Geekscape

Geekscape 35: The Handkerchief Code

Guest Co-host: Chris Brandt and his film The Independents! - Reviews: Stardust and Rush Hour 3! Trailers: Be Kind Rewind and Lars and the Real Girls! Interviews! The cast of Skinwalkers! Stan Winston talks werewolves, Monster Squad and Iron Man! Jonathan stops Seth Gordon, director of The King of Kong, on the street! Chris talks about his indie comic book doc "The Independents"! News: Matthew Vaughn directing Thor! Comics: Oni Comic's Scott Pilgrim! Will Eisner's A Contract with God! Captain America... returns? Morrison's The Invisibles! Video Games: John Woo's Stranglehold and Shadowrun! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcast on:: 14 Aug 2007
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"My dad works in B2B marketing. "He came by my school for career day "and said he was a big row as man. "Then he told everyone how much he loved "calculating his return on ad spend. "My friend's still laughing at me to this day." - Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be. - George Clooney and Brad Pitt's new movie "Wolves" is on Apple TV Plus, September 27th. - That's where I want you to be now. - So if you want to see George Clooney and Brad Pitt, go to Apple TV Plus. - You got to start the story there? - Or if you want to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney. - Go to Apple TV Plus. - I am enjoying the show. - And if you want to see their new movie "Wolves" - You can't do it. - I'm gonna help you out. - I can do it. - Do it. - Definitely go to Apple TV Plus. - The minute is cool. - Okay, fine. It's very cool. Some streams September 27th on Apple TV Plus. Where did I are? - My name's Seth Gordon, the director of King of Kong, Fistful Accorders. We're at Kamakan in San Diego, and you're watching GeekScape. (upbeat music) ♪ comics, movies ♪ ♪ Read a picture that we're gonna do ♪ ♪ Readers, readers ♪ ♪ For us to hit the honeybee ♪ ♪ Essent to the ♪ ♪ Geekscape ♪ ♪ In the world behind ♪ ♪ All your friends are waiting ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Now there's Charles in the show ♪ - That's so radical. Hey guys, it's episode 35 of GeekScape. I've joined this episode with a good friend of mine, Chris Brandt. Chris made a documentary, we're gonna talk about it. Lift up the documentary, why don't you lift this up? It's called The Independence. It's all about independent comic book publishers and artists and where they get their creativity, their drive. And like Chris and I, when they lived this bohemian lifestyle of trying to be creative, not getting a whole lot of bucks in return, why do they keep doing it? And that's kind of what you went after. - Well, that, yeah, that was the beginning of it. - So we're gonna talk about the film, but for those of you who are new to GeekScape, over the next 45 minutes to an hour, we're gonna have a ton of content on movies, video games, and comic books, opinions, reviews. We're gonna sit down with Stan Winston and talk, skin walkers, monster squad, Iron Man, and reviews of Stardust, Rush Hour 3, and a ton of comics and video games, pretty much a stacked show, baby. Chris, thanks for being here, Ben. - Thanks for asking me. - You know, we met at Comic-Con two, three years ago? - Two years ago. - You had a short there? - I had a short film, yeah. - Called Closing Time? - And how did that one end up doing? - It did really well. It premiered at the AFI festival, even though it played at Comic-Con and San Diego before that. And then ended up playing in Seattle and a few other bigger festivals, so it did really well, yeah. - Now, Gabe O'odham did not make it into Seattle or AFI, but-- - Did you shoot on film? - Yeah, we shot on 16 regular. 'Cause my DP was like, "Why don't we shoot on Super 16?" And it wasn't a cost thing, it was one of these things where I said, "Maybe it worked against me," but I said, "You know what? "All those guys who did Grind House movies." Like, dude, I was emulating Grind House movies before it was cool to emulate Grind House movies. But I said, "All the people who made those movies "in the '70s didn't have Super 16. "Let's shoot on regular 16, let's make it look that way." They also had camera movement. (laughs) I think we have a couple camera moves in the movie, but there's a lot I would, you know, well, I've done Gabe O'odham. I don't know if I could do Gabe O'odham again, 'cause there's not a lot there, you know. It's four dudes talking. - Right. - But maybe I'll do Gabe O'odham again. - I bet you could pull a full feature out of that. - Yeah. - They did "Brokeback Mountain." That's basically Gabe O'odham, right? - Well, I've outlined a Gabe O'odham movie, and people are like, "Well, what's the point? "What is it like?" And I was like, "Well, it's not the joke. "It's not a horror movie, Grind House movie." Emulated, it's like the predator. These dudes go into the woods to illuminate this thing, and it'll, you know, it starts picking them off. - Eliminate the gay. - The Gabe O'odham feature is epic in scope. And the sequel, "28 Gaze Later." That's when the conspiracy theories and shit like that about like gay people and-- - Now do you have-- - Do you have-- - Do you have to be a nom? It goes back to a lot of shit. You have like half an X-type shit. - In "28 Gaze Later," are they slow moving gays or fast moving gays? - Um, I don't know if I can ruin the first game. The first Gabe O'odham, but I'm telling you, the first Gabe O'odham is like predator. The second one, "28 Gaze Later," is like a skate from New York, but it's a skate from San Francisco. - Dude, I could tell you more, but it ruins the huge, twist ending at the end of the first Gabe O'odham, which is huge. It's, dude, it blew my mind when I thought of it one night. I woke up in the other night. I don't want to even tell you what kind of dreams I was having. But I woke up as if I fucking have my ending. And it leads into the second one. And I know how the second one rolls out to lead into the third one, which is like, I am legend, it's the last hetero on the news of the planet. - You're not having meetings on this yet? - Yeah, whatever. I gotta, you know, they're waiting on the script. It's funny, is the more you talk about stuff like this, and you have like a good short, well, you have a good short, but I think I have a funny concept. - Yeah. - The short, whatever, but I think I have a funny concept. When you talk about it and people enjoy it, people come out and they say, I know somebody would finance it. You know, and I just have to write the thing. To be a day-wide dog. It's like the village, and then it turns into like predator. And then it ends in a very cool way. It ends up, you know, setting up for like a sequel, kind of a planet of the Abe something, where everyone looks up and says, now entering, say I'm just going to see it. - I want to see it. - Yeah, you know, you do want to see that, right? - That's great. - Yeah, I'm gonna, my goal with those folks is to get run out of humanity. But we want to see another fantasy while we're making shit up. We went to see Stardust, Matthew Bond's movie, based on the Neil Gaiman, Charlie Bess graphic novel, which is a graphic novel because it has the pictures in it, but it also has the photos. - That's more like a picture book, I wouldn't call it a graphic novel. - Which is why I haven't read it. There were a lot of wounds coming out of people's mouths. Does that make sense? - Yeah, yeah, it's, I-- - You read it? - Yeah, I did, I read it a few years ago and then I was just actually in the middle of rereading it before seeing the film. - And now having seen the movie, the trailers are horrible. - Really? - I thought the trailers for Stardust looked like clown shoes. I thought they were the worst things. I was like, this movie will turn you like a way down. I thought they were just kind of pansy. - And do you feel gay now that you've seen the movie? - Well, Robert De Niro does. - There. - Like, did you enjoy the movie? - I did. - Can I say, well, I'm not, well, who you are? And I'll tell you that I actually really did enjoy the movie. - Well, I didn't like it too much. - Why? What are you afraid of? Getting kicked out of a rainbow group? - No. - Little club? - No. - Little handkerchief club. - What? - You never heard of the handkerchief code? - Oh yeah. - You've heard of the handkerchief code. - It's been a few years then. - Different handkerchiefs in their back pockets? - Yeah. - Whether you're top or bottom or sideways or whatever. - That's true, and you see the handkerchiefs and somebody's asking you, all right. He's open for partying. - Right. - No. - I wish straight people had a handkerchief party, like a handkerchief code, you know what I mean? It would save you a lot of embarrassment. - Anyway, the movie, you didn't like it. - Then you would know, like, women that you could approach. - Yeah, if they just had like a handkerchief. - Like, I'm not, I'm not picky, like the, you know, just white flag, she's just giving up. If you have a white, hanky hanging out of your back pocket. - What that means, not now, I'm kind of doing the monthly thing. - Maybe like that, yeah. - Black is, I'm married, so we got to be sneaky about it. - Okay. - Right. - We could start our own handkerchief code for straight people, you know? - I think that's good. - But I know what you're saying. - Yellow, you're into golden showers. - When we do, we, water sports. Oh, and when women see you coming, they would just take their handkerchief and like, stuff it all the way into their pockets, I couldn't see it, whatever. - Oh, move it, move it. Why don't you enjoy it? - I thought it was really likable, but why don't you do it? - Really? - Yeah. I thought I could distance myself from having