Creative Loafing presents Ed Loves Bacon

Why send sample pages of the latest story arc in the Marvel universe when you can send a trailer instead. Lately this has been the comic company’s mantra to promote their signature book events.

Marvel Comics (MC) is pulling out all the stops to create buzz for the next big multi-pub series, The Siege. Here’s how MC describes the upcoming series:

SIEGE is coming! It’s all been leading up to this universe shattering four issue limited series from the superstar team of Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel! Following the events of Dark Reign: The List, Norman Osborn sets his sights set on Asgard and nothing will stop him from completing his mission. But what does he want? How do Loki and Thor figure in? And just how does this relate to the inner strife between the Cabal? Marvel’s greatest heroes unite against the deadliest threat they’ve ever faced, but even they have no idea what’s coming next. It’s time for the most jaw dropping comic book event of the decade begins in December with Siege: The Cabal and continues in January’s SIEGE #1!

I have to admit I’m still playing catch up with the Marvel series. Right now Dark Reign is barely keeping my interest, but the thought of Asgardians raining pain down on the Avengers is just to delicious to miss.

ALL DOLLED UP: Anderson's "Dress Up" is one of many featured in his concept show "Only Dick, No Jane" currently on display at the W Midtown Hotel

This year’s Pride celebration began not with a bang but a statement Wednesday night with a conceptual art exhibit at the W Atlanta -Midtown Hotel. The show entitled Only Dick, No Jane is a series of works by artist Larry Anderson that explores the labels and stigmas projected on gay men through light and somewhat humorous concepts.

As host of the event, W Midtown provided attendees with Asian inspired hor devours, progressive music via the house DJ and Pride-tini’s, a cosmopolitan-based martini drink made with Skyy Passion Fruit vodka, X-Rated liqueur and cranberry juice.

Anderson, who teaches art classes at SCAD in Atlanta compiled this series to inspire candid dialog about prejudices which he eludes to in his show introductory statement as “redefining the argument.”

“To redefine the argument is to take sex out of the equation and just have us be people,” explains Anderson. “The whole religious right thing is over the sex issue and that’s such a small part of our lives. When we’re young its not any part of our lives, its about desire.”

In his works, Anderson positions Dick, a primary character in the Fun with Dick and Jane reading development books of the ’30s in several translations of well known homophobic slurs.

Only Dick, No Jane is on display in the W Atlanta-Midtown Hotel mezzanine throughout Pride weekend, Fri. October 30 through Sun. November 1.

(photos by Edward Adams and Lisa Baxter)

In recognition of his tireless efforts on behalf of Atlanta’s children, filmmaker Libby Spears has dedicated her latest documentary Playground to the memory of the late Fulton County Judge, Sanford “Sunny” Jones. The film premieres as part of a memorial benefit hosted by the Juvenile Justice Fund honoring Jones on Tuesday, October 20th at the Woodruff Arts Center. The event benefits the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation (CEASE) and Angela’s House, an organization that provides home care services to households with medically fragile children. Jones, who served as Fulton County Juvenile Court judge was killed in small plane crash in Alabama earlier this year.

Playground sheds light on child sex trafficking taking place in the United States. The film profiles former victims and provides a candid look at the legal and social systems that fails to adequately respond to the crisis. Playground was produced by actor/director George Clooney, writer/actor Grant Heslov and director Steven Soderbergh, the team behind the Oscar-nominated film Good Night and Good Luck.

Judge Jones helped to create the Juvenile Justice Fund in Atlanta in 2001. The fund provides constructive alternatives to youth detention and programs to reduce the number of children returning to unsafe, abusive and destructive homes.

Memorial Benefit for Judge Sanford Jones. Tuesday, October 20, 2009 – 6:00pm. Woodruff Arts Center Symphony Hall. 1280 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30309. General admission $25, premiere and VIP pre-reception $125. Tickets can be purchased online at www.woodruffcentertickets.org or by phone, 404-733-5000.

Disney brought a little taste of Christmas to Atlanta this morning as Disney’s A Christmas Carol Train Tour rolled into town. The seven car train features a museum, gallery and interactive, multimedia experiences.

