new york comic-con Tagged Articles at Cinematical

New York Comic-Con was in full swing today, as Storm Troopers roamed the main floor, fanboys lined up to get a sneak peak at the new Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer video game (which, might I add, looked pretty fantastic) and, well, there were comics -- lots of them. On top of all the action going on upstairs, a number of panels were held down below; Wes Craven showed up to promote The Hills Have Eyes 2, Stephen King talked Dark Tower, Eli Roth was all amped up about Hostel, Part 2 and Kevin Smith spoke for an hour and a half ... about having sex with his wife.

I've never watched Kevin Smith speak before, especially in an environment such as this. Teens lined up to ask a slew of questions; stuff like, "If you could have any two real-life or fictional characters fight to the death in a steel cage match, who would it be?" To which his answer was, "The Swedish Chef from The Muppets and Martin Luther King Jr." Also, in case you were wondering, Kevin liked X-Men 3 a lot more than Superman Returns, could care less about a Transformers story and would much rather "watch sh*t transform into robots for a half hour," and is not at all interested in turning Clerks into a play ... although the idea has popped into his head from time to time.

Amidst all these ridiculous questions, Smith talked briefly about his upcoming films. Starting this winter, he will shoot back-to-back flicks, with one being a comedy and the other a horror. Though he didn't reveal plots, he did say that the comedy "had to be shot in the winter," leading me to assume that it could potentially be Christmas-related. Most likely, the horror pic will be shot next summer with the comedy being the first one to hit theaters.

The Javits Center in midtown Manhattan is swarming with fanboys this weekend: it's playing host to the first ever New York Comic-Con, a sold-out, three day festival of comics goodness. In addition to the scheduled events (including a Saturday appearance by everyone's favorite Russian action star, Milla Jovovich), a few unexpected goodies have been presented to the faithful, primary among them an exclusive look at the first 30 minutes of Richard Linklater's long-delayed A Scanner Darkly.

The write-up of the screening at IGN describes the film as being dominated by "a sense of crushing paranoia," created by the constant presence of recording devices, and haunting scenes of Big Brother-type surveillance. In addition, the writer was impressed by the movie's representation of the troublesome "scramble suit," which is eerily shown from both the outside and, interestingly, the point of view of its wearer. Impressed by the fluidity of the animation, the writer was also surprised by the tone of the film, which he described at much lighter than the trailer makes it seem.

Obviously, Warner Independent Pictures chose the Comic-Con for the screening because they figured the audience at the event would be predisposed to like the film, so reactions to the clip should probably be taken with a grain of salt. That said, however, this report is awfully encouraging, and actually has me feeling hopeful about the film for the first time. If Linklater's animators finally got a handle on rotoscoping and were in fact able to create an effective visual atmosphere, that could go a long way towards making the film a good one.