Day: July 21, 2011

New Trailer for Frank Miller’s Anti-Terrorism Graphic Novel, Holy Terror

By Jason Apuzzo. In advance of Comic-Con, Legendary has just taken the unusual step of releasing a trailer for Frank Miller’s forthcoming Holy Terror, which will be released by Legendary as its inaugural graphic novel title on September 14th.

Here’s how Legendary described Holy Terror in a press release from June, courtesy of Deadline:

In HOLY TERROR, join The Fixer, a brand new, hard-edged hero as he battles terror. The graphic novel is a no-holds-barred action thriller told in Miller’s trademark high-contrast, black-and-white visual style, which seizes the political zeitgeist by the throat and doesn’t let go until the last page.

THR also had this to say about the project, back in June:

Holy Terror was originally conceived by Miller as a story of Batman taking on those responsible for the attacks on 9-11 but was scrapped by DC several years ago. … The political themes and ties to 9-11 will almost certainly remain.”

Miller is famous, of course, not only for his work on the Batman comic/graphic novel series but also for 300 and Sin City. We’re certainly looking to what he’s cooked up here.

Posted on July 21st, 2011 at 9:46am.

Retro Sci-Fi Dystopia: LFM Reviews Fassbinder’s Newly Rediscovered World on a Wire

By Joe Bendel. Fred Stiller does not know Kung Fu. However, he learns some hard truths about The Matrix decades before the Wachowskis sent Keanu Reeves down the rabbit hole. In fact, he helped develop what is known as the ‘Simulacron’ in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s newly restored two-part 1973 television miniseries, World on a Wire, which opens theatrically this Friday in all its three and a half hour glory at the IFC Center in New York and in select art house theaters nationwide.

Prof. Henri Vollmer’s death was suspicious. The disappearance of his friend, Günther Lause, the head of security for his supposedly nonprofit research facility, is even more so. At least people remember Vollmer as the man who created the Simulacron. However, Lause seems to have disappeared entirely from people’s memories after literally vanishing in the midst of a conversation with Stiller, Vollmer’s trusted deputy.

In a case of good news-bad news, the Machiavellian foundation head promotes Stiller to Vollmer’s position, but the researcher is equally unreceptive to proposed commercial applications for the Simulacron. Essentially a virtual environment populated by six thousand artificial intelligence programs, the Simulacron is designed to project social development twenty years into the future. None of the sentient identities knows they are artificial, except Eisenstein, the designated contact program. As one would expect, he is a rather morose collection of code, never particularly happy to see Stiller or his lead programmer when they helmet up to pay him a visit.

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