Something to look forward to

I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but if I haven’t, at this stage in my life I find that I have very little to look forward to.
Typically, in the course of a week, the one thing I do have to look forward to is a new episode of Dead Like Me on Sunday night.
Of course, that won’t always be there (the season ends in October), so after DLM bows out for the year, it would seem that the only thing I’d have to look forward to is the start of DLM’s third season (and, with only slightly less enthusiasm, the release of Season Two on DVD).
There are a couple of other TV shows that I enjoy that will be starting their new seasons, but there’s nothing that comes even close to engendering the kind of enthusiasm in me that DLM does.
So, presumably, after October, it will be a long stretch of nothing until next summer.
However, there is one other thing in life that I have to look forward to.
No, it’s not romance, financial success, or spiritual enlightenment.
It’s a movie coming out in the spring of 2005.
Specifically, it’s a movie called “Sin City.”
“Sin City” is based on a series of graphic novels (which is just a fancy word for comic books) written and illustrated by a guy by the name of Frank Miller.
I won’t bother trying to explain his stature in the comic industry, but suffice to say that Miller is something of a living legend.
His work can only be described as revolutionary, and he almost single-handedly changed the face of the industry.
And that was just with his work on mainstream titles.
After working on characters like Batman, Daredevil, Wolverine, and the Punisher, Frank went over into the world of independent and creator-owned comics and began working his “Sin City” stories.
Miller works as both artist and writer. His artistic style is…distinctive. It can best be described as “over the top,” but in general it suits he writing style, which is gritty, blackly humorous, and usually intensely violent.
It’s worth noting that his work is not for everyone.
In any case, with “Sin City,” Miller really outdid himself on all points, creating an artistic style consisting largely of high-contrast black and white (with the occasional splash of color used to tremendous effect) that, despite the sharp edges separating the two, somehow creates the illusion of shades of gray, and indeed, an entire spectrum of color.
His use of negative space is nothing short of extraordinary.
As for the stories themselves, they draw heavily from the “noir” style of hard-nosed detective stories, and are filled to overflowing with bullets, babes, and bad guys.
Every woman in Sin City is a femme fatale in her own right, and every guy is so tough as to put Dirty Harry to shame.
One cliché that does get a little skewed, though, is that of the “hooker with a heart of gold.” In “Sin City,” your average hooker has a heart of iron, and she’s likely to accessorize with an AK-47 and a katana…
I really don’t know how else to explain “Sin City” without actually relating some of the stories, and since the stories have already been very ably told, I won’t attempt to re-tell them here.
By the way, it should be abundantly clear that these comics are definitely NOT for kids.
In any case, I’ve read the majority of “Sin City” stories, such as “A Dame to Kill For,” “The Babe Wore Red,” and “The Big Fat Kill,” and, obviously, enjoyed them all thoroughly.
Ordinarily, the fact that I enjoyed them so much would make me reluctant to want to see a movie based on them, given that the movie would inevitably fail miserably to live up to the source material.
Of course, ordinarily movies like this are made by people who have no investment in the source material and who have only a peripheral interest in bringing the source material to life (the primary interest, of course, is just to make money).
Not so “Sin City.”
Director Robert Rodriquez (“El Mariachi,” “Desperado,” and, I reluctantly admit, “Spy Kids”) is a huge fan of the original books and spent a great deal of time lobbying Frank Miller for the rights.
One of the other people involved in the movie is Quentin Tarantino. I’m not a huge fan of Tarantino, but he is also a rabid fan of “Sin City,” and I have to admit that his particular artistic sensibilities are well-suited to such a project.
Since the movie is actually based on several different “Sin City” stories, it’s actually going to be laid out in a style very similar to that of “Pulp Fiction,” which is to say that it’ll consist of several interconnected, yet separate, stories.
(The movie is based primarily on the first, self-titled “Sin City” story, and the stories “The Big Fat Kill,” and “That Yellow Bastard.”).
Okay, so Rodriquez and Tarantino make me hopeful.
The kicker, though, is that Frank Miller wrote the screenplay, and is making his directorial debut as one of the movie’s co-directors.
Thus, I have something to look forward to before the third season of DLM.
Today I found a trailer for the movie, which adds to my excitement.
It was not, apparently, intended for public viewing, but, like the “special” home movies that celebrities make, it inevitably made its way onto the Internet.
It’s very rough, some of the backgrounds are missing, and they did something that I hope won’t carry over to the finished product (though it won’t be a deal-breaker if it does), but overall, I think it looks amazing.
They did a great job of bringing Miller’s visual style to life.
If I’ve piqued your curiosity at all, go here to check out the trailer:

http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2005/STUVWXYZ/SinCity/trailer.php

Hopefully it hasn’t been taken down yet (these sorts of things have a tendency to disappear).
If you watch the trailer, you’ll be able to see some of the original artwork, as they’ve interspersed it with the action (which is the effect that I actually hope doesn’t make it to the finished product).
FYI: there is some nudity (Mmm…Carla Gugino) in the trailer, along with some adult language, so download at your own risk.
I’m pretty excited about the movie, as I’m sure you can tell, but I’m trying to keep my enthusiasm reined in a little, just in case it does end up sucking.
One of the big topics for discussion among “Sin City” fans is Jessica Alba’s assertion that she DOES NOT appear nude in the movie.
This is annoying, not only because there are lots of us who’d very much like for her to appear nude (in this movie, or anywhere else she pleases, for that matter), but because it’s not exactly true to the character she plays, seeing as how she plays a stripper.
Strippers have been known, on occasion, to take their clothes off, so it is a bit distressing that Alba won’t be fulfilling the role to the fullest.
But it’s only a minor problem as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling about “Sin City” for now.
Of course, there’s not much else going on in my life.
I’ve mostly been toiling away at the “Nagel Experiment,” with mixed results.
I don’t know if my enthusiasm is just waning, but I’ve finished quite a few since yesterday, and I’ve nearly finished even more than that, but so far nothing has really stood out.
Earlier today I did a Nagel-ized version of an image that I drew in a more conventional style around a year ago. I was looking at the original source image today and thought that it was just crying out to get the Nagel treatment, particularly since it was practically a Nagel image already (as much as a photograph can be, anyway).
It may have been crying out to get the treatment, but I’m not sure it’s crying out to be shared with the world. We’ll see, though. I may re-evaluate it (or even re-draw it).
On another topic, I’m not sure that I’m accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish with this blog, but as mentioned, I was never really sure what that was in the first place, so it’s hard to judge.
I guess I’ll just have to keep at it and see if I find some purpose somewhere along the line.
But in any case, I guess that’s all for now. I may post some images later on.