Mark James Russell

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Category: television (Page 1 of 2)

Comics (and scifi?) come of age in 2017

May 9, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Legion

Okay, superheroes and science-fiction media franchises have been big business for around a decade now. So many superhero movies are getting released all the time, I know we’re getting sick of it all. But having just finished watching the Legion TV series, I think it’s safe to say the genre has really taken a major step forward, at least in terms in TV and the movies — at last, superhero media are becoming templates for telling all types of stories, light, serious, mainstream, and weird, like the comic books that inspired them.

When it comes to TV and movies, so much of superhero storytelling has long seemed, well, just bad. Even as a 7-year-old, watching the original Superman movie, the concept of spinning the planet Earth backwards to reverse time seemed pretty sketchy. Hollywood’s approach to superheroes, like scifi or fantasy in general, wasn’t very smart or respectful of the genre … and certainly not very good as scifi or fantasy.

But then in 2000 came the first X-Man movie, and its relative quality was a big surprise, followed by X-Men 2 and the first Spider-Man movies. Nevertheless, in terms of sophistication, tone, etc., most comics book movies and sci-fi movies were decades behind the mainstream culture (let alone the cutting edge) in writing and drawing.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman films were a big step forward and got all sorts of praise; but, really, they were mostly just updating the superhero movie to about the point of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns miniseries (which came out in 1986!). Yes, they were progress, but still 25 years or so behind the comics (and then the Superman V. Batman movie went right back to that same well for more ideas).

Batman Superman

And even Nolan’s “serious” movies like Inception and Interstellar were pretty sketchy in terms of sci-fi — “the power of love” helping the hero cut through space-time to save the day? In 2014? Really?

Anyhow, so Marvel begins to kick butt once they took over their own production with the first Iron Man movie. People were generally pretty impressed and the film got lots of great reviews, peaking with the Avengers, but people soon grew tired with the noisy, meaninglessness of it all.

But it looks like Marvel was keeping an eye out on popular opinion, and took steps to stay ahead of the curve. And rather than doing so by emphasizing special effects and bombast, they’ve instead chosen to focus more on finding interesting voices to tell those stories. Choosing oddballs like James Gunn (who came from Troma Studios) and Scott Derrickson (who did a Hellraiser movie) was a sign of a new set of priorities.

This year, that approach to superheroes really got a lot more interesting, with the much-praised Logan movie, and now with the Legion TV series.

I really loved Legion in particular  because I so vividly remember reading those Chris Claremont-Bill Sienkiewicz issues of New Mutants that inspired the TV show. Back in the mid-1980s, coming across art like Sienkiewicz in mainstream comics was really mind-blowing. Collages, mixed media, and furious scribbles of jagged ink defined Sienkiewicz’s art, and I went crazy for it.

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Combining those classic comics with Noah Hawley (Fargo) was a masterstroke. As Bill Simmons said of the 30 For 30 documentary series he devised for ESPN: If you hire brilliant people, get out of the way and let them be brilliant.

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To be honest, I was a bit ambivalent after the opening episode of Legion. I thought it was a bit precious, like it was trying too hard. I was worried that once the story got going, it was going to revert into something more traditionally superhero-y, with cheap, TV-level special effects. Was I ever wrong. Throughout the first season of Legion, the storytelling remained vibrant and creative, based on the characters rather than mindless action.

Factor in other good examples, like Arrival (a decent, if flawed, attempt to bringing Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” to the big screen) and perhaps Blade Runner 2049, and it is looking like this is a very good time to be a fan of scifi movies.

large_Arrival-Poster-2016

Of course, there will still be plenty of dumb scifi and superheroes coming our way. 95% of everything is junk, as the saying goes. But it is nice to think that the best stuff is getting better, really pushing the boundaries of TV and film — even if it took a generation for those media to catch up to the comics.

Fortitude season 2 – first teaser trailer

June 28, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Fortitude-s1

So excited to see the first trailer for Fortitude season 2. The first season was one of my favorite TV surprises ever. I had no idea what to expect, it was a gorgeous mix of icy landscapes, quirky characters, ancient plagues and sheer terror.

Season 2 does not begin until January. About all I know at this point is that Dennis Quaid is in it.

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Here’s the short teaser trailer:

Piqued by ‘Non Summit’

August 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Nearly a decade after KBS tortured us with “Misuda”, or “Chattering Beauties,” a show featuring foreign women talking about Korea (and perhaps being objectified a bit), JTBC gives us “Non Summit,” a rather similar show featuring young men from around the world who speak Korean.

I recall a lot of foreigners complaining about “Misuda” back when it was on the air, claiming that Koreans would never do a similar show with men. But now here we are, with foreign men being treated just as ridiculously as foreign women were way back when.

