February 29, 2012

fear of an ... archie comics book? really? REALLY?

Yes, REALLY.

So here's what Archie Comics gets for being the most progressive and interesting comics company today: a threatened boycott.

You want to know the really funny thing about this? The issue that they're targeting -- the one in which Kevin marries Troy not once, but twice! (depending on how you view things) -- is over two months old. Life with Archie only comes out once every two months. Issue 16 has already been largely replaced on shelves by issue 17. (In which Veronica -- the version married to Archie -- pretty much loses her freakin' mind, and Mr. Lodge -- both of him -- turns out to be much more than you'd expect. Oh, and then there's the X-Files thing. And anyone who didn't know it finds out Jughead's real name. And both continuities come to a crossroads that DC only wishes it could have managed as well in "Flashpoint". But that's all rather beside the point.) What I'm wondering is how long it will take these yahoos to notice that Kevin Keller actually has his own title now. One in which being a gay high school student is considered (GASP!) .... normal. As though he's just another Riverdale high school student, in exactly the same way that Archie or Reggie or Veronica or Betty or Moose or Jughead is.There's nothing in particular to distinguish it from any other Archie Comics title ... which is more or less their point.

Toys-r-Us has, so far, been utterly silent on the subject. This may be their best tack. They're not really in a position to say, in quite as tactful yet blunt a way as JC Penney said regarding One Million Moms' wildly ineffective protest regarding Ellen Degeneres, "Bite me, bigots!" Granted, that's not really how JCPenney phrased it (NOTE: Link below has autoplaying Flash video):

So One Million Moms is now wagering that America believes less in Toys-R-Us and Archie Comics than they do in Ellen The Trustworthy. Symbol of Americana for, what, four generations of people now? Seriously, these people, do they know how to pick their targets or what?

I have to admit, I do love the response of Archie Comics' CEO to these people, as reported by Robot6 at comicbookresources.com:

No, it's not a tactful "Bite me", but it's still beautifully stated. Although ... "free of prejudice, hate and narrow-minded people" is, perhaps, pushing it a bit far. After all, in his first longer story arc, Kevin had to deal with someone explicitly using the fact that he's gay against him in the election for student president, trying to take advantage of people's prejudices, implying that Kevin being gay made him unsuited, somehow less of a man. (Said bigot was, quite firmly and repeatedly, put in his place.) So it's not as though he won't face obstacles ... but this is Archie Comics we're talking about, so he'll usually get through, somehow.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think Life with Archie is one of the best, if possibly not the best, titles being published in comics today. They manage to combine the melodrama with a somewhat realistic depiction of the sorts of things that young people go through today -- the Great Recession, although not mentioned as such, has not left Riverdale untouched -- as well as the odd touch of science fiction and fantasy. (They probably won't pay attention, but come awards time next year, the Hugos and Nebulas really should consider Life with Archie in their comic book section -- although usually it's graphic novels and webcomics compilations. Nonetheless, the title wouldn't exist without the explicit science fiction concept at its core, which is beginning to pay off big time. But I digress. Again.) I suppose today's news is a sign that Life with Archie has arrived -- again -- in a really odd way. After all, if Archie Comics wasn't considered meaningful in some way, why would you bother protesting or boycotting? Toys R Us just happens to be the merchant in the middle this time.

Questions? Comments? Boycotts? Babblings?

Posted by Iain Jackson at 01:51 PM | Permalink

January 29, 2012

academy awards predictions, recalibrated

18th Annual Screen Actor Guild Awards, nominees and recipients

So, in the wake of the SAG Awards, which, at least in acting categories, are a slightly better predictor than the Golden Globes and the raft of critics awards -- given that they're voted on by substantially, if not entirely, the same people who vote for the Academy Awards -- have my thoughts of who will win changed at all?

