Invictus Joyeux Noel!

Hi Everybody!
I may not be the master of my soul or the captain of my fate, but I love sports movies like INVICTUS. Clint Eastwood is the most colorblind of our major directors, and his long partnership with Morgan Freeman is enduring proof of his taste level in actors. While Eastwood has often cast amateurs in his movies, clearly Freeman has been his go-to guy for over a decade, and for obvious reasons.
With the end of Aparteid in his rearview mirror, Eastwood uses South Africa to deliver a rousing ode to brotherhood without the usual sermon which has plagued other such efforts. It is in the small touches where Eastwood shines: how the rugby captain's maid is invited to the World Cup, how a street begger listens to the game on a police unit's radio, how Mandela's estranged daughter ends up rooting for the despised Bokke team despite herself.
The last 20 minutes of the movie is essentially an escalating montage and, again, it is Eastwood's storytelling that makes it effective and not incoherant. Eastwood may direct with a stopwatch but, particularly in a movie with so many crowd scenes, he prevents his extras from mugging and sometimes catches something close to authenticity.
Freeman's professionalism along with his genuine warmth keeps the movie entertaining, while Matt Damon throwing himself physically into the Rugby field allows us to have a real actor delivering his ground-level lines with authority.
Eastwood makes it look easy, but most major directors flub the small moments that become the heart of this film. Another big winner from Clint, and you can stick that in your GRAN TORINO!
Merry Christmas to you all and be good, for goodness' sake! Talk to you, soon!
Brad

Up, Up In The Air!

Hi Everybody!
First, a quick update:
Since I have gotten no reply from the publisher concerning by JSA: THE MODERN idea, I've set that project aside and have fortified my SANTA: WOO WOO book to include three smaller stories featuring WOODY, POCAHONTAS and WONDER WOMAN. These will be short, regular-sized books for young readers featuring double-paged spreads and simple verse to tell the stories. Even though they each have a Christmas theme, I hope they can be enjoyed at any time of the year!
Now, I just saw UP IN THE AIR, and it's one of "those" movies. It could have been a character study of a downsizing expert (George Clooney) who himself gets downsized, but no. It could have been a mentor/mentee movie about how Clooney trains his replacement (Anna Kendrick) and how they combine forces to defeat a common foe, but no. It could have been how an isolated Clooney makes a deep connection with a fellow air travel addict (Vera Farmiga) and reprioritizes his life, but no. Like its' protagonist Clooney, the movie ultimately refuses to commit to anything more than a day-in-the-life, when it could have gone after bigger game. Like a seatbelt that is not quite long enough to fasten shut, this movie simply floats off the screen, squandoring a charming Clooney, a disarming Farmiga, and a crisp Kendrick.
Happy shopping, be good!
Brad

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!

Hi everybody!
Just came up with an idea for a children's Santa Claus book; more on that, later!
I finally came across a copy of KISS KISS BANG BANG by Pauline Kael, and am reminded of what a complete film critic she was.
The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael was actually bron in California. She was preceeded in film criticism by novelist Graham Greene, and her contemporary competition was Andrew Sarris, but in short order Kael became the nation's pre-imminent film critic. Kael brought vigorous, exhaustive and compulsive discipline to an ill-defined art.
In KISS KISS BANG BANG, Kael actually observed the whole process of putting the film THE GROUP (1966) together. In Kael's capable hands, it's like watching the scene in WITNESS when the Amish are putting up a barn from scratch. But Kael adds in slave labor, termite-ridden wood, rusty nails, splinters; in short, she de-glamorizes arguably the most glamorous industry ever.
Kael was not a perfect critic: she completely conflates the successes of BONNIE AND CLYDE, for example. However, few critics could articulate the glories of 1930s B movies while extolling the virtues of 1960s renegade filmmakers with more evident flourish than our lady Kael.
She tries to explain what happened to the careers of Marlon Brando and Orson Welles, but self-destructiveness has its' own tragic logic.
I cherish all of Kael's books and cannot recommend them enough!
Too tired to keep on rambling: gotta go! Be good!
Brad

Brad At The Movies!

Hi everybody!
Sorry to have been away, I've been beefing up my MySpace page and talking about my POCAHONTAS: SECRET LIFE book over there, while neglecting Wonder Woman Project updates with you.
First, let's go over some movies that I've seen. BRIGHT STAR with Abbie Cornish is a terrific 3 hanky movie, and Cornish is excellent in it. I understand that she is training for an action picture, if so, she'd be a terrific addition the the Wonder Woman trilogy cast! (If she can navigate Keats, she'll have no problem with Barnes!)
BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF NEW ORLEANS with Nick Cage is a diverting study in behavior from fellow Long Beach native Cage, but particular props to American Idol alum Katie Chonacas for giving the right jolt of hedonism and craft that this picture desperately needed, as a lot of acting newbies were given parts too big for them to handle.
Much love to THE BLIND SPOT with Sandra Bullock, an unabashedly uplifting biopic in which blond Bullock kicks every quip and quarry through the goalpost without missing a beat. If you want to see a big star in a part that fits them like a second skin, see THE BLIND SPOT! (I'm actually seeing Bullock as Athena in the Wonder Woman Project, right now!)
THE MESSENGER, with Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton, starts off strong and fritters away. However, Morton remains one of the great actresses in the English speaking world: more Morton, please! (She'd be a great Etta Candy, actually!)
I'm pulling together photo references and such in preparation for completing my WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY! graphic novel. I've also come across a lot of Wonder Woman poses that I can use in the 3 Year Calendar that I'm planning.
I've made some new friends, reconnected with some old ones, and all the lights seem to be "green" for the foreseeable future, so I've got to take advantage of these opportunities. I've created 4 new adventures for WOODY and was reminded that I've completed the first 45 pages for POCAHONTAS, so I need to finish packaging those and getting them in the mail to be published by someone who will pay me.
That's all for now! Be good!
Brad

Thesis panels: A panel discussion!

Hi Everybody!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Following up on my last post, I wanted to zero-in on the three most important superheroes ever created; BATMAN, SUPERMAN and WONDER WOMAN; and the early panels which defined their adventures.
Swiping a panel from Hal Foster's run on TARZAN, artist/creator Bob Kane had Batman strike a strange pose and writer/co-creator Bill Finger intone, "And thus is born this weird figure of the dark... this avenger of evil...THE BATMAN!"
When Batman gives a strong left hook to a corrupt CEO who was firing at him, leading the CEO to fall into a tank of acid, Batman crisply observes that this was, "A fitting end for his kind."
Batman was conceived as a bloody pulp character with lethal methods, but; particularly after the introduction of Robin The Boy Wonder the 2nd year; became more derring-do than deadly dangerous. That's what becomes an icon!
Written by creator Joe Siegel and drawn by co-creator Joe Shuster, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent is dismissed by co-worker Lois Lane as a simp, "You asked me earlier in the evening why I avoid you, I'll tell you why now: because you're a spineless, unbearable COWARD!"
Rescuing her as Superman from thugs, he leans into Lois like a lion looking at raw meat, but he tells the startled Lois, "You needn't be afraid of me. I won't harm you."
Having later rescued Lois from a firing squad, she catches Superman's shoulder, asking absurdly and hopefully, "But when will I see you again?" Superman is coy, "Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow -- perhaps never!"
Thus began the longest running false romantic triangle in popular fiction, culminating in Lois marrying Clark/Superman in 1995.
Calibrating the shyness of Clark Kent and the chivalry of Superman took decades to perfect, while the harshness of Lois took almost 50 years to evolve into professionalism and warmth.
Wonder Woman first appears costumed in a silent panel by the usually verbose William Moulton Marston in her debut story, drawn by H. G. Peter.
The closing panel in her first issue has Wonder Woman musing about her purchased civilian I.D., her gender politics and her romance with Steve Trevor, "So I'm my own rival, eh? That's funny... if mother could only see me now... as a very feminine woman... a nurse, no less, in a world full of men, and in love, too - with MYSELF as a rival!"
A fine example of the double game Marston was playing with this comic was Diana Prince switching into her Wonder Woman outfit, saying, "Lucky this outfit was in my bag. I can do better with fewer clothes!"
What 13 year old boy in the heart of the Depression is going to argue with that sentiment?
The wobbly psychology and woozy romanticism is already present in these early Wonder Woman comics. However, the gap between Amazon and American cultures did not preoccupy Marston as it should have, and the title has struggled with this core contradiction ever since.
Clearly, Marston never intended for Wonder Woman to actually marry, but Steve Trevor did not succeed as a romantic placeholder as Lois did for Superman because Amazons; as defined by Marston; had no tradition of marriage. Superman was born of a mother and a father on Krypton, Wonder Woman was made out of sacred clay on Paradise Island.
In popular culture, Wonder Woman continues as an ocean of ambiguities without answers. Our Wonder Woman Project will change all that, believe it!
We must put on our ethno-historian turckers cap to justify Wonder Woman's mission in this modern age. Otherwise, she'll be parading around like Diana Ross in THE WIZ; too old to believe, too dumb to accept, but with a dazzling smile.
That's all for now! Be good!
Brad

Thesis panels: A panel discussion!

A Bit About WOODY

Hi everybody!
I am working on my graphic novel WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY, and I wanted to talk a bit about the format. The story is told in 3 vertical panels over 3 pages.
The usual comics page is a 9 box grid. The reason for this is that the natural length to tell a comics story is 9 panels: 3 to establish the story, 3 to add some flavor, and 3 to bring it to a full conclusion.
The 3 godfathers of the comic strip are Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. On TARZAN, Hal Foster used a strict 9 panel grid, as he was adapting ERB's novel. Alex Raymond certainly used the same format with FLASH GORDON. And Milton Caniff did the same with TERRY AND THE PIRATES.
My vertical panels each represent 3 events, depicted by a single integrated illustration, so I'm elongating the drawing while compressing the narrative. Why? Because comics have started to EXTEND the narrative and MAGNIFY the illustration, which is ridiculous. There is a natural balance between words and pictures, which is the format that WOODY employs.
That's all for now! Be good!
Brad

Monetize, Lads and Lasses!