I just wonder if one of the guys will open a good makgeolli bar near my apartment, like Taru from “Misuda” did. (Information about Taru Jumak is here. Very good place).

Here’s a story talking a bit more about “Non Summit” and what they are aiming for.

If you want to get a sense of what the show is like, you can see it here with English subtitles. More subtitled episodes are linked here.

Anyhow, I know I’m complaining too much. But it is genuinely interesting to see a show like this on the air now. It’s amazing how much Korea keeps changing — both in terms of how well people around the world are learning Korea, and how much better Korea is becoming at dealing with the rest of the world.

 

Oh Say Can You CNBC?

August 30, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Hey, looks who is on TV!


I was interviewed by CNBC for a little segment on Korean pop culture. I appear around the 90 second mark. It was not too exciting, but at least international media are trying to understand what is going on in Korea.

Btw, there are more concerts and good things listed over at the Korea Gig Guide.

 

Globalizating TV

March 22, 2012 / / 1 Comment

There is an interesting and insightful article about Fox Networks’ new show TOUCH, which stars Kiefer Sutherland (and reportedly features a surprising lack of torture). TOUCH is going to roll out in 100 countries at pretty much the same time, the kind of international push that is common for blockbuster movies, but less common for television.

From the article:

To Tim Kring, the show’s creator, the shift is stark. In spring 2007, six months after his show “Heroes” started in the United States, he watched hundreds of “Heroes” fans line up for an event in Paris, even though the show had yet to be seen on television in France.

“Every single person there had seen every episode. They had all gotten it illegally off the Internet,” he said in an interview. It was then, he said, that he realized, “Audiences will find these shows no matter where they are.”

The article points out that the king of simultaneous roll-outs of WALKING DEAD, which airs in 120 countries around the same time.

Now, I have little doubt that TV execs are mostly doing this because they have to, trying to make a virtue out of a necessity. But that is how and why a lot of big changes happen. And frankly the change was way overdue. Shows like LOST and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, with their rabid fan bases, would not only get uploaded immediately to the Internet, they would also get translated within hours. It was pretty mind-blowing (and funny, as the instant translations often were error-filled, along with the occasional apology by the translator for not understanding sections).

One of the first big examples of this change in TV releasing that I can recall was THE TUDORS. It was quite popular in Korea at first, but the distributor was getting screwed by piracy. So for the show’s second season, Sony set up a secure server where the Korean translator could watch the show and do her work a couple of weeks ahead of time, ensuring the show was ready to go with Korean subtitles almost immediately.

It’s a big change from when I first arrived in Asia, when terrible, long-since-canceled US television series rules the airwaves. It was incredible how much MR. BELVEDERE and ALF you could find, even in the late 1990s.

Of course, the Internet and globalization have not only forced Hollywood to give more respect to local audience around the world; they are the same forces that are allowing local cultures to get out of their home countries and find audiences elsewhere. Korean TV and music being the examples I am most familiar with. Some people complain that the world’s cultures are being homogenized; sorry, but from where I sit, I see people getting access to more choices from more places, and that’s a good thing.

Out of This World

February 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Apropo of nothing, but I just cannot stop listening to the old song “Space Vacation” (우주 여행), by the Bunny Girls — identical twins Gho Jae-sook and Gho Jung-sook. They performed it on Shin Joong-hyun Sound Vol. 1 (1971), their first recording, a very good Shin record that was filled with a variety of new singers. On “Space Vacation,” the Ghos sing all these strange echo and flanging effects … and no one knows whether they did it for fun or because they did not know how to make the real effects in the studio. Either way, it’s just too much fun.

And if I’m going to get musical on today of all days, I guess I have to include Girls’ Generation’s appearance on David Letterman last night:

There was a “Woah” from Regis Philbin and a “Kamsahamnida” from Letterman himself. As for the quality of the Girls’ performance … well, it was standard lip-syncing K-pop. Well done, of course. My wife thought they looked nervous, causing their dance moves to be a little weak. I assumed they were just hungry.

Meanwhile, we have a rainy day today here in Spain; I’ll be on the lookout for falling frogs.

Oh, and The Atlantic had a piece on K-pop the other day, asking “Does Korean Pop Actually Have a Shot at Success in the US?“. It is not a bad article, as these things go — a tad long-winded, but I think he notes the important thing, that K-pop this time is aiming for the Tween market, where it has the best potential for success. But he really should have discussed the Kim Sisters, a Korean group that did very well in the United States for years, albeit more on the live circuit than in the charts. Here is an article titled “Kim Sisters Can — and Do — Just Anything” from Billboard in 1964.

Anyhow, no signs of Girls’ Generation on the iTunes charts (yet … although they are doing well on the Billboard Heatseeker chart). Not that it matters so much. I think SNSD is getting their name and sound out quite effectively, regardless of how they do on the charts.

