Philly City Hall

I made a day trip to Philadelphia to visit the art museum the other day, and did this sketch of Philadelphia City Hall. View from the north, on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Urban Windmills

Big wind turbines in the parking lot of the new Whole Foods in Brooklyn. I'm not a member of the Whole Foods cult, but this store is pretty cool. It's a bit surreal to see wind turbines and charging stations for electric cars and other green technology in the midst of the industrial factories and warehouses, overlooking the Superfund-site Gowanus Canal.

Spider-Man: Turn On The House Lights

Tonight one of the longest and strangest theater stories finally comes to an end ... Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is closing. The story of the making of the Broadway musical adaptation of Spider-Man was more convoluted and strange than the Clone Saga, with its massive budget and cost-overruns, rockstar composers, its famous director who was eventually fired, extravagant scenery and special effects that landed more than one performer in the hospital,  and a year+ long preview period, lawsuits, and more. The show actually was selling fairly well, but costs so much to operate that it could never make its investment back.

I saw the show - at least, a version of it, during its long preview period - I think just a few months before Julie Taymor was fired. It was terrible. I say this as a theater person and as a comics fan. It pretty much failed on all fronts. I guess my favorite scene is this big battle on top of the Chrysler Building, which should have been the climax of the show, but instead was the end of Act One. And I liked watching Patrick Page as the Green Goblin. Imagine Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the Joker, but even hammier. The character didn't make much sense, like most of the show, but at least he was fun to watch, unlike most of the show.

One thing that struck me about this scene is that it follows the climax of the first Sam Raimi movie, changing the Manhattan Bridge to the Chrysler Building as the thing off of which the Green Goblin throws Mary Jane, and Spider-Man diving to save her. Because of that film, most people think that that is what happened in the original comic stories. But as comics fans of a certain age know, what actually happened was that the Goblin throws Peter Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy off the bridge, Spider-Man shoots a web to catch her but the sudden jolt snaps her neck. Given the multiple injuries and near-disasters in this production, that plot development might have been a little too close to home.

For those unfamiliar with Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, that blue spider-woman in the background of this drawing is Arachne, who was some sort of spider-goddess who turns Peter Parker into Spider-Man to serve as her avatar/champion. At least, I think that's what was going on. The narrative was not particularly clear on that point. The scenes with Arachne were actually pretty cool, but it was like they'd been imported from another show. It was clear that what Julie Taymor really wanted to do was a show about Arachne. Actually, that might not be a bad idea, for her to just go off and do a big spider-goddess puppet-opera somewhere. But she probably just wants to forget about all things spider-related at this point. I hope all the actors and stagehands involved in the show pick up new gigs pretty fast, though something tells me they probably won't miss working on this particular show besides the paycheck.

Who Wars

For the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Who. I came to Who pretty late, just before the end of David Tennant's run, but I've become a fan of the show. I remember occasionally seeing episodes of the Tom Baker Dr. Who on Public Television when I was a kid, but I didn't get it. This image was inspired by this story, about a spat between Dr. Who fans who showed up at a Star Wars convention. I used Amy Pond and Rory because I like them a lot better than the current companion.

Overpass

Pedestrian overpass over Ocean Parkway, near Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Prospect Park Lion

At the southwest entrance to Prospect Park, near Machate Circle.

Godzilla vs Hellboy

Yesterday I saw Pacific Rim. It was unseasonably hot and humid, so it felt like a good day to see the one summer blockbuster I'd missed. It's about guys controlling giant robots and fighting giant monsters. I generally like Guillermo Del Toro's movies, and as a kid I liked giant robots, and I loved giant monsters, especially Godzilla. And I like Hellboy comics, and Del Toro's Hellboy movies, so here you go . . .

Pacific Rim was fun, but I felt slightly let down by Del Toro. He has made films with monsters before - the Hellboy films and Pan's Labyrinth - and it's apparent that he loves the monsters. They are weird and beautiful and intriguing. The Kaiju (Japanese for 'giant monster') in Pacific Rim are cool-looking, but also pretty one-note. I was waiting for the scene where he shows us that the Kaiju aren't evil; they're just misunderstood or something, but no. They're just big monsters of destruction.

Also, at some point during the movie, I realized I was able to watch a movie about the mass destruction of major cities on the day after September 11 without noticing. That says something about something, but I'm not sure what.

Another thing that I didn't like so much about it, and all modern big-budget action movies, is that I think I'm really tired of CGI. The first time I saw Terminator 2, when the T-1000 started morphing, it blew my mind. But as much as CGI allows filmmakers to achieve any visual image imaginable, I mostly find it over-rendered, over-designed, and somehow less realistic than models and matte paintings. Those old Godzilla movies were filmed with guys in rubber suits, stomping on miniature balsa wood cities. As obviously fake as it looked even to my 10-year-old eyes, the tactile nature of it, that something real - not computer-generated - was smashing something real, sold the whole thing in a way that modern effects don't. I feel the same way about the Star Wars movies. I believe Frank Oz-puppet Yoda a lot more than the CGI Yoda of the prequels.

And so I was sad to read this NY Times article last week. It's about the decline of tokusatsu, or "special filming," which refers to the whole genre of movie-making featuring guys in rubber suits portraying giant monsters and robots stomping on miniature cities. The article quotes one of the last tokusatsu directors, Yuichi Abe, explaining the advantages of this method of movie-making: “C.G. can only do what the programmer tells them to do, so there are no surprises . . With tokusatsu, every take is different. You never know how it will turn out, just like in the real world.”

 As CGI has become the dominant method of movie special effects, fewer and fewer tokusatsu are made, and there are no more younger craftsmen learning the trade. Soon, there will be no one with the skills to build or perform this style of filmmaking. Another trade being displaced by technology, as has been happening since the Industrial Revolution began. But for some reason, I'm particularly sad that I won't be seeing guys in rubber monster suits anymore.