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 PTG Episode 141 [63:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (236)

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 141 is brought to you by Cure For the Run MMX. SomaCow’s second annual charity event is just a few days away now, but it’s not too late to get involved. If you’re interested in “running” in the event, if you’re a local business and you’d like to contribute something to the raffle, or if you’d just like to make a donation, go to curefortherun.com and you’ll find all the information you need. It’s going to be a day of great memories, for earning a year’s worth of bragging rights, and for brief athletic achievement followed by copious amounts of eating and drinking. But most of all it’s going to be a day for doing something good for children who need it. All proceeds and donations will go to New Hope for Kids, a Central Florida-based charity whose goal is “to bring health, healing, and happiness to children and families suffering from grief, loss, or life-threatening illnesses.” So please, come on out this Saturday to Wall Street Plaza, get registered to run (starts at 2pm), come meet the hosts from all the shows at the SomaCow Media Network, as well as Slacker and the Man, the Talk Nerdy Show, the Orlando Ghostbusters, and more, eat, drink, and when the time comes, RUN!

In this episode we review a HECKUVA lot of stuff, but perhaps most interestingly we review a pair of movies that came out last weekend that couldn’t be more different in terms of tone, style, and target audience. About the only thing that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Expendables have in common is that they both feature martial arts fighting and choreography. One of these films enjoyed considerable movie critic love, overwhelming approval from fans, and tremendous social networking buzz going into the weekend. The other movie, however, proved to be the more palatable to mainstream audiences (despite lousy reviews) because they knew what they would be getting, and therefore actually made money, winning the box office competition by a WIDE margin. Of course, if you didn’t know already, that box office winner was The Expendables. Shows how much I know about predicting the box office; as you’ll hear during the podcast, I actually said I’d be very surprised if Scott Pilgrim didn’t come out on top this weekend.

It’s just another in a series of box office flops by films made from lesser-known, niche or cult-favorite comic book properties. The Hero Complex blog at the LA Times this week features a great article by show business reporter Ben Fritz about why films such as Watchmen, The Losers, Kick-Ass, and now Scott Pilgrim vs. the World have floundered on opening weekend after riding huge waves of fan approval and hype generated by previews and screenings at Comic-Con. It’s a very interesting analysis, and the conclusions are hard to refute. Enjoy!

[EDITOR'S NOTE: During my review of Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1 in the final segment of this episode, I erroneously credited John Byrne as the writer of the DC crossover event "Legends", as well as mistakenly giving its publication years as 1989-1990. "Legends" was published in 1986-1987, plotted by John Ostrander, scripted by Len Wein, and penciled by Byrne. Apologies for the confusion.]