Fantastic Fumble

In the summer of 1989 when everyone in the world was caught up in Batmania as a result of Tim Burton’s Batman and its accompanying marketing and merchandizing blitz, I read an interview in with someone working with/for the film production company Neue Constantin in an issue of Comics Scene magazine.
The person, whose name escapes me after all these years, was talking about the plans for a movie adaptation of the Fantastic Four.
Inspired by the success of Batman, the interviewee felt that the time was right to turn “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” into The World’s Greatest Comic Book Movie.  He went on to say that the movie would have a $40 million budget – comparable to the budget of Batman – and would be a 100% faithful translation of one of the most iconic storylines in the history of the FF, project the “Galactus Trilogy” directly from the pages of the comic and onto the movie screen.
It was a bold proclamation. 
It was also utter bullshit. 
As cool as I thought such a thing would be – and as much as I’d hoped that the success of Batman, despite my antipathy towards the movie, would kick off a wave of good comic book adaptations that showed at least some amount of respect for the source material -  I was already pretty cynical and bitter about the entertainment industry and its treatment of comic book adaptations.  I’d suffered through far too many Superman IIIs, Superman IVs, and the like to hold out much hope for a really good comic book movie.
How hopeful could I be?  This was a time when there was very serious consideration being given to the idea of shaving Arnold Schwarzenegger, painting him blue, and having him play Dr. Manhattan in a Watchmen movie adaptation.
Over the next few years this big-budget FF adaptation didn’t materialize, though I would occasionally see some reference to it being stuck in “Development Hell.”
Somewhere around 1993 I started seeing reports of there being some actual movement on the project, but it wasn’t exactly cause for excitement.
The movie had fallen into the hands of B-Movie legend Roger Corman, and the $40 million budget had been somewhat reduced.
By around $38.5 million.
I started seeing some grainy pictures taken on location in publications like Comic Buyer’s Guide, and, even allowing for the low-quality of the images, they didn’t look terribly promising.
In the meantime, Marvel had suffered some serious failures in its attempts to bring its characters to the silver screen, with abortive attempts at adapting the Punisher and Captain America being two recent (at that time) examples.
It’s difficult to believe, from this vantage point, that there was a time when movies based on Marvel characters not only failed to make all the money in the world, they actually failed to even be seen by anyone other than viewers of late-night cable TV fare.
In any case, the handful of photos seemed to be the only evidence of the movie’s existence, as, despite being completed, it never saw the light of day.
In point of fact, it was never intended for anyone to actually see the movie.  It was only produced for the sake of fulfilling a contractual obligation, with no plans whatsoever for distributing it.
Accounts by those who had seen the completed film confirmed what everyone already knew:  it was a cheap piece of shit.
Bootleg copies of the movie managed to circulate among fans of terrible cinema, and its reputation grew to such an extent that it has become the subject of a documentary.
Throughout the years, it became something of the Holy Grail of bad movies, as I was never able to get my hands on a copy.
All of that changed the other day, and Scott and I sat down to bask in its awfulness.
Here’s a taste:

…and just now, in searching for this trailer, I discovered that the whole damn thing is posted on YouTube.  It never even occurred to me to check.  I could have gotten this painful experience over a long time ago.  Ah well.
If you feel brave enough, you can seek it out yourself and watch it in all its…well, what’s the polar opposite of glory?
I’m not going to provide an in-depth review of the movie, but I will touch on some of the things that stood out for me.

Somewhere between the initial conception of the movie, which was to start in the midst of things with an already-established FF facing off against the world-devouring Galactus, with maybe a quick origin sequence tacked-on, and the final product, Galactus was removed, Dr. Doom became the primary villain, and the whole thing was essentially just an origin story.

It starts out…well, not completely horrible.  Cheap-looking and poorly-acted, sure, but the basics are pretty faithful to the comics, and the plot, such as it is, isn’t really all that awful.  They provide a decent introduction of the character dynamics, and we get an okay origin sequence for Dr. Doom (albeit one with dreadful special effects).  In this regard, it’s superior to the big-budget movie of the 2000s, though that’s not really saying much.  However, it’s all goes spectacularly wrong from there.

