DVD Diggers #31 - June 2nd, 2005

Back by popular demand, it’s DVD Diggers... well, maybe not popular demand. Actually, no demand at all. I’m not even sure anyone noticed the column was missing, but it has been. For the last month there has been no DVD Diggers, and my aspirations of beating Josh’s Film Habit to fifty were demolished (congrats on that by the way chief).

The column almost didn’t happen this week either unfortunately. Thanks to the wonderful service from my cable company, my internet service has been less than reliable for the last couple of weeks. I know what you’re thinking: why do you need the internet to write the column? Can’t you just write it and then toss it up during a window of opportunity? Well, sure, but in order to talk about stuff I have to be able to do research - looking at upcoming releases, entertainment news, etc. If I can’t look stuff up, then I can’t talk about it, or I risk a column that seems sadly misinformed. Take for instance, the news earlier today about fullscreen only DVD release of Ghostbusters. I had a couple of paragraphs ready in my mind to write on the subject, only to find out (when my connection started working) that the news was wrong, there is a widescreen version being released as well.

So, Boo to badly working internet services, poor customer service from cable companies, and columns that can’t get their act together to get their words out on time.

Yes I have a Podcast

I’ve been lax to mention the podcast outside of where I already give it attention, but since Josh seems obsessed to do so in his weekly column, I guess it’s okay to mention here. The Weekly Blend Audio Show is a weekly look at what’s coming out and going on in the world of entertainment. I hopefully offer some insight or opinions that are valuable or, lacking that, I break into a poor Yoda impersonation.

While each week I’m typically not happy with how the podcast comes together (I’m never satisfied with my own work) I am happy with how it holds up with the competition. There are a couple of highly favored podcasts out there that are just boring. I mean boring at a level far beyond NPR (no offense to NPR, which I actually like, but too much of it can get me sleepy). Part of my problem with other podcasts is they get too geeky, which quite frankly so do I, so I tend not to fault those. My real problem with some of the other favored podcasts is they are just too long and too dry. Just because a person can talk for twenty minutes about a movie doesn’t necessarily mean they should, or that anyone is interested in listening to them for that long. Some people take the mentality that because a podcast isn’t on radio it doesn’t have to be structured with a definite time limit - a philosophy I disagree heartily with.

The reason I mention it here is we’re striving to get the word around about the Audio Show. Already we’re getting some decent attention, but you can never have too much, right? So I’m taking space here to whore it up a little bit. The Weekly Blend Audio Show is registered at several podcast directories, two of which allow visitors to rank their favorite podcasts: Podcast Alley and Podcasting News. Head over there, give us a listen, or just give us your votes blindly. Either way help us carry the word to the popular boring guys - we’re here, and they’ve got some competition.

Don’t Funk With My Characters

One of the best pieces of news to hit the entertainment world in a while came this week: Matthew Vaughn is off X-Men 3. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything personally against Vaughn, I just don’t know his work, and that’s because he really doesn’t have any work to judge. He’s been mostly a producer, with Layer Cake really acting as his directorial debut. I just don’t think someone with that sort of experience should be given the keys to a massive franchise like the X-Men, a franchise that has managed not to alienate its comic book fanbase, and actually draw more fans in with the big screen portrayal of the comics.

As usual, the 2000 pound elephant of the online news world, Ain’t It Cool News, broke the story and has now laid claim to the next story - Matthew Vaughn’s replacement. I’m not so bothered by the idea of Brett Ratner taking over the franchise. At least he’s a proven director, but I still don’t think he’ll bring to the X-Men the same thing Bryan Singer did, or that Sam Raimi brings to Spider-Man. However, at least he’s a proven director, so I’ll take him. What worries me is the rumored script that’s being used for the movie, of which Ain’t It Cool News had this to say (provided in AICN’s requisite purple box):

And Avi Arad wasn’t kidding when he called the film “controversial,” either. Three major characters that absolutely should not die, die. Really dead, too. Not Spock Dead. And one mutant who should not lose her powers, loses her powers permanently. Really loses them, too. Not SUPERMAN II loses them. And the sex scene... when you see who does what to who... oh, boy.

What the hell?

One of the best things the X-Men films have done is portrayed comic book events on the big screen. Now, they haven’t been panel-by-panel accurate like Sin City, but the ideas have been there. Wolverine is still Wolverine. There is a romance between Cyclops and the ill-fated Jean Gray - an ill fate we saw the first hints at in the X:2 by the way. The characters have been true to form, even if the stories have changed a bit.

Arbitrarily changing a character is not going to fly with the dedicated fans. Hell, it doesn’t even fly with me, and I rarely pick up an X-Men comic book. Now I understand the current script was theoretically written by Matthew Vaughn in six days (on the seventh day he supposedly rested), and there’s a concern that at this point they may not have a chance to change the script and still hit their projected release date. To this I say: Suck it up. Fans would rather the release date be missed then having to sit through a film that corpse-rapes their favorite characters. Remember, most fans loved Batman and Batman Returns, but lost faith as Batman Forever strayed from the previous films, and flat out turned their back on the franchise after Batman and Robin (still the worst comic book movie of all time). Ratner does not want to become the Schumacher of the X-Men franchise. Now that the X-men film has a tolerable director, give him a good script to work from, or don’t do the movie.

What does this have to do with DVDs? I dunno... sit back and watch the two X-Men movies already on DVD and hope and pray the third one will live up to our expectations.