read the book and then seeing the film, and it was fine. It was like, it was as good as any of the Harry Potter movies. - Oh, okay. - Like it was good that way, like it's not-- - I don't like that stuff. - But that's what I would compare it to, like it was good kind of in that context, but, I don't know, I just, I thought it was lacking in parts, which isn't, isn't to say I didn't hate it, I didn't, I will leave a movie, if I don't like it. I will get up and leave. - What are some of the ones you've left? - Recently? - 10 minute, gave it on the show. - I don't even remember the ones that I left Jason X, I left that, I left. - Wow. - Why did you walk into Jason X? That's a question I had for you. - I thought it looked cool, it could have been fun. I like, I sat through the entirety of Freddy versus Jason. - Well, that was good. Well, how do you know if you don't sit through it though? - I knew because it was the same director as Bright of Chucky, which I thought was a lot of fun. - Who directed Jason X? - Jason X has, well, we'll get to that, but he has a new movie that came out this weekend as well called Skin lockers. - Oh. - And we'll get the same director, I don't know his name, his name really isn't, you know, it's not something you have to remember because the movies are kinda-- - See now, Jason X wasn't bad, it was just, you know, half hour 45 minutes into it, I'm like, okay, I got my fill. Like, there's no, there's no seat, there's no plot, there's no surprises, there's not, that's Beju scratching, that's one of Laura's dogs scratching. Beju, he can't hear you, Kenny. - It's a she. - She can't hear you, can't she? Is she like, deaf and blind? - She's deaf and blind. - I have, do you have a deaf and blind dog? - No, I have a friend, I have another friend who has, a deaf and blind dog is very sad, but-- - Maybe she's like Daredevil, she goes out at night and fucks up, mugs or shit. - She does, she's just resting right now. - I don't know what, but back on subject, we were talking about Jason X on the forums at GeekScape.net and it was like, just the quotables that movie sucked. Was it a black dude at the end? - No, you're not, he like zooms in on like a, like right when Jason's about to come back, this dude comes in on like a jet pack and takes him into the atmosphere, you're like, what the fuck was that? And then you have the-- - So wait, did you watch the movie? - Jason X? - Yeah. - Oh, my brother and I watched it a lot, but we didn't pay to see it in a theater, we knew it was gonna be crap, but you gotta rent it. - Well see, that's the-- - Got it. - Like, when I walk out of a movie, I walk right into another movie. I'm not-- - Oh, you little thief. - Of course. - So Stardust, you enjoyed-- - We can talk about that too, but-- - Stardust, you enjoyed it. - Stardust was okay, I like Transformers better. And they're the same theme. I discovered that, like I'm sitting through transfer, I'm like, this is the same theme as Stardust. - Why? - Because it's a bunch of people hunting for the fallen object, the fallen star. - Right? - No, I agree. I thought that this movie, like the one thing I have against this movie, because I really enjoyed it, and maybe it was because I didn't read the graphic novel in this and that, but the one thing I had against it, like Transformers, is it gets very close to wearing out its welcome. That's really loud, isn't it? - Yeah. - That's really loud. - Hey. - Hey. - Easy. - Nope. - Maybe now. - No. - You're still doing it. Now she's kind of doing something else. - Um, it kind of worked, it kind of played a little, wow. Did you, are you okay? - So you have this running thing where you don't cut, right? So you're just... - Is she all right? Do you think she's okay? She just like scratches. There she goes, she's getting out. - She's walking. - Oh, Jesus. Keep going, let's go. Okay, she's going into the kitchen. For those of you at home, she might bump the tripod. - Oh my God. - You saw her, she is not a very good, healthy state. She has now moved B.J. - Oh, poor puppy. - Biju? Laura, Biju is kind of crazy right now. No, she liked where she was. (laughs) She's just scratching and like playing the washboard like every two minutes. Well, we started, it's hard. Okay, thanks babe. - Thank you, Laura. I love you, Biju, Biju is just carried out. Sorry. - All right, artist, I, I don't know where you were in your thought. - I felt like the movie played a little long. There was a little too much in it. And it played a little long, but I actually thought it was really an enjoyable movie. - I think it could have been better. And like in reading the book, I didn't, I thought it was fine as a movie, but knowing the source material, I question like what they, what do you ask? - Just think about the dog. - What they, what they decided to expand upon or cut and, and, and what they decided to cut and what they decided to add made no sense to me. - What kind of stuff was added? - The Robert De Niro's part doesn't exist. - At all. - Well, it's not, not in that. - He's not a gay pirate. - Not, and not that much. - He has a little bit of gayness. - No, no, no, there's no gay pirate in it. There's the, the, the flying ship that's collecting lightning is in it. There's the pirate captain, but it takes up about a page and a half of the story. - Oh. - Like they, they just gloss right over it. Meanwhile, there's like another character earlier on that worked with that, you know, and, and oh, the, the guy that De Niro then delivers his lightning to, that's completely added. That doesn't exist at all. - Okay. - So they're just, little things like that. The end, the ending is almost completely different from the book. I mean, it's, what I liked about, what I liked about the book, I don't like Neil Gaiman's writing. - Don't, yeah, don't yell. - I don't, am I yelling, I'm sorry. - No, I'm not a big proponent from Neil Gaiman. I think he's, I think he's okay, but it just has hit her miss as anybody else. - But I really like Stardust. Like that was the first thing that I read of his where I thought, oh, okay, I see what everybody's gets out of his writing, you know. And I figured where I was going with that. - I don't know, you were, you were going to talk about the comparisons between the movie and the book and how they added and subtract the book. - Oh, so, so, so what I liked about the book is there's this sense of communication is capable of solving our problems and people are capable of growing and having insights into themselves and interacting with the world in an intelligent fashion. And that is present in the film. - It's not going, it's still kind of there. Like you see that in the captain and the crews acceptance of him. I'm sorry, that's a spoiler, isn't it? - You're going to get it. (laughs) - But there's, so they kind of kept that aspect, but then it's like all movies, you know. They try to put in something for everybody. And like a friend of mine described it fairly, describes it fairly accurately and talking about what entertainment has become today. And that's everything is at 11. There's no building. It starts at 11, it ends at 11. There's no, it's like all one. - Lauren and I, we rented this movie 'cause, you know, we rented this movie from Netflix Day of the Dolphin, it's an old '70s film. - Okay. - And it's got the dude who played Patton in it. And he runs this dolphin. He's a scientist trying to develop speech, human speech in dolphins. And Paul Servino comes in and he wants to use it to detect bombs for the military, right? And he's kind of the villain, but there's no action sequences for the first, there are three-fourths of the movie. You know, the suspenseful moments are the moments with the bomb in the dolphin. Before that, all you're getting is established relationships. They pay off in the suspensefuls, right? But I think once JAWS hit, you had to have that opening action sequence. You know, and they even tell you it was a screenwriter in Hollywood. Where's the opening is? - Right. - Where's the opening action sequence? We don't have the attention span for it anymore. - Yeah. - And there's no patience, there's no build. You just gotta start with it, start at 11 and keep going. - I think that's a horrible, like, to say that's the way we write movies. - Or tell stories, in general. - Yeah. - That's, so, what are you gonna do? - I don't know. - Well, I wanna cut away to our good friends in New York. We have two listeners who went to see the other big movie that opened this weekend, Rush Hour Three, and speaking of communication problems, they sent us this review. I gotta apologize in advance. The audio is not very good, but I will cut out the bad stuff and show you the really good part. - All right, invaders in here with big eggs. - So that was the good part of the review. I'm just kidding. I'll actually show you the bad parts, too. (electronic music) - We just got out of Rush Hour Three, Jackie Chang, Chris Tucker. We haven't talked about it, although we laughed. Play with each other. I'm sorry, Rush Hour Three. So, he grabbed my leg, I grabbed his leg. We fumbled a little bit. He laughed a little bit, we laughed a little bit, but we didn't talk about it. What'd you think? - Shh. - What? A piece of shit, you're serious. - You fucking laughed like 10 times. - 'Cause it was stupid. - It was stupid. Okay, wait. It might as well have been directed by Sam Raine. Okay, Brett Radner ruined X3, I'll give you that. Brett ruined, Brett, you just fucking ruined it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I think it worked perfect with the other two movies. It wasn't perfect. One example? One example. This guy can't write action anymore. If he's writing action, fucking stop in his face. 