Dreaming of Dream High

February 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Over at Korean-Content.com, my new story is up, about the Korean TV drama DREAM HIGH. I was fortunate enough to have a good talk with DREAM HIGH’s executive producer Jimmy Jung (who is also the president of the Korean music company JYP Entertainment) about the program, how it came about, and JYP Entertainment’s plans for producing programs in the future. Here is an excerpt:

Actually, despite people’s preconceptions, combining singers and TV dramas is an old formula, one that JYP Entertainment learned with their megastar Rain. Rain acted in three TV dramas when he was first with the company, most famously Full House, the show that became a hit all over Asia and helped propel the young singer to the next level. “Through Rain’s three TV series, I learned how TV is a great promotional tool,” said Jung. “There are so many so-called hallyu stars in Korea, but compared to stars who only act, stars who can act and sing and dance have a much stronger position.”

‘Bent It’ in North Korea

January 1, 2011 / / 0 Comments

There has been a lot of stories (and here and here) over the past couple of days about North Korean television airing BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 film, which starred Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley), apparently the first Western film to be broadcast on TV there. This has led to much speculation about why–Why now? Why this movie, about a Sikh girl who dreams of playing professional soccer?

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Most speculation has focused on the film’s content (apolitical), with a bit about the current state of life inside North Korea. But these stories miss one important fact–North Koreans already know the movie, as it was shown at the 2004 Pyongyang Film Festival. It was censored then (just as it was on the TV broadcast), and not many people could see it, but it did play there. And I think one of the film’s producers was invited to Pyongyang, too (I recall talking to one of the producers at PiFan the following year).

North Korea can be a difficult, opaque state, but once the powers-that-be there know someone/something and have a personal relationship, they often grow much more comfortable. Witness Dan Gordon, whose documentary about the 1966 North Korean soccer team, THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES, has allowed him to return to North Korea to make other documentaries. Or Johannes Schoenherr’s trips to North Korea. Or the foreign animators who work there.

Band of Brothers, The Pacific … The Korean War?

March 14, 2010 / / 2 Comments

I came across a great interview with Bruce McKenna, the head writer and showrunner for the epic HBO series THE PACIFIC (and a writer for BAND OF BROTHERS). Totally worth a read.

But at the end of the interview, they ask him if he would like to move on to the Korean War next. And this is what he said:

HitFix: Do you think, though, that if this works out as well for HBO as they’re obviously hoping, that they’re going to go looking for that next war? Are we off to Korea next? Do we skip ahead and do Vietnam?

Bruce McKenna: I don’t know. We’ll see how well “The Pacific” does. I think it will do well. For me personally, the one war story that I would write is the story of the Chosin Reservoir. The Korean War is the forgotten war. Forget the Pacific, nobody knows anything about Korea. It’s a Marine story and it’s quite moving. Whether HBO does it or not, I hope they do. They did “Generation Kill” and I think something on Korea would be a great idea.

HitFix: Does that feel like another miniseries to you? Can you even think in a two-hour format anymore or are you stuck thinking in 10-hour blocks?

BM: Believe me, I think in whatever format they’re willing to pay me to write. The Chosin Reservoir would be a better movie than a miniseries, because it was a very contained event. Now Korea? That’s a miniseries.

So perhaps it is not likely at this stage. But just the thought that someone like McKenna would like to tackle the Korean War is a nice thought. Maybe we will get lucky some day.

The Korean Wave — More Then Just Korea

January 13, 2010 / / 1 Comment

One of the major points of POP GOES KOREA is that the Korean Wave was not really about Korea. It is about globalization, and how the forces the created the Korean Wave will be creating other regional cultural powers in the future.

I recently stumbled across a great case in point, the Turkish drama GUMUS (“Silver,” but better known as Noor in the Arab world). Noor has become very popular in many Arab countries (the series finale apparently had 85 million viewers around the region on the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation), and that popularity has spurred interest in Turkey in those countries.


Take a look at this report from Monocle magazine about Noor. Change the soap opera to Winter Sonata and the location to Korea, and the story would be virtually indistinguishable from the many articles about the Korean Wave that appeared over the years.

(Well, indistinguishable except for one notable difference. At one point, the reporter comments: “While Turks are proud of their past, they don’t look back.” Hard to imagine anyone using that sentiment to describe Korea.)

Similarly, here is a Monocle story about the music scene in Taiwan, and the influence it is having on mainland China.

The point being, people all over the world are looking for good stories, music, and culture, and that Hollywood cannot begin to do it all. Sure, American pop culture is the biggest force around, but it is not the only force. And as time goes by, we are going to see more and more local forces — like Noor, like Korea — rising up and capturing the imaginations of people from around their regions and beyond.

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