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Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: The Amazing Spider-Man

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: The Amazing Spider-Man

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amazing-spider-man-posterWith directing great superheroes comes great responsibility. I wish director Marc Webb knew this. Or perhaps directing superheroics on screen isn’t something the man is capable of.

Webb’s re-boot of Sony’s Spider-Man franchise is not an utter elevated train-wreck. If all you want is a bit of comic book action during the summer between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, then The Amazing Spider-Man is adequate to the task. I certainly can’t give it a worse rating than something like Battleship or Dark Shadows. It’s not a Batman and Robin. There’s that.

But as a Spider-Man film, and me speaking as a Spider-Fan, the The Amazing Spider-Man is a huge disappointment. It’s even a bit depressing. I’m glad I have the Sam Raimi films to bolster me, knowing that somebody has already done Spider-Man right, because otherwise this very unnecessary (except for keeping a lock on film rights) re-do of Spidey’s origin would be… okay, an elevated train-wreck. And to hear Sony, and even some fans, try to do revisionist history on the Raimi films as if they were off the mark — that’s painful. Yes, Spider-Man 3 had many problems, most of which were forced on Raimi by the studio, but it is still a better “Spider-Man film” than this one. The first Raimi film is a well-crafted, dead-on origin story, and Spider-Man 2 is just a goddamn great film. Raimi balanced Spidey’s drama with the crisp fun of his comics.

The Amazing Spider-Man is an overall mess, but there are two major problems that injure it. Before getting into that, here’s a fast rundown on its many other problems:

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Samurai 7: Swords and Sorcery with Killer Robots

Samurai 7: Swords and Sorcery with Killer Robots

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samurai-7It was my daughter’s 13th birthday yesterday. One of the things she wanted was the 2004 anime series Samurai 7, which her brother Tim gave her in a handsome Blu-Ray package.

As the parents of most young girls will tell you, it’s not enough to get them a few presents and a hug for their birthday. What they really want is attention. And what Taylor really wanted was for Dad to watch Samurai 7 with her.

Which I did. All 3.6 hours of Disk One, a full nine episodes. Let’s face it — the days when my teenage daughter will want to hang out with me are coming to an end; better seize them while I can.

I’m glad I made the effort to spend time with her. For lots of good reasons, not least of which was that Samurai 7 turned out to be a terrific piece of animated cinema. A lot more enjoyable than those two hours I spent playing dolls when she turned six, let me tell you.

I knew the basic premise before parking my butt on the couch. Like Yul Brynner’s classic Western The Magnificent Seven, Samurai 7 is directly inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film Seven Samurai, one of the most influential films ever made.

A small group of peasants whose town is ruthlessly pillaged by bandits every year journey to the city to hire seven masterless samurai to defend their village. Desperate and poor, all they can offer these samurai is rice — and not very much of it.

Seven Samurai is set in sixteenth-century feudal Japan; Samurai 7 translates the classic story to a post-apocalyptic world of towering, decrepit cities and a blasted landscape dotted with the twisted debris of a recent war.

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World War Z Film Appears Headed for Armageddon

World War Z Film Appears Headed for Armageddon

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world-war-zZombie fans everywhere should be outraged at the hot mess that is the film adaption of Max Brooks’ World War Z. Bringing in a new writer to salvage a script after principal filming surely isn’t a sign of a healthy film, nor is delaying the release date by six months. But that’s apparently what has happened to the project.

For those that aren’t familiar with it, World War Z (the book) is written in the style of Letters from Vietnam or the war documentaries of Ken Burns, as a series of flashbacks told by survivors of the great zombie war. The best part is the multiple perspectives from survivors around the globe, which lend it a high degree of realism while allowing Brooks the opportunity to insert pointed political and social commentary. The zombie plague of World War Z is deliberately left unexplained — it starts in the heart of China, half-hinted as the result of some undescribed industrial waste leak. But beginning with “Patient Zero,” an infected, gray-skinned, 12-year-old-turned zombie, Brooks manages to paint a very convincing picture of how the plague quickly spreads and threatens to overwhelm all of humanity. Brooks has done his research on politics, world economics, plague outbreaks, military tactics and technology, combat fatigue, and climate conditions.  The result feels like history, an event that really happened (or, chillingly, could actually happen).