Well ... somewhat. After all, given the limited number of categories, one film did, after all, steamroll the others, and it was ... The Help? Really? You're not just pulling my leg here? ... Well, all-righty, then. So, recalibrating:

Best PIcture: Oriignally thought to be a dogfight between "The Artist" and "The Descendants", it's now looking like it may be a dogfight between "The Artist" and "The Help", since "The Descendants" got clean shut out -- though, granted, it only had two nominations in the SAG Awards, Best Actor and Best Film Ensemble. For the moment, I'm sticking with "The Artist" -- because it is, after all, ART with a capital ART, and the Academy loves ART -- but a win by "The Help" wouldn't surprise me now.

Best Director: No change. The director of "The Help" wasn't nominated, or else I might be changing my mind a bit.

Best Actor: No change; still picking Dujardin narrowly over Clooney.

Best Actress: Apparently, this is a three-woman race, given that Viola Davis took the SAG Award. I suspect what may be swaying voters, if they are being swayed, is purely the fact that more of them have actually seen Davis' performance; "Albert Nobbs" and "Iron Lady" never opened all that wide, and who knows how many members have made their way through the pile of screeners to see Close and Streep. So ... let's say Davis narrowly over Close, for the moment.

Supporting Actor: No change. Plummer narrowly over Von Sydow.

Supporting Actress: Apparently, this really is Octavia Spencer's year. Therefore, changed to predicting Spencer romping past Bejo and McTeer. (Also, purely a sidenote: Alec Baldwin is a dick. But then, we knew that, didn't we?)

So, we'll see how things work out in the acting categories next month, won't we?

Posted by Iain Jackson at 09:22 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2012

oscar, oscar, oscar! nominations and predictions, 2012

2012 Oscar nominees - 84th Annual Academy Awards

The thing I like about this year's nomination is that every single major category contains at least one "WTF?" moment. For all the predictability of the Academy Awards, you don't get that quite this consistently in the nominations process.

Overall, the entire nominations slate has a certain WTF? feel. Seldom has comedy been so well or frequently represented in all the major categories. The Academy generally prefers its ART to be VERY SERIOUS, dont'cha know.

So, as a complete outsider who frankly doesn't care about film that much, but loves awards shows and award show politicking, let's take a whack at this predictions stuff for the major categories, just for the hell of it, shall we? Let's shall.

BEST PICTURE
"The Artist," Thomas Langmann, producer
"The Descendants," Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Scott Rudin, producer
"The Help," Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, producers
"Hugo," Graham King and Martin Scorsese, producers
"Midnight in Paris," Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, producers
"Moneyball," Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, producers
"The Tree of Life," Nominees to be determined
"War Horse," Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, producers

Looks like a probable dogfight between "The Artist" and "The Descendants". To a certain extent, this sticks the Ars Gratia Artis vs Commercial Art question squarely in front of the Academy again. The past few years, art for art's sake has beaten art that also makes decent money, fairly handily. That would point to "The Artist" beating out "The Descendants". "The Help", despite support from nominations in the acting categories, is just controversial enough that I think the Academy would shy away from it. Also, it does not say ART with a capital ART in the same way as the other nominees. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", also a somewhat controversial film. (I've heard it called things along the lines of "Extremely shrill and incredibly manipulative".) "Midnight in Paris", while reportedly one of Allen's best films in years, doesn't seem to have a lot of support. "Hugo", while supported by a best director nomination for Scorsese, has no support in other major categories, which might make it a harder sell; also, the academy, for some odd reason, does not seem to consider general audience films to be True ART. "War Horse" also lacks much support from other major categories. The fact that "The Tree of Life" is having a dispute over who exactly the producers are at this stage of the game also doesn't bode well for its chances, along with the whole, "Wait, what the hell was THAT film?" quality. "Moneyball" ... I don't know. Seems highly unlikely that a baseball/math-nerd themed comedy would make it through.

BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"
Alexander Payne, "The Descendants"
Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"
Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
Terrence Malick, "The Tree of Life"

I really think this is a two-horse race again, "The Artist" vs "Hugo" (Ha. Thought I was going to say "The Descendants", didn't you?). I think Allen will get his award elsewhere this night, and I'm not sure that "The Descendants" is "directorly" enough, compared to Hugo and The Artist. By that I mean you can very clearly see the director's hand and vision in shaping the film, whereas with Payne, it's much less in-your-face. And the Academy loves in-your-face directorliness.