Hi Everybody!
I have decided to submit my WOODY: THE HERO OF ZIRCON CITY pages initially to IMAGE COMICS and DARK HORSE COMICS, instead.
I figure since I'm going to put a heck'of'a'lot of effort into making these pages great, I might as well try to get paid, as well.
It is intriguing that many comics publishers are not soliciting original material or accepting submissions.
I was reading some comments by Jim Steranko about his working relationship with Stan Lee back in the 1960s, where Steranko produced some of the most enduring comic pages ever. Stan Lee was resistant to Steranko's innovations but, to this day, Steranko's pages are reproduced as prime examples of comics art; as much as Jack Kirby and Neal Adams. Steranko only produced about 25 comics in his career, compared to the thousands by Kirby and the hundreds by Adams, but Steranko always makes the reprint cut.
WOODY is part of my 4-tiered process to get Brad Product into the mainstream, along with my novel POCAHONTAS: SECRET LIFE, JSA: THE MODERN and, of course, THE WONDER WOMAN PROJECT.
My POCAHONTAS book is about how without Pocahontas, the Democratic Experiment of America might never have taken hold. More on that, later!
The JSA: The Modern essay will review how the recent Justice Society of America relaunch by DC Comics produced the best superhero team up book ever. As an avid comic book collector, it's good to put my critic's hat on now and again. We'll see how that pans out!
Basically, I've been in print, before. Getting paid is the goal, now, bringing value to the marketplace!
I hope to have 6 pages of WOODY done by month's end so I can send them out to IMAGE and DARK HORSE to review. Please with me luck, thank you!
Hope that all is going well with you, out there! Be good!
Brad

Christmas is Over, Ho Ho Ho!

Hi Everybody!
I got the Christmas card drawn, ho ho ho! It's benifited from the works of J.C. Leydecker, Andrew Loomis and Windsor McCay, because I am the good thief! If any of you want a Christmas card attachment sent to you, please let me know! :)
Now, I am working on my superhero comic strip called WOODY, which is based on a character I created back in high school. I had shown it to Geoff Boucher of the herocomplex webpage at the L.A. Times several months back and I hope that when I finally finish the first series of comics his offer to post them still stands!
Having studied everything from The Yellow Kid to The Rocketeer, I've decided that the best way to draw WOODY is on a series of 7x10" Bristol paper pages which will probably be shrunk down about 75% to fit on the webpage. I'm looking forward to some Steranko, lots of Good Girl art and the wittiness that has won me legions of blank stares all the world over!
You may be thinking I should be working on the Wonder Woman Project instead of these other things, but I'm just too talented to be tied to just one woman! :)
More good stuff coming soon, be good!
Brad

NOBODY'S PERFECT

Hi everybody!
I just reread LOST GIRLS by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Now, Alan Moore is the greatest writer to ever grace the comics medium. Unfortunately, illustrator Melinda Gebbie is as anatomically-challenged in her way as WONDER WOMAN artist H.G. Peter was in his. H.G. Peter had a peculiar ability to draw a specific type of attractive woman, and all other people he generally depicted as grotesqueries, which gave the overall comic an effect comparable to your typical Tijuana Bible. This H.G. Peter artwork supported the subversive qualities in the WONDER WOMAN comic which William Moulton Marston concentrated his efforts on. With LOST GIRLS, Alan Moore looks at the dirty underpinings of Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan. However, instead of the effortless erotic draftsmanship of, say, Milo Manara, Alan Moore is teamed with the exaggerated delineations of Melinda Gebbie. Unlike H.G. Peter, not even Melinda Gebbie's women are particularly attractive, which is troubling for an erotic distraction like LOST GIRLS. Alan Moore explores incest, molestation, bondage, bestiality, name your sexual poison, but it largely comes across as an academic exercise instead of a passionate reverie. As boring as having your grandfather talk about sex is, the illustrations in LOST GIRLS make the story appear undernourished, as well. Alan Moore is never entirely without insights, but LOST GIRLS becomes more about bad sex than revealing truths. Similarly, after the initial burst of original ideas that fueled the original WONDER WOMAN comics, Wiliam Moulton Marston largely ignored telling credible stories and overindulged his symbolic obsessions. Let me give a movie analogy: the dirty kick of Marilyn Monroe playing to type in SOME LIKE IT HOT is lessened by the complete lack of chemistry between herself and Tony Curtis, and almost completely obliterated by director Billy Wilder's epilogue suggesting that Jack Lemmon in drag could do worse than by marrying the homely male suitor who has fallen in love with him. The only recent cinema I have seen that has allowed a young girl have big adventures without being punished for it is THE GOLDEN COMPASS.
Sorry to be so explicit and depressing this time around. However! I am beginning work on this year's Christmas card for one and all, so I'm feeling more cheerful than usual.
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad

BULLETS & BRACELETS, BRICK & MORTAR!

Hi everybody!
Just to reiiterate, the WONDER WOMAN comic has never established a home city or a strong supporting cast for our hero. WONDER WOMAN has no deep relationships with other people or to a reality-based place. Her strongest connection is with mythical Paradise Island and her fellow imaginary Amazons, where she does not live except while on vacation, which would be like Superman only having a strong connection with Krypton, which is destroyed; or with Krypto, who is a dog.
The WONDER WOMAN comic has had 68 years to build an emotional and physical infrastructure for our hero and has chosen for various reasons to not do so.
Of course, the only city in our actual reality that has a real-life heroine in charge of it is Chicago IL with Oprah Winfrey. How would Oprah look in a WONDER WOMAN costume?
My point is, for all of her years in our collective imagination, WONDER WOMAN remains largely an unexplored canvas of infinite possibility.
That is why our Wonder Woman Project is very necessary!
Keeping it short, for once! :) Talk to you soon, be good!
Brad

Polanski Towne!

Hi everybody!
Roman Polanski is the antithesis of the message we are trying to send with The Wonder Woman Project.
While people accused director Alfred Hitchcock of cinematic sadism, it is Roman Polanski who mastered that art.
REPULSION is an elegant but unrelenting study of a woman's descent into isolating madness.
ROSEMARY'S BABY is about a woman who is forced to give birth to the spawn of Satan.
CHINATOWN concerns an incest survivor who gave birth to her father's child and is killed by her father, who then raises her surviving sister/daughter. "My sister, my daughter, my sister and my daughter!"
There is a relentless pattern of illegal/immoral behavior serving as the foundation of his studio movies.
Further, under Polanski, horrific crimes routinely go unpunished. Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne famously argued over the ending of CHINATOWN, with Polanski prevailing that the offending father get away with pedophilia. Coincidence? "It's Chinatown, Jake."
Polanski; had he stayed with studio movies; would have lost his "snap" as the measured perversion that he favored fully gave way to "blockbuster" fare like JAWS, STAR WARS and ROCKY in the 1970s.
Our popular culture did not suffer much in Polanski's absence, yet he is still lionized in the creative community. This is a false regret, because Robert Evans and the rest of the crew from CHINATOWN culminated in the "COTTON CLUB" murders several years later in Hollywood. Jack Nicholson had already won an Oscar before CHINATOWN, and his star has continued relatively undimmed, but the last gasp of studio "creative edginess" heralded by BONNIE AND CLYDE effectively ended with the release of CHINATOWN.
As to Polanski having violated a 13 year old girl while staying at Jack Nicholson's house following CHINATOWN, let us recognize that on the personal level Polanski proved to be far more perverse than his movies.
We see with the publicity surrounding MacKenzie Phillips' memoir how devastating such events can be. MacKenzie's father John introduced her to heroin (old news), had a "consensual" sexual relationship with him and after he impregnated her paid for the abortion of their child (which is recent news).
Incest never goes away. Child rape never goes away.
Society failed Polanski's victim: her mother drove her to that photoshoot then did not stay with her to supervise. The "responsible" adult figure; Polanski; drugged, disrobed and debauched her. The legal system had plead Polanski's jail sentence down to time served and still he fled sentencing when released on his own recognicence.
Polanski's fugitive status is now seen as a badge of honor in Hollywood, but Polanski is a slayer of childhood and a coward of epic proportion. Polanski by taking a 13 year old girl and molding her to his extreme sexual desires like so much clay proved himself to be a completely remorseless skidmark of a man. Polanski's running away from any responsibility was contemptible: to call any of this a miscarriage of justice against himself remains ludicrous.
I used to be 44 years old, myself; as Polanski was when this crime against nature was committed; so if he had not yet learned how to control his base impulses by then, he never had any discernable self-discipline to begin with.
It is unseemly for Polanski to keep invoking his Holocaust survivor card, his Helter Skelter survivor card, his hounded by the blue noses card. Polanski is a practicing pedophile and should go to jail for the full nickel! Period. Case closed.
Security begins within the civilized heart. When we carelessly throw our precious children to the ravenous wolves like Polanski, then we reap the whirlwind. It does not matter who stops the cycle of madness against children and women as long as the cycle is stopped.
Wonder Woman is here to represent the necessary intervention to improve the general welfare of women and children!
Little girls are severely mutilated in nations like Africa, are married off to brutal strangers before they lose their baby teeth, and die of malnutrition long before they see any of their own children reach puberty.
The Wonder Woman Project will prove a tonic to such toxic fare as Polanski has left us, to such toxic behavior as Polanski has modeled for us.
Wonder Woman shows us the wonderfulness inside all of us!
It's a wonderful world and Wonder Woman is here to keep it that way!
Down with Polanski! Up with WONDER WOMAN!
Talk to you all, soon! Be good!
Brad

Diane Nelson: An Open Letter II

Hello Diane Nelson (and everybody)!
How do we market the Wonder Woman Project?
Pedal to the metal, starting with Walmart!
Our Wonder Woman Project partnership with Walmart is based upon their unequaled distribution system, their unrivaled value and their wide demographic appeal. Our products will be based on school supplies (a year-round market), various-and-sundry reading materials, and recreation items. We are committed to the everyday consumer and impulse shopper, with prices capped at $15 per item, so that each item will not cost more money than the price of a movie ticket.
We must not lose sight that our ultimate goal is to drive consumers to the movie theater!
CDs and DVDs will be exclusive to Walmart! We can reserve the right to sell items at our WB Stores, but if this exception increases the price point that Walmart is willing to offer us, then we should concede all the retail to Walmart.
With our high profile ensemble cast, we can open the movie "wide" domestically as well as internationally. As Wonder Woman is already a universally-recognized brand, the need for "shoe leather" publicity is minimal and can be left to the actors' discretion.
As we are filming this movie trilogy simultaneously, we are controlling the production costs. As our emphasis is on acting and not on Computer Generated Images, our post-production expenses will be relatively mild.
As we have already prepared the movie soundtracks, we save millions instead of assembling the music after principle photography is completed.
The Wonder Woman Picture Book: A Beginner's Guide to Being Amazing!; will be a tabloid size 64 page fully illustrated ethno-history of the Amazons. These images will be full page or double-page illustrations with minimal text; essentially "An Inconvenient Amazon" hosted by Wonder Woman for all age groups. Illustrated by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, embellished by Kevin Nowlan, lettered by Todd Klein, colored by Laura Depuy and edited by Paul Levitz (we gotta keep Levitz in the loop)! Not quite a comic book, not close to a souvenier book, the Wonder Woman Picture Book will prove a unique outreach to fanboys, to movie buffs and to children of all ages!
The 3 year Wonder Woman wall calendar is a unique collectible which will span the release dates of the 3 theatrical movies. This calendar is an excellent way to keep Wonder Woman in the hearts and minds of our enthusiastic audience.
The Wonder Woman CD soundtrack combines the simplicity of the folk singing acoustic duo from There's Something About Mary with the rock'n'roll backbeat which rules the iTunes universe. As the music video galaxy is deader than Michael Jackson, we need to reinvest in the great musical traditions which helped Jackson to become; for a moment in time; the King of Pop. Our Wonder Woman soundtrack nudges the narrative forward without drowning out the actors or stopping the movies' activities cold.
Our Wonder Woman movie catering will be done by Star Waggons, owned and operated by Lyle Waggoner (who played Steve Trevor on TVs Wonder Woman)!
These efforts will immeasurably fortify the success of our Wonder Woman trilogy!
Thank you for your kind attention, Diane Nelson! I am at your service!
And for the rest of you, my friends: be good! Talk to you, soon!
Brad

