SCHEME COMIX ISSUE2.

While we get issue 2 ready for the LONDON COMIC and SMALL PRESS EXPO, Scheme9 will be taking a bit of a back seat for a while. We hope our regular readers will still drop by now and again for the odd update before resuming our normal service.
Sé valiente y fuerzas poderosas vendrán en tu ayuda. and SPREAD the WORD!

The Rolling Stones Sympathy For The Devil vs Primal Scream Loaded

REMAKES, REMAKES,REMAKES,REMakes,remakes,remakes,remak......

 Hollywood has never had a problem with remakes (Judy Garland's Wizard of OZ is the 6th film adaption of the L. Frank Baum book) but since the 90's the reliance on them (as well as big budget adaptations of old TV shows and cartoons) has slowly tumbled to the point that it has become, boring (to this we can also add unnecessary sequels that try to revive long retired cash cows) I understand that money is the motivation of 99% of all Hollywood's output, why risk money on something new and untested when an army of marketing men and accountants are spouting the economic advantages of brand recognition. This solid gold  financial structure has also given rise to what is surly the bane of modern Pop Culture, the Prequel. Films and TV shows who's entire shtick is telling us how the cool stuff we've loved for years became cool in the first place. I love the Ramones but that doesn't mean I want to listen to a trilogy of 3 hour long cd's of a 12 year old Dee-Dee learning to play the bass.
What I don't understand though is why we the public continue to fall for it. Over the last 10 years we've had every thing from Star Wars to a Nightmare on Elm Street and most recently Tron 'updated for a new generation' and with very, very few exceptions they never fail to disappoint but yet the Hollywood money machine continues to churn them out and you can't just blame cinematic hacks like Michael Bay (Transformers 1,2&3) and McG (Charlies Angels 1&2, Terminator Salvation) even directors who's reputations are built on creativity and originality have been tempted by the rewards a remake has to offer. After becoming a fan favorite with low budget cult classics Peter Jackson took a step into the mainstream with the excellent the Frighteners then strikes box office gold with the Lord of the Rings but after 3 adaptations instead of making something original he chooses to remake the stone cold downer that was  KING KONG and then there's Tim Burton a director who's originality tag is some what questionable. According to his directorial listings on IMDB out of his 27 directorial credits 10 are either adaptations or remakes. The trend for the remake (re-boot, sequel, prequel...) is in no danger of dying out anytime soon (the Spider-man re-boot comes out next year only 4 years after the end of Sam Raimi's trilogy) although Ridley Scott has changed his plans for an Alien prequel perhaps because of the overwhelmingly negative response it's announcement received online rather than the need to produce something original. And so gentle reader here is a short list of what we can expect while we wait patiently for the 'new'. (the following are listed at slashfilm.com.)
Annie, Evil Dead, Wild Bunch, West World, Lethal Weapon,etc, etc, etc...........

To add some balance here is a recent blog from the film critic Mark Kermode on the subject of remakes.

ENTHIRAN the ROBOT, BEST (WORST) MOVIE EVER.

 Here's a clip from the sci-fi flick ENTHIRAN. It's a mish-mash of other pictures (Terminator, Matrix...) but with a severe lack of  pretentiousness feels a million times more enjoyable.
 

''NEW'' THUNDER CATS cartoon....please let it stop.

Here's an image from the new  THUNDERCATS cartoon, and (even though I haven't seen it) I could not care less. Let.s face it the originals appealed to the 10 year old they where aimed at, but other than to fleece nostalgic 30 somethings from what disposable income they have left (after the Tron mugging) did it really need to be remade and updated, the answer gentle reader is NO!  .
Here's an article and thanks to JimSmash

 And just in case you had some delusions that there was some artistic motivation behind this project here's what it's really all about kids, the merchandise.

Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi

From TOP of the POPS 1978.
Click here for a better quality vid.

NEW GHOST RIDER FLICKS 'HELL CYCLE'

Here an image of Ghost Riders new ride in the up coming GHOST RIDER; Spirit of Vengeance. I like the look of this and fingers crossed that this movie is a vast improvement on the last one.

The RAZZIE AWARD NOMINATIONS

The nominations for this years Razzie's (in my book these and the Oscars are the only ceremonies that count). I'm surprised these aren't televised (if they are let me know where I can watch them).
Click here to have a look.
Here are probably two of the most famous winners acceptance speeches.




