Ah, today has arrived
at last. I’m still a worthless failure
but today will act as a recuperative salve, a panacea for the pain; nothing
will take this shit-eating grin off my face.
I just love eating shit! And
grinning! I can’t reveal every secret,
loyal readers. You will have to deduce
this one for yourself. But I promise the
rewards are 1000 times greater than anything you could imagine.
So a rough cut of the
international trailer for The Dark Tower (based on the book series by Stephen
King) was leaked online yesterday and I savagely hunted it down, first watching
one without audio and then one with audio.
I’m hesitant to throw out too many thoughts since the video and sound
quality was not great and the effects were clearly unfinished (complete with
some green screen shots) and it feels unfair to judge something which was not
ready to be released. I will say that
the two lead actors – Idris Elba as Roland Deschain (AKA the Gunslinger) and
Matthew McConaughey as Randall Flagg (AKA The Man in Black, The Walkin’ Dude,
The Dark Man, The Hardcase, Ageless Stranger, Walter Padick, Walter O’ Dim,
Marten Broadcloak, Nyarlathotep, Bill Hinch, Russell Faraday, Richard Fannin,
Richard Freemantle, Rudin Filaro, The Covenant Man, Richard Fry, Robert Franq
and Ramsey Forrest) look fantastic in their respective roles. McConaughey especially feels like a perfect
representation of what I always pictured and heard while reading those books. I am also intrigued as to the manner in which
they are structuring these movies – not as direct adaptations per se but almost
as a sequel to the series, pulling freely from its rich mythology. The announcement of three planned movies as
well as a TV show which would adapt book IV Wizard and Glass is an intriguing
plan though I do feel the books and their mythology might be a little too far off
the beaten path to be commercially successful as films and it would not surprise
me if this first movie does not do well enough to make those sequels and
accompanying show a reality. Which leads
me to my big concern about this leaked trailer: I hope they are not going to
make significant changes to make this more mainstream and therefore more common
and less interesting. I saw a lot of
Jake in this footage; great character but not the protagonist but I could see a
movie studio deciding to focus on him (and his world) as an easy entry point
for an unfamiliar audience. Ultimately,
it will be necessary to separate my feelings on the books from this movie and
view each as separate entities. I will
await the official trailer before further discussion on how the film
looks.
Still, despite any
misgivings of the film I can feel my love of the books renewed and I may try to
reread the entire series before the movie comes out (though that may difficult
since it comes out in February and there several other things I’ve been Jonesin’
to read). What’s groovy is that I never
read The Wind Through the Keyhole (book 4.5 written after the series was
finished) or the short story The Little Sisters of Eluria (which takes
place before the first book but I think after the flashbacks from the 4th) so this I’ll have new (to me) Dark Tower
prose to mentally and emotionally consume.
Pulling my old copies of the books off the shelf and smelling those
glorious pages brought back all the good feels, ya’ll! Maybe I’ll buy the collections of all the
comic books too and really delve deep into the mythology. Fuck it!
Why the hell not?! All hail the
Crimson King!
There’s a couple other
trailers I wish to briefly discuss. 2
years ago I made one of the biggest mistakes of my pathetic life when I failed
to put John Wick on my list of the best movies of 2014, instead relegating it
to a dubious spot in the honorable mentions.
However since then I have watched that film roughly 859 times and find
it to be consistently grand and beautiful.
Naturally I was as pleased as a starving man being gifted a pastrami on
rye sandwich when I learned of the sequel and last week I was finally able to
salivate over the trailer for John Wick Chapter 2. I’ve been burned so often by good trailers
for awful movies that I have an inherent distrust of any movie that looks good
but this movie looks GREAT so I guess I can trust it. The action looks all kinds of crazy awesome
and since it is the same director as the first I feel comfortable giving him my
heart and devotion. I’ll be there
opening day with a rictus of death spread across my face!
Then there was also the
recent Power Rangers trailer! I’ve been
anticipating this as I’ve so far loved the character designs and general feel
of the photos but…sigh…the trailer looked far too much like last year’s failed
Fantastic Four movie or (as many have said) like Chronicle. Where’s the fucking
color?! Why is Hollywood so afraid of
color and wants every movie to have that dark, drab and dull washed out
look?! If only Luc Besson had directed
this. Still, I find the actors charming
and acknowledge this was merely a TEASER and not a full on trailer so I will
continue to maintain my anticipation, albeit a bit more reserved now. Give me color though! And zest! And pep!
This is fucking Power Rangers, people!!!
Oh slag! It wasn’t a trailer but there was that recent
behind the scenes stuff Zack Snyder posted for Justice League! That got me all kinds of stupid fanboy
excited! Flash! Aquaman!
Mera! Cyborg! Bats! Supes!
New Commissioner Gordon! Lex
Luthor! And Wonder Woman (swoon!)! I’m fucking ready for this movie already and
that initial teaser/trailer comic con thing released a few months back which I first
bitched a little about now feels pretty sweet whenever I watch it. Though the
Wonder Woman movie still remains the flick I’m most excited about.
I purchased the novel The
Girl on the Train yesterday. I hate
being out of the loop on the water cooler book conversation. I’ll let you ya’ll know if I think it’s a
good read or not. Then I’ll go watch the
movie. Then I’ll probably go home and
cry myself to sleep like I do every night.
The Little Star came
down twice in as many days. There were
Poppies laid out before me, so many Poppies though they were black and not red
in color. They were forced into my mouth
and then covered my face. There was also
Fire and Rain and…I think a Princess somewhere off in the distance.
I gotta say, I’ve
really liked my last few blog posts but this one was pretty much shit. Sorry everyone. Still…tonight…oh yes…oh yes…..
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