Sunday, April 18, 2010

What I Have Been Doing In My Spare Time

1.) Coming up with a second entry for Pillock's "Write a proposal for a TV show set in space" thing (Plok, man, when are we all supposed to be posting these things?)

2.) Trying to decide which organs I can sell to help ease any financial strain that having a baby in about six weeks will create. (To be blunt, Left Kidney ... what have you done for me lately?)

3.) Aggressively not going to see Kick-Ass, because please, media people, do not make a big deal about whether or not this movie goes too far in its portrayal of violence! You are only giving Mark Millar what he wants! Do not feed the bear!

4.) Talkin' Mission: Impossible down at the ol' Mightygodking.com.

7 comments:

Josh said...

WHOA WHOA WHOA! say what you want about Kickass, but leave my man Mark out of this. He can be so spot on when he's on. DID YOU NOT READ SUPERMAN RED SON?! Plus, no one says anything when Tarentino lops limbs off left and right. Suddenly "this is a comic movie" comes along and its a big fucking deal. Its like when people were upset about the violence in Batman.... yes, its batman. He beats dudes up all the time. Sometimes people die. As long as its not a main character chances are they aren't coming back. This is how life works. Think of how fucked up kids would get if they thought other things they saw in movies were real; talking animals, the end of the world, dragons, Robin Williams playing a 40 year old... scary shit.

Justin said...

I knew that one day, for you and I, it would come down to pistols at dawn over Millar, old friend.

Leaving aside personal taste in Millar's work (come on, man, you know I love Red Son as Millar's own personal All-Star Superman) ... I mean, it's not people like you and I making a big deal over the violence. But I feel that this movie/comic/media entity was made with the expectation that some people would get up in arms about it, and they'd talk about it in the media, and people like you and I are supposed to come to its defense and support it (by paying to see it).

Millar is undoubtedly a savvy player when it comes to putting the media to work for him, and I feel like he's playing us. He doesn't seem to be using violence to provoke discussion amongst an audience so that we might talk about the larger issues at stake, he seems to be trying to provoke discussion amongst the media so that people will go see the movie.

Also, the difference with Tarantino is a.) Kick-Ass is being done with kids instead of adults, which sets people off, and b.) everyone's used to Tarantino by now.

Justin said...

Also, I know I keep saying "Millar" like he's the filmmaker (and he's not), but Kick-Ass is his brainchild and he's more significantly more involved in production than just signing a check, so I feel it's valid to include him in a discussion about the movie.

Josh said...

I'll say this for Millar: he writes good comics that don't tend to translate to film. Look at Wanted. If he was as involved with the film as they make it sounds.... WHIFF! but the book is so awesome. Well the book is half awesome. Again he sticks the *f* bomb in it seems just for the sake of having it in there. Very few people, especially super intelligent super criminals, actually use that word as much as millar thinks they do. Its pretty much Kick ass but swap out the ultra violence for ultra language. Once you get past the gratuitous language its a pretty cool story.

That being said I read the first two issues of kick ass and decided it was not my cup of tea. But since tea is not my cup of tea either I will say it was not my can of Diet Coke.

plok said...

Sorry, I really am coming, I just had to do a big bunch of recording and then drink too much and struggle with the whole "so this is it; this is my life" the day after, or um maybe two days...

But I'm coming!

I'm almost here!

As to Mark Millar...is there really an idea out there that he doesn't deliberately court controversy? If not actually, you know, "court" it exactly...I mean he does, right?

Josh said...

True. That's kind of become his schtick.

And now that we're really scrutinizing this whole Kick Ass comic to movie thing, does it feel to you like the comic was just a way to build a fan base for a film project he already had his gears churning toward? I mean if you think about it they announced the film rights had been optioned before the first issue even came out. I'm not saying that makes it any less valid of a book or movie. I'm just making observations about my perception of the book as a marketing tool for the film.

Justin said...

Oh, don't worry about it on my account, Pillock, I just couldn't remember if we were all supposed to start posting them on our own, and we're all too polite to be the first.

Josh: I don't know if it's even a secret that Kick-Ass was designed, in essence, as a "demo" for movie studios. I'm less charitable than you, though, about whether it makes the original book invalid. Instead of a reader of a comic book, I become a test audience for a media property, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

In general, what bugs me about Millar the Writer is that it's hard to distinguish him from Millar the Media Developer. I mean, there's recasting Nick Fury as black and thinking, "Gee, it would be cool if Samuel L. Jackson could play him," and then there's having Bryan Hitch draw him using photo reference of Jackson and actually mentioning IN DIALOGUE IN THE STORY that Jackson should play him in a movie.

Then again, maybe I should admire him for his honesty? He's just self-promoting in the Stan Lee style, except he's not got the good sense to be tongue-in-cheek about it.

However, as Millar is a guy who would rather you were criticizing him than not talking about him at all, I'm just doing what he wants me to do as well, so DAMN YOU, CHESSMASTER!