The Tantrum

Old Comics

2011-10-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

While I no longer regularly collect comic books, I still duck into comic stores every now and then to see what might tickle my fancy. While I still by current or recent comic books, whether in single-issue or trade paperback format, for some reason I find myself increasingly drawn to some older comic books, like John Byrne's Fantastic Four or his all-too-brief nine issue stint on Captain America with Roger Stern, or even Walt Simonson's run on Thor (though I haven't bought any of this last one yet). I wouldn't mind getting a hold of that compilation of Alan Moore/Alan Davis Captain Britain stories either, or of a paperback of Byrne's Superman: Man of Steel miniseries, to name a few.

In terms of craft, it certainly wouldn't be fair to say that the older product trumps the new (though some of Byrne's FF issues, at least in terms of their artwork, might go some way towards making that point), as there are a lot of new comics out there that are well-written and illustrated, but I think what really sets these older issues apart is how, even as recently as the 1980s, pure they seemed to be in that they weren't written with film adaptations in mind, even though by that time many of them were already the subject of popular merchandise like pajamas and toys. Sure, the stories weren't always that imaginative and the dialogue and artwork were often embarrassingly dated (like some of the Stern/Byrne Cap stories, which prominently featured bell-bottom pants and some decidedly bushy 70's hairdos), but there was something really special about how, in many if not most of these old stories, the creators of these books do not come across as self-conscious. Even from their scripts and story beats, a number of today's comic book creators seem eternally conscious of the fact that Hollywood execs may or may not scan their pages for movie or TV ideas, or how brutal legions of internet fanboys may be if what they read is not to their liking. If there were agendas back then, or if the authors were intent on achieving the 1970s or 1980s equivalent of "breaking the internet in half," it didn't really show. A lot of current writers, like Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, or on a good day, Brian Bendis, seem intent on telling good stories, but so many of today's storytellers, event guys who've written stuff I like, like Dan Slott or Mark Millar, are so fond of referencing pop-culture, or even the fact that comic-book characters are so firmly ensconced in pop-culture these days, that it's nauseating.

Like the saying goes, they don't make comics like they used to...

Why Ultimate Spider-Man's Being Half-Black, Half Latino is No Big Deal

2011-09-18T08:05:00.001-07:00

Not having grown up in a multi-cultural society I have had the good fortune of never having experienced racism firsthand, though of course I've heard and read about it. I don't feel qualified, as a result, to join the chorus of people yelling "racist" at all of the fanboys objecting to the fact that Marvel Comics has replaced "Ultimate" Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man, or one of the at least three versions of the character they are currently publishing, with a young teenager who happens to be half African-American, half Puerto Rican. To be honest, I don't feel qualified to join the conversation at all, even though on a purely intellectual level I can grasp the concept of what is racist and what is not.

As someone who's read comic books for most of my life, though, I do feel qualified to defend Marvel Comics' creative decision, regardless of whether or not they appreciate the gesture.

The "Ultimate" Marvel line was conceived around eleven or twelve years ago when Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada assumed control over Marvel Comics as a solution to the fact that over the last forty years, the universe created by Stan Lee and his various collaborator/artists had gotten so bogged down in continuity issues accumulated over time that the original magic of the characters and books had dissipated or at least become severely diluted. The idea was to recapture what originally made the various titles special when they came out in the 60s, but this time without all the baggage, and with a "modern" twist.

The result worked at first; Peter Parker, a twenty-something married man in the "regular" Marvel Universe was a teenager again, stripped of all of the added flab of decades of stories, many of them shoddy, that had come with his going from teen to adult over a nearly-forty-year period. Teams like the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, all of which had been turned inside-out and upside-down by decades of different stories as well as bad editorial decisions, and periodic status quo shakeups were restored to their purest, nascent states.

The problem with serialized fiction in which the characters' adventures continue indefinitely is that while there is a beginning, there is rarely a middle or an end to these characters and their development, and while the Ultimate line was created to replicate the early years of Marvel but with a twist, it would, as the years went on, gradually start to find itself saddled with its own continuity and history issues.

Not only that, but because of the success of the "Ultimate" line, the powers-that-be at Marvel wanted to transplant its "real-world" vibe into the main line of comics, and as a result the line's writers, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were placed on books like The Avengers and Spider-Man, and for better or worse, the mainstream Marvel Universe, after a fashion, did start to resemble its "Ultimate" counterpart in terms of the tone of storytelling, particularly during the Civil War event engineered by Marvel, with Mark Millar's seven-part miniseries at the forefront.

Marvel then became a victim of its own success. Having successfully "updated" the mainstream Marvel Universe to be more like its "ultimate" counterpart, Marvel effectively rendered the "ultimate" line obsolete, and as a result the "ultimate" books' sales began to drop.

Now, one thing Marvel could have done would have been to let the line "lie fallow" to use an agricultural term, and revisit it some other time with new stories and ideas, but seeing as how it's in the business of selling comic books, its editorial made the decision to shake things up, first by killing off a whole slew of characters in a line-wide event entitled "Ultimatum." Casualties of this little "holocaust" included several members of the Ultimate versions of the X-Men and the Avengers, and as a result the Ultimate version of the Fantastic Four broke up, with Reed Richards apparently becoming a bad guy. The comic books were then relaunched with new #1 issues and some tweaks to the creative teams.

There was a momentary spike in sales, but even with the relaunch the titles didn't sell nearly as well as they did in their heydays, and sales dropped right back to earth in fairly short order.

It made sense that they would, even though major characters like Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto and a couple of Avengers had been killed off, most of the audience whose interest in comics had been piqued by the Ultimate line had either jumped over to the mainstream, "616" Marvel Universe. After all, in the time that had lapsed since the launch of the Ultimate universe, Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane had been retroactively annulled (and not in the legal sense) the Avengers had become "cool" again thanks to an infusion of new members that included Spider-Man and Wolverine, and the X-men...well, thanks to a bunch of gimmicks like "M day" and a presumably talented slew of writers, had managed to win much of its audience back. There was nothing in the Ultimate line of comic books that people couldn't see by reading the main line of Marvel Comics.

By killing and replacing Peter Parker with another Spider-Man, was finally able to effectively convey the message to their readers that they had tried to make with all of their shock-value deaths in "Ultimatum:" in the Ultimate universe, ANYTHING can happen.

What definitely annoys about the widespread reaction to the switch is the fact that before the decision was made, sales of the Ultimate Spider-Man title had been dropping like a stone. Fewer and fewer people cared about the line or that particular iteration of the character, who had arguably become superfluous now that "616" Peter Parker was "young" again by virtue of being a swinging single. Had Peter Parker not been killed, readers would have continued to bail out until there would be simply no justifying the existence of the comic book.

Besides, the Ultimate line, the way I see it, was always intended to be a venue for experimentation, for attempts to tell stories involving Marvel's beloved characters which could not, by editorial mandate, be told given the constraints of the "616" universe. Here, Cap could be a right-wing borderline fascist. Here, Thor could be a smelly hippy mistaken for a paranoid schizophrenic. Here, Hulk could actually kill people when on a rampage, whether or not they were bad guys. Here, Black Widow could be a murderous double agent, and Wolverine could actually want to kill Cyclops, and vice versa. The Ultimate has always existed just beyond the boundaries of what was possible in the regular Marvel Universe. Some of the ideas were good, and some bad, but to me it's to Marvel's credit that they allow these tweaks to happen.

And so I think that Miles Morales' introduction as the new Spider-Man is in line with the spirit of some of the first "ultimate" stories in that it puts a new spin on an old favorite. Some people may like it and others may not, and if it's the latter then Marvel will certainly go back to the drawing board, but casual fans who don't read the "Ultimate" line and who are complaining about Morales' race should either read the "Ultimate" comic books to understand the spirit in which this kind of story is told or should just shut the heck up and stop exposing themselves for the closet racists that many of them probably are. Not only that, but the people who are familiar with the "Ultimate Spider-Man" line and who abandoned it only to complain about the switch should really be ashamed of themselves; they're the ones who put Ultimate Peter Parker in his grave, not any "PC" agenda of editorial.

Finally, having read and enjoyed the first two issues of this title, I find it consistent with the experience I had when reading Mark Millar's and Bryan Hitch's "Ultimates" for the first time, in that what was old became new again, and I'm willing to give this direction a try.

Toy Stories

2011-08-16T07:41:00.001-07:00

A proud tradition of franchise movies dating back to Star Wars, if not even earlier, is the sale of film-related merchandise, in particular toys.

I remember the Star Wars toys of the 80s, even though I didn't own a whole lot of them (I may have owned a small, Kenner-manufactured Tie Fighter at one point but I'm not even sure). But I have seen a fair share of Star Wars related merchandise, and back then it looked really good, and boy, did it make a lot of money.

The tradition has been carried on by some filmmakers and their toy-tie-in partners; within the last decade, toys and merchandise from the first Cars film and its spinoffs made something like eight BILLION dollars, an obscenely large amount of money by almost anyone's standards, which by itself justified the making of a sequel, Cars 2, probably better than any box-office figures ever could. So Disney has continued the Star Wars tradition. Of course, with its myriad of new Hasbro action figures and vehicles Clone Wars Lego sets, one could say that the makers of Star Wars themselves are continuing the Star Wars tradition.

Curiously, though, apart from Disney and Lucasfilm, there appears to have been a lot of dropping of the ball in terms of selling movie-related toys lately.

Now, I don't collect movie-themed toys (or action figures in general) but I remain a fan of toys, and I certainly admire well-made ones, which is why I'm a little disappointed that a lot of the movie-related toys I see around are not that well-made, and in some cases, not made at all.

The latest X-Men film, X-Men: First Class, for example, has had almost no licensed toy products to speak of save a line of Minimates, an oddity considering that every X-Men film that came before it had a comprehensive toy line up, with figures and vehicles. Heck, X-Men 2 even had a tie-up with a manufacturer of die-cast model cars to produce the Mazda RX-8 that appeared in it.

The Thor toys were just crappy, which is disappointing considering the meticulous detail poured in the the Marvel Legends toys, even the ones produced after Marvel entered into a deal with Hasbro for all of its toys (which Marvel used to produce themselves through their "Toy Biz" company). The toys are small and lacking in detail. Ironically, for the Green Lantern toys, Mattel followed the Marvel strategy of marketing a set of different action figures with the parts of a much bigger figure enclosed among the individual figures. Of course, considering GL was a box-office flop, this strategy did not amount to much, but at least they were aggressive with their toys, even marketing Hot Wheels cars with GL branding. But Thor, a successful movie, made a whole bunch of toys that kids may or may not buy, but which, I feel, are not likely to be terribly attractive to collectors, now or in the future.

Captain America: The First Avenger was another disappointment; despite all of the cool, visually striking retro-futuristic vehicles that appear in the film, the only vehicles that show up in toy stores are crappy G.I.Joe knockoff jeeps, motorbikes and APCs, NONE of which actually APPEAR in the movie! Where's Red Skull's awesome six-wheeled car? The giant bomber that was central to the movie's climax? Hell, where's Cap's Harley and the Hydra agents' bikes? Nowhere to be found. At least Hot Toys is coming up with an amazing looking 1/6 doll of Captain America, but that's only for hardcore collectors who have money to burn. Kids and casual collectors are less fortunate.

Marvel has a diecast partner in Maisto, and when it comes to missing opportunities for toy tie-ins, they appear to have a history of it.

Maisto makes diecast cars and motorcycles, with the former being as big as 1/18 scale and the latter being as big as 1/12 scale or maybe even 1/6 scale. They make, among many other things, the Audi R8 or the car driven by Tony Stark in Iron Man.

For all of that, though, they never bothered to make an "Iron Man"-themed or packaged car even though the car has, since the 2008 film, been widely identified with Iron Man. Instead they come up with some shitty, generic vehicles with the Iron Man logo printed on their body work. Considering how prominently featured the Audi R8 was in both Iron Man films, Maisto and Marvel, whether it was because of their lawyers or marketing people, missed on a huge opportunity to sell some toys.

With Captain America Marvel and Maisto failed yet again to make the most of a great opportunity to sell some toys. Sure, there is a well-conceived line of WWII planes with Captain America logos on them, so at least it trumps Hasbro's ridiculous "G.I. Joe" style vehicles, but Maisto/Marvel still goofed in a big way. In terms of sponsorship, legendary motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson is to Cap what Audi was to Iron Man, and because Maisto makes toy Harley Davidsons in varying scales, it represented a great marketing and sales opportunity for everyone concerned, an opportunity they appear to have missed completely.

But that's not the worst "toy story" of the year for me.

One of the big announcements regarding Transformers: Dark of the Moon, when it went into production last year was that it would feature as one of its characters a Ferrari 458. This, like the Cars films, is a movie franchise that exists mainly to sell toys, especially considering that it was based on an already-existing toy line. Michael Bay HIMSELF announced that a Ferrari 458 would be joining the Autobots, so the car was written into the script.

The movie has come out and is, in fact, slowly on its way out of theaters, and the Ferrari made its appearance, but to date, not a single Ferrari Transformers toy has shown up on shelves. It's rumored to show up later this year or early next year, but what's the point of releasing a toy so long after the release of the movie? Whether it's an issue with the lawyers of Mattel (who holds the Ferrari license), or General Motors (whose vehicles are the most prominent in the Transformers franchise), the makers of Transformers fumbled big time in terms of an opportunity to sell what will, if it EVER comes out, most likely be a very popular toy. Ferraris sell, in real life and in toy versions, which is why Mattel shelled out huge amounts of money to lock up the license to make Ferrari toys. If Paramount/Hasbro planned to make a Ferrari Transformer toy, they should have moved Heaven and Earth to do so in time for the film's release. That they didn't speaks very poorly of their marketing strategy.

In this economy it is perhaps understandable that people don't go the extra mile to make toys the way Kenner used to for Star Wars and the way a juggernaut like Mattel would for Cars, but as someone who appreciates toys, whether it's the actual craftsmanship or even just the cool packaging, I can't help but be disappointed by the lackadaisical attitude of some of the makers of today's movie-related toys; it's almost as if they just rush whatever they can shove onto shelves in time for the movie's release instead of taking the time and effort to make and market toys of Star Wars level quality. A shame, really.

Hey Catholic Church, Are We Really Gonna Do This Again?

2011-08-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, the Catholic Church railed against the evil known as the film adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. They called for a boycott by all the faithful of the film, which ended up grossing three quarters of a billion dollars at the global box-office despite almost uniformly bad reviews. In short, in spite of their exhortations, and quite possibly because of them, people went to see the movie, possibly because they wanted to see why so many people were kicking up such a fuss.

Nowadays, the local Catholic Church of the Philippines is again foaming at the mouth over somebody's art exhibit, which they claim is blasphemous. After somewhat heated protests and an act of vandalism by unidentified persons on the exhibit, its curator has agreed to close it down for security reasons.

I won't go into the whole debate on Freedom of Expression, which to my knowledge is being much more eloquently articulated elsewhere, but I will point out how ironic it is that to get the exhibit closed down the people against it, many of them dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, turned to Imelda Marcos, widow of Ferdinand Marcos, who needs no introduction to anyone familiar with Philippine history, and in particular the atrocities performed during the martial law years. It's ironic that it while the Catholic church helped remove the Marcoses from power because of their heinous and decidedly un-Christian treatment of the Filipino people, Catholic adherents (and, I think, even some priests) turned to Imelda for help regarding the perceived desecration of Christianity, like some kind of white knight. To those who think politics makes strange bedfellows, I give you this oddity.

It's even more ironic that while the early Christians, including most of Christ's twelve apostles, were martyred in some of the most spectacularly brutal ways imaginable (with one saint even being sawed in half while alive), members of today's Catholic Church is apparently in the business of creating martyrs by siccing ex-dictator's widows on people who make them angry.

