Boss Nigger Trailer

Part legend, part devil... all man!

NYCComic Con

The X-Files

The truth is out there. And so is irony.

Chris Carter and Frank Spotnick, the creative team behind the cult shows The X-Files, Millennium, The Lone Gunmen and Harsh Realms, unveiled the official trailer X-Files: I Want To Believe.

Last month the trailer was leaked, albeit a bad shaky, grainy bad telesync version. It was still enough to set the X-philers on the edge of orgasm.

The official, and dear I say clean, trailer features a frantic Fox Mulder in search of… Well, I don’t know. The trailer doesn’t say and nether would Carter nor Spotnick during the Q&A that followed the screening.

A few gems they did let go are (1) the film will be a stand-alone story, a creature-of-the-week episode in X-Files parlance; and (2) the story is promised to be more “intimate” and focus a little more on “Mulder and Skully’s relationship in a way you can do in a film and not on television. [We] can service more of the story.”

X-Files fans tend to be paranoid [trust no one] so when an audience member queried on whether the current neo-conservative political arena would be represented with in the film, Spotnick quickly answered,” X-Files is a not a political film nor is it political in nature.” Carter, however, had a different take: “The X-Files was closed [in the show] for political reasons. The show itself existed during a certain political environment and X-Files: I Want To Believe takes place in the current [time] we live in. I grew up during Watergate. You reap what you get if you believe what you read and see in the news. In the film there are similar things to worry about.”

So basically…, Mulder is taking time off from exposing the alien conspiracy to finding… who knows what while the truth behind the major political events in the past ten years languish. Who cares, it’s Mulder and Skully, all’s well with the world.

Featured Artists
Comic Conventions attract everyone from major comic book publishers to small kitchen sink press companies. The people who attend the convention are all, for the most part, good natured, friendly and excited about commercial sequential art. You gotta love watching four-feet-five green skinned Incredible Hulks, three-hundred-pound spidermen, transsexual Sailor moons and enough Naruto, Deathnote, Bleach anime fiends to make you wince, whistle and shudder all at once.

Some of the most interesting folks you meet are the independent comic creators like Jason Becker, creator of Hero Corps: The Rookie and Killing Pickman. Hero Corps is a take on the theme of following in your father’s footsteps. Following the death of a veteran superhero cop, Max takes the mantel of the Hammer, a powerful instrument that imbues its wielder with powerful strength and the ability to fly. The story takes place in the backdrop of a society over run with super-humans where the conflict of between those with powers and regular people clash. It is illustrated with affect by Greg Moutafis.

Another book to look out for is Killing Pickman, also by Becker. This tells the story of Richard Pickman, a religion obsessed serial killer playing a psychological cat-and-mouse with his arresting officer, Detective Zhu. Sounds cliché, right? Wrong. Becker weaves in a supernatural subplot that makes the reader question the responsibility of the child killing Pickman. Two issues in and I’m hooked. Both of these books are put out by Achaia Studios Press, an ambitious studio publisher that puts out great comics. http://www.aspcomics.com

Anime
Chuck Collins and Esteban Valdez have started their own anime content based website. I had a chance to speak to the two artist entrepreneurs and here’s their pitch: “We’re interesting in creating art’ movies where when you look at it, you connect as viewer; where when you see it five years later, you’re like where was I at that time in my life? The film still holds, that’s what you get with art.” Check out their website at http://enemyoftheindustry.com/.



For you gamers out there…

True Game Headz is a website dedicated to all things videogames. They cover any and all conceivable video game platforms from reviews to technical assistance. The site is all at once informative, entertaining and addictive. I spoke with Gerard Flannory, co-founder and creative director as he was running around taping the Con. “True Game Headz represents all of the gamers and provides a forum for video game media producers, especially urban producers to showcase their work and what’s happening in the gaming community.” Access the website at http://www.truegameheadz.com

The convention was awesome. I got to see alot of people I only get to see at cons and spent my time languishing over impossibly cool people and their t-shirts.