Young Sue Storm is played by actress Mercedes McNabb, who, at the time, was best known for her role as Wednesday’s nemesis in the Addams Family movies.  She would eventually go on to be known for her role as Harmony on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

The “video game” that Ben Grimm and young Johnny Storm are seen playing is very clearly a cartoon.  An obviously traditionally-animated sequence also plays a part in the movie’s denouement.

Reed’s hair is arguably the very worst special effect in the movie.

While they’re marred by shoddy craftsmanship, the costumes are all pretty accurate.  Doom’s design is dead-on, but he looks like someone who might win third or fourth place in a cosplay competition at a small, local comic book convention.

Apparently everyone assumed that Reed and company would die horribly on their mission to space, as the creation of a memorial statue is planned the very same day that they’re reported missing.

Doom’s reaction when “The Jeweler” threatens to kill Alicia is both perfect and hilarious.

The indelible stamp of the Burton Batman movies can be seen throughout – particularly in any scenes involving “The Jeweler” and his henchmen – and I maintain that, even with a big budget, there would have been no way to make a comic book movie in the 1990s that could come close to resembling the approach used in making contemporary comic book movies, because the only way to make a comic book movie at that time was in the Burton mold, at least until Joel Schumacher got his hands on the Dark Knight.  Even setting aside the horror of the casting of Nicolas Cage, I shudder to think what Superman Lives! would have been like had it actually been made.

To go back to that point, every time “The Jeweler” and his crew appeared, I imagined some “note” from a studio executive that said, “You know what people loved?  The Penguin and his carnival of crime in Batman Returns.  Do something like that!  But with 1000% more 3 Stooges-style humor!”

What do you call “Love at first sight” when the person who experiences it is blind?  In any case, having him cause her to break one of her sculptures, feeling up his face, learning that he’s presumed dead, and then learning that he isn’t dead are enough to get Alicia Masters to declare her love for Ben.

Guy playing Dr. Doom:  “No one can see my face behind this mask, so I’m going to have to use my hands to emote.  My hands should never not be moving, even if it means that sometimes I look like I’m dancing the Batusi, or if I’m constantly touching people’s faces in a way that’s inappropriate and creepy.  Acting!”

Despite being an off-the-charts genius and a creative thinker, the only use Reed can think of for his stretching abilities is to grab things that are a few steps away, punch someone without having to get too close, or trip people.  Even to the limited extent that his powers are used, watching the terrible effect is hilarious.

While the make up for the Thing looks cheap and does nothing to create the illusion that it’s anything other than a costume, I can’t really fault the overall design.  Yes, it looked terrible, but there was a clear attempt at accuracy.  They could have worked just a little harder on making him look rocky rather than scaly, but still, I’d give them a C- for the effort.  That said, they should have saved some money and not bothered building the animatronics into his constantly twitching upper lip.

The Human Torch can fly faster than the speed of light, and is invulnerable to a laser beam that has the power to turn New York City into the most ubiquitous stock footage of the effects of a nuclear explosion.

Even when she wasn’t turning invisible, most of the time it was like Sue wasn’t there.  Sadly, that much is an example of being pretty faithful to the comics.

So, yeah.  That’s the 1994 Fantastic Four movie.  Am I glad I finally watched it?  Yes; as a comic book geek and someone who appreciates cheap, terrible movies and the laughs that they bring, I found it well-worth the time.

Shark Weak

As people who enjoy – for a given value of “enjoy” – watching terrible movies, Scott and I had intended to eventually watch Sharknado at some point, but we never managed to catch it during its (*ahem*) whirlwind journey through cultural relevance.
However, we were spared the necessity of sitting through a screening of the movie and providing our own smart-ass commentary on its shittiness by Mike Nelson and the boys over at RiffTrax, who made the pop culture phenomenon the subject of their latest RiffTrax Live! event.
I’m not going to dive (sorry) into the plot of the movie too deeply, but I do want to make a few observations and mention some points of interest.
If you don’t know anything about Sharknado, the basics are that crazy weather is causing massive tornadoes to form over the oceans and heavily-flooded coastal areas in California, and said tornadoes are scooping up sharks out of the water and carrying them around for miles.
It’s a low-budget movie made for SyFy (the former Sci-Fi Channel), and it stars Ian Ziering of Beverly Hills 90210 fame, and Tara Reid, of…well, she’s been in a lot of stuff, but suffice to say that those aren’t the things that she’s really “famous” for, and if SyFy is really scrambling for ideas for a new disaster movie, they could just tell the story of Tara Reid’s life.  (Zing!)
…
Actually, scratch that.  Okay, SyFy, here’s the pitch:  Mecha-Tara Reid vs. Lindsay Lohanasaurus.  (Call me)
Anyway, you know the basics, so let’s get to my observations:

If you have scars on your leg from what was obviously – based on the title of the movie and your behavior – a shark attack, and you don’t want to talk about how you got them, you feel completely self-conscious when people see them, and you get angry whenever people ask you about them, maybe you should try to find a job where you don’t have to walk around in a bikini all day.  Just a thought.

