The Screengrab : captain america

Ed Brubaker: From Comic Book Lowlife to Hollywood Player

Phil Nugent — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:30:00 GMT

All the excitement over movies like Watchmen is likely to create an opening for younger writers working in comics; after all, somebody's got to provide the raw materials that Hollywood will pounce on after it runs out of classic comics series to turn into movies. At least, that's the hope of people like Ed Brubaker, who recently shared his hopes and dreams with Los Angeles Times blogger Greg Braxton. "Last summer changed everything, you could feel it," says Brubaker, who had no credit on The Dark Knight but ended up getting a payday out of it anyway: "I even got money for the Batman movie because DC felt like there were fingerprints of stories I had written in the movie." In a comics universe where "mainstream" superhero creators and "alternative" creators are generally assumed to have limited interest in each other's work and, in their grumpier moments, to wish each other dead, Brubaker is unusual in having started out in the grungiest of "alternative" circles and wound up writing about costumed crimefighters. In the early '90s, Brubaker was part of the autobiographical comics scene with his Lowlife series, which featured thrilling, two-fisted tales of ripping off his employer, having his artwork compared unfavorably to that of Chester Brown, and needed a haircut. (He also edited the superb, single-issue comics anthology Monkey Wrench.) Brubaker began to edge towards the mainstream, and away from illustrating his own scripts, with the story An Accidental Death, which was drawn by Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze) and serialized in Dark Horse Presents in 1992, before being reprinted as a stand-alone volume by Fantagraphics. (That must have been sweet, given that it was the rejection by Fantagraphics' Kim Thompson that inspired the Lowlife story "You're a Good Man, Chester Brown.")

Brubaker had done work for DC Comics starting in the mid-90s, but he didn't start writing superhero comics until 2000, when he first started writing Batman. He's currently writing both Captain America and Daredevil for Marvel. But his real interest, from An Accidental Death to his Marvel Icon series Criminal, is in crime fiction, and much of his most interesting work, including his series Sleeper and the new Incognito (which is about a super-powered villain in the Witness Protection Program) has one foot in the world of superheroes and the other in hard-boiled fiction. Sam Raimi and Tom Cruise are reportedly interested in making a movie version of Sleeper, but in the meantime, Brubaker is testing the waters of live action with Angel of Death, a new web series he's created for Crackle.com, Sony's bid for your on-line entertainment fix. The series, which premieres this week and will consist of ten weekly installments, stars stunt woman and Death Proof star Zoe Bell as a hired killer who turns on her employers after suffering a traumatic head injury. (The cast also includes Doug Jones and Lucy Lawless, which must have made for quite an on-set reunion; Bell used to work as Lawless's stunt double on Xena: Warrior Princess. Brubaker says that Sony "green-lit it before I even wrote it, and they started filming two weeks after the final draft. I guess that's the world we're living in right now." You can watch episode one below:

From Crackle: Angel of Death Ep 1 "Edge" starring Zoe Bell

Morning Deal Report: NeverEnding Story Still Not Ending

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Warner Bros. is rebooting The NeverEnding Story, thus bringing it another step closer to living up to its title. “The new pic -- which original producer Dieter Geissler also will produce and Sarah Schechter and Jesse Ehrman will oversee for Warners -- will examine the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first pic,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Yeah, that’s what remakes are usually all about – nuance.

Unlikely as it might sound, Dollhouse star Eliza Dushka is bringing a Robert Mapplethorpe biopic to the big screen. “Dushku has secured the exclusive rights and the full cooperation from Mapplethorpe's estate and has enlisted two-time Sundance grand jury prize winner and indie darling Ondi Timoner (DIG!) to helm the film, which is titled The Perfect Moment,” Variety reports.

Nick Fury fans, rejoice. Samuel L. Jackson has inked a deal to play the Marvel character for years to come. “The actor, who just weeks ago was seemingly on the outs with the studio over reprising his role as Nick Fury, agent of spy outfit S.H.I.E.L.D., has signed an unprecedented nine-picture deal to play the character in a series of Marvel movies,” THR reports. “The movies include Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers and its sequels. Also on the table is the possibility of toplining a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie, which is in development.”