Goldfish

A nice little student film based on Bendis' graphic novel.

Street Kings

The trailer for Street Kings narrated by the throaty Don LaFontaine, or a reasonable facsimile, prepares us for an visual assault: “On the streets of LA every cops wants justice but how they get it is what sets them apart.” The action scrolled text assures us of the aforementioned beating: “Their city. Their rules, No prisoners.” Word on the proverbial “streets” was Street Kings was going to be a blown-up episode of The Shield with a lean handsome Keanu Reeves taking the place of a squat grizzled Michael Chiklis. Street Kings is far from scripted television and performs well as an action film prelim to the big blockbuster summer franchise film tent-poles we got coming to us this year!
From the opening we meet Detective Tom Ludlow, a veteran Anti-Gang investigator going through the motions as he wakes up [fully clothed] for his shift in the early evening shift. He’s on a liquid diet and reinforces that with a few hotel-sized bottles of vodka for his drive down a side street in Korea-town, Los Angeles where meets with two Asian Thugs.
“Konichi-wa!”
Ludlow greets these men, who waste no time explaining that to Koreans, being addressed in Japanese is offensive.
Strike one: Ludlow is insensitive.
Detective Ludlow opens his trunk and which stores an antiquated modified M156 Helicopter multi-armament mount machine gun.
Strike two: Ludlow is dirty. He’s selling guns retrieved from the LAPD evidence lock-up.
During the bad guys-bad cop banter on pricing and etiquette, Detective Ludlow assumes they are both Korean. When politically corrected that one gangster is Filipino while the other is Korean, Reeves delivers one of the sharpest lines I’ve heard in a while: “I can’t tell the difference, how can you? You all have eyes shaped like exclamation points; you dress White; you talk Black; and drive Jewish!”
Strike three: Tom Ludlow is a racist.
The gangsters dispatch a beat down worthy of righteous indignation even from a pair of sensitive gangsters.
The pay-off to this scene reveals the Asian thugs to be part of a Korean gang trafficking in under aged girls and child pornography. Detective Ludlow tracks the gang to their hideout and dispatches them with swift and blinding gun violence worthy of television’s Vic Mackey.
Street Kings story structure runs along the scheme of providing a series of set-ups with delayed and rewarding pay-offs. Ludlow is the target of an Internal Affairs investigation actually targeted at his mentor Superior, Captain Jack Wander, played by Forest Whitaker. Capt. Wander heads up a small Detective street team that boasts controversial if not successful arrests. Ludlow’s ex-partner, Detective Washington, once dirty but has seen the light has been identified as talking to Internal Affairs. On learning of this Ludlow attempts to confront Washington only to witness and by extension be implicated in his brutal murder by two gangbanging “Monsters” in an apparently staged robbery.
Forest Whitaker [Vantage Point, The Last King of Scotland, The Shield] gives a convincing performance as the father-figure-mentor with a hidden agenda. He’s more sheep in wolf’s clothing with a disarming smile. Keanu Reeves infuses Ludlow with stoic intensity as a man used to being a blunt object weapon now slowly becoming unraveled as he questions not only who but why he’s being made to kill.
The hip-hop artist Common [Smokin’ Aces, Wanted] puts forth a fine, if not frightening, performance of Coates, a serial killing County Sheriff with a bad drug problem. Hugh Laurie does a good turn in a small part as the conflicted Internal Affairs Chief on the heels of Reeve’s Ludlow.
Chris Evans [Fantastic Four, Sunshine, Nanny Diaries] puts in some time as a reluctant Detective charged with investigating Reeve’s character.
David Ayer is no stranger to the urban-cop genre as evidenced by his writer’s curriculum vitae: the acclaimed Training Day, followed by Dark Blue, SWAT and Harsh Times. In his second film as a director, Ayer continues to examine the themes of loyalty, honesty and the inevitability of justice defined through street culture. This is exhibited by Detective Alonzo’s downfall in Training Day, Sgt. Perry’s redemption in Dark Blue and Jim Luther Davis’ climatic demise in Harsh Times. Street Kings is no different. Ayer follows Reeve’s Ludlow through a constricting labyrinth of betrayal and disappointment. Street Kings succeeds where most director’s sophomore attempts languish, it stands out and gives the audience what it expects: an angry cop in an angry environment caught between individual ambiguous virtue and an overwhelming culture of corruption and deceit.
Ultimately, at its core, Street Kings is strictly paint by numbers urban drama that is elevated by decent acting and a director’s passion for the subject matter.