The thing is, though, that by bullying the curators of the exhibit into shutting it down, as they once bullied the MTRCB to give The Da Vinci Code an "R" rating, the Church and the fundamentalists ranting beside them have done nothing but drum up publicity for a person who, based on what I've seen, is little more than a hack trying to get attention. The DVC has been described by some as a lousy movie based on a lousy book, but people who would otherwise have been completely indifferent to it ended up watching it because of all of the noise.

I have no love for people who use shock value to promote themselves or their work and this person is no exception, but I think the people that person offended went about handling their wounded feelings incorrectly; to put it another way, they fell for the bait, hook, line and sinker.

This artist, whom I will not name as I have no interest in promoting this person one way or another, is an individual of dubious talent who, thanks to strident protestations, is now a champion for all those who despise the church, and will live on in infamy or fame depending on one's inclinations. I'm pretty sure that outside of the people inclined to attend such exhibits, the average juan remained blissfully unaware of the existence of that person or exhibit until both were trumpeted in the media thanks to the Church.

Fortunately, in a country with very short-term memory this person will soon be forgotten, but had the usual gang just managed to keep their cool, perhaps there would be even less for people to remember.

This is not a victory for the fundamentalists and priests and whoever thinks they've struck a blow for their faith; it's a victory for shock value and the artists willing to have themselves figuratively martyred to get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight.

On Things Fragile and Eternal

2011-06-02T02:05:00.000-07:00

I am hardly what one would call a Neil Gaiman connoisseur. I don't think I've read any of the collections of Sandman comic books (graphic novel sounds consummately pretentious), and if I have I'm fairly sure I haven't read them all the way through; I think I've only read the second Death miniseries in its entirety, and I haven't read any of his novels.

I have read Stardust, and was disappointed to find out that it wasn't a comic book but rather a heavily-illustrated novel, and his only two works (so far) for Marvel Comics, the Marvel: 1602 hardcover, and his seven-issue Eternals miniseries, the latter of which I doggedly collected in individual issue format for nine months on account not only of Gaiman's intriguing writing but also on John Romita Jr.'s sterling artwork. I enjoyed Stardust but actually liked Matthew Vaughn's film adaptation nine years later even more. I liked 1602 for its novelty and decidedly different take on the Marvel Universe. Finally, I liked The Eternals too but found it seriously flawed, largely on account of the fact that from the very beginning it was designed to whet readers' appetites for the adventures of the Eternals set in the Marvel Universe more than it was to tell its own, complete story. Left to his own devices, Gaiman could have given so much more than he did, even though what he came up with was already quite formidable.

Now that I'm reading Fragile Things, though, I'm coming to see whole new side of Gaiman's work, one I barely glimpsed in the prose of Stardust, which has not only increased my already considerable respect for him as a writer but has whetted my appetite for more of his work. I won't give a blow-by-blow review of the short stories contained in the book, but I will say that I enjoy the voices Gaiman gives to his characters, and the worlds he takes me to, some of which may actually exist in my own. He's not much one for the "twist ending" though there are a few of them in the stories, particularly the ghost stories, but the charm is more in how he takes me to the point where he turns the tables on me, such that even if the twist may be predictable in the end, I've enjoyed myself so much that it doesn't matter.

Fragile Things is one of those rare things I've not had the pleasure of reading in a while; one of those books that I read sloooowly (and I'm a slow reader to begin with) because I'm in no hurry for my reading experience to end.

A Different World

2011-05-23T02:49:00.000-07:00

I'll be direct: I'm one of the millions of people who thinks Rebecca Black's Friday is complete and utter shit. Like the folks behind Glee, though I cannot deny that, for the moment at least, Black is now part of the global pop-culture landscape, all thanks to a little thing called youtube.

This little piece isn't really about Black: it's about how making so much of pop culture available for online viewing free of charge has really had game-changing effects. Justin Bieber was discovered thanks to youtube. A whole new generation of kids has discovered Michael Bolton thanks to his participation in Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow" single. Some films (the ones whose distributors have not yet managed to find and remove all copies of them from youtube), have found whole new audiences, as have songs and performances. Suddenly, to paraphrase Julia Roberts, anyone with a digital camera and internet access can be a cinematographer, and suddenly, getting noticed by people is no longer a matter who you know but a matter of what you know how to do, i.e. upload videos of yourself.

I find the possibilities endlessly interesting.

Patriotic Porsche

2011-05-19T23:33:00.001-07:00

Taken at the House of Representatives.

Wait...considering that Porsche is a German brand, maybe it isn't patriotic of it to pose next to the Philippine flag? Oh well...

(Maybe next time I'll try taking a pic at Malacanang)...

One More Post to Go...

2011-05-19T23:32:00.001-07:00

Random thought for this post: Spongebob Squarepants is the new Mickey Mouse.

Two More Posts to Go...

2011-05-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

Random thought for this post: I'm willing to bet that a great many of the people against the RH Bill haven't even read it, and granting that the same can be said of its proponents, I'm willing to bet that the number of anti-RH people who haven't read the bill is significantly greater than the number of pro-RH people who haven't read it.

Three More Posts to Go...

2011-05-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

Random thought for this post: the City of Manila deserves more trees and attempts to preserve its landmarks.

March to 300

2011-05-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

I am taking a few moments' break from writing legal pleadings; this post and the next four serve no other purpose than to make sure my blog gets up to 300 posts. My brain doesn't have the capacity for anything else right now.

One of the Stupidest Remakes Ever

2010-10-23T04:47:00.000-07:00

I grew up knowing very little about the 1984 film Red Dawn, other than the fact that it was an action film which starred Patrick Swayze. Lately, I learned that it's been remade by famed stunt director Dan Bradley (who worked on the last two Bourne movies, the last two Spider-Man movies, and the last Indiana Jones and James Bond movies) with star of the upcoming Thor adaptation, Aussie up-and-comer Chris Hemsworth, in the Swayze role. I still didn't know anything about the plot, though.

Thanks, however, to cracked.com, a site which I happened to "like" on Facebook (because it really is pretty darned funny) I now know its basic premise: it's about a bunch of high school kids who stage an armed resistance against a Soviet-led communist army which has successfully occupied the United States of America. In view of perestroika, a remake of this film set in the present day would obviously be ridiculous, but that has apparently not stopped studio execs over at the floundering MGM studios from trying, by replacing the USSR with, of all things, China. When I read that China would be the new heavy, I found myself flabbergasted and thinking "are they kidding me?"

In this day and age, where almost everything is made in China and where even people who have professed to live and die by Maoist principles are criticizing China's capitalist tendencies, picking a fight with China by making a movie about their invasion of the United States of America is profoundly stupid. What compounds this is that this film comes barely two years after the United States had just about the most hated man in the world as its president. I mean, Marvel studios was afraid to give the title "Captain America," to the film adaptation of the superhero comic of the same name because the image of the United States the world over is downright awful. This doesn't strike me as the same impulse that prompted the remake of The Karate Kid, which, after all, was set in China. Sure, it's about riding high on love for the 80s, but I'm thinking it's a different kind of love.

This strikes me as an effort by the suits at MGM to revisit a simpler time, when communists were evil and the American way was, well the way. Part of me imagines that this film may have been done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but the rest of me really doesn't think this film is worth writing an overly long-winded blog post about, so I'll stop here, but in this day and age it astounds me that someone would be idiotic enough to pick a fight with the Chinese.

Well Kudos to Facebook, But What Does This Mean?

2010-10-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

I have yet to see The Social Network, though I've read a number of the glowing reviews and have found myself impressed by the trailer. In short, I certainly want to see it.

What makes this compelling to write about, for me anyway, is that while the internet has, in the strictest sense, literally been around for forty years, the social networking phenomenon in any form remotely recognizable as related to what we have now has only been around for the last ten or fifteen years at the very most. I didn't think we'd have a movie about it, at least not a biographical one, quite so soon.

It figures Facebook would be the one to make the big leap first. As an FB user, I think everything that came before it basically just pales in comparison in terms of sheer user-friendliness. That may be a good or a bad thing, but the point is that whereas Friendster, Myspace, Multiply or even the lesser known sites like Tubely seemed to have reached their limit in terms of public interest, with Friendster (which seems to have been mainly a hit in the Philippines) having peaked a few years back and with Myspace having been effectively supplanted by FB as the "in" social network among Americans, FB just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. And it's the only network that's had a movie made about it.

No wonder a lot of sites tie up with FB, even Twitter which I really don't care much for; it's kind of a matter of survival, I would think. Facebook, and social networking in general, has been effectively woven into the social fabric.

Now, this has gotten me thinking.

I can't help but wonder: with so much of our lives online, from our journals to our picture albums, what happens if the whole thing, one day, just up and crashes? I mean it's so much more convenient to chuck our pictures into cyberspace than actually stock up on photo albums, and to type down our thoughts (like I'm doing right now) than to actually write stuff down in a journal. Books, comic books, music albums are all available online for download into our handheld appliances, many of which have set expiry dates.

I've been telling my wife for years that we have to start putting our pictures into albums. Back when we first got married, we used to do just that, but since we got started on digital pictures, it's all been about saving stuff onto a CD or onto a hard drive. Considering we've had our hard-drives reformatted more than once, that's a kind of risky proposition, really. I'm talking about really wonderful memories here, like our family's trip to Bohol and Cebu three years ago. Sure, photoalbums can get lost in fire and flood, but to my digital storage media is a lot more fickle because God only knows how long photobucket will be around or what virus could take gmail out.

There's something more, though, and it's not about being resistant to technology. There's a warmth, dare I say it, to sitting with one's family around an old album, as opposed to just admiring something on a screen and clicking "like." It's great for sharing these precious recollections with people one cannot see everyday, but when a family such as mine doesn't have any pictures more recent than 2004, the time to start investing in some photo albums has definitely come.

Thanks for Nothing Blogger.com

2010-07-01T02:14:00.000-07:00

I've been maintaining this site since around 2004 and have nearly 300 posts to my name, not counting the ones I've deleted for one reason or another, and I've decided after months and months of posts that received no comments and probably minimal viewing that I'm simply not going to contribute to this blog anymore.

I can live with people ignoring this blog because that's just the way of things, but the fact that for every new post I've been putting up for the past several months I get visited at least twice by a Chinese spammer offering me either porn or a personal ads just goes to show how little regard you have for your subscribers. Sure, this is a free service but does that really mean we are entitled to next to no respect?

Anyway, I'm taking my blog posts over to multiply, where people actually read and comment on them, and where I don't experience spam because their filters actually work.

Thanks for nothing assholes.

Hey rottentomatoes.com, Make ME One of Your Critics!

2010-06-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

It had not dawned on me how low the bar to admission as one of the critics of rottentomatoes.com had been set until I happened upon one of the so-called "reviewers" of Toy Story 3 who saddled it with a negative review and therefore being one of only three reviewers to have done so out of over one hundred and sixty. The negative review I read was pedantic, pretentious and downright pompous. The writer seemed intoxicated on some misplaced sense of self-importance.

The thing is, I don't even blame him; I blame rottentomatoes.com for giving him his fifteen minutes of infamy.

In fact, I noticed something in reading the reviews posted on rottentomatoes.com that quite honestly annoyed me more than any self-dubbed critic ever could: the site apparently cherry-picked negative reviews of Toy Story 3 and planted them right in the middle of the film's otherwise perfect score to generate outrage and therefore traffic. How do I know this? One of the three reviewers whose negative reviews was cited, infamous "contrarian" Armond White, whom I wrote about previously and who was probably sharpening his knives for Toy Story 3 the day he found out it was being made, wrote a scathingly negative review about Shrek Forever After which for reasons I do not understand never made it onto the film's "tomatometer" over on RT. I've gone over it twice (during my free time, of course), and White's negative review simply does not register. For the record, the Shrek sequel registers a 53% score on the site (rotten), while the Pixar sequel is quite lofty with 98%. White's review would not have registered at all over on the fourth Shrek film, which nearly half of the reviewers polled hated anyway, but because it had the shocking effect of being the first review to spoil Toy Story 3's heretofore perfect score it made more sense to throw it into the mix. The comment count on White's TS3 review is at something like 750+ and climbing. Ironically, the same people clamoring for White to get fired keep on taking the bait again and again, which is why rottentomatoes is so ready to lay it out; in the case of Shrek 4 it would have been meaningless so they never included White's bad review.

With TS3, however, they clearly they saw the opportunity to stir up the usual gang of idiots. It strikes me that RT sought even more opportunity to generate traffic by including the rare negative reviews on their site, so they dug up some blogger whom they probably otherwise wouldn't give the time of day and slapped his review there, which is now generating traffic as well.

Now, people are free to log onto or avoid RT altogether, but what's sad about this charade is that the reason why RT rose to prominence in the first place was that it afforded people the chance to know what reviewers...serious, HONEST reviewers and not attention whores, think about movies. It's supposed to be a MOVIE LOVERS site, and while that certainly does not mean they will only post positive reviews, it should mean that they will post reviews from writers who are more or less sincere in their liking or disliking of films, not people who post purely for the attention they generate. Whatever they started out as, they've devolved into something else, something...less.

Hey rottentomatoes! Toy Story 3 was a putrid film! Make ME one of your critics!

Wow, That's a Lot of Venom Intended for a Little Kid...

2010-06-13T03:21:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the remake of The Karate Kid. For all its flaws (starting with the embarrassingly inappropriate title as it was set in China and the kid in question learned Wushu, not Karate), it was very engaging, with some beautiful scenery, great, albeit bone-crunching action, and a surprisingly moving, tender friendship between leads Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith as teacher Han and student Dre, respectively.

I totally get the vitriol that the fan community has spewed regarding this movie; Hollywood's addiction to remakes and sequels is truly irritating, and had I not enjoyed this movie I would be joining the bandwagon against this and other remakes.

What has honestly taken me by surprise is how many people wish so much ill on its star, Smith, who's basically just eleven years old. Granted, people feel that as the son of Hollywood megastar Will Smith, he's getting breaks that other kids might not necessarily get, and granted that both his parents are the driving force behind this remake, but here's the thing: I'm not sure he deserves all the hate.

Well, he may not be a great actor, but he certainly isn't a bad one, at least not in my opinion, or the opinion of the majority of the critics polled on rottentomatoes.com and metacritic.com, or the opinion of a whole lot of people who went to the movies last weekend who spent something like $60 million dollars worth of their money to see this film. In fact, he carries the film, all two and a nearly-a-half hours of it, on his shoulders which is no mean feat for any actor, let alone someone who has yet to hit puberty. The feat becomes doubly impressive when one considers that this isn't a kid who's surrounded by an orgy of CGI or who is doubling with his twin to help the producers dodge child labor laws. In short, whatever break his parents have given him, Smith has made the most out of it by acting his little heart out, and by busting his ass to learn some serious Kung Fu chops.

There are a lot of famous people out there who benefited more than just a little from their parents' celebrity. Folks like Angelina Jolie, Angelica Huston, Nicolas Cage and Jason Reitman to name the few that come to mind all managed to get a leg up on the industry that they may or may not have gotten had they not been related to revered filmmakers or performers. Sure, Cage may have adopted the name of a comic book character to hide his true surname Coppola and thereby dispel any doubts that he made it in Hollywood based on merit, but there's no denying it helped him. What was important about all of these people was that they took the ball that was handed to them and ran with it. One has them on the one hand and folks like eternal-supporting-actor Colin Hanks and Sofia Coppola on the other, the latter of whom stumbled when given the opportunity to act in The Godfather Part III, though she eventually found her calling behind the camera. I'm fairly certain that on the acting front, Smith is no Sofia Coppola.

"Nepotism" isn't particularly new, even in Hollywood, but at least this kid is using the opportunity to its fullest. And besides, this film only cost about $40 million, which by today's standards is a song, and it's not as though they're tapping him to be the next Spider-Man or anchor some billion-dollar franchise. And ultimately, it's not as if they didn't make him work his ass off to be able to do the things he does in this film. Unlike Jack Black, who probably ate a box of Twinkies or something between recording sessions of Kung Fu Panda, judging by his current appearance, it's plain to see how hard Smith worked to pick up the skills necessary for this role; it's written all over his wiry little frame.

