Author Archives: Jonathan Williams

Thanks to Mick Foley, Christmas is far from “Mizerable” for illustrator Josh Adams

From his comic book illustrations for DC Comics‘ House of Mystery and IDW Publishing‘s Doctor Who to his design work for Syfy and WWE, Josh Adams is no stranger to to the fantastical realms of superheroes, time traveling and pro wrestling. This Christmas, Adams received an early present when he was asked to illustrate Mick Foley‘s latest children’s book, A Most Mizerable Christmas. Having previously drawn the likes of Rey Mysterio, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger and Christopher Daniels, you might think that illustrating a book featuring The Miz, CM Punk, Wade Barrett, Sheamus and other WWE superstars and divas would be a simple task. But this book offered a unique challenge in that Adams was creating these wrestlers as children, not in their current incarnations. Being a WWE fan, Adams was definitely up for the challenge and has helped create a new Christmas tale for wrestling fans of all ages. Here, Adams takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the challenges A Most Mizerable Christmas presented and how he was able to effectively execute his artistic finishing maneuvers.

Though you are no stranger to the wrestling world, A Most Mizerable Christmas is your first collaboration with Mick Foley. How did this collaboration come about and how did the process of illustrating Foley’s story work?

This is, indeed, our first collaboration. I wasn’t actually the first artist on the book. It wasn’t until July that I was brought onto the project after difficulty finding the right artist for a project. Jill Thompson recommended me. It was a weird encounter. Jill and I were both guests at Comic-Con International and our tables were down the aisle from each other. Jill came up to my table with a cell phone and asked me what my schedule was like. At first I thought she meant my schedule at the con, but then I realized she meant for an actual gig. I had just finished doing an issue of Doctor Who so I was free. Jill handed me her cell phone and on the other line was Mick Foley. Mick told me he had a lot of work and not a lot of time and wanted to know if I could handle the work. I had to scour the convention floor to find a watercolor set to do samples. It was a MacGyver moment if I ever had one, but that night I was able to finish some samples, email them to Mick, and just three weeks later I was turning in the final pages of A Most Mizerable Christmas. By the time I was brought on to the project there really were only three weeks till the deadline and a lot of art to do, so for my sake everything was already scripted, along with descriptions of what images should correspond with the text. There wasn’t a lot of time for Mick and I to go back and forth with different ideas, but thankfully after I finished a few pages of art, everyone felt we were in step with each other’s expectations.

Drawing WWE wrestlers is nothing new for, you but I believe A Most Mizerable Christmas is the first time you’ve drawn child versions of them. How did that compare to the previous wrestler illustrations you’ve done? How does drawing wrestlers compare to the superhero and fantasy stuff you do?

WWE Champion CM Punk is apparently a fan of "A Most Mizerable Christmas" artist Josh Adams. Photo by Saori Tsujimoto.

This is certainly the first time I have drawn child versions of professional wrestlers. Outside of children’s book illustration, there aren’t many opportunities that call for that kind of thing. The difficulty with doing the kid versions is that it’s not like drawing real kids. They’re cartoons, all with bubble heads and wearing kid clothes. One of the toughest was CM Punk. Here’s a guy who has piercings, facial hair and tattoos and I can’t illustrate any of them in this book. Drawing the wrestlers as you see them in reality is much easier for me and I’ve had a lot of experience with that. The real fun thing for me is that these men and women are like comic book characters and as a professional and as a fan I can appreciate the relationship that exists between the two. I’ve also found that many wrestlers are comic book fans, as well. My first wrestling-related job was illustrating a comic book for Rob Van Dam and it only grew from there, doing illustrations for Christopher Daniels, Stevie Richards, Daffney, storyboarding those artsy commercials that aired on Syfy for ECW and designing the print ads for SmackDown. My career has become quite inadvertently associated with wrestling, mainly because of my love for wrestling. There was actually one week last year where I was interviewed for Impact Wrestling one day and then the next day bagged by Cody Rhodes on WWE.com.

