Questions That Keep Me Awake at Night - #2

How come someone can be distraught but they can't simply be traught?

I'll Take "MORE Stuff Len Created" For $1000, Alex

Well, they've done it again. Last night, my lovely wife and I were worshiping as we do every night before the anointed altar of Jeopardy! (and, hey, howcum so many of the things I blog about here -- Reprise!, Strike Up The Band!, Jeopardy! -- all end in exclamation points, anyway?) when my jaw went slack with wonder. The first category host Alex Trebeck announced for the initial round of questions was DC Comics. I perked up immediately. On the show a few months ago, most of the categories in Double Jeopardy were named after several of my X-Men characters, specifically, Wolverine, Storm and Colossus. Could they possibly be planning to play in my sandbox again?

The answers to the five questions were all pictures of DC characters; The Penguin was the $200 answer, Plastic Man the $400, Green Arrow was $600, Robin/Dick Grayson took $800, and the final $1000 answer was a lovely Steve Bissette/John Totleben illustration of a certain muck-encrusted mockery of a man with whom I've had some small acquaintance.

"How'sa Bayou tell us the name of this slimy, half-human DC character?" asked Alex. The reigning champion rang in, answered "Swamp Thing" and it took Christine five minutes to wipe the silly smile off my face.

Seriously, I cannot begin to tell you how honored I am that my creations have become familiar enough to the general public to be used as game show answers, not to mention on my favorite game show. To the question writers of Jeopardy!, my deepest thanks.

I think it'll be when I see Brother Voodoo or Lucius Fox as Jeopardy! answers that I'll really have to start worrying.

In Passing

Your Humble Blogger was saddened today to read of the passing of 76-year-old comedian, actor, director and raconteur Charles Nelson Reilly (of Match Game and Lidsville fame) due to complications from pneumonia. I was fortunate enough to see Mister Reilly perform sans toupee several years ago in the Reprise! production of George and Ira Gershwin's classic Strike Up the Band! and was startled by his uncanny resemblance to an old and dear friend and mentor of mine.

So now who gets to play legendary editor Julius Schwartz in The DC Comics Story?

Pirate Addendum

I neglected to mention earlier in my review of Pirates 3 that, despite the almost-certain urging of your bladder to visit a restroom, it's well worth your while to sit through the movie's copious end credits. As with the first two films, there is an extra scene at the end after the credits that adds a great deal to the story.

Just thought you'd want to know.

This Film is Rated "ARRRRH"

AVAST, MATEYS! THAR BE SPOILERS APLENTY AHEAD!
YE'VE BEEN DULY WARNED!

Several years ago, when my lovely wife Christine and I attended the Disneyland premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I thought it was the best pirate movie I'd seen since Burt Lancaster's classic The Crimson Pirate decades before. Granted, intervening films like Pirates, Swashbuckler and Cutthroat Island made that a comparatively easy thing to accomplish, but still...

In PotC:tCofBP, swords were crossed, swashes were buckled, and in Captain Jack Sparrow, the always-brilliant Johnny Depp created a character unique in movie history. Granted, I was already inclined to like the film since it was being written by friends of mine and, thanks to their generosity, Marv Wolfman and I had spent a day on the set, meeting Keira Knightly, Orlando Bloom, and Geoffrey Rush, and watching the crew shoot the climactic sword fight in the treasure cave. In fact, I still have a few "gold" doubloons from the cave floor laying around the house somewhere as a memento. But I also like to think I'm enough of a professional that I won't let personal allegiances interfere with me giving an honest review.

In point of fact, I did not particularly like the first sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Although I had fun much of the time while I was watching it, in the end I felt it was overlong, left far too many plot threads dangling (the problem with most middle films of a trilogy), and turned Jack Sparrow from a charming rogue to a repugnant, self-serving thug. While I know that the writers had always intended Jack to be totally amoral, it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I guess that's why I thrilled to report that I absolutely LOVED the latest (and, theoretically, final) chapter in the saga, Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End. While it is by far the longest of the three films, clocking in at a little under three hours, the time seemed to fly past. There was none of the usual squirming and fidgeting that occurs when you're becoming impatient, waiting for the film to end. Frankly, I'd have been just as happy had the film never ended. The entire cast of the previous film was back and, wisely, all new characters added were in service to the half-dozen different stories they already had in place and needed to resolve. The two standout new characters were, of course, the incomparable Chow Yun-Fat as the leader of the Singapore pirates and the incomprehensible Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow's pirate dad. While still self-serving, Depp's Jack Sparrow was once again the charming rogue and, as Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, Orlando and Keira took their characters to whole new levels of romance and butt-kicking. As the monstrous Davy Jones, the always-extraordinary Bill Nighy was at turns terrifying and heartbreaking.

