Lurker Central

So the biggish news from Marvel world this week is that Marvel Studios got back rights to Daredevil and Punisher. (I hadn't heard the news about Punisher until reading that article! I'm one the dozen that actually liked Warzone, but it was doomed to rebootdom since Ray Stevenson is Volstagg now. Hope they can do something good with Frank.)

This of course means I was correct that we will in fact never get Clint sniper dueling Colin Farrell's Crazy Irish Bullseye across Manhattan. But you know what we could get if Marvel keeps the script idea for Daredevil that was floating around before Fox lost the rights, a Frank Miller-influenced story set in the '70s? (Which I thought was an interesting take, since the Hell's Kitchen of today is much more gentrified than in Daredevil's best stuff.)

If Marvel Studios does a 1970s set Daredevil with Bullseye as the villain (and why wouldn't they?), they could totally reveal Bulleye to be Clint's dad.

Huh? HUH?

*goes back to porn writing*

Today's selection is another Bulldog Drummond serial, this time from 1937 and again starring John Howard but with Louise Campbell in the role of Phyllis and John Barrymore(!) as Colonel Nielson. Also, I have a new icon for this project!

Oh, John Barrymore. There are few things sadder than a great actor reduced to slumming in dreck and Barrymore may be the definitive example. By 1937 when this film was released alcoholism had reduced the Great Profile (and there's even an off-hand reference to that in the film) and greatest Hamlet of his day to scattered character roles and slashed his salary from a height of $30,000 a week in 1930 (over $410,000 in today money) to $5,000 in 1941 when he made his last film ($78,000 today.) So there's a certain sadness in watching him act in something this forgettable, even if he does seem to be having fun with it. (The role offers him a chance to play with makeup and facial prostetics, one of his favorite things - Barrymore was the original matinee idol who'd go out of his way to ugly himself up for roles.)

So we're back to the intrepid Captain Drummond and his various crime fighting sidekicks. The plot this week is pretty straight forward: the widow of a criminal Drummond helped send to the gallows decides to get revenge by kidnapping the luckless Phyllis and staging an elaborate cat and mouse game with Drummond. You know. As you do. She has a partner in crime who's apparently Russian but is so heavily made up that at first I thought the actor was in yellowface but no, apparently this is what 30's B movies thought Russians looked like. Tonally I thought this was a lot more consistent than last week's even though the plot wasn't nearly as interesting, and poor Phyllis got even less to do. She could literally have been a recording yelling "Help!" for most of this without any changes to the plot - and yet the beginning with her and Drummond was pretty charming, mostly because John Howard really does a nice job of making Drummond convincingly besotted.

Also, I am convinced one of the writers for the Adam West Batman series sat through this film as a youngster because the villains' plan was completely from the Riddler's playbook. The riddles! The puns! The leading the hero into a death trap! So imagining a young Eddie Nygma imprinting hard on this little piece of fluff lent some extra amusement to the proceedings.

Up next: Bulldog Drummond's Peril (1938), starring John Howard, Louise Campbell and John Barrymore. (sigh)

So as previously threatened, for the 100 Things challenge I'm reviewing my way through the Mystery Classics 100 Movie Pack, and first up is a 1939 serial called Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police, starring John Howard, Heather Angel and Reginald Denny.

So before anyone asks, there's no actual "secret police" in the movie. I don't know if that term had a less sinister connotation in 1939, but the title comes from a throwaway scene where Drummond and his sidekicks all band together to catch the killer in the dead of night. I confess, this is my first time hearing of the Drummond character but after a quick visit to wikipedia I can see how why he'd be called a kind of proto-version of Bond and Doc Savage - he has that suave veneer Bond's made famous and his crew definitely reminds me of Doc's running buddies.


(You see that a lot in Golden Age comics, now that I think about it: everyone has a crew. It's a lot more common nowadays for a hero to have a sidekick or two, but a lot of modern age supporting casts don't really join the hero in the adventure as often as you used to see. Excepting Batman of course, which is always my favorite part of his Lone Warrior Of The Night routine. It's right up there with John "Only Trust Family" Winchester having so many old friends it seemed like "Sam and Dean run into an old friend of John's" was happening every other week for a while.)

Anyway, the plot's fairly basic: Drummond is set to finally marry his long suffering fiancee Phyllis (there's a montage from previous Drummond serials showing previous wedding attempts ending in various disasters) and the two of them are touring his new(?) estate while Phyllis' aunt sniffs at everything and tries to talk her niece out of it. A character makes a comment that one of Drummond's best talents is getting into trouble when he's about to get married and the pattern holds true: a professor contacts him to say he has a book with a cipher that, if he can crack it, will lead to treasure hidden in one of the walled-off rooms. (Three guesses what happens to the professor once he cracks the code!) Before long it becomes apparent there's a killer afoot who also wants the treasure, they realize the killer's in the house, the lovely Phyllis is kidnapped and the chase is on.