Click here to check out they're site.

MATRIX 4 and 5?

In the words of the philosopher C.Brown, "Good grief!"
Here's an article.

DREDD movies LAWMASTER

 

Here's the first image of Judge Dredd's Lawmaster from the upcoming flick. It looks OK but it would look a lot better with some chopper handle bars (I'm holding out a little hope that this is an unfinished model)

John Buscema..Legend.

I don't think it would be wrong to say that if you were to lay out 10 drawings of the same character and asked someone to point out the drawing that best represents the medium of American superhero comics 9 times out of 10 they would pick the Buscema drawing.

NEW SPIDER-MAN COSTUME WITH MASK...oh no

This image has popped up showing the new Spider-Man costume in all it's...er..glory? Apart from the unnecessary redesign (it dose however alow them to market a whole new line of merchandise which will look slightly different to all the existing merchandise) what the fudge are the red eyes all about. It also occurs to me that this image comes from the 'leaked' footage which recently hit the web (I thank you) where Spidey is chasing a truck, ON FOOT no doubt because his web shooters have run dry. Oh yes Spider-Man running round in his onesy and disco slippers just what everyone wants from a flick about the world famous web spinning wall crawler. I quote the legendary Spider-Man artist John Romita, "If you make him standing on the ground then you've wasted Spider-Man". Of course it's to early to be passing judgment on a film that isn't even done filming but having sat through a good number of comic adaptation made by people who obviously don't know the character they are adapting it's easy to spot the signs and with only a hand full of images and some unofficial footage the Spider-Man re-boot is already shaping up to be the stone cold downer I thought it would be.
(all it needs is the first 30 mins to be taken up with a pointless origin story and it's mantel as the 'new Fantastic Four' is more or less assured)

COSMIC CUBE features in CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE

This image from the Captain American flick appears to show Hugo Weaving (the Red Skull) holding the Cosmic Cube and as was revealed a while back the Infinity Gauntlet will feature in the Thor movie this bodes well for an AVENGERS picture that'll be a full on cosmic Kirby adventure.

X-MEN FIRST CLASS; Magneto.....ooft!

You get the feeling the makers of the new X-MEN flick have there hearts in the right place but this image of Magneto's helmet (cheeky) looks..err...mmm...

And here's the first official poster....sweet.
Here's an article.

Toots & The Maytals - Pressure Drop

BLACK PANTHER the movie.

It looks like Marvel are renewing plans to put the Black Panther on to the big screen. It's early days and there's no word yet on what actors could be up for the role of T'Challa king of Wakanda but with Idris Elba appearing in Thor I would say he would be a good bet ( as with Ryan Reynolds and Chris Evans it's not unusual for Marvel films to use the same actor for two different heroes and before any one gets they're fan-boy girdles in a twist I'm not getting Marvel & DC mixed up Reynolds played Hannibal King in Blade3 then Deadpool in Wolverine.) It's difficult to predict how they will choose to portray him (they seem to have enough trouble deciding that in the comics) but I hope that as with other male African American super hero's they avoid casting Hip-Hop artists (Sicky Fingaz, Blade the series) sports stars (Shaquille O'Neil, Steel) or worse Will Smith.

Here's an article.

Dark Knight Rises cast, cars and costumes oh my (updated)

As you will already know by now Anne Hathaway has been cast as Selina Kyle in the new bat flick however it has been reported that when the casting was announced the Warner press release made no mention of her alter ego CATWOMAN. If this has any significance then my predictions are that Selina will appear as a thief (cat burglar) and not as a ready made costumed 'super villain'. (Her costume could be modeled after the one being used at present in the comics which has a practical look to it but with all the cat elements like the ears on her mask removed.)

As for Bane (Tom Hardy) I hope (and suspect they will) portray him as a smart criminal genius who is a mental and physical match to Batman but uses his steroids (Venom) to give him the edge rather than try and use CGI to 'Hulk' him up.

 My thoughts on the new Bat-mobile go along the lines that over the last 2 flicks Batman refined his suit to make him sleeker and faster so it's only fair to think he'd do the same with his hot rod one suggestion doing the rounds on the net is that a possible choice would be the Lamborghini Ankonian, this is actually a fairly educated guess as Lamborghini supplied Bruce Wayne's car for Dark Knight and they do share design similarities.