It seems unlikely that you really have any kind of deep personal feelings for someone if you’ve been around him long enough to, supposedly, develop said deep personal feelings for him, yet you’re completely shocked to discover that he has an ex-wife and two children, one of whom is pretty close to the same age as you.
The character of Joni Wave – who specified that it’s “Joni with an I” every time she mentioned her name – was played by Julie McCullough, who was Playboy’s Miss February 1986*.  She also played the love interest of Kirk Cameron on Growing Pains, but was fired from the show after Cameron learned that she’d appeared in Playboy and decided that working with a former Playmate constituted an attack on his religious liberty.  Actress Chelsea Noble was later brought in to play the part of Cameron’s love interest, and she went on to become Mrs. Kirk Cameron in real life.

The legs of Tasmanians are apparently considered a delicacy by sharks.  They just can’t seem to get enough.
The actress who played Ziering’s daughter is playing the titular role in the upcoming live-action movie adaptation of the cartoon Jem and the Holograms.  That is outrageous.  Truly outrageous.  Truly, truly outrageous, even.  It is not, however, truly, truly, truly outrageous.

Given that it it’s apparently possible to completely stop a sharknado in its tracks by flying up to it in a helicopter and throwing a bomb - made out of a propane tank, an emergency flare, and what looked to me like a smoke alarm - into it, thereby dissipating its energy, one would assume that the same holds true for a tornado that contains no sharks.  This is a trivially simple solution to a large problem, and this indicates to me that FEMA, and indeed, the entire Federal government, and even State and Local governments, are criminally negligent for allowing tornadoes to continue to cause as much damage and loss of life as they do every year.  Surely we could accomplish the same thing via drone strikes.  Unless, you know, the people behind Sharknado were incredibly ignorant and/or stupid.  But surely the people who provided the results of the equation Shark + Tornado could hardly be either of those things.  Therefore, the science must be solid.

Even if it is more age-appropriate, hooking up with the son of the guy you spent most of the movie pining for is pretty fucked up.

“Because Global Warming” has officially earned its place next to “Quantum Physics” and “Humans only use 10% of their brain” in the Lazy Writer’s Toolbox.

During the scene in which our gang of plucky survivors makes a quick stop at a convenience store, I expected them to bump into the gang of plucky survivors from Birdemic:  Shock and Terror.

Sharknado vs. Birdemic.  Seriously, SyFy: Call me.

*When I was working as a janitor while I was in college, one time I found a stack of old Playboys hidden away in one of the janitor’s closets.  Among them was the February 1986 issue.

Jon's Tips For Success Number 1: Keep Your Expectations Low

When I woke up yesterday morning I thought, “Is it Saturday?”
With surprising quickness, my mind answered itself, saying, “No, but it is Friday.”
With my hopes of being able to sleep in dashed, I thought, “Well, can it at least be a couple of hours until I have to get up?”
When I turned to look at the clock, I had my answer: no.
In fact, it was about five minutes until I had to get up.
Though it had a rough start, the day went pretty well, up until about the last hour and a half at work, which got kind of hectic, but that all sorted itself out in time for me to leave at around the usual time.
Once I got home I decided that I really needed to do something about the food situation and ventured out into the world to do some shopping.
While that was a relatively painless experience, the Universe decided to make up for it by launching a guerrilla campaign to ensure that making dinner was as much of a pain in the ass as possible.
There weren’t any major catastrophes, just a bunch of minor annoyances, like the film cover on the tray of mostaciolli and meatballs – yes, I bought the two pound family size package, even though I don’t have a family, and, for those of you who remember the commercials, did not invite Al and his family over to share it – refusing to come off in one piece. Or even two pieces. Or even five.
Shit like that.
Friday night has become my night to get around to watching whatever Netflix DVD I got earlier in the week. Last night’s opus was Let’s Go to Prison, which, despite being directed by Bob Odenkirk – the “Bob” of Mr. Show with Bob and David – and starring Will Arnett, was extremely disappointing and unfunny.
I did get some amusement out of seeing Chi McBride, who plays Emerson on Pushing Daisies, though, but that was pretty much the only bright spot.
So that was my Friday.
So far today…well, I did at least take a shower and get dressed, so I guess that’s something.
Oh, and I wrote this.
So yeah, big accomplishments all around.