'Cause there's a scene where they're, you know there's spoilers in my show. There's a scene where they're running down the highway and all right, whatever. Jackie Chan's brother, he's chasing him. He turns around and he throws a garbage bag and it makes a big car accident. Wasn't that the stupidest shit ever? - The whole movie was done. - Okay, what about the dojo scene? - No, I was pretty funny. Okay. - The whole thing was fun. - But I've seen that so much. - Yeah, there's a lot. - No, there's a lot of stuff. - Okay, but so, you still laughed? So what do you give? One attempt, one attempt. - Or you give one two to five or seven? - A seven, you said it's a complete scene. - Okay, six, actually six. - Oh, I'm trying to give him more. I'm on this pressure. - I thought you said you're like this big master, you know, you're gonna fucking drop it on me. You wanna get it first. - Six, that movie was something. - That movie was good. Go fucking watch it. - Okay, let's pull the stereotypes. - I like stereotypes. - Let's pull the movies down by time. - I'm just saying racial stereotypes are in the movie, but I could laugh. - I'm a black woman already, she would have slapped me. - I'll pop Chris Tucker looking extra dark. - He told me that he went to, he went on vacation before the movie. I asked him what he was he doing before that he needed a vacation, or whatever. - Yeah, well, you remember when we were going into the movie, when we were coming to the movie, I was telling him, we were both like, oh yeah, we're gonna hate this fucking movie. And I was really psyched up to go on a rant about Chris Tucker. He hasn't been in a movie in, what, seven years, and that was fucking rush hour two, and before that, rush hour one. - No. - Yes, trust me, I researched this, so I didn't look at the douche. Rush hour one, then rush hour two, then this. And he's demanding 20 million dollars for each movie. Yeah, I think it's worth about 10 or 12. - We are in the parking lot. - Yeah, we're in the parking lot. They kick us out because they're too beautiful. Okay, but I like the sword fighting. I like sword fighting. I don't get enough sword fighting, and I did fucking laugh at myself. I give it a salad at 8.25, I love it. I love it, I think it worked with all three. - All right, so that's it, Zim, the Yankees. Later. - So that was a review from two people who definitely live in New York, and probably got a, maybe got a GED, you know? Maybe, but. - You did all right, guys. - Go Yankees. - Keep trying. - Yeah, all I gotta say is thanks a lot, guys, for taking the hit that is Rush Hour 3 for me, 'cause there was no way I was gonna step in the theater and see that you geekscapers can give you to see a lot of really bad movies, but Rush Hour 3, I just wasn't gonna do it. So that was that review. Another movie that opened this weekend is Skinwalkers. I'm not gonna see that one in the theater either. We're gonna, I'm telling you right now, I saw about 20 minutes of the film as part of a press junket. - Did you? - I'm gonna Netflix that thing, have some friends over, and we're gonna do a gauntlet, 'cause that is straight up gauntlet movie. Directed by your boy who did Jason X, did you see the special box that they had at Comic-Con? Oh, what are you walking in, like a werewolf flashes at? - Yeah. - Yeah, I saw that, that was a junk. (laughing) - I actually got like the first viewing of it, because I was shooting for IFC, and we went by to ask him about interviewing Stan Winston, and what I could get for the B-roll. So I was, so the guy, like nobody for Skinwalkers was there. It was just the guy that-- - You said it's for Skinwalkers? - Yes, I did. (laughing) It was just the guy that, that it's out the booth. - Oh, and see that movie, for Skinwalkers? - I'm sure that's, could you imagine that movie? - Yeah, it's a porn. That's like, that's gonna be the porn version of Skinwalkers. - For Skinwalkers. - It's like all about people who have been circumcised, like, they're just trying to get in late. - Probably getting late, yeah. - People get sucked in, they're like, "You were saying, you went into the box." - Well, it went in, and he's like saying it's really scary. So we went in, I went in, I'm like-- - It literally is lightning flashing in a werewolf right there. - Yeah, yeah, and the roar sound. - Did you piss yourself? - No, I was very disappointed, and unfortunately they flashed the light more than once, so I was able to think, "That doesn't look very good." And so I walked out of the booth, and the guy was like, "Scary, huh?" And I'm like, "Mm, mmm." - See, now, if I want to set that up, something like you walking to a booth, and like lightning flashing, you see a werewolf and hear like the big sound, I would literally have the werewolf punch you in the stomach. (laughing) - That would've been scary, I would've been sick. - It's a lot, but let me tell you, man, you were gonna get a lot of free press coverage. It may equate whatever payoff you have to do in the legal system, you know, whatever you have to pay off the families, whoever you punch in the stomach, maybe give them a heart attack. Like, that will definitely be a lot smaller, dollar price than the awesome publicity you're gonna get. - That would maybe go. - You know, werewolf punches you do in the stomach? - Well, the thing is, it wasn't even, it's like not even set up in the scariest possible pose or anything like that. It was just kind of, it was obvious. - It was a box on the floor at Comic-Con that you walk into this booth, look like a peep show, and you walk in, and literally you're standing in a dark room, and you hear a werewolf roar, and it flashes lightning flashing, and you see this werewolf, and it's, I would have had a second werewolf, it was embarrassing. - Behind you. - So when you're like, "Oh, that's bullshit." (laughing) Just like bites your shoulder or something. Or you would have pissed yourself right there. - Or as you're walking out the outdoor, you run into one, or something, your hands, or something. - Or like a blade cuts your leg or something. - What if you just get stabbed in there? Are you walking there, and there's just a black guy? (laughing) 'Cause I, you know, a lot of people are scared of them. - I think a cholo, a cholo with the-- - A cholo, there you go. - Pat it out, that'd be scary. - That's your cholos. - You know, get those dudes from DV Clothing. - Yeah. - You see that episode? - I haven't yet, I don't watch that one. - DVclothing.com, our good friend, Lozco Costa del Muerte, that he's on the forums. Yeah, he's a cholo, baby. He's a scary one, too. (laughing) - It's just a blindie. - What's up? - But speaking of skin walkers, I sat down with some of the guys. Jason Bear, he's in this new movie coming out, his Korean movie "Dragon Wars." Have you seen the trailers for this? - It's like, it looks pretty bad CGI, but you know I gotta see it. - Was this dragons fighting over this chick? - Oh, I have seen it. I didn't know they were fighting over a chick. I have seen the trailer for this. - It's like a little girl or something. This guy Jason Bear, he's in the skin walkers. - Now, how is that different from the Matthew McConaughey movie with the dragons? - Because, I don't know. - Okay. - Maybe it's a budget thing. - Okay. - I mean, this looks like it was made on a computer. Like, one computer. (laughing) I also sat down with this guy, Sean Roberts, he's the protagonist of the movie "Skin Walkers." And we talked, he was Rogue's boyfriend in the first X-Men movie. - Okay. - He was also in "Land of the Dead." So we talked about working with George Romero and Brian Singer, and now working with Stan Winston. And then of course, I sat down with Stan Winston, we talked about dingleberries on the werewolf suit. - We'll never talk to you again now. - And, we talked about monster squad and the comparison between the werewolf he made in monster squad and the werewolves here. - Of course, I couldn't get out of the room without talking to him about the Iron Man suit. So, that's your geekscape exclusive. Here's that footage, enjoy. - The movie came to me, the script came to me about four and a half years ago. And, through my head of production, Brian Gilbert, was one of the executive producers on this movie. And, I had told him, I said, "Look, Brian, "if you can't find me a good werewolf movie "because that's what I'd like to do. "I'm a huge werewolf fan. "That's probably my favorite creature, character, beast. "It's the one that turned me on the most "when I was a little kid. "I loved, you know, Lon Chaney, Junior's Wolfman, "and Henry Hall is the werewolf of London. "And right on through to Michael Landon is, "I was a teenage werewolf. "And then really two really wonderful classic movies "like American werewolf in London, "which Rick Baker did, John Landis, really, really good "groundbreaking movie. "And I'm really scary werewolf movie "that Joe Dante did with the howling. "And hadn't seen a werewolf movie the way "I wanted to see it since then. "And I had a specific thing that I wanted to see. "It was that thing that turned me on when I was a kid. "A thing that I actually wanted to come to California do, "which was to act. "It was the performance of these wonderful actors "that I remembered who were dealing with the beast within. "The performance of Spencer Tracey "is that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "The wonderful performances of Henry Hall, "as I said, Lon Chaney. "What I remember is them, the characters. "And then when they turned into a werewolf, "I still saw their character. "They weren't suddenly replaced "by a digitally animated character. "And I have no, this is no kick or nothing, "no knocking of digital. "I love the tool. "I love the effects. "I love digital animation. "I