LEAD ACTOR
Demian Bichir, "A Better Life"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy "
Brad Pitt, "Moneyball"

Pick an actor, any actor. Seriously, I have no clue here, other than Bichir has no chance whatsoever, and the mere fact that he got nominated is truly astonishing. Oscar normally prefers his leading men to have been around a while and to have had previous nominations; both of those factors would seem to make Clooney and Pitt the front runners. My gut says they're going to go with Dujardin, purely because making a silent film in 2011 and making the role work is unspeakably difficult. On the other hand, if Clooney doesn't get this -- and I kind of don't think he will -- I suspect he may get the screenplay Oscar instead, because Oscar loves excuses to split the difference, so to speak. Of the other two, I would think Oldman has the best chance, and it may be that the Academy goes for him, because he did a great job in a conventionally dramatic film. (Three of the five nominations in this category are for comedy. When was the last time that happened?) Still, in order of prediction, I would say: (1) Dujardin; (2) Clooney, very very very close behind; (3) Oldman; (4) Pitt; (5) Bichir.

LEAD ACTRESS
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week With Marilyn"

The WTF? moment in this category is: Rooney Mara? Really? Well, that's a surprise. Still, in her case, the nomination is almost certainly the award, for a performance in which she disappeared into the role, but a film with no real support in any other category. Other than that, expect a knockdown drag-out fight between Streep and Close for the award. They also both disappeared into their characters -- in Close's case, that was kind of the entire point, actually. The advantage for Close would be that "Albert Nobbs" is a well regarded film as a whole; Streep's disadvantage is that she's considered the only good thing in "The Iron Lady".

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn"
Jonah Hill in "Moneyball"
Nick Nolte in "Warrior"
Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"
Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

The WTF? moments in this one, apparently, are Jonah Hill, which I'll certainly buy, and Max von Sydow which ... confuses me. You have an Old Hollywood actor in a big film, reportedly acting his socks off. He's only been nominated twice, including this year, in a career that spans over 65 freakin' years, for heaven's sake. Why was anyone surprised by this nomination?

Unfortunately for Sydow, he's up against another Old Hollywood actor, Plummer, who also reportedly acts his socks off in a notable film. He's has had a career nearly as long as Von Sydow's, and has also only been nominated for the Oscar twice, including this year. (Actually wasn't nominated for"The Sound of Music". Surprises me a bit, that.)

This is the sort of situation that Old and New Hollywood normally both love: the semi-official "Oh my, we need to give this guy an Oscar before he up and dies on us" award. (Remember Jack Palance, anyone?) It's just their crappy luck that Plummer and Von Sydow are up against each other. Of the two, I'd give a slight edge to Plummer, just because his role, as someone coming out of the closet very late in life indeed, and "Beginners" itself have been better received overall than "Extremely Loud". The interesting thing will be if the two of them split the Old Hollywood vote and allow someone else to sneak in. Probably not Nolte, what with a fairly recent arrest history. And probably not Hill, who had better hope that nobody in the Academy saw or even knew about the vile excrescence that was the "Allan Gregory" television show. And Branagh was playing Olivier in his film, to boot. So I'd say that it's probably betwen Plummer and Von Sydow, with Branagh as a dark horse if they split the vote just right.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Berenice Bejo in "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain in "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"
Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"
Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Man, Melissa McCarthy is having herself a year, isn't she? Again, no clue. The Supporting Actress award winners tend to fall into one of a few categories: (1) They strapped this film to your back and you should have been nominated for Best Actress, but since you're in this category, you get this award [Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls]; (2) Good land, you've been around forever, so here, have an award [surprisingly infrequent in this category in recent years, oddly enough, for all that it happens a fair amount in supporting actor; the last one I can find is Peggy Ashcroft, A Passage to India]; (3) We should have given the Best Actress award to you for a different performance in a different year altogether, so here, have another award for a good performance as compensation [Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost for The Color Purple; Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love for Mrs Brown]; (4) You deserve This Award This Year for This Performance [a really surprising number of winners, in fact]. This is not to say that category 4 doesn't also apply at least a little for any given winner; just that the other three categories seem to provide the dominant story for some winners.

