The Kramer Reality Tour

Well, somehow, I managed to miss all of yesterday's hysteria over Michael Richards' excruciating, racially-incendiary meltdown onstage at "The Laugh Resort", and only realized what had happened when I turned on "The Late Show With David Letterman" as part of my nightly ritual and came upon Dave (and guest Jerry Seinfeld) in what could be the show's first ever "Larry King" style satellite interview--with the hipster doofus of the hour.

I share none of this revelry in knocking over celebrities--as someone who has long aspired to a career in "show business" and has eeked out an existence in the Toronto trenches with merely adequate (but wholly satisfying) success, I harbour an utmost respect for anyone who can make it through the rejection and the ridicule and the non-payment to a position where their name and image mean something to an audience and thus commands an entirely deserved large heap of cash (remember, folks, consumption of art and entertainment is a voluntary process), no matter how short-lived that success may be. I was old enough to catch Richards on the SNL rip-off "Fridays", and thought he was hilarious in one of my favorite comedies while in high school: Gary Marshall's "Young Doctors In Love"--he's been around for a good long time and has paid his dues. And of course, he was consistently brilliant during the nine seasons of the "Seinfeld" series--so it was painful to watch the YouTube stream of his outburst and realize that, yes, it really was that bad.

As a long-time fan of "Seinfeld" from episode one (Lidia and I were at Jerry's Toronto show at the DuMaurier Dance Theatre when he made the announcement that the sitcom had been picked up for its first full season), I detected a darkness about Richards that I would have rather not perceived--if anything, the man may now have a future as a thug on "The Sopranos" now that his comedy career--if you believe the outcry for his total abolishment from the mirth factory--is pretty much over.

In my heart, I suppose I want to believe Richards' own explanation that this was nothing more than a bit-gone-bad--no, make that thermonuclear apesh*t--in which a less-than-experienced standup comedian thought he'd get the upper hand on some hecklers by pushing the encounter into outrageousness and just kept falling deeper and deeper into his own feeble construct, to the point where his frustration at his inability to elicit the desired reaction collided with his bad-boy impulse to go- where-no-white-man-should and produced a pile of molten slag ill-timed to be photographed by a camera phone.

Is Richards' career over? He never really had one as a stand-up act--I've seen his Montreal Comedy Fest shtick on reruns and it was pretty bad, so no loss there. Ditto his failed detective sitcom, which was deservedly axed. Maybe he should take some of that darkness and re-fashion himself as a character actor--after all, we're expected to believe that what we saw on stage was just a character...

VHS Officially Dead

Quick: what was your first VHS movie purchase? Mine was either a used rental copy of John Carpenter's "Halloween", which I believe was a Media Home Video release in glorious mono, or a used rental copy of "The Road Warrior" in a large green shell case from Warner Home Video, which at the time had a strange label entitled "For Rental Only"(odd, considering a pre-recorded movie cost about $40-50 at the time).

As a kid, I'd collected Super-8 digests, then moved on to RCA's short-lived CED disc--the stylus based video disc that no one remembers--which sold for about $30 per title in Canada. They skipped, they had to be flipped at the one-hour mark, and they could only be found in specialty electronics shops, but they allowed a film geek to own his/her favorite titles in something longer than 8 minute, silent chunks.

JVC came along with something called the Vertical Helical Scan format, and even though laser experienced a brief resurgence amongst movie snobs in the 90s, remained the dominant format until the invention of the DVD, despite being the inferior tape format--a "fact" the Beta-snob losers will never let us forget. When my folks finally scored a VCR (about the size of a portable generator, top loading, with huge knobs on the front)--a whole new avenue of geek indulgence opened up. I spent years compiling "theme" triple bills by dubbing movies at the horrid, and money-saving, EP mode, and like most video addicts, I spent more time recording films than actually watching them (as foretold in an eerily prescient mid-70s "Mad's Dave Berg Looks At People" strip). Hands down, Canadian Tire's "Embassy Gold" was the single worst tape brand ever unleashed on a penny-pinching public...

But according to Variety: "It's pretty much over."

So sez a Buena Vista Home Entertainment rep. Retailers have officially pulled the plug, not wanting to devote any more store space to the now-archaic format, which had been expected to endure at least until the end of Q1 next year. VHS will join Betamax, Divx, the CED, the laserdisc, the minidisc and the Super-8 digest in the home video mass grave.

