Love it or hate it, Red Dawn (a remake of the Swayze-tastic film from ‘84) filmed a scene or two in my old home town last week. 

From Wikipedia:

“…the opening football scene for the new film; which did not appear in the original film, was shot at the former Detroit Notre Dame High School in Harper Woods, Michigan.”

I know the original film doesn’t exactly have broad appeal, however, I enjoy it for its over-the-top-Cold-War-paranoia aspect. It is an excellent Cold War media time capsule and as such, I don’t think it should have been remake (but I am thankful that the filming of it brought money not only to Michigan but my home town).  I don’t see the new version having the impact the original did when released in the early 1980s.

Anyway, my li’l sis shot a few set photos and I put them online if you are interested in checking them out.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Chicago Comic Con, Part 2: Obligatory Wrath of Con Joke

Part 1 can be read here

Optimus Claus wants to hear what’s on your Wookie Life Day wish list..just don’t ask for the Matrix of Leadership.

I try to avoid paying cover price for anything at a con, at least in regards to paperback collections of old issues (because you can always get those for less than cover price on Amazon.  I will pay cover price at my local comic book store, however).  The nearest I came to paying cover price was buying vol. 3 of Planetary for 20% off.  Obviously, I paid full price for the Mouse Guard hardcover–but I bought that from David Petersen himself.  As someone who also sells copies of his own book, I have no problem doing that. I regret not buying the second Mouse Guard book, however. Oh well.

I also paid full price for issue #1 of Cursed Pirate Girl, but again I bought that from the artist over in Artist Alley (where I also picked up a great collection of pin-up sketches from another Michigan artist, Katie Cook).

Honestly, one of my favorite finds at the con was something I got for free–a sketch from Liberty Meadows creator/artist Frank Cho.

In typical fan boy fashion, I blanked when I was next in line and couldn’t remember the name of the character (Truman the duck) I wanted drawn. So, I said “Uh, can you draw your duck character from Liberty Meadows?”

Oy.

To further add to my embarrassment, my notebook had a bunch of debris in it, which spilled out on Frank’s table. UGH. I found out later it was the tea leaves from a tea bag that had torn open in my backpack. Stay classy, Dan.

I debated getting an autograph from the fourth Ghostbuster, Ernie Hudson. I decided against it, as Winston isn’t my fav Ghostbuster. Nothing against Ernie Hudson and he does have one of my favorite lines in the film (”Since I have joined these guys, I have seen s— that would turn you WHITE!”). He certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, which is always great to see.

this guy put my Ghostbuster costume to shame.

A few folks from the Battlestar Galactica reboot were on hand, including Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama).

Eddie “Admiral Adama” Olmos answers some questions. Or ponders your destruction. I’d say it is 50/50.

Michael “Uncle Mike” Hogan was around too, and I briefly thought of talking to him and saying “Hey, remember when we met back in May at Motor City Con?” — only because he got a kick out of the fact I had the same name as his brother (Daniel Hogan…we’re a dime a dozen, seriously).

I made more than a few trips by the SuicideGirls booth and also thought of getting my picture taken with them…but I chickened out. There was never a shortage of guys around the booth, heh. As a fan of pin-up art (especially art cira and post WWII)/photography, I find what they do interesting–featuring women with piercings, tattoos and the like.

Which brings me to something else I noticed–there were a considerable amount of women attending this con.  Families too (saw a toddler in a Chewbacca costume, which was great).

Dark Phoenix knows what you are thinking, so you had better stop.

I tell you, these aren’t the guy heavy conventions I went to in my early teens, things are way more diverse today (or I’m just more aware of it, which is possible). And I think that’s great, and I don’t just mean the cute geek girls (which I’m a fan of), seeing families sharing their love of something like Star Wars or X-Men just warms my heart. I saw a few families in costume and it made my day.

This might be a generation shift thing–Gen X’ers (and my fellow Gen Y’ers) are  having families, and they grew up with a lot of the Star Wars/comic book stuff being so commonplace (merchandising especially) in the ’70s and ’80s, so they are sharing their interests with their kids. I’m not saying Baby Boomers didn’t do that as well (my dad is the reason I got into Monty Python and Star Trek), but I think fandom (and geekdom) has become more mainstream, and therefore more acceptable, as of late.

Next: Chicago Comic Con, Part 3: The Long Walk Home.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen goes into that category of films that I go to see with zero expectations.  I’ve found that it just makes for a (slightly) better experience.  Watchmen was another recent addition to that category.