Diane Nelson: An Open Letter

Hi Diane Nelson (and everybody)!
Congratulations on your new job as DC Entertainment President! I am excited to have you join the DC Nation to bring our favorite characters to the big screen!
I believe that the confidence which Jeff Robinov has in you is well-founded and that the many years of Development Hell for DC at the movies has at last come to a merciful end!
It is not the comics which you have read that matters, it is the passion that you bring to the table which will prove the key to your greatest successes at the newly minted DC Entertainment!
Now, me, I am passionate about Wonder Woman!
But there you are, sitting at your new desk with your In Box overflowing, overlooking the smoggy L.A. Basin, and perhaps you are wondering:
"I've got the job, now what? Maybe I should start small and inconspicuously. DC has thousands of characters to choose from! Constantine performed pretty well, for us. Maybe I should call Keanu for a sequel! Talking babies are always big box office. Maybe a movie about Sugar N' Spike? What this town really needs is a family comedy without a blackout drunk. I should greenlight Angel and the Ape!"
What would Wonder Woman do in your shoes?
"Be brave! Be bold! Pick me!"
All kidding aside, the active titles that are now under your control are easily characterized, as they fall under 7 basic genres:
HORROR - Constantine
SPACE OPERA - Green Lantern
MYSTERY - Madame Xanadu
FANTASY - Fables
ENSEMBLE DRAMA - Teen Titans
POLITICAL DRAMA - Ex Machina
SUPERHERO - Wonder Woman
Yes, there she is, again!
Diane Nelson, you have been brought in to deliver tentpoles, and that is how it should be! Your movie projects should support TV shows, DVDs, websites, videogames, toys, licensing, theme park attractions, CDs, concerts, books and merchandising like:
Toothbrushes
Sleeping Bags
T Shirts and
Charm Bracelets
As far as licensing goes, Wonder Woman is already in the pipeline! You have the great artist Jose Luis Garcia Lopez on your Licensed Merchandise payroll who has strong experience illustrating our favorite Amazon ever since the tabloid comic Superman VS Wonder Woman back in 1978! For a more recent example of his work, check out Jose Luis Garcia Lopez illustrating the terrific Metal Men feature with Dan Didio; yes, THAT Dan Didio; in DCs Wednesday Comics!
If you don't believe me, ask Paul Levitz!
Diane Nelson, you have worked at Disney, so you have a keen understanding of multi-platforming. You have overseen the Harry Potter movies from the beginning, so you have been wildly successful at converting one medium to another medium.
This is the job that you were born to do, Diane Nelson, and we are lucky to have you doing it for DC Entertainment!
Woo woo!
You might agree with me that the R-rated market for movies has been dwindling for the last decade, and that the under-performance of "Watchmen" might well have resulted from that inexorable trend.
You might find, as I do, that the gift of the PG-13 rating; given to us by Steven Spielberg with his "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" release; is the gift that DC Entertainment should take full advantage of with its' tentpoles!
You might think, like myself, that if PG-13 was good enough for "Live Free or Die Hard", then that it is more than good enough for DC Entertainment!
Like most popular entertainments, comics characters are not endlessly malleable. These characters live by certain rules and require certain characteristics to be enduringly popular. These characters are commonly:
Earnest
Grounded
Attractive
Accessible
Confident
Charismatic and
Graceful
Now, you may be thinking that,
"Batman is traumatized. Superman is orphaned. Spider-Man is guilt-ridden. Iron Man is an alcoholic. Hulk is a schizophrenic. The Fantastic Four are mutated beyond recognition. The X-Men are hounded. How do any of these successful movies reflect those values which Brad has listed above?"
Of course, the answer is: they don't!
The best comics character for the movies is waiting for her close-up!
Say it with me: Wonder Woman!
Woo woo!
Wonder Woman has the potential to be the Miley Cyrus Tentpole of comics movies!
Lest we confuse "well-adjusted" with "vanilla", let us remember that vanilla has served Miley very well, so far! Vanilla can make a good girl a lot of green, which is what a tentpole is all about!
What Wonder Woman lacks in storm and stress, she more than makes up for in sass and specificity:
1) Her creator; William Moulton Marston; melded Wonder Woman's backstory to Ancient Rome and the Greek gods. This gives Wonder Woman instant legitimacy as a warrior and as a self-supporting female archetype.
Wonder Woman is not a jewel thief (Catwoman), a rogue assassin (Elektra), or a freelance archeologist surrounded by nerds(Lara Croft: Tomb Raider).
Wonder Woman knows who she is (an Amazon princess), knows what she wants (a world at peace) and knows how to get it (stop Ares from starting another World War)!
2) When World War II broke out, Wonder Woman's comics were completely invested in that war effort. This made Wonder Woman a cultural staple equal to Rosie the Riveter and an enduring source of inspiration to iconic feminist Gloria Steinem.
How much moreso will a Wonder Woman movie inspire embattled girls around the world, today?
3) Wonder Woman uses violence only as a last resort and always tries to rehabilitate her adversaries. This completely distinguishes Wonder Woman from every other action character.
Wonder Woman has the selflessness of a hero, the high style of a supermodel, and the moves of a ninja: a killer combination if ever a one there was!
Wonder Woman: accept no substitutes!
Wonder Woman: let us Greenlight no other DC Entertainment project before her!
When Wonder Woman was created in 1941, she was so far ahead of her time that she instantly became a publishing phenonmenon: now her time has properly come to likewise rule the tentpole!
Woo woo!
Wonder Woman has the courage of Harry, the sureness of Hermione, and the empathy of Ron! Diane Nelson, you know it is true!
Woo woo!
Wonder Woman has a perfect personality, a busy schedule and the grandfather from Hell!
Wonder Woman was made from sacred clay to uncoil her magic lasso and to stop the greatest threat of all time!
Who's that wearing them fancy boots?
Wonder Woman!
What time is it?
Wonder Woman time!
When the gods cry "war!", who are you gonna call?
Wonder Woman, say it loud!
Woo woo!
Diane Nelson, you can bring your namesake; Princess Diana; to the big screen!
Wonder Woman will become the next great tentpole for DC Entertainment! I have the three excellent screenplays:
Wonder Woman: AMAZONS!
Wonder Woman: ARRIVES!
Wonder Woman: ARES!
You have the power, Diane Nelson! Hear the voice of Athena at ringside:
"Welcome to the thrillah in Thymescira! In that corner, the unstoppable god of bloodlust! In this corner, our All Star Sensation from the DC Nation! Have you got your soda? Do you have your buttered popcorn? Are you ready to rumble?"
Wonder Woman is!
Woo woo!
Let us make this happen, Diane Nelson! I am at your service!
Sincerely,
Brad S Barnes
And to everybody else, be good and I'll talk to you, soon!
Brad

A Musicals Question!

Hi everybody!
When I think of THE WIZARD OF OZ, I think about the characters and the story, then I remember the music, but I don't immediately think of it as a musical: I think of it as a great movie with great music.
Film critic Robert Osborne argued that Judy Garland was the most talented performer in the history of movies; that she could dance like a dervish, sing like an angel and act with audacity - that Garland had no discernable weaknesses. Even though I believe that Katherine Hepburn had the greatest range of any actor in the movies; having made great romantic comedies (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY), great screwball comedies (BRINGING UP BABY), great melodrama (ALICE ADAMS), and great historical drama (THE LION IN WINTER), let's face it: Hepburn could not sing well or dance much. So I concede that point to Osborne!
Like everything else in the movies, musicals are an elusive prey. After the massive success of THE SOUND OF MUSIC in 1965, the advent of Rock and Roll made it harder to build a story entirely around the music. Rock and Roll is about acting out, not about introspection. In THE WIZARD OF OZ in 1939, the music is used as a coping device to take in all of the fantastical events happening to a simple girl from Kansas. Compare that to, say, TOMMY in 1975, which is basically one long acid trip about a deaf, dumb and blind kid. Even using the impressive Beatles catalogue in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE in 2007 found the story helplessly trapped in the 1960s with once-vital social issues having long since been resolved.
When I think about FLASHDANCE in 1983, I think about the dancing first and the music second. I remember the ridiculous premise: steelworker by day, exotic dancer by night with dreams of becoming a ballerina. Compare that to the equally ridiculous premise of SAVE THE LAST DANCE in 2006, but there is not one memorable song from that movie. FLASHDANCE made the careers of director Adrian Lyne (9 1/2 WEEKS), screenwriter Joe Esterhaus (BASIC INSTINCT), producer/studio executive Sherry Lansing (FATAL ATTRACTION) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (THE ROCK). A whole movie making machine of guilty pleasures came out of FLASHDANCE! Even the marketing of the movie was questionable: at the dawn of MTV, they would run music videos from FLASHDANCE with images of leotards and leg warmers instead of lipsynching lotharios; these were basically trailers for the movie, and it worked wonders.
A musical cue can make a movie: the whistling from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY and even from THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, the piano playing from THE STING, the love theme from THE GODFATHER (leave the gun, take the cannoli!), the marching band horns from ROCKY (his entire life was a million to one shot!) even the assaultive strings from the shower scene in PSYCHO (Mother! What have you done?).
However, music isn't everything. Frank Sinatra's best movie by far was THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, which didn't have great music. One of the best musical performers of all time is Dick Van Dyke, whose career on his own show and on DIAGNOSIS: MURDER was not driven by music. Top musical performers like Ben Vereen and Gregory Hines never broke into the mainstream. As for women, after Barbra Streisand, what other musical performere has made it big on the big screen? Madonna? Beyonce? Jennifer Hudson?
John Travolta had a cluster of musical movies (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, URBAN COWBOY and GREASE) but, other than the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL kids, and, maybe, Mike Myers in the AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY movies, there are no go-to musical performers out there, right now. Maybe Miley Cyrus will succeed where so many others have failed, but even the Disney machine has had a difficult time creating a multi-platform superstar over the last 20 years.
So when I include music in the WONDER WOMAN project it is with the knowledge that it is to enhance the experience, not to be the entire experience. However, to ignore the music would be ridiculous. If ever there was a character who came to us from somewhere over the rainbow, it is WONDER WOMAN!
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad

Trilogy Vs. Epic!

