Bleeding Fool |
- Christopher Nolan’s Films Ranked: #1 ‘Interstellar’ (2014)
- Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’ Getts New Collected Editions for 30th Anniversary
- New Agency Aims to Help Publishers and Creative Talent Connect with Retailers
- Watch: Netflix Gives First Look at Its ‘Sweet Tooth’ Adaptation Series
- Who Cares? Marvel Comics is Publishing NFL Draft One-Shots
- Has HBOMax Found the Right Actor for Guy Gardner aka Green Lantern?
| Christopher Nolan’s Films Ranked: #1 ‘Interstellar’ (2014) Posted: 02 May 2021 05:00 PM PDT
Christopher Nolan's done a lot in just over 20 years in the industry. With a meteoric rise from nothing as a former English Literature student with a camera in Following to the director of heady, wildly expensive Hollywood entertainments like Tenet, Nolan has become one of the true auteur voices in big budget modern filmmaking. Heavily inspired by Stanley Kubrick and Graham Swift's novel Waterland, Nolan's films are the work of an active intellect looking to engage his audience, usually through narrative's more mechanical aspects like plot and structure.
That inclination can lead him to making the occasional emotionally unengaging spectacle like Tenet or even Inception, perhaps betraying a certain need for his brother Jonathan's influence on his writing, but even then they're filled with such sights and sounds mixed with an eagerness to entertain that the films can't be dismissed completely.
This has been a fun, trippy road, made all the weirder since I went backwards through it, watching his cinematic style devolve rather than evolve. I'm sure he'll be making movies for twenty more years, so I look forward to re-evaluating this list in the future.
#1 in my ranking of Christopher Nolan's films.
I have a bias for movies that at least seem to take space seriously. I think it explains why I put Contact atop my list of Robert Zemeckis movies, and I think it's why Interstellar is probably going to end up at the top of my list of Christopher Nolan movies. It's the kind of story that I gravitate towards naturally so that when several movies are at about the same level of esteem in my mind, it's the space stuff that just ends up winning out. The movie still needs to be good though, and Interstellar is great. 
Matthew McConaughey's Cooper is the exact opposite of The Protagonist in Tenet, which I find interesting and points to why one movie works on an emotional level and the other is more purely spectacle. Cooper has a specific emotional touchpoint, his daughter Murph, where The Protagonist pointedly had nothing specific to drive him to save the world in Tenet. I think it's a testament to some of the more traditional building blocks of storytelling and utilizing them in intelligent ways can lead to more complete stories.
So, the world is slowly ending. Blight is killing the world's crops. First was wheat. Soon, okra will be gone. Corn's days are numbered. Blight, thriving on the nitrogen in our atmosphere is killing our food supply and will soon turn to our air supply. Something must be done, so the remnants of NASA have devised a plan to use the mysterious wormhole that has appeared orbiting Saturn to find a new home in another galaxy. They had already sent through a dozen people a decade before, giving them three potential worlds on the other side of the wormhole that they could colonize. Cooper, a former pilot turned farmer, stumbles onto this plot when a gravitational anomaly in his daughter's bedroom gives him a set of coordinates in binary for NASA's hidden base on in old NORAD facility.
I think this movie ends up working so well in no small part because of how it begins. Nolan takes the time to set up the world, its deteriorating and diminished condition, as well as Cooper's relationship to Murph which carries him through the entire film. It's for her that he decides to go on this mission through space and gravity, which guarantees that he'll miss decades of her life. It's for her that he wants to return home, to a home where not everyone has died. He's contrasted sharply with Doyle, one of the other astronauts. With no personal connections, he looks at the problem with the least humanity, feeling that their priority should be the quickest and easiest solution in order to guarantee that they save what they can.
Also on the ship out is Amelia Brand, the daughter of the chief scientist at NASA trying to figure out the problem of gravity that will get them off the ground in great enough numbers to survive as a species. She has a hidden motive: to reach specifically one of the three worlds, Miller's planet, because she loved him before he left. Her specific attachment drives her just like Murph drives Cooper.