In general, none of the first three categories seem to apply this year. Bejo has a very slight eau de "why weren't you in best actress again?" about her performance, but not strong enough to be dispositive. Thus, it's likely to be a current performance award, rather than a career/past-performance award. I wouldn't count McCarthy as the front runner, despite the awesome past twelve months she's had -- "Bridesmaids" being a particularly raunchy comedy, I suspect the nomination itself is the award. The only person who's been nominated before is McTeer, and apart from that, the only reason that I might say McTeer has any advantage -- apart from the role she plays in "Albert Nobbs", which is certainly notable enough -- is that she's got the only conventionally dramatic nomination in the category; the others are for films that were billed primarily as comedies. On the other hand, again, Bejo is also doing exactly the same work that Dujardin was doing, making a silent black-and-white comedy actually work. Still, given past history, I'll take McTeer in a very tight race over Bejo. (Four of five nominees from comedies. Strange year, this.)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
"A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
"Rango" Gore Verbinski

Frankly? Don't give a rat's ass about that category. The only reason I mention it at all is because the WTF? factor comes not because of what is there, but because of what isn't: the startling omission of "The Adventures of Tintin", the week after it won the Producers Guild award for Best Animated Feature. For it not to win the award would be one thing -- the Producers Guild and the Academy do disagree, from time to time -- but not even get nominated? That's very peculiar. Other than that ... eh. Give it to "Rango", why not sure fine OK.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
"Hugo" Screenplay by John Logan
"The Ides of March" Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
"Moneyball" Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin; Story by Stan Chervin
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the only screenplays with a chance in this category are "The Descendants" and "The Ides of March". Entirely because of the Clooney factor. If he wins this one, he's not getting Best Actor. If he wins Best Actor, then The Descendants takes adapted screenplay, and it's probably going to be the sort of night where you just watch one film roll to the sea, so to speak. It's an Indicator, is what I'm saying.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"The Artist" Written by Michel Hazanavicius
"Bridesmaids" Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
"Margin Call" Written by J.C. Chandor
"Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen
"A Separation" Written by Asghar Farhadi

If the Academy can get past the cognitive dissonance produced by the concept of giving a screenplay award to a silent film, I think it's going to "The Artist". Otherwise, it'll be the Woody Allen Consolation Award. (The interesting bit, in a geopolitical sense, will be whether or not the people involved with "A Separation" can get a visa to attend the show. I'm sure the State Department is not well pleased that the Academy dared to nominate a film from Iran for not one but TWO awards, including also Foreign Language film.)

So, check back again on March 1, and we'll see how well this went. Probably terribly badly indeed, given past track record, but what the heck.

Posted by Iain Jackson at 05:16 PM | Permalink

January 12, 2012

and the first shoe finally drops

Given sales, I can't say that any of the cancellations surprises me. All but one of them would have been a hard sell, conceptuallly. I haven't heard much about Blackhawks, OMAC or Men of War -- I don't know anyone who read them, and I didn't care enough to look up the reviews. Everyone I know who tried it, and the few reviews I've read, say that "Hawk and Dove" was outright awful.

"Mister Terrific" was on my pull list, and I can say that ... it wasn't very good, frankly. I never had the sense that the creators (or DC, for that matter) had a good grip on who he was. There was this limp corporate conspiracy that not only didn't seem to be going anywhere, but which would have seemed impossible to carry out, and which Michael would have been an utter idiot not to have taken at least some steps to prevent ahead of time. And on a pure character note, there's the utterly baffling question of why a person whose life seems, in both directions, to be the epitome of unfairness would have the words "Play Fair" tattooed into his skin.