As for the Bat suit, keeping with the 'make everything sleeker' motif I'd like to see them cover up the armour and make it look more 'costume' like as seen in the Batman: Dead End short. If this did happen I doubt the trunks over the tights would make an appearance but as with the comics, Bruce Wane's current bat suit is sans trunks so maybe it could be done and kept in fitting with Nolan's Bat world.

Here's an article.

 

Stewart Lee interviews Alan Moore

This is an excellent radio interview between the comedian Stewart Lee and the living legend that is the writer Alan Moore for BBC Radio 4. Unfortunatly I can only embed the first part but follow the links to listen to the other two, enjoy.
 


PART 2,     PART3.

Los straitjackets, Kaiser George and the world famous The pontani Sisters!

The sound is a little off but can you dig it!



Here's a link to the LOS STRAITJACKETS site.

DARK KNIGHT RISES casts its villains: CATWOMAN and BANE!

After months of speculation and rumor the makers of the next Bat flick Dark Knight Rises have anounced that Anne Hathaway will appear as Catwoman (although the Warner Brothers press release only metions Selina Kyle) and Tom Hardy will be cast as Bane. CAN YOU DIG IT!
Here's an article.

BEHIND THE SCENES SPIDER-MAN 'FOOTAGE'..err...big deal.

So now that we've had the first look at the new big screen Spider-Man all suited and re-booted (I thank you) we now have some 'leaked' footage hitting the inter-webs. I'm not a big fan of this kind of thing cause it stinks of studio market men building 'buzz' while not actually showing anything (similar to the recent set pic from Dredd of a car park and signs with Mega City-1 written on them.) So as of now I'll be waiting for something more interesting like costume close ups and what not before posting.

first image of X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Here is the first image of the cast in full costume for the upcoming X-MEN: First class flick.
With all the attention being centered on The Avengers and the solo movies that are leading up to it the X-Men picture has been elbowed slightly into an almost second tier status ( a bit like what has happened to the comic titles over the last ten years.) After the mess that was 'Last Stand' maybe this isn't such a bad strategy, it has a decent cast, it's chosen to focus on Magneto and Professor X ( who I would have prefared to see in bald and in his wheelchair although I'm sure it's on the cards ) it's put them in the traditional blue and yellow uniforms and more importantly it's not going to feature Wolverine who hasn't been interesting since Chris Claremont stopped writing him.( however don't completely rule out an unnecessary cameo).
I have high hopes that this could be the sleeper hit out of the upcoming Marvel movies purely because of my (Uncanny) X-Men loyalties which Marvel has done it's best to pulverize for over a decade now with an endless precession of poor X-titles and an unwavering and uninteresting reliance on Wolverine/Deadpool.

Here's an article and a run down on who's who.
In the article there's one character it can't identify empire online names her as Angel (Grant Morrison version)

James Brown and Little Richard on Wheel of Fortune

I Truly do not know how I feel about this but who am I to question the motives of two men the word LEGEND don't even begin to describe.

JACK KIRBY reads CAPTAIN AMERICA'S origin.

Here's the Jack Kirby interview from Ron Mann's 1988 documentary COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL where he reads the origin of Captain America. Can-you-DIG-IT!

Captain America stuff and nonsense.

Purely because I didn't post up the pic of Chris Evans in his full Captain America costume here are some images of the star spangled Avenger you might not have seen.

The Cap' in all his silver screen glory.

No doubt Stan 'the Man' Lee will make his obligatory cameo but it should be remembered that although he undoubtedly integrated Captain America into the Marvel Universe he did NOT create him that honer goes to Joe Simon (who at 97 years old is still with us so will hopefully have a prominent cameo) and Jack 'the KING' Kirby. (the first Captain America comic was published by Timely Comics which later became Marvel.)

For a short time in the 80's Steve Rogers gave up the mantel of Captain America and was known simply as the Captain he also cried a blank shield. As the second image show's this was at a time when Marvel first toyed with going 'dark' which at that time basicly ment sucking all the colour out of it's characters costumes.
( I actually really like the Cap's black duds which were later worn by the U.S Agent.)