Count me, therefore, as one of those throwing their support behind Smith as a star of tomorrow. Fanboys can stew in as much hatred and concoct as many Scientology/Nepotism theories as they want, and if the rest of the world is lucky The Karate Kid will make over $200 million at the US box-office and cause those same fanboys' heads to explode from trying to figure out how Will Smith and Jada Pinkett managed to hypnotize that many people into watching their son's movie.

Ambivalence...

2010-06-04T03:03:00.001-07:00

At the risk of getting more Chinese porn spam on my blog I have to weigh in on a recent spate of disappointments I, and quite possibly a lot of other fans of Marvel properties being turned into feature films have endured.

Iron Man 2, while a respectable enough movie, simply did not set off any of the fireworks that the first one did. It had more effects shots, more bad guys and more money thrown at it, but it simply did not up the "wow" factor the way that sequels like Spider-Man 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and (grumble) The Dark Knight did. I blame primarily the writer, Justin Theroux for a script that would at several moments and with a couple of tweaks have been better-suited to some raunchy R-rated comedy than a follow-up to a movie that TIME Magazine's Richard Corliss named as one of the 10 best of 2008, but film being a collaborative medium, in the end a lot more people involved, from director Jon Favreau to the actors deserve one form of blame or another.

Of course, the failure of this film to live up to the promise of the original is hardly the end of the world, even for Marvel movies, but I'm not entirely sure about how I feel about where they may be headed in the next couple of years. Some of the developments that have been reported about them have been encouraging, while others...not so much.

For one thing, I definitely like the choice of Joe Johnston as director of the Captain America movie, whatever other people may have had to say about it. Had Disney and Industrial Light and Magic not dropped the ball on the special effects shots of The Rocketeer, it would remain an eminently watchable and re-watchable superhero/comic book film, and for all its flaws, he can definitely take credit for everything that went right.

Also, while I'm still anxious to know about how the planned Avengers movie will come together, the virtually official involvement of Joss Whedon in the project is good news to me. Admittedly,I would much prefer to know he's writing it rather than directing it, but it is definitely a plus, especially since I know Marvel are talking to the right people, like The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner for a possible turn as Hawkeye.

I'm even fairly pleased about the look they've given Captain America, which is basically Bryan Hitch's Ultimates costume given a few tweaks here and there, though I feel it's a tad too modern-looking. The concept art they've released may or may not be the final look for the character, but though I may have my reservations I think they've pretty much gotten it down pat visually.

Unfortunately, when concept art for Thor surfaced shortly after the Cap concept was shown, I felt my stomach turn, especially after the promise that the initial teaser shot held.

When Marvel announced that Kenneth Branagh would be directing the film, I was 100% behind because the whole gambit had this it-just-seems-so-crazy-it-might-actually work vibe to it. I believe I wrote that this film would either be a huge hit or a colossal flop, or something like that, and after seeing that dreadful computer generated image of Chris Hemsworth in the one of the worst comic book costumes adaptation I've ever seen, even counting the nipple-toting batsuit, I can't help but feel like it's the latter.

It kind of stinks that for all the positive developments that seem to be surrounding Marvel's plan, the two disappointing ones, like Iron Man 2's fizzling out, and the awful Thor images, are those that really stood out for me. Maybe I am being overly negative here.

I would be happy for Marvel Films to prove me wrong.

A Curse on All You Perverts and Maniacs

2010-05-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

I've had to tweak my facebook and multiply pages on account of concerns on who can see my posts and pictures, and upon remembering that I've posted some pics here as well I've been constrained to remove them, considering that a blog is pretty much open to anyone. I loved sharing those pictures, but because of all the sick, predatory bastards out there I've had to pull them out. Too bad, really...

On Russell Crowe's Impending Return to Badassery

2010-05-03T05:07:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever saw Russell Crowe as a badass was in the 1995 film "Virtuosity" in which he appeared for the first time onscreen opposite Denzel Washington (with whom he would work again many years later on "American Gangster"). He was absolutely feral as a virtual supercriminal created from the personalities of several other dead criminals. That same year, he appeared as another badass, a gunslinger opposite Sharon Stone in "The Quick and the Dead." Apparently, neither of these roles set the multiplexes on fire, nor did Crowe's Oscar-nominated turn as tobacco-industry whistleblower Jeff Wigand in Michael Mann's film "The Insider."

It was only when he played the Roman general turned slave Maximus in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" that audiences really took notice of him. It's really hard to say what it was that made the difference between box-office chump and box-office champ, but from my layman's perspective it would appear that there was something about the gritty, real-life texture of the film, combined with Crowe's everyman-like portrayal as opposed to his highly-stylized characterizations in "Virtuosity" and "The Quick and the Dead" that made him appealing in a way he had not previously been. So appealing, in fact, that apart from the box-office and accolades, he even picked up an Oscar for Best Actor. It couldn't have gotten any better, really.

Crowe rode the success of that film and was able to wow audiences with his versatility by playing the complete antithesis of Maximus in Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" where he played a man with schizophrenia. Not long thereafter he starred in what was arguably a thinking man's action movie, namely "Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World," but despite that movie's astonishing production value and glowing reception by critics, it fell well-short of blockbuster status, finishing its American theatrical run with just short of $100 million in grosses, as against a reportedly $150 million budget (though it did better in the rest of the world).

And then, of course, came the hotel-clerk debacle which saw Crowe smack a hotel desk clerk with, if I understand the reports correctly, a telephone. Nobody likes a bully, especially one who plays an underdog, and as a result Crowe's and Howards' "Cinderella Man," their second collaboration after the Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind" tanked at the box-office.

I honestly think it can be argued that Crowe hasn't fully recovered from that; his long awaited reunion with Ridley Scott, the 2006 romantic comedy "A Good Year" bombed resoundingly at the box-office, while his 2008 collaboration with Scott and hit-or-miss box-office proposition Leonardo di Caprio "Body of Lies" suffered the same fate as all of the other movies thus far released dealing with the current conflict in the Middle East:it flopped. Crowe's last film, 2009's "State of Play" was similarly ignored. 2008's "3:10 to Yuma" was only a moderate success, even though it co-starred white-hot "The Dark Knight" star Christian Bale, so I really wondered where Crowe's box-office appeal had gone.

The reasonable success of 2007's "American Gangster," Crowe's last movie to make over $100 million, (still the standard of a mainstream film's commercial success) can, I feel, be attributed as much to co-star Denzel Washington's participation as much as to Crowe's. While Mr. Washington has not has quite the headline-grabbing success of Mr. Crowe, his box-office returns over the last several years have been a lot steadier and more consistent. Over at box-officemojo.com, where they actually average the grosses of the films in which a particular personality (actor, director, producer, etc.) is involved, Washington, despite the fact that none of his films have grossed the returns of Crowe's highest grossers, still edges Crowe in terms of average gross by about three million dollars. This arguably shows that more people attend his movies regularly. Haha, yes, I actually follow these things.

Anyway, when the first promotional still for "Robin Hood" came out with Russell Crowe basically looking like Maximus dressed like Robin Hood, I was a little confused. Having seen Crowe with long hair, and having seen Scott direct "Kingdom of Heaven" a medieval epic starring Orlando Bloom who wore long hair, I would have thought they'd go for a look more befitting the period, i.e. long, scruffy hair for one.

When I saw the first trailers of "Robin Hood" though, and the "from the director of Gladiator" blurb, I understood perfectly what the entire crew was going for: to bring back Maximus, pure and simple. It's a semi-well-known fact that Scott and Crowe had previously tried to move Heaven and Earth to make a sequel to "Gladiator." This obviously wasn't going to be a very easy proposition given that Maximus dies at the end of the movie (and anyone who yells "spoiler" over a ten-year old, very popular movie that won a Best Picture Oscar can go suck an egg). Considering that plans for that fell through, it makes sense to take the sensibilities that would have gone into that sequel and inject it into this film. Everyone stands to benefit, especially Crowe, who never enjoyed quite as much success as he did playing Maximus.

Will it work? Well, it labors under the dreaded "second Friday of May" curse which hobbled a lot of movies just after the launch of the U.S. summer movie season, with expensive flops like "Speed Racer," "Battlefield Earth," and "Poseidon" all having been released on those dates. Not only that, but this film has to follow "Iron Man 2," which, it is projected, could have one of the biggest if not THE biggest opening weekend of all time. However, Universal and company can take solace from knowing that last year's "Star Trek" immediately followed the splashy opening weekend of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and went on to ultimately outgross it. I don't think that'll quite happen here as "Iron Man 2," unlike the mutant prequel, is actually a pretty good movie but maybe the market place can expand, as it did last year, to accommodate two blockbusters within such close proximity.

All box-office prognostications aside, I really hope the film does well because I, for one, genuinely miss Russell Crowe the badass. I hope Scott, et al don't actually kill off Robin Hood at the end of the film so we don't have to wait so long to see the badass again.

Why I Understand Nicolas Cage

2010-04-21T03:10:00.000-07:00

Having seen a movie starring Nicolas Cage recently ("Kick Ass"), as well as previews for at least one more big-budget action movie he'll be starring in later this year, ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), I've found myself thinking not so much about his career as about his apparent inability to manage his considerable financial resources. Not being much of a financial wizard myself I certainly wouldn't presume, here or elsewhere to advise Mr. Cage on how to handle his money, but even though he probably makes, per big-budget movie, more money than I will make or even need in my lifetime, I honestly believe that I can relate to the impulse that has possessed him to buy far more property than he was, per recent events, able to manage.

It hits me that no matter how much money someone has, there is no end to the cool stuff one can buy with it. Like I said in my "window shopping" post recently there is so much gratification to be had from just walking into a store and taking in the glorious sight of all of those products, whether they're clothes, books, toys, appliances, home furnishings, or anything else consumers can think of to spend their money on that sometimes it can even surpass the satisfaction of actually buying something, especially when one knows that one cannot possibly buy everything in sight. Now, I imagine it would be a complete game-changer, as it were, to all of a sudden have the money to afford everything in sight; the possibilities are staggering.

I'm not saying that it isn't altogether irresponsible to blow enough money to feed a third world country on worldly possessions, because God knows it is, but putting myself in Nicolas Cage's shoes and envisioning myself with all that money I started imagining all the things I could buy with it, if I really wanted to buy stuff. I mean, if, for example, I treated real supercars like I do the toy cars I collect, then quite possibly not even millions of dollars would be enough, especially coupled with lots of world travel and investments in, of all things, castles. In the right hands (so to speak), even a hundred million dollars wouldn't go very far. After all, with real estate taxes, things like castles continue to drain resources long after the purchase price has been spent.

Now, honestly, I don't think I'd need to buy all of the things that Cage reportedly has, but I wouldn't feel right judging him as I know what kind of impulses motivate people who collect things. Anyway, I'm still giving him my money for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and the inevitable "National Treasure 3" because no matter how much people bash him I generally find his onscreen performances entertaining, but I sure hope that at some point he overcomes his insatiable urge before his star fades so that, if nothing else, he doesn't see out the remainder of his career making direct-to-DVD garbage for a paycheck.

Contrived Controversy

2010-04-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is going to sound weird; though I genuinely enjoyed the movie "Kick-Ass" to an extent, I took an equally genuine amount of satisfaction when I learned that it failed to set the American box-office on fire last weekend. It made me feel smug about how little the opinion of internet fanboys means in the real world, as it were. As much as I liked the movie (and I didn't like it THAT much, I'd like to emphasize), I never got behind any of the vitriolic comments posted by internet fanboys over at rottentomatoes.com decrying almost any and every negative review posted about the film, even the well-thought out ones that didn't harp on morality issues. Essentially, that particular site was governed by a cadre of "nerd police" ready to defend their beloved film tooth and nail against anyone who had anything bad to say about it. Well the film's box-office, while respectable, fell well-short of industry expectations, putting into emphasis the simple fact that, internet fanboys' belief to the contrary, they are NOT a significant demographic. If the box-office failure of "The Grindhouse" and "Snakes on a Plane" left any questions as to this issue, the tepid returns of "Kick-Ass" should have answered them.

What made me even more smug, however, was that apparently a great number of people refused to be baited by writer Mark Millar's deliberate and heavy-handed attempt to court controversy by creating an 11-year-old mass murdering vigilante named Hit Girl. People didn't turn out in droves like they did for "The Passion of the Christ" or "The Da Vinci Code" to see why the Jews or the Catholics or the self-appointed guardians of morality were throwing tantrums about the film. Nobody picketed the theaters (or at least, nobody who caught the eye of any national media outlet) claiming child abuse or anything like that. Yet, when he was being interviewed about the comic book about two or three years ago, I rather got the impression that this was the effect Millar was gunning for; he was out to push the boundaries of taboo, and essentially to see how people would react to Hit Girl, not because he particularly wanted to address any urgent social issues, but just for the simple sake of offending people. While reading one such interview I could practically see him (in my mind's eye) gleefully rubbing his hands at how the conservatives would get their panties in a twist over his work. Some of them have, but not nearly enough to generate even a fraction of the furor that accompanied "The Passion" and "The Da Vinci Code" and not enough to put a record-breaking number of fannies in the seats, so at least he isn't quite laughing all the way to the bank the way he might have hoped.

People who do things just for the sake of controversy are truly irritating. I can think of a number of people in the local entertainment industry who have managed to get press time long after their stars had faded by saying or doing something calculated to get them in trouble, because without it they lose all relevance. What disappoints me about Millar is that he is a truly talented writer who is capable of getting people's attention on merit rather than on the strength of cheap stunts; his run on "Ultimates" at the beginning of the millenium is regarded by many as a modern classic, and for my part I absolutely loved his twelve-issue run on Spider-Man about five years ago. Sure, he's often had a gimmick, including writing about the Antichrist in "Chosen," but he's sold more than a fair share of books through good, compelling writing.

People who resort to controversy to generate attention in this society are inevitable, but it saddens me when people who don't necessarily need the controversy desperately court it to stay in the spotlight.

All I can say to the people who refused to be baited by the blatant attempts to generate controversy by the makers of "Kick-Ass" is this; good job. This film should stand or fall on its own merits, not because Mark Millar is able to generate outrage with an 11-year-old, female version of the Punisher.

On (Window) Shopping

2010-04-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Even though I don't go to malls nearly as much as I used to, I still understand the allure of the mall. While the air-conditioned comfort is a no-brainer, I love walking among the books, magazines, comics, restaurants, DVDs, games and toys, even if about five times out of six, I don't buy anything at all.

Since my late adolescence I've come to look at shopping malls a source of comfort, a place where I can get away from the difficulties of life, which came into sharper relief when I was on my own and supporting a family.

I take some solace knowing that I still find more comfort sitting in empty or relatively quiet churches, and sometimes, in my office, after a long day's work, than I do walking around a mall looking at items I usually can't afford, but the urge to walk around malls and window shop incessantly still exists. I mean, I don't think I've ever bought anything at Bonifacio High Street, but I still go there, pay the 35 peso parking fee, and walk up and down, alternating between Fully Booked, Hobbes and Landes and Maxitoys, just staring at all the stuff, whether they be books, magazines, resin sculptures of pop culture figures like the Lord of the Rings characters or Spider-Man, or astronomically priced 1/18 and 1/43 model cars.

It's hardly a religious experience, nor is it exactly the same thing as standing in an art gallery or museum (though it's closer to that than to standing in a church), but there is a gratification in being able to just stand in a nice, cold room surrounded by a bunch of beautiful products, whether or not I ever actually buy them.