Hi everybody!
During the Labor Day weekend my intention was to thresh out the WONDER WOMAN screenplays, but then arrived at the conclusion that three movies were necessary to house my notations. This threw the entire process into a fundamental re-thinking and prevented me from simply banging out my notes and pulling together the various narrative threads.
I am not working from a pre-existing narrative such as LORD OF THE RINGS, which is a matter of picking and choosing from a plethora of incidents. Nor am I working from a series of self-contained narratives such as the series of Jason Bourne books by Robert Ludlum.
Speaking of BOURNE, the first Matt Damon film was actually a remake and reimagining of an earlier movie adaptation which found its' success upon the DVD release, not from the initial theatrical release. Having unexpectantly found its' audience, the second BOURNE movie immeasurably benefitted from the addition of Joan Allen to the cast. The third BOURNE movie; allowing for his amnesia to clear; provided an emotional completion to the structural mysteries which had driven the first two movies. The backwards logic of telling the BOURNE stories this way made for an unusually-effective movie trilogy.
There is no way to duplicate or to apply the flashback storytelling of BOURNE to the WONDER WOMAN project. Likewise, how the GODFATHER movies began in the middle of the story in the first movie then bookended the beginning and the end in the second movie is equally impossible. These were not simply editing tricks like those as employed in PULP FICTION; these were production decisions directly resulting from successful initial movies which allowed for staging an unexpected sequel or sequels.
With LORD OF THE RINGS, Peter Jackson had a much-beloved epic to cherry-pick from which more-than-justified its' imposing length of 3 movies. The wealth of unused footage on the DVD releases testifies to this. There is no way WONDER WOMAN can match that level of audience loyalty.
I am more mindful of the success of long-form narratives, which are easier to notate in TV than it is in movies.
For example, the freshman season of Steven Bochco's MURDER ONE is a great example of a missed opportunity. Bochco had made his bones on COLUMBO, so he knew how to wrap up a mystery. Then Bochco had created HILL ST. BLUES, so he knew how to elicit fine performances. Then Bochco had created NYPD BLUE, so he knew his way around the courtroom. By using an entire season of TV to prosecute one high-profile murder case, Bochco audaciously attempted to unravel a murder case of such complication that no audience could have possibly guessed who did the crime; which was essentially turning the delight of COLUMBO on its' head. But TV is about compression; not expansion; so when the murderer was finally revealed on MURDER ONE they were so completely out of left field that it might as well have been committed by the butler. Had MURDER ONE been half its' length it might have worked.
Which brings us to the classic miniseries RICH MAN, POOR MAN. During the production, nobody realized that although Peter Strauss was the crush-ready WASP with feet of clay, it would be rough-hewn Nick Nolte as the n'er-do-well brother with the heart of gold who would capture the audience's heart. So when Nolte perished at the end of the show, it provided an emotional impact that no one had anticipated: it actually elevated it from trashy soap opera to legitimate drama. When the producers belatedly realized that they had just killed off their meal ticket, they tried to hire Nolte back as his own son in the sequel, but Nolte chose to pursue a movie career, instead, which; after a shaky start in THE DEEP; proved to be the better choice.
Which all goes to say that altering the WONDER WOMAN project from a two-parter to a trilogy requires a retrenching of preparation to avoid the innumberable errors that have plagued earlier productions.
The skulls and bones of failed sequels have been the bane of Hollywood since the glorious exception of GODFATHER II, and we would be foolish to charge in with less than three fully-articulated narratives before we commit any resources to the WONDER WOMAN project. Only the blood simple fables of HALLOWEEN, of FRIDAY the 13th, of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, of SAW, of HOSTEL, spawn endless sequels that manage to charm generations of moviegoers.
When we ask moviegoers to spend $10, buy a tub of popcorn and a toot of Coca-Cola, and commit their cubicle-tortured behinds to two hours of sparkling entertainment in a darkened room with a hundred complete strangers, we'd better be built to boogie.
Nobody boogies better than WONDER WOMAN, and we will make sure that the WONDER WOMAN project boogies three separate times without missing an Amazonian beat!
The WONDER WOMAN project ain't beanbag!
Talk to you soon, be good!
Brad

Angels Have No Memory!

Hi everybody!
There is a report that a reboot of BARBARELLA is in the works, and that Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie are interested in this movie.
My goodness!
BARBARELLA was based on a French comic strip, and was clunky as a sci-fi film as well as timid as freshly-scrubbed erotica. Directed by Roger Vadim in 1968 and starring his then-wife Jane Fonda, Vadim was trying to capture lightning in a bottle as he had done with Brigitte Bardot in AND GOD CREATED WOMAN in 1957. But whereas Bardot played an uncomplicated sexual opportunist in a recognizable world, Fonda played a guileless sensualist in a fictional universe. The Bardot film anticipated the sexual revolution of the 1960s while the Fonda film celebrated the sexual utopia proposed by the concurrent Woodstock generation.
BARBARELLA was an unapologetically goofy film even by contemporary standards; let us remember that Antonioni's BLOW OUT came out in 1966 (!) and that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY came out the same year of 1968.
Let us also remember that in 1969 Fonda starred in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? and in 1971 won an Oscar for KLUTE, which I consider to be the best modern performance by an American actress.
What BARBARELLA demonstrates was that as intelligent a performer as Fonda could play submissive and blank-eyed as well as Bardot but that this same sexuality could be turned to a more complex purpose in KLUTE, where she invested that nascent sexuality into naked self-protection, a trick that Marilyn Monroe was never able to perfect on screen or in life. Fonda never went back to playing a sex kitten without a clue, instead becoming a performer to be reckoned with.
As a second-generation performer, Fonda had the star quality of her legendary father Henry and the business acumen of her equally-counter-culture brother, Peter (EASY RIDER; which he produced; was the most profitable picture of 1969), becoming the most successful producer of her own films since the heyday of Katherine Hepburn. But where Hepburn was able to sustain her stellar career over 4 decades, Fonda was only able to manage it for a decade as a top performer.
A key component of Hepburn's success was her skills as a comedienne, which Fonda had a deaf ear for. Also, while Hepburn had a successful partership with Spencer Tracy, Fonda never had an acting partner with whom she could repeat screen-time with. Hepburn was able to skillfully foster long term business partnerships, while Fonda had to start from scratch with each new project.
There are additional factors which hobbled Fonda, but the fact remains that a performer like Harrison Ford had parlayed his early success with STAR WARS in 1977 into a hugely successful 3 decade-long string of box office blockbusters that he also enjoyed a producer's profits, from.
All that being said, what tweaks me about BARBARELLA being remade goes beyond that! Angelina Jolie should be past using her sexuality to propel a movie project, while Megan Fox should be calibrating her sexuality into projects that are more of a challenge dramatically. I can't imagine how a BARBARELLA movie would be watchable, let alone profitable.
As a now part-time movie actress, Jolie is no longer able to do (a full-time actors') 3 movies a year to sustain her audience, so for her to squander her (parentally and politically-limited) screen-time on a project as sociologically-backward as BARBARELLA is simply another unnecessary nail in her career coffin.
As a rising star, Fox only has so many chances at the Brass Ring of box office gold, and would be better served improving her comedic skills (ala Kate Hudson, who has erred more on the gossip side than on the box office side) instead of leaning entirely on her looks. Fox should take a hard look at what Anne Hathaway is doing in the trenches, navigating between the fluff of BRIDE WARS and the toughness of RACHEL'S WEDDING. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER did not do anything for Kristy Swanson's career, and playing the vampire in JENNIFER'S BODY is a questionable move; we'll see how much money it makes.
Which, circuitously, brings us back to the WONDER WOMAN project!
WONDER WOMAN has more integrity in her little pinkie than BARBARELLA has in her entire body, and requires a performance equal to that integrity. The fact that BARBARELLA might get a big budget remake before WONDER WOMAN gets her own movie made makes me madder than a hornet's nest!
There's a campaign at DC Comics to start renumbering the WONDER WOMAN comic #45 at the historically-accurate #600. I'm all for that!
If you support my idea for the WONDER WOMAN movie and you have an extra postcard in your pocket, you can always write to: Dan Didio, c/o DC Comics, Inc., 1700 Broadway, New York, NY, 10019 and say PLEASE READ WonderWomanMoviebyBrad@blogspot.com! I need your vote!
Don't do it for me, do it for WONDER WOMAN! Woo, woo!
The last line in BARBARELLA is, "Angels have no memory." For the everlasting and enduring memory of WONDER WOMAN, let us get this WONDER WOMAN movie made! Thank you!
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad

Style and Substance!

Hi everybody!
For film afficianados, we've seen the hundreds of sketches and designs that have gone into the creation of our favorite films. However, it is wrenching to imagine the thousands of drawings that were destroyed during the heyday of film production during the the 1930s and 1940s. The film stock itself is crumbling away as we speak, how much moreso the anonymous papers that served as the blueprint for the finished product?
Still, there are necessary stages to turn an idea for a movie into an actual movie, and the more precise the planning the better the result.
My Style Book for WONDER WOMAN is not only a visual narrative of sections of the movie, but is also a means to better explain how the various elements should LOOK.
I had recently viewed the unaired pilot for GLOBAL FREQUENCY, based on the whipsmart Wildstorm comic by Warren Ellis. The pilot was shot in the style of DARK ANGEL; all punkish dark all the time, but would have been better served being shot like Joss Whedon's ANGEL; mostly natural lighting with occassional dark sections. The color scheme affects the viewing experience, of course. The producer probably thought that the "doom clock" premise suited making GLOBAL FREQUENCY all dark shadows, but in spirit, GLOBAL FREQUENCY is closer to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE because the good guys always win. Instead, the GLOBAL FREQUENCY pilot emphasized the subversive elements of the comic instead of the heroic elements.
Those in the know about TV production understand that the director of a television series' pilot gets a percentage of the show's profit for the entire run of the series. For example, Ridley Scott filmed the pilot for NUMBERS, which is just now going into syndication. Since Ridley Scott established the visual "Bible" for that series, he gets money for every episode that ever airs on that series, whether he directed them or not. As he is Ridley Scott, he is never going to direct another episode of NUMBERS, this is the guy who directed BLADE RUNNER, for goodness' sake. This is beyond the money he gets as a producer as NUMBERS is a SCOTT FREE production, as well. I'm just saying that being hands-on has its' rewards.
We've gone over how the WONDER WOMAN comic has gone wrong in a number of intractable ways. The WONDER WOMAN movie can easily go just as wrong without proper control on the production level. For example, the movie 300 has a distinctive visual style that drives the audience experience, the visuals practically bury the script and the acting; the images serve as one firecracker after another. That same oppressive visual approach was used on WATCHMEN to much reduced success because the narrative of WATCHMEN required subtleties in script and performance that 300 did not possess or require.
WONDER WOMAN fights crime in lingeree, and the challenge is to not keep hitting that one visual note over and over, again. The bigger challenge is to recognize that WONDER WOMAN is a Champion Fantasy, not a Power Fantasy.
A Power Fantasy; like Superman; is of a character given powers and abilities beyond normal people to make the world safe.
The premise is that the world is dangerous, which is a simple but potent observation.
A Champion Fantasy; which is WONDER WOMAN; is of a character given powers and abilities beyond normal people to make the world better.
The premise is that the world can be improved, which cuts in a more sophisticated way.
WONDER WOMAN's costume is no more provocative than that of a Rockette, and is less exploitation than sublimation.
By providing a WONDER WOMAN style book, we help to keep the emphasis on the Champion elements of our Amazon, which is the only way our movie will reach a wide audience.
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad

Maybe a Trilogy?