In many ways, though, what impressed me most about PotC:aWE was the skill with which screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio managed to resolve all the many dangling plotlines left over from the previous films, and the often-ingenious ways in which they did so. Everything ends satisfactorily in PotC:aWE, though not necessarily in the way one might expect. There is nothing that I can think of that hasn't been addressed and resolved. And that, in itself, is a major magic trick. In fact, the only thing I can think of that could have improved the film is that every member of the audience be given a Tia Dalma-to-English Dictionary, as Naomie Harris's Caribbean accent couldn't be cut with a sharp new machete.

Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End certainly will not need my recommendation to break buckets of box office records this weekend, but I'm giving it anyway. Go see it. You won't be sorry you did.

Give This "Bee" an "A"

Saturday night, my lovely wife and I and a group of our friends went over to the Wadsworth Theatre in Westwood to see the Tony Award-winning musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, starring the original Broadway cast. Now, as I believe I've mentioned on this here blog before, I'd already seen the Bee on Broadway, starring most of the same performers, in fact, but since the show is only in town for about a month, and since a whole bunch of my friends, including my lovely wife, had not yet seen it, I was more than happy to go again. Since, when I saw the Bee in New York, I was fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the guest spellers, I thought it might be nice to watch the entire show from the audience for a change. I'm glad I did.

T2APCSB, as I've now decided to refer to it, is a wonderful show, full of heart, insight, totally endearing. This original cast won a Tony Award for Best Ensemble Performance, with the amazing Dan Fogler also winning an individual Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and it's easy to see why they did. They imbue this lovable gang of social misfits with astonishing depth and complexity. After the final curtain, my friends all agreed that there wasn't one character in the show we had not gone to school with. They were all uncomfortably real.

The music for T2APCSB written by William Finn, who also did the music for Falsettos, A New Brain, and Elegies: A Song Cycle, was not particularly memorable, mostly working in service to the story, but the book by Rachel Sheinkin, with some nightly improv thrown in by several of the cast members, was terrific. I don't remember when I last laughed so hard in the theater.

The show is in town for most of the next month and, if you live in the Southern California area, I strongly recommend you go see it. You won't be disappointed.

Talking the Talk

Living in Los Angeles can sometimes be a surreal experience. Thursday evening, for example, instead of going to the first screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End as so many others across the nation were doing, my lovely wife Christine and I, as well as our new friend Donna Accardo, who worked with Chris to organize the Creative Voices series of lectures over at Pierce College, went over to the Writers Guild Theater to enjoy an interview with the film's screenwriters, my dear friends Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. As I may have mentioned here before, aside from the Pirates trilogy, Ted and Terry are also responsible for such minor unheard of classics as Disney's Aladdin, The Mask of Zorro, Shrek, and Nation Treasure. They were being interviewed by film critic F. X. Feeney, himself no slouch as a screenwriter, having worked on The Big Brass Ring and Frankenstein Unbound.

The interview ran just under two hours, with the guys expounding on everything from the craft of writing, from pirate vernacular to finding an ogre's voice, to fighting to maintain one's creative vision against sometimes overwhelming forces, to the art of collaboration, to how to keep Keith Richards vertical while one is attempting to film a scene. It was a fun, lively, extremely entertaining evening, enjoyed greatly by everyone who was there. For those of you who missed it, Ted and Terry will be the second speakers in the aforementioned Creative Voices lecture series this fall at Pierce College. As we get closer to the event, I'll let those of you who live in the Southern California area (as well as those of you willing to shlep to the Southern California area to hear the guys) in on the details of when and where it's happening. It's free, and it's well worth your time.

Oh, and one more thing about living in Hollywood. Before the interview, Christine, Donna and I stopped across the street from the WGA Theater to grab a quick bite at a restaurant called Kate Mantellini's, a joint that's famous as a celebrity hangout. While we were there, famed film director Sidney Pollack (The Interpreter, Random Hearts, Sabrina, The Firm, Havana, Out of Africa, Tootsie, Absence of Malice, The Electric Horseman, Three Days of the Condor, The Yakuza, The Way We Were, Jeremiah Johnson, They Shoot Horse, Don't They? and many more) strolled past us, even as we noticed comedic actresses Conchata Ferrell (currently costarring on Two-and-a-Half Men) and Julie Hagerty (of the Airplane! movies and more TV and film roles than I can list) dining together at another table.

