A to Z Blogging Challenge - Day #19 - Letter S - Scott Pilgrim

Brian Lee O'Malley, you are a chubby little asian genius!!! I have been totally into O'Malley's Canadian uber-comic series since the first time I laid eyes on it. The simplistic yet well done artwork, the witty dialouge, and the tongue & cheek capturing of a twenty something year old slacker's lifestyle all makes the 6 volumes of this title a must read. O'Malley gets it all right in his seminal title, and provides a very well balanced comic that appeals to both guys and gals. Guys love the superhero styled fights and adventurous storyline, and the gals will love the powerful women characters & the complex relationship storyline. It has something for everyone!

Scott is an every guy... he has that Peter Parker appeal. Only thing is, he doesn't have the spiderpowers of Webhead. He does have some unreal fighting skills, but those play second fiddle to his awkward ability to underestimate every situation and constantly get hiimself in trouble. Along comes Ramona, the gorgeous and trendy foreigner (from NYC) that complete rocks Scott's world. He has to be with her, at any cost. So when he finds out that cost will be to defeat her 7 evil ex's, he takes the challenge on. What follows is some crazy battles that involve moviestars, bollywood style dance numbers, lesbians, invisibilty, twin asian guitar players, swordfights, war hammers, numerous battle of the bands, an evil mastermind music producer and my all time fave... Vegan Super Powers!!! I know that all sounds quite silly, but you must read it to believe it. It's all quite magnificient... trust me.

On the flipside, I would be out of line if I did not mention Edgar Wright's fantastic movie adaption of the series. First, let me start off by saying that Wright's version of the material was my favorite movie of last year. I also thought that Michael Cera nailed the Scott Pilgrim of the books. Skinny, scrawny and still able to kick some ass for love. The supporting cast is magnificient... and that was the key to the success of this film. The books featured an amazing supporting cast, and the movie does as well. All in all, it's an almost perfect re-creation of O'Malley's genius comic, and could easily be watched instead of reading the book. I recommend both, because they are absolutely wonderful. Hope this post gets you guys over to both of these wonderful works... enjoy!

Scott Pilgrim... What The Hell Went Wrong???

Way back in May we had 2010 Summer Movie Week here at CCD and all of the contributors gave us the top 5 movies that they were looking forward to. My top 5 was headlined by Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I could not look at the slate of upcoming flicks without this particular entry jumping out at me, so I picked it first. It has been a pretty lackluster summer, and as the week of August 11th came closer I began to hope that Pilgrim would salvage it for me. It did. It most certainly did. Despite the fact that I felt the movie was pretty perfect, it has bee a miserable failure at the box office and has been panned by a few "traditional" movie critics. How is this possible??? It has taken me a few days, but I have some theories.

First of all, let me start with what I thought the film got right... and its just about everything. Edgar Wright was a perfect fit for this project from its inception. I am a huge fan of Hot Fuzz & Shaun of the Dead, and Pilgrim continues the tradition of instant classics that come from Wright. Next, lets talk about the cast. Have we ever seen a better cast put together to fit the look of previously imagined characters before. Take a look at this:

These are just a few of the excellent casting choices and their comic book couterparts. Chris Evans was born to play uber-douche Lucas Lee. Kieran Caulkin is a perfect Wallace Wells. Mary Elizabeth Winstead looks so natural with un-naturally colored hair as Ramona Flowers. Allison Pill is a perfect cunt as Kim Pine, and Brandon Routh is wonderful as Super-Vegan Todd Ingram. Is there anyone better to play the evil Gideon "G-Man" Graves than Jason Schwartzman??? And thats just a few of them. and the there is Michael Cera as Scott himself...

Really, this is perfect casting. Perfect. I am starting to get a bit sick of Cera's non maturing body and same-in-every-movie role as just about anybody, but the dude really LOOKS like the character. Thats the first step, cast someone who fits the part. Then you hope he kills it. And he did, boy did he ever kill it. Cera gets Scott's ideosyncracies down to a T and gives, in my opinion, his best career performance to date. I know Superbad was great, but in Pilgrim Cera shines in a part that seems to have been written just for him (it wasn't, the 1st book came out in 2004, long before Cera became a star in SuperBad).

