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Seth Rogen unveils The Green Hornet's Black Beauty

Coverage from San Diego's Comic-Con Commences / Dustin Rowles

Trade News | July 23, 2009 | Comments (13)

Movie bloggers that check their site statistics frequently (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise; we all check them somewhere between 19 and 42 times a day) must understand what few of us will admit: When we go to a convention or a film festival, we say we’re doing it for our readers, but the reality is (at least in our experience) that festival coverage doesn’t track nearly as well our regular coverage. Why? Because it’s like looking at someone else’s photo album and flipping through hundreds of photos of people you don’t know. It’s self-indulgent. It’s a write-off vacation. It’s a chance for us to gloat about what we’re seeing and you’re missing. It’s occupational assholery.And just because I’m being upfront about it doesn’t mean we don’t do it, too (see our SXSW coverage). Like you give a shit how much we drink or what movie we saw that you won’t hear about for six months to a year. But we gotta write something to justify the expense.

To wit: Comic-Con. If you check Twitter at the moment, Comic-Con is the top trending item. But if you actually check the tweets, 85 percent of them come from people who are there, twittering about what they are doing (e.g., showing you their photo album, which right now mostly involves standing in long lines). The other 15 percent, of course, are twittering: “Shut the fuck up about Comic-Con already.”

Anyway, we do have a couple of folks at Comic-Con this year — Drew Morton and Steven Lloyd Wilson — and they are actually the perfect representatives because they are more modest and less self-indulgent than, well, myself or Prisco (he’ll actually be a SDCC, too, but he’s not filing). Over the next few days, Steven and Drew be bringing coverage from the festival, and I suspect it’ll be more along the lines of what they’re seeing and not “Look at me! I’m at Comic-Con.” Fucking professionals.

We’ll save the obnoxiousness for Austin ‘10.

We didn’t have anyone there last night for preview night, but from what I can gather from the pictures I’ve seen on other blogs, it was a real nerd orgy, which is to say: A bunch of people carrying inhalers, avoiding eye contact, and Twittering about what an amazing time they’re having. I’ve scoured the web and the only thing approaching newsworthiness, really (or at least movie website newsworthiness) was Seth Rogen’s unveiling of The Black Beauty, the car that will be used in his upcoming Green Hornet movie. It’s pretty rad, actually. Check it out:

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You can see more over on ComingSoon.net.

And if you actually do want to see photos from the floor last night, you can check any number of the other movie blogs. I suspect this image, from Slashfilm, is fairly representative of what you’ll find:


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Comments

God do I wish I was at Comic Con. They're unveiling Avatar toys there, and I'd like to know what the hell it is I'm supposed to be looking forward to in December.

Posted by: Doctor Controversy at July 23, 2009 10:51 AM

That's so true. The only con info I've ever tracked was E3 back in the day and the GDC. Of course this was before I was sucked into the black abyss that is WoW and actually cared about other videogames. Such a nerd.

Posted by: Chugga at July 23, 2009 11:08 AM

I went to Comic-Con in San Diego a couple of years back. It was better than I expected, especially all the nerds walking around with arrogant expressions on their faces while wearing Spiderman tights and whatnot. That place is where some folks make good on lifelong promises to "show them." A few people were outrageously condescending and rude even as I was carrying around my infant daughter, which usually deflected people's worst intentions. Most people were great, though, just letting that old freak flag fly.

Posted by: Kballs at July 23, 2009 11:17 AM

Holy shit, Rogen is skinny.

I don't like it.

Posted by: vikky at July 23, 2009 11:18 AM

Chugga, i don't know what the hell you're talking about. There ARE no other games other than WoW. Gawd.

Sidenote: don't you think it'd be awesome if, as you take damage during a fight, your toon actually starts to bleed, or bits of clothing fall off, or chinks in the armor appear, then when the healer heals (let's say, a crit heal pops) all sorts of sparkly lights happen [a la the ret pally's divine storm] and the armor is magically fixed? I think that would make WoW even more addictive.

