The Express / Interview with Dennis Quaid

Most people know the name of football player Jim Brown. But not even sports fans may be familiar with the name of Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. The new film The Express (opening October 10 throughout San Diego) chronicles his brief, bright career.You can listen to my radio feature or watch a video of my interview with Dennis Quaid who came to San Diego last month to talk about the film.

Trailer Tuesday: Burn After Reading

The Coen Brothers -- still basking in the glow of their Oscar win for No Country For Old Men -- already have another film done and ready to open on September 12. That's one of the fastest trunarounds for these meticulous filmmaking brothers. Their latest film is Burn After Reading and concerns a disc found at a gym and containing the memoirs of a CIA agent. The disc ends up in the hands of a pair of unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it. Anything by the Coens is cause for celebration or at the very least eager anticipation. This latest effort looks to return Brad Pitt to some refreshing indie wackiness (think back to his vivid and highly enjoyable performances in Twelve Monkeys, True Romance and Johnny Suede). So with less than a month until it's release, here's a look at the Coens' Burn After Reading. George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton (also fresh from an Oscar win for Michael Clayton in which Clooney was the star) and John Malkovich co-star. This one has definite potential. Trailer is courtesy of Focus Features.

Tropic Thunder Featurette

Tropic Thunder opens today throughout San Diego. My review will be up later today. In the meantime, enjoy this featurette about the cast. Ben Stiller serves as writer, producer, director, and star, while Robert Downey, Jr. plays a balck man. He what? That's right, Downey essentially dons "black face" to play an Austrailian actor playing an African American soldier. That's just one of the gags that push the bounds of political correctness to its possible breaking point. Take a look at the video and see if you find it funny or offensive. Featurette is courtesy of Paramount.

Tell No One

Francois Cluzet finds himself a suspect in his wife's murder in Tell No One (Music Box Films)

I don't envy any film opening against The Dark Knight. That's tough. But I hope the new French thriller Tell No One (opening July 18 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters) doesn't get completely over shadowed by the Batman. Based on American writer Harlan Coben's novel, Tell No One serves up an obsessive love story wrapped up in a thriller about murder and deception.

Hellboy II Web Feauturette

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (opening July 11 throughout San Diego) is probably the film I have been most eagerly awaiting this summer. I am a diehard fan of Guillermo Del Toro's work but I have been especially excited about the Hellboy sequel ever since Del Toro appeared at Comic-Con and said that the script was so good that if you read it you would cry. (That was before Universal had given the greenlight to the sequel and Del Toro was still trying to convince people it was worth it.) In anticipation of Del Toro's new film I have been watching all of his old ones, and he just keeps getting better. Anyway, I thought I would share my enthusiasm by posting a video I cut together from the clips and interviews provided by Universal in their electronic press kit (highlighting the stuff I thought was cool like using trampolines for some of the fight scenes). Ron Perlman returns as Red along with Selma Blair as Liz, Doug Jones as Abe, and Jeffrey Tambor as Tom. I hope this whets your appetite like it did mine.

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Comic-Con Masquerade: KPBS Wants You!

Summer's here and superheroes, stormtroppers, gundams and sexy babes are about to invade America's Finest City. That's right, it's time for Comic-Con International. Four-day passes have already sold out so you better move fast if you want to attend this year's convention. I have been attending the Con for more than two decades, and it is one of the things that I look forward to most every year. This year I'm particularly excited about the fact that KPBS will be providing extensive coverage of the Con with videos of panels, highlights of booths, interviews with cool people, and recommendations about what's hot in comics, film, gaming, and collectibles. We also want to focus on the Con-goers, those wonderful fans who have embraced their obsessions and just want to hang out with like-minded people. One of the things that we'd like to do is to follow one person through the process of designing and creating a costume for the annual Masquerade. If you live in San Diego and plan to enter the Masquerade, please contact us! We are looking for one talented, passionate individual who's putting their heart and soul into a costume and is willing to let KPBS invade your life to record the entire process. Ideally we are looking for someone who will be competing in the Best Original Design (check out last year's winner in that category to the left) or Most Beautiful category. I have seen some stunning costumes in my years at the Con so I know the perfect person is out there. If you have any questions or would like to be considered as the subject for out Masquerade web feature and video, please email me at .

You can check out last year's Masquerade or find info on this year's event.

From Comic to Film: Mark Millar on Adapting Wanted

Wesley and Fox in Mark Millar's graphic novel Wanted (Top Cow)... and Wesley (James McAvoy) and Fox (Angelina Jolie) in the film version of Wanted (Universal). I know a few guys who would have liked to see Jolie in that outfit the comic book Fox wore.

Adapting anything from one medium to another is difficult because there's always a comparison to be made. The book was better because it was more complex, the TV show was better because it had more time to develop a storyline, the play was better because there was more respect for the dialogue... well you get the idea. But graphic novels provide a particular challenge because they essentially look like elaborate storyboards for movies. So in one respect the task sems easy, yet in another fans of the source material have very vivid ideas about what the film should look like. But the vivid visuals of a graphic novel may also be one of the reasons why Hollywood has taken such a liking to adapting them to the screen -- executives don't have to imagine what the film will look like, it's all right there in front of them. So far, there have been some very successful film adaptations of graphic novels, most notably Daniel Cloves' Ghost World, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, and Frank Miller's Sin City and 300. But there have also been some duds -- Daredevil and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, to name but two. The latest graphic novel to hit the big screen is Mark Millar's Wanted.

Wanted... on the page and on the screen (Top Cow/Universal)

So for any fans of Millar's very adult and totally kickass graphic novel, here's a brief comparison between the comic and the new film directed by Russia's Timur Bekmambetov. The main thing fans of Millar's book will notice is that the costuming is much more realistic. That might be because capes and tights are hard to pull off well on the big screen or because some of the characters in Millar's tale of super-villains taking out the world's super-heroes looked a bit too much like ones copyrighted by DC and Marvel.  But the gravity defying action remains pretty much intact. You can't put a copyright on that. I'll have my review tomorrow. In the mean time, here's Millar commenting on the film version of his graphic novel, including the famous scene of Wesley being asked to shoot the wings off of flies. Millar did not write the screenplay for the film but did stay close to the production. Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan are the credited screenwriters for Wanted.

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