In fact, as bizarre as this may sound, sometimes there is a gratification in not ever even buying these things, because these stores in which I browse these items, with their air-conditioning, lighting and comfortably upholstered furniture (in some cases) are like refuges from the trials and tribulations of the outside world. It's not quite the sanctuary that home (or an empty church) is, but there is something comforting about standing in one, and seeing the cars lined up in their shelves. I have no such shelves and my cars are stacked up in boxes. When I want to admire or photograph them for my galleries I have to take them out and painstakingly unpack them, in some cases even having to unscrew them from plastic bases. Even if I had shelves to keep or display them in I'd have concerns such as dusting them or keeping them at cool temperatures so that their rubber tires would not melt and stick to the surfaces on which they are displayed. In the store, there is no such concern as the stock is, during the hottest times of the day, stored in full-airconditioning and yet remains on glorious display. To remove them from these safe havens (even assuming I were willing to pay the exorbitant prices charged by Hobbes and Landes) and expose them to the dust and elements that I mentioned earlier is not a prospect I relish in the least. Of course, there are a number of cars I dearly want to take home and in a few instances I do (albeit from the much cheaper Greenhills merchants) but the times I don't buy anything far outstrip the times I actually plunk down the money for a new haul.

Window-shopping remains, for the most part, a preferable alternative to actual shopping, no matter how much money I have in my bank account. I may go home most of the time without anything, but at least it means I have one less new item to worry about storing, cleaning, or in general just maintaining somehow. And of course, I still have money in my wallet.

On High Horses

2010-04-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

A healthy chunk of the criticism levelled at the movie "Kick-Ass" zeroes in on what most writers describe as its morality, or lack thereof, with the specific focus of that ire being the foul-mouthed, murderous 11-year-old named Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz. I will not contest that there is something off about the concept, and in fact I was initially put off from watching the movie precisely because of it. I mean, I have a four-year-old girl and the thought of casting a little girl in that role seemed revolting to me.

The thing about art, whether in literature, music or film, is that sometimes, in my opinion, it has to challenge our perception of what is good and proper, whether the end result is an affirmation of one's belief or a reexamination of them. I was genuinely curious about the film and ultimately decided that if I wanted to knock it, I would have to try it first. So basically, I walked in half-expecting to hate it, despite my efforts to suppress all expectations or preconceived notions.

Ultimately, however, I couldn't. I enjoyed myself too much, even though the movie definitely had its flaws. It be self-indulgent and it often engages in one too many nudge-nudge, wink-wink moments to fans of superheroes, but director Matthew Vaughn, whose "Stardust" adaptation I enjoyed three years ago, really seems to know how to tell a story. Sure, Hit Girl is a big part of that story and yes the violence is pretty disturbing, but to judge the film solely on the "morality" of the film while overlooking breakthrough performances by Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz and a fantastic return to form for Nicolas Cage is to allow one's own preconceived notions to curtail one's ability to appreciate an attempt at art on its own complete terms.

I think morality and art appreciation can be compatible, but I think it's important not to mix the two. The craft of a movie boils down to how it tells its story; the effectiveness of the script, actors, directors, visual effects, lighting, sound design, etc. (and in the case of a film like "Kick-Ass," its comic timing). It's why films like "The Birth of a Nation," and "Lolita" have remained in the public consciousness despite the former promoting one of the worst possible evils and the latter touching upon a relationship that, even today, would be not only taboo but grounds for imprisonment. It's morals are something else, and can be varying degrees of good or bad. The important thing, I think, is not to appreciate a film solely based on its morals or perceived lack thereof; for better or worse, these films are kind of like cultural touchstones, like clothes or music; they can tell future generations what past society is like. I'm not saying "Kick-Ass" does that, but by writing it off solely on moral grounds, one risks missing the bigger picture.

Not only that, but by insisting on moralizing about a film, like the Catholic Church did with "The Da Vinci Code" one ends up generating a whole lot of attention the film may or may not have received without all the pontificating. For example, the fact that the DVC sequel, "Angels and Demons" was, relative to its predecessor, a box office failure, offers some testimony to the mileage the original film got out of all its negative publicity. It could well go down in history as one of the films that really spooked the Catholic Church. Without all the hoopla, given the bad reviews and people who didn't come back for the apparent sequel (which did not contain any Catholic Church-bashing), it may have just gone down as yet another murder-mystery-suspense film, end of story. I suppose the reasonable conclusion here is: the higher up one gets on a horse, the farther the fall.

Some outdoor shots

2010-04-06T03:11:00.000-07:00

With this new digital camera, I now have increased confidence in my ability to create some pretty spectacular automotive illusions. Allow me to demonstrate...

Maybe writer's block isn't so bad...it's allowed me to discover a whole new side to myself...

On Writer's Block and Chinese Spam (And I'm Not Talking About the Canned Food)

2010-04-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

I've been writing a little something for myself since last year; it's a book I hope to be able to have published when it's done, or failing that, which I am able to self-publish. It's a fiction book; writing law textbooks, despite my profession, somehow holds very little allure for me.

Lately, though, I've hit a bit of an impasse. I've always known it was hard to write when one has a lot on one's mind, but when I finally got back to work on my little novel over the Holy Week what took me aback was exactly how much time I'd been away from it. According to the time stamp I had last written there on the 28th of January, or over two months before I got going again.

I thought to myself; I couldn't possibly have been working that whole time, so what exactly have I been up to?

I got my answer when I went over my various blog posts, film reviews, and discussion threads over at my toy car collector forum. Long story short, not very much and a whole lot at the same time.

I guess it's easier to work around writer's block or write without any real inspiration when one is basically writing off the top of one's head, as one tends to do for stuff like blogs and online fora (though I recognize that there are much more serious bloggers out there who put a great deal of thought into their online musings); sometimes it feels easier for me to sustain quick bursts of creative energy than to go through the agonizing process of structuring a narrative. This was clear to me when I read the book I've written so far and saw that some of it was pretty engaging and some of it kind of just blundered along. My up and down days affect my ability to write a longer piece of work, unlike a quickie blog post, which is either great or awful reading all by itself.

One downside of blogs like this one and multiply is that people I don't know from Adam sometimes post all kinds of garbage. The latest batch I'm getting is a bunch of Chinese spam which, thanks to the google translator, I have determined is an advert for some porn. Good grief.

My Generation's Turn to Be Remade

2010-04-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

One of the touchstones of my youth was listening to remakes of twenty-year-old songs, hearing my mother say "the original sounded better," and refusing to believe her. That was the eighties, and the songs being remade were either sixties' era songs or older.

As early as 1998, I should have seen that it would soon be the eighties' turn to get the remake treatment, when a mullet-wigged Adam Sandler starting poking fun at the era (in which he had clearly grown up) in his film, The Wedding Singer, which was set in 1985.

Twelve years after the Sandler movie, when everything from even the last year of the eighties is officially over twenty years old (and where the people born in 1980 are now turning 30), apparently people sitting up in Hollywood feel that the era is now officially ripe for the remaking. It's been in the works for some years, with such popular 80's properties as Transformers getting the big screen treatment and making a mint, but in 2010 the floodgates seem to have burst open, with everything from toys, TV shows and old B-movies getting either an adaptation, remake or sequel. Heck, even the Disney movie Tron, which bombed when it was first released in 1982 but which has generated a cult following since, will be followed up by Tron: Legacy, a sequel literally 27 years in the making.

To make a brief rundown of the films and properties getting the remake treatment, here are a few I've seen advertised over the last few months in no particular order: Clash of the Titans (based on the 1981 film), The A-Team (based on the popular TV series), The Karate Kid (based on the 1980s film series) and Poltergeist (based on the 1980 film). I remember watching the original Clash of the Titans.

Now, I have no intention of decrying the remake in general and bewailing the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood. That's just as tired and old as the people claim the remakes to be. Some of the films I truly liked have been remakes, including the Lord of the Rings films (there was a prior attempt to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien's saga back in the 1980s by adult-animation meister Ralph Bakshi)and Andrew Davis' 1993 film The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm not complaining, nor am I particularly happy to see it happening.

I just find it, well, in a word, funny to think that this day has come. So many of the things I enjoyed as a kid are so old they're getting made over with rock music and CGI. Boy this feels weird...

On Coming Out and Career Revival Attempts

2010-03-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote about some out-of-work screenwriter trying to grab (or re-grab) his 15 minutes of fame by writing a non-apology for his role in bringing the cinematic debacle Battlefield Earth to the big screen (basically saying "it's not the movie I wrote!"). It was such an oddity I had to give my two cents on it, and it was in many parts an entertaining read.

Now, official has-been pop star Ricky Martin has just come out of the closet. To the uninitiated, that means he's announced that he's gay. The funny thing about it is, the general public kind of saw the writing on the wall a few years ago when Martin sired twins by a surrogate mom (i.e. "you're marketed the world over as a Latin sexpot, and yet you have to get a SURROGATE to carry your kids instead of placing them in a woman the old-fashioned way, which is what arguably millions upon millions of women would absolutely love for you to do? WTF?"), and several people who were even keener (e.g. Barbara Walters) saw it a lot earlier than that. So, frankly it's about as "newsy" as George Michael's coming out. Or Elton John's.

So why do it at all? Well, I haven't really been following the music scene a whole lot for the last several years, but it strikes me that this guy hasn't had a whole lot of hits since his first English language album was released over ten years ago. Maybe in the post-Adam-Lambert-coming-out climate Martin felt that the market would be more receptive to gay singers than they would to aging Latin pop stars. Apart from the fact that I'm pretty sure Lambert is a better singer than Martin is, the thing about Lambert is that he has work that is currently on the radar. Martin, outside of his usual Latin audience, has apparently fallen well below it. Had he outed himself at the zenith of his career or even after selling a moderately successful album I believe the applause at his candor would have been a lot louder, but now he's only a few notches, if at all, above the aforementioned Battlefield Earth screenwriter. Maybe he'll come up with a follow-up revelation that he isn't really gay once it emerges that no noticeable bump in the sales of his albums has occurred.

Scriptwriters deserve to get work based on their skill and musicians deserve to sell albums that provide a great listening experience; this promotion-by-controversy/ shocking revelation business is quite honestly depressing. I couldn't give two shits if Freddy Mercury slept with men ; he was a rock god. Neither do I care if Adam Lambert is gay; the man has a great voice and he isn't shy to use it. But as much controversy as they courted, at least they let their music do the talking the loudest.

Well, Martin doesn't appear to be getting a whole lot of Yahoo! hits so maybe people aren't quite the suckers I'd figured them to be.

An Open Letter to Google Ads

2010-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Google,

I confess I don't really understand how your ad placement system works, but it strikes me that right now, it's not working very wqell.

After Manny Villar started polluting my blogspace (and just about every other space on the internet) I went to AdSense and clicked my preferences; I made it clear that I DON'T want political ads on my blog. It strikes me that I was ignored; the ads continued, and it strikes me that the only reason they even stopped is that Villar must have used up his "Net" time the same way he has come close to using up his TV air time. One reason I'm sure that this is the case is that Villar has since been replaced by another senatorial candidate, this time one of those mass-murderers from the era of martial law who has managed to perpetuate himself in the political system by jumping allegiance time and time again just like every other worm in elected office and who would now seek to do so with your help.

How archaic is your filtration system that you can't even detect a simple political campaign ad for what it is? What kind of money have the candidates dropped into your bank accounts that you can summarily ignore your subscribers' emphatic pleas to be free of politics in their blogs, which for people like me are often a haven from the trials and tribulations of daily life?

Please, if my recalibrating my preferences didn't say it clearly enough, please TAKE ALL THESE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ADS OFF MY BLOG!

Sincerely,

This Irate Blogger

If You're Going to Own Up, then Own Up, for God's Sake...

2010-03-28T22:30:00.001-07:00

A curious bit of entertainment-related news popped up today: there's a story in the New York Post which is described as an apology by J. D. Shapiro, one of the screenwriters of the 2000 film Battlefield Earth for...well, the movie itself, though one presumes he only referred to his role in getting it made. It must have been a major role, as he received an "award" in the form of a Golden Raspberry, also known as a "Razzie" for his work on what has been voted as the worst movie of the decade (the 2000s). Shapiro received the award personally, and while in the case of people like Sandra Bullock and Halle Berry one can say they're simply being good sports, in Shapiro's case it would appear that he showed up because at the time he had nothing better to do.

His apparent unemployment aside, the piece is an entertaining read at first, in which Shapiro starts out by confessing that he only ever got involved with Battlefield Earth author L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology, and subsequently with the production of the film, because he wanted to get laid. There are a good number of chuckle-inducing passages on the way, and in some instances I even found myself laughing out loud.

Then, maybe about midway through the piece, the tone changes as Shapiro goes from blaming his dick for his participation in the production to blaming John Travolta and his people for overhauling his script. Now, I have no interest in defending this film but I have to say that if Shapiro had truly wanted to apologize for this movie he could not have picked a less sincere way to do it. Had he really wanted to tell everyone how sorry he was for even turning in a draft for what turned out to be a critically-reviled and commercially-shunned film he could easily have done so without resorting to the old "I wrote a different movie" chestnut. Instead, he seems to make the rather feeble suggestion that his draft would have made a better movie. The most he seems to apologize for from this point onwards is the fact that he even bothered to collect a paycheck for this film. As for writing it, however, Shapiro seems much more convinced that he had written a better movie than that which saw theatrical release.

Now, though I will take the trouble to point out that apart from Battlefield Earth this man seems to have no other screenwriting credits (or at least, none that a quick Google search could turn up), which would seem to suggest a desperate grab for attention here, but whatever his motives I think the real issue here is why Shapiro even bothered to preface his piece with the declaration that he had written the "suckiest" movie ever, considering that according to him, he didn't write the version everyone saw.

In this day and age of zero accountability (witness the execs of the Big Three who went to Washington with their begging bowls sometime last year and basically disavowed all responsibility for running their companies into the ground with their insistence on making, marketing and selling gas-guzzling pieces of junk) it would have actually been kind of refreshing to see a mea culpa, even if came kind of out of left field and was for a movie that everyone except the folks that award the Razzies has already chosen to forget (by no doubt suppressing their memories). It certainly got my attention, and if Google is to be believed, quite a number of other people's, too. Too bad it wasn't much of a mea culpa at all.

So really, if one wants to apologize, then one should APOLOGIZE, for the love of Pete, rather than make a ham-handed attempt to shift the blame to someone else mid-diatribe. Shapiro should just own up for his part in the disaster and then maybe the healing can begin. Assuming, of course there's even a ghost of a hope left for his screenwriting career...

Recycling Superheroes Part II (and Manny Villar is...Gone??? Thank God!)

2010-03-23T03:50:00.001-07:00

I don't think it was even a year ago that I blogged about how Hollywood seems to be falling into the habit of recycling actors for roles in comic book movies. I guess the most dramatic possible illustration of how utterly insignificant my blog is to the folks over in Tinseltown is the fact that they have just done it again. Chris Evans, the actor who played Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four in the two rather unloved film adaptations of the comic-book, has just been cast to play Steve Rogers, aka Captain America in the upcoming feature film.

The sad thing about it is that I actually like Evans. I was willing to defend the second Fantastic Four movie and to a lesser extent the first one because of how perfectly cast he was as Johnny Storm (and how perfectly cast Michael Chiklis was as Ben Grimm, aka the Thing). When Twentieth Century Fox recently announced that they'd be rebooting the Fantastic Four film franchise I was genuinely hoping that he and Chiklis would be retained (though I also hoped that the Thing would be replaced with CG rather than his rubber makeup, which made him look like a pile of orange shit). I find his portrayal of Johnny Storm to be incredibly true to the character's comic book origin; he's cocky, he's a loud mouth, and he loves fast cars and hot women. Now, I don't know whether or not he has the acting chops to pull off a completely different comic book character in Captain America, and maybe he does, but as far as I'm concerned that's not even the point.

The point is that there are sooooo many actors out there, known and unknown, who could play any given role, including that of Captain America, that confining the choice to so very few as to include people previously cast as comic-book characters just feels like yet another symptom of Hollywood's collective lack of imagination. Evans, in particular, has starred in, apart from the Fantastic Four films, Push, a superpower-themed film, and is going to star in TWO comic-book based films this year alone.

