‘Hulk’ Bulky on Action, Light on Talk Grade: B- The Incredible Hulk is technically the second theatrical release based on the Marvel Comics super-hero. However, this film, directed by Louis Leterrier (The Transporter 2, Unleashed) apparently ignores the events of 2003’s adjective-free Hulk which was directed by Ang Lee. Lead actor Edward Norton plays haunted scientist Bruce Banner in addition to contributing a script draft which was conditional upon his hiring as an actor (the WGA gives Zak Penn final official credit for the screenplay). The story continues—or begins again—the saga of former research scientist Dr. Banner, whose body was drastically mutated in the aftermath of a botched experiment involving improving human resistance to radiation. Now, in times of extreme anger or stress, Banner’s gamma-irradiated cells expand exponentially, turning him into the outsized, super-muscled Hulk—driven by rage and prone to lash out at his tormentors with little re...
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Talking Loud and Saying Nothing "Wack MC's have only one style, gun-buck! But when you say 'let's buck for revolution', they shut the f--- up..." KRS-One, "Ah Yeah", 1995. So, in the aftermath of the judicial verdict in the Sean Bell case (New York City) and the pending lawsuit in the death of Maurice Cox in Los Angeles, folks in hip-hop circles are wondering about the seeming lack of outrage from most of hip-hop's premier recording stars. Both cases involved an unarmed man who was killed by a barrage of bullets fired by police officers. Allegedly, 50 Cent meekly eked out a neutral answer when questioned on BET's popular 106 & Park show. In fairness to 50, Curtis Jackson is officially (as in, his tax returns) an entertainer.. as are, well, pretty much all of the hip-hop singers out there. To be sure, they can perform their songs (in the studio, anyway) with charisma, conviction and clarity (regional accents aside). Yet when it comes to...
PIONEERS OF HIP-HOP SHOW May 3, 2008 @ the Fox Theater, Detroit, was the “Pioneers of Hip-Hop” concert, running from 8 p.m. – 12:30 a.m. The first act was the Sugarhill Gang —at least, the current ‘official’ lineup- four guys and a DJ spinning the discs: The only original member remaining is Big Bank Hank, with others filling in for the original Master G and Wonder Mike (according to Melle Mel’s website, the pair are currently touring as a duo, “The Original Sugarhill Gang”). The group warmed up the crowd spinning excerpts from recent hip-hop hits, then going into “8th Wonder”, “Apache”, and eventually “Rapper’s Delight” (and an encore of the latter closed the set). The next act was Kurtis Blow . First doing some call & response ad-libs over the “Christmas Rappin” instrumental (via DAT or CD), he then performed “AJ Scratch”, “If I Ruled the World”, “Basketball” and “The Breaks”. He peppered his set with some b-boy moves, and announced that 2008 was his 25th anniversary as an MC. Th...
WRIGHT ON TARGET— The Detroit chapter of the NAACP held its annual Freedom Weekend Celebration on April 25, 26, and 27, 2008. I attended a pair of panel discussions Saturday—the first concerned “ Which Way, Young Black America: Democrat, Republican, or Independent? ” There were eight panelists, and among issues discussed were of course the presidential candidates, and the most attention was given to the “Proposal 2”, the successful effort to ban Affirmative Action statutes from all educational institutions in the state (and IMO, unofficially, other institutions). Among panelists were Munson Steed of Rolling Out Magazine , and editor Bankole Thompson of the Michigan Chronicle , one of a few remaining historically black newspapers in the country. Local educator and Detroit resident Akindele Akinyemi (http://whoisakindele.info/), self-identified as a Republican, offered that he sees nothing wrong with black pride, and he’s no fan of G.W. Bush nor John McCain, but supports certain GOP pla...
Foul Ball! Nope, for all you nice folks out there who dig our (long-reputed but in-practice questionable) national pastime, opening day for most ball clubs isn’t until the end of March. Armchair umpire that I am, I’m actually talking about what’s going on in that other pennant race, which starts off which maybe a dozen or so over-35 types jockeying for position to be frontrunners, then for any number of various reasons gets winnowed down to at least two. Sometimes there’s a third, but for whatever reason nobody tends to take him or her seriously; heck, sometimes there’s even a fourth or fifth final candidate, but no one ever gets to know their names until they actually go into the polling booth. Huh .. As of mid-March, 2008, the presumed GOP nominee for the Presidency is John McCain. A career Navy man and Vietnam War veteran, he was a prisoner of war for several years before finally being freed of those tortuous conditions. Despite having publicly disagreed with President George W. Bus...
