Random universe, random links

Having taken a couple of weeks off, and returned to an absolute mountain of titles, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s time to scale things back. Quite bluntly, ploughing through all this stuff every weekend is just a bit of a chore these days. So, for the moment, I’m just going to run reviews as part of this blog, spread over the course of the week. We’ll still cover all the major X-books, although I think it’s fair to say that the days of trying to squeeze a full-length review out of every single issue of X-Men: First Class and every who-the-hell-cares Wolverine one-shot are behind us.

I did actually see the piece in person many years later —a definite moment of “doh!” “Piss Christ” isn’t actually a plastic crucifix in urine, but a photograph of a plastic crucifix in urine. And the photograph is beautiful — the blurry cross shines with yellows, oranges and reds as mysterious bubbling currents swirl around it. Looking at the image without any background information, there’s no question that it is religious; an evocation of the mystery of Christ, who seems to be falling through space, cast aside and yet radiant. If you didn’t have the title, you wouldn’t even know the liquid was urine.

I just heard that Universal has declined to exercise an option to co-finance DreamWorks’ Tintin with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson set to begin filming in October. The decision was quietly made a few weeks ago. So now DreamWorks will look only to owner Paramount for the rest of the moolah in the same way the two shared financing on Dreamgirls and Transformers. Unfortunately, Paramount is presently without an overall financing deal to mitigate risk, but is arranging financing on a fil-by-fil basis. I say Tintin sounds like an expensive but safe bet, considering that the beloved Belgian boy is a worldwide phenomenon, and that two great filmmakers are directing and producing even though also participating as huge first-dollar-gross players.

Now we have moved production into Swakopmund; we’re shooting on “The Village” set. Even though we are in town, our shoots are still mainly outdoors, with most of the interior scenes to be filmed in South Africa in five weeks time. So we’re taking advantage of the surroundings as much as possible: The cast and crew have had the opportunity to interact with the locals (at least the bartenders and barmaids) and sample some cuisine. I’m told the oysters are spectacular, though due to my responsibilities for AMCtv.com, my after-hours meals generally involve take-away pizza.