The one title where the cancellation saddens but doesn't entirely surprise me is "Static Shock." Sad, because it would have been nice if the title had been given a little more time to find its audience. Unsurprised because, if you didn't read the previous Static Shock title or watch the animated series, this title would have been utterly baffling. There were just enough connections to the old series to aggravate readers of the older series at the changes -- many of which, like the move to New York, seemed utterly pointless -- and to irritate new readers, because these connections were never fleshed out enough to make sense to them. It never explained, for example, who Hardware was or why Static would be involved with him. (For that matter, even if you did read the previous series, that relationship would be utterly baffling.) It never explained what had happened with Sharon or why there were now two of her and they couldn't tell which -- if either -- was the original, although it seemed to be meandering around to that issue. And we got Static's origin story in this past issue and ... he was going to take a gun to get some gangbangers off his back when he got caught up in the Big Bang. I may be misremembering, but that doesn't sound at all like the Virgil Hawkins from either the old comic or the TV show. Even so, the title seemed to finally be finding its feet, after floundering through a confusing setup. Unfortunately, the floundering seems to have driven away readers.

The sad thing is that all of this squandered the potential for that title. I mean, the audience was there. Granted, a bit older than DC would have preferred. The people who would have fond memories of the series would now be in their 20s; the people with fond memories of the original comics in their 30s. Nonetheless, there was some sort of audience there for the title. But they managed to give a version of the character and his world sharply at variance with what the people who remembered the original title and TV series would have been expecting, without a good explanation or reason. And the storytelling was both dense and disorganized enough that a new audience coming to the title just couldn't get enough from it to stick with it.

I'm especially sad because Marc Bernardin was coming on as the new writer, and I'd have loved to see more of his take on Static. As it is, we're going to get two issues, and then he's done.

There are those who will say that this is more proof that minority-led titles just can't' sustain themselves and ... I don't know. I don't know if these titles are the best to judge that by. Mister Terrific was simply not a very good title. Static Shock couldn't give its old audience what they expected and didn't grab a new audience. On the other hand, at least for the moment, "Blue Beetle" and "Voodoo" are hanging on -- albeit probably by the thinnest of threads, and because DC doesn't want to cancel five of its six titles with minority leads in one fell swoop, with the horrendous bad publicity that would follow. (EDIT: And it turns out to be six titles, because OMAC's lead was Kevin Kho, a Korean-American man, which I hadn't realized previously.) "Batwing" is actually not doing terribly ... until you consider that it's a Batman-related title, and DC seems to have very little tolerance for lower sales in that group, because expectations are higher. It is, by a fairly healthy margin, the lowest selling of the Bat-related titles, trailing "Birds of Prey" by 10,000 copies per month.

That said, Blue Beetle, according to the numbers reported by Comics Chronicle, is selling only 5,000 per month more than Static Shock, and Voodoo slightly less than Blue Beetle. Blue Beetle, frankly, is a pretty interesting title -- once you get past the fact that they made one of Jaime's friends, who had been a perfectly average teenager, a sort of gangbanger, for no apparent reason. I haven't read Voodoo -- it didn't interest me in the slightest in concept. (Frankly, of all the carryovers from the Wildstorm universe, the only one that's interested me at all is Stormwatch, which seems to be doing well enough for now to keep Midnighter and Apollo on our pages for another year or so. But I digress.) Assuming standard attrition, and that DC's tolerance for low sales seems to run around 15,000 issues per month for the DCnU titles, I wouldn't expect either Blue Beetle or Voodoo to last more than another year, if that. Batwing is a little harder to predict, because there is the big Night of Owls crossover coming up that may buoy its sales for a bit. And, I assume, a big Leviathan related crossover coming a few months after that, if it can hold on long enough. (Please. It's Morrison, it's Batman, it's the DCnU. The idea that there is NOT a big Leviathan-related crossover coming down the pike is utterly laughable. That it may not come around for another year, however, is not unrealistic, and I don't think Batwing will last another year if it takes that long.)

It will be interesting to see how much more time DC is willing to give those titles, and if they can manage to find an audience before the other shoe drops.

Questions? Comments? Sabots? Sneakers?

Posted by Iain Jackson at 02:14 PM | Permalink