-movie genre as insufficiently distinct from a take on the action blockbuster generally, he does a lot of “specific indictment”s of each individual movie he talks about, which for me would make the piece worth it regardless.
Hob: I THINK I knew that? I gotta hit Tom up for that!
Sean: Fair enough. Hiatus: Resuming!
My top 5 favorite zombie films in no particular order are Dawn of the Dead (1978 original), Fulci’s Zombie, Revenge of the Loving Dead, Dead Snow, and Zombie Holocaust. As you can tell, I’m a fan of Italian horror. Love the classic 80s gut munchers. Day of the Dead (again, the original!) is one of my favorites too.