Can I start a thread for Charles Burns' BLACK HOLE (and anticipation for the in development David Fincher movie), even if there's already one on I Love Comics?

Apparently you can. And the ILComixxxors don't have one as it happens - we're all too hypnotized by the Ironman/Batman showdown coming up.

This sounds like a really good idea, though, even if movies made from Gaiman's stuff tend to suck groundwater. Fincher!

Avary and Gaiman?!? Weird. But yeah it sounds like a good group (well except for Avary who basically wrote some of Pulp Fiction and has done squat else I've liked).

This is one comic I can totally see made into a good movie. I'm a bit worried about Fincher doing it though, not because he's a bad director, but because he's too mainstream these days. I mean, if this is done Hollywood style, they'll probably want to cut off some of the weirdness, maybe even explain what's causing the sickness, which obviously would be wrong.

I could totally see Lynch doing this, the comic has some very Lynchian surreal bits, plus the attitude towards sex is kinda the same as with him: sex is something scary and weird and leads to bad things happening. Though the main character and the girl with the tail (can't remember their names) sorta balance it out by giving a healthier example.

"too mainstream these days"

As opposed to when he was doing Paula Abdul videos?

And the ILComixxxors don't have one as it happens ...

Um hi dere search function:

Charles Burns' Black Hole

I mean, if the sickness is supposed to be a metaphor for sex and all the other weird and scary stuff you face while growing up, then those two characters deciding to deal with it and try to live happily together was a more positive ending than Lynch usually comes up with.

(xx-post)

That's about the comic, not the movie. But point taken.

I totally fuck up a ling re: the movie @ the bottom of the thread! But I'll take your point and put it into my Roth IRA. $$$!

Also: Alex, I think Tuomas is talking about the "Express Yourself" video, when he REALLY sold out.

Gaiman had nothing to do with the original comic, though. Yeah, Avary's been on a weird run - some straight-to-video schlock, a european TV movie, a video game adaptation, "Beowulf," and then an arrest for drunk driving/manslaughter within the last few months.

I'm just very interested to see how they flesh the film out - the book is more tone poem than multi-layered narrative. There's a LOT that goes unexplained/un-contextualized/etc. It would also have to be an R, which makes it seem even more unlikely as a studio project.

I swear I also read that Brad Pitt's company (Plan B) are producing it for the studio, which is a good sign in terms of respect for the source material (i.e. Pitt had it in his contract that the studio had to stick with the title "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," for example).

(x-postage)

Well, okay, I guess Fincher has always been mainstream. I just meant that the movie being a Hollywood production, they might want to explain too much of the plot. One of the worst parts of Figh Club was the very literal way they explained the dualism of the two main characters.

Yeah, but that was a problem that there was not going to be any good way to deal with, wasn't it? If you're "onstage" in a movie, you are definitely there, whereas in a book, you can be anywhere.

Well, okay, I guess Fincher has always been mainstream. I just meant that the movie being a Hollywood production, they might want to explain too much of the plot. One of the worst parts of Figh Club was the very literal way they explained the dualism of the two main characters.

-- Tuomas, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

have you seen zodiac? you're nuts.

and what kenan said.

I'm much more comfortable with Fincher putting his hands on one of my favorite comics than I am with Neil Gaiman.

and i think burns' art is so unique and awesome that what is the point of this. they could make it look totally different and thus disappoint, or do a sin-city type thing and what would be the point of that.

i'm hoping for something different but also good.

Jeez, I hope they don't do it Sin City style, that didn't work out very well.

Well, they could also make a really good movie out of some fantastic material that deals with adolescence in a way that's amazingly insightful, fresh, heavily ambiguous, nightmarish, etc etc. Fincher would never bother with making a Sin City type thing, he's too in love with his own visual style. (Rightfully so, sez me.)

xposts

fair enough.

fincher is definitely one director i'd trust to do something with the material. sorry tuomas but your complaint about him being "too hollywood," whatever that means, is nonsense.

It means that at least two movies of his which definitely have surreal/non-realist bits (The Game and Fight Club) were made weaker by needing to explain those bits in a literal, realist manner, instead of letting them work on a more metaphorical level. And I fear the same might happen here.

I don't necessarily blame Fincher for that, but if Black Hole will have a

I don't necessarily blame Fincher for that, but if Black Hole will have a THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED ending like those two, it'll probably suck.

You have to keep the ending exactly as it is, I demand it.

That's not what I was saying.

It's what I'm saying.

It means that at least two movies of his which definitely have surreal/non-realist bits (The Game and Fight Club) were made weaker by needing to explain those bits in a literal, realist manner, instead of letting them work on a more metaphorical level. And I fear the same might happen here.

-- Tuomas, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:21 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

blame the writers for that

and like kenan said, how else would you end fight club.

i mean, of all the movies to accuse a director of being too conventional.