Go ahead and make your comic-book movies with the same actor over and over again, Hollywood. Ask yourselves this, though; what would Iron Man have been like if Tobey Maguire had been given the role of Tony Stark, or what would Batman have been like if Christopher Reeve had been given the role of Bruce Wayne?

A little imagination can go a long way, please start showing some.

Aging Matinee Idols (and Manny Villar can eat my dog's day old shit)

2010-03-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

It was weird watching the John Hughes tribute on the Oscars last night; though I hadn't seen all of the movies featured there I knew just about every one of the movie stars who appeared onstage to say some kind words about him, and even most of the actors who appeared in the clips that formed the montage of his body of work. And in those clips they were all so...very...young.

I was between ten and thirteen when most of the movies featured came out but I remember seeing those actors and basically figuring they'd never grow old.

Having seen so many of my actual friends die young, it's a bit of a paradigm shift to suddenly see people who seem to have abruptly grown old. I'm not talking about the people I see regularly, in person or on the big or small screen; watching them age before my eyes just as surely as they see me doing so before theirs is a markedly different experience from running into someone one hasn't seen for so many years and being hit in the face with the reality of age. I need no reminders of my own mortality, and in fact I find what I saw somehow oddly reaffirming; so much can happen between now and the day we die, and as long as we're alive it's largely up to us if what happens is good or bad.

In short, the tribute to John Hughes, to me anyway, had the desired effect; rather than mourn a death, the once-young icons who stepped up on the stage there on Oscar night ended up celebrating life. And as near as I could tell, they all looked their age, not all botoxed-up like Manny Villar.

Thank You Academy! (And DON'T vote for Manny Villar)

2010-03-08T01:28:00.000-08:00

Having watched the 82nd Academy Awards earlier today, I wasn't treated to a whole lot of surprises as the people widely expected to win, well...did. It wasn't unlike seeing "Titanic" or "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" romp all over their rivals many years ago, though in this case the awards were slightly more evenly distributed over more films.

I won't spoil the winners for anyone who may blunder onto this blog post without having seen the show or read about the winners, but on a personal note I will say I was rather happy with the way the awards turned out.

Suffice it to say that just because the Academy had to cave in to pressure to make room among the Best Picture nominees for more...popular movies, they certainly haven't sacrificed their judgment when it comes to recognizing the movies they truly love. No, they stuck to their guns, and made a little bit of history in the bargain.

I'll say no more, but suffice it to say that this marks the dawn of a new day!

The Advertisement of the That Motherfucker Manny Villar

2010-03-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

Several months ago I noticed a "monetize" option on my blog and recalled all of the wonderful stories I'd heard about people making money off their blogs. So I signed up for the program.

The thing of it is, this blog isn't particularly popular and I don't even have a whole lot of time to write it in it anymore, so I basically haven't been paid yet because it only gets remitted to me after the income reaches a specific critical mass. Well, next to nobody clicks on this thing, and the few people who do usually don't even comment (one of them insists on texting me instead), but I take some comfort knowing that I've earned x amount of cents at the very least.

But boy, the ad of Manny Villar that has been showing up regularly on my blog now for months really just pisses me off. It's the proverbial salt in the wound. I know and accept that people who write about useless, irrelevant shit make bucketloads of money through their blogs, and that some other somehow manage to get 15 minutes of fame because yahoo basically picks up their blogs for opinions on everything from fashion to events. I am okay with that; I'm okay that they're making money off their blogs and I'm not...but to see this asshole's mug smack in the middle of my blog actually discourages ME from posting on my own blog.

I can't stand Manny Villar. I think, based on what I've read and heard, that he's a liar and a thief and that there's a fair chance, if he's elected, that he will rape this country like no one ever has or ever will.

I've tried to call up the "monetize" option and take it off, but I really don't know how, so it's really frustrating.

If you guys at Google are reading this, please take this asshole's mug off my blog, even if it means losing ads. I'm not making any money off them anyway.

Yesterday I thought I'd found the solution; I clicked onto google ads and adjusted my preferences to exclude politics and current events. The next time I logged on I was pleased to see something else. Apparently, however, Villar's crew have found a way around this and have once again had Google reinsert his irritating face onto my blog. PLEASE, Google, recognize this bullshit as a political ad and BAR it from my blog!

And Then There Were Ten...

2010-02-03T02:39:00.000-08:00

Fans of The Dark Knight who gnashed their teeth over its exclusion from the race for the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2008 can take some solace knowing that, apparently as a result of the outrage, the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences has expanded the field of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. As a result, this year, whereas those of us who follow the annual Oscar nominations would usually see a slew of art films with the token mass-appeal movie thrown in for good measure, now there are ten nominations which seem to be split evenly among the "blockbusters," or movies which have grossed over $100 million, and those which haven't. A lot of other bloggers who chose to voice their opinions around the time the nominations are released basically divided the ten among those the Academy among those who the Academy wanted to nominate and those they felt they had to nominate.

What do I think? Well, not that it really matters in the great scheme of things, but people take the Oscars a tad too seriously, more than they deserve, and this little episode is proof of that.

The expanded field is both a blessing and a curse; on the one hand they allow the Academy members to include deserving films that would otherwise be on their "almost" lists, but on the other hand, it creates a tendency towards "tokenism."

That doesn't strike me as much of an issue with films like District 9, which nabbed a slew of technical nods and even one for best adapted screenplay, or Up, hails from regular Oscar-bait-house Pixar, but considering that The Blind Side, a film I haven't seen, has as its ONLY other nomination one for Sandra Bullock's acting in a lead role, I smell an attempt to fill a quota. That just feels wrong on several levels, because either now the Academy is trying too hard to please the all-important TV audiences that keep their program relevant, or are showing absolute contempt for those very audiences by choosing films that, without the expanded system, basically wouldn't get the time of day from the Academy. So they're either pandering excessively to or showing their disdain for the general public. Either way, I don't see this ten Best Picture nominee system catching on too well in the long run.

Of course, that's just me.

But hey, if it means Iron Man 2 will be able to snag a Best Picture nod next year, maybe it'll be worth keeping around for just one more awards season...

Why the Environment-Friendly Blockbuster Film is an Oxymoron

2010-01-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

Back when WALL-E was in theaters, apart from enjoying the film itself, I took additional pleasure from readings its mostly glowing reviews. One review, though, which seemed contrary just for the sake of it, made a scathing commentary on the hypocrisy of Pixar for pushing some anti-capitalist, tree-hugging agenda despite the fact that at the time the film was released Disney's partners and licensees were busy hawking tie-in products that were unabashedly profit-oriented like toys and t-shirts (my kids each have one of the latter). The toys, as I understand it, didn't sell real well and are now presumably gathering dust in bargain bins or warehouses. In short, they'll probably turn out to be a lot like the junk WALL-E had to compact and stack for 700 years. Now, the fact that such tie-in products exist is arguably not attributable to Andrew Stanton, who created the story and characters, but to the studio's marketing arm. While it's unfair to criticize the film based on the actions of the suits responsible for selling it, that doesn't mean Pixar or Disney deserve a free pass. The fact remains that on some level they greenlit the attempt to sell useless junk based on a film that precisely decried the effect that the long-term accumulation of useless junk could have on our planet. After the merchandising phenomenon that Cars turned out to be (with new lines still selling almost four years after the film was first released), it's not hard to see why the suits at Disney would try to sell products based on their film, but there does seem be something highly contradictory or paradoxical about hawking consumer products based on a film that seemed to condemn excessive commercialism.

This, I believe, is a genuine problem facing well-intentioned films that nonetheless require the capitalist system to get off the ground. I think it's also a problem that the studio that financed the openly environmentalist blockbuster Avatar had to deal with; to hedge its bets on the gargantuan budget, Twentieth Century Fox probably sold off as much of the film as they could to sponsors and licensees. I've seen the McDonald's tie-in toys and have read about the existence of Mattel-manufactured toy line (though mercifully I haven't seen any of it). I'm fairly certain that there are (or at least will be) such other products as t-shirts, video games, and novelizations (or comic-book adaptations) to boot. While the film decries the abuse of forests, the suits marketing it chop down trees to print books about the film.

Of course, this has no real bearing on the story or James Cameron's vision but as in the case of WALL-E there's something distinctly off about a movie saying "save the planet" while it is accompanied by dozens of tie-in consumer products, that will, upon their disposal, undoubtedly add to the already near-catastrophic pollution problem we are currently facing.

I still remember the absurdity of the attempts to cash in on the unique financial juggernaut that Titanic turned out to be; there were talks about a planned TV series or miniseries that would be set before the sinking. A sort of "prequel TV tie-in." By its very nature, Titanic was not the kind of film that would lend itself to any kind of sequel so people tried (and failed) to find other ways to make money off its mammoth success.

Avatar, with its fantastical worlds, colorful characters and creatures and cool-looking mechanized villains, is ripe for "toyhood," with one of the most exploitative capitalists in the business, Mattel, taking on the license (though high-end collectible manufacturer Sideshow Collectibles reportedly has some really cool stuff in the pipeline). Fox could have gone straight to artisans like Sideshow and maintained some kind of integrity by shying away from mass-market products as opposed to limited production but again, to guard their gargantuan investment they went for the cash in Mattel's pockets.

Thus, to get its message across, Avatar or any other hyper-expensive film with an environmentally-oriented message must use the very system it condemns. Though this is an understandable and necessary evil, I still can't quite wash the bad taste out of my mouth.

Maybe down the line such films can be funded the same way Barack Obama's presidential campaign was; through grassroots fund raising of some sort, then maybe we could get some solid message-oriented work from creators who didn't have to sell a little bit of their souls to get their films made.

The Future of Film?

2009-12-28T00:09:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's ever seen a movie where the characters watch three-dimensional holograms pop in front of them like a couple of the Star Wars movies must have, at least at one point, wondered what it would be like to watch something like that instead of the normal flat images one sees on TV or on our movie screens.

While we aren't exactly there, 3-D films, as I understand it, are supposed to bridge the gap between this world and that. Hollywood currently has at least three major proponents of the new 3-D movement that started earlier this millenium. George Lucas, whether or not the 3-D images in his Star Wars films were his not-so-subtle endorsement of the format, has often talked about re-releasing all six films in the format. Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis, since abandoning live-action film making for motion capture films, has released all three of his movies in 3-D or IMAX 3-D format. James Cameron has been quoted as having said something to the effect that we experience life in 3-D, and that it makes perfect sense that we should experience the movies in such a way as well. While I certainly don't begrudge them their passion, especially considering that between them they have over a hundred years of filmmaking experience, I'm not yet a hundred percent sure I share it.

I've only seen two 3-D movies, after all. I suppose I'm glad I missed the 3-D movies of the 1980s (and of the 1950s) because from what I've heard they wouldn't have given me a whole lot of enthusiasm for the format, especially the horror movies. The closest I ever got to old-fashioned 3-D was a comic book, and apart from the novelty of it, it was not the least bit impressive. The red and blue glasses basically robbed the comic book of most of its color.

My first experience with the format, A Christmas Carol, was, to be honest, not an entirely pleasant experience. I liked the movie and some of the 3-D effects, but walked out of the theater with a headache. Also, it cost significantly more than it would have in 2-D and in truth, as entertaining as the 3-D effects were, they did nothing to propel the story. Based on that experience and on my sister's feedback from Up, where she basically said it didn't add anything to the overall story, I wondered if some of the internet haters were right all along and that 3-D really is nothing more than a fad.

That changed with my second 3-D movie experience: Avatar. I've written about this film here and elsewhere (apeltala.multiply.com) so there's no need to belabor the point that I had a great time.

The point, though, is that suddenly 3-D made sense to me. I have yet to see the film in any other format (or more than once, for that matter) but when I walked out of the theater, apart from not having a headache, I was convinced that had I not seen the film in 3-D IMAX, the experience would have been somehow diminished. I certainly won't attempt to pass this off as any kind of gospel truth but if nothing else, I've been convinced that I've just seen a glimpse of how the future of film should look.

Of course, I can't ignore the fact that IMAX 3-D is just too expensive to watch on a regular basis, but it is a cold hard fact that the experience is not one which can be replicated by any mainstream home entertainment system and therefore, barring the financial concern, gives a compelling argument for steering clear of the bootleg DVDs and catching movies in the theaters.

Maybe not every film will look quite as good as Avatar did in IMAX 3-D, but every medium and every format needs a benchmark. Also, there's a lot of room for improvement on Avatar's storytelling angle, so maybe we'll soon have a filmmaker dazzle us with both a scintillating story and dazzling effects. Peter Jackson pulled it off not too long ago, after all. I find myself eagerly awaiting Tintin, and would gladly save up for the 3-D version if there will be one. Such is my faith in both the filmmaker and the format in its current incarnation.

The future of movies looks pretty bright to me.

When Pocahontas Turned Blue and John Dunbar Became a Paraplegic

2009-12-20T16:09:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna say this right up front: I absolutely loved James Cameron's Avatar. I still remember walking into Titanic eleven years ago expecting the most moving, profoundly romantic experience I could have had at the time and walking out thinking "ehh." I experienced no such disappointment with Avatar, and it wasn't even necessarily because my expectations were lowered.

I think the comparisons between Avatar and works like Dances With Wolves, John Carter of Mars and even Pocahontas began the moment the story was disclosed to the general public. I suppose it didn't help that not everyone was sold on the way the fantastical aliens populating Cameron's new world, Pandora, looked. "Thundersmurf" became a popular internet slur for them. In true fanboy fashion, the bashing commenced though thanks to the fact that I actually had things to do this time around I didn't bother to indulge my usual masochistic urges of reading message board after message board full of venom.

Like I posted some months ago, this was probably Cameron's first ever brush with internet fanboys, and I wondered how he, or the studio backing him, would take it, even though Fox is no stranger to internet brickbats. They didn't really seem to give a shit what the usual "basement dwellers" had to say.

Still, upon watching the film I understood why none of the story or "Thundersmurf" revelations even mattered. I think it was genius, in fact, of Cameron and the film's marketing team to get that stuff out of the way as early as possible because none of it really give the audience any idea of what the movie is all about, and that is the realization of a world beyond imagining.

Cameron's Pandora, the new world he created, is the star of Avatar. Its hills, mountains, trees, birds and bees, all of which is both familiar and new at the same time. In terms of environments, I've only ever seen such visual innovation in a Hayao Miyazaki movie, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but that was hand-drawn animation and was, by comparison, not nearly as challenging to render. That world did not face the challenge of making the viewers believe that what they were seeing was real. Cameron basically took the massive proceeds and virtually unlimited street-cred he'd picked up from Titanic, and cashed it ALL in making this unbelievable feast for the senses.

The consensus on this film is that the story is weak but the visuals make up for it. That, I feel, is an oversimplification. While I will readily concede that the story is not the most original ever to be written, it could have been done a lot worse. Titanic, for all its Oscars and accolades, had its fair share of truly rancid dialogue (and in fact its screenplay was conspicuously snubbed by the Academy back then) but down the line nobody seems to be complaining. Somehow, what Cameron had achieved back then with the digital sinking ship and the massive production, managed to overshadow what he had not, and in my humble opinion, that happens to be the case here.

Avatar comes across as a largely visceral experience when, like its main character Jake Sully, we are introduced to Pandora in all of its untamed glory. It's enough, for me, that he establishes the reason why human beings would want to despoil such splendor, and the science behind the titular avatars. As caricatured as the evil corporate types and their redneck henchmen may seem, we as a race would be sadly delusional if we refused to acknowledge that such people actually exist in real life. Life is not as simple as "humans are bad, while nature is good" but the themes in Avatar definitely remain relevant, no matter how heavy-handed their application may be. Seeing what corporations and the need for profit has driven people to do on this planet makes their actions in Avatar completely believable and as they ravaged Pandora I, for one, felt genuinely saddened because like I said, Pandora is the real star of the movie.