In much the same way that WWE allows us to escape to a comic book-like reality, Christmas is a magical time of year for most people. What attracted you to doing a Christmas book featuring WWE stars?

Much like a professional wrestler evolves his character over time to keep the product from getting stale, I always like to try different things and change directions when the opportunity presents itself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. When this opportunity presented itself, I had never done anything remotely like it and the style of work I was doing at the time was as photorealistic as you could get. So the transition was drastic. It was even the first time I did a job using watercolor! But I am comfortable when there is a lot of pressure to make the deadline under crazy circumstances. I’ve been to a few signings with Mick and we usually make our way through 300-plus books. The truly amazing and humbling thing is that people are buying this book as a Christmas gift for a child or a loved one. In the end, regardless of the content, how famous the author is, the experience doing the work, nothing affected me more than the fact that people happily paid money without the bat of an eyelash to buy the book as a holiday gift for someone. A friend of mine who is a school teacher bought copies for all the teachers he works with to read to their class. That means a lot to me.

This book is a morality tale that uses WWE personas to illustrate a positive message. But as is often the case with WWE, many of these characters (The Miz and CM Punk in particular) have had some changes in attitude since this book came out. Do you think The Miz may have learned a lesson from being the antagonist in this book? Do you think CM Punk should maybe take a second look at the book to remember the example his character set?

I’d have loved to have seen CM Punk resemble the character in our book on television, but business is business and as much as we fans love to grumble at the TV when we think we could do it better, those guys and girls in the WWE put together an amazing product that is unmatchable these days. Having been backstage at their shows and up to their offices in Stamford, I have seen such a well-oiled machine that makes it really shine at producing live entertainment every week that is both exciting and family friendly. It was cool to see Miz start to resemble the change that we put in the book, though.

In the acknowledgements section of the book, you thank Jerry Lawler, who is an incredible artist in addition to being a wrestler, and Jill Thompson, who has worked with Foley previously. How much would you say these two artists inspired you and how did their art influence the illustrations you did for this book?

"A Most Mizerable Christmas" artist Josh Adams also illustrates the "Doctor Who" comic book. Photo by Patrick Robert.

I’ve known Jerry Lawler for a number of years and he is one of the most amazing people you could have the chance to meet. He’s got such a quick mind. Listening to him on commentary is evidence of that, but then you see his illustrations. I’m a guy who has devoted his life to illustration, and he is a professional wrestler and commentator with a very busy schedule who somehow manages to find time to create beautiful work. It’s like if I decided to hop in the ring one day and work a 40-minute main event-style match on pay-per-view. Jerry just has that creative and ambitious edge that makes him a threat in anything he tries. All the while he is one of the sweetest and most humble guys you could ever meet. Jill Thompson is one of the coolest artists I know. She has a versatility about her work that allows her to traverse genre and tone with ease, and her skills with watercolor are to die for. She very much mentored me through the early stages of this book and helped me find the style for the characters. It couldn’t have been done without her guidance and obviously I never would have had the opportunity if she hadn’t believed I was able to handle it.

Now that this book is out, what other projects do you have out or coming out in the near future?

I have been working on a few issues of Doctor Who for IDW Publishing, which will be out in January and February. Doctor Who is a great series for families. I’ve got a graphic novel that I’m working on and a webcomic series in the works as well, which are both for older audiences. But I have been excited about any opportunity to do more wrestling-related work, as well as more children’s book work.

www.whatwouldjoshdo.com

Cirque du Soleil film transports viewers “Worlds Away” with 3-D adventures

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The Aerialist (Igor Zaripov) and Mia (Erica Linz) travers many worlds to find each other. Photo by Mark Fellman.

Cirque du Soleil is known for wowing crowds with its international athletic talents, elaborate set designs and impressive costumes. But audiences are typically only able to escape into one Cirque world at a time. But with Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, moviegoers get to see snippets of several of Cirque’s non-touring Las Vegas shows in 3-D with a narrative that ties it all together.