Can't say I'm sorry to see it go, but you gotta admit: VHS changed the way we watch films and extended their life span beyond network TV edit-jobs and the late show. Neglected titles had a chance for rediscovery after unsuccessful theatrical runs, and franchises like the "Terminator" and "Highlander" series owe their success to the smaller screen. It never caught on as an alternative market, though--too many bad films and "Ghoulies" sequels gave the label "direct-to-video' the stench of death.

Reminisce about your favorite "tracking knob" memories and read all about it here.

Stinkin' Apes: Damned, Dirty, and RED!

Stumbled on this gem today and just about fell out of my chair: as if we needed any more proof that Joseph Stalin was a stark-raving loon, recently unearthed documents in Moscow have revealed that the moustachioed dictator once ordered the creation of an army of half-man, half-monkey warriors! From news.scotsman.com:

In the mid-20s, Iyla Ivanov, Russian's then-top animal breeding scientist, was enlisted by Stalin to rebuild the Red Army with a, quote, "living war machine". Ivanov had established the world's first centre for the insemination of race horses, so in 1926, he was sent to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct an experiment to impregnate chimps with human sperm. A centre was established in Stalin's birthpace, Georgia, to raise the apes. Well, big surprise, the experiment was a total failure. Ivanov reversed the process--monkey fluids into human "volunteers"--with no success.

Disgraced, Ivanov was sent to jail for five years, later commuted to five years' exile in--wait for--Kazakstan! (high five!)

Stalin wouldn't give up. He tried to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her pet monkeys to the experiment. So much for his dream of "a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of the food they eat."

Guess that's why the Russkies sent up a dog in Sputnik 2, while the Yanks sent up Gordo, a squirrel monkey, on the Jupiter AM-13.

Wonder if he liked the food?

RIP Jack Palance

Jack Palance, the great character actor who enjoyed a career resurgence in the late 80s and early 90s with Tim Burton's "Batman" and Billy Crystal's "City Slickers' (for which he won an Academy Award for "Best Supporting Actor"), died today in Montecito, CA at the age of 85 (although according to his family, his age was actually 87).

A heavyweight boxer (born "Vladimir Palaniuk") before turning to acting (and on this Remembrance Day, let's not forget his Purple Heart and Victory Medal), Palance was cast as villains for most of his career, due to his beady eyes, craggy features, and hushed, halted delivery (years before Walken, Palance perfected the art of "unusual punctuation") . His most famous heavy was Jack Wilson in "Shane", of course. Despite a long career, Palance hated most of his roles: "Most of the stuff I do is garbage", he once scoffed, and most directors "shouldn't be directing traffic". Painting and poetry provided him with more satisfying creative outlets.

I remember him best as the title role in Dan Curtis' live television adaptation of "Dracula" (written by Richard Matheson) in the early 70s, and as Omus in the dreadful Canadian tax shelter clunker "The Shape Of Things To Come", in which he presides over a moon-based army of killer robots. He was also a lot of fun in Jack Sholder's "Alone In The Dark", in which he was the leader of a trio of escaped psychos (along with Martin Landau and Erland van Lith) who terrified Donald Pleasance.

Hard to believe he's not gonna be around...

"Borat": What's Real, What's Not

Wondering what was real in "Borat", and what was staged? Like, how some people could be so clueless as to willfully spout racist, misogynistic, homophobic bilge with a camera crew in plain sight? As to how a nation as supposedly "wired" as the USA could contain so many people who've never heard of "The Ali G Show"? As to how Sasha Baron Cohen survived that rodeo without being carved up like Kazak roast beast? Salon's published a fun piece that take you through the key moments and gives you the behind-the-scenes skinny.

-Bobby Rowe, the pro-gay-hanging rodeo organizer? Real.

-The Alabama high society types? Duped, but with no ill will.

-The antique shop owner? Cohen really did destroy $500 in relics.

-The WAPT affiliate TV station? The woman who booked Borat's appearance has since been fired (!)

-The Jewish owners of the bed & breakfast? Suspicious--but cool with the joke.

-The stupid-ass frat boys? Incredibly, they're suing 20th Century Fox. Poor babies.

-Pamela Anderson? Hmmmm....

Don't be a player-hater, pussycat--check it out here. (and check out his MySpace page if you want to see what brother Bilo looks like!)

RIP Basil Poledouris

It seems like every other week I'm having to post news of the passing of another underappreciated artist. This week, we lost one of the great film composers, Basil Poledouris. Poledouris might not have achieved household name status ala John Williams, and his career wasn't as long as that of John Barry or Jerry Goldsmith, but in 20 years, he left an indelible impression on how the movies should sound.