Back on Earth, Dr. Brand takes Murph under his wing, getting her into college to pursue an education in physics that is in short supply because the needs of the world are so centered on growing food. She grows into a woman and chief student of Dr. Brand, eventually learning that Dr. Brand had known for decades that there was no solution to the problem of gravity, and that there was never any hope for anyone left on earth. Colonization needed to happen with frozen embryos that the ship carried with it to the other galaxy. In her mind, her father left her to starve and die.
This movie has a lot of moving parts, and I haven't even gotten to the three planets, but Nolan handles it so deftly that it's easy to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Nolan has such command over the story and its cinematic rollout that one can lose yourself in the story without ever feeling confused. Combined with the embrace of time mechanics as Cooper's adventures with gravity slow time for him, the movie keeps the different threads extremely clear as they progress at different speeds towards a single conclusion.
In terms of the movie's treatment of space, this is where the realistic approach to filming the special effects, with an emphasis on camera placements that are attached to ship hulls, really helps enhance the film's sense of scale and danger. We can hear the rattle of the different parts of the ship scrape and hit against each other as the ship enters the wormhole. When the Endurance passes Saturn, it feels tiny in comparison. When Cooper takes the Ranger into the black hole at the end, it feels terrifyingly huge and dangerous.
The first planet they visit is a water planet that stretches time by a couple of decades and shows them a planet void of any life despite the presence of water. The second planet is Mann's planet. Dr. Mann was the best of the twelve, the leader, the one who inspired the original group all to go, and his data on his planet was promising and closer to the first planet than Miller's planet. The time on Mann's planet was shown in trailers, but Mann himself was completely hidden. Played by Matt Damon, he ends up being the manifestation of what Amelia Brand described as nature being violent and overwhelming but not evil. The only evil we can find out among the stars is what we bring ourselves. Mann faked all of his data because he couldn't face dying alone. He was completely selfish, as opposed to Cooper's selflessness centered on his family and even Doyle's selflessness unmoored from any humanity.
Now, having said all this, I love this movie as it is. The final act in the Tesseract is the kind of heady thing that embraces time mechanics mixed with emotional storytelling that I love, using science fiction to tell a human story. This also represents Nolan's response to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nolan obviously loves Kubrick's film, as evidenced by his efforts to have the movie restored for 4K and his many public comments praising the film, but, watching Interstellar, it feels like he has a certain fundamental disagreement with 2001, especially the ending.
In Kubrick's film, humanity evolved through Dave Bowman becoming the Starchild after passing through the Stargate. In Interstellar, Cooper remains decidedly human after passing through the black hole and the Tesseract. There's no great evolution. We're still human. When he finds himself on Cooper Station, dozens of years after he had originally left, boys are still playing baseball and cheering when they hit a flyball through someone's window (in a circular design that directly evokes Rama from Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the script for 2001). We can save ourselves as we are, Nolan seems to be saying. We don't need some outside force to take us another step in evolution. We have it in ourselves to take us further. There are other callbacks to 2001 including the use of Saturn (which Kubrick wanted to use late in production instead of Jupiter, but his special effects team rebelled and kept it as Jupiter) and the overall structure of having the Tesseract in place of the Stargate. I love both movies, and Interstellar is great, but it's not quite 2001: A Space Odyssey brilliant.
I think this is Nolan at his height. Technically, the movie is at the top of the heap of cinema magic. Narratively, Nolan found a way to keep the stakes of the movie small enough to understand but still tied to a larger problem. In terms of performance, Matthew McConaughey is probably the best leading man Nolan's ever worked with, imbuing Cooper with such pathos as to invite real emotional connection. Anne Hathaway gives it her all as Amelia. Jessica Chastain is wounded and proud as the adult Murph. Hans Zimmer produces one of his best soundtracks using a huge organ at its core. This is Christopher Nolan exploring his cinematic loves at the height of his power in Hollywood, able to turn a heady science fiction script into a rousing and even touching adventure through space and time that made gobs of money at the box office. This is really why I love Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker in general.