love animated films. "I have my own digital department, SW Digital. "I founded one of the biggest digital companies in LA "with Jim Cameron and Scott Ross, Digital Domain. "But my real love is the actor, "is the character, is the performance. "So recently, the werewolves that I've seen recently "have replaced the actor "and they've ended up being basically digitally animated "characters. "Nothing against that. "But they're no longer the human beings "that created this part of the character. "They're actors from here to here "and replaced actor with animator from here to here, "and we have a new, nothing wrong with it, "but it's not that visceral reality "that I know is coming from the performance of a good actor. "That's what I wanted to bring back." - Jason Bear, I play Bear, who is the big bad-ass alpha wolf leader of this pack of skin walkers who believes that this power, this sort of freedom is a gift. - Does he get more hair? Do you get angrier? - Oh, God, yeah, oh, God, yeah. I think the whole idea was that it's sort of to embrace this primal, instinctive power that you have. I think that to be in that place, to be in that suit, you really do have that allowance of freedom to play. - No, are you angry with the Dingleberries? - 'Cause the Dingleberries? What exactly is a Dingleberry? - Oh, come on, now. (laughing) - Bear ships with wood stuff that I would do like. - Oh geez, I don't think they care so much about that part. - Well, I heard of Bear ships in the woods that they use a rabbit. - Okay, okay, well, where wolf you, human? - Yeah, definitely. (laughing) - So this answers the monster squad question. A wolf man does have nards. - Big massive brass nards, big kahunas, big nuts. - Do you ever go back to stand and say, dude, I need bigger nuts? Now Stan was very good to me. Stan was very good to me. He, Verick is the biggest badass wolf that there is. And so he had big, long, nasty teeth. He had big, yellow, bright eyes. He rode this nice, long, sexy motorcycle and he got really big nuts. - Do these were wolf nards? - Yeah, they have big nards. The design of the werewolf and monster squad is actually a drawing that I did of me, but it had a lot of the feeling of what I wanted to do in what we have done now brilliantly with skin walkers, but there was no performance. There was no animation of the face. There was the look that I got in the final look of the werewolf and monster squad, but there was no facial performance because it was basically a mask, you know, that did it because we didn't have the technology we have today. We couldn't do certain things that I wanted to do artistically with that werewolf and still be a person in a makeup. Well, now with makeup effects and digital effects, I could create the look, that kind of look and still have all of the performance from the actor. - Sean Roberts, how are you? To play the character of Adam Kilmer, who is reluctant to be found in this situation of having to deal with protecting a child that is prophesied to take the curse of werewolves away. It's definitely, it weighs heavy on him and I mean, he wants nothing more than have a normal life. All of a sudden we have these other werewolves who are bound to determine to embrace the beast and kill the kid. Well, somebody's got to stop them and, well, give me a couple guns, I suppose I'll do it. - Are you a werewolf? - I am a werewolf, I am a werewolf. I get to stage three of the transformation, which go up to five, so that gives me a brow piece, contact lenses and teeth. And, I mean, you come out of the makeup trailer in the morning and you look in the mirror and you have this different image that you're showing and kind of awaken something else inside and you get to really have fun with it, you know? It was a great experience. - Except the dingleberries. - Except the dingleberries, all that fur, you know? It's just a bad thing. Iron Man is about a man in a suit. And so you have Robert Downey Jr. giving your performance and it's still Robert Downey Jr. to a man in a suit, but once you've closed him off, it's physical performance. It's entirely different, entirely different. And listen, Robert Downey Jr. I am probably his hugest fan and I would say the work we've done in Iron Man is the best work that's come out of our studio in years. Skinwalkers is about werewolves and skinwalkers. And that's something that I have always wanted to bring Stan Winston to. Iron Man, the job was to bring something alive that was iconic and be legitimate to that character. And we nailed it. Iron Man, the Iron Man suit is the comic book brought to life and it's perfect and it's brilliant and I'm so proud of what the guys did. But that wasn't our design. That was us taking a design and bringing it to life in 3D and allowing the actor to bring everything else to it. Werewolves, skinwalkers is about an actor and seeing that person's performance come through that makeup, come through it, add whatever we wanted to digitally and not take any of the performance away from the actors who you see, every nuance. Every nuance of expression, every nuance, every bit of feeling that is coming from these skinwalkers is coming from the actor. We added nothing digitally to their performance. We did add physical things digitally. We did add things with makeup physically but it was all dressing for the actor's performance and that's what I think is wonderful about what we brought to skinwalkers. What's truly wonderful about skinwalkers for me is it's just a really nice script. It's a good story. It is not a big effects extravaganza. It is not underworld. If you want to see underworld, do not go to see this movie 'cause it's not anything about underworld. It's about people in a small town, small town people with a big problem. They have a lot of conflict. They have internal conflict. They have love. They have mothers and kids and grandmas and Andy Griffith and it's Mayberry were werewolves. So we're talking about Matthew Vaughn. What are you laughing about? You don't like Stan? You have a problem with him? I think he was very well spoken. No, it was all the stuff you were saying while he was talking. Yeah, well, there's that. No, I mean, I only asked him a couple of questions. The Iron Man suit actually makes up for having to walk. What I saw of the Iron Man suit, that makes up for having to walk through that werewolf thing. I think the 10 seconds of my life that I wasted in that. I saw 20 minutes in the film. Yeah, it looks really good. You didn't walkers? Oh, no. Oh, I'm talking about Iron Man. Oh, nothing was taken from you, my friend. Let me tell you. Actually, the, at least Codius is a skin walkers. The dude who played Casey Jones in the original TMNT, the original, the Ninja Turtles. So anyway, let's pause. We're gonna go into news. Well, let's pause real quick to talk about NetRiver. NetRiver.net is our brand, is our sponsor. They've been our sponsor. They've been kicking ass for us. You go to NetRiver.net in about two months. Not two months. In a couple of weeks, you're gonna have a brand new website. You're gonna be able to order your stuff, domain names, server, sponsorship, all sorts of stuff. Their domain name registration is like $1.95. We have our monthly-- Do you have to host through them to get that? No. Wow. You can register a domain with them. But it's really cheap. Go to the website, check their prices. If they're not up, email the sales department at netriver.net. I know once they start this new site up, everything's gonna look a lot more commercial, but they're working on it. And also, we have our serving. Like our hosting is like $8.95 a month. And we haven't had a problem, have we? Nope. You also get 10% off. Are they servers in Czechoslovakia? Oh, they're in like Seattle. They're in Linwood, Washington. Oh, that's once they're run by a bunch of Czechoslovakia. But you get 10% off if you put in the promotion code Gilmour, named after our very own Gilmour, who's in Japan right now, probably doing illegal stuff with dolls. It's creepy shit over there. Have you seen those dolls? Which dolls? That like, look like human women? The real dolls? Yeah. Have you seen those? Like, we saw the trailer for that real large and the real girls in the movie. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to show too much of the trailer, but it's basically what's his name. It's like the name of the actor? Huh? It's the name of that actor. The guy from the headlock movie. Yeah, well, he's from the notebook. That dude, you know, a lot of the guys. I don't remember these guys. Yeah, he falls in love with a real girl. Well, I don't want to talk about that trailer. I want to talk about the trailer for Be Kind Rewind. OK. The movie that-- I'd rather talk about the real girl trailer. Really? Yeah. Why is that? Because you're a purr? Like, no more? Just because-- What's the name of that dude? Lee J? This is the main guy. Yeah, main dude for the notebook. He was in the half-nelson. Half-nelson, that's about-- Half-nelson. That's headlock. Yeah, you got it. Gosling. Ryan Gosling. Now, if we had immediately known the name, we were all about the man penis. But we don't know the name, and we are very warm-blooded, red-blooded heterosexual men. They're just like a really, like, hetero-themed today. Is it you? It must be I exude that, I think. Because you have, like, the shape, head, and so on. I don't have the traditional geek look. No, you don't. I don't want to go through my geek credentials so that people don't do it. You have them, too. I mean, this movie, like, we'll talk about it. You know what I mean? Do you want to talk about the trailer? No, we can go through all the-- OK, well, we can talk about the independent. OK. Do what you want. You're running the