To set things straight, I disliked the first film.  A lot. Why would I go see the sequel even though I didn’t like the first? Because, I enjoy seeing action films such as this (crappy or not) on the big screen. Even though I can’t stand Michael Bay films, I’ll confess they are usually worth checking out (at least once) on the big screen.

I won’t waste time with fan-boy nitpicking about how this movie and the first were nothing like the show–because that isn’t the point with these films. When you’re taking a 25+ year old children’s cartoon show designed to sell toys and trying to adapt it to a mass audience film, some stuff just ain’t gonna work. Even more so when you take it from a cartoon to live action.

However, I died a little on the inside when Optimus Prime said “My bad” in the first film.

Thankfully, this film actually featured the Transformers for more than what felt like twenty minutes in the first.  My feelings about the first film are brilliantly summed up in this comic.

But, I’m still not a fan of the character design for the Transformers. Not that ILM didn’t do a great job with the animation, I just don’t like the busy/cluttered design of the robots.  I had heard that ILM’s idea was to make it look as if all the parts from the vehicles fit into their robot bodies, but I don’t like it.  I also have a hard time telling who is who–especially with the Decepticons (Megatron and Starscream are nearly identical).

I also don’t like the ‘human focus’ of the films. But, I did like the idea of humans and Autobots teaming up to hunt Decepticons, that was pretty neat (and made for a pseudo G.I. Joe/Transformers cross-over element).

I could have done with WAY less of the human stuff, it just dragged things out.  But some of the new characters were fun (Jetfire), and some where down right horrible (the Twins). I don’t need to go into details about how bad the Twins were, just read this write up on the whole thing on /Film.

One of the saving graces of this film was John Turturro, who is one of my fav actors—which was the case for the first film.  He’s so great. The other saving points were the inclusion of Soundwave and Ravage–two of my favorites from the show and voiced once again by Frank Welker. Lastly, Starscream (another favorite) finally became interesting and had some great back and forth moments with Megatron, which was a fixture of the original show.

This film defines brainless action–which, hey I have nothing against in general (Commando is one of my favorite movies), but I’m just not a fan of Michael Bay’s directing style, or the focus on the very boring human characters.

And the character of the Fallen, while cool in concept (I enjoy Transformer history as much as the next geek) didn’t really come across as that interesting.

So if you enjoy brainless action, and for some reason enjoyed the first Transformers, check this out…but maybe for a matinee.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I don’t get it. Well, actually I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

During the Stanley Cup Finals, NBC (and the NHL) recently decreed that both Pittsburgh and Detroit could not have public ‘viewing parties’ for Finals games. The reason? People who attend such parties (an outdoor big screen for the Pens and Joe Vision at Joe Louis Arena for the Wings) would not be at home watching the game.

Wait a second. So, instead of being a captive audience at a place where they can’t change the channel, NBC would rather people watch the game at home where they can switch stations, leave the room, multi-task or any other of number of options?

NBC’s logic? People need to be at home so they can determine viewers and base advertising rates on that. Really? Couldn’t you just call the Joe and say “Hey, how many tickets were sold for Joe Vision last night? …18,000? Great!” and have people do head counts at the out door things.

Yes, I realize on some level where they are coming from with the people being home so they can use the (horribly outdated) Nelson Rating system. But, I would argue that having a captive audience in the thousands at such events would be a pretty good indicator of who is and isn’t watching the game.

Think about it: say they’re using the NBC feed for Joe Vision and let’s say 10,000 people show up (which is probably more than actually do, but humor me). During commercials, most of that 10,000 is forced to sit through advertisements and they’ll have a better chance of hearing them than at, say a bar. This the same reason we’re seeing more and more commercials in movie theaters as of late (something I loathe) — a captive audience. They can’t watch something else.

But, at least NBC is better than VS in terms of coverage, although NBC’s overly pro-Pittsburgh/Sidney Crosby stance is annoying.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Has it really been ten whole years since Phantom Menace came out? Dang. Time flies. I remember when the prequels were announced and thinking at the time "Wow, when the third one comes out I'll be done with college." Which ended up being true. Despite my best efforts, I graduated in the spring of 2005, right before Revenge of the Sith came out.