Comic Picks this Week: Justice League of America #19 Script- Alan Burnett; Pencils- Ed Benes “Sanctuary”, part 3, involves the Justice League team’s impending visit to Cygnus 4019, a planet in a distant galaxy. It seems that Cygnus, aka the ‘Prison Planet’, was designated by the US Government as an option for exiling the most incorrigible of super-criminals. Said to have an Earth-like environment, the idea is that groups of criminals would be sent there to fend for themselves instead of keeping them on Earth to be potential threats on either a local or global scale. The Justice League finds out that a group of criminals was recently sent there—and they have J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter as a mole in their midst. Only problem is, J’onn hasn’t checked in for quite a while. Meanwhile, Amanda Waller of the National Security Council (and shadow-ops government agencies) is confronting the team about the necessities of having extreme options in place for the criminal element—or poten...
Amway/Quixtar: The Dirt Beneath the "Diamonds"--- The recent failed Michigan gubernatorial campaign of the politically ambitious Dick Devos brought to light a number of different things- for one, Devos is the heir to the multi-billion-dollar Alticor corporation. In TV commercials, Devos infers that he single-handedly led renovation efforts in Grand Rapids, MI—near the company’s home HQ in small-town Ada, Mich.—but even Devos’ father said he was exaggerating facts. The roots of Alticor are in the Amway corporation—Alticor being the chosen name of the company since the late 1990’s. Several scandals and lawsuits involving the organization and affiliated people date back to the early 1980’s, which—unofficially—led to the eventual change of the company name, as well as a well-funded public relations campaign. It should be pointed out that there is yet another subdivision of Amway called Quixtar (pronounced quick-star), that sells some different products from Amway proper, but is ...
Comics Review- Ghost Rider Ghost Rider #2 (script- Daniel Way; art- Javier Saltares/Mark Texiera): The Ghost Rider has finally escaped his prison in Hell, but he has accidentally allowed the Devil and a hoary host of demons to follow him to the Earthly plane. The story opens up with Johnny Blaze on a desolate stretch of desert highway. His bike has long run out of gas. He gets picked up by a buxom lady truck driver named Dixie (if only they all looked like that), and while at a truck stop 90 miles away, guess who shows up... it’s Lucifer- who apparently has the power to inhabit the bodies of the dead-- he’s possessed a recently deceased grandfather, and has his mourning family trapped in a van at the truck stop, with gasoline overflowing from the tank.. The presence of evil lights Johnny’s fire, and he starts battling the horned one-- but he is now faced with a dilemma-- Lucifer now stands with a lit match in front of the van with his kidnapped victims inside, gasoline all over.. Doub...
Bring that Beat Back! "Bring that Beat Back" is a really good remix project, overseen by Chuck D and compiled by Impossebulls’ founding member Dave ‘C-Doc’ Snyder. Except for a "Public Enemy #1", all of the original songs remixed here are cherrypicked from 1999 to the present, covering the period since Public Enemy left Def Jam and went independent for all future LP releases. C-Doc is behind the boards on several of the remixes here, including the title track, "Gotta Give the Peeps", "Put it Up", and "Watch the Door". Longtime PE associate DJ Johnny Juice Rosado remixes the Moby collaboration "MKLVFKWR"; Bone Thugs-N-Harmony producer Mauly T gives a west-coast funk feel to "Superman’s Black in the Building", with wailing synthesizers and Roger Troutman-style voice-box backup vocals. Other remixes make diversions over jazz-like sonic terrain, as well as the band’s traditional noisy-uptempo rhythm tracks. This is only...
Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends A ‘one-shot’ issue from Marvel Comics; $4.99 U.S. Many of today’s cartoon watchers will know this show from Toon Disney/Jetix, but I’m old enough to remember when Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends debuted on NBC in 1981. This was a blissfully pre-Internet, pre-mega-convention era, so there was no stir-up buzz a year before the show came out. About the only thing I noticed beforehand was a comic-book ad that showed all the planned NBC fall cartoon shows, a few months before (back then, I didn’t have access to comics on a regular basis, so even that was a treat). The show produced a total of 24 original episodes (running on NBC until ’86). No, most of the animation wasn’t groundbreaking (hey, what was in the early 80’s?), but the writing was top notch, as it captured the sometimes flirty, sometimes contentious relationship between three college-aged superheroes. At that time, I had never heard of Iceman, and my knowledge of the X-Men was fairly dim ...
You Don't Tug on Superman's Cape... Superman Returns movie review Superman Returns . Okay, this is the movie that DC comics fans have been waiting for since.. Well, at least since Batman Begins in 2005. Of course, anticipation for this long-delayed project has been in effect since the mid-90’s initiative to bring the man of steel back to the big-screen. It’s taken just under 10 years at this point—so is it worth the wait? Director Bryan Singer and his writing team use the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films as a loose template, and Returns opens on the premise that Superman has left the Earth for five years. Having explored what was left of his birth planet, Krypton, Superman is despondent that he truly is the last of his race. Comforted by his adoptive Kansas mother Martha, Superman returns to Metropolis and his life as Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper. The old gang is still there—boss editor Perry White, photographer Jimmy Olsen, and Clark’s longtim...
Working Girl vs. ‘The Devil’ For anyone who may think that photo-heavy glossy fashion magazines are just about "stuff", "The Devil Wears Prada" will dispel that notion. Also, for anyone who may think that the world of haute couture is fairly cutthroat—this film will likely confirm their contention, in the extreme. Adapted for the screen from a novel by Lauren Weisberger, it’s a comedy about the road to self-discovery—and the potholes encountered along the way. Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) plays the film’s heroine, Andrea ‘Andy’ Sachs. A recent Northwestern graduate now living in New York City, Andy dreams of a career as a hard-news journalist for a big newspaper. She also shares a modest apartment with her boyfriend Nate (Adrian Grenier), a chef at a local restaurant. Unassuming and idealistic, Andy’s job search brings her to Runway Magazine, part of an international publishing conglomerate. When Andy arrives for her interview, she finds herself being openly...
American Mule Entertainment Public Enemy #0 words- Chuck D, Adam Wallenta Art- Adam Wallenta Great news people- the Enemy has arrived! in the planning stages for a few years now, Chuck D linked up with East Coast- indie creator/rap artist Adam Wallenta aka 'Illus', and his American Mule Entertainment, to develop a Public Enemy comic book series. Issue #0 is a 'preview' issue, and the plot finds a top-level exec of the National Security Agency poring over a Public Enemy dossier-- he is confused on how this 'rap group' manages to stay active while reputedly being involved in 'subversive' activities, with a network called 'the Underground Railroad'.. an NSA field agent reports his findings to his boss-- turns out, Public Enemy was present in New Orleans to deliver unsanctioned aid during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.. told in flashback, we see a shopkeeper confront a 'looter', and PE intervenes before things get ugly-- the current P.E. cr...
X-Men: The Last Stand Overview- Includes Spoilers for entire film: X-Men the Last Stand looks to be the final chapter in the X-Men trilogy. Mutants have become semi-mainstream, at least in the United States—Hank McCoy— a former X-Man code-named Beast—is Secretary for Mutant Affairs, and apparently the shape-shifting villainess Mystique has just been captured—or so it seems. Jimmy, aka ‘Leech’, is a mutant whose very presence cancels out the powers of nearby mutants, through pheromones. He has been somehow captured, his mutant-power harnessed and synthesized into a chemical ‘cure’ for mutants in society. The spearhead of this is business mogul Warren Worthington Jr., whose son, Warren III, has bird-like wings that allow him to fly. A press conference is announced regarding the cure, bringing both alarm and relief to the mutant community. McCoy is apprised of the developments of Worthington Industries, and is sent by the President to investigate. In the meanwhile, the X-Men’s arch-...