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Comic and Rant for Thursday, March 21, 2002
More Movietunes in a Moment |
First off, my apologies to Mike Gallagher. The guy in panel four is supposed to be Mike, but it ended up looking like ... uh ... well, I guess it looks vaguely like him if you know that it’s supposed to look like him. Sorry, Mike! The woman started out as an attempt to draw Mike’s wife, Phaedra, but ... anyway, since she’s easy to draw, she’ll appear again. She’s “Generica,” the generic female character! Y’know, the more I think about The Time Machine the less I like it. I still don’t regret watching it, but I’m no longer sure I’d want to see it again, regardless of what I said in Tuesday’s rant. And it’s not the negative reviews, either. I suppose it’s possible that, like many other movies, I went in imagining it would suck and thus it seemed good by comparison because “I can imagine quite a bit!” Then again, that happens with a lot of movies I go to, even when I go in with no preconceptions. I think that in recent years Hollywood has established a consistent level of mediocrity - there aren’t many good movies, but neither are there many bad movies. There are mostly just mediocre movies. I enjoy watching them, I like watching them, I don’t regret the two hours of my life that I’ll never get back, but never want to watch again. Little Nicky, Legally Blonde and Josie and the Pussycats come to mind. I think The Time Machine also falls into that category. While we’re on the subject of movies, there’s something else that bothers me about far too many movies. Aside from the mediocrity and the lack of research that puts skunks and raccoons in the wilds of England and gives us pump-firing breech-loading shotguns whose projectiles magically multiply and can be deflected by a guy with a pipe, there’s also the plague of product placement. Now I realize this may seem hypocritical coming from a webpage with a banner ad on top, but think about it:
On the other hand, I don’t mind the presence of brand name products in films and TV shows. It’s certainly better than the pre-Seinfeld days (Seinfeld pioneered, or at least popularized, the idea of TV shows using actual brand names to add realism, though I daresay that many shows which followed just did it for the kickbacks), where The Cosby Show did a bit where Cliff complained to Claire that he had a nearly full cup of “Five Up” before he fell asleep during a boring foreign film she forced him to see, but it was mysteriously empty when he awoke. Worse was the episode focusing around Theo studying for a test on Macbeth by using “Cleeland Notes” (at least that’s what it sounded like) instead of reading the play. I also remember an “Afterschool Special” (it may not technically have been an official “Afterschool Special,” as that is a trademark of ABC) based on the true story of the girl who sued her prom date for standing her up. She inspires her younger brother to sue the reapir shop that either lost or further damaged (it was a while ago that I saw this) his “Walk & Play.” Speaking of fact-based “Afterschool Specials,” I remember one about a kid who got in trouble with his school for publishing an underground newspaper and distributing it on school property. If the special is to be believed, the big point of contention was the presence of the word “crap.” I’ve gotta wonder, was that really the word, or was it something worse? I realize that they couldn’t say anything more explicit on TV, but they could at least have alluded to it (e.g. “The S-word,” “The F-word”). I realize that I’m going off on a tangent here, so I’ll try to bring it back by saying that this is another case of the entertainment media moving things further from reality. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, there are times when the presence of real-life brand names makes films (and TV shows) more realistic. In Cast Away, the fact that Tom Hanks works for FedEx immediately lends the film an air of realism, and we all understand immediately where the volleyball’s name came from. In Little Nicky Nicky’s love for Popeye’s chicken is a running gag, and IMHO a pretty good one. Plus the gag where he turns a Coke into a Pepsi wouldn’t have worked with Five-Up and, say, “Zippy Cola.” I was initially annoyed by the fact that all the students in Legally Blonde had the same type of computer (a mistake far too many movies make) until I saw that it was the payoff for a gag - Reese Witherspoon’s titular character realizes she also needs a laptop, and buys an iBook, and her bright orange “Toilet Seat” stands out in stark contrast to the dull identical black rectangles. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. BTW, I’m not necessarily recommending the movies in the examples, just siting good examples of using real-life products. Okay, I guess I should mention a few things directly related to the strip. I am now using a machine font (LetterOMatic, available free from Blambot), and there are more cameos. Absolute Ultraman informs me that Image Entertainment will be releasing the Ultraman Tiga & Dyna and Tiga/Dyna/Gaia movies, subtitled and on DVD (and VHS) in May. I have some comments there, but I’ll save ’em for Saturday as this rant is over fourteen hours late as it is. |
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