Non-adventurous, cautious-minded ComicCon journos were fretting today about missing today’s noon deadline for the ComicCon hotels form. “Convinced it’s too late, will sleep on the street,” one said. It’s always preferable to plan ahead and feel secure, of course, but people with gumption can always improvise and make do.
The last time I attended ComicCon I just drove around and found the most attractive (or at least tolerable) down-at-the-heels flophouses in the northern regions. Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach…that line of country. Fleabag motels are always cheaper and almost never filled to capacity. Because the vast majority of cautious-minded travelers refuse to stay in them.
The only way I’ll ever attend ComicCon again is if a major, must-see film has its first-ever showing there. Otherwise forget it. ComicCon is Ground Zero for the CGI jizz, comic-book jail cell, moronic videogame flip-flop mentality that has all but ruined action films, and has made fantasy films as predictable as fast-food menus at Wendy’s. Almost everything I hate about movies today seems to have originated there. The less Hollywood caters to the ComicCon mentality, the better off movies in general will be.
The esteemed James Rocchi, Drew McWeeny, Katey Rich and Ed Douglas are ComicCon swoonies and more power to them, but I am God’s Lonely Man. I see the ComicCon crowd the way Travis Bickle regarded the “whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, junkies…sick, venal.”
What keeps me going, of course, are the exceptions to the rule, which always pop through, thank fortune.
Laziness and cowardice are the primary causes of bad, spirit-deflating movies. The ComicCon factor isn’t entirely to blame.