“Making other people happy is not your goal”
– Sara Gran
Sara Gran has been writing for many years, but it’s her most recent novel Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead that has taken her to a new level. The book, just out in paperback, is set in post-Katrina New Orleans and stars Claire DeWitt, a woman who is arguably the world’s greatest detective. This isn’t quite the major accomplishment that many people might think; most people who know Claire tend to hate her or think she’s crazy. A devotee of Jacques Silette, a French detective who wrote about the nature of mysteries and their investigation, Claire’s story is as much about the nature of mysteries and why we’re captivated by them as it is about this particular crime.
In her previous novels, whether she was writing about being young and screwed up in New York City, a woman who finds a demon controlling her, or a recovering drug addict in fifties New York, Gran doesn’t shy away from dark corners or rough edges. In her books there’s violence and drugs, addiction and tragedy, but also possibility and change. The heroine of her latest novel is a brilliant creation. Like Gran herself, Claire, as a woman who marches to the beat of her own drum and isn’t afraid of walking into dark places, is the perfect epitome of a Suicide Girl. The book is original, hypnotizing and addictive. The second book in the series comes out next year.
”It’s not a movie about pornography but how our individual sensibilities get formed.”
– Brian Grazer
I was very excited to talk to Brian Grazer. Not only has he worked on some of my favorite films such as Night Shift, Armed and Dangerous and Bowfinger, it’s just so rare to get to talk to a person that only produces. I get to talk to actors, writers and directors everyday but a powerful producer on par with Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer, almost never.
It’s to be expected that Grazer would come out to promote the documentary Inside Deep Throat because its been a passion project of his for many years. In fact at one point he had the rights to do a biopic on Linda Lovelace, but that didnt work out.
Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example of how studio movies give characters silly traits.
In Lola Versus Gerwig stars as Lola, a woman whose fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) cancels their wedding sending her on a spiral of casual sex, dating, drinking and disaster. This is not one of your Kate Hudson wedding movies.
The impressive credentials of Greta Gerwig include a magna cum laude honor from Barnard College. As an actor, she starred in notable indies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Duplass Brothers’ Baghead. Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg got her enough notice to land big Hollywood movies like No Strings Attached and Arthur.
Curled up in a hotel chair, Gerwig remembered me, since we’d only met two months prior. We sort of continued the conversation where Damsels in Distress left off. Durning our conversation, Gerwig got us thinking about how awesome it is to be bored, which was a most exciting and unexpected twist.
What is Warner Bros. and DC Comics next big movie? New reports suggest Barry Sonnenfeld is working on DC Comics’ title The Metal Men, which was first introduced in 1962 and has been played with sporadically by DC since then. The Mental Men group consists of six artificially intelligent robots created by Dr. William Magus. Each was made out of a specific metal with powers to match. Gold, the leader can stretch; Iron possesses super strength; Lead can make shields; Mercury could melt to pass through small spaces; and Platinum, who believed she was human and would flirt with her creator, could stretch and flatten. There was also the insecure Tin whose powers are unknown. They popped up throughout Infinite Crisis and had a twelve issue run in Wednesday Comics in 2009. The Metal Men have also made appearances in Batman Brave and the Bold and Justice League: New Frontier. The Metal Men wasn’t on anyone’s radar for DC’s next movie, but it could have potential.
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel will involve a lot more than Superman just saving Metropolis. New information has leaked onto the internet, and it looks like a good portion of the movie will take place during the war on Krypton. This help makes sense of the elaborate costumes we saw last month that included suits for Jor-El and other Kryptonians. Not much else is known about the film, but the producers will have a presence at San Diego Comic Con where they’ll be debuting footage.
Kick-Ass 2 has signed Chloe Mortez back as Hit-Girl. The film hasn’t begun production but we now have confirmation that three of the core cast members are returning: Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse being the others. Kick-Ass 2 will involve the heroes’ identities being learned. Hit-Girl will be identified, causing her a whole new set of problems.
Disney and Marvel has already announced the animated Avengers Assemble series hoping to play off The Avengers success. The animated projects don’t stop there. Marvel is also developing an Iron Man animated series. A Hulk series is in talks as well. All of the animated series will appear as part of the Marvel Universe on Disney XD.
Graphic novel and comic guru Alan Moore is best known for his work on titles such as: V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Watchmen. Now it looks like Moore is moving onto film as he announced he is working on a short film series currently titled Show Pieces. The project started as a single ten-minute movie, but has since evolved into a ‘multi-layered, multi-episode narrative,’ though little more is known about it.
Seth Grahame-Smith has been tasked with scribing the sequel to Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice 2 wants to just make a sequel for money; they want to make sure it is done right. To do this, Grahame-Smith says he plans on using the character Beetlejuice sparingly, and not overdue him, pointing out Beetlejuice was only in about half an hour of the first movie. The one other thing he noted is it is a real sequel. The amount of time that has passed since the first movie is how much has passed in the story.
A new Mortal Kombat movie is in the making. Little is known about the project except for a short synopsis:
“The live-action reboot will follow a lowly unlucky supermarket employee who discovers that he has out of this world powers and must decide between good and evil, even though the evil side has helped him discover his true potential and who he really is.” – via Nerdbastards
Kevin Tancharoen is signed on to direct the film written by Oren Uziel. The story sounds a bit vague, but this reboot can’t be any worse than the first two movies.