show, dude. I don't really want to talk about the trailer for Lars in a row, but I mean, basically, it's Ryan Gosling falling in love with a plastic doll woman. But it's filmed very seriously. That's what I got from the trailer. It's not a comedy. Well, it seems like it's supposed to be a comedy, but, like, the look of it is not comedy at all. It's very indie. So I don't know-- I'm interested in seeing it to see what it actually ends up being overall. But it looks like a Fairly Brothers movie filmed in the style of the notebook. Like, that's what the trailer looks like. And to me, that's fucking retarded. Whoa, who would do that? So I'm interested to see whether or not it pulls out, because if it's done well, that's the kind of movie I'd be interested in seeing, one that wouldn't appeal to, you know, 90% of other human beings. The movie I really want to see is this Michelle Gondry movie. He kind of rewind, where my love step runs a video store with Jack Black and Danny Glover owns it. That was hilarious, true. Jack Black comes in and erases all the videos, and now they have to go film by film and remake them. Because he's magnetized. Yeah, he's magnetized, and he deletes all the movies, raises them, and now they have to shoot things like Ghostbusters, RoboCop, Driving Miss Daisy. And they do, like, 20-minute versions of them, made out of, like, cardboard cops and things like that. That one looks awesome. It looks hilarious, I mean, yeah. We have to wait until, like, late November to see it, but I'm excited for that one. That's definitely, like, now the big movies I wanted to see this year are over with. I want, like, that one kicks ass. Like, that's the one that I'm looking for. Maybe the only one I'm looking forward to. Maybe I am legend. Halloween, I'm not even that excited for. But I'm telling you guys right now, 'cause you made a documentary. This is a coming weekend in five select cities, and then it's getting wider, the King of Kong. Then we've been talking to you guys about, since South by Southwest, the King of Kong is out. This coming Friday, go check out this movie. I was in San Diego, I ran into the director, Seth Gordon, and I cut to an interview with him right now. - You already did that show that interview, didn't you? - No, we didn't. We had the main dude. - Oh, the main dude, not the director. - No, the director of Seth Gordon. We were walking down the street in San Diego, and we haven't run into him. And that's the one I'm gonna show you guys right now. - What's up, Geekskapus? I'm here with Seth Gordon downtown, San Diego. And Seth has actually made a movie that I've talked to all you guys about, twice on the show already. King of Kong, Fistful of Quarters. It's the best movie of 2007. I've said it before on the show. I'll say it a million more times. And here we are, running into each other on the street. How are you doing, Seth? - How are you doing, Seth? - Very well. - I don't even know where to begin. This literally is the best movie I've seen in 2007. - Well, thank you. It is the classic, good versus evil. I mean, when did you know in the project, there you go. This guy's evil. That's what you get in San Diego. Freaks who live with their parents. So Seth, first off, let's start at the beginning. Well, what drew you to this film? When did you know you had a story that you had to tell? - Well, we met Steve Weebi through a friend of a friend. The producer at Cunningham met him. And just recently, just before that, some guys had gone into his garage and inspected his machine and verified that his board was good. Which is to say, the record that he had set was teetering on the edge of being disqualified. The fact that two guys would travel across the country to go into someone's garage meant that the stakes here were quite high. - Right. - And that was interesting by itself. After a little bit of research, I learned that there was some small chance that Weebi might go to my favorite place on Earth, which is Fun Spot, which is an arcade in New Hampshire, that's got all the classic games and they have for the last 20 years. So I, the fact that we might go for work to my favorite place on Earth was like, that was reason enough for me to sign on. And then we met Billy. - Yeah. - Who is about as different from Steve as could be in every way. And so it went from essentially a portrait of a competition to a portrait of two very different competitors and how they dealt with the challenge of perhaps being in the Guinness Book. - So this is the movie about Billy, who's held the record for at least almost 30 years in Donkey Kong and Steve, who's just an average guy, loses his job, wants to keep himself busy, give himself a goal maybe to get back on his feet mentally and in life and he fixates on this record in Donkey Kong, Billy's record, goes after it. And when Billy finds out, then it's on. - Then it's on. - And the drama in this movie is higher than anything you're going to see with robots or explosions or anything this summer. I mean, how much of this did you have to, I mean, what was your involvement? Once you had the story, once you want to go to fun spot, how much more did you have to shape the story at this point or did you just kind of let this camera roll? - We let him roll because our original idea for the movie was like a sports movie but the sports Donkey Kong. - And that kind of makes fun of the subject matter but now you're really embracing it. - Oh, I'm very, from the get-go 'cause I'm such a geek, I'm, I sort of, my implicit respect for the games, I mean to come across in the movie as a whole. So that, that competition, which we thought was gonna be like a sports movie or like a boxing movie or whatever, the two guys and the head-to-head and the sport happens to be Donkey Kong, that original idea was so simple compared to what, eventually unfolded. The twists and turns and all the surprises that happen along the way, we could have never foreseen and we simply just had to let go of our original idea and hold on for dear life, keep the cameras rolling and once we got into the editing suite, take a step back, look at the 350 hours and see if we could make a story out of that. And as it turns out, the story that evolved was fairly Shakespearean in the way it all went. - I mean, not only that but I think the best moments of the movie are, there are moments where you really start to feel for Steve and the goal is in peril and you take the camera and you show Steve at the beach with his family, you show the stuff outside of the competition, which gives a bigger context to the drama that's unfolding, that the film is about. - Yeah, it became. - So you see it on a micro and on a macro level. And that's why I think that the drama encompasses so much more than a simple game. - Oh, I appreciate you, you took-- - That's my little review, man. - That's awesome. That's awesome. - Thought the movie is held by Southwest, I saw it again at Silver Lake and I'll watch it again August 17th. I mean, that's your release date, right? - Yeah, yeah, August 17th is the first set of cities and then more than next week and then if it does well, it'll get out there. So if you live in New York, L.A., Seattle or Austin, please go see it on the first weekend so the rest of the country can too. - So gaming, you talked about being a geek, what is your top geek stuff, comics, movies, video games, what is it that you're after? - Honestly, my geekness transferred at some point from Karate Champ and Mario Brothers and Nintendo 64 over to Final Cut and Avid and all the filmmaking tools and the cameras. I'd say that's where the sort of obsessive passion evolved but I recently was given-- - What's your two pop screen name? (laughing) Who's the last time you were-- - It's two pop songs. - It's my whole name backwards. - Exactly, exactly. - It's my whole name backwards. - I'm usually Jonathan London on two pop. That's where I go to get, you know, when my final cut's not starting and I'm like, what do I need to do? That's where I go. Or the keyboard's not working. - Oh, completely, and there's all those people out there that are totally ready to help. - That's who we are, yeah. But yeah, then movies is what you geek out on now. Anything in Comic Con that's been impressing you so far? - Just the overwhelming chaos of it all. I mean, it's an unbelievable place. So one movie that I definitely think is gonna be great is super bad. - We reviewed it two episodes ago. - Yeah, that's a great film. Really great film, and I think it's gonna do really well. I got my fingers crossed for those guys. - And then a week later comes to your movie. - Please. - Yeah, please do. - I mean, the underdog, that's what your movie's about. - That's right. - That's what your movie is. It's about the underdog coming and taking it from people like us everywhere 'cause you guys are all geeks. This is geekscape and that's where it goes. Don't go see underdog, go see the underdog. - There you go. - Long, fistful of quarters, dude. - Thanks so much. - Well, thanks for making a movie that make us proud to be us, you know? It's set up on Xbox Live, putting those hours away like Steve did to go after that record, dude. Thanks so much. - Thank you. Thanks so much. - So that was Seth Gordon. - I can't believe you just accosted that guy on the street. - Well, I can't believe you left there for that. - No. I recognize the guy. We have our camera, we have the mics, we have everything set up. We're gonna get an interview. That's how we do it, man. - All right. - Like Joss Whedon, we just pulled him out. I wouldn't care what conversation you're in, get over here. And you know Comic Con, like there's tons of professionals walking over the place. - I'll just give you a hard time. - I will give you a hard time. In limbo. - I thought. - Which is Spanish for... - In mouth. - In mouth. Wow. Wow. Bringing an out of me. Let's talk about your film, 'cause we've delayed talking about your film and that. Give me one of these DVDs. - Okay. - This movie is the Independence. It's a guide for the creative spirit. It's all about comics. - Yes. - And why somebody would forgo a life of security and financial stability. - Yeah. - You got it. - Ruined relationships, left and right. It's not easy being us. 