Comic-Con 2005: Days 1 and 2
The first night of the con was relatively uneventful. Got my badge with no real difficulties and waited around an hour to get in for Preview Night. I think I covered more than half the floor before it was time to go. Quite a lot of stuff for people to buy. I did a pretty good job not getting stuff, compared to last year. Went back and hung with Noelle and her crew over at the Westin (which does not have wireless, never mind free wireless, hee hee!), where she made lunches for us. She's so thoughtful. Getting food is kind of a pain in the ass at the con. The lines are long, the quality tends to be sketchy, and the cost is absurd. Unless you're used to eating at ball games. Then it's perfectly reasonable.
I am pretty happy with my hotel: I got a wireless adapter which works better than the built in card, so I am writing this from the hotel room's patio while looking out at downtown San Diego. It's kinda foggy, but I like it.
The next day I got up and slowly made my way to the con. I didn't end up getting there until after noon, because there weren't any panels I was super interested in before then and I crashed pretty hard the previous night.
A Scanner Darkly: This is an animated movie version of perhaps my favorite Phillip K Dick novel. The animation style is a newer version of the rotoscoping process used in Waking Life. Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, and Woody Harrelson are some of the actors in it. They also have an animatronic Phillip, K Dick robot, whom I guess they will use in the movie somehow. This movie is supposedly about 65-70% done and made for a miniscule $8 Million. They talked about how it was hard to convince the studio to do an R-rated animated feature. They showed a clip which featured a really strong performance from Robert Downey, which was surprising to me. They also had the animatronic PKD answer some questions. After a halting start, he went off on a tear, talking a mile a minute for a couple minutes. I believe he was talking about Blade Runner, but it was hard to tell.
Later that afternoon I went back to Hall 6CD to see Bruce Campbell speak. He was mostly there to flog his new movie, The Man With the Screaming Brain, his new video game Army of Darkness sequel, and his book Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. He is a remarkably funny and intelligent speaker in person. I never know what to expect with actors. Campbell was quick on his feet and very plainspoken, which makes me like him even more than I did before. The last question the audience asked him was what his most frustrating experience in the business was, to which he made a five minute reply about how he was frustrated with the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood. How he gets accused of making B pictures when the biggest blockbusters are movies based on comic books. And how people under 30 don't realize how cheated they are because Hollywood just keeps going back and recycling old movies and televisions shows: Stepford Wives, Bewitched, Batman, Herbie the Love Bug ("They've done so many Herbie movies, I've done a Herbie movie!), etc, etc. Oh, btw, there are no plans to do Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. The producers of Freddie vs Jason did call him, but the deal did not make sense, so he said no.
David Cronenberg Panel: David Cronenberg was there to talk about his new movie A History of Violence starring Viggo Mortensen as a small town restauranteur who is mistaken(?) for someone else after he foils a robbery. The clip they showed was very intense, so I have high hopes for this film.
The last panel of the day was a reprise of last year's Adult Swim Pitch Panel. They mostly talked about what you should and shouldn't do to pitch a show to the guy at Adult Swim who handles new shows. They also featured a few clips for some shows that are in production: Minoriteam - superheroes who use ethnic stereotypes to do battle against The Man; looked insanely controversial but also very funny. Moral Orel is a cartoon in the style of Davy and Goliath but in the spirit of South Park. (Orel just wants to be good!) Finally they showed a clip from Lucy: Daughter of Satan which I've been waiting for since last year. Looks pretty funny.
Well, gots to get ready for Day 3 of the Con. I'll have pictures up when I get a chance.
I am pretty happy with my hotel: I got a wireless adapter which works better than the built in card, so I am writing this from the hotel room's patio while looking out at downtown San Diego. It's kinda foggy, but I like it.
The next day I got up and slowly made my way to the con. I didn't end up getting there until after noon, because there weren't any panels I was super interested in before then and I crashed pretty hard the previous night.
A Scanner Darkly: This is an animated movie version of perhaps my favorite Phillip K Dick novel. The animation style is a newer version of the rotoscoping process used in Waking Life. Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, and Woody Harrelson are some of the actors in it. They also have an animatronic Phillip, K Dick robot, whom I guess they will use in the movie somehow. This movie is supposedly about 65-70% done and made for a miniscule $8 Million. They talked about how it was hard to convince the studio to do an R-rated animated feature. They showed a clip which featured a really strong performance from Robert Downey, which was surprising to me. They also had the animatronic PKD answer some questions. After a halting start, he went off on a tear, talking a mile a minute for a couple minutes. I believe he was talking about Blade Runner, but it was hard to tell.
Later that afternoon I went back to Hall 6CD to see Bruce Campbell speak. He was mostly there to flog his new movie, The Man With the Screaming Brain, his new video game Army of Darkness sequel, and his book Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. He is a remarkably funny and intelligent speaker in person. I never know what to expect with actors. Campbell was quick on his feet and very plainspoken, which makes me like him even more than I did before. The last question the audience asked him was what his most frustrating experience in the business was, to which he made a five minute reply about how he was frustrated with the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood. How he gets accused of making B pictures when the biggest blockbusters are movies based on comic books. And how people under 30 don't realize how cheated they are because Hollywood just keeps going back and recycling old movies and televisions shows: Stepford Wives, Bewitched, Batman, Herbie the Love Bug ("They've done so many Herbie movies, I've done a Herbie movie!), etc, etc. Oh, btw, there are no plans to do Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. The producers of Freddie vs Jason did call him, but the deal did not make sense, so he said no.
David Cronenberg Panel: David Cronenberg was there to talk about his new movie A History of Violence starring Viggo Mortensen as a small town restauranteur who is mistaken(?) for someone else after he foils a robbery. The clip they showed was very intense, so I have high hopes for this film.
The last panel of the day was a reprise of last year's Adult Swim Pitch Panel. They mostly talked about what you should and shouldn't do to pitch a show to the guy at Adult Swim who handles new shows. They also featured a few clips for some shows that are in production: Minoriteam - superheroes who use ethnic stereotypes to do battle against The Man; looked insanely controversial but also very funny. Moral Orel is a cartoon in the style of Davy and Goliath but in the spirit of South Park. (Orel just wants to be good!) Finally they showed a clip from Lucy: Daughter of Satan which I've been waiting for since last year. Looks pretty funny.
Well, gots to get ready for Day 3 of the Con. I'll have pictures up when I get a chance.
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