Originally intending to become a concert pianist, Poledouris was bored by the formality of classical training and while at university, inspired by legendary film composer Miklos Rosza, investigated the no-rules field of motion picturing scoring. He was definitely in the right place (the University Of Southern California )at the right time (the 1970s with fellow students George Lucas, Randal Kleiser, and John Milius). Wisely, his classmates remembered his talent as their own careers took off.

Chance are you've hummed along to his rousing fanfare from Milius' "Conan The Barbarian"--not the sword & sorcery classic it should have been, but the credit sequence, in which Poledouris' theme empowers the forging of Conan's sword, is as unforgettable an opening as any realized. Poledouris also scored classmate Kleiser's "The Blue Lagoon", as well as many more features for Milius. He also worked with Sam Raimi (For The Love Of The Game), John Waters (Cecil B. Demented), John McTiernan (The Hunt For Red October), and Simon Wincer (Free Willy). You might also remember his muscular themes for Paul Verhoeven's woefully misunderstood "Starship Troopers".

He also won an Emmy for his score for the miniseries "Lonesome Dove", and acclaim for the Opening Ceremonies theme for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

His family has posted a memorial page for him on his official site here.

Once Again: Why You Should Be Watching "The Wire"

I'm not the biggest fan of "best of" lists ("worst" lists are more fun), nor do I feel the pundits' need to label something "the greatest" this or that of the year/all time/in the history of man, etc. But if that's what it takes to draw attention to something that's woefully underappreciated, then let the hyperbole fly!

David Simon's "The Wire" has somehow endured four seasons on HBO, thanks to critical kudos but more importantly, to an audience willing to pay for its often unrelenting bleakness and complex, some-would-say convoluted, fractured narratives--a small audience, perhaps, but the right one. But don't let the raw language and explicit drug use put you off a unique drama that's humane, blackly funny, and perversely optimistic amidst the grue and the gumshoes of modern Baltimore.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg pleads his case as to why "The Wire" is "the greatest thing ever broadcast on American television" here, and damn if he doesn't nail why you should be watching. With BitTorrent and boxed sets, you've got no excuse (hint: you can catch up with the current season four if you watch season 3 in its entirety--only 12 episodes--but if you enter this season's installments cold, you may be completely baffled!).

Full Metal Jackass

Well, no doubt most of you are familiar with this poor bastard, who's now either regretting his 20-year old self's immortalized hubris or reveling in the attention since this camcorder'd nugget showed up on YouTube.

Back in the early 80s, when the late Stanley Kubrick was planning his Vietnam drama "Full Metal Jacket" as his followup to his horror hit "The Shining" (it would take seven years to produce), he placed an ad in Variety for an open casting call, in which young men in their 20s were invited to submit an audition tape for consideration for roles in the film (Vincent D'Onfrio was one of the "discoveries").

Brian Atene was one of them, and while no one really knows what happened to the other tapes, his survived time and tide has spawned something of a mashup sensation--making him this year's 20-something version of "the Star Wars kid".

Although on the tape he's pompous and a dreadful actor (his "cutting" from "The Outsiders" is like liquid agony injected into the frontal lobe), I'll give the guy some slack because at the time of this recording he's twenty, when you're allowed parade around campus with an inflated ego and delusions of grandeur. You think Kubrick would've hired a wallflower? Have you seen the clip of him berating Shelly Duvall on the Overlook set?

Here's Brian's original submission...

Parodies have already started to surface, with more on the way you can bet. The best features "Brian", today, at aged 43 and still the consumate hambone (as of this writing, the real Atene has yet to surface. Hey, if William Hung can have a career...). Check it out here.

You know, I think Stanley should've hired Atene to replace Harvey Keitel in "Eyes Wide Shut". Pollack's line readings were worse...

High Five!

"Borat"s finally out today--perhaps you've heard of it? While Fox's roll out is modest (cowards), this truly hilarious spectacle will likely blow away its competition this weekend--sorry Brad and Cate. I definitely plan to see it again, just as Cohen is coming dangerously close to overexposing the character before the film's even released (he/Borat will apparently say "no" to no appearance request).

Check out my review from TIFF 2006 here in case you need convincing, but why would you...?

Nigel Kneale: 1922-2006

I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of one of my favorite writers: Nigel Kneale, who died Sunday at the age of 84 after a long and distinguished career in British film, television, and literature.