Happy Give In To Despair Day!

The one thing worse than watching a really bad movie is watching most of a really bad movie and then not getting to see how it ends.
After all, while you really have no reason to care – because it’s awful – you can’t help but feel like you’ve been cheated.
(Even more than you’ve already been cheated by the lousy story, horrible acting, and sub-BBC science fiction TV show from the 70s special effects.)
Such was the case for me today with the movie Alien Abduction.
Among the channels I get that are in HD is Universal HD, a channel that’s a hodgepodge of HD programming such as old TV shows that have been upconverted to HD, concerts by bands like Poison (seriously), and movies that are either 10+ years old, which were never exactly blockbusters to begin with, or are of the direct-to-video variety.
Because it’s nearly Halloween, for the past week or so they’ve been airing a lot of low-budget horror movies.
Like Alien Abduction.
While flipping through the channels last night I encountered Alien Abduction already well underway. I could tell right away that it was really bad, but the protagonist was a chick who was cute, in a low-budget crappy horror movie kind of way, and seemed to spend most of her time wandering around in an extremely short hospital gown.
The shortness of the gown piqued my interest, as this seemed like the sort of movie in which the female protagonist would spend some amount of time wearing even less than that (FYI, my suspicions in this regard were correct), so I checked the guide to see if it was going to be on again. It was, at 3 AM, so I set the DVR to record it.
Today, after it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to motivate myself to do anything productive, I decided to watch it.
And it was just as bad – possibly worse – as I thought it would be.
However, due to some sort of glitch – which I think I’ve figured out the cause of – the recording cut off at about 60 minutes into the 90 minute runtime.
So I was robbed of the “thrilling conclusion.”
Granted, all I really wanted from it was some T&A, which I got, but I can’t help but feel the need to see how it ends.
Luckily it’s on again tonight, so I’ve set it to record once more.
Then I’ll be able to watch the ending, at which point I will, no doubt, wonder why I bothered.
As for the “glitch,” I think this is what happened.
Earlier today, before I started watching the recording, I found that the movie was on yet again, and was at about the hour mark.
When I went to the list of recordings to select the movie, it presented me with option of “Resume Play,” rather than just “Play.” When I did that, it started playing from the point that I’d just seen it at while flipping through the channels, so I hit “Stop.” I went back in and hit “Play.” I think that somehow screwed up the recording, causing it to delete everything after the point at which I’d hit “Stop.”
That’s my theory, anyway. We’ll see what happens with tonight’s recording, which should run uninterrupted.
As mentioned, I didn’t do much that was productive today. I decided to declare this “Give In To Despair Day” and just forget about even trying to accomplish anything.
Tomorrow will, of course, be “New Comics Day.”
Thursday will just be Thursday, because giving each day of the week some kind of special name would just be stupid.
(Though technically Thursday is also “Job Fair Day.”)
I have no idea if I’m going to get trick or treaters tomorrow night, but I bought some candy just in case.
The only time in my adult life that I’ve actually gotten trick or treaters was when I lived in Minnesota.
It was a Sunday, and my roommates and I had just gotten back from a trip up to the cities where we’d attended a Halloween party and gotten suitably trashed.
We’d gotten back to Red Wing late in the afternoon and were all sitting around feeling like we’d been up all night drinking (imagine that), and as it was starting to get dark, a thought occurred to me and I said, “Crap! It’s Halloween!”
I made a quick run to the store and bought some candy, and got back just in time for the parade of costumed kids.
I left one little girl paralyzed with indecision by responding, to her “Twick or tweat” with “Hmm, okay…trick!”
She stared up at me in helpless panic until I said, “I’m only teasing,” and then gave her extra candy to alleviate her trauma.
While I was writing this, Kathleen called, offering to stop by quickly to give me some feedback on my new résumé. Actually, she called before I started writing this, but I was downstairs and the cell phone was up here, so I had no idea until she called again.
I got three e-mails from three different recruiters, each one trying to fill the exact same job.
Unfortunately, it’s that same contract job that I was contacted about the day after the layoff.
And that’s pretty much been my day. I didn’t totally give in to despair, as I did update the résumé with some of Kathleen’s suggestions, and I did at least shower and get dressed, and even go for a walk, but overall, I wasn’t terribly productive and didn’t see the point in even trying to be productive.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Excellent Timing, Extra Expenses, Exceptionally Creepy, And I'm Out of Words That Start With Ex

