Good morning, Overthinkers! Man, has this month been flying by! And how about that weather, am I right? Say, did you hear about Debbie in Marketing?
In movie news: Inception is tops in both the U.S. and British box office, fulfilling the old adage about how much summer audiences love introspective studies of consciousness metaphors. It may face some competition this week from Salt, an Angelina Jolie action-thriller about a woman accused of spying for the Russians. Is it too late to make a joke about those Russian “spies” (and I use the term loosely) whom the U.S. just deported? That moment’s passed? Damn.
You're under arrest for Beyond Borders, Taking Lives and Life Or Something Like It.
Our West Coast fans are no doubt living it up at the San Diego Comic-Con. Attendees can get some glimpses of the upcoming Green Lantern movie, TRON: Legacy, some Deathly Hallows props and America’s whitest people wearing Star Wars costumes.
Some of the worst New Moon costumes I've ever seen.
And finally, this weekend marks the return of Mad Men, debuting its fourth season on AMC. Season 3 ended with some tumultuous changes in the lives of the Drapers and the rest of the Sterling Cooper family. Will characters emote fiercely in tan-colored rooms this season? Or will they repress their emotions as an allegory for social upheaval? Tune in Sunday and find out!
SPOILER ALERT: These two go tomcatting.
Would Betty Draper dress up as Angelina Jolie if she attended this year’s Comic-Con? Or is there something we missed? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … open thread.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel and Mark Lee, with special guest podcaster Lindsay Eanet. Topics include Comic-Con, fandom, vampires, and dudes who date fictional characters.
To join the debate on real vs. pretend people, first visit the New York Times article “Love in 2D.”
Tell us what you think! Email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend!
Download Episode 56 (MP3)
[This continues our coverage of New York Comic-Con 2009]
While Miley Cyrus’ Asian Eyes were spreading controversy throughout the interwebs, a group of Asian-American comic book authors and illustrators were at New York Comic-Con promoting their upcoming anthology of Asian American superhero stories, Secret Identies. OTI’s writer of the Asian persuasion was there, of course. Not surprisingly, the portrayal of Asian-Americans in pop culture is an issue near and dear to my heart, so I was intrigued to see how their work deals with the oh-so-sensitive subject of race and ethnicity.
[This continues our coverage of New York Comic-Con 2009]
No introductory text can do justice to the elaborate costumes of Comic-Con convention goers, so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.
If there’s no caption, it means I couldn’t identify the character. Apparently, I’m only a level 4 geek, so help me out in the comments.
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HULK HUGE!!!
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HULK SMASH!!
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Princess Leia doing the hula hoop
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Scarecrow
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Warhammer
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Warhammer guy
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Boba Fett. Or is it Jango?
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Pac-Man
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Pac-Man was a crowd favorite
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INVISIBLE FLUTE
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Toad
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HULK SMASH!!!
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Jedi
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Captain America
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Batwoman and Supergirl
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I don’t know what this was, but I liked it alot.
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Catwoman and Joker
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Supergirl
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Yet another Joker
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This Joker stood out from the rest with his hand grenade in the coat pocket
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The Riddler
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Harley Quinn
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Batman Beyond. Beyond what, not sure
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Human PEZ dispenser
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Bat…ah, can’t remember
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Yet another Joker
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Dr. Horrible
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Warhammer. Wow.
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Original costumes, not modeled after specific characters. Actually refreshing.
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Sabertooth, challenging the MC, Wolverine
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Thor. Check out those contacts!
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One of many Jokers
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Spider-something?
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Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and the Joker
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Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
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Annie Wilkes from Misery
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Annie Wilkes FTW!!!
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Nick Fury
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Mario, Luigi, Wario
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Bat-girl/woman/something
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Hagar the Horrible
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Red Sonja
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Han Solo in Carbonite
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Futurama
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Princess Mushroom
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Lil’ Batman!!!!
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Sexy Batman and Sexy Robin
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Green Lantern
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Rorschach, of which there were surprisingly few
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Batman
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My personal favorite, Han Solo frozen in carbonite
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[Warning: Spoilers for the fourth Futurama movie.]
I was lucky enough to join Mr. Wrather at the sneak preview screening of Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder at this year’s NYC Comiccon. I found the plot somewhat hard to follow (although, possibly, that was part of the point), and the first third, which involves Bender dating the Robot Mafia Don’s girl, was completely irrelevant to the rest of the film. Each individual bit, however, was pretty funny–much funnier than the first two Futurama movies, in my opinion. Overall, though, I still found it inferior to any old Futurama episode running on Comedy Central.
But OTI isn’t a reviewing site; it’s an Overthinking site. And Overthink I shall. But I’ll do it below the fold so you can avoid tainting your brain with the spoilers I must reveal. If you’ve seen the movie or don’t mind being spoiled, read on, Macduff.
Matthew Wrather hosts a panel including Mark Lee, Peter Fenzel, and Ryan Sheely (with special guest John Levin) to overthink the moderate suck-fest that is the Grammys and our recent visit to New York Comic-Con.
Comments? Rants? Raves? Email podcast at overthinkingit dot com or call 20-EAT-LOG-01 (that’s (203) 285-6401).
Download Episode 32 (MP3)
[This continues our coverage of NY Comic-Con 2009]
The middle child of Warner Brothers’ Comic-Con screening family was some footage for the upcoming remake of Friday the 13th. Honestly, I haven’t even seen the original, and I had next to zero interest in this film. After watching the preview footage, if it were possible to have a negative amount of interest in it, I certainly do. Wrather and I were subject to about 6 minutes of incredibly graphic violence, including a bear trap around the leg (with a lot of raw flesh), a woman burning inside a sleeping bag, machetes through the leg, machetes through the head, and other things that I missed because I literally couldn’t watch.
Now, just to be clear, I do watch horror movies every once in a while, but usually the campy variety (Shaun of the Dead, Army of Darkness, etc.) I have not seen any of the Saw movies, and I have absolutely no intention to. Call me squeamish, but this level of violence and gore has no appeal to me, and I struggle to see how it appeals to others. To Each His/Her Own, I guess, but this stuff was just brutal by any definition of the word.
There was one notable moment in the Q&A: someone basically asked why we need yet another movie where Jason kills a bunch of teenagers in the woods. In other words, he thought this was a stupid remake that no one needed. The filmmakers’ response was essentially: no one is saying we “need” this; we’re doing it because we want to. Some portion of the audience loudly cheered this response, but I have the feeling that the majority of the audience was of the former opinion.
Other writers/readers: are you excited about this, or other ultra-violent horror movies coming up? I won’t judge you. I just won’t go with you to see it.
[This continues our coverage of NY Comic-Con 2009]
I have to admit: the thing I was most looking forward to at Comic-Con was Warner Brothers’ Terminator Salvation sneak-peak screening. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty big Terminator fans here at Overthinking It, and I for one have been cautiously optimistic about this film’s chances of restoring the Terminator franchise to some semblance of dignity after the disappointing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. (The recent TV series has accomplished some of that already, but that progress would be quickly erased by a stinker feature film.)
(Mostly) spoiler-free first impressions after the jump.
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