The main story is of a young Mid-Western woman named Mia (Erica Kathleen Linz) who ventures to the other side of the tracks to visit a traveling carnival. But this is no Cirque show under the Grand Chapiteau. This is an old-fashioned carnival run by derelicts and featuring exploitative sideshow acts like the strongman and bearded lady. You know, the kind of place where professional wrestling was born.

While traversing the carnies and other dangers, Mia makes eye contact with a handsome carnival worker being forced to hammer tent spikes into the ground. When she receives a flyer for The Aerialist (Igor Zaripov), she realizes he is the same man and seeks out his performance. But when he misses his trapeze bar and plummets to the ground, both Mia and The Aerialist are sucked into an even darker world where Cirque shows such as Kà, Mystère, Criss Angel Believe and Zumanity are all just a few steps from each other under their own tents.

Mia (Erica Linz) is led through Cirque's many worlds by Le Vieux (Benedikt Negro). Photo by Mark Fellman.

Mia’s guide on her quest to find The Aerialist (as well as her way back to her wholesome home) is a silent Joker-esque clown (Benedikt Negro) who, despite his creepy demeanor, really does seem interested in helping her. A majority of the film seems to focus on Kà (a post-apocalyptic mix of Mad Max and Flash Gordon), the sensual water displays of O and The Beatles Love. And the Beatles soundtrack – particularly “Get Back” – provides a fitting narrative to Mia’s predicament. Mia also wanders in and out of Viva Elvis for surreal performances such as wall-crawling and trampoline-jumping masked superheros (or are they luchadores?). As impressive and frightening as all these illusions, battles, athletics and musical performances are, Mia only wants to see one performer, which is what keeps her going.

The Aerialist, in the meantime, is on a similar quest to find Mia. And his encounters with the various Cirque performers require him to utilize his own athletic talents in order to venture on to the next tent. Directed by Andrew Adamson and produced by James Cameron, Worlds Away becomes a splendorous display of the many Las Vegas attractions as well as an entirely new Cirque story that could easily play out in subsequent movies or live productions. And while such an endeavor could have come across as an infomercial-like marketing ploy in less-sophisticated hands, Worlds Away is able to introduce viewers to Cirque’s magic without it seeming contrived.

www.worldsaway3d.com

Despite new music and tour, nothing is too solid with Concrete Blonde

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Just prior to Concrete Blonde‘s tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its landmark Bloodletting album two years ago, I spoke to Johnette Napolitano for accessAtlanta (which you can read right here). That was actually my second time interviewing Napolitano and both experiences have lead me to the conclusion that it’s hard to keep up with her creative energy. For Concrete Blonde fans, that’s a good thing considering that the band recently released a white vinyl single for two new songs: “Rosalie” and “I Know the Ghost.” And after touring the world over the past couple of years, the band (rounded out by guitarist James Mankey and drummer Gabriel Ramirez) is currently on an East Coast tour. In the midst of that tour, Napolitano takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the possibility of a new Concrete Blonde album and her various other music projects.

I talked to you a couple of years ago just before your first rehearsal for the Bloodletting anniversary tour. Now you’re on tour again and have a new vinyl single, which is something you may not have anticipated last time we spoke. How did the new music and tour come about?

It just seems to be the right thing to do. We did that seven-inch single on white vinyl, which was fun to do. I don’t know how that idea really came about. It just seemed like the right thing to do. At my day job, that’s what I used to do is get masters to the plant to get them made into stampers and all that. That was my job, so I know a lot about vinyl and I just thought it would be fun to make a single. Obviously you can download anything digitally, but it was really fun. We took it out of the box and just went, “Oh, this is really cool.” It’s like it used to feel, that excitement when we made our first record. I think for Gabriel it was really cool because that’s how this band started was on vinyl. We’re excited about it and people apparently want us to play. That’s nothing that I take for granted. There are waves, especially in this fabulous entertainment industry we’re in, where trends come and go and things ebb and flow. The last thing you want to do is get out there and think everything’s cool and have six people show up.