I remember feeling lousy during the first hour or so of Titanic with all of its uplifting music, bright lighting and the digitally-rendered version of that magnificent ship plowing through the Atlantic because I knew well beforehand that it would all end in tragedy. In Avatar In contrast, I could not be quite so sure what Pandora's fate would be even after it was all over (yes, there is the possibility of a sequel). Pandora is a world I wanted to survive, and I think that was what made the movie for me.

The debate on the merits of this film, I'm sure, will go on and on, which I think will be a hallmark of this film's greatness, i.e. that it is and will continue to be talked about for years to come, but to my mind, at least, the debate is settled: for all its flaws, and there are several of them, this was easily one of my more memorable moviegoing experiences. Sure it unpretentiously borrows from Dances with Wolves and other works of fiction besides, but what it adds is something which must be seen to be believed.

The Cathartic Appeal of Wolverine

2009-11-25T20:17:00.001-08:00

I was never much of a Wolverine fan. I always connected more with Spider-Man's teenage angst or Batman's tortured soul. I even liked Iron Man's constant conflict with his inner demons better. Wolverine, to be fair, has his own share of inner demons, it seems that more often than not, they triumph as he slaughters people on pretty much a regular basis. I have an entire trade paperback (which my wife bought) consisting of stand-alone issues, every one of which features him killing someone or leaving him to his death. I also have the first half of the Mark-Millar-penned "Enemy of the State" in which Wolverine also kills a hell of a lot of people (to be fair, at first it's while he's under the influence of Hydra, but he also does plenty of killing on his own). I appreciate some stories told starring him, but he's never held that much appeal for me.

Till now.

The Maguindanao massacre has, by now courtesy of cable news and the internet, shocked pretty much the world. The fact that it happened at all is bad enough but that no one seems to be able to do anything about it feels ten times worse. Though the adult in me is appalled by what happened and hopes for the best but not expecting much, the eternal adolescent in me still fantasizes about what I could have done had I been a superhero on the scene.

I have no interest in being a Superman or a Spider-Man and basically stopping all the bad guys in their tracks and saving all the victims, or in being a Batman and basically roughing up the bad guys but only up to a certain point.

No, I conceived of a Wolverine fantasy, this time, which involved me being in the thick of things, taking all of the bullets those bastards have to offer while opening up their intestines, cutting off their limbs and severing their arteries. Killing them simply wouldn't do; if I had the power to take as much abuse as Wolverine does in his most tenacious incarnations I would not content myself with stopping those animals. No, I would inflict the maximum amount of pain imaginable.

I would let them shoot me, riddle me with their bullets and gain the impression of superiority in arms and force and when I'd lulled them into that sense of security I would attack and watch their bravado melt into horror as they'd realize they were completely helpless to stop me, even with all their guns. I'd destroy their weapons with my adamantium claws, in some cases with their limbs attached, to remind them of how useless they are against me. I would cut them in places where they would bleed out severely enough to die but slowly enough so that they could take in just how conclusively they've been routed.

Once the last of the gunmen had breathed his last I would then behead them, gather up their heads, drive over to the mansion or nightclub or office of the person who sent them and drop each and every one of them at that person's doorstep. And after taking another hail of bullets from the personal security and after maiming and killing the entire cadre of personal security I would stand right in front of the people responsible for masterminding the would-be murders, have them look around at the carnage, tell them I'd be watching them, and then walk away, leaving them in a sea of their goons' blood and entrails. I would leave them with fear of God in their hearts and a pair of soiled pants.

And then, when they'd thought I'd gone, I'd sneak up behind them and kill them anyway.

I'm not Wolverine, so I obviously would never get to do any of those things but after the brutality in Maguindanao it was the first time I had ever wanted to do them, even in my mind.

Back When Marvel Wooed Hollywood...

2009-11-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone remembers this but many years before his death last July, Michael Jackson already met the Grim Reaper, albeit in the pages of Marvel Comics' Longshot miniseries, where he got blasted to smithereens while filming a television show on Mojoworld. I'm sure a lot of people do remember how preoccupied Marvel was with being fashionable back in the '80s (among other time periods), as perhaps best exemplified by the jeri-curled Beyonder who faced off against the Marvel Universe in Secret Wars II, and the perpetually mullet-haired Longshot himself.

But way before Blade, the first successful movie based on a Marvel Comics character came out in 1998, Hollywood was Marvel's wet dream. It was all over their comic books; whether it was fans or writers coming up with their own personal lists of who they'd like to see playing Spider-Man (with names like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt getting mentioned more than a couple of times).

It's a different world now, one where Disney has bought Marvel (for a steal, in my opinion) precisely because of the power its properties wields at the box-office, where Hugh Jackman was made a star precisely because of his appearance in the X-Men movies, which remain his highest-grossing films to date, where people like Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds and even Robert Downey Jr. campaign avidly to play Marvel characters, in some instances not even for very much money, and where studios holding the rights to Marvel films prior to the Disney acquisition scramble to make more because they don't want to lose them. Yep, it's a different world, one that more than makes up for the snubs of Marvel roles by the likes of Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, for the several aborted attempts to realize Marvel projects, one of the most notable of which was Tom Cruise's failed Iron Man endeavor at the beginning of the millenium, and even some of the creative misfires that did make it to the screen like Daredevil and Ghost Rider.

The buzz for Iron Man 2 is at a fever pitch right now and it still makes me feel all warm and tingly inside that the first one is widely regarded as the film that re-launched the career of Downey Jr., an actor whose work I have always admired.

The best part of all this is that even for this tantrum thrower, the best is yet to come.

Hip to be Square.

2009-11-04T02:37:00.000-08:00

I love the recent film 500 Days of Summer. With the exception of the cornball narrator I love just about everything about it from the writing to the acting to the music.

As strange as it may sound, one other thing I love about this film is that apart from an e-mail message which the main character, Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) receives from Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), there is no mention of any technology anywhere in the film that could possibly date it. Nobody texts, nobody tweets, nobody has a myspace or facebook page.

Tom dresses like a prep-school kid from some eighties movie, shops for Ringo Starr albums, is a huge fan of the 1980s TV series Knight Rider (not its tepid 21st century revival), and dances to one of my favorite Hall and Oates songs. He is, apart from being my kind of guy, the anti-hipster, a character who, to borrow a phrase used by renowned film critic Richard Corliss, is joyfully, defiantly anachronistic in his pop-culture preferences.

In Tom's delightful dance number to the 29-year-old Hall & Oates song "You Make My Dreams," he basically flips the bird at putrid, trying-hard movies like He's Just Not That Into You which love to scream out at the audience how up-to-date their script is with trends and technology. "Look, our characters have myspace pages! They text! They tweet! Aren't they the shizz?" Probably, but the minute these little technological quirks have gone the way of the dinosaur like the pager did, thereby ceasing to have any contemporary cultural relevance, so will those little references. It irks me that Iron Man makes reference to myspace, which has already been supplanted by facebook, as I understand it.

To my mind it's pure foolishness for filmmakers, unless they're working with a story that deals directly with technology like 1992's Sneakers or 1998's You've Got Mail, to make references in their films to extant tech, especially if the story can be told without it.

It's like the difference between Pixar movies and many Dreamworks films; with all of their pop-culture references, the Shrek films will one day be dated back to things like The Matrix or the first Spider-Man film, while most Pixar films, with the possible exception of Cars (which is dated by the models of the newer cars involved like a Porsche 996 Carrera S and a Ferrari F430) will truly achieve timelessness, especially films that feel neither here nor there like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo.

It's a given these days that audiences have woefully short attention spans, as products perhaps of the MTV generation. It's been over a decade since a movie has spent more than five weeks as the number one film in America (James Cameron's Titanic) and so the quest is on to find something that people watching movies will latch on to.

Well, I will say this; the answer to that remains to be compelling, relatable characters and a great story.

The trashy He's Just Not That Into You, with its "look at me" references to myspace and texting may have made more money than the infinitely superior 500 Days of Summer this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if, years from now, when people start making lists of truly great romantic comedies of the new millenium, that little movie with the guy who didn't text or tweet were to appear on all of them, with the other film basically being consigned to oblivion.

WHY Aren't Anime-Based Movies Selling?

2009-11-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

The first movie I ever watched that was based on a Japanese anime or manga series was Christophe Gans 1995 film Crying Freeman, starring Mark Dacascos, which I genuinely enjoyed even though I had not watched the original series or read the original comic books. The last one I watched, just last Saturday, was an adaptation of the seminal anime/manga classic, Astro Boy, who was created by the so-called godfather of animation, Osamu Tezuka. In the case of Astro Boy I had watched one of the TV series starring him (there have been three, one in the 1960s, one in the 1980s, and one that ran about three or four years ago), and I still enjoyed the film, shortcomings notwithstanding.

I've noticed, though, that the reception of Joe Public all around the world (with the exception of Japan) has not quite been as warm as mine was of these two movies, or of anything based on anime or manga in general. Three of Hayao Miyazaki's films, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle and now Ponyo, have all made very decent box-office, the vast bulk of it in Japan and Korea, but have otherwise made very little impression on the global box-office.

Films like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Speed Racer were the kind of flops that could lose studio executives their jobs (and quite possibly did) and the aforementioned Crying Freeman never even made it to theatrical release in the United States. Considering how badly the current Astro Boy film is doing in theaters, it may as well have been sent straight to the DVD shelf. And the less said about 20th Century Fox's Dragonball, the better.

This is strange because judging from things like comic book conventions and amateur comic book drawings of fans all over the world, one would think anime is one of the most popular media out there, a global phenomenon. Heck, the word anime isn't even Japanese; it's French for "alive."

Why, therefore, do so many people outside of the Land of the Rising Sun ignore anime feature films, or feature films based on anime? Is it some residual resentment left from World War II? Is it a general global inability to digest Japanese pop-culture (a thesis which the success of movies like The Ring would debunk, I'm sure)? I'm curious.

It's really quite a shame as there are quite a number of good works of anime that, with the advances in today's technology, could be adapted pretty well with the right people behind them. We're talking about an industry that is capable of bringing books, plays, comic books, toy lines, video games, television shows and even blasted theme park rides to the big screen with resounding success. The successful and profitable translation of anime to the big screen shouldn't be as big a challenge as it has been for the last several years (though I'm really not crazy about the upcoming Akira adaptation, as I feel it is a classic that should be left alone).

Come on, Hollywood! Bring me my Robotech!

A Nice Little Dream

2009-09-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

For the last month or so I've been quite stressed about one thing or another, and today I was able to get at least one source of stress of my chest by finally conducting a direct examination I'd been dreading for several months; I was prepared and I articulated my questions well and in an objection-proof manner.

I had something, though, that helped me get through that direct examination, as nerve-wracked as I was, besides the usual preparation.

Last night, I dreamed about my best friend and the godfather of my firstborn, Jay Tan. Here's the thing; it wasn't even one of those dreams where he was alive and walking and talking. No, he was pretty much as dead in the dream as he is in real life. But there was something special about this dream.

In this dream, I and several other people were gathered to watch several performances based on work Jay had done. I caught a stage play and an animated short film (though of course I cannot remember the story of either) based on stories he had written.

Now, as far as I know Jay did not write fiction as a hobby. He wrote ad copy for a living, and was quite the songwriter and occasional blogger, but he didn't do a whole lot of fiction, so I'm pretty sure that the notion that he would be honored for his works of fiction was basically a product of my own mind.

But I loved the idea of Jay being cherished after his death even by people who didn't know him in life. I loved the idea of celebrating his creations even after the funerals and weeping and the regret. I loved the idea that he had achieved immortality in the eyes of not only the people who loved him but the people who loved his work.

I once decried a line from the Ridley Scott film Gladiator uttered by Maximus, the Roman general played by Russell Crowe: What we do in life echoes in eternity. I found it an expression of utmost hubris and a failure to acknowledge that we are all part of a bigger plan. In view of this dream, though, it's not quite so bad as I thought; being immortalized through one's work is something that's nice, as is the thought that the things one does could even survive the demise of an entire species.

I love the thought of Jay living on in things like his work, and I certainly hope he does. Maybe the guys who have hold of his songs could publish them somewhere...

The Return of the Rom Com

2009-09-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Two romantic comedies this year have managed to make a splash at the U.S. box office, He's Just Not That Into You and The Proposal. I utterly despised the former and was mildly entertained by the latter, but in any case I'm glad they're back because as far as I'm concerned they simply don't get old.

Now, it goes without saying that some rom coms are better than others; not everyone can make something as compelling as Sleepless in Seattle, or As Good As It Gets or as laugh-out-loud funny as There's Something About Mary, and in fact the very makers of those films were not really able to follow up those films with equally strong work. Indeed, Sandra Bullock's The Proposal is nowhere near as inherently endearing as her own While You Were Sleeping was over fourteen years ago.

The good news, though, is that with recent films like 500 Days of Summer, it seems that there is a rising new generation of filmmakers who, while not necessarily hell-bent on replicating the magic between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan or Bullock and any of several of her rom-com co stars like Bill Pullman or Hugh Grant, want to take the genre to new places while paying plenty of homage to where it's been over the last several decades, which can only be a good thing.

Yessir, I love me a good rom com, and even though I've found most of them tepid lately with the exception of Summer, I'm glad they're still on the radar.

World Champions

2009-09-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

When Michael Schumacher won his third world championship and his first for Ferrari in 2000, I had no idea it would be the start of an era, though I was as excited as hell. I had no idea that this would be the first of five consecutive titles for both the Red Baron and the Scuderia. Although the 2001 and the 2003 seasons were real nail-biters (with the 2002 and 2004 seasons being so boring I was actually happy when someone else would win a race every now and again) nothing ever quite beat the thrill of seeing Schumi pip title rival Mika Hakkinen to victory at Suzuka in 2000 through some very canny pit work.

The next Formula One season I would enjoy in the same way was the 2007 F1 season, particular the latter part, in which then new-Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen overhauled Lewis Hamilton's 17-point lead in two races to take the driver's title for the Scuderia. Disappointingly, Raikkonen was unable to repeat his success the next year, or the year after, but 2007 still felt like a classic.

These are old pictures of old cars (the first one a full nine years old while the second nearing two) but they bring back fond memories of some exciting sporting events.

Easy Targets from Whom Apparently Nothing Was Learned

2009-09-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

About three years ago Marvel Comics published, as a kind of "dessert" to a twelve-issue run on Wolverine by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. a one-shot issue by Mark Millar and artist Kaare Andrews. It was set in WWII era Poland, and featured as its narrator a Nazi death camp commander who had a big problem in the person of a troublesome, hairy little prisoner who for one reason or another wouldn't die. It was an engrossing little tale and a rather entertaining one, even though it was rather predictable. It was a throwback to reading those Gold Key horror comics I used to read as a kid from my uncle's stash, both the vintage American ones and the local reprints. There was no real morality play at work, but Millar, clever little left-winger that he is, drew parallels between Nazi Germany and the Bush Administration. The Nazis were still very much the bad guys, but there was so much more dimension to them.

I'm quite keen on watching Inglourious Basterds and have enjoyed WWII movies from Saving Private Ryan to Enemy at the Gates, but after having followed the excesses of the Bush administration on the news for the last eight years it strikes me that Americans who take shots at the Nazis, especially the ones who were fond of propping up Bush and his policies on the Middle East, are really kind of like the people living in glass houses chucking stones.

For one thing, as evil as the Nazis and their actions were I think it would be far more intelligent to look at them from a historical perspective rather than a pulpy, puerile one. Films like the 2004 Austrian film Der Untertag (translated as The Downfall for English speaking markets), Conspiracy, that brilliant HBO movie with Kenneth Branagh, Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, and the TV movie Nuremberg which starred Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox took a much more matter-of-fact, if still inevitably dramatized look at history's favorite villains. They weren't just mustache twirling fiends bent solely on world domination (though they were admittedly the closest one could ever GET to that in history), they had genuine socio-politico-historical-cultural motivations and underpinnings in their grossly misguided actions. The idea was to get into their heads not just to condemn them all the more but to understand how a country can take a wrong turn in the way it views people.