Passengers on the tour saw personal belongings from Charles Dickens on loan from the Dicken’s Museum in London, original props and models used in the film, featurettes explaining the technology behind the CGI feature film and an interactive photo booth where passengers’ images were morphed into characters from the movie. Outside the train, Disney set up a 25-foot 3D movie theater including snow to watch 10 minutes of scenes from the film.

The Christmas Carol train has been traveling across the country since Memorial Day weekend. The tour started in Los Angeles, CA and will end in a few weeks in New York City, NY. You can find out more about the train tour and its upcoming scheduled stops on the tour’s website.

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Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Rated-PG. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Stars Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Robin Wright Penn. Opens nationwide Friday, Nov. 6.

SHAWTY WHAT YOUR NAME IS: Snow White greets her new BFF's in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Disney celebrates 72 years of Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Dopey and of course Snow White this year with the release of the Diamond Edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Artists, not dwarfs remastered over 120,000 animation cells to restore the film to a pristine quality better than the original version. According to Disney Animation Curator, Lella Smith, reflections of camera men on individual cells as well as their fingerprints covered the original theatrical version of the film. Smith shared insights about the development of Disney’s first animated feature film in an online presentation about the dwarfs and the long journey animators took to produce the movie.

Ok, so fingerprints and ghostly images may not peak your interests, but here’s a couple of little known facts Smith shared about the film available in behind-the-scene features on the Diamond Edition:

1. Snoopy was considered as a name for one of the seven dwarfs in the film. Other names considered were Wheezy, Baldy, Lazy, Tubby and Jumpy.
2. In early concepts of the dwarfs, they were drawn as tall as Snow White.
3. It took two years to come up with the seven dwarfs we know today.
4. Snow White was the highest grossing film until it was surpassed by Gone With the Wind in 1939.
5. Snow White was the first film to have an accompanying soundtrack released.
6. Snow White and Dopey were motion modeled by the same person, famed dancer Marge Champion.
7. There’s a total of 60-million illustrations archived from the Snow White project in the Disney library.

Disney’s Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs – Diamond Edition. Rated G. Available on Blu-Ray and DVD Tues. October 6.

By popular demand, Paramount Pictures announced screenings of their underground horror flick Paranormal Activity midnight tonight at Atlantic Station.

Over 230,000 people have requested the studio release the film through an innovative distribution promotional website, paranormalmovie.com. On the site, users “demand” the showing of the film selecting their city or by adding their city to the growing list. Los Angeles and New York topped the list, while Atlanta ranked 10th in total demand requests followed by Miami and Las Vegas.

In Paranormal Activity, a young couple tries to figure out what’s causing the strange occurrences in their home each night, especially while trying to sleep. Armed with a video camera and low-tech recording devices they soon capture evidence they’re not alone in the house when something forcibly make its presence known to them.

From viewing the trailer, its clear the film was shot as a mocumentary in the same vein as its low-budget predecessor, The Blair Witch Project. According to various reviews and viewer comments, the film is truly unnerving, and the website bloody-disgusting.com describes it as “one of the scariest movies of all time.”

While that remains to be seen, there are reports that director Steven Spielberg had his own account of paranormal activity while viewing the movie. In the Paranormal Activity Wikipedia entry, its noted that Spielberg witnessed a bedroom door inexplicably close and lock from the inside while he viewed the film. He returned the screener in a garbage bag stating that his copy was haunted.

Paranormal Activity, Screening October 2, 2009 12:01 am, Not Rated, Directed by Oren Peli, Stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Exclusive midnight showing at Regal Atlantic Station.

In an effort to inform and educate the public on issues surrounding gay marriage, Virginia Highland Church is running a six-part lecture series titled “Marriage Equality: A Free Conversational Series” starting this Sunday.

The Marriage Equality series offers views on the controversial subject of gay marriage through open discussions from church leaders and religious writers who advocate for the legality of same sex marriage. The series is scheduled to run each week at 9:30 a.m. week beginning Sunday, September 20, through October 25. The lectures in this series are free and open to the public.

Series Schedule:

September 20: “Straight Talk: Allies Declare Their Advocacy.” Presented by Rev. Dr. Rich & Marilyn Wall, Rev. Dr. Bill & Kathy Stayton.

September 25: Film screening, So The Bible Tells Me So. Documentary discussing homosexuality and the church.