Since that Bloodletting tour, we headlined a festival in China last year, which was a really amazing experience for all of us. We’ve been to South America a couple of times. As a matter of fact, we have to go back there in March or April because two days before a Brazilian festival I fell off one of my horses and broke four ribs and four vertebrae, so we’re going to make that up. Most of our touring in the last few years has been foreign. The States are a difficult place to work, as anybody in this business will tell you, because it’s like five different countries in one. You may do well New York, but nobody in Mississippi gives a shit, or vice versa. It’s really painstaking to make sure you’re connected in the right places and doing the right things to make sure people come because all you’ve got to do is one bad tour and nobody will come again.

The two songs on this seven-inch are stylistically very different from each other. One is very punk rock while the other is almost country…

Much like our first record.

Exactly. Are those the only two new songs you’ve been working on or do you have other new stuff that might be released soon?

I do. I always have a million half-finished things laying around. I’m my hardest critic and a song really has to earn its place before being immortalized. I love both of those songs. “Rosalie” just came to me in one piece while I was sitting on the porch of my cabin in Joshua Tree. It just blew in with the wind. It was just perfect. When that happens, all you’ve got to do is catch it. And with “I Know the Ghost,” “The Ghost” was a poem I wrote for a book called Rough Mix, which we have on sale, and I really liked it and loved the idea of setting it to music somehow. I also wanted to do something that we didn’t have to take that seriously; just a good old-fashioned West Coast punk feel because our roots are in West Coast punk. That’s when everybody started making their own records. That was a big deal and everybody was doing the DIY thing big time back then. That’s when Black Flag’s first record came out and Agent Orange and all that. Brett [Gurewitz] started Epitaph with a seven-inch single from Bad Religion, which both Jim and I worked on. But everybody was doing that then, so it makes sense. And on a very basic level, the sound of vinyl sounds good with certain stuff. Country music on vinyl just sounds so pure and right; and punk on vinyl sounds pure a right because there was a lot of that going on on vinyl. Now they have plug-ins to simulate the sound of vinyl if you record digitally.

The book is another thing you mentioned last time we talked. I’m glad to see that it’s out now.

Oh, yeah. It’s steadily selling on Amazon, which is really all I wanted to do. I want it to be a series and I’ve started another one on this tour. There are so many songs that it’s basically explaining what some of the songs are about. Then it has miscellaneous drawings, poems and things that don’t seem to fit anywhere else. I also did a CD series called Sketchbook and I only do 1,000 of each, then they’re gone. It gives me incentive to do another one because I have a loyal base of people who want every one I do. That’s really cool. I like that sort of approach. It’s not just throwing stuff out there for mass consumption; it’s custom little things for people who want them. People do appreciate that they have something special that is not going to be there once it’s gone.

You always seem to be working on musical projects with various other musicians. What else do you have in the works right now?

I’m still working with David J and David is all over the map. We’re working on a project called Tres Vampires with a DJ named Shok out of L.A. We’ve got three tracks down, only one mixed, and a video that really needs some re-editing. It’s hard to keep up with David J. He’s one of the most driven artists I’ve ever known. He really is off the planet and I’m a big fan.

You were also working with a flamenco group in New Orleans called Ven Pa’Ca and talking about opening your own flamenco club there. Did that ever happen?

I spent a lot of time down in New Orleans after my dad died and opening a place down there was definitely not as simple as I thought it was going to be. New Orleans is a scary place if they don’t want you there. I was at the airport and two big white men came to the bar where I was sitting and said, “Can we join you?” I said, “No,” but they sat down anyway. I was pretty much told that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be opening anything down there. It was pretty scary. I’d heard that New Orleans is no place to fuck with, but I don’t know who they think I am or whether they didn’t dig what I was doing. I had rented Preservation Hall for one day and shot flamenco with Leticia from Ven Pa’Ca. We did a version of “Mexican Moon” and it was really cool because it made sense for me to have flamenco there. But that’s not what the place really is about. New Orleans really doesn’t appreciate you deviating from what they want to go down, basically. That really did freak me out because they were just like, “We’ll bury you down here.” It was very creepy. I don’t know if they thought I was related to Janet Napolitano or what. It was really strange, so I kind of put that idea to the side because I think playing down there with the big boys is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

You mentioned that you’ve been working on other new songs. Does that mean we might see a new Concrete Blonde album in the near future?

