July 29, 2010

8. Ballroom 20—More Fun Than a Poke in the Eye
A surprise live performance of “The Big Bang Theory” theme by The Barenaked Ladies and “Chuck’s” Jeffster dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” in Ballroom 20 helped redeem Comic-Con this year after the disappointing final “Harry Potter” panel and that shocking nerd brawl in Hall H.

7. Klingons—Out, Stormtroopers—In
Despite the City of San Diego making a big show of translating its Gaslamp-area transit signs into Klingon, there were few Kronos natives to be found. Instead, stormtroopers ruled the weekend as the 501st Legion ferreted out Rebel scum … and posed for pictures. 

6. Berkeley Breathed—First-Timer, Award Winner
He was a daily/weekly cartoonist from 1978 to 2008, but—surprisingly—this year marked Berkeley Breathed’s first Comic-Con appearance. CCI honored Breathed with an Inkpot Award; he remarked it was the first award he’s received since his Pulitzer in 1987. Breathed presented a slide show (of actual playground slides) and offered a thought-provoking explanation of why he won’t sign the Cartoonists Freedom of Expression petition (he believes the petition needs to be signed by Muslim organizations willing to support cartoonists’ rights). His book, “Mars Needs Moms!,” is being adapted as a 2011 Disney motion-capture film starring Joan Cusack and Seth Green, and Breathed brought his own mom to Comic-Con. Awwww!

5. Wonder Woman’s Modest Costume—Such a Nonissue
Talented writers, directors and producers, including Felicia Day (“The Guild”), Marti Noxon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and Melissa Rosenberg (“Dexter”), brought up Amazon warrior Diana Prince during the “Girls Gone Genre” panel, but nary a word was said about her outfit change. Now can we please start talking about a “Birds of Prey” reboot?

4. Zombies Are the New Vampires
Last year was all about sparkly vampires and Taylor Lautner’s chest with the debut of “New Moon.” This year, screaming Twihards were replaced with “The Walking Dead” as AMC filled the Gaslamp and the Exhibition Hall with bloody zombies and a ransacked country house to promote its adaptation of the Robert Kirkman/Tony Moore comic book series.

3. Bags as Swag
This is the first year I walked away with more swag bags than actual swag. Even though most of the studios seemed to holding back on the freebies, SyFy, DC and others handed out bags that might actually see the light of day after the con.

2. “RED” (Retired Extremely Dangerous)
The sight of Dame Helen Mirren sporting a machine gun in this Summit/DC Comics film won me over instantly. Bruce Willis stars as Frank Moses, a retired black-ops CIA agent targeted for assassination. With his identity compromised, Moses reassembles his former team—Joe (Morgan Freeman); Victoria (Mirren), a wet-work operative; and Marvin (John Malkovich), an LSD-fried weapons expert—in order to survive and save his handler, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). The Comic-Con audience went wild for the “RED” trailers. Yes, the buzz is strong with this one. Co-starring Richard Dreyfuss, the film is due out Oct. 15.

1. Stan Lee
A Holocaust motion-comic panel would normally be an also-ran at Comic-Con. But add former Marvel head Stan Lee and it became a standing-room-only event. At 87, Lee was busier than ever—taking part in six different CCI events in two days and attending a gallery exhibition. Oh, and don’t forget that feature-length doc, “With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story.” Excelsior!

Former CIA Director James Woolsey wants to turn oil into salt.

Speaking to an audience of about 250 at Temple Beth Jacob yesterday evening, the foreign policy analyst and green technology investor said that by “undermin[ing] oil’s monopoly on transportation, Americans could free themselves from having to kowtow to “dictators and autocratic kingdoms,” like Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members.

Salt, which had been a strategic commodity through the end of the 19th century—it was the only way to preserve meat—had its monopoly eliminated by technological innovation: refrigeration. “You won’t sit down to dinner tonight, look at the salt, and think ‘I wonder if our country is salt independent?’” Woolsey said to scattered laughter. Salt, he said, is boring. But before the advent of refrigeration, wars were fought over salt—much in the way that wars are fought over oil today.

Woolsey sees only one answer to this problem: innovations that specifically aim to reduce the amount of oil we put into our gas tanks. A founder of the Set America Free Coalition—a group that promotes alternative fuel choices—Woolsey has a tool that helps him to do this personally: “It’s 25 feet long and orange with black plugs on each end,” Woolsey said. One plug goes into the wall; the other goes into his modified Prius.

More interesting than the solutions he proposed—and Woolsey wants to try ethanol, methanol, and other possibilities—are the ones he dismissed. “Drill baby drill” only affects the supply. Cap-and-trade would have only applied to fixed emitters of CO2—not mobile emitters like automobiles. Nuclear power does nothing to change the stuff that goes into our cars. And setting CO2 aside, 25% of what comes out of your tailpipe is carcinogenic.

Woolsey, who was invited to speak by 30 Years After, an LA-based group of Iranian Jews, devoted much of his speech to issues relating to Iran. He believes that than the combination of sanctions, diplomacy, political isolation and other measures currently being taken against Iran are too little, too late, and puts the possibility of Iran’s producing a nuclear weapon—or a country’s having to use force to stop it from doing so—at “slightly more” than 50 percent.

By way of illustration, Woolsey recalled his experience as ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in Vienna from 1989-1991. At the end of long days of negotiating, he and his Soviet counterpart would often go out to dinner together. Over Lobster Thermidor and a bottle of Chablis—“on the American taxpayer”—Woolsey and “Oleg” would end up talking about their kids. And at the end of the evening, the two might find some points on which each side could concede at the negotiating table the next day.

“Can anybody remotely imagine a session like that with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?” Woolsey asked rhetorically. “Or someone who sees the world the way he does?”

Turn oil into salt, Woolsey said, and we won’t have to.

More than a year after his death, the late comedy writer Mickey Ross has proven himself a mega Jewish philanthropist.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the Emmy-winning writer/producer of hit sitcoms “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Three’s Company” bequeathed $10 million to The Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, a sizable gift, but one in a series of gifts Ross earmarked for the Jewish community.

In addition to the lump sum, Ross committed 50 percent of his residual rights to several TV shows to the foundation, which will establish the Michael and Irene Ross Endowment Fund. According to The Jewish Community Foundation, the fund will have a twofold purpose, providing Southern California’s most vulnerable populations with basic needs as well as funding programs devoted to Yiddish language and culture, one of Ross’s passions.

Ross passed away in May 2009 at the age of 89 from complications related to a stroke and heart attack. His wife, Irene, died in 2000. The couple had no children.

In addition to his comedic legacy in Hollywood, Ross will be remembered through his numerous philanthropic commitments. In 2008, he donated $4 million to endow an academic chair in Yiddish language and culture at UCLA, his alma mater. And, last January, Ross surprised The National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass. with a $3 million donation from his estate.