Posted by: Stella at July 23, 2009 11:47 AM

It’s pretty rad, actually.

Suddenly I've been transported back to the magical time known as the 80s, when people used the word "rad." Snark aside, it is a pretty cool-lookin' car.

Posted by: MM at July 23, 2009 11:49 AM

I just wiki'd the Green Hornet since I don't know much about the character. After reading about him, I started to read about hornets in general, and then on to the Asian giant hornet (which we all know to be horrible and scary and way too fucking big). I've never actually read about them before, I've just seen pictures. Two segments kind of blew my mind a little. Off topic, but I'm sharing anyway:

The hornets can devastate a colony of honey bees: a single hornet can kill as many as 40 honey bees per minute thanks to their large mandibles which can quickly strike and decapitate a bee. It takes only a few of these hornets a few hours to exterminate the population of a 30,000-member hive, leaving a trail of severed insect heads and limbs. The European honey bees Apis mellifera have small stings which do little damage to hornets that are three times their size and twenty times their weight. The honey bees make futile solo attacks without mounting a collective defense, and are easily killed individually by the hornets. Once a hive is emptied of all defending bees, the hornets feed on the honey and carry the larvae back to feed to their own larvae.

Scary. Horrible and scary. But then this! A shining ray of hope for bees everywhere!

When a hornet scout locates and approaches a Japanese honey bee hive it will emit specific pheromonal hunting signals. When the honey bees detect these pheromones, a hundred or so will gather near the entrance of the nest and set up a trap, keeping it open apparently to draw the hornet further into the hive or allow it to enter on its own. As the hornet enters the nest, a large mob of about five hundred honey bees surrounds it, completely covering it and preventing it from moving, and begin quickly vibrating their flight muscles. This has the effect of raising the temperature of the honey bee mass to 47 °C (117 °F). The honey bees can barely tolerate this temperature, but the hornet cannot survive more than 46 °C (115 °F), so it dies. Often several bees perish along with the intruder, but the death of the hornet scout prevents it from summoning reinforcements which would wipe out the colony. More recent research indicates, however, that while the raised temperature of the bee ball contributes to the death of the hornet, it alone is not sufficient to kill the hornet. The bee balls also produce a much higher level of carbon dioxide which contributes to the hornet's death, although whether this is because it reduces the hornet's tolerance for high temperatures or actually suffocates it, is not known.

Leave it to the Japanese bees to form a giant bee ball to stop intruders. Bee-Voltron.

Posted by: Snath at July 23, 2009 12:19 PM

Nice car, but does it have a whiskey bar in it? Didn't think so.

Posted by: admin at July 23, 2009 12:46 PM

Holy shit, Rogen is skinny.

I don't like it.

Posted by: vikky at July 23, 2009 11:18 AM

Hence my comment earlier in the week.

Posted by: dammitjanet at July 23, 2009 12:52 PM

@Snath: Inspired by your post, I would wiki Voltron to try to remember more about the cartoon, but there's no way I'm going to learn anything more useful or better today, at work or otherwise, than I did from your description of the Japanese Bee Voltron.

Posted by: Gentleman Farmer at July 23, 2009 12:53 PM

Leave it to the Japanese bees to form a giant bee ball to stop intruders. Bee-Voltron.

Posted by: Snath at July 23, 2009 12:19 PM

-------------

I watched a documentary on this a couple of years ago. The bee ball thing still rates as one of the coolest things I've ever heard about. And the footage of those few hornets ripping apart the entire hive is as brutal as it sounds.

Posted by: Forbiddendonut at July 23, 2009 1:17 PM

Being a total glutton for punishment I had to look up the Giant Hornet. Damn.

Between 20 and 40 people die each year in Japan after being stung by giant hornets.

Jesus. Apparently this monster favors mountainous regions of Japan, places I will enjoy for the rest of my life in pictures only.

Posted by: katy at July 23, 2009 3:16 PM

Rogen looks my size. And I'm tiny. That's terrifying.

Posted by: Daniel Hall at July 23, 2009 11:26 PM