But the one-sentence description of the film on its IMDB page is a head scratcher:

A U.N. employee is racing against time and fate, as he travels the world trying to stop the outbreak of a deadly Zombie pandemic.

Trying to shoehorn the events of the wide-ranging narrative through one character’s perspective (apparently Brad Pitt) because it conforms to the conservative Hollywood hero formula is the safe bet, but an awful idea. According to the film’s Wikipedia page, the screenplay was written by Babylon 5 and Rising Stars creator J. Michael Straczynski, who identified the challenge in adapting the work as “creating a main character out of a book that reads as a UN Report on the zombie wars”.

Huh? Why is a main character needed? You’ve got a book that’s universally loved; granted changes are always needed to convert page to screen, but why ditch the one element that made World War Z so unique? Why even bother acquiring the rights to the book only to completely rewrite it, top to bottom, save for the obvious reason of cashing in on the name value? The conceit of the “UN report” on the zombie war works in the novel, and works really well. Zombies are red-hot right now and World War Z is the hottest zombie property this side of The Walking Dead. People will pay to see worldwide zombie carnage without a hunky male lead. Or at least I would.

Goth Chick News: Beware – The Tall Man Knows Your Name

Goth Chick News: Beware – The Tall Man Knows Your Name

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image008At a recent family function my 11-year-old nephew pulled me aside to say, “A friend of mine at school saw the Tall Man.”

Now it’s common knowledge among all the kids in the family, as well as their friends, that Aunt Goth Chick is conversant with all topics of the otherworldly variety. When they were all a bit younger I had a fabulous time not dispelling the notion that I was a substitute professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As they got a bit older my role was to correct misconceptions about whether or not vampires were really afraid of crosses, or whether wolfmen actually turned all the way into wolves at the full moon.

But now, in that misty gray, pre-teen area between believers and skeptics, the local chapter of the Goth Chick Fan Club – Junior League needs to be handled carefully; take them too seriously and I could easily be sidelined as covertly making fun of them, not taking them seriously enough could result in the same.

And frankly, I enjoy my minor celebrity status as much as I enjoy being reminded of a time in everyone’s life when magic and mystery were still very possible and very real.

So even though I had never heard of the Tall Man, the seriousness in the little guy’s face told me it was something important and a topic that I, of all people, should be versed in. Luckily the arrival of dessert saved me from needing to make an in depth response and bought me the time to do a little homework.

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Goth Chick News: The Woman In Black is Coming for You… Again (and Again)

Goth Chick News: The Woman In Black is Coming for You… Again (and Again)

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image0062Apparently The Woman in Black truly is a supernatural, immortal being.

When we first told you about it, the seriously creepy novel by Susan Hill was a long-running play in London’s West End, a made-for-TV movie in the UK, and barely a rumor from Hammer Films about a theatrical remake starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter); which turned out to be true after all.

Thankfully that bit about it potentially being shot in 3D never materialized…

At least not yet.

Hammer Films, which grossed $112 million globally on a $17 million investment has already made the no-brainer announcement that it’s moving forward with a sequel and perhaps more.

The Woman in Black: Angels of Death is currently in development with Jon Crocker once again writing the script based on a story by Susan Hill.

But don’t look for this one at your local bookseller, at least until after the movie is released sometime in 2014. Ms. Hill got busy on the follow up at the behest of Hammer Films.

The first film saw Radcliffe as lawyer Arthur Kipps who travels to Eel Marsh House on an assignment, only to discover the house belonging to his client is haunted by the ghost of a woman who is determined to find someone and something she lost.