People love to pick on the Nazis, which is fine, but apparently a whole lot of them have learned nothing from their downfall which was the product of, among other things, hubris and a fundamental misunderstanding of cultures different from their own. Sound familiar?

It was never just a fundamental question of who was right and who was wrong. I mean, if all imperialists and perpetrators of genocide are evil and should get their comeuppance, then how come the Native Americans who were either killed and/or corralled like animals from the seventeenth to the twentieth century are basically now living like squatters on their own country while the descendants of the people responsible are living it up? If the Nazis were tried and hung in Nuremberg for war crimes, how come no one was held accountable for the fact that at the outbreak of World War II, several thousand Japanese Americans were summarily rounded up without due process and chucked into internment camps?

I think entertainment featuring Nazis getting their butt kicked represents a comfort zone for Americans because it represents the last time they were really right about something and won righteous victories on top of that. From what I understand both the Korean and Vietnam Wars were both gray areas, the latter more than the former, with the former not yielding a clear cut victory and the latter being a tactical and political disaster with fallout that has lasted to the present day. Of course, the Iraq occupation remains a problem the Americans don't know how to solve. The sad thing was that in the 80s and early 90s the warm box-office reception of such gritty and unpleasant portrayals of the U.S. military in films like Platoon showed that Americans were comfortable with a sense of accountability for their mistakes, but with the consistent box-office failure of films trying to deal with the situation in the Middle East including stuff from the two Toms (Cruise and Hanks) it seems they've regressed quite a bit. "Neocon" indeed. Going back to WWII and torching Nazis and Japs they can easily say "yes, we were RIGHT to kick their butts," pat themselves on the back, and go to sleep at night.

So soon (in the Philippines, anyway) we'll have a movie with Jews kicking Nazi ass and somewhere out there is even a comic book/strip featuring Jesus kicking Nazi ass and God knows how much other media there is out there featuring somebody kicking Nazi ass. Well and good, but if that's all they've got it's ultimately weak and meaningless fluff.

The greatest indictment of the Nazis would be to never repeat any of their mistakes.

Rediscovering my REAL First Love

2009-09-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago I wrote about how I was slowly rediscovering comics and was, as a result, drifting a little bit away from collecting toy cars because of the expense involved as well as the hassles of storage.

Well, lately I've been drifting away from collecting anything in general because after years of false starts I've finally managed to get myself in a rhythm and to pursue my TRUE first love, not comics, not toy cars, not watching movies, but WRITING.

I'm glad for the blogs and the fact that I have to write for a living because at least my writing faculties haven't dulled. If anything, the fact that I've managed to get out there and experience life to some extent has given me a lot more to say. And the best part is that my writing now is kind of a release from my job. I don't write as a lawyer would. I don't think of arguments or cite precedents in support of an argument; I just write.

I have no idea if anyone else will find the stuff any good but for now it's enough that I'm writing for myself. I'm sick of writing about other people's work and commenting on things that are not only irrelevant to my life but to life here in the Philippines in general.

And to give myself a real target to hit: I intend to self-publish when it's done. Screw the whole "hunting for publishers" thing.

If there's one thing I learned from Pixar's Up it's that it's never too late to chase your dreams.

One of the Reasons Why It's Good to Take Pictures

2009-09-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

This castle is wonderful. Apel built it maybe two or three years ago, but rebuilding it is no longer possible because being children, he and his sister have misplaced several of the blocks. I'll buy them more blocks some day, but it won't quite be the same. When he builds an even more magnificent edifice, I'll be sure to take pictures of that, too...

My Officemates

2009-09-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

These fellas have kept me company through many a dreary workday.

One of them's Michael Schumacher's personal Ferrari FXX and the other's a Ferrari F40.

The Possibilities Are Endless...

2009-09-04T06:24:00.001-07:00

Hehehe...stumbled on this site. The "Mouserine" is the only bit of original art but the rest are still just as fun...

Punisher meets the seven dwarves...

Spidey meets Wall-E...

and my favorite...

Lamborghini's Teutonic Cousin

2009-09-04T05:27:00.001-07:00

More old car pics; this one's an Audi R8 in 1/18 by Kyosho; Audi owns Lamborghini and apparently shares components with them on a regular basis so a lot of this car was derived from the Lamborghini Gallardo (personally I like this better but they're both very good-looking vehicles).

Slayer of Exotics

2009-09-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

This is a Nissan GT-R R35 1/18 by AUTOart. The real version of this car achieved quite some renown when it set a scorching laptime on the famed Nordschleife of the Nuerburgring, scorching the times of such highly touted sportscars as the Mercedes SLR McLaren, the Lamborghini Gallardo AND Murcielago, the Bugatti Veyron, and the Porsche 911. I took these pictures several months ago but was looking at them again and damn they look nice.

Looking Like the Cat That Got the Canary

2009-09-04T04:34:00.000-07:00

Giancarlo Fisichella is a 36-year-old Italian Formula 1 Driver who started his career with Jordan F1 and who has gotten to drive for such teams as Benetton Playlife, Sauber, Renault and most recently Force India. Back in his day he was a highly-regarded figure in the paddock with even Michael Schumacher saying that given the right equipment, he would really shine.

All his life he's wanted to race for Ferrari who let him test drive one of their cars in 1995.

Until recently, Force India had gone for a whole season and a half without scoring a single championship point, until last Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix when he clinched pole position and finished a very, very close second to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

The bosses at Ferrari apparently took notice, and here's what happened...

I don't post F1 stuff here anymore but holy cow would you look at that grin. Like a kid on Christmas morning...

On Disney Buying Marvel and the Imminent Explosion of Many a Fanboy's Head

2009-08-31T23:32:00.000-07:00

I was a little shellshocked to learn this morning that media/entertainment giant Walt Disney Co. intends to wholly acquire Marvel Entertainment to the tune of four billion dollars. Not being a shareholder of either I don't really have any personal stake except that of a fan.

From the financial standpoint the sale makes perfect sense in the current economic climate; Disney is a brand name that is probably the closest thing to recession-proof that an entertainment company can get these days, and as much as I've loved many of their comic books, and as much money as their movies have made over the last ten years, I don't think the same can be said for Marvel. They are basically doing this to secure their future, which has probably been thrown into doubt by all the madness of the last year or so. On that score, I'm quite happy Marvel has such deep pockets at their disposal.

From a creative standpoint, though, well, there's bit a lot of screaming on the internet in the last few hours about how bad that could be, some of it funny, some of it devoid of any intelligence, and all of it speculative, of course. The general consensus appears to be no consensus at all, with many people dreading Hannah Montana/Avengers crossovers and others cheering the prospect of Marvel/Pixar teamups.

For my part, I don't think Disney should mess with Marvel's publishing line, and I'd like to think that they won't; why change a formula that attracted them enough to buy an entire company in the first place? Basically, Disney knows next to nothing about the kind of comics that Marvel publishes, markets and sells, and Marvel has been doing a pretty good job of it over the last several years from a sales point of view, so I hardly think they'd mess with what works. Of course I could be wrong, but considering Joe Quesada, who is basically responsible for that very line has been among the first online to reassure the reading public of this, well I take some reassurance. Another potential plus from the impending relationship is that the prospect of Disney money might lure some creators over, though frankly I'm already quite happy with the stable that's already there. (Not like Jim Lee needs the money, but I'd still like to see him draw a full Spider-Man and/or Daredevil story-arc before I die).

So as far as comics are concerned, I'm reasonably confident that guys like Matt Fraction, Mark Millar, Dan Slott and Ed Brubaker will still be great writers and will continue to come up with great stories. Life as we comic book readers know it will continue, with a couple of possible perks as well in the form of new creators wanting in on the Disney money train.

On the animated front, I have to confess I have mixed feelings on the matter.

On the one hand the merger will mean that Pixar is to be Marvel's sister company. That prospect could blow up millions of fanboy heads as well, but in a good way. For one thing, Pixar could serve as a platform for Marvel's not-so-well-known-outside-comic-fandom properties that might not quite make the transition to the big screen, like the Runaways, who were recently announced to be slated for live-action adaptation but whose film could, development hell being the way it is, in reality take a looooong time to get off the ground, Doctor Strange, whose film has been in development hell since the 1980s, and the Guardians of the Galaxy as well as other cosmic characters like Mar-Vell and Noh Varr, to name but a few. And if they were by some miracle to get their hands on The Fantastic Four, well all of 20th Century Fox and Tim Story's sins will be forgotten if not forgiven. Of course, that's not likely to happen as all of the studios currently with deals to film or at least distribute Marvel properties, from Fox to Paramount to Sony to Universal, are now clinging to these contracts for dear life as they know how much money is on the table. In short, anyone hoping for a Pixar-made Avengers, Spider-Man or X-Men will be bitterly disappointed unless Disney is willing to make Paramount, Sony or Fox a whole lot richer. Fortunately, there are a lot of other toys for Pixar to play with; Marvel's library does consist of over 5,000 characters, after all. So the prospect of Pixar drawing on Marvel's library for future movies is something that is very, very good. As long as it's Pixar doing the animating and not the made-for-TV-mediocre in-house outfit Disney came up with that produced such execrable films as Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons, back when Disney were afraid they'd lose Pixar, Marvel's properties should be in great hands.

As far as the TV/Home Video Animation front is concerned, though, I'm not particularly thrilled. Anyone who's seen Disney's truly dreadful direct-to-video sequels of their popular and acclaimed animated films like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, and more recently Cinderella, not to mention the rather abominable TV adaptations of fantastic films like Tarzan, will know what I'm talking about when I say that Disney is capable of taking some great properties and milking them for every dollar they're worth and then some. It could be good, but it could also be very, very bad.

On the live-action feature film front, well, I'm kind of filled with dread. Films based on Marvel properties are clearly action movies and on that front Jerry Bruckheimer has practically been Disney's go-to-guy since the mid-1990s. Now Bruckheimer is responsible for producing a lot of action movies I've enjoyed over the years, from Top Gun, the first Bad Boys, Crimson Tide and The Rock, all of which he co-produced with the late Don Simpson, to the thrill-ride Enemy of the State, which remains one of my favorite Will Smith movies ever, Black Hawk Down, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I also happened to enjoy the first National Treasure movie a lot, but I would not want any of my Marvel movies to be made with the same sense of flightiness. My rule about Bruckheimer of late, though seems to be that the bigger the movie, the worse it gets, as attested by films like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and the two Pirates of the Carribean sequels. Most movies based on Marvel properties by nature, would have to be big, so that doesn't bode well for having Bruckheimer produce any of them. If Disney leaves folks like Kevin Feige, Avi Arad and Jon Favreau to their own devices, everything should be fine. Of course, like I said, barring additional buyouts, film properties like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Avengers (all part of Marvel's self-produced film slate) are still locked into Marvel's agreements with Paramount and Universal, the studios responsible for marketing and distributing the films, for better or worse.

I know this blog post is like a drop of water in an ocean of fanboy reaction but I'd like to conclude by saying that it's way, WAY too early to conclude that the merger means the end of Marvel as its fans know it. It's also too early to say if this is a good thing, though there are tangible positives already. Let's just sit tight and see what happens; the merger hasn't even happened yet, after all.

Cameron, Meet Messageboards and Comment Pages

2009-08-24T01:55:00.000-07:00

The last time James Cameron made a straight-up action movie, True Lies, the internet (as we know it, anyway; it's been apparently been around for 40 years) was in a somewhat nascent form. By the time Titanic was released in 1997, the internet, and the messageboard, was already in a state of rather healthy activity as far as messageboards and online comments went, but sites like aintitcoolnews.com were still a year or so away from truly exploding onto the pop-culture scene. And in any event, Titanic made its megabucks through women and teenage girls who enjoyed a good cry and the boyfriends and husbands who wanted to appease them.

Avatar is James Cameron's first feature film in twelve years, and it is opening to a completely different pop culture milieu than any of his other movies. It's opening in the age of u-torrents, trailers on Apple, TMZ and most imporantly, of legions upon legions of self-important fanboys.

The whining was evident on at least two of the sites that showcased the Avatar trailer. Every other comment was how let down they felt, how the Na'vi (the fantastical aliens whose planet serves as the setting for the story) looked cartoony, or how James Cameron had turned into George Lucas. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.

I'm pretty sure Cameron isn't exactly thin-skinned, but I wonder how he feels about thousands upon thousands of posts by strident, know-it-all fanboys proclaim that his film sucks four full months before its theatrical release?

Such feedback isn't what I'd call completely useless as reactions to things like Superbowl ads were cues for special effects vendors to tweak some shots but in general, like I've said a thousand times before, fanboys really are nothing more than a bunch of trolls at heart. There were legions of them who predicted that the new Terminator movie would rule the box-office just because their beloved Christian Bale is in it. There were bunches of them that predicted Star Wars: Episode II would kick Spider-Man's butt. And there are multitudes of them who, EVERY time there's a movie that makes heavy use of digital effects, have to harp on how fake the effects look, no matter how outlandish the character being depicted is. And so many of them are so woefully inarticulate that, apart from their inability to conjugate or spell properly, some of them can only manage to write one word: fail! Why Avi Arad strove to pander to these people when making Spider-Man 3 will forever be beyond me.

Avatar will probably make a killing at the box-office, and even though that isn't likely to shut the fanboys up any time soon even if it does, at least we'll know for sure that life goes on no matter how many trolls infest the internet.

And the World is Right-Side Up Again...

2009-08-14T02:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone remembers the 1988 made-for-television film A Dangerous Life, but it was, I think, an Australian production employing Filipino, Australian, and some American actors made to dramatize the then-recent EDSA Revolution which saw the Philippines oust a dictator who had been in power for nearly two decades, Ferdinand Marcos, and install as their President the widow of one of Marcos' slain political rivals.

Time passed, and people gradually fell out of love with the Aquino administration, blaming it for the admittedly several problems that beset the country at the time, not the least of which were the widespread and frequent power outages that hit the entire countryside at varying times. They were a little happier to have her hand-picked successor (and former Marcos right hand, ironically enough) Fidel V. Ramos as president for six years, but by and large Cory remained a highly respected figure, especially for having been at the forefront of the restoration of the democratic process to our country.

Things started getting a little strange after Joseph "Erap" Estrada was elected President in 1998. One of the first things he seemed determined to do was to restore the Marcoses to their old glory, starting with the burial of former strongman Ferdie Marcos himself in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, which basically opened a lot of wounds that had only just healed, with some still in the process of healing. He was a marked man after that, and when he basically handed over the reins to his then-VP Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2001 one of the people presiding over "EDSA Dos" was Cory Aquino.

After the much-debated elections in 2004 in which GMA was proclaimed President at the expense of previous favorite, the late movie star Fernando Poe, Jr., things started to get a little crazy, particularly when the "Hello Garci" scandal broke out.

Cory Aquino knew or had a good idea of what it was like to have been cheated out of an election considering that was what is widely believed to have happened during the "Snap Elections" of 1986 and so she joined the growing clamor against GMA, the first time she ever stood against a sitting President she effectively helped install three years ago.

But that was just part of the craziness.

Suddenly, the Presidential Commission for Good Governance, the PCGG which had been formed under the aegis of the Aquino administration for the purpose of recovering the billions of pesos of allegedly ill-gotten wealth from the Marcos family and their cronies and for prosecuting the people responsible for gorging themselves on the national treasury for years, was attempting all kinds of kooky ex-deals designed to get the Marcoses off the hook in exchange for what was believed by some to be a token amount of the sequestered fortunes. Having worked there for over a year I wasn't too happy to read about these developments.

The next thing that appalled me was that in the bout between GMA and Cory Aquino, it was the latter who was, in several eyes anyway, apparently coming off worse. A lot of people were starting to say that Cory had become irrelevant and some insinuations as well as outright pronouncements were made that she was a hindrance to progress. That the palace would make these remarks was, of course, understandable, but that some writers picked up on it was downright confounding. Here we had an icon of democracy up against a person who had apparently engaged in massive fraud to attain the Presidency, and yet the general sentiment was the ignore the former and support the latter.