Hi everybody!
After having pulled all of the material together and finding a surprising amount that is still viable, this WONDER WOMAN project might end up being a trilogy. Allowing for all of the featured actors to have enough screen time (at least 15 minutes each), allowing for the big action sequences and multiple establishing shots, there's plenty of goodies for three movies.
With the ultimate Alpha Male; Ares; as the antagonist, the opportunities for conflict are too delicious to ignore.
I'm sure the feathers will fall away as we get down to brass tacks, but for now, the eagle is soaring to even greater heights than at first anticipated!
Look to the skies and be good!
Brad

Corrections and Considerations!

Hi everybody!
First, a correction!
Carroll Ballard directed both THE BLACK STALLION and WIND, which I had attributed to Caleb Deschanel.
However, Deschanel was the cinematographer on THE BLACK STALLION, so at least I was in the neighborhood on that one.
Deschanel had nothing whatsoever to do with WIND, but, let me instead direct your attention to THE NATURAL, in which stars Robert Redford, Barbara Hershey, Kim Basinger and Glenn Close (not to mention America's favorite pasttime; baseball) have never looked more splendid
Whew!
Arguably the most distinctive director of all time; Alfred Hitchcock; meticulously prepared full storyboards for all of his movies. In fact, Hitch often said that the actual filming of the movie was a chore; the joy was in the preparation. While the performances he elicited often belied that statement, the fact remains that the wildly-varying degree of quality to be seen in even the most successful of current films can be traced to a lack of preparation: too much is left to chance. As you know, the shower scene in PSYCHO took 7 days to film. Janet Leigh never took another shower after that, but Anthony Perkins was never on set during the filming of that legendary scene. The knife never touched Leigh's body, and the "blood" was chocolate syrup. But, the bottom line is, in black and white or in living color, nobody scared the life out of you better than Hitch!
Preparation can make or break a film. Richard Donner was replaced by Richard Lester on SUPERMAN II. Joe Pesci asked for a $2 million payday for LETHAL WEAPON 4, which Donner refused to pay -- Pesci ended up making the money anyway in overtime pay!
John Badham replaced the original director halfway through the filming of WARGAMES, which explains why the movie's tone shifts from goofy to grim once the helicopter lands. (A shout out to Ally Sheedy!)
Barry Levinson was the 4th major director to be attached to RAIN MAN. Tom Cruise made COCKTAIL while waiting for RAIN MAN to start filming. Is there such a thing as too much preparation? Ask Dustin Hoffman.
My point is, movies need all the help that they can get! I'm not talking about waiting for lightning to strike or noodling around until the pasta turns into paste. But, making a movie is a marathon, not a sprint. If you're not ready once you get started, then it's inevitably gonna show on the big screen. As Shakespeare said, "Readiness is all"!
I don't want WONDER WOMAN to be a happy accident with an exploding budget that breaks the back of Warner Bros. I simply want to make DARK KNIGHT money on a DARKMAN budget. Because an Amazon does not demand that you break the bank in order to show her a good time. However, an Amazon does expect for you to cut the price tag off of your rented tuxedo!
Happy Labor (Sun) Day! Be good!
Brad

A Little Night Music for Wonder Woman!

Hi everybody!
"The dog ate my blog, but this cat is back and that's the fact, Jack!," Bad S. Brad!
For the Wonder Woman movie, I don't want an overly orchestrated SOUND OF MUSIC vibe or a schmoozy synthesized FLASHDANCE punch; I'm looking for a more communal FIDDLER ON THE ROOF foundation to underscore our epic. Consider these new lyrics to IF I WAS A RICH MAN:
She's a WONDER WOMAN
If you think she's not you're very wrong and you are gonna die
On a plate made up of Humble Pie
Realize and don't deny!
Anyway! :)
For this purpose, I will be seeking the lovely assistance of the runway/classical quartet BOND, who have shown great facility with modern percussion. Remember: BOND=Amazons! Tell a friend!
How should our Wonder Woman movie look? (Other than stunning?)
Let's talk about the grande master of set design: Richard Sylbert! From THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (the brilliant Sinatra version, natch'!) to TEQUILA SUNRISE (not a great movie, but a great restaurant in the movie!) (Mad props to Kurt Russell, by the by!), Sylbert turns artifice into function in the blink of an eye. A Richard Sylbert set fits the cast of a movie like a well-tailored suit. Smokin'!
As for cinematography, Caleb Deschanel made his bones on THE BLACK STALLION, but, today, is probably better known as the dad of Zooey (ELF, 100 DAYS OF SUMMER) and Emily (BONES, SPIDER-MAN 2). Caleb knows how to make moveable objects glisten and sparkle on the big screen. Caleb directed a movie called WIND; with Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey; that was about a series of sailboat races. Despite the legendary expense and difficulty of filming on open water, Caleb makes it all look as easy as rolling off of a log, not like rolling around, say, WATERWORLD.
Making the difficult look easy is the difference between a poseur and a master!
This Labor Day weekend I will be completing the drafts of both WONDER WOMAN movies. Wish me luck, my friends! I'll talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad

What is a himbo?

Hi everybody!
I just saw G.I. JOE, and was reminded of what director John Lassiter (TOY STORY) said about CARS. In the early cuts, the cars did not seem to be hugging the road: their motion was frictionless. Lassiter said that he had to address the issue of physics in order to make the animation acceptable to the naked eye.
In a CGI fest like G.I. JOE, the camera tends to swirl around the big action scenes in rotoscope and such, perhaps to mask the fact that many of the spectacular stunts don't "read" properly to the audience. Now, I grew up with Ray Harryhausen stop action movies, so it doesn't take much to sell a scene to me. But too much CGI can kill the illusion.
Peter Jackson's KING KONG was simply too long, as was the 1976 Dino de Laurentis/Jessica Lange version; neither holds a candle to the 1933 original. CGI relies on a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, the longer you push it, the shorter you capture of it.
I also found it amusing that G.I. JOE still had a white American President who was in too many scenes to be cheaply reshot before release. Instead of hedging their bet by hiring Morgan Freeman for the Oval Office, they now come across as implying that in the near future we'll be back to hiring white guys for the White House.
All that said, I found G.I. JOE to be a fun popcorn movie and look forward to its' sequel. You go, JOE!
A himbo is a male bimbo. As a baby boomer, I have noticed the rise of himbos.
The acronym for himbo is Husband (or Hanger-on) Incessantly Malingering Bozo Overall. I trust that my fellow boomers can look around them and see himbos growing like weeds all over this great land of ours. As for the Gen-Xers and the Ys, they are probably too used to seeing them to even notice the rise of himbos.
What this means is: the himbos have won!
I have refashioned Steve Trevor (Daniel Craig) as a himbo for my WONDER WOMAN movie, with provocative results.
Steve Trevor has become the Lana Lang of comics, having been married off to Etta Candy (Kate Winslet) and largely discarded since the 1980s reboot of the WONDER WOMAN comic. The reason for this is because that Steve Trevor is the Worst Love Interest Ever in comic books, and maybe in life.
The simplification of the WONDER WOMAN (Eva Green) narrative includes moving her away from the cringe-worthy hand-holding of her romance with Steve Trevor.
We can't just marry her off and expect the audience to accept it, or have her divorced off-camera and start the story from there.
WONDER WOMAN is too smart to be single, too strong to be in a destructive relationship and too interesting to not get struck by Cupid's arrows. The TOMB RAIDER movies favored action over passion, to their detriment.
Romance has been hard to integrate into superhero movies.
While the first two SUPERMAN movies had a romantic element, they also took the romance away and returned Superman to his Fortress of Solitude. Understandable, but not acceptable for WONDER WOMAN.
A WONDER WOMAN movie without romance would be an empty exercise. Our WONDER WOMAN movie will deliver a lot of action, plenty of mythology, and a little romance, so help me, God!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Godly Attributes of Wonder Woman