Now, lets get to the movie. Epic is the only word that I feel does it justice. Brian Lee O'malley's comic did a great job showing a cross section of various people age 17 to 20-something and embraced the things that made them individuals. Wallace is a gay party boy who loves to gossip. Ramona is looking for normality after being a bit of a maneater in her teen years. Lucas Lee is the epitomy of a Hollywood action star who can not understand why anything in the world wouldn't be about him. Kim Pine is the typical jilted lover holding a grudge against Scott while making believe everything is just fine. Natalie "NV" Adams is the rock star who made it big but longs for approval from the people in her past. Knives Chau is 17 and in love with who she thinks is a rock star, when in reality he is just a loser in a shitty local band. We all know someone like Julie Powers, seemingly working 100 jobs and popping up everywhere. And Scott is a 22 year old that just wants to get by... you guys know people like this, you are surrounded by them everyday. Wright does a phenomenal job of making us see the inside of all these characters and loving them all in their own way. Thats the strength in this movie, and its this characteristic that I think will eventually make this movie a cult classic.

Now as far as what the characters encounter in the O'Malley/Wright version of Toronto, well that seems to have been the cause for much of the criticism from these old fogey "traditional" movie critics that I have heard so far. Currently, SP has an 81% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Out of the bad reviews, there seem to be two overwhelming themes that the critics seem to be harping on. 1) Cera is no good in the lead 2) The film is too faithful to the look of the comic and unbelievable. Now I am not saying a critic should have to read all of O'Malley's comics to accurately review the movie, but give it a quick wiki search and its pretty plain to see that Cera is a no-brainer as Pilgrim. Garry Walcott of the Tri City Tribune wrote "Cast anyone else in the lead role and it might work. I assume the Scott Pilgrim of the graphic novels is actually masculine and has all the correct and working body parts."  Yeah, do ya. How 'bout you don't assume and just look at the picture above. Does he seem to be super physically fit??? What a dickbag. Margret Pomeranz, a huge film critic in Australia, said this: " She has too many exes. They should have stopped at four, because it just means these repetitive fights that are the same and they're all unbelievable and it becomes extremely tedious." Who the fuck are you to say how many characters should be in a book or movie. Unbelievable that a 20 something year old girl has seven ex's... whats so unbelievable? Oh, and its a comic book, idiots. I don't think O'Malley or Wright really means that if you destroy someone they will turn into coins. Its not Gone With The Wind, stop being so fucking serious. Then you get Tom Horgen, who is labeled as a Top Critic, saying " What's the point of being clever if you're just going to follow it up with enough flaming-sword action and exploding bad guys to make our pupils hurt?" Here is why Tom... because its an adaption of a previous work, and in that work there are flaming swords and exploding bad guys. What would you have preferred, a Victorian era adaption with bare knuckle fisticuffs so as to appear more like real life??? Well gues what. If you get that, then YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ADAPTION OF A PREVIOUS WORK BECAUSE IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT ITS BASED ON!!!!

Mr. Mike D Vs. Asshole Movie Critics

 I get that people don't have to like something. No one is saying that everyone should love Pilgrim. Just give some legit reasons other than the fact that you didn't read up on the source material, or video games and comic book style fighting isn't your thing. Honestly, Armond White may be a super douche sometimes who ruined Toy Story 3's perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, but at least he gives legit reasons why he doesn't like a film. Stop being cowards and broaden your horizons a bit. I know your 70 and

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The International Trailer

Here you go... my most anticipated movie of the whole summer!!! This is the longest trailer we have gotten yet. Check out all the action and tell me your not psyched for this movie. It's gonna be fantastic. Enjoy the trailer.

The Full Length Scott Pilgrim Is Pimp...Wow!!!

Edgar Wright's upcoming indy comic book movie opus has finally gotten the full length trailer treatment. I am super excited to see this flick, as I was a huge of the comic and picked it as my #1 most anticipated summer movie when we made our picks a few weeks back. I have seen the trailer a few times, and the one thing I have to say is that Edgar Wright seems to have captured the essence of how the characters are supposed to look... the above collage of actors and actresses next to their perspective cartoon versions shows that the cast did a great job with that. I hope you enjoy the trailer. Scott Pilgrim opens on August 13th.

OHC of the Day: Mary Elizabeth Winstead

OHC stands for Obscure Hot Chick of the day... just another beautiful actress that you might or might not know of yet... but we are sure you will soon. You might know her as the bad guy in disguise from the teen superhero movie Sky High, or as the cheerleader in the yellow mustang in Tarantino's Death Proof, or maybe its her turn as Bruce Willis's college age daughter in Live Free or Die Hard... not sure where you know her from, but you should take notice now. She is HOT, and she is about to blow up. This summer she comes to the screen as the evil Ramona Flowers, the girl Michael Cera pines to get back in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Plus, she iis starring in the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing and she is being considered for the live action role of Wonder Woman... do you need any other reasons??? Enjoy the pics!!!