Everybody keeps asking me that, but I’m afraid to make that commitment with the band, to tell you the truth. We have a relationship that is difficult sometimes, like anyone else who’s been together for so many years. It’s really important that nobody get too comfortable. That’s why I got pissed off at the band in the first place because everybody got really comfortable and everybody started taking things for granted. I like that we’re doing this, I like that there’s a single and there is new music, but I know I’ll never again in my life go out and tour for seven months at a time like we used to do in the old days. As a matter of fact, what has been the main factor in the last couple of years for me is I don’t like to leave home for more than a week out of the month. It throws me off balance and I really need to be home because I’ve got goats and horses and all that. But it’s not practical to do that. On the East Coast we’ve got to do it for two weeks to make it work, but it’s hard for me to be gone for that long. It’s hard on personal relationships and your life and it’s not worth it. To keep that balance is the most important thing for me and if it takes doing things in little spurts so everybody keeps it together and stays nice to each other, that’s great. The minute it’s not fun, there are a million other jobs to do that pay more.

As we just talked about, you also do various other musical projects with other people. So you seem to stay busy even when you’re not working with Concrete Blonde. Are you working on any other new musical projects?

I am pleased to be working with Billy Howerdel on the new Ashes Divide record. I just spent a couple of days not too long ago doing some heavy duty writing with Billy, which is always intense, but a total pleasure. It’s a beautiful record; I’m really pleased. I just love Billy Howerdel. He’s a great guy and I love his family. I’m just envious of him because he has a beautiful wife, beautiful kids, he makes beautiful music and he makes amazing food. That motherfucker cooks like an angel, so anytime you work with Billy you know you’re going to get fed really well.

Kickboxer Gary Daniels goes toe-to-toe with Peter Weller in “Forced to Fight”

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After an accomplished kickboxing and karate career, Gary Daniels made the transition into acting in the late 80s. Since then, Daniels has been the lead in numerous B movies and performed alongside better-known action stars like Jackie Chan, Dolph Lundgren and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Daniels biggest mainstream exposure came in 2010 when he was part of the ensemble cast of Sylvester Stallone‘s The Expendables. But with the Dec. 18 release of Forced to Fight, Daniels gets the leading role again alongside the original RoboCop, Peter Weller (playing a crime lord villainously similar to the corrupt cop he played on Dexter). In the film, Daniels plays a retired fighter who has no choice but to get back into the underground fight scene in order to pay of his brother’s debt. With Forced to Fight now available in DVD, Blu-ray and digital download, Daniels talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about making this film and his career goals going forward.

You made the transition from kickboxing to acting many years ago…

I attempted to. I’m still working on that.

But with Forced to Fight you’re also the fight choreographer. Have you been a fight choreographer on many of your previous films?

I’ve actually choreographed a lot of fights in a lot of the films that I’ve done. It’s something I like to do, but unfortunately to really get your vision for a fight scene on film not only do you have to choreograph it, you have to direct it, choose the right lenses for the camera, get the right camera angles and get into the editing room to edit the fight. I choreograph the fights, but I don’t get a say on the direction or in the editing room. So very rarely do I ever get my vision.

How close would you say the fight scenes in Forced to Fight came to what you had envisioned them to be?