The interesting thing about me seeing Phantom Menace is where I saw it. I saw it at the old Eastland Twin theater, on 8 Mile on the Detroit/Harper Woods border back home.  That theater does not exist any more. It used to be in the parking lot of Eastland Center and was replaced by a Lowes.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but we had a half-day for some reason at school (if you're keeping count, I was a junior at this time) and just walked over to the theater since it was just down the block from school. A few friends went with me and I seem to recall we didn't even have to wait in line, as it was a crappy theater and it being a mid-afternoon show.

I was totally ga-ga over this new Star Wars movie. I had lightsaber pens, a Phantom Menace tshirt (which I just found the other day) and one of my school binders was covered with photos of Natalie Portman as Padme.

Oh, and the hating of Jar Jar Binks. Those were the days.

I decided at the last minute to attend Motor City Comic Con today in Novi, MI. I had a table there last year to sell copies of The Magic of Eyri and while that was fun, it wasn't really worth it (for me) to spend that kind of money. So this time around, I burned 25 copies of the Magic of Eyri podcast to CD (the first 4 episodes) and took a pile of promo cards with me.

Oh, and my Ghostbuster costume.

Penguicon was my first time wearing a costume at a convention and I enjoyed it, and it was an easy way to get folks to talk to me (nothing beats a flashing backpack for an ice breaker).  I figured wearing it to Motor City would be just as fun--well, it was and more.  I probably got more pictures taken of me today than in the past two years. I'm not kidding (too much). it was great though--everytime someone asked for a photo, I either gave them a CD or a card (well, almost every time).

It was really cute when little kids would come up to me and ask to get their picture taken with me. Today, I realized why the guys and gals of the 501st (Star Wars costume-fan-group) do what they do: it's because of the kids. Really it is. It was great seeing how happy it made these kids just to get their picture taken with me, and I'm just a schmoe in a homemade costume, not some movie star.

But it wasn't just kids who wanted pictures, adults did too. Heck, the folks at the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers even asked me pose for a picture with one of their books--and I was also video taped for a public access show...although they asked me to be "in character" which threw me for a loop a bit. I made up some dialogue, but it was pretty dumb (saying how I was there to bust ghosts to pay the lease on Ecto 1, oy).

I visited Katie Cook's (katie_can_draw )'s table to say hi and ended up buying one of her mini water color sketches--I'm always amazed as to how she can make something so small look so awesome. That was one of only two things I bought this year, the other being a trade paperbback of the comic Planetary. The Ghostbuster costume made digging through boxes of comics a challenge, so I spent less (which is good).

There were lots of costume folks this year, including a large group of steampunk folks.

Earlier in the day, I spotted Michael Hogan in the celeb alley--Colonel Tigh from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. I considered going up and (jokingly) saying "We have the same last name, maybe we're related!". Well, later in the day I saw there was no one at his table so I walked up and introduced myself:

Me: "I just wanted to say hi, because I'm a Hogan too. I'm Dan."
MH (paraphrasing here): ::shakes my hand:: "That's great! Nice to meet you, Ben*" *yes, he misheard me and thought my name was Ben.
Me: "uh, actually.."
MH: "Y'know, when i was younger all my friends called me Ben...because of Ben Hogan, the golfer--"
Me: "I'm sorry, but my name is Daniel, not Ben."
MH: ::eyes widen, stands up::
Me: ::thinks MH is going to yell at me and split me in twain::
MH: "Daniel! Why, that's my brother's name!" ::shakes my hand again and places he other hand on top of mine for a much more sincere handshake::
Me: "Ha, small world, huh?"
MH: "Yes! I'll have to tell him I met you!"

He was very nice, which some might not expect given his hard edged character on BSG. Tigh is perhaps my favorite character on the show becuase he is so crazy and so interesting, so I'm really glad I went and did this. However, I felt kind of weird talking to him while wearing my Ghostbuster costume, but then I"m sure he's seen stuff like that before at conventions.

The other funny part about this conversation is that I have both an uncle and a cousin on the Hogan said named Michael. And I know another Michael Hogan, whom I'm not related to, that has a brother named Daniel. Weird, huh?

The big guest of honor this year was Carrie "I did other movies besides Star Wars" Fisher. I didn't get a chance to meet her, mainly because I didn't want to wait in a long line and also because I didn't want to shell out $40 for an autograph. A friend of mine who attened did and said Carrie looked great.

I gave out all my CDs, saw some old friends and now have a funny story to tell. All in all, a good day.