But is it ugly enough?: It looks like Warner Bros. has just released a new poster for their upcoming Jonah Hex movie. Curiously, the ugly half of Hex’s face is completely obscured in shadow. Perhaps they’re trying to keep it a surprise at this point, but it’s an odd strategy, as that’s kind of his whole visual signature. Wouldn’t it be a little like a Batman movie poster that avoided showing his ears, bat-symbol or scalloped cape hem? New York Magazine posts a little commentary here. I remain most concerned that they may not have made Hex ugly enough; I was originally hoping for something closer to Two-Face in Dark Knight, but none of the stills I’ve seen so far have been that over the top. I guess we’ll see…in less than two months, if the poster is to be believed.
“In sum, Blackest Night is Marvel Zombies by way of Julie Schwartz, but in earnest-redemptive rather than darkly humorous mode”: I enjoyed this big, long piece by Charles Hatfield exploring DC’s Blackest Night story/event from the perspective of a lapsed DCU continuity comics reader checking in to see what’s been going on and what the latest big story was all about. That’s a perspective I always enjoy hearing from.
“I asked Jimmy if he’d gotten tax-exempt status for his Superman fan club. He called me a bitch and said I was just jealous of Clark”: I knew that having a Twitter account was pretty much mandatory for all journalists these days, but I guess I never realized that Lois Lane had one.
Did you ever stop and think about how deeply weird Dan DiDio’s job is?: I mean, really think about it?
Did Diary of a Wimpy Kid kick Kick-Ass’ ass?: Baltimore Sun film critic Mike Sragow thinks so, and explains why in this piece (It was made for half the price of Kick-Ass, and has made more money than Kick-Ass with far less promotion). Props to Sragow for not calling Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the source material for the movie, a graphic novel, but for calling it a “novel with cartoons,” which is closer to what it actually is.
“Target Audience: Fans of AWESOME!”: Hey, I like awesome! Oni Press has another round of previews up on their site, including info about the sixth and final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series. There aren’t any full pages from the book, just a smattering of single panels, but still.
“Is Tony Stark the Smoothest Superhero of All Time?”: So asks Nick Nadel at filmcritic.com, and then proceeds to rate Robert Downey Jr.’s Stark against other comics smoothies. The game looks a little rigged, as calling Timothy Dalton’s Basil St. John from the movie Brenda Starr a “superhero” seems to be pushing it. Side bar: Nadel uses Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne from The Dark Knight as the Bruce Wayne in the competition, which got me thinking. Whose movie Wayne was smoothest? I thought Michael Keaton’s was a lot more charming than Bale’s, personally, and George Clooney was awful smooth in his Batman movie…
“Coulda Beens”: Ben Morse at The Cool Kids Table runs down a list of some super-characters from the ‘90s that had a great deal of potential, but never quite caught on like they could have/should have. Included on the list are DC’s The Ray, whom you would think would have had a pretty big role in Blackest Night since, like Dr. Light II, his powers would have made him a Black Lantern bug-zapper (instead, like Dr. Light, he only appeared in a tangential tie-in), and X-Men villain Stryfe-with-a-Y. I’ve always liked the look of Stryfe’s helmet, even though I’ve never read a ingle comic he was in, as it makes him look a little like a Wolverine made out of knives.
Have you ever wondered what Hal Jordan having sex with a power battery would look like?: Well then, you should enjoy David Finch’s cover for Brightest Day #1. Check out Hawkman recoiling in horror at Jordan’s sexing a lantern in front of his Justice League colleagues.
April 28th, 2010 at 9:26 am
That Jonah Hex poster treatment is just odd – shiny logo, spacey blues … all very SF. Maybe they’ve confused the cowboy book with the shortlived ‘Jonah in the future’ Hex book.
April 28th, 2010 at 9:42 am
They felt the actor was important enough to have his name above the title, no wonder they put the deformed part in shadow.
I bet he spends part of the movie (before the incident, flashbacks, whatever) undisfigured.
April 28th, 2010 at 10:05 am
As much as I like Keaton as Bruce Wayne, he wasn’t smooth. That was part of why I liked him. He was weird, and a little disconnected, Bruce Wayne filtered through Tim Burton’s tendency to make all his leads a bit off. Keaton’s Bruce seemed like he was trying very hard to be Bruce Wayne and falling short. And his courtship of Vicki Vale was a far cry from things like Robert Downey Jr’s seduction of a reporter who thought Tony Stark was scum before and after their night together.
April 28th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I saw a 10-second teaser of the trailer yesterday at Topless Robot, and in that, the disfigurement wasn’t spotlighted, but it was seen.
On one hand, I think someone at WB’s PR department is hoping to downplay the scar until late in the promotion cycle in hopes to pique audience interest at the last minute. But on the other hand that logo seems wildly inappropriate for the kind of movie we think it’s going to be, and that poster does have more of a Nolan-Batman or X-Men feel to it.
I guess we’ll see soon enough. The full trailer is supposed to drop with Nightmare on Elm Street this Friday, so we should see a “leaked” full trailer online within the next day or so.
April 28th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Keaton “smooth” as Bruce Wayne? Puh-leeze… He was slumming, sleepwalking even through those movies. Never once did Keaton make me believe he was Bruce Wayne.
Bale, OTOH, just NAILED the part from the get-go. He looks more the part, has the build for the part, and balanced the act of being an aloof, yet charming, playboy with the reality that Wayne is always focused and on top of everything going on around him.
I can believe Bale’s Bruce Wayne buying a hotel and then taking two harlots for a swim in the decorative pool, landing a helicopter at the penthouse and making a grand entrance with still more harlots or taking the women of the Russian ballet on a boat cruise. I can’t see Keaton doing any of that.
April 29th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
The Jonah Hex movie looks horrible, especially for a Palmiotti&Gray series fan.