You would think that when someone has enough money (or a stinkin pile of cash) to make Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce they might not be able to pull off a solo album, but all that money has been put to good use. I got sent a promo copy of Joe Perrys latest self titled solo album and boy was I surprised when I popped it in and heard the Aerosmith guitarist’s voice. An even bigger surprise was when I realized that the vocals were just as good as the guitar riffs.
Sometimes when a one of the main creative forces behind a very successful rock band, like an Aerosmith, does a solo album they try their best to make it sound like garage rock. Usually they think that pushing the slider marked ”Make it sound like it was recorded in a room with a tin roof” will do it for them. But Perry has pulled it off and created a gritty, balls out rock and roll album that is obviously very intimate.
This year for Comic Con we’re cooking up an extra-special cosplay wardrobe, with a little help from clothing manufacturer and retailer American Apparel, pop-culture designers and event planners Bubble Punch, and our fave Sunset Strip geek emporium, Meltdown Comics.
Comic chic chicks Chubby Bunny and Yume Ninja of Bubble Punch have designed three different sexy cosplay themed outfits for our ladies to wear while they man our Comic-Con booth. Each of the outfits was made using basics available at your local American Apparel store. The ladies at bubble punch have shot a series of “How To” videos with Milloux and Ackley Suicide, the first of which, showcasing our Stormtrooper outfits can be seen above.
Watch this space for two more videos in our “How To” Comic Con cosplay series.
The costumes will be debuted live at a special pre-Comic Con party to be held at Meltdown Comics on July 7th (starting at 7 PM).
You can also catch our ladies in their cosplay outfits at booth #1730 of Comic Con San Diego 2012. If you’re planning on attending the convention on more than one day, be sure to come back and visit us again, since our team of sexy booth girls will be cosplaying new outfits each day!
If you haven’t finished the game stop reading now…unless you’re like me and you don’t mind a spoiler here and there. Although, with the amount of news surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending, I can’t imagine the size of the rock you’d have to live under to avoid spoiling it. But, if you haven’t seen the new DLC, don’t worry I’m not going to give anything away. It’s a free download. So, I recommend taking a peek if you’ve finished ME3. Even if you hate it, you can just delete it from your hard drive. A word of warning though, just like the original ending, you can’t delete it from your brain.
In case you missed it, here is my review of the original ending to ME 3*:
Unfortunately, the new download doesn’t change the ending in any major way, it merely adds more dialogue to it in the hopes that it will “explain” it more. Herein lies the problem: sure the ending sucked and the cut scene was pretty lame, but the real issue isn’t the “unanswered questions” – it’s the game play and the overall storyline.
As a stand-alone vignette, the ending cut scene was “fine.” I don’t care that Shepard died. I don’t care that I didn’t get to see what happened to Joker and EDI. I don’t even worry about what the universe is going to do now that the mass relays are destroyed. They’ll figure it out. There are TONS of franchises out there than have open-ended endings that allow the viewer to imagine the real conclusion to the story. And, not all of them are as bad as the ending to The Sopranos. Remember how Milo and Otis just walked off into the wild blue yonder. Well half of you imagined them making it back to the farm and the other half imagined aliens beaming down and a mutant bear attacking…both are fine endings. And, therein lies the joy of a properly structured open-ended ending.
The problem lies in the whole structure of the final mission. It’s a complete departure from the complex character interaction and unique choice model found throughout the rest of the series.
For some reason, I really thought the download would include a change in the final mission’s gameplay. I’m not sure if I read that somewhere, it’s more likely that I just imagined that all my prayers would be answered. ‘Cause, honestly, that’s the only way it would fix it for me. That’s where they dropped the ball.
But, the lack of a change in gameplay highlights just what we’ve come to expect from what was recently voted the worst company in the US by Consumerist readers. I wholeheartedly support placing the blame on the shoulders of game publishers EA. Honestly, you can blame them for anything bad that happens this year. It makes life SO much easier.
This is EA’s fix. It’s like putting a Band Aid on a gangrenous wound.
You still lost the leg.
You’ll never get those hours of game play back. You’re still left with the feeling that the choices you made didn’t matter and all of the wonderful gaming experience built up by 1 and 2 was dashed in a second by some star child’s really shitty logic. Logic, which includes pears of exposition like, “You wouldn’t know them.” Thanks.
But, at the end of the day, the download is better than the original ending. Something is better than nothing. And, Canadian developers BioWare should be lauded for their ability to listen and respond to the fans in a way that no other company has dared to do. Dragon Age 2 aside, they’ve been at the forefront of game development; churning out some of top games and revolutionizing the gaming experience. Combining that with the unique desire to please their fanbase – a desire typically only found on Kickstarter these days – makes this a company I want to love and support.
They’ve provided a compromise and they did it for free. BioWare has opened a door and hopefully, other developers will dare to walk through it. For the amount of testing and surveying that goes on before launch, hopefully BioWare has set a precedent for continued feedback after launch.
So, in the hopes for this new future, I’ll take what I can get. I’ll love this new download for what it is and what I hope it’ll be: a game-changing (pun-intended) step toward a new dynamic between developer and gamer. I’ll appreciate that complaints were heard and an unprecedented attempt to change was made. I’ll love my fellow gamers for speaking up and taking a passionate stand about the level of quality we expect and deserve!
After all, if we can combine all organic and synthetic life, we can certainly find a way to get along.
*If you don’t want to take my word re the ME3 ending, take Hitlers:
