there's a starman

Pop culture titan William Shatner captains Comicpalooza along with star-studded cast

Starman Shatner gets top billing at this year's Comicpalooza.

Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for ReedPop

In one of the most famous sketches in the history of Saturday Night Live, host William Shatner plays himself where — at a Star Trek convention — he screams “get a life!” at the collected assortment of sci-fi minutiae spouting (and all male) dorks.

“It’s just a TV show!” he flusters, before pointing out one audience member: “You — you must be almost 30. Have you ever kissed a girl?” The dejected look on the Spock-eared Jon Lovitz, sadly, answers that question.

How things have changed since 1986. Today, muscled comic book superheroes, swashbuckling space rangers, and sexy, tormented monsters not only drive seemingly all of modern pop culture, but the fanbase net is cast much, much wider.

In Houston, that’s nowhere more obvious that during the annual Comicpalooza weekend. And Captain James Tiberius Kirk himself— the 92-year-old Shatner — has set his beaming coordinates for Houston as this year’s headlining star, May 26-28 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

One of the largest shows of its kind in the country and billed as "Texas' largest pop culture festival" Comicpalooza — which began in 2008 as a tiny event in the lobby of a movie theater — counted nearly 50,000 attendees last year.

Celebrity signings and meet-and-greets, live podcasts, an Artist’s Alley, interactive demonstrations and shows, live gaming, panel discussions, and cosplay (Iots of incredible cosplay) are big attractions. Of course, most of the real estate is given to vendors selling everything from 1930’s Marvel Comics to original Kenner Star Wars figures (be on lookout for that Double Telescoping Luke Skywalker!) to today’s hottest Funko Pops.

Recently, the show even introduced Fandom Court. That’s where two litigants on opposite sides of an issue stand at podiums and argue their case, which is decided before an actual judge. One such War of Words had two Harry Potter fans quibbling about the topic “Voldemort: Genuinely Evil or Victim of Circumstance?”

Organizers will continue to roll out guests over the next few weeks, but also announced as guests with Shatner were TV’s dreamy and bloodsucking brothers Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries), actor Lou Diamond Phillips, voice actor Christopher Judge, and anime voice over talents Paul Castro Jr., Luci Christian, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Amber Lee Connors, and Jason Douglas. Visiting celeb Karl Urban is sure to draw crowds for his work in Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Thor: Ragnarok, and more.

Comic book guests (the OG genre of fandom) include Steven McNiven, Yanick Paquette, and Frank Cho, along with literature scribes Terry Brooks, Stephen Graham Jones, and Mary Robinette Kowal. They join already-announced guests including Stephen Amell and Rick Gonzalez (Arrow) and Anthony Star (The Boys).

But just like Shock Rocker Alice Cooper in 2022, and the cast of The Mandalorian in 2021 (COVID killed Comicpalooza in 2020, but it came back just like Jason Voorhees), the biggest crowds and lines will likely be for Shatner. Himself the subject of the recent documentary You Can Call Me Bill and whose latest book was Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder.

Sure, most of the questions and interest will be about Star Trek. But don’t forget T.J. Hooker, The Twilight Zone, Miss Congeniality, and the sung/spoken records. (Not even Elton John can touch Shatner’s tuxedoed and cigarette-smoking cool in the video for “Rocket Man.”) The man even makes commercials for the law firm of Smith & Hassler interesting. (His Priceline commercials were gems, too.)

Our hero even pulled a real Captain Kirk, in a boldly-go-where-no men have gone before (well, maybe a few), gravity-free journey on Jeff Bezos’ truly spacey Blue Origin rocket flight.

Given Shatner's headlining appearance and the star-studded cast, it's safe to say this year's Comicpalooza will be a real blast.

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Comicpalooza runs May 26-28 at the George R. Brown Convention Center (1001 Avenida de las Americas). For tickets, VIP information, full schedules, and more, visit www.comicpalooza.com

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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Pop culture titan William Shatner captains Comicpalooza along with star-studded cast

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