I love it when an old cliche turns out to be true.

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Well, I've just finished watching the single best explanation of copyright I've ever seen. Even I, the self-professed King of the Luddite People, now believe I have at least a passing understanding of what my lovely wife, the creators' rights attorney, is constantly yelling at me about.

The video is about 10 minutes long and worth every second. Just click here to watch it, then come on back and let me know what you thought.

Kitchen Chaos

Well, the workers finished putting in the new kitchen lighting fixtures (but not the frames and shades) and the new sink (which is set into a temporary counter top) at about 9:30 Saturday evening, and precisely what I most dreaded at the time has, of course, occurred. Our contractor, now erroneously assuming our kitchen was to some degree functional again, has vanished from the face of the earth. He has vanished, leaving all of our groceries and dishes and whatnot scattered all over the house and yard. He has vanished, leaving us high and (thankfully, due to a fine caulking job by our plumber) dry. When I attempted to call his cell phone earlier, I received the following message: "The number you have called is not reachable at this time." I've never gotten a cell phone message like that before. I have absolutely no idea what the hell it even means. Is there some sort of secret dialing code needed of which I'm unaware? Has his mothership left earth orbit?

Our dear housekeeper is due here tomorrow morning after I canceled her visit last week. I'm thinking of canceling again. Frankly, I'm not sure what housework is possible at the moment for her to do. I mean, trying to navigate our living room right now is like walking one of those "paths of power" that Roger Zelazny (I think) used to write about. For all I know, we've been unwittingly casting mystic spells for the past several weeks that have kept Alberto Gonzalez in office, even as they've slowly been turning the Amazon rain forest into a condominium complex for Munchkins.

I'm afraid there is no other choice for me but to go back into hiding under the bed. For the foreseeable future, could you kindly have my take-out dinners (the only kind we're able to eat at home right now) delivered there?

Questions That Keep Me Awake at Night - #1

Why do the phrases "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean exactly the same thing?

Himself, the Elf

Harlan Ellison is one of my oldest and closest friends. He is a brother to me in everything but blood. He is creative, crotchety, compassionate, cantankerous, compulsive, compelling, and pretty much every other adjective one might find in the dictionary, except one. The one thing Harlan Ellison is not, not now, not ever, is boring.

We have been friends since that day, thirty-some-very odd years ago, when Harlan confronted me in the corridors of DC Comics, introduced himself, and told me he was there to punch me in the nose. It's an interesting story, one I'd be happy to relate here sometime, if enough of you are interested in hearing it. But that's not what I'm here to talk about right now.

The major reason I didn't blog more yesterday, despite my recent promise, was that my lovely wife Christine and I spent the entire day and evening wrangling Harlan as he became the first speaker in the Creative Voices series of lectures at local Pierce College, where Christine teaches photography. The speakers for the second Creative Voices lecture, to be held this fall, are our friends Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who have some minor, rickyticky movie about pirates or something opening this weekend, which all of you will probably go see. But I digress.

Harlan spoke twice during the day. First, in the afternoon at the Campus Center, to a group of students, then in the evening, at the Pierce Performing Arts Center, to an audience of students, adults, and anyone else wearing Kevlar underwear, who was brave enough to attend. Watching Harlan speak is not unlike what I imagine those old EST seminars of the '70s were like, except that you're allowed to go to the bathroom during the Ellison talk.

Harlan takes the stage, refuses to give it back, and then enthusiastically starts challenging the audience as he launches into a series of fascinating stories that keep getting interrupted by some new story the previous one has just reminded him of. Eventually, albeit with occasional prodding from the audience, Harlan will indeed finish every one of the stories he's begun, but the process is not unlike eating an artichoke, peeling away at the outer layers piece by piece until you reach the soft and tasty heart inside. It's something that is far better experienced than described.

The highlight of the day's two performances, however, came during the afternoon session, when Harlan called for any questions from the audience. One of the students, reading from Harlan's abbreviated biography from the program, asked, in unwitting reference to an honor bestowed upon Harlan last year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, "How did you become one of only 29 Grand Masters?" Harlan replied, "Do you know what a Grand Master is?" Without missing a beat, the kid answered, "Not really, but I think it has something to do with the Ku Klux Klan."

It took us twenty minutes to scrape Harlan up off the floor.

An Observation

So long as there are dogs in the world, there is hope for the Human Race.