The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
…you may remember this post, about my son deciding he’d learned how to swear.
He is in bed at the moment, and I am in the living room with the baby monitor next to me.
He is singing a song to himself that I have decided is called “What the Fuck.” I’ve decided that this is its name because “What the Fuck” are all the words.
Tunelessly. Over and over again.
For the last ten minutes or so.
I’m going to turn on the new Phish album until he stops singing.
I am in possession of some preliminary sketches for the cover of SKYLIGHTS, and they are awesome.
And I can’t share them with you yet. But you will be seeing stuff soon.
Wheeeeeeeee it’s all haaaaaaappening
So I’ve been thinking about superhero movies lately. This isn’t surprising; if I’m being honest I spend roughly 20% of my waking hours thinking about superhero movies, so… yeah.
For some reason, though, for the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about casting. And I’ve got this big list sitting next to me of actors that I think should be immediately cast in particular roles. Some of them are super obvious and some are not. One or two have actually already been cast, but I’m including them anyway because perfect. Some of them are never going to happen because they’ve already been cast in other superhero movies– some of them even in the same franchise. I don’t care. Feel free to include others in the comments if you like.
These are in no particular order. Wait, no. I’ll start with villains since I don’t have as many of those. Also, I take no responsibility for formatting here. It’s gonna be a mess. I apologize.
Laurence Fishburne as Lex Luthor. This one is the least likely to happen because the dummies already cast him as Perry White. Laurence Fishburne should obviously have been Lex Luthor. Come on, guys.
Tommy Lister as the Juggernaut. They cast Vinnie Jones as him in whichever X-Men film he was in; I think Lister is both bigger and scarier.
Rosario Dawson as Harley Quinn. Harley hasn’t been on the live-action big screen yet to the best of my knowledge despite being essential to every animated Batman and also a mainstay on the cosplay scene. Rosario would be perfect.
Ken Watanabe as Doctor Strange. I think Doctor Strange has already been cast, although I don’t know for sure and don’t feel like Googling it. Whoever they chose, it’s wrong. Should be Watanabe.
Jason Momoa as Aquaman. This one has supposedly actually already happened. I’m including it anyway because it’s fuckin’ perfect. Speaking of Batman v. Superman, or whatever it’s called…
Idris Elba as Batman. Because fuck a Batfleck. Yes, I know he’s in the Thor movies. Chris Evans was the Human Torch and Captain America. We’ll be okay.
(Actually, Ben Affleck wasn’t that bad an idea.)
Gina Torres as Wonder Woman. Because she is already an Amazon goddess. They gotta fix the costume, though.
(Fair question: Why am I not casting Superman? Because it is essential to me that any actor playing Superman be someone I have never heard of in order for me to take him seriously. Superman must be an unknown; ergo, I can’t play this game with him. Plus, I really really want an Icon movie. Hmm. Chiwetel Ejiofor would make a great Icon.)
More? ‘Kay:
Naya Rivera as Zatanna. Yes, from Glee. Zatanna’s got a stage background; somebody who can sing and dance would work well, depending on how they wrote the movie. Again with the costume, though.
I’m only partially convinced about this one, but I’m going to go with it anyway:
Will Smith, preferably in bulked-up Muhammad Ali mode, as Captain Marvel. Yeah, okay, this one’s a little odd. Why do I like it so much? Because then we also get…
Jaden Smith as Billy Batson. Which, c’mon, having a father-son team play Billy Batson and Captain Marvel in the same movie would be kind of awesome. Even if I do kinda think Jaden Smith sorta sucks a little bit.
Okay, yeah, still potentially a little weak. I will fight you if you don’t like this one:
Donald Glover as Spider-Man. A choice so obvious that the actor himself has campaigned for it and if you type his name into Google “Donald Glover Spider-Man” comes up on its own. Yes, I know about Miles Morales. I love Miles Morales. More than Peter Parker, actually. But I still want Glover as Parker.
Speaking of people named “Captain Marvel”…
Aisha Tyler as Captain Marvel. The awesome one. Come on, she’s perfect. PERFECT, I tell you!
Orlando Jones as Reed Richards. I feel like at some point I didn’t like Orlando Jones; I don’t remember why and now think I was crazy. He doesn’t immediately scan as somebody who should play a superhero… but neither does Mr. Fantastic, really, and he’d be great as a super scientist. Do this, Marvel.
Speaking of actors from Sleepy Hollow…
John Cho as Hank Pym, preferably in his white-trench-coat, gadget-growing incarnation from The West Coast Avengers. Hilariously, getting Cho cast as Pym is actually far more likely than the Pym from the Whackos ever getting acknowledged on-screen.
Speaking of Hank Pym…
Dascha Polanco as The Wasp. Mostly because I want to see Dascha Polanco everywhere I look for the rest of my life, as she’s adorable. Also considered, because hilarious: Dazzler.
Two more. This one may be slightly controversial. And, speaking of actresses from Orange is the New Black:
Laverne Cox as She-Hulk. At first I was a little nervous at the idea of casting a transgender woman as She-Hulk, because it feels just a teeny bit wrong. Then I came to my senses because Laverne Cox is God damned awesome and she gets to play She-Hulk if she bloody well wants to.