Rating: 4/4The post Christopher Nolan's Films Ranked: #1 'Interstellar' (2014) appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’ Getts New Collected Editions for 30th Anniversary Posted: 02 May 2021 03:00 PM PDT
From world-renowned creator Frank Miller, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the acclaimed crime noir series, Sin City arrives with a new softcover edition presented at original size with new wrap-around cover art and pinup gallery. The tale of Marv and his angel has never been seen like this before.
There is no light in a place like Sin City—only misery, crime, perversion . . . But for a single moment, amid the filth and degenerates, the hulking and unstable ex-con Marv has found an angel. She says her name is Goldie—a goddess who has blessed this wretched low-life with a night of heaven. But good things never last—a few hours later, Goldie is dead, murdered by his side without a mark on her body. Who was she? And who wanted her dead? The cops are on their way—it smells like a frame job, and this time they won't let him live. Marv's got a soul to send to hell, and it's going to get nasty.
This edition of this classic comic opus includes a new pinup gallery featuring art from Joyce Chin, Amanda Conner, Klaus Janson, Paul Pope, Philip Tan, and Gerardo Zaffino. Devoted fans and new readers can again experience the groundbreaking and unparalleled noir masterpiece that has engrossed readers for nearly three decades! Frank Miller's Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye will also be available in a deluxe format! The hardcover includes an exclusive sketchbook of never-before-published development art selected by Frank, in addition to a sleek slipcase.
"When I first decided to write and draw a black and white crime comic, Mike Richardson didn't blink. We were off and running and continue to do so 30 years later."—Frank Miller
"Frank Miller's association with Dark Horse has flourished for over thirty years. The original publication of Sin City was a watershed moment for our company, and we are very pleased to celebrate its 30th Anniversary with a brand-new edition. Readers will find that Sin City is just at powerful today as it was the day it was first released, exactly what you would expect from one of comics' master creators."—Mike Richardson
These highly anticipated softcover fourth editions begin with Frank Miller's Sin City Volume: 1 The Hard Goodbye arriving September 29, 2021, in comic shops and bookstores October 12, 2021, with subsequent volumes to be released over the course of the following months. The post Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’ Getts New Collected Editions for 30th Anniversary appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| New Agency Aims to Help Publishers and Creative Talent Connect with Retailers Posted: 02 May 2021 01:00 PM PDT Adam Philips, a longtime veteran of the comic book industry and former Director of Marketing Services at DC Comics, today announced the formation of Untold Stories Marketing, a new agency focusing on collaborating with comic book publishers and creative talent to connect with comic book retailers on new projects.
"Every month, publishers introduce dozens of new titles to the marketplace," says Philips. "Numerous discussions with retailers have told me that if they knew more about upcoming comics series, they would place larger orders. Our mission at Untold Stories Marketing is to help publishers and the creative community spread the news about their latest projects through improved solicitations and branding, targeted emails, and interactive sell sheets, so retailers can place their orders with greater confidence."
As a rare comics professional who has worked closely with retailers, publishers, creative talents, and distributors alike, Philips brings a broad understanding of their needs and expectations to Untold Stories Marketing.
"Working with Adam has always been an absolute pleasure, whether on creating our custom covers, or in sharing information with an eye to strengthening the industry," says Jennifer Haines, president of ComicsPro and owner of the Canadian comic book retail chain The Dragon. "Adam wants retailers to succeed, and he has both the experience and the foresight to help us do so. This forward-thinking approach, coupled with his robust network of industry contacts, puts him in a unique position to offer exceptional marketing solutions, and I for one can't wait to see what he has in store."
As Director of Marketing Services at DC, Philips ran the company's complex solicitation process, created the publisher's retailer communications, created and presented content for retailer events, developed advertising campaigns, and much more.
Philips began his comic book career in the 1980s as a contributing writer with Marvel Age, and was soon hired as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics, where he worked on Marvel Age, Doctor Who, Howard the Duck and other titles. He also worked as a freelancer for Archie Comics, Eclipse, Fantagraphics, and Topps, and covered comics for Entertainment Weekly in its early days.
