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Wolfgang Peterson is releasing a Director's Cut edition of Troy - I'm actually verging on excited about this: kind of-sort of bad sword&sandal epics are better than no sword and sandal epics at all.
I'm less excited about the news that they're making a movie from Frank Miller's Ronin, which is my least favourite (save the last act of The Dark Knight Strikes Again - WTF Frank?!). Ronin is FM's homage to the classic manga Lone Wolf and Cub but it never gelled for me. I have the trade somewhere in Casa di Cranky - I'll probably pull it out sometime this week for a reread along with The Dark Knight Returns - "I know 62 ways to disarm a man from this position..." heh.
Also in comics, Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone answered 55 questions from fans at Newsarama.com. Not too much interesting for me personally over there - some confirmation that breaking up Nightwing and Oracle was a decision mandated by Dan Didio (not surprising, since he wanted to off Nightwing at the climax of 'Infinite Crapfest') and a surprising plug IMO for Marv Wolfman's run on Nightwing. I checked out the first couple of Wolfman's issues and then checked out again - the problem with what Jones tried to do with Nightwing (aka Robin I/Dick Grayson) is that watching a comic book character drift through a midlife crisis (or a mid-20s crisis) just isn't that interesting. With comics, as McLuhan said, the medium is the message - to be successful a comic book writer needs to create a narrative that works with a serial format. As a result, comic book stories - particularly mainstream comic book superhero narratives - are heavily plot-driven. And spiritual malaise in not a particularly strong dramatic device nor does it jibe with the established history of the character as Batman's principle protege, a driven, methodical, focused crimefighter - instead, DC has been shifting that emphasis onto Tim Drake (Robin III), leaving Nightwing out in limbo visa vi the Batman 'family' of characters. Jones tried to do a bit of an 'on the road'-type hero-drifter story similar to his run on Hulk, which failed like anything, particularly on heels of the 40-issue exercise in character-assassination that was Devin Grayson's run on the book. So now Wolfman has the job of rehabilitating the solo title for one of DC's most popular characters without a lot of support from TPTB in DC editorial who don't get the affection for this particular former Robin. So far, Nightwing's tracking down a Luther Corp-related homicide and fighting it out with some no-name 'masks' in NYC - I'm not getting a real strong feeling about Wolfman's run yet. Not enough to put Nightwing back on my 'buy pile' anyway. Simone's a great writer but she's always been very careful to support the writers on her 'sibling' books (particularly Grayson, who was regularly savaged on the DC MSBs over her Nightwing run, and I'm not sure I trust her recommendation at face value.
I haven't seen either Battlestar Galactica or Rome yet (and let's add my addiction to TV not currently conveniently available in Canada to reasons why I think the legislation currently before the American House of Representatives to record all ISP traffic sucks ass) but I hope to tonight. Also, following blog reports this weeked, Michael Auiselllo is reporting (along with with the LA Times) that BSG's fourth season is a done deal (WARNING - spoilers in the link). The renewal is apparently for 13 episodes, which makes me happy because I think Ron Moore gets into trouble when he tries to expand the arc of each season out to 20 episodes. Having just rewatched season one, I'm can't honestly say that there's an episode that could easily be skipped over - possibly "Litmus" and "Flesh and Bone" could have been merged into a single ep - whereas in season two, just off the top of my head, "Black Market", "Sacrifice" and "The Captain's Hand" are all episodes that were so badly reviewed online that I never bothered to watch'em. At least one episode that I did watch - "Scar" - was a complete and utter OOC waste of time. And this season, as much as I enjoyed "Unfinished Business", the storyline did not requie and entire episode to itself whereas "Hero" should have been left on the drawing board. 13 episodes is a nice tight number that ought to give us maximum bang for our buck. Now, about Starbuck... .
I'm less excited about the news that they're making a movie from Frank Miller's Ronin, which is my least favourite (save the last act of The Dark Knight Strikes Again - WTF Frank?!). Ronin is FM's homage to the classic manga Lone Wolf and Cub but it never gelled for me. I have the trade somewhere in Casa di Cranky - I'll probably pull it out sometime this week for a reread along with The Dark Knight Returns - "I know 62 ways to disarm a man from this position..." heh.
Also in comics, Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone answered 55 questions from fans at Newsarama.com. Not too much interesting for me personally over there - some confirmation that breaking up Nightwing and Oracle was a decision mandated by Dan Didio (not surprising, since he wanted to off Nightwing at the climax of 'Infinite Crapfest') and a surprising plug IMO for Marv Wolfman's run on Nightwing. I checked out the first couple of Wolfman's issues and then checked out again - the problem with what Jones tried to do with Nightwing (aka Robin I/Dick Grayson) is that watching a comic book character drift through a midlife crisis (or a mid-20s crisis) just isn't that interesting. With comics, as McLuhan said, the medium is the message - to be successful a comic book writer needs to create a narrative that works with a serial format. As a result, comic book stories - particularly mainstream comic book superhero narratives - are heavily plot-driven. And spiritual malaise in not a particularly strong dramatic device nor does it jibe with the established history of the character as Batman's principle protege, a driven, methodical, focused crimefighter - instead, DC has been shifting that emphasis onto Tim Drake (Robin III), leaving Nightwing out in limbo visa vi the Batman 'family' of characters. Jones tried to do a bit of an 'on the road'-type hero-drifter story similar to his run on Hulk, which failed like anything, particularly on heels of the 40-issue exercise in character-assassination that was Devin Grayson's run on the book. So now Wolfman has the job of rehabilitating the solo title for one of DC's most popular characters without a lot of support from TPTB in DC editorial who don't get the affection for this particular former Robin. So far, Nightwing's tracking down a Luther Corp-related homicide and fighting it out with some no-name 'masks' in NYC - I'm not getting a real strong feeling about Wolfman's run yet. Not enough to put Nightwing back on my 'buy pile' anyway. Simone's a great writer but she's always been very careful to support the writers on her 'sibling' books (particularly Grayson, who was regularly savaged on the DC MSBs over her Nightwing run, and I'm not sure I trust her recommendation at face value.
I haven't seen either Battlestar Galactica or Rome yet (and let's add my addiction to TV not currently conveniently available in Canada to reasons why I think the legislation currently before the American House of Representatives to record all ISP traffic sucks ass) but I hope to tonight. Also, following blog reports this weeked, Michael Auiselllo is reporting (along with with the LA Times) that BSG's fourth season is a done deal (WARNING - spoilers in the link). The renewal is apparently for 13 episodes, which makes me happy because I think Ron Moore gets into trouble when he tries to expand the arc of each season out to 20 episodes. Having just rewatched season one, I'm can't honestly say that there's an episode that could easily be skipped over - possibly "Litmus" and "Flesh and Bone" could have been merged into a single ep - whereas in season two, just off the top of my head, "Black Market", "Sacrifice" and "The Captain's Hand" are all episodes that were so badly reviewed online that I never bothered to watch'em. At least one episode that I did watch - "Scar" - was a complete and utter OOC waste of time. And this season, as much as I enjoyed "Unfinished Business", the storyline did not requie and entire episode to itself whereas "Hero" should have been left on the drawing board. 13 episodes is a nice tight number that ought to give us maximum bang for our buck. Now, about Starbuck... .