SDCC 2009 COVERAGE SPONSORED BY
Does Superman Think I’m An Ass?
I was hoping to check out the Disney 3-D panel first thing Thursday morning, but was told Hall H was locked down until after the Twilight shriek-fest was over. My eardrums thanked the Elite security staff for doing that, then I headed over to the Masters of the Web panel instead, featuring Drew McWeeny, Devin Faraci, and a bunch of other web-writers. The panel was combined with a preview for the movie Dead of Night, starring Brandon Routh playing comic book character Dylan Dog, a New Orleans-based supernatural investigator.
The teaser was alright, but lost immediate points for having the cliché monster movie line where a character has to explain to another character that “zomg-everything-you-know- about-werewolves-and-vampires-is-wrong-and-they-actually-exist!” That actually might have actually been the verbatim line of dialogue. Anyway, I didn’t clap after the clip was over and felt like a mannerless tool as soon as I noticed that Routh was sitting right behind me, when he got up to talk about the movie. Should have I clapped even it didn’t totally win me over? Regardless, I escaped unharmed by his vegan psychic powers.
Next up was a Spotlight on Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim), which was really cool, even though people may have been hoping for more talk of the Edgar Wright-directed flick. You can’t ask for a better moderator than Mr. “Understanding Comics”-himself Scott McCloud, and the slideshow/interview was a cool look into O’Malley’s process and evolution. (Check back for a full panel report later.)
Gwar Is Upstairs
I decided to brave the Hall H lineup two hours early to make sure I’d get into the Avatar panel, but I was honestly more stoked to see Terry Gilliam, and hopefully clips from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Things got momentarily scary when the line seemed to moving really fast, and I had brief glimpses of horror that I might have to suffer through the Twilight panel. Luckily, I spent the next two hours sweating and getting splotchy sunburn on my face instead. I felt a bit lame for spending two hours outside of the convention in a lineup, especially when I got a text from a friend, saying he spotted Gwar. (They performed a blood-drenched show later that night.) But massive line-ups are a Con staple.
Avatar had a lot of hype to live up to going into the convention, and the over 20-minutes of 3-D footage was a good start to living up to it. I didn’t know much going into it, and was mixed on what I saw. The first scene was of a barking marine commander hammering home the premise of the flick, which sort of seems like FernGully-by-the-way-of-Full Metal Jacket; a morally questionable war between humans and aliens on a rainforest-y planet.
The CGI for the main characters is super-slick, fusing the actors’ faces and movements with the 10 foot-tall cat-like alien creations seamlessly. And each scene of the alien rainforest planet crackled with a neon electricity. But, it’s hard to tell if the movie will be an immersive experience, with an amazing amount of detail put into every frame, or if it’ll be a distracting, kaleidoscopic mess. In the end, I don’t think it’s fair to judge the technical aspects of the flick until I see it in a theatre as opposed to the Hall H screens — which actually works out alright, because Cameron announced that a free 15-minute clip-reel would be shown at select theaters around the country on August 21.
Terry Gilliam was up next, and in a cool bit, the convention presented him with an Inkpot Award for Achievement in Filmmaking. Gilliam talked about how he didn’t want to show a trailer because it ruins all the best bits of a film. He proclaimed he had only brought “just the boring bits.” He was totally lying.
The story is about immortal showman Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), who makes a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits), only to have his daughter (Lily Cole) threatened away from him on her 16th birthday. And the footage looked insane, and lived up to the promise of showing worlds of unfiltered imagination like only Gilliam can deliver.
A lot of the talk revolved around Heath Ledger’s final performance as Tony, a silver-tongued schemer, who Gilliam had no problem admitting was somewhat-based on Tony Blair. A fan asked a bit more about Heath Ledger and it was actually kind of heartbreaking to hear Gilliam talk about his death so candidly.
And in a bit of cool non-depressing news, Gilliam announced that he had regained the rights to Don Quixote.
Boy Genius To The Rescue
I capped off the night with a screening of Mystery Team (review and interview coming later), Internet sketch-team Derrick Comedy’s first full-length movie. The movie’s a complete winner. For being a low-budget flick with no “names,” it’s a clever mainstream premise (check out the trailer below) and balances gross-out humor and bizarre one-line with some very darkly hilarious situations.
I’d also like to acknowledge the awesomeness of D.C. Pierson, who plays Duncan, the Boy Genius in the movie, for getting my three friends in to the screening at the last second. From that to the way they hung out at the end of the screening, these guys are all class and deserve the success that will be surely heaped upon them.