By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
Quote:
Older Actors Upstage Youth at Comic-Con
SAN DIEGO Comic-Con International showed its age this week as an unusually seasoned string of stars charmed the huge pop culture convention with some old-school movie magic.
Helen Mirren, the Oscar perennial who turns 65 on Monday, told fans that the hardest part about shooting a gun as she does in the coming Red was trying not to make a funny face while blasting.
Bruce Willis, 55, showed some buddy-picture love by dropping in on a presentation for The Expendables, in which he has a bit part. He had just spent the better part of an hour plugging Red, in which he co-stars with veterans like Ms. Mirren, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss and even the august Ernest Borgnine.
And Sylvester Stallone, 64, the director and star of The Expendables, talked about coming back, again and again, when Hollywood has written you off.
I don't want to quit, Mr. Stallone told a crowd of 6,000 of all ages in the San Diego Convention Center's giant Hall H.
In its 40th year, Comic-Con, on the surface, still looks like kids' stuff. The throngs who come dressed like Alvin the Chipmunk or a suicide bomber (clutching fake dynamite sticks and harnessed in strap-on explosives; go figure) mostly appear to be in their teens and 20s.
But the convention has long been wrapped around a core of graybeards, bald heads and, in some ways, deeply conservative attitudes.
This week, the convention's older faction was nowhere more apparent than in the sprawling exhibit hall, peopled by vendors hawking T-shirts, sketches and, yes, comic books, that pay homage to 70-year-old pop gods like the Flash and Green Lantern. Late Thursday, the artists Anthony Tollin (The Green Lantern) and Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld) were among the many in their 50s who could be spotted packing up shop after a long day of sketching and signing autographs along the exhibit hall's Artists' Alley.
One disappointment: the filmmaker John Milius, 66, did not make a scheduled Friday appearance to promote his new video game Homefront, about an invasion of the United States by North Korea.
Told of the showing by older film stars, Stan Lee, the superhero creator and grand old man of the convention, was delighted. That's great news for a guy like me, he said. I'm the oldest of them all. (He's 87, and was there to unveil his latest concept, a gang of superheroes led by a character version of himself.)
The conservative streak typified by the appearance of so many Hollywood oldsters surfaced throughout the week in a series of jabs from panelists and fans alike at the film industry's new obsession with 3-D.
Even those pushing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, about the youngest, hippest film in the Comic-Con lineup, told in a comic book style, caught the retro spirit.
On Aug. 13, Scott Pilgrim' will be released in 2-D at regular prices! hollered the movie's director, Edgar Wright, to cheers from the crowd.
Earlier, Comic-Con's director of programming told the audience to put on their 3-D glasses because you're about to see something cool. When it turned out to be a blatant ad for RealD, a 3-D company that just went public, the backlash was considerable.
Seriously? Seriously, that's what this place has come to? said Victor Juarez, 43, who said he had attended Comic-Con eight times over the last 15 years.
By Friday morning, however, the dark glasses were back on, as Nicolas Cage, 46, showed up to plug Drive Angry 3D, an action flick that was designed to be seen in three dimensions.
What could I do that might go into the fourth row of the audience? Mr. Cage said.
He was offering his logic for getting involved with a revenge film it's about a man who uses cars and guns to hunt down his daughter's killer that uses exactly the kind of in-your-face 3-D techniques that filmmakers like J. J. Abrams (Star Trek) and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were mocking here on Thursday. In the clips from Drive Angry 3D, for instance, Mr. Cage sends an outsize bullet at the bad guy's head, and pretty much into the audience, in slow motion.
This movie was conceived from the get-go to be a 3-D movie, said Patrick Lussier, its director, who spoke without apology unfortunately to a hall only a little more than half full.
Mr. Cage seemed to feel that the future lies with Mr. Lussier and those like him. Patrick to me, he said, is a purist.
SAN DIEGO Comic-Con International showed its age this week as an unusually seasoned string of stars charmed the huge pop culture convention with some old-school movie magic.
Helen Mirren, the Oscar perennial who turns 65 on Monday, told fans that the hardest part about shooting a gun as she does in the coming Red was trying not to make a funny face while blasting.
Bruce Willis, 55, showed some buddy-picture love by dropping in on a presentation for The Expendables, in which he has a bit part. He had just spent the better part of an hour plugging Red, in which he co-stars with veterans like Ms. Mirren, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss and even the august Ernest Borgnine.
And Sylvester Stallone, 64, the director and star of The Expendables, talked about coming back, again and again, when Hollywood has written you off.
I don't want to quit, Mr. Stallone told a crowd of 6,000 of all ages in the San Diego Convention Center's giant Hall H.
In its 40th year, Comic-Con, on the surface, still looks like kids' stuff. The throngs who come dressed like Alvin the Chipmunk or a suicide bomber (clutching fake dynamite sticks and harnessed in strap-on explosives; go figure) mostly appear to be in their teens and 20s.
But the convention has long been wrapped around a core of graybeards, bald heads and, in some ways, deeply conservative attitudes.
This week, the convention's older faction was nowhere more apparent than in the sprawling exhibit hall, peopled by vendors hawking T-shirts, sketches and, yes, comic books, that pay homage to 70-year-old pop gods like the Flash and Green Lantern. Late Thursday, the artists Anthony Tollin (The Green Lantern) and Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld) were among the many in their 50s who could be spotted packing up shop after a long day of sketching and signing autographs along the exhibit hall's Artists' Alley.
One disappointment: the filmmaker John Milius, 66, did not make a scheduled Friday appearance to promote his new video game Homefront, about an invasion of the United States by North Korea.
Told of the showing by older film stars, Stan Lee, the superhero creator and grand old man of the convention, was delighted. That's great news for a guy like me, he said. I'm the oldest of them all. (He's 87, and was there to unveil his latest concept, a gang of superheroes led by a character version of himself.)
The conservative streak typified by the appearance of so many Hollywood oldsters surfaced throughout the week in a series of jabs from panelists and fans alike at the film industry's new obsession with 3-D.
Even those pushing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, about the youngest, hippest film in the Comic-Con lineup, told in a comic book style, caught the retro spirit.
On Aug. 13, Scott Pilgrim' will be released in 2-D at regular prices! hollered the movie's director, Edgar Wright, to cheers from the crowd.
Earlier, Comic-Con's director of programming told the audience to put on their 3-D glasses because you're about to see something cool. When it turned out to be a blatant ad for RealD, a 3-D company that just went public, the backlash was considerable.
Seriously? Seriously, that's what this place has come to? said Victor Juarez, 43, who said he had attended Comic-Con eight times over the last 15 years.
By Friday morning, however, the dark glasses were back on, as Nicolas Cage, 46, showed up to plug Drive Angry 3D, an action flick that was designed to be seen in three dimensions.
What could I do that might go into the fourth row of the audience? Mr. Cage said.
He was offering his logic for getting involved with a revenge film it's about a man who uses cars and guns to hunt down his daughter's killer that uses exactly the kind of in-your-face 3-D techniques that filmmakers like J. J. Abrams (Star Trek) and Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were mocking here on Thursday. In the clips from Drive Angry 3D, for instance, Mr. Cage sends an outsize bullet at the bad guy's head, and pretty much into the audience, in slow motion.
This movie was conceived from the get-go to be a 3-D movie, said Patrick Lussier, its director, who spoke without apology unfortunately to a hall only a little more than half full.
Mr. Cage seemed to feel that the future lies with Mr. Lussier and those like him. Patrick to me, he said, is a purist.
