I had never read the comic or seen the first movie, but I have much love for Hellboy 2.

Frank! So I wasn't the only one who was weirdly reminded of her by Nuala! I half expected to see an elf baby dancing to Tom Jones in the middle of the Troll Market .

Hellboy: So, was I the only one who got the weirdly incest-y vibe between Nuala and Nuada? Cause I'm pretty sure I can't be.

It was incesty.

Nuada reminded me of a Michael Whalen book cover of Elric.

I enjoyed Hellboy but liked the first one better. Things I like about Selma Blair: her bob, her eyebrows. Things I don't like about Selma Blair: her acting. She is so unbelievably generic.

Also, as Victor noted elsewhere their relationship is just so conventional at its core. For a couple of characters who are constantly bemoaning how they're freaks, they are only freaky on the outside. They got no inner freak.

The new Abe was no David Hyde Pierce.

I liked Johan and MacFarlane's voicing.

Loved Troll Market. But then I'm a sucker for those scenes.

Things I don't like about Selma Blair: her acting. She is so unbelievably generic.

I don't think she's generic, actually. She has a certain Selma Blair-ness about her. That sort of flat intonation that sometimes works and other times...just feels flat.

The new Abe was no David Hyde Pierce.

The new Abe was Doug Jones, the man in the costume. But I agree.

I wonder why they couldn't get DHP, but Doug Jones still did a good job, voice and all.

I don't think she's generic, actually. She has a certain Selma Blair-ness about her. That sort of flat intonation that sometimes works and other times...just feels flat.

I can't really think of a thing she's done that hasn't been just exactly like that. Even when it worked, more or less, it was still mildly baffling--I thought she was more or less okay in Legally Blonde, but there also wasn't anything remotely remarkable about her performance. I couldn't see any reason why the casting director had gone with her instead of, say, twenty other people just as pretty and polished and vaguely East-Coast-classy-looking but more animated, more interesting, more something.

I file her mentally somewhere in Keanu territory, only a bit lower down because whatever his faults with the spoken word, he has incredible physical presence and the people who've worked with him are totally endearing in their inability to shut up about how generous and engaged and egoless and considerate he is to work with, but she seems to be a presenceless cipher.

I got a huge amount of enjoyment out of the first Hellboy by mentally blunking her out and replacing her with Aly Hannigan (one of the best performances Hannigan has never had the chance to give); sounds like I may have to do the same with the sequel.

eta: She had a brief cameo in a late episode of Friends, IIRC. Matthew Perry seemed to rouse her to something close to sparkiness; it's the most lively anything I've ever seen her do, so much so that I forgot until just now that it was her.

Does anyone else remember "Amazon High"?

I wonder why they couldn't get DHP, but Doug Jones still did a good job, voice and all.

I think it may have had something to do with his refusing a credit on the first movie because he didn't want to detract from Doug Jones's performance. So...I guess they decided to let him carry the character officially this time?

I think I'm on the opposite end of the Blair Scale as JZ. I dig her. She's got a certain something I dig.