Isegoria

From Zero to Hero? notes a trend in superheroe-movie casting:

While Mr. Bale seems like a long shot, he is not the only little-known actor to have superpowers and a cape bestowed upon him. Later this summer, News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox will release ‘Fantastic Four,’ whose cast, aside from up-and-coming actress Jessica Alba, is virtually unknown to moviegoers. Next year, Warner Bros. will try to revive the ‘Superman’ franchise for the first time in two decades. In the lead role will be Brandon Routh, a former cast member of the soap opera ‘One Life to Live’ with no film experience on his résumé.

At the heart of these selections is this notion: cast little-known actors to play superheroes in hopes that the characters’ transformation from zero to hero will seem more credible.

Ralph Bakshi made the disastrous animated version of Lord of the Rings years and years ago. I sense some bitterness and defensiveness in this interview (with FPS Magazine):

I’m definitely a fan of your version of Lord of the Rings, as well as the Peter Jackson one.

[My version] had more character, more soul, more heart. Less sneaker selling.

We thought it was pretty obvious at several points in the Peter Jackson version that they did take a couple of riffs from you.

Uh huh. They took everything from me. The ring wraiths were taken from me. There was a lot! I mean, I designed the ring wraiths.

Now, I know Peter Jackson said he also saw your films, and obviously it was some degree of an influence. I mean, how do you take that?

Oh, some degree of an influence! Holy shit! Some degree of an influence! What are you talking about?

Hey, I can be diplomatic either way, see? [laughs]

Let me ask you a question. You’re a bright lad in Montreal, right? Some degree of an influence. Look. I’m sitting here with a book called Lord of the Rings, and no film to look at. Every fucking thing you’re looking at in Rings I—the design, Gimli, Aragon, the dwarfs, the elves, all that stuff—I came up with, basically because there was nothing to look at. Peter Jackson looked at it and said, I like that, I don’t like that, I can improve on that. Who are you kidding? Look at his Lothlorien. Look at my backgrounds of Lothlorien. Take a look! He had much more to see than I did, and if you don’t think he lifted it over and over again, you’re wrong. I mean, how did he design a knife in Lord of the Rings? How did he design a sword? How did he design the dwarf with his axe? How did he design the fur around him? Why did Peter Jackson put fur around the dwarf? Because I put fur around the dwarf! Why would the dwarf have fur naturally? You see, I could give you a billion little things. I wish I had a movie to look at. That’s fine for Peter [Jackson]. But for you to say "somewhat"—shit. Shit, that’s ridiculous.

Well, you know, I’ve gotta be diplomatic. I’ve got to be honest—

What? Why? Why do you gotta be diplomatic?

Because I haven’t seen your Lord of the Rings in a bout a decade. So my memory’s not as good as it could be.

Then go see it! Go see it. How about under the tree, under the limb, when the wraith on the road is trying to find Frodo, Sam, and the guys were hiding under the bush, under the tree, under the limb on the road, and it was on top? Where did that come from?

See, you answered my next question, which was going to be, how did you feel about that? [laughs]

How did you feel about that? You’re the guy trying to be diplomatic, I’m not. How did you feel about that? I’m interested in how you felt.

Well, like I said, I hadn’t seen yours in a while, so I didn’t have as good a memory as to how much it was. But there were some things that I saw—

Aren’t you curious? Why didn’t you take a look to see the shot-for-shot cuts and background for background?

Oh, I’m plenty curious. Unfortunately, I don’t get that much sleep as it is. [laughs]

Well, let’s take a look. You slap it in, you roll down there at high speed, and there it is. But you don’t want to do that, because you’d be facing something you don’t want to see, and you wouldn’t know how to write about it, and then Peter Jackson will get mad about you, and you can’t afford that and he’s a hot director. You’d best forget about the whole thing and hide.

Well, we all know I talk to Peter Jackson every week. [laughs]

Did Peter Jackson ever actually contact you at any point?

He can kiss my fucking ass. No he hasn’t. He didn’t have to contact me. He had my movie. Why would he contact me? He robbed me to begin with. What right did he have to make the Rings?

The recipe for Bond’s signature martini, from Casino Royale (repeated in Why did James Bond want his martinis shaken, not stirred?):

‘A dry martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet.’

‘Oui, monsieur.’

‘Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?’

How often do bartenders get that exact request?

Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards isn’t a good movie, but it’s one that captured my interest a long time ago, when I saw the poster at my best friend’s house, on his older brother’s wall. The crimson-clad robot assassin, Necron 99 — later renamed “Peace” — on his two-legged steed was enough to cement the movie in my mind for years.

I didn’t see it for years though. I knew it wasn’t a family film; it was the kind of animated film college kids saw. The poster certainly had a sinister edge.

When I finally did see the film, it had a world devastated by nuclear war, demonic-looking mutants, Nazi propaganda-film footage, machine-guns mowing down elves — and a not-particularly attractive fairy/elf princess in a really skimpy outfit, with her nipples prominently poking through, at all times, from all angles. Even as a teenage guy I found that tasteless.

The style mixes incongruent elements: beautiful still images, clearly very drawn, on a “natural” beige background; “good” animation; “bad” almost Dr. Seussian animation; old Nazi propaganda footage; and some really, really crude rotoscoping, where Bakshi took old footage from El Cid, Zulu, and various WWII collections, cranked up the contrast (like a bad Xerox), and maybe painted horns or glowing eyes on the characters.

Add a painfully facile story, where the happy, technology-free elves defend themselves against the mutant wizard who’s discovered Nazi propaganda, and, well, it’s not that great a movie. Here’s how Alan E. Rapp, on Amazon, described it:

Middle Earth fairies, elves, and magic emerge from the “good lands,” while dimwitted mutants with poor comic timing emerge from the nuclear wastes. In the ultimate confrontation between good and evil, a hippie-ish wizard named Avatar defends his utopia against the technological and neo-Nazi revival of his bad-seed twin, Blackwolf. With volleys of jokes that couldn’t hit a barn door, elves with Brooklyn accents, and the dubious climax that sees the kindly old wizard using one of the hated machines of war to triumph over evil, Wizards is one of fantasy animation’s least successful examples.

But I bought the DVD anyway. It was $9.99.

And the fascinating part is the interview with Bakshi, where he explains that, after some of his controversial works (Fritz the Cat, Coonskin), he wanted to do a family film, an “honest” family film, unlike Disney’s corporate creations.

Wizards was that family film.

Further, he admits that he resorted to rotoscoping when he ran out of money — but he was very happy with the results, and he was very happy with the mix of styles that went into the movie. He even complained a bit about Disney films, with their monotonous single style per film.

Anyway, Wizards came out in 1977 and opened well for an animated film, making most of its money back in the first week or two. Then Star Wars opened. Wizards got pulled from most screens to make way for the biggest film sensation of the century.

The Black Eyed Peas have a new album coming out (Monkey Business), and Amazon reviewer Denise Sheppard comments on the female member of the band:

The contribution of female vocalist Fergie — who joined the band partway through their last CD — has raised up considerably on the band’s fourth disc, their second as a quartet. Sassily fronting her way through songs like ‘My Humps,’ the ‘Hey Mama’-esque ‘Dum Diddly’ and the first single ‘Don’t Phunk With My Heart,’ Fergie’s melodic contributions make for a record that will likely be heard by wider audiences than ever, making this a truly accessible ‘hip-pop’ CD.

I found that bit about joining the band halfway through their last album intriguing, so I did a little research. I guess it comes as little surprise that she was selected as one of the Girls of Maxim, but this did surprise me (a bit):

This Californian hard-abbed, big-voiced beauty started out on the Disney Channel’s Kids Incorporated and is now the Black Eyed Peas resident sex bomb.

Do they all start out with Disney?

From Aristotle, Jedi Master:

But when one takes a larger look at the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall, one sees a special genius at work in the creation of that story.

And no, the genius in question is not George Lucas. Lucas succeeded in following the rules and using the elements of classical tragedy to tell the story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. But those rules and elements were themselves laid down for posterity a long time ago, in a country relatively far away.

It was Aristotle in his Poetics who discussed the construction of the tragic drama. Aristotle notes that the fortunes of the tragic hero must swing ‘from happiness to misery; and the cause of it must not lie in any depravity, but in some great error on his part…’ Tragic fear and pity, on the part of the audience, ‘may be aroused by the Spectacle … he who simply hears the account of [the tragedy] shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents…’ Thus, the tragic hero must have a fatal flaw, or ‘some great error’ that helps arouse ‘horror and pity’ on the part of the audience.

Time just published its All-Time 100 Movies list — and, as a fairly film-literate guy, I must admit that I haven’t seen half the films on it.

On the other hand, I’ve seen the vast majority of the AFI’s 100 Greatest American Movies.