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Helming the Heroes

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:15:00 GMT

The recent proliferation of superhero movies have taught us that, of all things, auteur theory ain't quite dead yet. Hand your project over to a director of unique vision, a man with deep obsessions and specific stylistic and thematic ideas, and you get The Dark Knight. Hand your project over to a director with big ideas but not enough talent to carry them off, and you get Daredevil. Hand your project over to a director with no ideas and no talent, and you get Elektra. As goes art, so goes action: even in the cinema of capes and cowls, it's all about the director.

So, given that, what can we expect from yesterday's announcements about who will be helming two hotly anticipated comic book projects? The new Captain America flick, the last big Marvel solo adventure until we're treated to the long-awaited Avengers movie, will be directed by Joe Johnston; the new Conan the Barbarian (which isn't based on a comic, but features a character whose prominence in modern-day geek consciousness is more attributable to Roy Thomas' 1970s Marvel comics series than it is to Robert E. Howard's original stories) has fallen into the hands of Brett Ratner.

Neither of these guys are Christopher Nolan-level filmmakers, or even Bryan Singer-level filmmakers. How successful these films will be depends on which director shows up with his A-game; if we get the Joe Johnston who directed the charming, underrated superhero movie The Rocketeer, then Captain America could be a patriotic, nostalgic romp, but if we get the Joe Johnston who directed Jumanji, we could be in for a long wait until The Avengers comes out. Ratner has nothing as good as The Rocketeer on his resume, and he's also single-handedly responsible for trashing the X-Men franchise. Add to that the fact that, instead of legit heavyweights like John Milius and Oliver Stone (who did the original 1982 film version of Conan) providing him with a script, he's got the guys who did A Sound of Thunder, and we don't think anyone will be forgetting Schwarzenegger's version anytime soon.

Benecio del Toro is The Wolfman

Stan The Man & His A-Fan Plan

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:45:00 GMT

As everyone with a pulse and the patience to sit through endless special effects credits knows by now, both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk have featured in-continuity teasers at the end which are meant to prepare audiences for Marvel Studios' upcoming Avengers movie, in which the characters (as well as those from yet-to-be-released Marvel projects like The Mighty Thor, Captain America and Ant-Man) will all come together as Earth's mightiest super-team. It's still unclear whether or not the Hulk will be a hero in the film or the villain, but it's sure that Marvel will continute to take the same intertwined, big-event approach to their movies that they did (with great success) with their comics. All of which begs the question what does Stan Lee think of all this?

Stan "The Man", editor-in-chief, head writer, and co-creator of the lion's share of Marvel titles during their most productive (and profitable) period, has always been an enthusiastic interview and an outspoken character with lots to say about how his characters are handled onscreen. Now 83 years old, he's clearly looking forward to at least another two decades of goofy cameos in Marvel films, and he even drops some amusing anecdotes in this USA Todayinterview about the Avengers project. There's the news that romance novel cover boy Fabio once auditioned for the role of Thor; the oft-told genesis of the Astonishing Ant-Man; and how Nick Fury owes his existence to Stan's low boredom threshhold.

Even more amazing is that USA Today managed to defrost 94-year-old Captain America co-creator Joe Simon and ask him about the picture. Simon suggests that it would be fun to have America's super-soldier go after Osama bin-Laden (hey, someone's got to do it). Of course, being the comics nerds that we are, this just got us wishing that there could be a big-screen adaptation of some of Simon's beloved, but less-known characters -- like Fighting American, a jingoistic, commie-bashing parody of his own Captain America, or better yet, Prez, America's first teen president. Come on, Hollywood! Buy this man a new boat while there's still time!

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Video of the Day: Marvel -- The Crummy Years

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:30:00 GMT

We're not too cool to admit it: what with all the Marvel Films pictures coming out, and the Iron Man movie being so universally well-recieved, and the movie franchise taking a smart, fan-friendly approach to continuity and all, we here at the Screengrab are actually starting to get a bit nostalgic for the days when comic book adaptations really, really sucked.