Street Kings
Written by James Ellroy and Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss. Story by James Ellroy.
Directed by David Ayer.

Unintentional blog: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Yet another fine gem from an unintentional Craigslist Poster.

"What Happened to All the Nice Guys?"

---

Date: 2007-11-19, 3:52AM PST

I see this question posted with some regularity in the personals section, so I thought I'd take a minute to explain things to the ladies out there that haven't figured it out.

What happened to all the nice guys?
The answer is simple: you did.

See, if you think back, really hard, you might vaguely remember a Platonic guy pal who always seemed to want to spend time with you. He'd tag along with you when you went shopping, stop by your place for a movie when you were lonely but didn't feel like going out, or even sit there and hold you while you sobbed and told him about how horribly the (other) guy that you were fucking treated you.

At the time, you probably joked with your girlfriends about how he was a little puppy dog, always following you around, trying to do things to get you to pay attention to him. They probably teased you because they thought he had a crush on you. Given that his behavior was, admittedly, a little pathetic, you vehemently denied having any romantic feelings for him, and buttressed your position by claiming that you were "just friends." Besides, he totally wasn't your type. I mean, he was a little too short, or too bald, or too fat, or too poor, or didn't know how to dress himself, or basically be or do any of the things that your tall, good-looking, fit, rich, stylish boyfriend at the time pulled off with such ease.

Eventually, your Platonic buddy drifted away, as your relationship with the boyfriend got more serious and spending time with this other guy was, admittedly, a little weird, if you werent dating him. More time passed, and the boyfriend eventually cheated on you, or became boring, or you realized that the things that attracted you to him weren't the kinds of things that make for a good, long-term relationship. So, now, you're single again, and after having tried the bar scene for several months having only encountered players and douche bags, you wonder, "What happened to all the nice guys?"

Well, once again, you did.

You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy. You laughed at his consideration and resented his devotion. You valued the aloof boyfriend more than the attentive "just-a-" friend. Eventually, he took the hint and moved on with his life. He probably came to realize, one day, that women aren't really attracted to guys who hold doors open; or make dinners just because; or buy you a Christmas gift that you mentioned, in passing, that you really wanted five months ago; or listen when you're upset; or hold you when you cry. He came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he'd have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.

Fact is, now, he's probably getting laid, and in a way, your ultimate rejection of him is to thank for that. And I'm sorry that it took the complete absence of "nice guys" in your life for you to realize that you missed them and wanted them. Most women will only have a handful of nice guys stumble into their lives, if that.


So, if you're looking for a nice guy, here's what you do:

1.) Build a time machine.
2.) Go back a few years and pull your head out of your ass.
3.) Take a look at what's right in front of you and grab ahold of it.

I suppose the other possibility is that you STILL don't really want a nice guy, but you feel the social pressure to at least appear to have matured beyond your infantile taste in men. In which case, you might be in luck, because the nice guy you claim to want has, in reality, shed his nice guy mantle and is out there looking to unleash his cynicism and resentment onto someone just like you.

If you were five years younger.

So, please: either stop misrepresenting what you want, or own up to the fact that you've fucked yourself over. You're getting older, after all. It's time to excise the bullshit and deal with reality. You didn't want a nice guy then, and he certainly doesn't fucking want you, now.

Sincerely,

A Recovering Nice Guy