Here he is, in all his Clown Prince of Crime… um, grandeur: Jared Leto as the Joker in Suicide Squad, as seen on the eye-searing cover of Britain’s Empire magazine.
If you ask me, this is the dictionary definition of trying too hard!
I mean, does every square inch of him have to be tattooed? Does he need a cane?
Every time I start to think this production might be tolerable, some new piece of information is released that ruins it again.
Pretty sure this movie is going to suck.
In the new issue of Britain’s Radio Times, on sale today, DOCTOR WHO show-runner Steven Moffat talks about writing the 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor” (which is nominated for a BAFTA) but more importantly he chats about casting Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor.
In the interview, Moffat says:
When you choose a Doctor, you want somebody who is utterly compelling, attractive in a very odd way. None of the Doctors are conventionally attractive, but they’re all arresting. Handsome men don’t quite suit. Matt Smith’s a young, good-looking bloke from one angle but is actually the strangest-looking man from another. You need that oddity; you need somebody who is carved out of solid star, really.
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Newly anointed 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi graces the cover of the new Doctor Who magazine with the quote: “We’re still exploring who the Twelfth Doctor is — but every one of the last 50 years will have helped make him.”
Well, DOCTOR WHO executive producer Steven Moffat gave DWM a nibble of an inkling of an idea of what he has in mind for the latest incarnation of everyone’s favorite Time Lord:
“The Doctor’s always said he’s thousands of years old, and suddenly he’s going to look closer to what we know he secretly is. He’s going to look like an older man. A fiercer man. He won’t be the dashing young man he was a minute ago, and I think that’ll be rather exciting.”
REH in a pensive mood
Today marks the 107th anniversary of the birth of Robert E. Howard, the quintessential American pulp author best-known for creating Conan the Barbarian.
REH, as he known to fans, had an incredibly prolific and all-too-short career lasting from roughly 1929-’36. His powerful, evocative writing has always been an influence on my own writing, almost as much as H.P. Lovecraft. Like Lovecraft, Howard had a talent for painting lush, detailed scenes in only a few evocative words — although literary critics like S.T. Joshi dismissed REH’s prose as “subliterary hackwork that does not even begin to approach genuine literature.”
But, hey, Howard did much more than unleash a barbarian on pop culture. He helped shape modern pop culture by fathering the “sword and sorcery” subgenre of fantasy and contributing to Lovecraft’s horror mythos. Howard came up with a number of other vivid characters, including Solomon Kane, Kull the Conqueror, Sailor Steve Costigan, Cormac Mac Art, Bran Mac Morn, El Borak and James Allison — notable for being disabled. I have previously looked at REH’s life, which tragically ended in suicide, so now I turn to his literary output.
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First of all, the biggest news for DOCTOR WHO in America since… well, probably since the show was first imported here: DOCTOR WHO is the cover story on the next issue of Entertainment Weekly, a big, glossy mainstream pop-culture magazine!
The feature goes “Inside the Cult of Doctor Who,” and features interviews with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, as well as the Grand Moff, who says, “It’s not an obscure show anymore,” says executive producer Steven Moffat. “It’s not even a ‘British import.’ It’s just Doctor Who.”
I don’t think the importance of this (long-overdue) honor can be overstated; this is a powerful acknowledgment of the influence of DOCTOR WHO on pop culture in America. We devotees have long known that fans of the Doctor are legion, and now a mass-market magazine is validating it. (Not that we geeks ever need validation, but it’s nice to have.)
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