2009 Comic Book Movies: The Spirit

U.S.A. Release: 25th December 2008

U.K. Release: 1st January 2009

Over near two months now as a new movie for 2009, the Spirit is a classic action-adventure-romance movie based on the Will Eisner character 'The Spirit' alias Denny Colt who's creation goes as far back as 1940 appearing in an American Sunday newspaper comics supplement section. These were then reprinted in comic book form through Quality Comics throughout the 1940's and have been taken up by various well known comic book publishers throughout the years and is currently being published by DC Comics since 2006.

It tells the tale of a former cop who returns mysteriously from the dead as The Spirit played by Gabriel Macht, a masked crime fighter working with the Central City Police Department to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. Sounding a typical superhero genre movie and it doesn't stop there, his arch-enemy, The Octopus played by Samuel L. Jackson has a different mission that he's going to wipe out the Spirit's beloved city as he pursues his own version of immortality by attempting to locate The Blood of Hercules in order to make himself immortal while at the same time trying to kill The Spirit. The Spirit tracks this killer from Central City's rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront and on the way facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill the masked crusader.

The ladies consist of Ellen Dolan, the smart girl-next-door; Sand Saref played by Eva Mendes, the Spirit's childhood girlfriend and jewel thief with dangerous curves; Silken Floss played by Scarlett Johansson, a punk secretary and frigid vixen; Plaster of Paris, a murderous French nightclub dancer; Lorelai, a phantom siren; and Morganstern, a young sexy cop.

Directed by Frank Miller, creator of 300 and Sin City, the movie has been criticized that although Miller is a superb artist and writer when it comes to comics and graphic novels, his skills do not carry over onto the big screen. The way Miller has chosen to tell the tale of the Spirit goes so out of the way of the original comic book Spirit character that Miller really should NOT have given credit that the movie is based on the Will Eisner character. It has been criticized that Miller manages to destroy sixty years of history in the span of 1 hour and 48 minutes running length of the movie. Though complimented on its art direction, it uses similar techniques of black and white style but with a little less colour that was used in Miller’s 2005 Sin City movie.

The movie has been considered as a 'flop' at the box-office. It reached No 9 in its first box office week of last week in December 2008 in the U.S.A. accumulating $10,305,501 and then just dropped off the top 10. Quite similar in the U.K. it reached No 6 in its first box office week of the first week in January 2009 accumulating £1,351,370 and again dropped off the U.K. top 10 the following week.

Perhaps a bad start to the year with this first comic book adaptation, let's hope that the year can only get better with the nine movies ahead of us :0( ??

2009 Comic Book Movies

Here is a list of this year's comic book movie releases. Over the coming days I shall review the anticipation of each of them and try to give as much news as possible about them.

Just An Old-Fashioned Girl…Eartha Kitt passed away on Christmas Day 2008

Eartha Kitt, the American singer, dancer, actress and self-professed "sex-kitten" died aged 81 on Christmas Day Thursday 2008.

She was one of the most remarkable and distinctive entertainers in the history of cabaret and the light musical stage and to tribute in relation to this blog she was the third Catwoman in the Batman television series in 1967-8. Andrew Freedman, Mrs Kitt's long standing agent, announced that she had lost a long battle against colon cancer at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Her daughter and manager, Kitt Shapiro, was at her side.

Born on January 17 1927 on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, Eartha Kitt was raised by a woman called Anna Mae, who she believed was her mother. The singer later said that her father was the white son of the plantation owner, and that she had been conceived by rape. Named Eartha after the year's good crop, she lived with Anna Mae in grinding poverty until her mother met a new husband who rejected the mixed race child. Eartha Kitt was sent away to poor relation Mamie Kitt in Harlem, New York City. She was told that Mamie was her 'aunt', but in later life came to believe that she was in fact her biological mother who had abandoned her from "shame". It was in New York that Eartha Kitt for the first time heard jukebox music and jazz singers such as Billie Holiday and Billy Eckstine. Mamie Kitt insisted on piano lessons, but the two fought, with Eartha later complaining that Mamie "never felt any affection for me". Eartha Kitt took more and more to the streets and rooftops, dancing, sleeping rough and joining street entertainments, before appearing by chance at an audition for the performance school run by pioneering black dancer Katherine Dunham. It changed her life.

Her first appearance on the New York stage came in 1945 in a revue with the Dunham dance company. After the Broadway run, the revue crossed to spartan post-war England. She crossed the Channel, and landed her big break in Paris in 1951, when, after giving a spellbinding and largely improvised performance at a nightclub, she was spotted by Orson Welles, who cast her in his play Time Runs, based on the Faust legend. It was while learning French that Eartha Kitt discovered the rolled 'r' that would become key to her trademark 'grrr-owl'.

