Groin Injury Saturday BONUS: Sin City

As a salute to one of the better and most unusual films to come out this year on DVD, I'm posting a bonus Groin Injury Saturday featuring a few characters from Frank Miller's Sin City.

I didn't see Sin City in the theatre because I really hate people. The last movie I saw in a theatre was, I think, Spider-Man 2. After my nauseating experience in having to listen to a morbidly obese woman chew on the contents of a an entire 16 piece bucket of KFC during the film I decided I'll wait for the DVD's from then on. Now I don't want to seem anti-obese and prejudiced against what in some cases is a mental or medical condition.

No.

What I am 'anti' in that instance was the complete lack of class she displayed. That lady (see how polite I am?) stuffed her mouth until she nearly swooned, actually holding her breath in her desire to fill her maw. After about a minute of noisome bolting of cooked foul the basic survival urge kicked in and she'd pause eating long enough to gasp for air. Then she starts the whole cycle over. It went on like that for 2 hours. It is incomprehensible to me that a person is stupid enough make the conscious decision to chew over drawing breath.

Occasionally, she would keep the chicken clamped in her teeth while seeing to her oxygenation requirements. The sound of her labored breath forcing itself, the oil hissing and bubbling, through the filter of Original Crispy batter-coated skin was an added aural treat for myself and the other members of the audience.

Sometimes you just want to scream at some people in public and hurl obscene invective like an angry god smites unbelievers with his lightning. But in our Bizzaro-society, I'd be the one taken away by the police and labeled as crazy.

Frank Miller is one of the few writers I have seen in the comic medium who can, in my opinion, show people in their full potential and probably what they are really like. 'Gritty' is too weak a word to describe how his people are portrayed. Creators like Miller, Ennis, Ellis, Sim and others often reveal people and the world they create for themselves as totally bleak, lacking in hope and corrupt beyond redemption. Depending on your job or where you hang out when bored, you might recognize that people can be incredible bastards sometimes.

Miller's heroes are flawed. In fact, you can't really say there are any protagonists. Just different types of antagonists. For instance, Marv is a thug, certainly insane, probably a serial-killer. But he spends most of his stories dealing out something that a rescued victim could see as justice. His target would see it as brutality, coming from a guy who may have enthusiastically joined in on a similar act with him a week before.

From The Big Fat Kill comes this humiliating Rectal Area Groin Injury, where a bad cop gets a shuriken in the backside. The use of the swastika in the form of a weapon was an interesting image to use, given it's association in America and Europe to fascism. Being aware, however, that the swastika is an ancient symbol and was only recently co-opted by assholeoids, instead of sending off an alarmist sound-byte producing e-mail to Congress, I did a little research first. Wow. Not evil at all!



Then of course there is the great double-whammy Groin Injury from That Yellow Bastard. Noir-ish cop Hartigan expresses his opinion of a child-rapists' activities by shooting the twisted freak in the crotch with a hand cannon. I love that description. Hand...Cannon. A few years later Hartigan follows it up and forcibly removes what was remaining by hand. Yay, Hartigan!




The Sin City DVD will hopefully turn-on a lot of people to the books and similar works.

Just so you know I'm not happy with one thing about the DVD release. The main complaint is multiple covers. I don't care how many special alternate art cases you produce, I will only buy one copy, ever, and it will prominently feature either Bruce Willis or Jessica Alba on the cover. Since this release is bare-bones I will put off buying it until an expanded-feature version comes out. Sorry, Marketing Guys, the scams don't work on this guy.

I'm glad Director Rodriguez talked Miller into letting this film be made. When throwing money and begging didn't work against the oft-burned Miller, Rodriguez successfully got it done by making what amounted to a fan film. Rodriguez is also a hero by telling a guild to go climb their thumb so Miller could get Director credit.

Without doubt Miller gets hit up with offers, and I hope he lets more of his work get produced in other mediums without it getting the usual marketing-driven, demographic-pleasing dilution and creative ass-raping by Hollywood suits. It was really good to see a product out that was so faithful to the original material. Of course it's Miller's right to just sell a license and not care what they do like Dean Koontz has stated to doing. Koontz sees it like this: They bought the rights, he sold it, end of story. Nothing wrong with that. If someone came to me and said they wanted to buy the concept of this blog for a million dollars, but said they would turn it into a XXX Nun & Beastiality site, I'd only say, give me the check. But that's me.

Creators like Alan Moore and Frank Miller are obviously protecting the future of their work and by extension, the genre and marketability. A string of failed films will kill the chances of major comic book movie being made for at least ten years. The calamity that is LXG had to be factored in with the decision to cancel Watchmen. It's ironic the industry that saw too much financial risk in Watchmen was the same group that by producing crap created the undesirable marketing environment itself. I think Hollywood is using hand cannons to shoot themselves in the collective foot.

Hollywood should be more concerned with making a film that can create a franchise that will generate revenue for a decade or more, when they usually go for the short-con and churn out stuff that is half-assed, de-boned, and won't find an audience or generate return business. Look to the awful 80's Punisher and Captain America for a few examples of that philosophy. Good comic book films make money. Someday Hollywood will get it.

It was really good to see a product out that was so faithful to the original material and I recommend all the Sin City books and the film. Read it, see it, now.