'Cause you're also a writer, director. - Yeah. - I do this thing. And sometimes you don't know if you're gonna be able to cover rent. - Yeah. Yeah. I'm in that position right now. - Keep buying games, games, shirts, motherfuckers. - And buy the DVD. - And buy the DVD. So this DVD, Independence, when I popped it in, I started watching this thing. You have a lot of, no, you're not interviewing people from Marvel. You're not interviewing people from DC. You're interviewing people from like slave labor, graphics. Places like that. You got some really good heavy hitters. - I got, I got in the independent world, the independent comic world. - Yeah. - You got Scott McCloud. Wendy Peeney, I read all the alfquest stuff. - Oh yeah. - And I was a kid. All of it. Boobs, some like hot elk women. You interviewed Craig Thompson, who did blankets. - Yeah. - Which I love. How'd you go about getting in these interviews? - Well, I did mini comics for 10 years. So I kind of-- - There's free credit right there. - You made 'em, you drew 'em and you reviewed-- - Yeah, drew and wrote my own comics, yeah. - I know that about you, Chris. - Well, it'd be hard to know because A, I'm horrible at self-promotion and B, the print runs were between 300 and 800 copies, you know. So. - Why don't you put some other stuff online? Let me take a scan and put some other stuff on there. - They actually are. I actually, as I was making the transition in the film, I was also playing around with my website and had to pull all the comics off of my website. And so I bought a website called bioniccomics.com. And all that is is my mini comics, as well as several artists that did mini comics in the mid 90s, early 90s, late 90s. And stuff that most people will never see because they had print runs between 50 and 300. And then boom, they're gone. But it's great stuff, there's a lot of great stuff at that level. - You made your comics at Kinkos. - That's like punk rock stuff. - I never actually made them at Kinkos. I actually got a job at a copy shop, specifically when I was making the decision, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I went and got a job at a copy shop. So I learned the actual process of using a copy or well. And then basically made my comics for free there. - Wow. And that's what led to you, now that you picked up a camera, started doing filmmaking, that's what led to you wanting to do this film. - Yes, yeah. You wanted a documentary that you had just been a part of for like 10 years. - Yeah, yeah. Although, I mean, I really had no intention of doing it in documentary, except I saw so many, I saw several bad documentaries during the festival process. I thought I could do a better documentary than that. And so I just, I didn't, without the intention of actually doing it, I thought that. But then like, I got into that dialogue in my head of the devil's advocate of, oh yeah, what would you do then? So I just kind of snowballed in the matter of maybe five minutes. I came up with the foundations of this documentary independence, including the title, the cover design, everything, and realized I have to do it. Like it had formed, I don't know if this happens for you, but it had formed a concrete, like I had gotten it so concrete in my head within just five minutes that I realized, okay, I guess I have to do a documentary. He said to write it down, he at least had to try it. - Yeah, and it kept, the more interviews I did, one interview would lead to the next. And it just kind of blossomed. - Could we give each other contacts and gave you contacts and things like that? - Kind of, it just, the idea of it blossomed in my head and kept, as I was exploring, the questions built on each other. And as I would talk to people, like I didn't go in with a set list of questions and only stick to the questions. I would engage the people in conversation. So it would kind of lead from there, and it's like without the people that I was interviewing, this wouldn't exist because it, and not in the form that it is anyways, because there was a lot of give and take there. And so, like I would talk to one person for half hour to an hour, leave that interview and then I'd still be thinking about it though. So. - You'd ask the next person. - Then the next person, I'm like, yeah, like it, so it kept building in that way where, I don't know, I had lost for words. - No, this is the end result. - That's, and that's the end result, yeah. And people that watch it seem to dig it, but I'm having a lot of trouble promoting it, getting it out there and promoting it, yeah. - Like what is your deal, what, you go to Comic Con, why don't you set up like a booth or something like that? - It's all there. - And you listen. - Yeah, well it's, it sold, I mean I sold a few at Comic Con and I was selling it at the tables there. It was just time wise, I think I ended up with the final DVDs in my hands on Tuesday before Comic Con. So, as far as sending them out, I think getting the word out there is part of the problem, but I found that in addition to getting the DVD into the right hands, you can get your foot in the door, but once you get your foot in the door, it's an added problem of getting the person actually sit down and listen to you or watch what you're handing them. - Punch it in the face or have a black man in the room. - I'm gonna, I'm gonna see about hiring a black man. - Yeah, next year like I know we're gonna be going back to Comic Con with our merch, maybe next year we'll have like this stuff on the table too. Depends on what we do with our booth. Let's just have a huge booth of like all of our geek people. You know, we'll figure out how to do it. I don't know. I mean, we're still thinking about Comic Con next year, we're definitely gonna go. I would like to go to a lot more film festivals or in a lot more, I wanna go to more film festivals, I wanna go to more tech conferences, I wanna go to more Comic Con, like Comic Con mentions, but it just depends on finances, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - This show costs five bucks an episode and you're not gonna afford five bucks an episode. You know what I mean? 'Cause we're all living this lifestyle, you know? It's more expensive than making comics out of a copier. But you can get this at bains.com, visit? - Yeah, that was another, an issue that I realized. I put my main website on there rather than the DBV. - So where can you get this DVD? - On IndependenceDoc.com. But there's a link to it from bains.com as well. - B-A-I-S-D. Okay, cool man, thanks. That is the movie. We talked about Seth Gornuna movie. We talked about Matthew Vanna Stardust. You know he's doing Thor now, right? - I read that, yeah. I was doing Thor, which I wasn't that interested. I wasn't interested in seeing a Thor movie. - Really? And now you are? - Now I am, yeah. I liked Stardust, so that was pretty good. That was a good movie. How would you like it if Thor was in it? - I think the Thor movie has to be a little more dark. I think it has to be a little more brutal. You know what I mean? This is definitely a Willow, a Princess Bride type fairy tale. I think Thor has to be a lot more action driven. A lot more sweat, sweaty men, with large hammers. I'll be there. - Whatever floats your boat, dude. - But that brings us into comic books. You talked to a bunch of comic creators on here. We gotta talk about independent books. Oni Press, have you read Scott Pilgrim? - I haven't. - This is one that last week on the show we talked to the director. - I've looked at that though. - Yeah, we talked to the director of Hot Fuzz. Last week, Edgar Wright. And one of his next movies is An Adaptation of Scott Pilgrim, which is only Press book. This is done by Torano, a kid named Brian Leo Malley. He's like younger than us, and he's kicking ass at this book. I was not sold about three-fourths of this first day. This first volume was precious little life. Scott Pilgrim's precious little life. And this first volume didn't have me at all until about three-fourths of the way through. It's basically a 23-year-old guy who has a band, you know, a little directional son life, but he's dating a 17-year-old high school girl. I think it's cool, and I think in Canada, it's cool. - Yeah, it's cool everywhere, but it's just not legal everywhere. - And so he's dating this girl. It's awkward because she's younger than him in stolen high school. And he invites her to this gig around the same time he starts having dreams about this other girl. And he ends up meeting her, same age as he, and meets her at a party, and ends up inviting her to the gig because he's not the smartest guy. He's like us, normal dude. So they show up at the gig at the same time. And I'm like, okay, so this is just gonna be kind of a fun, real life, you know, comedy about dudes our age, dating, and being an Iraq man, and being a Bohemian. This is where this one takes a turn. He gets to the gig, starts playing. Now you find out that this book is about this new girlfriend and how her seven exes are each gonna come after him to fight him, and then he can date her. And in the middle of the gig, you're thinking, okay, it's gonna stay normal. I'm like, pages away from the end of this first trade. It has a very manga style to it, but