The Woman in Black: Angels of Death will take place during World War II, forty years after the events in the original. Daniel Radcliffe will likely not be involved though there have been some recent rumblings that a cameo isn’t out of the question for continuity reasons.

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Reimagining Star Wars as West Wars

Reimagining Star Wars as West Wars

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west-wars-vaderI usually ignore the endless stream of Star Wars fan creativity here on the blog — Lego remakes, the Silent Star Wars, and numerous others. Black Gate is all about shining a light on neglected fantasy… if you think Star Wars is neglected, it’s because you’re blind and deaf and you live on Easter Island.

But every once in a while a simple idea comes along that reduces me to a 12-year old Star Wars fanboy again. That’s what happened yesterday when I discovered Sillof.com, the brainchild of Indianapolis, IN, sculptor Sillof, who specializes in making custom action figures and also makes props for films.

Sillof has created a line of action figures called West Wars, featuring a brilliantly realized cast: Luke S. Walker, a young man living on the outer borderlands with his poor aunt and uncle, Leah Orango, daughter of one of the most prominent ranch families in the territory, “Old” Bennet Kennelly, one-time sheriff who was driven into hiding when his former deputy turned on him, and the villainous Sheriff Akan “Death” Vardas, enforcer for the corrupt robber barons and railroad tycoons.

The entire cast is instantly recognizable, even though they’re all in period garb. Sillof has done the same with other periods, giving names and faces to the cast of Samurai Wars, World Wars, Noir Wars, Serial Wards, and others.

Besides making me daydream of someday watching a version of Star Wars set in a western town — sort of like watching MacBeth set during the US Civil War, or Romeo & Juliet in 1950s Brooklyn, both of which I have done — Sillof’s creations remind us just how universal the themes of Star Wars are. And in fact, just how fluid story is… how easy it can be to move the props of narrative to a different stage to make it fresh spin.

Not to mention that they vindicate a decades-long fascination with action figures. Thanks, Sillof!  You the man.

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Brave

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Brave

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brave-posterWho would think at the start of the summer that Brave was concealing more of its plot and themes than Prometheus? Strange days, my friends.

Ninety percent of the trailer for Brave comes from the first twenty-five percent of the movie. And to continue with percentages, fifty percent of Brave is a great film, and worthy to stand beside earlier Pixar classics. But except for a few flashes in the trailer, Disney and Pixar have revealed nothing of this later-running time greatness to you. The marketing department and directors Andrew Jones and Brenda Chapman have even specifically asked reviewers to hide what the center of the movie is about.

This is not a case of concealing a twist ending or a mid-movie shocker, but disguising the core of the film. Imagine a trailer for Pinocchio that never reveals that the puppet comes to life: it’s the story of a sad woodcarver and his pets who meet a blue fairy, and later on an enormous whale may peep into the plot. Or a trailer for King Kong that not only never shows the eighteen-foot gorilla, it never hints that there might be a giant monster of any sort in the film. According to this trailer, King Kong looks like the tale of a young woman who goes on a voyage with a film crew, possibly to find (dinosaur- and gorilla-free) adventure and romance away from dreary Depression Era New York.

Brave is the story of Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald), a Scottish princess who hates that her parents King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) are trying to marry her off to a dullard in a political alliance when all she wants is her freedom — like any good Disney Princess™ — and the chance to choose her own destiny. While exploring, Merida discovers magic in the forest after following a trail of Will-‘o-the-Wisps. The rest of the story follows the standard princess adventure: she’ll go out on her own, fight some monsters, discover a handsome and roguish fellow who likes her for who she is, and her parents will finally let their daughter be herself and marry the man she loves.

Except, after the words “The rest of the story…” that is not actually the plot of the film. At all. It isn’t the main character conflict or the thematic center. I made it up. Don’t expect some sort of Sixth Sense twist, such as Merida discovering she’s actually trapped inside a giant video game or Mars invading medieval Scotland, but the story does pick a different and better way than the second half of my Disney-influenced outline. A very average opening gives way to a film that has much more to say, in the vaunted Pixar fashion.