What struck me most about this is how...I think the word I'm looking for is jaunty the whole thing is. I'm used to PIs being a lot more noir flavored but for all the murder and theft and fist fighting in underground cisterns this is a pretty breezy affair. And there's some really abrupt tonal shifts; there's a lot of slapstick, especially when the professor character is introduced, then in the middle of all the English butler jokes constables are getting shot in the garden and everyone just stands around seeming mildly inconvienced. And at the same time it really set me back on my heels to see the hero just straight-up shoot the bad guy as soon as he had the opening; there's the bones of James Bond and Doc Samson.


Phyllis was kind of a thankless role (complete with the always odious sub-plot of "we have to be nice to your old maid aunt or she'll whisk you away, because Heavens, you can't be here without a chaperone!") but once she stumbled on the bad guy and got kidnapped she actually got some interesting things to do as she tried to talk him down. I think the story would have been stronger without the "funny" marriage plot but that seems to be in the DNA of the character so I'll have to get used to it. There's a bunch more where this came from on the set.

Up next: Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937), starring John Howard, J. Carroll Naish and Louise Campbell

spn_j2_bigbang progress:



I think my icon speaks for itself.

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I'm pretty sure everyone's seen this, but just in case:

Honestly, I'd love a SHIELD movie, just two hours of Coulson and Widow and Hawkeye being awesome without the superheroes getting their nonsense over everything.

I cannot adequately express how happy this existing makes me:



Ahem. As you were.

*omggatotsuomgyay*

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I'm retreating to my spoiler proof bunker now to write All The Words. Love your spoiler cuts and don't burn the internet down while I'm gone!

I loved THOR!

I loved loved loved Loki in that movie.

And I love Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks."

So I've like pinkfinity a vid FOR ME.

All the Other Kids

Watch and be happy too!

(As a side note, in my head Tom Hiddleston in that movie is what Jesse Turner grows up to look like.)

Just got back from Sucker Punch. Really, really liked it, but then, I would. There's very little bad I can say about a movie that has ( here be spoilers )

I want one of those Fight Like a Girl icons with Baby Doll.

So sleepy.

I had a dream last night I was watching a game show on what I guessed was Animal Planet. It was some variation of Wipe-Out; the contestants had picked out animals they wanted to adopt and if they got through the course the fees would be waived and they would receive free food and vet care for a year. There were the usual schmoopy videos featuring the contestants and the adorable animals, and I'm pretty sure one woman was talking to the (visible) ghost of her dead husband.

So that was odd. Although I would definitely watch that show. Even with the ghost.

A meme! from hako_neko

1. COMMENT WITH A MYSTERIOUS COMMENT OF YOUR CHOICE.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters and your thoughts on each.

isilrandir gave me S.

Susan Ivanova: (Babylon 5) Always obey the Babylon 5 mantra: "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out."

Simon Archard: (Ruse, CrossGen Comics) Simon is all of Sherlock Holmes worst character traits dialed up to eleven: he's arrogant, rude, incredibly impressed with himself and ruthlessly brilliant. His assistant is essentially a god and even that barely impresses him. I adored Ruse and Simon was my favorite character in CrossGen. Needless to say I'm over the moon that Marvel is restarting Ruse in a few months. Simon is going to break the world. It will be awesome.

Saitou Hajime: (Rurouni Kenshin) If they could create a character expressly for me, Saitou is what they would come up with. Principled and ruthless and defined by his personal definition of honor, Saitou is my favorite character in all of anime and he's easily in the top ten of favorite characters ever. And no one works a cigarette like him.

Sarah: (The Crow) Oh, my girl. You can't imagine how distraught I was when I saw Crow 2 and witnessed what they did to my street-smart, caring, brave little kid. The idea of her mentoring a new Crow was a good one --- I just wish the execution hadn't been so wretched.

Seth Bullock: (Deadwood) I love conflicted lawfuls. You show me a character who's trying hard to deny his impulse to make things right, who just want the world to leave them be, who's torn between what they've been told and what they feel (oh hi, Cas), and I am there. Bullock spends the entire first season trying desperately to not be Deadwood's sheriff --- except that he leads the posse after Wild Bill's killer, continually butts heads with the town's criminal elements and can't keep his nose out of everyone's business. By the end of the season it's clear to everyone that he's the only man for the job --- and then Bullock's real problems start.:)

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I have WIP-itis. And I'm pretty sure I'm writing something only I will ever want to read. Send help.

This week's fannish5: Every bad movie or series seems to have one character that's too good for it, or even makes an otherwise dreadful thing worth sitting through. Who are your five favorite characters from things you otherwise hated, or would have hated without them?

( mild spoilers for The Postman, Wing Commander, Forgotten Realms, Boondock Saints and Jumper )

They Live! I love this movie. Roddy Piper and Goliath team up to fight aliens!
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Has anyone ever heard those blood drive radio ads featuring the Red Defender? I like imagining he's from the Doctor Horrible universe, purely because that would mean he would be forced to socialize with Captain Hammer. And Red Defender has such horrible luck (for example, after saving the Earth from an asteroid only to accidentally destroy the moon: "Where did you throw that asteroid?" "Away. I threw it...away.") that I can't see Captain Hammer helping. Even if everything did go right on one of their team-ups, I'm sure Captain Hammer would somehow wind up hogging all of the credit.

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Speaking of unlucky superheroes: ( spoilers for Siege 4, Sentry: Fallen Son and Dark Avengers )