Monthly Archives: March 2010

Lots of folks who peruse this site are interested in the history of Marvel Comics. One aspect that doesn't get a lot of attention is that Martin Goodman, the firm's founder and publisher (until he sold the company in the late sixties) published other kinds of magazines, as well. His outfit, which was sometimes called Magazine Management, put out a lot of cheap "men's" magazines — some with macho adventure tales, some with pictures of undraped females. A lot of notable writers worked for that side of the company, including Mario Puzo (best known, of course, for The Godfather) and Bruce Jay Friedman, who wrote many fine stories and dramatic works, including the play, Steambath.

Josh Alan Friedman is a son of Bruce Jay, which also makes him the brother of the fine cartoonist, Drew Friedman. Josh is an accomplished musician and author, and his weblog has been serializing some interviews and pieces on the history of Magazine Management. Here's Part One. Here's Part Two. Here's Part Three. Here's Part Four. And here's Part Five. I hope there will be more.

I'm going to try to make this my last post on the "In Memoriam" segment since it's a macabre topic…though it does seem to matter to more people than care about, say, who won for Sound Mixing. This article discusses some of the omissions. Its author remembers, as I didn't, that Farrah Fawcett was in Cannonball Run but he doesn't mention Henry Gibson's most impressive credit, Nashville.

Also, this is a little thing but maybe not to some folks' families. On every one these awards show, it seems — Oscars, Emmys, Tony Awards — when it comes time for the "In Memoriam" reel, the TV cameras miss a couple of the first people. They're pushing in on a long shot and the prepared presentation doesn't go full screen right away until about the third person.

The first three people in the Oscar salute last evening were Patrick Swayze, composer Maurice Jarre and western actor Monte Hale. Swayze was clearly visible but I bet most people missed the next two. With all the fuss that gets made over who gets left out of these things, you'd think the producers of an awards show would make sure that those who are in are seen.

Okay, I'm done with this topic, at least until the next awards show.

Every year, people complain the Oscars are too long. Okay, that's a fair comment. But some of them don't seem to get that the show is not more than three and a half hours because its producers keep trying to do a much shorter show and failing. The show pretty much comes in each year at the length they plan it to be, give or take ten minutes. This year's ran about five minutes over its anticipated time.

Bitching about the Oscars being too long is like kvetching that 60 Minutes runs an hour…the one key difference being that 60 Minutes tells you how long it's going to be. The sin of the Oscars that relates to its length is that they fib and say "three hours" when they know darn well it's going to be 3.5 and change. I assume that's mainly so that folks in the East Coast won't say, "I gotta go to work tomorrow…maybe I can't afford to stay up until it's over, in which case maybe it's better to not watch any of it." Or something of the sort. Saying it'll be three hours instead of three-and-a-half may fool a few people who need to be in bed by 11:30 and cause them to tune in.

Could they cut it? Sure. Dump the dance numbers. Cut most of the clip packages. Trim the long walk-ons for presenters, plus have fewer presenters. The year Jerry Lewis hosted back in the sixties, some columnist claimed, apparently as a joke, that what Jerry wanted to do with it was to stage a two-hour Jerry Lewis Special and in the last twenty minutes, he'd just open all the envelopes, bring up the winners and let them make their speeches. There have been years since when that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. (What Mr. Lewis actually did that year was a pretty typical telecast, except that he hurried through things so much that the show actually ran short — the only time they ever had to fill at the end. I believe he brought out all the winners and had them all sing "Hooray for Hollywood" or something.)

But they're never going to cut the show…much. Not unless the ratings really plunge. A certain part of the audience tunes in to see the fashion show and another portion just wants to see celebrities. Most of all though, you have to remember that the broadcast exists primarily to promote product. The studios want those clip packages in there. They want someone to come out and tell you all about films up for Best Picture…all ten of them, this year. It's really an infomercial done in formal wear. Worse, it's an infomercial that contains lots of real, unabashed commercials that go for a high price. The longer the telecast goes, the more of those the network gets to sell.

I didn't watch much of this year's but it seemed to me like either Steve Martin or Alec Baldwin alone would have been better than the two of them. If you ever want to know what show biz people mean when they say "no chemistry," that was a sterling example. Most of the speeches I saw were fine. The only thing I caught that seemed real bothersome was those moments where a friend of the nominee comes out and tells the nominee what a great human being he or she is. Yes, it is possible for there to be too much fawning at the Academy Awards.