Kneale was hardly a household name in North America, but in the UK he was (and is) quite revered as a literary genius and pioneer, whose best work was largely realized in the once-unprestigious realm of television science fiction. And most of it done live. His best known creation, Professor Bernard Quatermass (of the London Rocket Group), was the main character of a quartet of television serials penned by Kneale for the BBC, three of which were remade into feature films for Hammer Studios (the best of them, IMHO, was 1968's "Quatermass And The Pit", aka "Five Million Years To Earth", directed by Roy Ward Baker). Reginald Tate, Brian Donlevy, Andrew Keir, and Sir John Mills each played the character in respective features and teleplays, ending with the appropriately titled "The Quatermass Conclusion" miniseries in 1979. In 2005, the BBC restaged his first serial "The Quatermass Experiment" as a live presentation with Jason Flemyng starring as a younger Quatermass. It was very well done and it's a pity it's never been aired beyond England (hello, BitTorrent...).

Kneale's teleplays were major "water cooler" events in their day--legend has it that "The Quatermass Experiment" was such a sensation that the streets and pubs were empty for the entirety of its six week run. While most of his work was original, he also adapted Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" in 1954 into its first dramatic incarnation, resulting in parliamentary debates over its (then) shocking imagery. His 1968 teleplay "The Year of the Sex Olympics" foresaw the glut of sleazy reality television that we're subjected to today.

Hollywood briefly courted Kneale, who wrote a remake of "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" for John Landis (never produced), and the original draft of what would become "Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch" for producer John Carpenter. Although the shooting script was credited to director Tommy Lee Wallace and Kneale distanced himself from the project, the final film does contain traces of his unique black humour and recurring theme of the supernatural colliding with the technological. Carpenter acknowledged Kneale's influence on his writing by using the pen name "Martin Quatermass" as his screen credit for "Prince Of Darkness", his underseen 1987 shocker that drew the bulk of its themes and imagery from "Pit".

Kneale's works were my introduction to science fiction as a device for something other than mere escapism and gee-whiz spectacle. In many ways, he anticipated the humanist and satiric voice of the British "New Wave" science fiction movement that would launch the careers of Michael Moorcock and Brian Aldiss (and the North American works of Harlan Ellison, Norm Spinrad, and others of the "Dangerous Visions" set). Kneale's scientists were rare heroes instead of megalomaniacal freaks who prided intellect and reason over might, governments and the military were usually ineffectual, corrupt, and downright dangerous, his alien "menaces" often revealed to be misunderstood or marginalized instead of simply malignant BEMs. Above all, his serials were damned good yarns, impeccably structured and chock full of trippy ideas and damning critiques of the issues of the day.

You can read all about this great man and his amazing body of work here.

Kubrick To Field:" Stay Away From That Ermey Guy!"

Lee Ermey's comments to Radar Online about "Eyes Wide Shut"--which I'd reported on a few weeks back--have ticked off Todd Field. The colourful soldier-turned-actor, currently onscreen in the prequel to the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", stated that the late Stanley Kubrick--with whom he'd worked on "Full Metal Jacket", had confessed to him that he felt "Eyes Wide Shut" (what would be his last film in 1999) was "a piece of sh*t" and that he was "disgusted" with it.

Field is a director of considerable critical acclaim best known for the Oscar-nominated "In The Bedroom" (or, as I refer to it, the art-house "Death Wish"), and his current film, "Little Children" is getting huge notices for daring to chronicle the devastating ordeal of a man forced to choose a life between the sheets with either Kate Winslet or Jennifer Connelly.

He's also an actor, and he played Cruise's friend in EWS, the pianist who tips him off to the mysterioso robed hedonists."Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film", countered Field to slashfilm.com. "He was still working on the film when he died. And he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, right before he died, after he had shown the first cut to Terry (Semel), Tom (Cruise), and Nicole (Kidman)..."

Field regarded Kubrick as a mentor and a close friend, and claims that Kubrick told him to stay away from Ermey! Sez Field: "I thought about R. Lee Ermey for "In the Bedroom"...all I can say is Stanley was adamant that I shouldn't work with him for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into..."

Perhaps he was afraid that Field's shoot would interrupt their late night phone calls? Read all about it here and decide for yourself.

Bil Maher: The Best Medicine

"...we have an entire economy built on asking young people what they want, making the cheapest, sleaziest form of it they'll accept, and selling it to them until they choke on it and die."