In the mini series TRUTH: Red, White and Black it was revealed that the scientists who would go on to make Steve Rogers into Captain America first experimented on African American soldiers with Isaiah Bradley being the first of Americas Super Soldiers.

 Peter Fonda's character in Easy Rider goes by the nick name Captain America and just like him the Captain America of the comics was known to favor a motor cycle as his prefared mode of personal transport as he dose in the new flick. (as he also did in the so bad they're great 1970's TV movies.)

The future wielder of the Cap's shield was Vance Astro ( best name ever!) also known as Major Victory of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guess Who?- No sugar tonight / new mother nature

ANIMATED SUCKER PUNCH Banners.

CAN YOU DIG IT!

Map to a Galaxy far, far away.......

 Here's a map to every planet in the Star Wars universe, to the 10 year old me this would have been cooler than Bullitt (or even for that matter to the jaded old shyster that I had become by the time Phantom Menace graced us with it's presence) but now the over powering smell of cow milking ruins it's appeal.
As a side note in amongst all the inhabited planets and the untold lifeforms that they support George Lucas's shame is still missing without trace.

All Star Superman animated movie trailer

ANG LEE'S robot HULK test footage.

Before Ang lee went pure CGI for his attempt at putting the Hulk on the big screen he had an animatronic version made. Here's some test footage of the robot Goliath. The things I would do with a piece of hardware like this don't bare thinking about gentle readers needless to say if Mrs.Leftbridge wasn't such a stone cold fox it would all end in an exquisitely messy divorce.

HOBO with a SHOTGUN poster.

Dig this poster for the new Rutger Hauer ( solid gold legend) flick HOBO with a SHOTGUN.
Here's an article.

PRIEST: the comic book movie praying for a miracle (i thank you)

This year is a glut with comic book films. Some of comic-doms top tier characters are taking their best shot at big screen glory, even a 3rd string gem like The Green Hornet is getting the Hollywood treatment but here's one that you may not have heard too much about, the adaptation of Hyung Min-woo's PRIEST.
Fans of the book seem down on the flick because as is the Hollywood way they've changed a lot of what made what  the book what it was, but then there's nothing new there.



The trailer won't do much to calm the nerves of the already twitchy fan-boys. It looks like it's got some cool (if predictable) stuff going on Warrior Priests, cowboys on futuristic bikes and a walled metropolis surrounded by a post apocalyptic dessert (it even has Karl Urban who must have seen it as practice for his turn in the upcoming  Dredd) so far so good but with it's villains being vampires which for too long now have been 10 a penny why use ones that look like rejects from that god awful Constantine movie. I had hopes that this would turn out to be something like The Crow (relatively unknown comic get's the recognition it deserves with a small but perfectly formed Saturday night flick) but instead it looks like it's happy with 10 year old second rate Matrix FX and CGI monsters they forgot to make scary.

MARVELS not so 'BIG' blockbusters.

 This year and next will see Marvel strengthen their hold on Hollywood with the release of the new Spider-Man reboot and the blockbuster adaptations of Captain America and Thor both of which are leading up to the big sha-bang  that will be the Avengers which will also feature the Hulk and Nick Fury but this won't be the first time all these heroes have graced the not so silver screen.

CAPTAIN AMERICA (1979) 
Where Cap is a modern day hero equipped with a super bike and a see through plastic shield.(?)


CAPTAIN AMERICA (1990)
Starring Matt Salinger son of Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger as Steve Rogers.


SPIDER-MAN (1977)
Starring  Nicolas Hammond who played Friedrich in the Sound of Music as Peter Parker.


HULK Vs. THOR (1988)
As seen in the Incredible Hulk Returns TV movie.



NICK FURY: AGENT of SHEILD (1998)
Starring the Hoff', nuff said.

Man or Astroman? "Spferic Waves"

GOTHAM HIGH, the adventures of a teen Batman?

Here's the line up for a teen Batman cartoon series called Gotham High which almost made it on to our screens. The idea for the show sets the Batman universe in high school which when I first read had me bubblin' with all sorts a fan-boy rage but when you look at the concept art I have to admit this looks like it could have been a lot of fun.  

You also get the feeling that this was supposed to be a DC/Warner answer to the popular X-MEN: Evolution show.

Here's an article.