Hi everybody!
I have already mentioned that the personal life of William Moulton Marston was closer to Charles Lindburgh's than to Amelia Earhart's. Moulton's unwavering focus on bondage in his WONDER WOMAN stories is his self-proclaimed legacy for that character. His position as a scientist, scholar and published author in an industry driven by adolescent drop-outs gave him unprecedented creative control over WONDER WOMAN comics.
Editor Sheldon Mayer gave Moulton a long leash that Moulton tugged-upon every issue. Moulton submitted his stories in typewritten full-script, including panel descriptions. This is a practice used by such comics masters as Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman or Alan Moore, but remains the rare exception and not the rule.
Moulton was well-schooled in mythology, having written a book on the subject, which explains his comfort with giving WONDER WOMAN a mythological origin. Compared to SHAZAM!, WONDER WOMAN was a completely mythological person wholly divorced from American qualities.
The gods that Moulton chose were a curious gang of four. HERCULES, who had killed his 3 children and his wife, and had raped Hippolyta and enslaved the Amazons. Really?
HERMES, god of trickery and of speed. What is heroic about that?
APHRODITE, goddess of beauty and sexual desire, material in starting the Trojan War. Sexy? Yes. Heroic? Not in the least!
What, exactly, was Moulton thinking in choosing these three?
I suspect that Moulton was going for the lowest common denominator!
WONDER WOMAN had to be strong enough to not be out-muscled by any man, HERCULES is strong, so there you go.
WONDER WOMAN had to be fast enough to chase down an automobile, HERMES is fast, problem solved.
WONDER WOMAN had to be attractive enough to not need to wear a mask, APHRODITE is beautiful, so instant Amazon supermodel. Come on!
But Moulton also subverted his choices of gods just as bluntly. Once her bracelets are bound, WONDER WOMAN lost her strength. After getting her Invisible Plane, who cares how fast that WONDER WOMAN was? By putting on a pair of glasses when Diana Prince, WONDER WOMAN hid her extraordinary beauty.
Every superhero with staying power needed more than one power, anyway. THE HULK is not only stronger than Hercules, he is invulnerable and can cover miles in one big leap. THE FLASH is not only faster than Hermes, he can also catch a bullet and race back into time. IVANKA TRUMP is not only as beautiful as Aphrodite, her father The Donald can fire anybody: now that's a superpower we could all use! Nyuk, nyuk!
So, WONDER WOMAN did not have powers of any particular distinction. To this day, WONDER WOMAN's powers are not very well-defined.
However, Moulton snuck in one god who gave WONDER WOMAN all the power that she needed. ATHENA has the power of peace, wisdom and of military strategy. Once you have the power of ATHENA, you've got it all. Of course, no one in the 1940s really knew who ATHENA was, so Moulton could not make ATHENA the sole sponsor of WONDER WOMAN's powers. Moulton was enough of an entertainer that he knew he had to play to the cheap seats, so he did, by throwing in the better-known Hercules, Hermes and Aphrodite. But Moulton was only gilding the lilly with those three, the only god who mattered was ATHENA.
Of course, by including Hercules, Moulton completely muddied WONDER WOMAN's mission on earth. Hercules was known as the "savior of mankind" after his twelve labors, but Moulton made him the instrument of the Amazon's downfall.
Since bondage was Moulton's primary message in WONDER WOMAN, by having Hercules as both villain of the Amazons and sponsor of WONDER WOMAN's powers, Moulton was having it both ways. But enough about Moulton's personal life.
My point is, Moulton did not have a fully-dimensional origin for WONDER WOMAN, and he was happy enough to allow those contradictions to remain for as long as he controlled the comic book. However, it are those same contradictions that have hobbled all subsequent efforts to keep WONDER WOMAN relevant as well as popular.
In our WONDER WOMAN movie, Hercules (Hugh Jackman) is the bad guy, period. Aphrodite (Catherine Zeta-Jones) remains the patron goddess of the Amazons. Hermes has basically been replaced by Amelia Earhart (Cate Blanchett). But the goddess with the mostest is Athena (Lena Olin).
When I said that we were simplifying the origin of the Amazons, I did not mean that we were throwing out the baby with the bath water. But we have to be careful.
When the origin of Krypton was conflated in the SUPERMAN movie with Marlon Brando, it pushed Superman almost completely out of the first movie. It wasn't until SUPERMAN II that Christopher Reeve really showed his stuff.
When the first BATMAN movie had the origin of the Joker being that Jack Nicholson was the thief who killed Bruce Wayne's parents, it turned Michael Keaton into a cypher, not the Dark Knight.
When SPIDER-MAN III had the Sandman be the robber who killed Uncle Ben, it threatened to turn Peter Parker into a deranged revenge killer.
These were all mistakes that the movies could have avoided, but they chose symmetry over simplicity.
A superhero origin is one part derangement (Thomas and Martha Wayne are shot in a meaningless street crime, leaving their son Bruce orphaned and rich), one part dumb luck (a bat flies into Bruce's window, so he decides to become a bat), and one part dedication (Because criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot who will freak out when they see a man dressed as a bat... as a BATMAN!) .
We will simply her origin in the WONDER WOMAN movie to clarify her mission and get her into costume before the second reel. That's how we keep it reel in WONDER WOMAN! Woo woo!
By the way, a shout out to PMOY Tiffany Fallon for her great series of photos as Wonder Woman! Kiss your baby goodnight, for me!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Who should direct the WONDER WOMAN movie?

Hi everybody!
He's a LETHAL WEAPON behind the camera. He's a MAN WITHOUT A FACE in his last two movies. He can dance the APOCALYPTO. Some say he has an Oscar-winning BRAVEHEART for having directed THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
Mel Gibson has given actress Sophie Marceau her best role in BRAVEHEART. Including Monica Bellucci in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST proved a wicked-good choice. The birthing scene in an underground pool in APOCALYPTO is one of the most radical depictions of a woman's role in the world in my memory.
Every time that Gibson goes behind the camera he goes for it full throttle. He truly puts his actresses through their paces. The scale and scope of BRAVEHEART is equal to any epic of the last 15 years. Hollywood still has not forgiven him for the wild success of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
As I have written a book on Pocahontas, I love that APOCALYPTO takes place just before the arrival of Captain John Smith and crew in Jamestown.
WONDER WOMAN needs a director who will leap through a window and land like a cat on the sidewalk, below. The WONDER WOMAN movie will show actions that have never been depicted before on screen, simply because the stunts are being done by a woman.
I am persuaded by his movies that Mel Gibson wants to do movies that no one has attempted before, that his sensibility will make WONDER WOMAN resonate with power and daring. Reteaming him with legendary cinematographer Caleb Deschanel; who worked with him on THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST; will make the WONDER WOMAN movie a thing of beauty.
As we open the WONDER WOMAN movie with Athena (Lena Olin) emerging from the skull of Zeus (Max Von Sydow) to claim her birthright of lightning, the audience will know that it is in good hands with Gibson! Woo woo!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Lessons from The Matrix!

Hi everybody!
Will Smith has said that he turned down the lead in THE MATRIX because he could not understand the script. He said something like, "you see, you don't know that you're in THE MATRIX, but THE MATRIX exists so that you don't know that you're in THE MATRIX, but once you know that you're in THE MATRIX, only you have the power to destroy THE MATRIX, but once you have the power to destroy THE MATRIX, then THE MATRIX will do everything in its' power to destroy you, and, then, hey, say what?!"
First, for an actor who took the lead in MEN IN BLACK and THE WILD, WILD WEST, saying that logical narratives drive his acting choices is rather naive, but let us accept his premise. Next, considering that Jada Pinkett Smith was in the two MATRIX sequels but that he was not also begs the rationale, but, again, let us say his reasons remain true.
But for an actor who has once boasted that he was King of the BlueScreen; or even of the GreenScreen, I offer that the real reason that Will Smith turned down THE MATRIX was less about the script and more about his screen persona.
Let's face it, the only reason that an actor explains why he "turned down" a movie is because the movie that he did instead of the movie that he "turned down" was so lame that people ask him why wasn't he in the movie that he "turned down", right?
From the beginning of his acting career in THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR, it has always been about Will Smith all of the time. After SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, Smith has only since played the Alpha Male. Be it the extended cameo in INDEPENDENCE DAY, the caddy in THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE, the slickster in HITCH or the broker in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, he plays the guy who is The Man.
If you are Will Smith reading THE MATRIX script, then you have got to realize that it is Trinity (Carrie Ann-Moss) who is the motor of the movie, not Neo (Keanu Reeves). Well, Smith is not going to spend the entire movie in a fog while somebody else does the heroic stuff until the last gasp of third act.
But the reason that THE MATRIX is so effective is that Neo takes so bloody long to assert himself; it's as if Sleeping Beauty wakes up and is carrying an Uzi and an attitude. The entire movie is about passitivity and drugs and gamer fantasies. Neo actually dies before his girlfriend; Trinity; manages to pull his fat out of the fire: it's like the reverse of what happened to Uma Thurman after John Travolta plunged a hyperdermic into her chest in PULP FICTION.
Smith would never let himself get rescued like that on screen, does not need a mentor like Lawrence Fishburne, does not need an Oracle in the kitchen, does not need to be a supporting player in his own life.
Will Smith only does a certain kind of a movie and it has afforded him a long string of box office success, but there will come a day when he will be given a supporting role and then we will see his true mettle. Will he become, like Robert Redford, an actor who will insist on being the lead long after all of the good lead roles are gone? Will he become, like Paul Newman, an actor who brings star quality to small parts and vastly improves the movies that he participates in? Or will he become, like Jack Nicholson, an actor with idiosyncratic tastes who is mostly baffling but sometimes brilliant? I suspect he will go the path of Redford.
As an actor, Keanu Reeves has been more adventurous with his career than has Will Smith, and we the audience have benefitted from it. In films like CONSTANTINE and even SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, Reeves has been better than expected when he could have just phoned it in. Ultimately, successful actors are like small businesses, and every movie is a serious risk to their entertainment portfolio. If every movie Reeves did after SPEED was a variation on SPEED, well, then, he would have never done THE MATRIX. And if Reeves never matches the success of THE MATRIX, well, very few actors ever go beyond the success of their franchise, now do they?
WONDER WOMAN is going to be a movie with mythic figures and modern conundrums all wrapped up in a golden lasso, woo woo! Because that's the way we do it!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

How the Amazon culture works!

Hi everybody!
Let me give you a quick rundown of how I see the Amazons came into the world, were separated from the larger world, and how WONDER WOMAN gained entrance back into the world.
First, the Amazons were conscripted by Ares (Russell Crowe) to be his elite fighting force. In the Ancient World, the Amazons were not a kingdom, a city or a culture: soldiers do not run governments.
The general of the Amazons was Antiope (Charlize Theron), the ambassador of the Amazons was Hippolyta (Helena Bonham Carter). When the Amazons could no longer be controlled, Ares sent Hercules (Hugh Jackman) to destroy them.
Aphrodite (Catherine Zeta-Jones) took pity on the Amazons and resettled them on Paradise Island.
Athena (Lena Olin) blessed the sacred clay sculpted by Hippolyta and brought princess Diana (Eva Green) to life as WONDER WOMAN.
Ares invades Paradise Island while WONDER WOMAN sets up her fighting unit in Manhattan. WONDER WOMAN returns to Paradise Island to free her sisters from the tyranny of Ares.
William Moulton Marston spent the lion's share of WONDER WOMAN's debut story defining the Amazons and did not depict WONDER WOMAN in her costume until the very last panel. This Amazonion culture has proven to be the fallback narrative every time DC Comics is unable to figure out what to do with WONDER WOMAN.
But there never was an Amazon culture in real history, or has there ever been a successful same sex culture in recorded history.
It is important to acknowledge the importance of the Amazons to WONDER WOMAN's legend, but we must avoid getting tangled up in the weeds of the possibilities of the Amazon culture. WONDER WOMAN is not an elegantly conceived science fiction narrative as conceived by Phillip K. Dick, it is simply the most sophisticated premise ever for a superheroine comic by William Moulton Marston.
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

The best female action performance ever!

Hi everybody!
The WONDER WOMAN cast will be collection of the best performers since the cast of THE GODFATHER. Why? Because we can!
It is no small feat to be the best thing in a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche; both since deserving Oscar winners. After seeing Lena Olin in THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, you'll be hard-pressed to remember anything else about that movie.
It is a difficult thing to steal a scene from Gary Oldman, let alone an entire movie like ROMEO IS BLEEDING. Oldman completely loses our attention for every minute that Olin is on the screen and never regains our sympathy once she leaves the movie.
Lena Olin gave an essentially feral performance in ROMEO IS BLEEDING, playing an assassin with a fake arm and a sub-zero heart. The ferocious delight she takes in murder goes beyond being unsettling, she simply seems unhinged by the memory of it. It is hard to make crazy believable in the cloying confines of a genre movie, I mean, a steady stream of unapologetic crazy. Heath Ledger came close to it in THE DARK KNIGHT, and received a well-deserved post-mortum Oscar for his Joker. But, my friends, Olin goes much further in ROMEO IS BLEEDING. Olin, here, is all crazy, all of the time, and it is an astonishment. I have seen foreign movies that boast performances which are jaw-droppingly strange, but the heat that rises from the skin of Olin's performance in ROMEO IS BLEEDING transcends mere language.
Olin was once a ballerina, then began acting in Ingmar Berman films. Her lofty pedigree was an invaluable asset in THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, but what she manages in ROMEO IS BLEEDING is another matter, entirely: it cannot be analyzed or explained away. It appears to be an uncalculated performance, but it is in fact the height of discipline to bring such furious life to the screen.
Is it any wonder that Lena Olin is the only woman to play ATHENA in WONDER WOMAN: AT LAST?
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

The best action movie ending ever!