also a really, really cool independent feel to it. It reminds me a little bit of blankets, a little layouts, but mixed out with manga and all that. Yeah, just the way he treats blacks and whites and negative spaces. The first boyfriend attacks midway through their gig, and it turns into like a Pokemon battle. Really? Like he summons like these demon, like hipster girls, like in these, it plays out like a street fighter game. And like they do to hit some, he blocks it and reverses it, and it literally in the panel says reversal, you know, like a video game. Right. So he's doing something a little bit more than just giving you a slice of life, independent book. It's got a bit of surrealism to it, and I think things are just gonna get worse with the surrealism in this book. I think it's fun. I mean, like, I could see how Edgar Wright would do it. It feels a little bit like Ghost Worldy. Like it had that same pace where not a whole lot of events are happening. These people are just kind of talking and hanging out. And then when it started hitting this stuff and it hit, you know, in the lot closing pages when you see the action and it hits that beat of the seven boyfriends gonna be coming after you, and you're gonna have to, you know, then it started kind of picking up for me. I'm gonna go pick up the second volume and, you know, see how it feels. But if you're looking for something that doesn't have dudes and capes, this is a good one to pick up. Scott Pilgrim has precious little life. Brian Leo Malley, you can get it, only press. Have you read any realizer stuff? - Yes. - I gotta tell you, man, I have not read a lot. I'm not really on the spirit. But I've been writing a script at the Beverly Hills Library. And I gotta tell you, public libraries, if you don't want to spend money on trades, go to the public libraries 'cause they got trades. - They're stocked up. - Tons of them. - Yeah. - And-- - So I hear over the last couple of years they really-- - It's free. - I'm checking out trades for free. Well, I'm not gonna keep it, but I've been wanting to read this willizer contract with God for a long time. Have you read this? - I'm not sure. I haven't read it in that volume, but I may have read it in another volume if it exists somewhere else. 'Cause it says other tenement stories. I don't think I have read a contract with God. - It's a classic book that he did in a graphic novel format intentionally. It's not single issues or anything like this. This is Will Iserner. The dude has the comic equivalent of the Oscars named Adam. And it's a very old, he has a very old school feeling. This dude established so many rules for comic books. And so much of what we see in comics is because of him. Just the treatment of panels, the way he cuts up the page, the way he, one page, leads into another, but looks completely different but still flows. The guy's a genius. His pen work is amazing. His inking, his etching is incredible. And this is a story about a tenement in the Bronx. From when it was built in the 1920s after the World War to the mid-50s, the different people who live in this tenement and basically the life of it. And it's a very Jewish perspective. So I learned a lot about the Jewish people. - It's the foreskin. - Well, you know, it's a Jewish neighborhood and it's a Jewish tenement. And he wrote it, he says a disclaimer. He says his autobrog, he says the real, the only thing fiction about this is in the telling. But the events are true. And it feels like you're reading morality stories. - That's what all this stuff is like though. - Really? - Yeah. - I think so, even in the spirit stuff. - Yeah, this guy writes a contract with God. He loses his daughter and he throws the contract out. He then starts developing all this wealth, moves out of the tenement, buys the tenement, and then his life, then he has a heart attack and can't spend any of the money and he dies. So what good did it do, you know? You can't make it, you know, you can't speak for God, you can't have a contract with God. Someone else finds the stone and it then that he threw out 'cause he wrote it when he was poor and escaping Russia. And he wrote it before they sent him to the United States and he wrote this contract and he capped it. And he threw it out the window once his daughter died. And then the next person picks it up and he follows his story. And that's how these four stories and this trade work. But it got me, you know, it got me interested to pick up the rest of Will Eisner's stuff. There's no Captain America in it though. No Captain America, but I see where you're going with the segue, baby. And I think you are a great co-host today because Captain America is coming back. - Really? I'm telling you, we're talking about how I want to go to Comic Con, you know, different comic conventions. - But he's dead, right? - Yeah, he's dead. But this past weekend in Chicago, we have Alex Ross, the big artist. There's all the photorealistic paintings in that. He put up a piece of artwork that I'm putting on the screen right now and look what it is. It's a painting of Steve Rogers, Captain America and it says return. And he has said, Alex Ross said this is Steve Rogers, it's not a clone, it's not of this, that this is the real Steve Rogers, he's back. I'm thinking, I'm thinking it's like a Marvel Knights. Can they really bring him back this quickly after they just killed the guy? - Maybe they're just going back and redoing all this stuff from the 1930s and 1940s. - Yeah, because look, he's sitting next to someone who's arm, it looks like-- - Is it below us, right? - No, it's on the screen. - Okay. - I'm just holding it. We gotta make the leave on the internet. He's standing next to two arms. One of them looks like Bucky, maybe the Winter Soldier, and the arm on the right, on the left, it looks like the Submariner, looks like Namor. - I agree. - In the three of them, we're all part of the invaders. - And then the human torch is behind him. - That's what I think. Everybody says he's walking out of flames, but I'm like, no, he's getting buffed up by the human torch. - I agree. - Behind him. - And you know he's a man because he's not even flinching. - No, he is taking it like we would. And what I'm thinking is it's called the return, but the turn is the huge part of this word. And this is going to be the big bombshell. Catherine America, this is just my conspiracy theory here. Catherine America comes back, but he comes back playing for that side. And we're still all Americans. It's a beautiful thing, man. - 'Cause you knew Namor was gay. You knew this whole I love Sue Richards thing was just a giant beard. - There's a lot of gay stuff going on in this episode. - 'Cause I like you. - Oh. - And I'm not afraid to say that. But you're so uncomfortable right now, though. - No, I'm not. - Given your feelings. - And then dude, Bucky runs around with a kid named Bucky. You know, it's like Robin. - Yeah. - And then the human torch is by fucking him. I think this painting says like, you know, the Marvel Universe is about to get flipped on its head. And we're proud of it. - I agree. Have everybody come out of the closet. - Maybe that's part of the register. Maybe that's part of the Civil War. Civil War II, you know. I think that it's time. Catherine America, who else? Who else to lead the charge? - I think you should be hired to write your own Marvel like maxi event series. - Tony, Joe Casada. Dude, call me up, man. I will write that, you know. - Well, I will write the maxi, the gay wars or something. - It's like secret wars, but like in the closet wars. What do you think of that? - That's good. - And like, well, I'll just have Alex Ross paint all of it. It'll just be dudes posing, you know. And like looking off, like, you know. - You saw the painting Alex Ross did of the ambiguously gay duo from "Saturday Night Live", right? - I think I did gay, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh, yeah, it's Rossy, man. - I did. - I saw that. - Cakes ass. - It looks very, it makes it look very serious. - I like how we started off talking about gay went on and now that it's painted or tainted, emphasis on taint, the entire episode. But I'm not afraid of that. This episode has a lot of pride in it and Gilmore's not even here. - Have you read "The Invisible"? - Yeah, that's the more, the great Morrison book. You know what, fuck, I'm gonna get a lot of shit, I haven't. - Really? I don't think you would get a lot of shit. I don't know how popular that is or isn't. I hadn't read it until recently, but the friend gave me all the issues. - What is it? - It's basically, you know, it's, I mean-- - You see really a, yeah, but it's done. You know, like it started in the, I think the mid '90s and finished up in probably 2001 or something 2002. - And what is it? - But they're coming out in their trade paper back form. What is it? It's just a weird thing. I don't know, I actually didn't even ask. - Well, what is it? - It's just a long, it's good though. - Yeah, it's kind of a, it's kind of a magical reality exploration of a magical reality. It's a lot like Harry Potter, the books of magic, except with a more psychedelic and grown-up theme. - So it's a bunch of grown-ups dealing with magic in the real world. - Yeah. - Now are they a group of like detectives or a group of like crime workers? - They're a group of terrorists. - Oh, that's fun. - Which, but it's going off of the pre-9/11 idea of the world turning into, and our government's turning into those of the 1984 and not the actual year, but the book. - Right, right. - And it's an underground, yeah, an Orwellian, Orwellian present actually leading into an Orwellian future and the underground operatives that work against that. - And there's magic that exists in it. - Yeah. - You recommend it, it sounds good. It actually sounds good. It sounds like a lot going on in the book. - I recommend it, it takes a lot. I think it's, it only, to me, it only works as a whole though. Like I don't know that anybody would ever pick up an issue of that and say, oh, I wanna check out the, like the earlier issues of this or the later issues, but- - It's a lot of critical acclaim and it's Graham Morrison. - Yeah. - That's pretty much enough to barely pick up the first trait. Another thing that- - Was that a signal? - No, no, no. It was just fixing his headphones, but we're already working in a video game, so I think we're good on time, right, BJ? Okay, kick an ass. Let's talk this new Stranglehold demo. Everybody's talking about it. You love playing it. - Yeah. - I wasn't that impressed the first time, but this is the sequel to Hard Boiled. It's in video game form. On the 360, the demo is out. John Woo's Stranglehold, you get to play as Cheyenne Fat. That's right, Tequila from Hard Boiled. What's your impression of the game? 