That conventional genitalia cut at the end was just too much for me. How trite.

I'd say MOST problems with Fincher movies are on the script level. While we're at it, let's talk about Alien 3, eh? Oh, what grand script problems.

Alien 3 >>>>> The Game or Fight Club.

^^^^^ Tuomas levels of RONG

Zodiac >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Alien 3 >>> Panic Room >> Fight Club > The Game.

Has he made anything else?

Oh that's right Se7en or whatever. That's the worst of the bunch.

Fincher has never written the scripts for his films, has he? So yeah, I guess it depends on how (un)conventional the scriptwriters and producers want to make the story. Even if I'm not Gaiman's biggest fan, I think he'd probably want the script to be faithful to the comic, but it's not like it's his choice alone.

Yeah Roger Avary has a say too!

Although I think you guys are downplaying how much influence Fincher has on the way these scripts turned out.

he's too in love with his own visual style.

Maybe at the expense of the rest of the movie?

i don't care how "conventional" shit is if it's good. that's a red herring.

i mean, of all the movies to accuse a director of being too conventional.

My problem with the film was exactly that, because most of the movie was so fresh and surreal and unconventional, the end solution felt kinda like a cop-out. If I'd done the film, I'd hinted more subtly that the two protagonists were two sides of the same coin, and not come up with the overtly literal split personality explanation. Now the movie has Norton's character's other persona run around the US starting fight clubs and doing other weird shit without the other persona noticing anything, the bit with him hitting himself, and other stuff like that which doesn't work out well if the story is supposed to realistic.

I'm lookin forward to this mostly because Zodiac was so great and Black Hole was one of the best things I read last year altho Gaiman and Avery make me go a little uhhhhhh

(also Fight Club sucked and Palahniuk is terrible, Alex's estimation of Fincher's output = OTM)

If you'd done the film, I'd want to see it even less.

Tuomas you always have these issues with realism that I find completely baffling and pointless.

i don't care how "conventional" shit is if it's good.

But what makes the comic so good is that the story is surreal, i.e. unconventional. I can't see how it could be made into a good conventional film.

(see also: complaints about Batman Begins, Twin Peaks)

Yes, well we concede you lack imagination.

DNFTFITSC

Twin Peaks real problem was the lack of realism.

Tuomas you always have these issues with realism that I find completely baffling and pointless.

My point is that movies which are essentially non-realistic/surrealistic shouldn't try to come up with realistic endings that explain everything (The Game is even worse in this regard) just for the sake of having a "proper" explanation for the stuff that's happened.

My problem with the film was exactly that, because most of the movie was so fresh and surreal and unconventional, the end solution felt kinda like a cop-out. If I'd done the film, I'd hinted more subtly that the two protagonists were two sides of the same coin, and not come up with the overtly literal split personality explanation. Now the movie has Norton's character's other persona run around the US starting fight clubs and doing other weird shit without the other persona noticing anything, the bit with him hitting himself, and other stuff like that which doesn't work out well if the story is supposed to realistic.

-- Tuomas, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:52 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

so fight club would be more realistic if they weren't the same person? that's really what you're saying?

xp

it's MORE non-realistic that they're the same person!!!

Twin Peaks has a realistic ending?!?!?

No, I wanted Fight Club to be LESS realistic and not come up with a psychopathological explanation for what is essentially a metaphor.

(x-post)

I didn't say anyhting about Twin Peaks.

Tuomas, I hear you -- it's not an invalid point, not altogether. I agree -- the third act doesn't quite work. But like I said, you have painted yourself into that corner the moment you have decided to make the movie! And the hitting himself, dragging himself through the parking garage, yeah of course it's all ridiculous. The movie kids itself. Jeez, can you imagine how much *more* fascist it would be if it didn't?

If were talking about Black Hole, a similar approach that The Game and FC have would be to explain in the end of the movie what the "sickness" was all about. Can't you see how that would screw up the whole thing?

Tuomas how do you feel about the ending of Gilliam's Baron Munchausen (in which certain events in the film are portrayed as having "really" happened, and others, like the Baron's death, have not?) Or the ending of Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain?

I dunno I guess I just find these kinds of aesthetic rules tedious and dull. I don't have a problem with movies deliberately obscuring what is real and what isn't. It's probably one of the more interesting avenues that films are free to explore.

x-post

Tuomas how do you feel about the ending of Gilliam's Baron Munchausen (in which certain events in the film are portrayed as having "really" happened, and others, like the Baron's death, have not?)

Yeah, but the final scene sorta mixes things up - everything happened and nothing really happened. That's much better than "it was all a dream", which really is the most boring, cliched ending ever.

this is what I was referring to re: Twin Peaks and hating literal explanations/confusing surrealism and realism

What made the first season and the beginning of the second one intriguing was the idea that there was a big, mysterious backstory to everything that was happening, and we only caught glimpses of it through dreams and visions. But when, during the second season, they started explaining it with all that Black and White Lodge mumbo jumbo, that's when I thought it got kinda stale....