Hi everybody!
It was the follow-up to AMERICAN GRAFFITI and was hard-wired into heroic archetypes. The comical sidekicks were transformed from Laurel and Hardy into 2 creaky robots called R2D2 and C3PO. The wise counselor (Sir Alec Guiness) was only a few pints short of Merlin. The earnest hero (Mark Hamill) was orphaned, infatuated and indignant in equal measure. The endangered princess (Carrie Fisher) was more tomboy than Barbie doll. The meta-villain Darth Vader was relegated to the sidelines and revealed almost as an afterthought. The arena of the dogfight was more vast than the summer sky in the dead of night. The music was majestic. The special effects were state of the art for its' time. The leap across the chasm was breathtakingly nostalgic. The leap into hyperspace was audacious. The dashing rogue (Harrison Ford) and his shaggy companion Chewbacca were just menacing enough to make their surrender to heroism meaningful. The pacing was leisurely, the dialogue perfunctory, the budget was small. There was a firefight between the Storm Troopers and our heroes in a trash compactor, for goodness' sake. However, it was that rare movie that got better as it locked into the 3rd act. The first act is to stage the importance of Obiwan Kenobi; which proves to be a MacGuffin; and the plight of the Princess Leia, which proves to be easily solved. The second act is the recruitment of Han Solo and the leap into hyperspace, which is a classic movie moment. But the movie does not realize that Luke Skywalker will never stir the imagination as does Han Solo, it stubbornly keeps its focus on the kid. That proves to be fine, because the 3rd act star war is spectacular, the last minute arrival of Han Solo effective, the last minute escape of Darth Vadar regrettable but acceptable. But it was a clean victory acheived in a trash compactor world.
The reason why the closing scene in STAR WARS is so effective is because it is the first time that we see the princess gussied up, Chewbacca shampooed up, R2D2 and C3PO polished up, and Luke Skywalker and Han Solo dressed up. Our ragtag group of heroes are finally putting on the Ritz and getting their just rewards and, for once, the movie has the good grace to shut up when the getting is good. There is not ironic twist like there was in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the heroes simply get their reward and the credits start to roll. Yes!
Our WONDER WOMAN movies will end on a high note, just like the first STAR WARS! Why? Because we love you, baby!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

How we can prevent WONDER WOMAN from crashing!!

Hi everybody!
Movies are basically visual, audible and musical. The right mix of these three elements can make a movie unforgettable. Too much eye candy; too many loud explosions; or too many notes on the soundtrack can ruin an otherwise entertaining movie. One element can crowd out the other: sometimes you can't hear what the actors are saying because the music is too loud, for example.
Harrison Ford once said that they had to reshoot the closing scene in PATRIOT GAMES because the audience couldn't see his and Sean Bean's eyes when they were fighting. It seems like a small thing, but it can make the difference between disappointing the crowd or sending them home with a big grin.
I just saw HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE, which sports another fine adaptation by Steve Kloves (FLESH AND BONE, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS). While at the start I was concerned that this film was going to get smothered in special effects knick-knackery, Kloves settled into a quite becoming rhythm which matured the principle characters along very nicely. Kloves underplayed each emotional scene, but he took the time to linger when he could, and this served to remind why we enjoy going to Hogwarts so much. Director David Yates also did a smashing job, never pushing too hard and letting the cast shine a bit more than they have in the past.
I have a pivotal scene between Hercules (Hugh Jackman) and young Queen Hippolyta (Helena Bonham Carter) that, if done incorrectly, can do irreparable harm to the WONDER WOMAN franchise. But it also serves as the foundation for all that follows, so it cannot be avoided. It's all about striking the right balance. We have to approach the WONDER WOMAN movie with the attitude that there are no unimportant scenes.
My favorite note about Shakespeare is that someone asked the actor who played the GRAVEDIGGER what the play HAMLET was all about. The actor replied, "It's about the Gravedigger!"
In a way, that actor was right. The Gravedigger, you will recall, gives Prince Hamlet the family history, pointing out that every king and queen has their final reckoning under his shovel. The Gravedigger has also managed to outlive them all, and certainly outlives Hamlet, himself. So the point of the play is delivered by the Gravedigger moreso than by Hamlet.
On the other hand, the only reason that the Gravedigger has a job is because of Hamlet! And so it goes.
We all have a little Gravedigger in us, but in order to keep the WONDER WOMAN movie above ground, we need to remember the basic principles: make it beautiful, make it comprehensible and let the music play!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Why Stunt Casting Does Not Work Wonders!

Hi everybody!
It is easy to overstuff an entertainment with big stars who are given nothing of consequence to do. My goal in the WONDER WOMAN movie is to keep each star important; nobody is being cast just to provide a cameo.
When you see Charlize Theron as Antiope in WONDER WOMAN ARRIVES and Debra Winger as Donna Troy in WONDER WOMAN: AT LAST, these stars are there to advance the WONDER WOMAN narrative and to deepen the movie experience for all of us.
Comic book characters are not known for their fully dimensional characterizations, and WONDER WOMAN is no exception. The correct casting can gloss over gross lapses in the plot in a good way!
For example, Alfred Hitchcock found his perfect Ice Queen in Grace Kelly. After casting her opposite Ray Milland in DIAL "M" FOR MURDER, and then James Stewart in REAR WINDOW, he gave Kelly her best showcase in TO CATCH A THIEF. We don't care about how much older Cary Grant is than she, or much care how ridiculous a notion that Grant is ambulatory enough to be a cat burgler. We just want to see Kelly scoop up Grant in the hotel lobby and drive him off in her sportscar on the winding mountain roads at breakneck speed while he sweats bullets in the passenger seat. We want to see Kelly dish out the best picnic basket since Joanne Woodward's in THE LONG, HOT SUMMER, and to better purpose, yet. We want to see Kelly lure Grant with her fake diamond necklace while the sky literally lights up with fireworks. It is the perfect casting of these two actors that make TO CATCH A THIEF such a treat.
Conversely, I don't think that an entertainment can be completely created in a computer. With all due respect to Skywalker Ranch, sometimes a CGI is just a CGI.
The reason why the car chase scene in BULLITT remains the best ever is because of the drivers. Sure, it begins with the audacious obstacle course of the winding streets of San Francisco, but it does not remain in our memory because of the hairpin turns and the precipitous descent down the stairs. We've seen that a thousand times since, with diminishing returns. It is when both cars open up the throttle in the wide open spaces that the chase is truly on. The scene has no dialogue, but we can read these drivers' thoughts as their grips tighten on the steering wheels. After they try to bump each other off of the road, and glance at each other in their respective rearview mirrors? After they lose sight of each other behind an embankment, then realize that it was only for a moment? It then becomes a test of their driving skill, of their racing along at twice the safe speed limit, of their matchless daring and their incredible luck. We see their eyes darting between the road, the other random cars, the road, their odometers, we see them put the lead out and then slam onto the brakes. The physics of the chase makes sense, it has stops and starts, accelerations and hesitations. It all feels possible when it is all impossible! When one car speeds out of control and explodes at a lonely gas station, we realize that we never wanted this car chase to end. Because it was never about the cars, it was always about the bloody chase!
So my WONDER WOMAN movie is not about the hardware or the CGI, it is about people living larger-than-life lives, and for that we need stars who burn brighter than the ordinary actor. Stars who can work with each other and who enhance the others' strengths. Stars who know when to whisper, when to strut and when to let the camera do all the talking. Oscar caliber actors who can bring a 4 color comic book to thrilling life.
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

A Brief History of the Female Action Movie!

Hi everybody!
The aesthetic of the action movie is well-established for men and for extra-terrestrials, not so much so for women. Let us discuss what I'm looking for with the WONDER WOMAN movie for a bit.
The most successful director for the female hero archetype has been Luc Besson. First was LA FEMME NIKITA (starring his then-wife Anne Parillaud), which concerned the recruitment of a violent street criminal who is groomed to become an international assassin. The physicality of Parillaud's performance and the kinetic energy of the movie is irresistable. It inspired the basic cable TV series NIKITA (with Peta Wilson) and was remade in America as the tepid POINT OF NO RETURN, directed by John Badham and starring Bridget Fonda.
Besson then lifted the character of Leon the Cleaner (of crime scenes) for THE PROFESSIONAL, which concerned a young orphan (the debut of Natalie Portman, who has never been better), taken under the wing of a lonely hit man (Jean Reno) and who learns his deadly trade. While not as thrilling as LA FEMME NIKITA (few movies are), THE PROFESSIONAL remains provocative and a touch unsettling.
(For those who have seen PULP FICTION, the character played by Harvey Keitel - Victor the Cleaner - was "borrowed" from these two films!)
In THE FIFTH ELEMENT, gypsy cab driver Bruce Willis picked up fare Milla Jovovich (Besson's then-2nd wife) who turns out to be the savior of the world. With the slinkiest outfit in memory, Jovovich still manages to fire more bullets than Swarzenegger did in THE PREDATOR.
Unfortunately, Besson's directing career has been tabled because of his vehicular manslaughter conviction, but he continues to be an active action-screenwriter in such films as THE TRANSPORTER series with Jason Strathem and the recent TAKEN with Liam Neeson.
The trick with the female hero archetype is that she not be punished for being courageous, curious or adventurous.
For example, in THE GOLDEN COMPASS, the teenage heroine survives dangers that would have normally made her Victim #3 in your average splatter movie.
Besson's triology of films display an uncluttered appreciation of what a woman can do with a license to thrill!
William Moulton Marston's WONDER WOMAN comic was less an exercise in misogyny than in misanthrope, but it is still a quite grim view of the essential human condition. It was basically OF HUMAN BONDAGE with a smiley face. WONDER WOMAN was less into rehabilitation than she was into transformation - turning evil men into good. This goes beyond incarceration or retributions - things that we can actually implement or aspire to.
Modern psychology has eliminated certain ideations that were popular practices in the 1940s, such as phrenology. Sometimes a bump in the head is just a bump in the head.
Even the lie detector that Marston introduced produced results that are inadmissable in court.
However, the DR. JECKLE and MR. HYDE mentality, the Salem Witch trials, even a movie like THE EXORCIST; all speak to the stubborn belief that possession by evil spirits is possible and solvable.
Marston was engaging in magic realism with WONDER WOMAN, applying cutting edge psychology to a children's entertainment, with truly bizarre results.
If WONDER WOMAN's bracelets were removed, she was driven into an insane rage. Why, exactly? Did her Amazonian discipline completely disappear without Aphrodite's restraints? (More likely, the only way that Marston could rattle WONDER WOMAN's cage was to make this Amazonian exception. Luckily, the readers did not respond favorably to this behavior and Marston rarely included it.)
Even if WONDER WOMAN had this buried evil side, how could she ever hope to redeem us mere human beings from our own evil selves?
Aphrodite's philosophy of "refrain from evil", of "restrain our sisters", and "do it all over again, baby", never made much sense to me.
In the last decade, WONDER WOMAN has been portrayed as either a whiny Cassandra or a naive Pollyanna. Her once-sunny view of life has since turned her into a cynical ambassador (THE NAIL), an embittered princess (THE DARK KNIGHT) or a homogenized tough girl (JUSTICE RIDERS).
WONDER WOMAN is bigger, better and more benificent than she has been shown to be.
WONDER WOMAN is not just a goddess among us slumming with the sinners in the good ol' summertime.
Marston assigned her a different spectrum of emotions than the rest of us, with gradations of reactions and orchestrated scenarios completely unique to her. Maybe Marston was right to encircle her in experiences which completely isolated her from her fellow adventurers.
However, even his editor the great Sheldon Mayer was unable to incorporate WONDER WOMAN into the Justice Society, and when Marston passed, Mayer dumped the WONDER WOMAN comic like a hot potato into the legendary Robert Kanigher's young lap.
When Marston died he took the twinkle in WONDER WOMAN's eyes with him.
We have to respect the weirdness that made WONDER WOMAN wonderful to allow her to return to her legendary appeal.
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Wonder Woman in a bubble