I woke up a bit after 8 this morning, thinking that I should get up, as my Wednesdays are always abbreviated due to my ridiculously early bedtime.
Of course, I also thought, “Fuck that,” and managed to stay in bed until a bit before 9.
In an unusual bit of motivation, I made my way to the kitchen and began making some breakfast. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal yesterday, opting for a sandwich for lunch and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, so hunger was the source of my motivation.
I had just finished making my bacon and eggs and was in the process of setting my plate down on the table when my phone rang.
It was my mother. I opted to eat the eggs, figuring I could do that quietly enough so that she wouldn’t have to listen to me chewing, but decided that the bacon was just going to have to wait.
After talking to my mother – and eating my bacon – I did the whole shower and shave thing, got dressed, and headed off to the comic shop.
I spent quite a bit there, as I picked up a copy of the trade collecting the first five issues of Jack of Fables, as well as a copy of the Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall hardcover.
Beyond that I also paid for Scott’s comics (though he will, of course, pay me back), which was pricier than normal, as he’s opted to begin collecting Jack of Fables and Buffy: Season Eight and had requested that I grab whatever back issues of those I could find there, so that added some extra comics, and I grabbed a copy of the Jack of Fables trade for him as well, as it only made sense.
From there it was off to Super Target where, based on the wary looks most of the women present were giving me and their general skittishness around me, I learned that I must have been looking especially creepy today. Not sure what made today so special. Maybe there’s just something inherently disturbing about a guy buying toilet paper and paper towels.
Anyway, that’s been my day so far. It’s not likely to get any more interesting.
I’ve often mentioned that there are certain movies that, when they’re on, I feel compelled to watch. One such movie is Tim Burton’s black and white cult classic Ed Wood, which was on IFC the other night, and which I watched.
(As an aside, people think that, because of my feelings about his Batman movies, I don’t like Tim Burton. It’s not true. With the exception of the aforementioned Batman movies and the complete waste of two hours of my life – time that I will never be able to recover – that was his Planet of the Apes remake, I’ve liked most of what I’ve seen.)
I really enjoy Ed Wood in large part because of the performances of Martin Landau and Johnny Depp, but also because the real Ed Wood was an utterly fascinating man in so many respects.
As terrible as his movies were, you just have to love the cockeyed optimism of the man, and his total commitment to bringing his singular vision to life. Sure, his movies sucked ass, but he put everything he had into making those shitty, shitty movies. Nothing could deter him from following his dreams.
His awful, tacky dreams.
How can you not admire someone like that?
In the Burton movie much time is spent focusing on the making of his movie Bride of the Monster (originally titled Bride of the Atom), and in reading the Wikipedia entry on Wood I learned that, unsurprisingly, Bride of the Monster had been featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
So naturally I hit the MST3K newsgroup and downloaded the episode.
It was kind of interesting to watch the movie after having seen the fictionalized version of its making so many times. Seeing an actual scene rather than Burton’s version of the scene often made it rather jarring, particularly if there was a big difference between the two, though conversely it was interesting to see the scenes that Burton had really nailed.
The casting difference were also kind of jarring. I was watching it and thinking, “But that’s not Juliet Landau playing the part of Loretta King playing the part of Janet Lawton, it’s actually Loretta King playing the part of Janet Lawton!” or “Hey, that’s not Sarah Jessica Parker.”
Knowing at least some of the backstory – or at least some version of it – surrounding the making of the movie also added to the experience.
And of course it all made the comments of Joel and the gang that much funnier.
Oh, and the movie itself? Absolutely terrible, but then, how could it be otherwise?