I will reveal at least this: expect a helluva a lot more “bear” than you’ve seen in the trailers. This is a good thing. I like Big Bears and I cannot lie!

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Vintage Treasures: George R.R. Martin’s “Nightflyers”

Vintage Treasures: George R.R. Martin’s “Nightflyers”

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analog-april-1980-smallOver the weekend I put away a collection of 80s magazines I purchased a few months ago. In the process I discovered the April 1980 issue of Analog, which I read as a junior in high school in Ottawa, Canada.

There’s a lot to like about this issue, from the gorgeous cover by Paul Lehr — perhaps my favorite SF artist — to a famous short story by one of my all-time favorite SF writers: “Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” by Clifford D. Simak, which won both the 1980 Nebula Award and 1981 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Even the ads reflect those things I personally found most exciting and fresh about SF and fantasy at the time: a full page ad from TSR for D&D, “The Ultimate in Adventure Games;” an ad for six microgames from Metagaming (the company that introduced me to role playing games), including the classic Ogre; and a subscription form for Ares, the short-lived SF gaming magazine from SPI.

This issue is an intriguing cultural artifact for other reasons. There’s an editorial from Stanley Schmidt in response to the recent kidnapping of 50 Americans at the US embassy in Iran, both a fascinating snapshot of a critical moment in American history, and a typical science fiction response:

What the Iranian crisis really demonstrates, at least as dramatically as any incident so far, is that if we want real freedom, we must produce our own energy… Technologies which can do this are possible, and we should not willingly settle for less. Readers of this magazine are well acquainted with the role space can play, but many people are not — and we need to get the action under way now.

If you read Analog in the 20th Century, you got used to this. Exploring space was pretty much the answer to everything — the energy crisis, the hole in the ozone, foreign policy crises, and crappy network television programming — and the magazine’s self-congratulatory tone clearly told its readership (including 15-year-old readers in Ottawa) that they were smarter and more informed than everyone else, especially on science and technology, topics far more important than cars, sports, and other things kids our age obsessed about. Analog told its readers they were destined for success. The future was ours.

But the real reason this issue is remembered is its cover story, George R.R. Martin’s novella of horror in deep space, the chilling classic “Nightflyers.”

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Brave: Pixar Improves Disney’s Fantasy Princess

Brave: Pixar Improves Disney’s Fantasy Princess

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295px-brave-apple-posterThe Disney/Pixar partnership has always been willing to take some risks. Let’s face it, these are the people who turned a lost fish, talking cars, and Ed Asner in a floating house into deeply rich character-driven stories about the human condition. It’s really a wonder if there’s anything they can’t do well!

But one thing that they have avoided, until now, is even trying to dip their toes into the genre that Disney has mastered: the fairy tale.

From my perspective, with Brave they’ve blown pretty much every Disney fairy-tale-themed film out of the water. I won’t get much into the plotline, because Pixar’s done a really good job of not spoiling it too much. (I had a guess about what was going to happen, based largely on the Subway restaurant promotional campaign materials, and that guess was pretty much on the mark.)

But, even with no idea what happens in the film, there are a lot of things that the film is about which I can discuss…

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Star Trek is New Again With Fresh Animated Intro

Star Trek is New Again With Fresh Animated Intro

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Our buddy John DeNardo at SF Signal tells us about this extremely cool re-imagining of the original Star Trek intro, with William Shatner’s famous voice over… and some very compelling animation.

Keep your eye out for a red shirt who buys it half a second after beaming down, right around the 20 second mark.

The video was produced by The Quintek Group, a digital retouching studio in the Detroit area.

I got seriously nostalgic watching this. It makes me want to blow the dust off my DVD box set of Star Trek Season One and enjoy a few episodes.

Thanks, John. Owe you one.