Not that they don't suck now, at least on occasion. It's just that now, when a superhero movie sucks, it sucks in a big, expensive, ambitious, spectacular way. Back in the day, they sucked because they were made by hacks who spent about eight dollars on the whole production and farmed out most of the work to their nephew who used to work in a group home. Don't believe us? Take this, Robert Downey Jr., you smarmy sophisticated so-and-so:

Did Downey ever make you think he was a cool exec with a heart of steel? Okay, yeah, maybe. But check this shit out, Mr. Ed "I'm the GOOD Hulk" Norton:

Uh huh, yeah, you know it! Ain't he un-glamorays? Uh, sure! I guess so! Take that, Mr. Too Cool for School! And don't think we've forgotten you, Mr. Yet To Be Announced Star of the 2011 Captain America Movie:

ALL THOSE WHO CHOSE TO OPPOSE HIS SHIELD MUST YIELD! That's right, we said it! What? WHAT?

Take Five: Crime and Pyunishment

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Okay, so there's a new Uwe Boll movie coming out. Big deal, says we. Sure, we're curious about how the Teutonic uber-hack managed to get Dave Foley to star in his new film (Postal, opening in limited release today). And sure, we're even more curious about how he got Dave Foley to do a nude scene. And yes, we must admit that there is something oddly compelling about a filmmaker so universally reviled that a chewing gum manufacturer has helped sponsor a petition to get him to stop directing movies, and who is himself so adamant that he is a cinematical genius that he has challenged his critics to meet him in the boxing ring. But however rotten this German-come-lately may be -- and he's plenty rotten -- for us here at the Screengrab, there is only one true heir to the crappy moviemaking throne vacated by Ed Wood, and that man's name is Albert Pyun. The Hack From Hawaii -- who directed his first film in 1982, only four years after Ed Wood's death -- has been responsible for over forty films and direct-to-video releases, at least one of which has already turned up on movie janitor Scott Von Doviak's "Unwatchable" list. Both in his ridiculously prolific output and his utter lack of talent and shame, Albert Pyun leaves Uwe Boll in the dust. So instead of trying to find a theater willing to screen Postal this weekend, why not settle down for a film festival with our man Big Al? To help you in this terrifying endeavor, we've assembled a list of five of Pyun's best works -- and we use the word "best" in the loosest possible application to which the word has ever been put.

THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)

Albert Pyun's first screen credit -- as both director and writer -- is a real doozy that sets the tone for his innumerable too-cheap-to-be-camp movies to come. A standard-issue steel-and-spells epic ripped straight out of Albert's Friday night dorm room Dungeons & Dragons games, The Sword and the Sorcerer cost about nine dollars to make, with a script too dull for TV and special effects that would have seemed hokey in 1972. The real treat here is the cavalcade of has-beens populating the cast: there's well-past-his-prime teen idol George Maharis, his suntan decaying before our very eyes; future Murphy Brown fixture Joe Regalbuto; hulking, self-serious Night Court golem Richard Moll; coked-out Nina Van Pallandt, a million miles from The Long Goodbye; unreconstructed manimal Simon McCorkindale; and, in the lead, none other than Matt Houston star Lee Horsley! Sadly, this collection of fourth-stringers would be the hottest cast Pyun would ever work with. It would be all downhill from here.

CAPTAIN AMERICA (1990)

Oh, sure, everyone wants to see superhero movies now. But we can remember a time when the mere whiff of a mask or cowl was the kiss of death at the box office, largely because of grade-Z capesploitation movies like this. Never before have the adventures of America's living legend, super-soldier Steve Rogers, seemed so completely perfunctory; even Matt Salinger, whose career wouldn't exactly reach to the stratosphere after this dud, doesn't seem to be any happier about being Captain America than we are about having to watch him be Captain America. Still, he's at least better than nonentity Scott Paulin, hamming it up beyond belief as the supervillainous Nazi the Red Skull, while industry vets like Ronny Cox and Darren McGavin stand around sheepishly trying not to look embarrassed. Captain America rides his tricked-out motorbike around a lot, says "shucks" and "gee whiz", and the audience hits pause on the remote control to see if there are any uppers left in the medicine cabinet to get them through the longest 97 minutes of their lives.