-- Tuomas, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:02 AM

I dunno I guess I just find these kinds of aesthetic rules tedious and dull. I don't have a problem with movies deliberately obscuring what is real and what isn't.

Me neither, but that's not what FG and The Game do - by the end they both pretty much explain what was real, and that's exactly the problem. Like I said, the Munchausen ending (it was both real and not real) was much better.

Well I can't dispute that second season is mostly very weak (until the final episode which is some of the great weird tv ever.)

oh yeah, the second season has all kinds of crap in it. occasional lolz tho too (Ben Horne Civil War reenactment!)

That said Tuomas is wrong about the reason why it sucked (hint: it wasn't the reveal of the back story--it was the FRONT STORY.)

I didn't really say the reveal of the back story was the only reason the second season started to suck midway. Of course the front story had problems too, like that pointless episode with James and the married lady.

Me neither, but that's not what FG and The Game do - by the end they both pretty much explain what was real, and that's exactly the problem.

wait so I'm supposed to believe Norton and his army of deluded losers w/daddy issues actually blew up those buildings? And that he managed to survive shooting himself in the face and losing all that blood?

man that movie was so stupid on so many levels

I wasn't saying it was real, I was talking about how the movie draws a strict line between what's real and what's not with the psychological multiple persona explanation. Though the very last scene with the buildings falling down is is left kinda ambiguous, even though most of the other stuff isn't.

the multiple personality thing is the least realistic thing about it, i'll say it again.

I think (possible ill-formed opinion alert) that the way it goes so far over the top in the last half hour or so is Fincher's way of deflating all the big speechifying and self-seriousness of Tyler's world view. Maybe a way of trying to prevent young men from leaving the theater thinking about how OMG I'm the middle child of history, so unfair! etc. He's saying, no wait people -- this is all a sick joke, do you see?

The book, btw, does not end with a ludicrous bloody kiss and a subliminal penis, it ends with the narrator in the hospital, having gotten rid of the Tyler personality, but unable to stop the hospital staff or any of the Tyler army from being totally won over and continuing with the Big Plans. I think it was going for a kind of Clockwork Orange "Oh noes the nightmare continues!" feeling, because the book basically believes in its angry angry premise. Fincher takes a left turn at Albuquerque and goes for wtf lolz.

Casting ideas?

Keith... Chris... Rob... Dave... Eliza?!

http://www.leflog.net/images/burns.JPG

http://www.leflog.net/images/burns.JPG

I think the critique of fascism worked already well enough by the time the protagonist realized he's unwittingly leading a nazi army. I don't think the story needed deflating, to me the point was that the premise was indeed appealing to young men, but the story showed what consequences taking this route would have. The whole multiple persona and "I was just having a midlife crisis" thing mostly distracted from that, so it was just this one person's story instead of a more general social commentary.

(xx-post)

"but the story showed what consequences taking this route would have."

You are in fantasy land.

What do you mean?

he means you are imaginary

Actually I just realized you are talking about the book, because I don't think the movie is big on consequences.

I haven't read the book. But the movie shows how the protagonist realized his clubs have turned into fascist-mantra chanting skinhead militias. How much more critical should it get?

Let's just say I think the movie's a little too in love with the machismo on display for my tastes (from beginning to end.)

I still like it better than the book, which is the same machismo except a bit more glum and "wounded" and not near as funny and not featuring Meatloaf in any way.

In the beginning, yes, but that's exactly the point: to make it appealing to the viewer too, so that showing where it leads to will have a bigger shock effect. I thought the movie was well enough critical of masculinism, but like I said, making the story into a personal psychological drama during the last third instead of continuing with the more general critique was a bad move, because the societal aspect of the story was kinda lost there.

(x-post)

avery wrote MOST of pulp fiction

"so that showing where it leads to will have a bigger shock effect"

Haha you must be only person ever to be SHOCKED by this, but whatever I'm not wasting any more brain cells thinking about this film.

ya rly, who woulda guessed that a bunch of guys beating each other up in a homoerotic violence ritual would lead to people getting hurt

http://www.rupertsanders.com/rupert.html#/sfv2/

Interesting - here's a Black Hole short from a few years ago made by a guy who's now a pretty big commercial director. It stars a kid who I recognize from lots of teen movies like "The Girl Next Door" and "Just Friends." The tone is maybe slightly off, or at least not entirely how *I* saw the book, but it's pretty cool. Still wish Fincher would do this.

It's super NSFW, by the way...

^that site resized my browser and wouldn't play a video

Fincher never happened...but!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/black-hole-series-netflix-i-saw-the-tv-glow-director-1236408323/