Hi everybody!
Like BIRTH OF A NATION, GONE WITH THE WIND and SONG OF THE SOUTH, some "racial truths" quickly curdle in the light of increased democracy.
William Moulton Marston's WONDER WOMAN; which is far-and-away the definitive version of her; suffers from ethnic caricature and geo-political naivte.
Not that WONDER WOMAN herself displayed any base prejudice, which points to another vital contradiction that the WONDER WOMAN comics benefited from.
Like ALICE IN WONDERLAND, all manner of despicable behaviors were crawling around WONDER WOMAN, but WONDER WOMAN herself always remained above the fray.
After Marston passed, the lurid scenarios that WONDER WOMAN strolled through like a walk through the park disappeared.
Remove WONDER WOMAN from the majority of Marston's stories and they make absolutely no sense, even with WONDER WOMAN around, the rationale usually runs a bit thin.
To his credit, Marston did not write cookie cutter stories that any old character could participate in.
However, the hallucenegenic hyper-reality that WONDER WOMAN operated in never incorporated the conventions that other superhero adventurerers were ruled by.
Marston created a philosophy for WONDER WOMAN to live by, a personality for her to process with, and resources for her to overcome any foe.
Her tiara, her earrings, her Visible Plane, her bracelets, her magic lasso: these made her as well outfitted as Batman.
WONDER WOMAN did not need a Utility Belt as she was stronger than Hercules, swifter than Hermes and wiser than Athena.
WONDER WOMAN has the best, most efficient uniform in comics!
As a character, WONDER WOMAN did not contradict herself, but she proved difficult to integrate into her fellow superhero's stories: WONDER WOMAN could get into trouble on her own and get out of trouble on her own just fine.
Sorry to be briefer than usual, but I also wrote an email to a cultural icon about the WONDER WOMAN movie, tonight! Wish me luck!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

What made the 1940s Wonder Woman comic successful?

Hi everybody!
As we discussed earlier, by compromising WONDER WOMAN's natural development as a person (by separating her aging with WONDER TOT, WONDER GIRL and QUEEN HIPPOLYTA, three completely different people), DC Comics avoided the hard publishing choices that would have kept WONDER WOMAN relevant and made her a more dimensional character.
WONDER WOMAN has long served as a once-over-lightly mythologically-based hero, but her creator William Moulton Marston introduced her as a direct descendant of the greek god pantheon first, and as a contemporary woman a distant second. Every common experience for WONDER WOMAN came as an afterthought: Moulton's focus was unfailingly directed toward the WONDER, only ever-reluctantly on the WOMAN.
It is the mythology; lovingly doled-out by Marston during his 5 year tenure on the character; which gave WONDER WOMAN her completely unique appeal. No comics character was more wedded to a mythology; a culture other than America; than was WONDER WOMAN. To see that constant cultural tension on display in story after story throughout the darkest days of WWII gave WONDER WOMAN an unmatched escapist appeal.
Marston understood that having a strong woman extol the virtues of willing submission to a loving authority was a singular opportunity. Marston did not care that it was a comic book, and it turned out that the WONDER WOMAN comic book ended up being Marston's primary source of income.
As good as being in the WONDER WOMAN business was, Marston never hesitated to push his bondage themes to the limits in every story.
A WONDER WOMAN story would often depict unwilling bondage, playful bondage on Paradise Island, and nefarious bondage by the villain of the piece in the space of the same 8 pages.
Marston knew that he was instructing young boys that it was okay to be bigger than their britches, that even the most wonderful woman in the world wanted nothing more than to be under the control of a loving spouse.
Of course, the unasked question of that gender equation is: why would a loving authority put an obedient spouse in chains?
Gloria Steinem once said that "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", yet she was thrilled by WONDER WOMAN's adventures as a child. I believe that seeing a woman fully powered-up back in the day was so unusual as to be thrilling despite the driving under-theme, the "racial truth" that Marston was marinating-in that women enjoyed being bound up.
Surely when Steinem put WONDER WOMAN on the cover of the first issue of MS. magazine the furthest thing from her mind was how delightful it was to be chained up like Houdini.
Somehow, there are as many images of 1940s-era WONDER WOMAN being tied up as there are images of 1950s-era fetish queen Bettie Page in the same dire straits. However, WONDER WOMAN was never bound recreationally (except on Paradise Island, which is an entirely different bottle of weird), she was always bound in the course of her adventures and she unfailingly escaped her chains.
It must be this quality that spoke to Steinem; not the chains, but the breaking of the chains. Not the humiliation of the Amazon people by the forces of Hercules, but the salvation of the Amazons by the grace of Aphrodite. Not the rape of Hippolyta, but the image of WONDER WOMAN in her Visible Plane.
It is this combination of elaborate culture, independent behavior and winning personality that made WONDER WOMAN an instant hit in 1941, but it is also the insistent subversive themes that made the WONDER WOMAN comic so wildly successful during the most explosive sales which comic books have ever enjoyed from 1941-1947.
When Moulton passed away, this intoxicating mix of impulses left the WONDER WOMAN comics, never to return. To be fair, no other comic book has ever captured these qualities.
WONDER WOMAN the movie has to be edgy, but it needs different edges to succeed as an entertainment in this less-innocent age. What Marston brought to the party does not translate to these modern times, but we need to be as adventurous in our thinking as Marston was in his to give WONDER WOMAN her due.
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

Why A Wonder Woman Movie will work now!

Hi everybody!
Today we'll be talking about (1) the objectifying of bad boy behavior, then (2) the testosterone driven action movies of the 80's and last (3) the few and the proud female action flicks that have struck paydirt!
This will demonstrate how there has never been a better time to deliver the WONDER WOMAN movie, woo woo!
WANNABE PIMPS OF THE 80's (1)
The rise of Madonna as the sex toy of the 80s explains why so many nerds were rolling like pimps on the big screen. First there was (1A) NIGHT SHIFT, which found Michael Keaton running a prostitution ring out of the city morgue.
Next, there was (1B) RISKY BUSINESS, which found Tom Cruise having a one night hooker hootenanny while his parents were away.
Lastly, there was (1C) FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (the apex of the recently departed writer/director John Hughes' movies), which found Matthew Broderick skipping class with the delightful Mia Sara in her skivvies in a jacuzzi. (If that's not Big Pimpin', then nothin' is!)
WHAT MAKES A TRILOGY INEVITABLE?
THE CRACK OF THE WHIP, THE SHOCK OF THE SHADES, THE AGONY OF THE FEET (2)
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (2A) had an astonishing opening scene with barbed spikes coming out of the cold stone walls, huge boulders rolling down narrow corridors, poisoned arrows flying in a flurry, much too many spiders, gaping chasms forded by a grizzled adventurer using his whip as a swing, and ancient treasures snatched away by base treachery. It was an uncanny blend of thrills and character development, guaranteeing that Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones would be back on the big screen.
THE MATRIX (2B) showed how a faceless cubicle drone was transformed into a messianic warrior who could dodge a hail of bullets in a black dusker while wearing the coolest sunglasses ever. With pinpoint special effects turning a bland office building into a modern Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Keanu Reeves as Neo became an iconic cyberpunk hero who deserved additional screen time.
DIE HARD (2C) promised 50 floors of excitement and delivered it more efficiently than the TOWERING INFERNO. With a bank thief (career-best performance by Alan Rickman) pretending to be a terrorist, the movie enjoyed a terrific 2nd act twist. But the enduring legacy is the creation of a hard luck urban hero as the weeble who wobbles but who won't fall down. The underrated Bruce Willis as John McClane basically gave a performance into a walkie-talkie, and when he ran barefoot across broken glass worldwide audiences knew that they had found the unlikeliest Alpha Male of the 80's. Yippee kay yay, indeed!
ALIENS: WHAT'S SPACE GOT TO DO WITH IT? (3)
The most successful action heroine franchise began as the space horror flick ALIEN (3A) - where no one could hear you scream. Director/writer James Cameron; fresh off of TERMINATOR; decided to give Ripley a brand new crew and a whole hive of ALIENS - this time it's war. Ripley became a reluctant leader against a vicious enemy. With big guns and a New Jersey attitude, Sigourney Weaver swaggered her lithe frame around that space ship like a samurai warrior. It was like watching Mary Poppins go ghetto and pick up an AK47, and it worked like gangbusters (or GHOSTBUSTERS: who do you call?). Weaver received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her efforts and spawned 2 more sequels.
Less successful (but still fun) was LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (3B) with a plot that even a gamer would be hard-pressed to understand. Croft is a freelance archeologist without a strong personal motivation, so all of her elaborate exertions became less compelling the longer the movie soldiers on. Supporting Oscar winner Angelina Jolie was better utilized in the notorious MR. AND MRS. SMITH and the provocative WANTED, but her two TOMB RAIDERS remain the last big budget attempt at a female driven action franchise.
THE BOTTOM LINE
We no longer need to send women into deep space or down an archeological dig for them to act heroically. Women can save the contemporary, modern world just like a man. However, we need to start with the Cadillac, the Cartier, the pink champagne of heroines to get on the good foot.
Without WONDER WOMAN, every superheroine would be either a girlfriend or an also-ran. WONDER WOMAN stands alone in an ocean of wannabes. WONDER WOMAN will not be ignored, overlooked or avoided. It is our patriotic duty to make a WONDER WOMAN movie!
Tomorrow, more good stuff! Be good!
Brad