Damn, I wish we got "Real Life" here in Canada. Bill Maher remains one of our supreme satirists, who keeps getting more relevant (and angrier) which each ridiculous White House Press Conference since Dennis Miller officially gave up and became a Bush apologist.

Thankfully, I don' t always have to BitTorrent the latest episode to keep up--today's "Salon" has published a hilarious--and all too truthful--rant by Maher in which he asserts that the biggest threats to America's children aren't the chat room creeps--they're military recruiters and Big Pharma!

You'll laugh...you'll cry... here.

R. Lee Ermey Talks The Straight @#**!! On Kubrick

R. Lee Ermey is best known for his role (more or less as himself) in Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam black comedy "Full Metal Jacket", but he's gone on to become a fine character actor of considerable charm and even subtlety (he's heartbreaking in Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking). But we love him best when he's belligerent and blue--and now that he's out promoting the who-cares prequel to the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake (okay, I'll probably see it), he's still got a colourful tale or two to tell.

Apparently, he and the late, great Stanley Kubrick remained close friends, and more than 12 years after their lone collaboration, exchanged candid, marathon, late-night ("yeah, well, it's three o-f*cking-clock in the morning here, Stanley!") phone calls. Sez Ermey:

"He called me about two weeks before he died...we had a long conversation about "Eyes Wide Shut" (of which I'm a major fan--RJL). He told me it was a piece of sh*t and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch. He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him—exactly the words he used."

He's far less kind to David ("Seven") Fincher and the "Communist media" (how does this guy work in liberal Hollywood?)

Here's the whole interview with Radar Online. And check out the hilarious intro to his official site here.

New Reviews: Herzog's "Rescue Dawn" (and more)

Yep, I've been busy (the day job, family stuff, a new plasma TV), but new TIFF 2006 reviews are slooowly going up at Movieforum's blog. Check out my takes on the Canadian zombie comedy "Fido" with Billy Connelly, the French omnibus "Paris je t'aime", and Werner Herzog's escape-from-Vietnam thriller "Rescue Dawn", starring Christian Bale and Steve Zahn which could be his first big North American commercial success.

"Pan" The Oscars

Guillermo Del Toro's brilliant fantasy "Pan's Labyrinth" won't up on these shores until the end of the year, but that'll be just soon enough for it to qualify to compete in the "Best Foreign Language" category for next year's Academy Awards, for which Mexico is submitting the film as its official entry into the race. With "Return Of The King" having swept the ceremony a few years back, perhaps the middlebrow old cranks who vote for these things are slowly coming around on their opinion of the genre, which for too long has been dismissed as juvenile FX fodder. Del Toro's new film--nothing less than a career legacy work--is a deeply personal and heartfelt work mixing Lewis Carroll with the grim realities of Franco's Fascist Spain. Plus--if I can appeal to your juvenile senses here (and god bless 'em)--it's got the coolest monsters since, well, Del Toro's "Hellboy" adaptation. Don't miss it.

Happy Birthday, Adam West!

Adam West turns 78 today, and say what you want about the campy William Dozier series and the alleged "damage" it did to the legend of the Dark Knight, for most of us of a "certain age", West was Batman until Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil came along to set us all straight. I had the chance to meet him once in the 80s when I was a film student, and then again in the late 90s as a fledging "pro" on the TV series "Goosebumps", where he wore the outfit I helped design for his character "The Galloping Gazelle" (the episode was superhero-themed "Attack Of The Mutant", for which I also created the comic book art). I last saw West in a brief role in Mario Van Peebles' "How To Get The Man's Foot Outta Your Ass" aka "Badassss", and hope he never retires.

TIFF 2006 Review: "The Host"

I've posted a new review up at Movieforum--this one for the superb South Korean monster movie "The Host", which is a big hit in its native country and deserves to be an international blockbuster. The creature--essentially a giant mutant tadpole--is one of the finest CG creations you'll ever see and ranks with Weta's "King Kong" and "Gollum" and ILM's "Jurassic Park" reptiles (in fact, ex-ILMers and Weta contributed to the FX). Read the review here, and don't miss this unique take on a tired genre should you get the chance.

TIFF 2006 Reviews: "End Of The Line"

TIFF 2006 has come to an end, and I'm exhausted. But, while the 25+ films I caught are still fresh in my head, I'd better get at the reviews. The first one--for the Montreal-shot horror film "End Of The Line"--is up now at the Movieforum blog, which you can access here (be sure to scroll on down to the bottom!).