The problem with Forced to Fight was I wasn’t the original choreographer. Before I went to Romania to shoot the film, I asked if they already had a fight choreographer and they told me they had a local guy in Romania doing it. So when I went out there I hadn’t done any prep for any kind of fight scenes, I hadn’t done any prep on who I’d be fighting. That’s what you normally do is you prep the fights in advance before you actually get to the set. But once I got to Romania, about two or three days before the actual shooting, I looked at what the local choreographer had done and it was very substandard to what I was expecting, and what I expect of myself. So I had to re-choreograph, from scratch, all of the fights and I only had a couple of days. There’s, like, 15 fights in that film and each of them has to have a story in regards to where they fit in the film and where the characters are at emotionally in the film. Another problem was that the guys I had to fight were not film fighters. These guys were real kickboxers, real wrestlers, a couple of gangsters. One guy was 6’9″ – lovely fellow – and this guy had bullet wounds all up his arm because he had been in a shoot-out with the police when his brother was being killed. These are the kind of guys they brought me to fight. So not only was I trying to choreograph the fights, I was trying to teach these guys how to movie fight. It was a very difficult challenge.

So when you ask me how much of my vision did I actually get, if I had been working with real film fighters it would have been a lot better. When you do a film fight, it’s like doing a dance with a partner – you have to work in tandem with each other. One gives, one takes, one pushes, the other one pulls, you give each other the right distance. So when you work with proper movie fighters and stuntmen, they understand this. But when you’re working with real fighters, it’s a difficult concept for them because they’re used to winning and disrupting rhythm. In a real fight you’d disrupt your opponents rhythm, not work with it. I’m not going to say it’s the best fights I’ve done, but I think with the time we had and what we had to work with we did a pretty good job. If I had to give you a percentage, I’d say it would be maybe 40-50 percent of what I’d have like to have seen.

In many of your films, your character is based largely on your interaction with the bigger stars of each film like Jackie Chan, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or, in this case, Peter Weller. How would you say working with Weller compared to some of the other actors and action stars you’ve worked with?

When you’re working with someone that’s the caliber of actor that Peter Weller is, it only elevates your own performance. Peter is a fantastic actor and he brought so much to the character he played in Forced to Fight that it was an absolute pleasure working with him. I know it helped elevate my character and my performance in the film. I’ve done about 60 films and early in my career, in about two-thirds of my films, I was the lead actor. What they’d do is bring in bigger name actors to support me for the sales. Sometimes you find that some of these bigger actors come onto these smaller films and just do it for a paycheck. It looks like they’re sleepwalking through the roles. But I have to say that with Peter, he truly brought it. He did a perfect performance in the film and it was an absolute pleasure working with him. You’re always apprehensive when you have these bigger name guys coming off these huge productions, and sometimes they show some apprehension coming to the set. But after the very first scene I did with Peter, I stepped out of the car where we were shooting and went straight to the director and said, “Well, I think we’e got something here.” He had a great presence and brought so much to the character.

You’ve worked with numerous big names, especially in The Expendables. Are there any particular action stars or bigger names you have yet to work with that you’d like to?

To be honest with you, I’m not really looking to work with certain action stars. I’d really like to work with some of the actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and some of the other bigger actors. It’s not working with these actors that’s going to help promote my career. It’s really just trying to work with a higher level of production with better writers and better directors. I’d love to work with Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan and some of these bigger directors. That’s what’s really going to help take my career up another notch. Just working with these B movie action guys like myself is not going to elevate my career. Having done 60 of these films, I’m probably closer to that level. But I really want to work with good writers, good directors, better actors. Like every other actor, I want to step it up a notch and move up another level. So I’m going to be looking for that break and I’m not going to do it by doing another Steve Austin movie. Nothing against Steve, I love the guy to death.

Forced to Fight is out today, but it looks like you have a few other films coming out soon.

