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casting

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For trailer hits

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

348926-sin-city-2-josh-brolin-620x0-2Frank Miller’s hardboiled graphic novel Sin City was first brought to the screen in 2005 by Desperado director Robert Rodriguez. Now the trailer for the second follow up is online.

Looking at my art it probably comes as no surprise that Frank Miller was a major influence for me in my formative years as a comics creator. First intrigued by his Daredevil run in the 80’s, I was completely won over by his Return of the Dark Knight and Batman: Year One, the latter illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. This was superheroes, which I loved at the time, combined with the gritty realism of American noir. When Miller abandoned (more or less) the superhero aspect and went straight for the jugular with his hardboiled series Sin City, I fell in love all over again. Staying true to his trademark of reinventing his drawing style with every new project, Miller seemed to perfect the black and white art with A Dame to Kill For – a book that still stands as an example of how little outline you can get away with.

The 2005 movie stayed true to the visual style and the storyline, keeping almost every line of gravel voice over as it was in the comic. But what felt like a punch in the gut in comic form was beautifully boring on screen. The hardboiled scenes fell flat and the dialogue was cringe-worthy – to me an example that a movie IS in fact another medium and should be treated as such. But as I see it, Sin City paved the way for more comics adaptations (because it was cheap to make) and hopefully brought more readers to the source material. But the best thing Sin City caused, was the reviving of Mickey Rourke’s movie career!

Rourke is back as Marv for A Dame to Kill For, and so is Jessica Alba, Powers Boothe and Bruce Willis – adding Josh Brolin as Dwight (before the plastic surgery that made him look like Clive Owen) and Eva Green as Ava, the Dame herself. Once again spot-on casting. And the trailer promises lots of excessive violence and gratuitous nudity. What’s not to like? Well, we’ll have to wait until August to see for ourselves…

Enjoy the trailer below!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: A Dame to Kill For, Batman: Year One, casting, Daredevil, David Mazzucchelli, Eva Green, Frank Miller, hardboiled, hollyood, Mickey Rourke, movie adaptations, movie trailer, noir, Robert Rodriguez, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns, trailer

Ben Affleck as… Superman?

by Palle Schmidt 3 Comments

Hi, I'm Batman. And Superman. And Daredevil...
Hi, I’m Batman. And Superman. And Daredevil…

There has been a lot of debacle over the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in the upcoming Zack Snyder movie Batman vs. Superman, but no one seems to akcnowledge Afflecks earlier superhero performances.

No, I don’t mean Daredevil. The reviews and word of mouth has been so bad that I spared myself of that one (wish I had been smart enough to do the same with Die Hard 4 and 5). But who knows why that movie tanked? All of it can’t be on Affleck.

I think what a lot of people have forgotten, is one of Affleck’s finest performances was in fact as… Superman. In the 2006 thriller Hollywoodland, Affleck plays the 1950’s TV Superman actor George Reeves, a not very talented actor and pretty boy. And – surprise -Afflecks nails it!

When I first heard of Affleck’s Batman casting, I thought (and perhaps secretly hoped) that it was a joke. But then again, casting is somebody’s else’s profession, not mine. Would I have cast Michael Keaton as Batman, a comedy actor? Christian Bale, a skinny, blonde brit? Would I have cast Heath Ledger as The Joker? Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman?

The answer to all of the above would be a roaring NOO! And I would be wrong.

And what about the seemingly obvious, spot-on casting, such as Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Or Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin in the first Spiderman movie. All they had to do was paint his face green – Boom! And yet in the movie, Dafoe’s was not the most impressive of performances. Largely because they chose to put a full face helmet on him…

Movies turn out for the worst for a million reasons. Casting is but a small part of it. Script and director is much more important. Maybe we should give anyone involved the benefit of the doubt, and maybe stop bitching about stuff that is beyound our control.

Does the casting of Ben Affleck take anything away from our enjoyment of Batman as a comics character, or even earlier incarnations? Come on. It’s just a movie. DC and Warner Brothers don’t care what we think, as long as they sell tickets. What we CAN do, is stop buying their crap JUST because it has Batman in it, and do a little research, find the good stuff and vote with our wallets.

I  just think there should be a limit to how many iconic superheroes one actor can portray. Three strikes and you’re out!

Here’s what former Batman, Val Kilmer says, and I concur:

ben-affleck-as-batman-internet-reactions-40

Who would you see as Batman, or any other superhero, if you had a say in the matter?

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Batman, Ben Affleck, casting, Christian Bale, DC comics, Heath Ledger, movies, Robert Downey Jr., superhero movies, superheroes, Superman, Val Kilmer, Warner Brothers, Zack Snyder

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