The "In Memoriam" reel started with Patrick Swayze and ended with Karl Malden. Many on the Internet seem outraged that Farrah Fawcett was omitted and there's also a groundswell for Bea Arthur. They both had grand careers but neither was in that many movies, which is what I presume explains the decision. Oddly enough, I didn't see anyone on the web upset that Henry Gibson was bypassed. Henry was in a lot more theatrical films than Fawcett and Arthur put together…and one of Mr. Gibson's was the highly-acclaimed Nashville.

Apparently, there was a nail-biter over whether the ceremony was even going to be transmitted to Cablevision homes in New York due to a contract dispute between that outfit and ABC. The fight was settled some fourteen minutes into the show and then the remainder was available. Apparently, someone doesn't like Neil Patrick Harris…who, by the way, has now become to award shows what Charles Nelson Reilly used to be to every other kind of program. An hour or two in, I tweeted something about how New Yorkers were demanding that their cable companies stop transmitting the show.

I have no comments on any of the winners, other than that it would be nice if some day, a woman could achieve something in some field without someone cuing up the song, "I Am Woman." I suppose if the black guy had won, the band would have played "Ebony and Ivory."

Nor do I have any predictions about the ratings. The thing in New York will complicate matters a bit since even after Cablevision began carrying the show, a lot of people didn't know it. That won't lower the numbers much but what might is that there was no real emotional issue where half of America was rooting for one person or one performance. Still, you never know with these things. I would expect though to see some new record set for most Twitter Tweets in a 3-and-a-half hour period. I was following a couple of folks, including Roger Ebert, Bill Maher and Rob Corddry, all of whom were a lot more entertaining than the broadcast. Mr. Ebert's Tweets are archived here. Maybe by next year, they'll skip the televised ceremony completely and just give the awards out on Twitter. It would certainly race along nicely if winners had to keep their acceptance speeches down to 140 characters.

I mentioned here the other day that the TiVo people would soon unveil their Series 4 line, though it might be called something else. Well, about twenty minutes after I posted that, they announced the TiVo Premiere, which will ship next month. I haven't had the time yet to read all the articles and figure out if I want one or if I'll tough it out with Series 3. But if you want to jump into the fray, read this and then read this and maybe even read this. As the owner of one of the first Series 1 machines (I used it to record I Love Lucy in its first run), I have more than the typical consumer's interest in all this.

Ezra Klein explains about things like the filibuster and reconciliation. His main point is that the rules are being twisted in ways that go against both the original intended applications and also the precedents. He's absolutely right. And is there a man, woman or child alive who doubts that next time the Republicans have the majority and the Democrats are in the minority, both sides will be twisting them back in the other directions?

I'm getting e-mails with an unsourced rumor that much of the Amazon graphic novel sale was a computer error; that some of those books were never supposed to be priced so low. Possible, I suppose. Before prices reverted, I ordered about a dozen books. I'll let you know if I get them for the prices upon which I clicked. Fortunately, I have the e-mailed order confirmation.

Matt Taibbi on the current "Tea Party" movement, how it differs from Ron Paul's "Tea Party" movement and how it's being manipulated by powerful forces to direct its ire where they [the powerful forces] want it.

And in the last hour, Amazon has repriced some items. For example, The Fantastic Four Omnibus, discounted to $8.24, is now back up to $63. But there are still many great books at closeout prices so shop around…and maybe check back later on some of those items that have gone back to their original prices.

I wonder what's behind this whole sale. Most of the books involved say they'll ship in 1-2 weeks, which is not the norm for Amazon. Sounds like they bought out or acquired some going-out-of-biz chain or distributorship so they suddenly had this extra supply of merchandise to unload…and the sale is only good 'til that inventory is depleted.

Someone at Amazon has apparently decided they're overstocked with graphic novels and reprint collections of old comic books, mainly from Marvel and Dark Horse. Sales on selected titles have just been slashed…for how long, I do not know. But here are some examples…

• The Fantastic Four Omnibus — The first 848 pages of that classic comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby…in hardcover for $8.24. This thing used to be $64 and it was worth it then.
• The Incredible Hulk Omnibus — 752 pages of early Hulk adventures by Lee, Kirby, Steve Ditko and others…in hardcover for $8.24.
• The X-Men Omnibus — 768 pages of…well, you get the idea. Also $8.24.
• Iron Man Omnibus — A measly 720 pages for $8.24.
• Amazing Fantasy Omnibus — This one costs a bit more and you get a bit less but it's still a bargain. This is a hardcover collection of those weird monster and mystery stories that Stan Lee did with Kirby and Ditko (and a few other artists) before the Marvel super-hero era. 416 pages for $14.99.

