Well, with Comic-Con in progress, and The Dark Knight Rises opening next week, nerd panties and geek jeans are moist and tenting. But before this all comes to a head, let's pause briefly to talk about the unsung heroes. By which I mean, the Villains. And not the super-villains either; not those fame whores with their exotic technology and obscene wealth and schemes for world conquest and/or destruction -- not, in other words, the Lex Luthors, or the Darkseids, or the Koch Brothers. No, I'm taking about the middle class madmen, the small business bad guys who are the backbone of the costumed crime economy.
So before we all plonk down our twelve bucks to see Christian Bale fight evil with a flying Batmobile, and osteoarthritis with Glucosamine chondroitin supplements, and the movie's Director of Photography with a red-faced screaming fit that winds up on Youtube, let's take a moment to salute the little guys -- the Average Doctor Joe No. Specifically, your hard-working local villain who operates -- not out of a secret lair in a repurposed volcano -- but in that industrial park on the frontage road by the state highway, and who waits all year for this very day -- Friday the 13th -- to spring his trap and destroy* his arch-nemesis, Owlman!
(*For "destroy," read, "tie to a chair and make him listen to a speech," because legally, villains are only allowed to kill sidekicks. At least, that's what it says in the employee handbook.)
So if you have a few moments, please click here (Blogger is being a bitch and won't let me embed) and enjoy Waiting For Owlman, a short film based on an award-winning one act play that debuted here in Los Angeles, and which stars a friend of mine, John Szura -- a very quirky, funny actor -- as Doctor Misfortune, a regional super-villain who can't seem to get his plans for mass-murder off the ground, but who makes up for it with his deft handling of thorny HR issues.
6 comments:
Friday the 13th!
I just read that at M.B.s.
~
Heh. Zero accidents in a 147 days!
~
But what are we gonna do tomorrow night, Brain?
The same thing we do every night, Pinky.
Thanks Scott, nice work by John Szura, and I was struck especially as well by the score by Jason Atkinson.
As I commented once before, I'm more or less content with a Louisville Slugger behind the door in lieu of firearms for home protection, so I'm heartened to see that our superheroes, and their henchmen, share my practical nature.
Owlman is a metaphor for Godot.
And here I thought he was a character from The Watchmen.
Post a Comment