Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom

Sure, in the grand scheme of things they're kind of meaningless, but I'm pretty bummed out about the cancellation of The Golden Globe awards this year. A few of us here at Cinematical were going to live-blog the ceremony, and we always have a ton of fun ranking on all the stars via IM conversations and, well, I'll miss that. We'll still live-blog whatever awkward news broadcast they're going to hold, but it won't be the same. One of the things I was actually looking forward to was this year's Steven Spielberg tribute. Call me a sucker for all those montage sequences, but when you're talking about Spielberg, I'm sure it would've been pretty fun to watch. Others are more jaded when it comes to tributes and Hollywood ass-kissing. Me? I like it because it reminds me of films I need to re-watch or still need to sit down with for a first time.

The good news is that Spielberg's tribute has been postponed a year and, instead, will air during the 2009 Golden Globe awards. Hey, at least they'll be able to utilize clips from this summer's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As far as this "news broadcast" goes, I imagine it will turn out to be the oddest thing ever. Though they're calling it a news conference, no other networks (aside from NBC) are allowed to show up. The WGA considers the whole thing "struck work," so I wouldn't expect to see any stars. Oh well. We'll have more fun with it over on Cinematical, so feel free to stop by here and get the scoop from us. Last I checked, no writer was standing behind me with a picket sign.

In Monday's Globe, I wrote up an appreciation of Ub Iwerks, the Disney animator who more or less invented Mickey Mouse. The occasion was Disney Home Video's release of the pre-Mickey "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoons, and in the piece I praised Iwerks' visual innovations.

Comes an email from an acquaintance, Summers Henderson:

Ty,

I guess I can't prove it conclusively, by pointing to the specific films which show Iwerks copying Messmer. But if Iwerks deserves credit for creating Mickey Mouse -- which I'm glad you wrote about, because most people don't know it -- then Messmer deserves credit for being the model that people like Iwerks and Disney copied. These days more people know about Felix the Cat from his 1950s TV show, with his famous bag of tricks. But he was the first cartoon superstar, in the silent film era.

Thanks, Summers. So who got seriously surreal first: Felix the Cat? Or Oswald the Rabbit? Looks like a subject for further research on my part, although the dates favor Messmer, no slight intended to the protean Iwerks. If you want to do your own comparison, the early "Felix" cartoons are on DVD, and there are more details and links to RealVideo clips at this thoroughgoing fan page.

Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, ComicCon

While tooling around the internets yesterday, I came across this post on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog which pondered what, if any, affect the ongoing writer's strike (as well as the potential DGA and SAG strikes) could have on this year's Comic-Con. We already know the WGA strike has shut down The Golden Globes, and folks will start talking Oscars next, but in April we have the New York Comic-Con and in July we have the biggie -- San Diego Comic-Con. Last year, New York didn't give us too much by way of Hollywood product. However, after all the complaining, one would think the studios would pay closer attention to New York and pimp out some of their summer fare, along with bigger flicks coming down the pipeline. If the writer's are still on strike in April, and if they decide to picket the Con in New York, that could potentially mean no talent showing up for panel discussions and the like.

Now I'm just talking about film here; TV is already f**ked. Even if all this strike nonsense is over and done with by early summer, I imagine the after-shocks will still affect the geeked-out TV presence at the San Diego Con. Remember, after the writer's cut a contract, we're still looking at deals that need to be made for SAG and the DGA. Both of their contracts expire at the end of May. Should SAG go on strike at that time, how on earth will Hollywood promote movies like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Watchmen, Star Trek XI and G.I. Joe if none of the talent will show up to partake in panel discussions? San Diego Comic-Con was perhaps the biggest fanboy-ish event of 2007, and I imagine there are plans to make it even bigger this year (in terms of Hollywood presence). The show will go on either way (after all, the convention is supposed to be more about comics than anything else), but I wonder how much of Hollywood will be there in 2008? Thoughts?