There's also a lot of Dark Horse material with low prices. This is a fine time to pick up the Herbie Archives, for instance. Or to get into their Tarzan reprints or Turok, Son of Stone. There are also a ton of books with recent material that have been drastically discounted…way too many for me to research and set up links.

I'm going to suggest then that if you're interested in this kind of material you go over to the Amazon website and look around. You might try clicking on one of the above links and then browsing through the links they have there which say, "People who bought this book also bought these…" Or if you just go over to Amazon without that, please go via this link which will enable this site to claim its commission on your purchases.

Happy shopping. Some of you are gonna spend, spend, spend.

This site has ceaselessly plugged and recommended Zero Hour, a play by and starring my longtime friend Jim Brochu. I do this not to drum up business for Jim but to make myself look good. You see, I promote the show and then Jim and his friends like me. Then, people go see the show and they write me and say, "Boy, you were right about that one," and that makes me look better. You see? Only selfish motives on my part.

Of course, this only works if the folks who go see the show love it but I wasn't taking any gamble in that regard. I've seen this show, in which Jim portrays the outraged and outrageous Zero Mostel, capturing as much of that great actor as is humanly possible. I know everyone who sees it will thank me. Jim's play has been all over the country to rave reviews and recently, it completed a smash run at an off-Broadway theater that wasn't too far off-Broadway. The notices were so good, Jim himself could have written them. Knowing him, he probably did.

In fact, it did so well in that off-Broadway run that a new one starts tonight. The theater Jim was in had a commitment to another play so this evening, he reopens at the DR2 Theater over on East 15th Street in Manhattan for what they call an "open-ended run." That means he'll be there Zeroing as long as people are buying tickets, which they can do via TeleCharge. More info can be had at this site.

I dunno how long he'll be there…hopefully until I can get away from this end of the country and go back and see it again. If you're already on that end of the country or will be there, I suggest you buy seats and go fill them. Then you can send me a message and tell me how right I was about this one.

I've mentioned this before but one job I'm glad I don't have is assembling the "In Memoriam" segment for a show like tonight's Academy Awards. As noted in this article, you have to decide whose life will get noted and celebrated and whose won't…and then deal with the hurt the exclusions do to friends and family. I've heard there are those in the Academy who've suggested dispensing with the montage precisely because it slights those who can't be included.

The article says they have to whittle the list of "more than 100" down to "30 or so" so that's a lot of families who will be disappointed not to see a loved one mentioned. Someone also has to decide who's the "biggie" for the closing. I'm guessing Patrick Swayze, though I wouldn't be surprised by Natasha Richardson or Karl Malden. The biggest name who's passed away in the last twelve months would have to be Michael Jackson but I don't think he had enough of a movie career to close. There will reportedly be a special separate segment on John Hughes.

Having not been to the movies much lately, I don't have a huge interest in who goes home with Mr. Oscar. For what it's worth, the "buzz" I'm hearing is that a lot of people think The Hurt Locker deserves some big wins but probably won't get them. And usually when you hear that about a movie, it wins. I would also suspect there are voters who think the following: That a blockbuster like Avatar is not going to be significantly helped by winning Best Picture. It already has its "award" in its grosses, whereas The Hurt Locker has underperformed and is more deserving of that boost. Also, of course, James Cameron got his props for Titanic.

But it's also silly to try and predict what's on the voters' minds because for one thing, we don't really know who's voting and which films they've seen. There's also no data on how they vote…just what they vote for. I've made this analogy before but that never stops me. After a presidential election, we have a demographic breakdown of voters and we have exit polls and county-by-county vote totals so it's possible to infer a few things that were on voters' minds. After an Academy Award is handed out, we just know who won. We don't even know by how much they won. So theories like the one I just offered about The Hurt Locker are utterly speculative. For all we know, Sean Penn won Best Actor last year because half the voters flipped a coin and the other half thought they were voting for the guy who works in Vegas with Teller.

Enjoy the show. My TiVo thinks it'll be three hours but I've padded the recording time with an extra thirty minutes, just in case. Ten nominees for Best Picture will take a while.