| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Apr | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
I already commented on Zappa’s Baby Snakes but I just saw Comic Book, The Movie which brought this up in my mind again.
There is a genre of cinema which basically says, “here are my friends doing crazy things.” Which is great if you are a friend or fan of the director and know those crazy people. It’s not so great if you are not in on the joke. Mark Hamill plays a geeky comic shop owner and fanzine editor who tries to influence a film adaptation of his favorite character, Commander Courage. Some of the best parts of the Comic Book, The Movie involve Hugh Hefner, Kevin Smith, and Stan Lee giving deadpan commentary about a fictional WWII comic book artist. The protagonist’s dismay that Hollwood wants base the movie on 21st century jingoism rather than WWII jingoism makes for some interesting moments.
But large chunks of the film are filled with mugging cameos by animation voice talents and comic book writers. There is a quick inside joke of Hamill being snubbed by Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) which was completely incomprehensible to us without looking at the voice credits. Often the extended improvisations are more baffling than funny. After watching this on DVD I realized that I’m not quite geeky enough to really get it.