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Friday, January 23, 2009

Occasional Links: Obama, Phantom Zone Sirens, Dumpy Sabretooth, more


Dan Goldman's Obama webcomic for Tor.com, "Yes We Will," re-imagines our new president via a Philip K. Dick fever-dream. To summarize, It's 2012 and Barack Obama is ready to usher in a new age for mankind...


Phantom Zone Supergirl...


...and Phantom Zone Madonna



Beanie Babies makers Ty insist that any similarities between their "Marvelous Malia" and "Sweet Sasha" dolls and any First Family is totally coincidental:

"The Oak Brook-based company chose the dolls' names because "they are beautiful names," not because of any resemblance to President Obama's daughters, said spokeswoman Tania Lundeen."
Frankly, I expected more frankness and candor from the creators of Oats the Horse and Swirly the Snail.



Is it really fair to nominate spoof movies like "Meet The Spartans" and "Disaster Movie" for Razzie awards? These movies freely admit they are dumbass. Were there not better movies to nominate? It's like making fun of farts for smelling bad.


Dan at the Mind Leak blog has envisioned his own version of the cover to Final Crisis #7...

...and Rich at Comic-by-Comic just "Can't Believe It's Not The Black Lanterns"


And finally, Liev Schreiber talks to Details about the upcoming movie "Wolverine":


"I started to read blogs in the comic world with things like 'That's the dumpiest, most out-of-shape Sabretooth I've ever seen in my life!'"

Being dissed on a blog? Who would have thought it!

11 comments:

  1. I think the problem with films like 'Disaster Movie' and 'Meet the Spartans' is that they're no longer even trying to be satire. They don't parody the genre. They don't parody the movies they reference, because their scenes referencing those movies are written and filmed before the movies themselves have even been released, on the sole basis of the trailer. There's parody, there's satire, there's dumbass parody and satire, and then there's two hours of mindless gags dredged from the most adolescent forums on the Internet. When 'comedy' sucks that bad, it absolutely deserves to be mocked.

    In other news, the image of Obama from the last panel of that comic is going to haunt my dreams for weeks. Thanks, Val. Now I have to go find my security blanket.

    And as a general question to the floor, has the 'Phantom Zone Supergirl' ever appeared in anything, or is this doll just another excuse to stamp the S-shield on a Barbie doll in a Bill Theiss-inspired getup?

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  2. The producers of "Airplane" took an old movie they saw on late night TV, bought the rights, and made one of the funniest movies of all time. Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote a great satire of Frankenstein. Tropic Thunder is so good that an actor got an Oscar nomination, and comedies are even more ostracized than blockbusters! Meet the Spartans? Is there one clip worthy of YouTube?
    The Razzies are voted by members. Wanna vote? Pony up the cash. It's that easy.
    Poor Eva Mendes... nominated this year, and probably next for The Spirit. No... wait Spirit was THIS year. wow. They were LUCKY....

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  3. What I found funny about the Razzie noms was that they were both nominated as if they were the same movie.

    Parody films used to have allusions to the films they parodied...and there was a specific film or genre that they were parodying. The parody films that have come up in the past ten years or so have been almost shot-for-shot remakes of particular scenes from specific films with some sort of gross-out or pot gag thrown in. And (as SNL tags them with) these movies wind up parodying subjects that are way outside of their targets.

    Moreover, I just don't think they've been funny. And, honestly, that's the one sin a comedy can't make.

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  4. Let me add my name to the list saying that Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie definitely should earn Razzie nominations. Yes, these movies readily admit they are "dumbass," but that doesn't excuse them for not being any good.

    These films are rote, humorless collections of idiotic bits trying (and failing) to mock pop culture shoehorned into an awful plot. They don't even have the right to call themselves parodies, because they fail at the basic premise of being a parody.

    These films, collectively, are some of the worse examples of film to hit in the last decade. They are bad, bad, bad, bad. So, yes, they deserve to be nominated for the worst movie of the year.

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  5. I can't see Wolverine cast photos without getting Kate & Leopold flashes. Just can't. I'm hoping he makes a better Sabretooth than he looks.

    Parody films deserve razzies 'cause they just ain't funny. Mel Brooks. Classic Zuckers. THOSE were parody movies. They took a centralized plot, expanded it to include an entire genre, and it worked. As someone here said now all they do is take scenes verbatum from random movies, slap it all together, and loosely connect it all with some kind of stoner humor.

    That's not comedy. That's giving a pothead a few million and saying "Here! Go nuts!"

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  6. Madonna = Emma Frost?

    Weird!

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  7. Am I the only one looking at Kevin Sorbo's body in that shot and thinking "NOM NOM NOM"?

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  8. Aside from the whole 'being complete crap and not actually funny' thing... I thought Kevin Sorbo was pretty good in it.

    I think some of the bits of some of the Scary Movie franchise are pretty funny. Some of this is due to the occasional good casting that seems to happen. None of them are start to finish good, in my opinion.

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  9. It's like making fun of farts for smelling bad.

    Seriously, Farts. What's up with that?

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  10. Anonymous2:29 PM

    Wait, guys, are the Razzies not for HORRIBLE MOVIES?

    I don't see the problem here.

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  11. I actually liked Met the Spartans, not necessarily as parody, but many of the gags were worth a luagh or two. Collectively I enjoyed it.

    Now Frank Miller's Crapfest a.k.a. The Spirit? Truly Razzie deserving just for how poorly it did in theatres alone.

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