Man, this Spirit Movie is one helluva a train wreck. And I still can't decide if I hate it or love it. Acting's about Showtime Porn quality. Visuals don't know if they should be hyper-real or b-movie cheese. Characters look super dull and monochromatic.

But I keep going back to watching bits of it. And the leaked fight scene from SDCC is so ridiculous that I like it.

Jerry accurately mentioned that comic book movies try to over compensate the silliness of the medium of inspiration by doing this pseudo-sophisticated look. Spirit feels like it's trying to embrace the comic-book wacky that other films fear... but is still holding onto some weird pretentious sense of sophistication.

Check out the youtube video soon, 'cause I'm sure they'll take it down in the next 24 hours.

You can also see a quicktime version of the new trailer HERE.

Mista Hippo informed me that the World Premiere of "Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes of David Choe" will take place in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 26th at the Mann Festival Theatre. I doubt I'll be able to make it to the premiere, but I'm going to do my best to see one of the following showings during the subsequent weekend.

David Choe is amazing. His life is as interesting as his work. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the 1997 Wondercon (shortly after the release of his mind-fucking Xeric-grant "Slow Jams" comic). He was a super cool dude.

If you ever find a copy of "Slow Jams", read it. Best masturbation sequence ever captured on paper (any dude will appreciate Choe's authenticity!).

Since the release of "Slow Jams", Choe found plenty of well deserved attention and success. You can find many of his beautiful illustrations in older issues of Giant Robot magazine. His art has been circulating the fine art world for many, many years. You'll occasionaly find his mural work in various places around the world (his amazing redesign of The Kitchen on Sunset and Fountain is a walking distance from Jerry's house!).

I recall his crazy debacle with Marvel Comics when he had done preliminary work on NYX with Brian Wood. I was blown away to find out that Choe was arrested in Japan for stealing days before an art show and was stuck in a Japanese prison for months only to find God while doing art on napkins with his food and bodily fluids. It was a pleasure to find Choe backed away from his spiritual awakening to find the same thrills he found in stealing by gambling in Vegas and screwing The Man by winning hundreds of thousands in Black Jack. You'd think his life was a big fairy tale if it weren't for the pictures.

Oh yeah, and his art? Raw, honest, dirty, and fuckin' beautiful.

Here's the trailer for the film:

My college buddy Greg was visiting from Shanghai. At his request we ended up watching the latest Indiana Jones film. I'm surprised to say that I really dug it!

This is the first "Summer" film I've seen this year (nope, haven't seen "Iron Man"). I knew little to nothing about that film which was probably the best thing I did. I'm notorious for spoiling films by reading too much about them prior to their release. Lately, I'm spending less and less time following films and it's indirectly resulted in fully enjoying the films I choose to watch.

The film isn't perfect (what film is?) but its positives far outweigh the negatives. Some of the more CGI-focused visuals were unnecessarily over-the-top but it was all counter balanced with some good old-fashioned physical stunts.

I forgot how much of Indiana Jones is driven by action. At times it felt like a silent film whose story was completely told by the action and reactions of the characters. The fact that all aspects of the action on screen were conveyed clearly and dynamically attests to Spielberg's superior sense of Direction.

I also came to realize the importance of Indiana Jones on our pop-culture psyche. The English have James Bond. We have Indiana Jones. On so many levels Indy embodies the American Spirit. He's got the cowboy hat. He's constantly exploring new ideas (which fittingly come from naive interpretations of foreign cultures). He acts before he thinks and miraculously escapes the most dangerous of situations. I love the purity and timelessness of it all. And when you carry through the symbol of Indy, his discovery in this film is a very fitting one (even if they reveal far more than I would have hoped).

Love the Lone Wolf & Cub comics... but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the live action films.

A total of 6 films came out from 1972-74. My favorites are definitely the first 3. While the comics tone is fairly straight, the movies are super exploitative and cheesy. And it works!

I love how good Samurai films play up the calm stillness before the chaotic bloodshed. At times, the Lone Wolf series did it as good as the best of them.

Lionsgate and Frank Miller debuted Eisner's "The Spirit" trailer at NYCC this past weekend. What was shown was closer to "Sin City" than Eisner's pulp masked adventurer stories, but I loved it nonetheless.

Will Eisner and Frank Miller both have a passion for cartooning, the City, and women. As Eisner matured as an artist, he began to explore more sophisticated concepts like City life and comic narrative. Miller's maturing process was short-lived. After doing seminal works like "Dark Knight Returns" and "Daredevil: Born Again", Miller said, "to hell with it" and commited to elevating the sex and violence of American comics flirted with to sophisticated levels of style. His evolution was polarizing. Ironically it was his embracement of these more juvenile trappings that brought him success in Hollywood.

The teaser hints that what Miller's developed for Eisner's "The Spirit" is a nice mix of the purest elements of modern Miller and early Eisner. Too bad we're going to have to wait until 2009 to see the final product.

Here's the teaser (in HD, so please be patient!):

I had the great pleasure to watch Wong Kar Wai's "My Blueberry Nights" on the big screen. My, what a gorgeous film. I love how Wong captures a wide range of American life with the perspective of an outsider. I've heard the film hasn't been getting very good reviews but I'm not really sure why. The performances were very good. I wanted to hate Norah Jones (I actually did for the first few seconds) but I quickly fell in love with her character. There were solid performances all around. And, as usual for Wong Kar Wai, the movie is visually stunning.

I was surprised that Christopher Doyle (the master Cinematographer that often works with Wong) was not involved on "My Blueberry Nights". The visual language of the film seems to borrow heavily from Doyle and Wong's previous work.

The movie is a romance, so I don't recommend it to people who can't stand getting a little emotional (sorry Jerry, this film ain't for you!) but for everyone else, I definitely feel it's worth checking out.

Below is a HD version of the Trailer. It takes a little longer than the typical YouTube video to load, but Wong Kar Wai's visuals demand the better resolution!