One of the films I’m proud of is something I worked on last year in Thailand called Angels. The lead was Dustin Nguyen, who was the Vietnamese character on the original 21 Jump Street, and he’s a very good actor. We had a brilliant, fantastic script, but it was on a budget. We just had the world premiere screening in Vietnam and they took me over for the premiere. I was very, very happy with the way the film turned out. The director was a guy named Wych Kaos – he wrote it, directed it and produced it – and he’s a genuinely talented filmmaker. That should be coming out sometime next year and I think it could do some great things for me. It was a straight acting role for me without any fighting. I was happy with the performance in the film overall, so I’m looking forward to that coming out.

Any chance you might currently be working on something that might take you to that next level as an actor?

I do have a few projects in the works, but not the kind of projects I’m looking for right now. I have three or four projects in the works for next year, but I’m still looking for that one break-out role. It’s pretty difficult when you come from a fighting or sports background. When you do make the transition into the film industry, it’s very hard to get people to take you seriously as an actor. When you come from a fighting background, you’ve learned to not show any emotions. So if you’re tired or hurt, you can’t show it. But in the movie industry, as an actor, you have to wear your emotions on your sleeve so everyone in the audience can see it and feel what you’re feeling. One of my early acting coaches would say, “Look, Gary. I know you’re feeling it but we have to see that you’re feeling it.” I have been working very hard on my acting and the only way you’re going to move up is not by being a good martial artist, it’s going to be by being a good actor.

www.garydaniels.com

Georgia Wrestling Now remembers Jason Speed and welcomes Mr. Donnie

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It has been a sad few days for many people in the Georgia wrestling seen with the passing of Pro Wrestling Resurrection/The New Tradition Pro Wrestling‘s Jason Speed. So this week’s Georgia Wrestling Now is dedicated to Speed, with remembrances by Simon Sermon, “The Lethal Dose” Stryknyn, Matt “Sex” Sells, Matt Von Reaper, Michael Gentry, El Zombie Mascara and Ryan Bonebrake. Sermon also fills in for Team All You Can Eat’s Matt Hankins as we also talk to Mr. Donnie and Brian Alexander “The Great” about the annual Toys for Tots wrestling benefit at Henderson Arena on Dec. 22. Listen live every Monday at 7 p.m. and call 347-324-5735 for questions or comments.

Mr. Donnie (center) talks about this Saturday's Toys for Tots benefit at Henderson Arena. Photo by Terry Lawler.

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“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is an unexpectedly incredible start to new trilogy

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Even if you’ve been living under a rock in a troll cave for the past nine years, you have to be at least somewhat familiar with J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit and the massive film trilogy Peter Jackson has been putting together for the past several years. And if you’ve read any of the early reviews of the first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, it seems that there are many criticisms for this prequel to Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy that garnered both critical acclaim and enormous financial achievements.

Bifur (William Kircher), Dwalin (Graham McTavish), Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Bofur (James Nesbitt) and Oin (John Callen) have one last supper before their "Unexpected Journey." Photo by James Fisher.

From questions of why Jackson would turn a relatively short novel into a sprawling trilogy of films that are almost three hours each to complaints about his decision to present the film at 48 frames per second (a much higher frame rate than most films, resulting in a much clearer presentation), it seems that The Hobbit is fighting an uphill battle from the very beginning. But from the moment the high frame rate images hit the screen, I realized this film would be more impressive than most people were expecting.

As was often referenced in The Lord of the Rings, the story of Middle-earth’s biggest battle actually begins 60 years earlier when a young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is visited by Gandalf the wizard (Ian McKellen). After a perplexing exchange, 13 dwarves (slovenly warriors with meticuously manicured facial hair) show up later that night to thoroughly disrupt not only Bilbo’s otherwise-routine dinner, but ultimately the rest of his life. After pillaging his food pantry and unnerving Bilbo with their seemingly careless treatment of his belongings, the dwarves set out to reclaim their kingdom from Smaug, a magnificent dragon that has taken over the dwarves’ home of Erebor and all of its treasures.