September 27: “Deconstructing & Reconstructing Marriage.” Hosted by Rev. Chris Glaser Author, As My Own Soul: The Blessing of Same-Gender Marriage.

September 28: Book signing, Rev. Chris Glaser. 7:30 p.m. Outwrite Books, 10th & Piedmont

October 4: “A Catholic View of Sacrament & Grace.” A discussion led by Dr. Daniel Helminiak, Author What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

October 11: “Coretta Scott King’s LGBT Advocacy.” Presented by Mr. Winston Johnson his lecture is a first-person tell-all on how Johnson led Coretta Scott King to become LGBT ally.

October 18: “A Transgender View.” An introspective discussion lead by Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson,  Therapist, activist, Presbyterian minister.

October 25: “An African-American View.” Presented by Rev. Dr. Kathi Martin,  UCC minister, The Victory Church.

On Friday, September 25, as a bonus to the series, Virginia Highland Church will show the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, a film by Daniel Karslake exploring the conflicts between homosexuality and religion. For the Bible Tells Me So was an official Sundance selection in 2007 and won the Documentary Audience Award at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Virginia Highland Church is located at 743 Virginia Avenue. For more information about the series, visit their website at www.vhchurch.org.

It’s hard to peg down the message in director Doug Pray’s latest documentary Art & Copy. There’s no cause to champion, no historic precedence, not even a controversial notion. Instead, the audience is engaged in a brief, candid discussion on the ad industry’s evolution and the successes that the changes spawned through a series of anecdotal interviews.

Art & Copy is essentially a series of one-on-one interviews with some of the ad industry’s innovators and trendsetters. Pray masterfully stitches together an open forum on creativity, its genius, and its impact with past and present ad directors and copy writers who were responsible for some of the world’s most popular ad campaigns. While the faces, names and companies may draw a blank for the average viewer, one immediately connects with the dialogue about their various successes.

Continue reading Art & Copy misses its own point

(Photo courtesy of Seventh Art Films)

Geeks and jocks may argue about what’s the coolest event going on labor day weekend, but most ATL insiders know this weekend is all about Drive Invasion at the Starlight Drive-In.  Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the throwback-styled festival – an eclectic mix of indie music, b-movies and hot rods.

This year Drive Invasion features live performances from 11 bands  including Wanda Jackson, Los Straitjackets, Detroit Cobras, Deadbolt and local bands, The Woggles, Gargantua and Psycho Devilles.

If these bands don’t sound familiar, worry not, I got you covered. Here’s a couple of videos from some of the bands featured to whet your appetite for this weekend’s music line up.

Los StraitJackets performing “Casbah”

Wanda Jackson performing “Funnel of Love”

Detroit Cobras bang out “Cha Cha Twist”

Deadbolt, the self-proclaimed “scariest band in the world” perform “You Don’t Scare Me”

The Woggles, “Its Not About What I Want”

Psycho Devilles, “Psycho Cadillac”

After you’ve finished your own modern version of the “mosh pit peppermint twist”, cop a squat and check out the gourmet cheese fest of b-movies scheduled to screen at sundown including The Blues Brothers, Zardoz, Frogs, Shanty Tramp and a surprise “secret selection.”

10th Annual Drive Invasion, Sunday, September 6, 2009, Starlight Six Drive-In Theatre, 2000 Memorial Avenue, 11am until, $28 Adults, Children (9 and under) $5. tickets online at ticket alternative.

Marvel Comics released a trailer of their upcoming motion comic Astonishing X-Men: Gifted today. The story was written by Buffy series creator Joss Whedon and illustrated by John Cassaday (Captain America series).

The story according to Marvel:

Cyclops and Emma Frost re-form the X-Men with the express purpose of “astonishing” the world. But when breaking news regarding the mutant gene unexpectedly hits the airwaves, will it derail their new plans before they even get started? As demand for the “mutant cure” reaches near-riot levels, the X-Men go head-to-head with the enigmatic Ord, with an unexpected ally – and some unexpected adversaries – tipping the scales!

Gifted is Marvel Comic’s second motion comic release. Last month, Marvel launched its first series, Spider-Woman on August 19th.

Astonishing X-Men: Gifted is scheduled for release on October 26, 2009. Marvel motion comics are available for download exclusively on iTunes.