With her reputation growing, she was cast in 1952 in the Broadway revue New Faces, singing Monotonous. Her smouldering personality, husky voice and exquisite timing brought an immediate record contract, and in 1954 her first album came out. It included I Want to Be Evil, C'est si bon and what was to become her most recognised song, Santa Baby. In the same year she appeared in a Broadway drama called Mrs Patterson, about a poor girl who lived with her mother in America's deep south, winning a Tony nomination for the season's best dramatic actress. By then, however, she had already established herself as a film and television star, playing the lead role opposite Nat King Cole in the 1958 Saint Louis Blues. None of her screen work did much for her reputation beyond reaffirming her talent as a sinuous, sexy singer and dancer with a voice of furry innuendo, though in Mark of the Hawk, with Sidney Poitier, in 1958, she was able to express some of her feelings about racism.

Famous for the seductive feline "purr" she perfected in the role of Catwoman in the Batman TV series of the 1960s. Among her other films were Anna Lucasta (1958) with Sammy Davis Jnr, Up The Chastity Belt (1971), with Frankie Howerd, Friday Foster (1975), The Last Resort (1979), All By Myself (1982) and The Serpent Warriors (1985). In her later years she continued to work both on stage and screen. She co-starred with the comedian Eddie Murphy in the film Boomerang (1992), but seemed most happy on the cabaret stage, reprising old standards and less known works. In 2006 she even returned to the White House to light the Christmas decorations with President George W Bush, and in April this year she opened the Cheltenham Jazz festival.

A sad loss to a pure lady whom had many talents.

2nd Poll results: Should The Incredible Hulk be the villain of The Avengers movie of 2011 ?

Second poll with only a total of 6 votes :

Yes 17% 1 vote

No 83% 5 votes

Again, I think I was testing the waters here with such an outlandish question at such an early point in time to even predict a screenplay. But as some movies go a simple idea is usually used to interpret ate a script for a grand scale blockbuster to attract the masses and not just the comic book character loving folk ! Here I was thinking back to the early day Avengers comic book of the 1960's when the Hulk was an avenger even for a short period of time of two issues in 1963, three if you include the 1999 "The Avengers 1 1/2" (pictured also here) but actually stayed with the book until issue 5. A plot was involved in issue 3 where The Avengers try to locate the Hulk as he could be a menace to society. They fail to catch him, and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner allies himself with the Hulk in a bid to rule over humanity. Phew !!

The line up for the first issue of the Avengers was Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp and this looks like the line-up for The Avengers movie of 2011 with the addition of Captain America which like The Avengers comic book of 1964, Captain America made his reappearance in issue 3 after an absence of near ten years since Captain America Comics issue 78, 1954. Because of the end of World War II, Captain America was fighting the Communists and the Soviet Union as oppose to the Nazis and this was dismissed in his reappearance because his body had been frozen and preserved after a failed mission near the end of World War II and found by The Avengers where the body had been thawed by warmer waters. Now, could the screenplay follow along the lines of some of the history I have mentioned above, keeping it simple and using the Avengers trying to restrain the control of the Incredible Hulk ?? I guess we will just have to wait and see !!

Our 1st Poll results: Who should play Captain America in the 2011 movie ?

Well considering this is our first poll with only a total of 11 votes :0(.

The results are as follows on our newly created blog:

Matt Damon 63% 7 votes

Leonardo DiCaprio 27% 3 votes

Clive Owen 9% 1 vote

Daniel Craig 0% 0 votes

Although a dissappointing number of votes which really cannot draw us to any positive conclusion at such a time but to raise awareness to the question, it is interesting to see that Matt Damon got a majority here. Daniel Craig has not even been considered for the role and was just placed here as an odd choice, playing James Bond would probably not allow him to be considered for the part but would have been interesting to see if any thought would have been made for him had he not been playing James Bond. In my opinion he could have been a good choice because of his rugged looks and blonde features suitable enough for the Steve Rogers aka.

On trawling the internet recently I discovered that Will Smith had been contacted as an interest for the role and that was even before Barack Obama had won the U.S. Elections early November. Though in Marvel's Ultimate Series Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been turned into an African American character and also appears after the credits in this year's Iron Man movie played by Samuel L. Jackson. Another actor who has been contacted also is Doctor Who/Torchwood star John Barrowman who at the San Diego Comic-Con in July this year ended up admitting there had been discussions with his agents and meetings on the possibility of him playing the star spangled hero. Clive Owen another consideration, though some fan reaction to this is "They're making a Captain America movie, not Captain Britain !". Leonardo DiCaprio was placed here because that it Marvel's personal choice to play Captain America, though he has second choice here in the poll Marvel's second choice for the role of the patriotic super-soldier is said to be Brad Pitt. So no conclusion, we'll raise this question again in a future poll !