The Great Goblin (Barry Humphries) isn't going to let Gloin (Peter Hambleton), Ori (Adam Brown), Nori (Jed Brophy) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) escape without a fight. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

As you might expect, this Unexpected Journey isn’t a simple one. And since hobbits aren’t typically the most adventurous creatures in Middle-earth, Bilbo constantly finds himself being doubted by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the dwarf leader who has some very personal issues with the orcs that are hunting his party, as well as the elves who eventually aid him in his quest. This turmoil not only creates constant in-fighting, but it also makes confrontations with orcs, goblins, trolls and other creatures that much more meaningful.

An Unexpected Journey sees the return of Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving as highly-regarded elven leaders, Elijah Wood as the young relative of Bilbo, Ian Holm as the older Bilbo and chillingly foreboding appearances by Christopher Lee as Saruman and Andy Serkis as the emaciated Gollum. There’s plenty of foreshadowing, given what we’ve already seen of these characters in The Lord of the Rings, but there’s also a lot of anticipation of how these characters will develop into the villains we know them to become.

As far as the high frame rate presentation of this movie, I really can’t comprehend what there is to complain about. Not only does it make The Hobbit look incredibly realistic, but it’s also impressive to find that the extra clarity doesn’t reveal any flaws in the special effects and computer-animated elements.

Stone giants battle as the dwarves flee Rivendell. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

And even though there are several superfluous scenes in this film, some of those moments make for the most breath-taking sequences in the movie, such as when gigantic rock creatures do battle in a canyon (verifying myths about the origins of thunderstorms) and the entire capture-by and escape-from the cavern-dwelling goblins (where Bilbo initially meets Gollum, and inadvertently obtains the cursed ring). There’s also an edge-of-your-seat showdown between the pursuing orcs and the dwarves during which Bilbo finally earns the respect of Thorin, and the heroic eagles make their first appearance (with every strand of each feather fluttering realistically in the wind). And as An Unexpected Journey nears its end (which really isn’t an end at all since there are two more epic films in the trilogy), one can’t help but laugh at Bilbo’s ironic proclamation of “I do believe the worst is behind us.”

www.thehobbit.com

Green Day concludes trilogy earlier than scheduled with “¡Tré!”

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Originally scheduled for a January 2013 release, the final chapter in Green Day‘s new trilogy is out a month early. As was the case with ¡Uno! (read my review here) and ¡Dos! (read my review here), ¡Tré! shows the band simultaneously getting back to basics and exploring refreshingly different (at least for Green Day) sonic territories.

What sets ¡Tré! apart from its two predecessors is its simplicity. While ¡Uno! and ¡Dos! celebrated the pop predictability and punk pride that launched Green Day’s career in the ’90s, both albums were unintentionally ambitious. And I don’t mean ambitious in the politically-charged rock opera sense that went along with American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown. Quite the opposite, actually. Instead ¡Uno! and ¡Dos! felt like they took the band in different directions because the band was willing to just see what happened rather than creating a highly structured aural arrangement.

Where ¡Uno! favors the bands more rambunctious side and ¡Dos! leans towards Green Day’s folk and garage rock influences, ¡Tré! is a more consistent record with slightly more fleshed-out songs and cleverly tongue-in-cheek lyricism. “Brutal Love,” with its doo-wop-like composition, provides an apt prelude to the punk pacing that follows. It’s easy to envision the members of the band snickering at their prank-like pregnant pause that follows the first few guitar strums of “8th Avenue Serenade,” and “Drama Queen,” with its chorus of “She’s old enough to bleed now,” is probably one of the funniest coming-of-age songs ever written (as is “X-Kid”).

“Sex, Drugs & Violence” and “Amanda” are filled with Green Day’s classic sarcasm and sneering rock ‘n’ roll attitude. “Dirty Rotten Bastard” is a rollicking drinking song not unlike the Irish punk of the Dropkick Murphys. And ¡Tré! ends with “The Forgotten,” a rock ballad that brings the album full circle. Now that Green Day has finished this simplistically excessive undertaking, it will be interesting to see what the band has in store for us next. If it’s anything like these three albums, it should be a lot of fun.

www.greenday.com