And, finally…
Lupita Nyong’o as Storm. Which, okay, you may have noticed I sort of have a theme going here, and this casting sorta breaks it. But still. No one alive gets to play Storm on-screen again until actual literal African goddess Lupita Nyong’o does. And I know I used that phrasing once already, and I don’t care, shut up.
More suggestions in comments!
The cat has been given a clean bill of health, by the way, despite a shaky weekend.
Be honest. No Googling. How many of you know who Tom Waits is, beyond a vague association with music or acting? And if you know who he is at all, what kind of musician do you think he is? (These are honest questions; feel free to answer in comments, even if the answer is “I’ve never heard of him” or “You’re an idiot for never having heard of him.”)
The wife and I have been marathoning Season 2 of Orange is the New Black, and for only the second time the closing musical number of a show has gotten me to spend money on music. (The first was an episode of Defiance that closed with Civil Twilight’s amazing cover of Nirvana’s Come As You Are. The weirdest thing that’s ever led to me spending money on music was hearing Jeffrey Gaines’ cover of In Your Eyes over the in-store sound system in a Chipotle and insisting that the manager tell me what the hell they were playing.)
Anyway. Right. So the seventh or eighth episode of OitNB Season Two ends with a substantial portion of Waits’ Come On Up to the House playing. It’s an awesome freaking song, and since I was in an expansive mood (and I love new music) I downloaded the entire album it was on, on the spot. I had heard of Waits, but mostly because he was awesome in Mystery Men, one of the most underrated movies ever. I had a vague idea that he was a bluesman; Come On Up to the House is certainly bluesy.
Guys, I’ve listened to Mule Variations three goddamn times now. Tom Waits is either the greatest musician of all time or an assault on the very concept of music itself. I don’t know which.
First things first: the damn album is called Mule Variations, for fuck’s sake. Do mules vary? I don’t know. I think mules are pretty much just mules. It’s a clue, though, as to how the album is going to go; he took two words that don’t belong together and slapped them together to make a word-salad phrase that, grammatically at least, ought to make sense but doesn’t. I listened to the first half of this album on the way home from OtherJob and I honestly don’t know how the hell I made it home because I was so confused.
You’ve seen Belushi’s impression of Joe Cocker, right? Here, just in case the answer was no:
(Crap, it won’t embed right, and I can’t find it on YouTube. Click.)
Okay. Now imagine what it would be like if Joe Cocker did an impression of John Belushi doing an impression of Joe Cocker.
That’s what Tom Waits sounds like. His voice is like nothing I’ve ever heard; he sounds like he’s just growling for half of the songs and it’s rarely immediately clear what the hell he’s saying. You want to do a credible Tom Waits impression? Gargle. I’m fucking serious. And it’s probably better if you’re gargling bourbon instead of water. Although I feel like that has at least a chance of killing you so you probably shouldn’t do it. It’s as if Leonard Cohen and Junior Kimbrough beat each other to death and somebody stitched a zombie singer together with the parts that still sorta worked right, soaked it in brine, and animated it, only then the zombie got cancer of the vocal cords. I’ve never heard anything like it.
Get used to that sentence.
The production on the album is the dirtiest nastiest filthiest stuff I’ve ever heard, and I think I mean that as a compliment. There’s at least one track where the vocals and the music simply do not match at all. Like there were two different producers completely, and they weren’t allowed to talk to each other. Track 8 is called What’s He Building In There?. It’s a spoken-word track. Imagine that Pink Floyd vomited on Allan Ginsberg. Other tracks are called– I am not making this up– Eyeball Kid and Filipino Box Spring Hog, which makes absolutely no goddamned sense at all. Filipino Box Spring Hog may actually involve a DJ.
There is a track where I’m pretty sure a string breaks on someone’s guitar partway through, and they just kept going and left it in. On another, there’s a loud thump at one point, like someone in the studio dropped a heavy box. They left it in.
I have never heard anything like this.
I don’t know what the hell any of this shit is.
I’ve got to take the cat to the vet and who knows what kind of drama that’s going to create, so have a few more backyard flower pictures for the time being:
I haven’t seen either of the newest PLANET OF THE APES movies, so I have no idea whether either of them are any good, but I am a student and lover of good invective, and this is superb.
In honor of my 1,000th Twitter follower (I’ve hit 1000 three times already today, actually, as I keep having poorly-timed unfollows, which entertains me) I’m putting my book on sale for… regular price! Check out The Benevolence Archives for your Kindle or smart device for just $2.99!
I’ve decided to start doing periodic– maybe once or twice per month– reminders on the main page of the blog of the various places I can be found on the Interwebs. I pick up 50 or so new followers a week and my Twitter account has added 800 people in the last month, so it’s probably a useful thing for new readers. Regular folks, if you see the STATION IDENTIFICATION tag, feel free to ignore it.
So here’s where to find Luther Siler on the interwebtron:
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 