In 1990, Philips joined Welsh Publishing Group, editing magazines for young readers starring Superman and Batman, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Simpsons. Philips joined the DC staff in November, 1994, where he remained until this past February.
Untold Stories Marketing launches its new website in April 2021. The agency will soon announce working relationships with a few select publishers and comics-related organizations, and anticipates supporting writers and artists in positioning their latest creator-owned projects in the near future.
For more information visit UntoldStoriesMarketing.com The post New Agency Aims to Help Publishers and Creative Talent Connect with Retailers appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Watch: Netflix Gives First Look at Its ‘Sweet Tooth’ Adaptation Series Posted: 02 May 2021 10:15 AM PDT Netflix gave us our first taste of its upcoming Sweet Tooth series today, shedding some light on what we can expect from the dystopian sci-fi adventure. Based on the Jeff Lemire comic of the same name, Sweet Tooth was originally published by Vertigo and ran for forty issues from 2009 through 2013. (A sequel miniseries published under DC Black Label, Sweet Tooth: The Return, recently concluded its six-issue run and will eventually be available as a collected edition as well.)
Set in a world where a virus wipes out most of humanity at the same time an unexplained wave of human/animal hybrid children begin emerging, the story largely focuses on one of these hybrids—a deer-boy named Gus—and his relationship with a grizzled former hockey player named Jepperd as they attempt to find a rumored sanctuary for hybrid children. The search takes them across a dangerously transformed rural America as they must battle and escape gangs of thieves and mercenaries, along with an insidious group of former soldiers determined to unlock the cure for the virus by killing and studying hybrids like Gus.
The series stars Christian Convery and Nonso Anozie as Gus and Jepperd respectively and is executive produced by none other than Robert Downey Jr. along with Susan Downey, Amanda Burrell and Linda Moran.
Netflix has released a trailer and a series of initial photos, which give us our first look at some of the story's key characters.
 The post Watch: Netflix Gives First Look at Its ‘Sweet Tooth’ Adaptation Series appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Who Cares? Marvel Comics is Publishing NFL Draft One-Shots Posted: 02 May 2021 07:45 AM PDT
ESPN reports Marvel’s publishing a number of covers spotlighting NFL players:
This is one of the same sports movements where an alarming number of players knelt during the USA National Anthem in the past few years, and we’re supposed to care Marvel is paying tribute to a nationwide sport representation with homages to previous covers starring MCU characters? I’m sorry, but what’s happened with sports movements like theirs in this day and age makes it too discouraging to appreciate this project, and besides, it doesn’t guarantee the story under the cover will be any good.
If anything, this is another example of too much attention being given to coverscans for variants and other specials, all without ensuring the story will be worth the price on the cover itself, which is getting too expense by now. And despite what they’re saying, it’s long been apparent the comics aren’t drawing in millions, and there isn’t something for everyone in mainstream.
Originally published here. The post Who Cares? Marvel Comics is Publishing NFL Draft One-Shots appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Has HBOMax Found the Right Actor for Guy Gardner aka Green Lantern? Posted: 02 May 2021 05:30 AM PDT Deadline reports that Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story) has been tapped to star as Guy Gardner/Green Lantern in HBO Max's upcoming series based on the DC characters, from Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.
Written by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Seth Grahame-Smith, Green Lantern reinvents the classic DC property through a story spanning decades and galaxies, beginning on Earth in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott, and 1984, with cocky alpha male Guy Gardner (Wittrock) and half-alien Bree Jarta. They'll be joined by a multitude of other Lanterns — from comic book favorites to never-before-seen heroes.
Wittrock's Guy Gardner/Green Lantern is a hulking mass of masculinity, and, as rendered in the comics, an embodiment of 1980s hyper-patriotism. And yet, Guy is somehow likable. Not everyone on social media was impressed
Berlanti, Guggenheim and Grahame-Smith executive produce with Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter, David Madden and David Katzenberg; Elizabeth Hunter and Sara Saedi co-executive produce. The post Has HBOMax Found the Right Actor for Guy Gardner aka Green Lantern? appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
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