'Cause I saw you pretty much destroyed Hong Kong. - Well, like you said, it was raining Chinaman. - Yeah. - I liked it. It was a lot, I also asked you this. It was a lot like Max Payne, quite frankly. A little more fluid than Max Payne, and it seemed, it was for an action genre game. I really dug it. - Cool. - Yeah, I'd recommend it to anybody like Max Payne, or what was that cowboy one, whatever it was. - Oh, gun? Was that it? - No, but I don't remember it. - I, first time I played the game, I wasn't that into it. I thought it was a little stiff. Like, I don't like that you have the butt slide every time you touch a table. - Oh. - Like there's a-- - But it does have automatic lighting. Yeah, it automatically butt slides. There's no jump button. You don't really, you kind of feel like you're just playing through the game without as much control as you would in another game. - That's kind of what I-- - You interact with stuff way too automatically for my taste. - That's kind of what I like. I mean, that seemed to augment the feeling of the action feeling for me. Like, you didn't have to, maybe it's made for old people like me. I don't know. But you didn't have to-- Like, I didn't find, you don't find yourself like bouncing up against objects and like, oh, man, I should have turned there. Yeah, it's, unless the walls are very obvious. So, you know, you just running through everything. You can run and dive over everything. So, it's just, it's made, it's very easy. You're just running around, shooting stuff. - And once you start jacking up like the tequila meter with your health and like, you did the, you got it to do the precision targeting where it cuts the-- - That was really cool, yeah. - People long away because you're really able to focus-- - Everything slows down and you-- - And then the tequila bomb where you have those fly out of your shoes and you shoot everything on site and pretty much destroys the whole screen. - Something that's cool, I'm guessing, as much as you guys love this game 'cause I've been reading on the forums how much you guys love this game, I'm gonna have to say that this is a game that's gonna go down like the Matrix game. - Really? - And although you're really excited about it right now, in the end, it's not gonna have the life that, you know, like a real classic, like a halo or a GTA. It's not like that's gonna have-- - Well, yeah, but it's not gonna be like-- - It's not gonna be like, I have to ride 360 because of string holes. - Sure. - But I will buy it used. That's what I'm saying. - I'm not gonna go out-- - But those types of games have that very limited lifespan. They don't have a multiplayer and they're not that open-ended kind of game that GTA is. So, I mean, that's kind of a-- - What's the answer? - It costs the same. - And I agree now that that is a horrible thing-- - That's the breaker break. - Exactly, and well, so it'll, I mean, obviously it's gonna come out, but, yeah, it's not gonna be something that it'll be in the bargain bin pretty soon. It's kind of like the game that I am playing a lot of right now. - What's up? - Shadowrun. - Oh, you love that? - Which is specifically online multiplayer. It's not worth the 60 bucks either. There's no story. - But it's fun. - It's fun, but, you know, again, like Vijay was saying, it's the same price as everything else out there too, which is, I think, a mistake that video game makers are making, and then it comes out for the 360. It's gotta be $60. It comes out for the Wii. It has to be 50. It comes out for the DS. It has to be 30. - Yeah. - It's a remake. - You know, unless it's a remake, then you get like the selects title and you get 20 bucks. - Right, but if you're putting out a product that doesn't have everything that-- - Like a story-- - Like a horrible player. - Basically, I mean, Halo and Halo 2, Halo 3, that's kind of the level that you're aiming for. If you're not hitting that, you gotta knock the price down. Because if you don't have a lower price when it comes out initially, it's going in the bargain bin. You're not gonna get multiple sale print runs or anything like that. You're gonna end up losing more money on it in the long run. I mean, there's a price break point. I had to learn that with my own DVD, which I tried to sell at Comic-Con for 20 bucks initially. - And you ended up having to cut it to 15. - 15. - Yeah. I mean, that happens. And that's capitalism, maybe. I do think a sliding scale though on video games would be really interesting. You know, I would probably buy more $20, $30 titles. And just knowing that they're fun. And like on Xbox Live, if you buy something out of the arcade and it costs, you know, a couple hundred points, that's a five, six, seven dollar game. You're not gonna really sit and think about it. You're gonna buy it, like, out of just impulse. Instead of just mulling it over, oh, it's a big investment. You're gonna, there's a lot more room for impulse buy. - Right, exactly. And here's the thing though, that, I mean, that sliding scale does exist. It just exists over time. - Yeah. - Because I know for myself, I would either buy it used, wait longer until the price drops or rent it. I mean, the fact that you can rent games is a huge deal and there are people that just go out, rent it for, you know, a week or two. And, you know, you're done with the game. Like, you completed the game, you're done with it. You've paid what, 10 bucks? - For one, three, five. - For one, three, five. - For one, three, five. - With V.J.'s blog, with the sheet move. - Yeah. - But, yeah, I hear you. - So I think the game companies are not, you know, they're not, they're not involved. They can't separate themselves enough from the, the business and really listen to the input that they're getting from the consumer. - Consumer consumer. - Which is, I mean, that's a huge Microsoft Prime. I know on Halo 2 that you get the same feedback from the developers and the people that are making them. They, and the same thing with Shadowrun, they don't want to hear any of your complaints. They made it perfect and they're fine with it. And that's fine, you know, if you made it for you and your 20 friends that sit and play it all together in the same room, that's great. But if you're, if you're looking to-- - If you're 20, that's the law and it doesn't stick, don't be mad. - To use a metaphor. - Or at least take the, understand the criticism that you're getting, don't say, I have a lot of issues with Xbox, quite frankly. Thank you, I need that comfort. - That's what this episode's about. - Comfort. - You'll get it. Which means I want to bring this episode to a quick close. I can get all of my business. Gotta tell you guys, we have a MySpace. It is mySpace.com/GeekscapeNet. We also have a Facebook buddy group. Go on there, we have a fan club over on Facebook. If you're a Facebook member, search for Geekscape. You'll find our group. Go visit the forums, MySpace.com/Forums. You can submit reviews to the show, just like those two good friends of ours, Invader Zoom from the forum and Big Geeks. That's geekscape.net/Forums. And I also want to get on the forums for a reason because I want to, you guys who have used trade paperbacks and something like that, a friend of mine has some troops in Iraq. They don't look like they're coming home anytime soon, so might as well make their stay over there enjoyable. I'm gonna set up an APO address for them. I'm gonna get an APO from them. And we're gonna put it on the forums. And if you guys have used trade paperbacks, things you want to get rid of, things you might think that they like to play, video games, whatever, I'll put the APO address up there and you guys can mail them all your old stuff and that'll make their stay a little better. Don't you think? Hell yeah. (laughing) Hell yeah. Hell yeah. If I send you over there with your stranglehold, start blowing people's heads up. I like that you can, like a part of the dude's heads missing when you hit him with a shotgun. You are good at that game. I like to shoot. We'll find out in about 10 seconds after this camera starts rolling. That's our episode. We will see you guys next week. And that's that. Thanks a lot, Chris. The movie is independent. Thank you. The independence and you can get it independencedoc.com or mainsst.com. Thanks guys, we'll see you next week. Time's up, I'm sorry. Okay, you wanna bring the next one in? I'll give you one more minute, okay. My name is Seth Gordon, the director of King of Kong, Fistful of Quarters. Oh man, really? Yeah! Hey, you got toilet paper on your foot, by the way. (laughing) Okay. Yeah! (laughing) (laughing) What's up with that? Who's the geek now? Who's the geek now?