KICKBOXER 2: THE ROAD BACK (1991)

Our own movie janitor Scott Von Doviak has already been forced to contend with one of Albert Pyun's cinematic abortions in the form of Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor. But not only is that not one of Albert Pyun's worst movies, it's arguably not even Albert Pyun's worst movie with the word "kickboxer" in the title. That dubious honor may just belong to Kickboxer 2: The Road Back, featuring hand-carved dingaling Sasha Mitchell as a man hoping to follow in his brother's footsteps in the highly lucrative career of kicking people in the face. Featuring some of the worst dialogue in the history of kickboxing films, Kickboxer 2 manages the astonishing trick of not only featuring both Peter Boyle and Brian Austin Green, but making you feel sorry for both of them. It's an agonizing wait between kickboxing scenes, but the bits of plot and dialogue are so abysmal you'll begin praying for another kickfight to break out. The movie's tagline was "Put up, shut up, or die!", but sadly, Pyun did none of those things.

BRAIN SMASHER...A LOVE STORY (1994)

By the time this movie rolled around, Albert Pyun had truly found his metier: cheap, exploitative direct-to-video releases timed to take the slightest possible advantage of the flavor of the moment. Or, in this case, the flavor of many, many moments ago. It's a testament to Pyun's impenetrable thickness as an auteur that he decided the moment was right to write and direct an action movie built around the antics of faux-goombah Andrew Dice Clay some three years after the Dice-Man's star had already begun quite seriously to wane. Plodding along in a nebulous phantom zone between sincerity and irony, this half-joking action flick was clearly made by someone who understood neither sincerity nor irony, and the result is an enervating mess that isn't even gleefully offensive, the one quality Dice Clay's standup had going for it; it's just dull. Still, you have to give it up: as much as you might hate this movie -- and you'll hate it, a lot -- you gotta love that title.

URBAN MENACE (1999)

The staggeringly bad Urban Menace was not the first abysmal hip-hop action/horror flick that Albert Pyun would make. It was also not the last. But it was, without question, the absolute worst. The closest thing in Pyun's bloated catalog, in both technique and spirit, to the godawful films of Ed Wood, Urban Menace stars Snoop Doggy Dogg's highly unconvincing stunt double in a movie that knows how bad it sucks and simply doesn't give a shit. The majority of its running time features the stars running around aimlessly in an abandonded warehouse; the script probably took less time to write than the movie takes to watch; and the best thing you can say about the acting is that, in the case of rapper Fat Joe, at least his lines are delivered with such mush-mouthed incompetence that it spares you from having to hear any more of the terrible dialogue. (The film, amazingly, claims four different scriptwriters. Which one of the four will own up to "We got a whole army of motherfuckers and we can still get punished by this skinny guy psycho?")

Toaster Head Fans Viciously Snubbed By Marvel

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

With Iron Man looking to be a runaway success, Marvel Comics' film production arm is naturally looking to capitalize on the box office take to move ahead with production on future superhero franchises. So what comic book superhero is next for the House of Ideas? How about...all of them?

In its quarterly earnings report, Marvel discloses (among other things, including that it made enough money this year to buy Stan Lee a Silver Surfer-themed iron lung) that it's in the process of developing a boatload of new multimedia projects for release in the next four years. In addition to a plethora of video games, TV shows, animated series and direct-to-DVD animated features, Marvel Film -- the company's in-house production unit -- has scheduled for release The Incredible Hulk, an Iron Man sequel, a Thor movie, a Captain America solo adventure, an Avengers team picture, and, of all things, a feature film starring perennial sad-sack second-stringer Ant-Man. (We're hoping that this one sticks to the current comics approach to the character and plays as straight-up satire.) In addition to all of that, Marvel has two licensed properties set to release in the next year: a Punisher sequel, entitled War Zone, is releasing through Lionsgate this Christmas, and an X-Men prequel, entitled Wolverine, drops a year from now through Fox. All that, and no Dr. Strange? I guess no one wants to take on the supreme challenge of out-acting Peter Hooten.

Speaking of the X-Men prequel, who better to write the screenplay than, uh, the guy responsible for Gossip Girl? In an interview with Black Book magazine (that, ominously, has since been deleted from the site's archives, leading Comics2Film to speculate that he spoke a bit too soon), Josh Schwartz slagged on previous X-Men franchise directors, took a cheap shot at a movie he hasn't seen yet, and salivates at the big paycheck he'll be getting, but tells fans not to worry: "It's not like I'm adding new characters like Toaster Head, or anything like that." Angry Toaster Head fans immediately flooded Marvel with e-mails.