From Piper's Pit: The Real John Nada!

That's me and Lidia at at this past weekend's annual Fan Expo, which has grown (well, seemingly...) exponentially in scale each passing year. Unfortunately, the venue--Building 2 of the Metro Convention Centre--has not expanded to accomodate the crowds, or the growing roster of guests, and this year's was the worst organized event yet. Insane lineups and a lack of oxygen aside, there was a lot going on to keep an aging fanboy suitably bedazzled--"Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola, Marvel scribe Brian Michael Bendis, Carrie Fisher, Karen Black, and presumably, no shortage of suckers who'll pay 300 bucks to have their photo taken with William Shatner and/or Leonard Nimoy.

For a mere $20, we got our photo taken with the one and only John Nada--Rowdy Roddy Piper (in actuality, Roderick Toombs from Winnipeg, Manitoba), and got him to sign some memorabilia. I told him about this here "Nadaland" site and Roddy, ever the smooth pro, swore he was "honoured" (and I almost believe him)! We chatted about Norstar B-pictures we each had worked on (Roddy starred in "Jungleground" and "No Contest 2", both shot in Toronto) and Roddy talked about how he improvised the "I'm all outta bubblegum" line on the set of "They Live" only minutes before Carpenter called for lunch (and I almost believe this wasn't the 10,000th time he's told this story). It was a thrill to meet one helluva nice guy who obviously digs his fans. Check out Roddy's official site here.

FanExpo 2006: Hellboy-Zapoppin'

"Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola was one of the main attractions (for me) at this year's FanExpo combo sci-fi/comics/horror/anime/gaming convention held at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre. I first discovered Mignola's unique drawing style in the early 90s comic adaptations of Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" film and in Epic's limited series based on Fritz Lieber's "Fahred And The Gray Mouser" swashbucklers--and I've been copying him ever since . These days Mignola writes more than he draws, which is a great loss to comics fans but since he hand-picks such great illustrators as Guy Davis and Richard Corben to substitute for him, we really can't be too sorry.

During a Q&A Mignola fielded the predicted questions on the Hellboy movie sequel, solo, since his announced co-host (director) Guillermo Del Toro had to cancel his appearance due to a scheduling conflict with the Venice Film Festival. Basically, it is coming, with Universal on board after Revolution Studios bailed. Its current title is "The Golden Army", and the story isn't based on any particular published "Hellboy" comic, but rather an original concept by Mignola and Del Toro that will incorporate more of the pan-cultural folklore aspects that Mignola felt were downplayed in the first film. So expect a returning Ron Perlman to battle Malaysian ghosts and European baddies in their combined efforts to reclaim magic's reign over the mortal world. I liked his comparison of his supernatural baddies to displaced Native Americans, deciding to reclaim their land as their own, and that when writing, he always strives to identify with his antagonists' point-of-view and never truly sees them as evil.

Mignola said that there is an ending planned for his Hellboy saga, and that in future stories the "working stiff" aspect of the character will be downplayed and that Hellboy will undergo a change due to his recent death and increasing fatigue with his role as supernatural savior now that years have passed. He admitted that he didn't care for the romantic subplot in Del Toro's adaptation as prefers to see the male/female relationships in his comics as more "brother/sister" than anything romantic--as will be depicted in an upcoming story with a young, 80s-era Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien.

He also mentioned that at one time, Nicholas Cage was pegged to play "Hellboy", but then again, he's been attached to just about every comic book project imaginable at one time or another.

Mignola acknowledged that a "Hellboy" video game is in development (platform unannounced)--one that will be modeled more on the film's design and universe, but will feature "flashback" levels that will incorporate unique folklore elements.

The "Hellboy" cartoon will debut soon, as will a new series of spin-off novels in which he's allowed the authors free reign. Mignola himself has co-written and illustrated a novel, entitled "Baltimore", which is about vampires and which he describes as "very Roman Catholic". It's due next year.

Mignola stressed that for all the movie, animation, game, and prose spin-offs, he regards only his own "Hellboy" comics from Dark Horse as "definitive". An official Hellboy Encyclopedia was due to be published by now, but since he keeps adding material to it, its publication date can't be predicted.

His favorite story of his own? A recent collaboration with daughter Kate in Dark Horse's "Happy Endings" anthology, entitled "The Magician And The Snake", which she told to him on a ride home from school (and has since won an Eisner award).