In truth, I could actually understand the general sentiment of weariness with "People Power," especially considering the opportunistic scumbags who were, from 2004 to sometime last year when they all started going their separate ways in preparation for their respective bids for the presidency, joining the bandwagon. Heck, it was widely whispered that Ramos used the "equity of the incumbent" to triumph over Miriam Defensor-Santiago back in 1992 but no one was nailing him to the cross for it (though admittedly FVR never had a "Hello Garci" recording to try to explain).

What I couldn't understand was how it happened that brickbats were suddenly being flung at Cory for trying to call for some accountability.

Now, though I was just a kid when EDSA happened, as I got older I had a better perspective of things, and I can honestly say I was never so high on the Cory Kool-Aid to be blinded to some of her poorer judgment calls while she was in power. A Mendiola massacre occurred on her watch, for one thing, and of course the controversy of family-owned Hacienda Luisita never quite left the public consciousness, not to mention the infamous Kamag-Anak, Inc. that made the proverbial hay while the sun was shining.

But for goodness' sake, the extent to which she was actually villified was really rather flabbergasting. I just didn't get it at all.

And then, somewhere in the middle of all this, people were talking about someone making a movie about the Marcoses starring Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt as Ferdinand Marcos and Julia Roberts or some other Hollywood it-girl as Imelda (granted, it could easily have been a rumor started by the member of the Marcos family itself or one of their sycophants)! Fortunately a not-quite-flattering portrayal of Imelda hit theaters a few years ago in a documentary about her, but I just couldn't contain the WTF impulses that possessed me then.

When Cory died, though, although it was sad to see her go, I was genuinely glad to see things suddenly turning right again.

Suddenly people remembered that the Marcoses had plundered the country and murdered people, crimes for which they have yet to be held fully accountable (at least Imelda anyway, considering that Ferdie could well be paying for it all already where he's gone). Suddenly GMA properly started looking like pond scum again, especially after she and some of her select lackeys, during this period of widespread mourning, were found to have gorged themselves on a million pesos worth of food in some restaurant in New York (where the food isn't even reportedly that good). Suddenly it's Cory whose life story will be made into a movie, albeit with local talent, though who would really want white boys and girls to play Filipinos anyway?

At least in some ways, the world is again as it should be.

Celebrating Original Films in 2009

2009-08-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

Going into 2009 I was only aware of two original films that I'd be looking forward to watching: Disney/Pixar's Up and James Cameron's Avatar. As of August, I'm delighted to learn that instead of just two there are now (at least) five: the aforementioned two, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and Neil Blomkamp's District 9. Not having seen any of them, I'm certainly not qualified to give a review, but the good news is that, apart from the predictable buzz generated by a Pixar project and Cameron's first movie project in a dozen years, as well as the rather vocal if slightly mixed reaction to Tarantino's new film at Cannes, surprisingly The Hurt Locker and District 9, two movies that don't have any particularly big names attached (with the exception of Peter Jackson who has producer or executive producer credit on the latter) have, in terms of critical reaction anyway, become quite conspicuous, with the former, a military-themed movie, being the first movie dealing with the U.S. military's occupation of Iraq to get a positive response from film critics and some audience segments (with its buzz increasing over time). Both movies look like they're about ready to pop, and this remake/adaptation/sequel/prequel-weary movie lover is sincerely and fervently hoping that they do.

The best part of them both is that these films aren't just some esoteric, arty movies, the kind that, as Robert Downey Jr. said when inviting Gwyneth Paltrow to star in Iron Man, nobody sees. The Hurt Locker is an action-thriller, directed by the highly capable but sadly underappreciated Kathryn Bigelow, while District 9 is an action science fiction film. I think the last original action-thriller to hit movie screens was the first Die Hard film. Even the fifteen-year old, enormously entertaining Speed was literally conceived as "Die Hard on a bus." The Hurt Locker, which, this early, is already getting Oscar buzz from reviewers, wasn't even conceived as that kind of movie. It's set in the Iraq occupation, but from what I'm read it's apparently devoid of any of the polemics that have turned past efforts on the subject matter into box-office poison. District 9, for its part, appears to be the first original work of science fiction to hit screens since James Cameron's The Abyss. Sure, there have been some pretty entertaining sci-fi movies since then like Jurassic Park, but the thought that a filmmaker could sit down and come up with something entirely on his own without standing on the shoulders of someone like Michael Crichton is pretty amazing, even though theoretically, it shouldn't be.

It's gratifying to see these two films muscling in on territory that for two long has been dominated by sequels, prequels, video games and (gag) toy adaptations. I love the thought that if these films become breakout hits with their low budgets and maverick filmmaking sensibilities, Hollywood suits will be scrambling to make "the next Hurt Locker" and "the next District 9" because just maybe, one of those suits will start looking around for "the next ORIGINAL idea."

I'm similarly enamored with Basterds, and particularly I love the story of how Tarantino spent over a decade (or more) writing the script. I know I'll be in line for it in a couple of weeks.

Although District 9 looks like it'll be coming out in a few weeks I honestly don't know if I'll be able to find the time to see it, let alone Hurt Locker which doesn't look like it'll be released here any time soon, if at all, but I am immensely glad that these movies are out there and I hope there are many, many more of their kind to come.

This Comic Book Fan has Learned to Wait for the Trade

2009-08-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

I think my days of collecting expensive toy cars may well be numbered; on top of the fact that I can count on one hand the remaining cars I want to buy, none of which are even on the market yet (and which won't be for awhile), it is simply too expensive a hobby to pursue on a regular basis and there simply isn't enough space anymore. I'll probably find myself revisiting it someday when a) I have a lot more money, which will eventually happen and b) I have a nice, dedicated cabinet in which to put all my cars.

But there's another reason why, after the last of the few remaining cars on my wish list trickles in, I may call it a day, and it's because I'm slowly rediscovering my first love: comics.

I once wrote that, even when my comic-book collecting had tapered off considerably, I wasn't going to renounce comic books altogether but that 1) I would stop collecting them in individual issues and more importantly, 2) I would only come back when I found stories that I wanted to read again.

Well, in terms of the former I haven't exactly been faithful to this promise as I've been buying a few single issues here and there such as one-shots, the landmark Amazing Spider Man #600, and the Captain America: Reborn limited series. They've all been fun, especially ASM #600 and Reborn, of which only two issues have come out so far, but nothing's persuaded me to go back to collecting monthlies.

On the recommendation of my favorite retailer, I picked up the first storyarc of The Invincible Iron Man in trade paperback format, and was quite simply blown away by both the story and the art. Here was a story that was in continuity and which took place after "events" like Civil War and World War Hulk and their somewhat unflattering portrayals of the character which showed respect for what had been established before but which managed to create an original story with real narrative heft. From my understanding of "events" and what they do, those that took place in this story not likely to be undone by any retconning event. I've long wanted to read a story that felt like it mattered somehow and I've finally found at least this one. After the somewhat lengthy "World's Most Wanted" storyline in the title concludes, I may well eventually look for that in collected form as well. I guess I really missed out by just sticking to the Marvel universe according to Bendis, Millar and Straczynski for the last several years. Matt Fraction is a gem of a writer and I hope Marvel keep him busy for a long time to income, particularly writing Iron Man stories. I also hope they keep Salvador Larroca locked into a contract to work for them for as long as is humanly possible.

Having a nice, handy volume to take anywhere whenever I want to read is not entirely a new thing for me but of all the trade paperbacks I've ever bought, I have to say this one has turned out to be the best read, even when measured against my all-time favorites like the collection of J. Michael Straczynski's inaugural story arc on The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2001. The thought that there are more compilations yet to come from this writer as well as old favorites like Millar, who will be returning to the Ultimates this month is positively tantalizing.

Gone are the days I had to rush to the store to get the next issue or get beaten to the punch by fans and/or speculators. Gone is the itch to complete long runs of a single book. Gone is the mental justification I had for buying single issues that I would one day be able to sell them on the internet. I've already sold a fair number of comics on eBay, getting easily more than I paid for them but the whole thing holds no more appeal for me, and taking care of comics against deterioration and acid damage is just something I can't really do on a regular basis, especially considering the climate here. But I still love a good comic-book story, and so I love me a good trade paperback. Single issues are indeed collectible, but I think I've sold more than enough of them on eBay to prove that to my wife (or anyone else who might doubt it), and I have no further interest in collecting things that are inherently fragile on the off-chance I decide to sell them again someday. Having them sit in my room with the smug knowledge (or supposition) that they will be worth a fortune someday doesn't do anything for me anymore either. So for me there's simply no point to single issues anymore.

I know that paperbacks can't survive without the original, single-issue runs, and so I understand and appreciate what impels single-issue collectors to keep collecting the way they do. After all, until only fairly recently I was one of them. But in reading the Iron Man trade paperback I've finally come to understand the made-for-trade mindset that has many Marvel Comics storylines take place over five to seven issues. Had I collected The Ultimates in this fashion, I would never have chafed at how late the individual issues arrived.

And, thanks to the fact that in collecting my cars I could never buy more than one every few months, I've gotten used to waiting for something, which I could never really do when I was regularly collecting single issues. Reading the issues all in succession is immensely gratifying, especially stuff written by Mark Millar or, most recently, this stuff by Fraction.

I may well buy my next trade paperback months from now, or maybe even a year. The point is it doesn't matter; the collected story will wait for me without skyrocketing in value on the back-issue market. Such is the beauty of the trade paperback!

So in a manner of speaking, my collecting days are back...but not quite in the same way.

Watching Harry Potter, Anakin Skywalker and My Girl Grow Up

2009-08-02T16:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not entirely sure why I keep gravitating towards the topic of child stars. Maybe it's partly because I've been a parent long enough to watch my kids grow considerably, and within a considerably short period of time, that I've acquired this morbid fascination with the way Hollywood seems to "bring up" its young.

As far as I can tell, the handlers of the Harry Potter kids (apart, of course, from their parents) appear to have done the best job considering the enormous amount of pressure that has, for eight years running now, rested on the shoulders of these youngsters. For six movies now, they've played the same characters and have gone from tykes to teens. The good news is, we haven't been reading about any DUIs, wild parties or seen any snapshots of any of them without their underwear (though on the topic of snapshots I have seen ONE photoshopped pic featuring the actors playing the main trio with Rupert Grint's "hand" firmly on Emma Watson's breast"). In short, as far as outward appearances are concerned, they appear to be none the worse for wear. They're all still in school, and are apparently not on drugs, which can only be a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, they'll all go the way of Jodie Foster rather than Lindsay Lohan.

Speaking of kids who are in school, I was pleasantly surprised to read about (and actually watch a video of) Jake Lloyd, who back in 1999 played ten-year-old Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, a movie I actually hated. It seems that, after the role that would have made anyone else's career, he pretty much dropped out of sight (something fanboys will probably thank him for if they get the chance) and turned up, ten years later, in an online interview. The boy's in college and appears to be doing well. No drug-related stories, etc. To think it was only a few years ago that his contemporary, Haley Joel Osment, who also starred in a 1999 smash-hit, The Sixth Sense, figured in a DUI arrest.

Another child-star, from a little further back, is making her return to movies after a long absence. Anna Chlumsky, star of 1991's My Girl, was unable to parlay the success of that one film into a film career as three of her next movies, including the sequel to My Girl, tanked at the box office. She then walked away from movies and focused on, apparently, growing up and going back to school, among other things. And now she's back and apparently quite well adjusted with a college degree, a marriage, and a healthy stage career. Maybe she should thank her lucky stars that her career as a child actor didn't take off. After all, it didn't do the career of her My Girl co-star Macaulay Culkin any favors.

It's nice to read about these things after hearing things about Michael Jackson's troubled childhood as people look back on his life. I guess that a lot of child actors turn out okay, especially the ones who take a step back to live life outside Hollywood for a while; it's just that we don't read about them too much.

Revisiting Spider-Man's Clone Saga and Other Stupidities

2009-07-26T17:35:00.000-07:00

To my mind, the Clone Saga was one of Marvel's ballsiest gambits ever. I definitely won't consider it one of the best stories ever, or, for that matter, even a good story...or even a very original story.

Still, the notion of replacing the Spider-Man whose adventures people had been following for twenty years was insanely gutsy, made more so by the fact that they tried to pass off the replacement as "the real Spider-Man all along." This was, I think, the first truly serious attempt to "un-marry" Spider-man.

Of course, there was no way that legions of fans were going to swallow that the only Spider-Man they had ever known was a fake, and even though I enjoyed the adventures of Ben Reilly I knew, in the back of my head, that they weren't going to last.

Thing is, when Reilly was killed and Norman Osborn brought back in exchange, I was so annoyed that I basically dropped the book for three years, coming back a little over a year before the Straczynski-led Spider-renaissance. Even though I decided after a year of putting up with Howard Mackie that I was better off not reading the title, JMS, with his radically new take on Spider-Man, pulled me right back in and I was an avid, regular reader for over two years thereafter, at least until artist John Romita Jr. left the book in early 2004.

But in that time, for me anyway, as someone who had followed Spider-Man's adventures on and off and on again since 1988, the JMS period represented a bit of a golden age as far as I was concerned; The Amazing Spider-Man was more readable than it had been in a long time. One thing I noticed, however, was that there was little to no reference, during this time, to anything that had come before it. In fact, it appeared that Spider-Man lived in a bit of a bubble. Except perhaps for some of the most rudimentary aspects of Spider-Man's history, there was nary a wink or a nod to any particular Spider-Man story that had come before.

The stories told in this period of time were, in a way, reflective of just about all Marvel's publications in the early Joe Quesada/Bill Jemas-era.

In this post-Jemas era, while crossovers, events and variant covers are all the rage again, one good thing about it is that suddenly Marvel comics writers were no longer afraid of revisiting the past again.

These days, retrospective stories like the Spider-Man and the X-Men miniseries can feature Ben Reilly in his brief tenure as Spider-Man, and an ongoing storyline can be published featuring the Clone Saga, "as it was intended to be told" by two of the original writers, Tom De Falco and Howard Mackie.

These days, Stan Lee can write a brief back-up story in The Amazing Spider-Man #600 commenting on how idiotic Spider-Man's status quo shifts over the years have been, including the changes to his marriage.

I gave up regularly collecting comic books because of the distinct feeling that the creators were constantly yanking my chain, switching the status quo just for the sake of it and not because it developed the character in any truly positive way. My favorite Spider-Man comic book remains issue #38, volume 2 in which he and Aunt May finally have it out about Peter's secret life as Spider-Man. It's an issue-long conversation in which Aunt May, having discovered without Peter's knowledge that he is, in fact, Spider-Man, takes him to task for having hidden the truth from her for so many years. It was heart-wrenching, beautiful stuff and a wonderful treatise on honesty in relationships. And now, in this "Brand New Day" where Aunt May is back to knowing nothing about Peter's double-life, it's completely meaningless, no matter what Quesada and his editors say about things "having happened, only nobody remembers them."

Maybe now that they're willing to "let the past in" and have stopped sweeping their past storylines and indiscretions under the carpet, Marvel will find a way to add that extra layer of meaning to Peter's relationship with Aunt May (among so many other things). Just maybe.

Of course, if they don't, I still get to save about P165 every month.

The Subtext of Anti-Parent Cartoons

2009-07-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the likes of Spongebob Squarepants, Avatar: The Last Airbender and a handful of other cartoons, I'm quite a fan of cable network Nickelodeon. Some of the shows of rival Cartoon Network are okay, too, but many of them, like Ben 10, feel more like they were designed to sell toys than tell stories. Unfortunately, it's got a couple of shows I don't care for very much, namely The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron and The Fairly Oddparents. In both cartoons, the main characters' fathers are depicted as ignorant, self-absorbed buffoons.

The Fairly Oddparents essentially tells the story of a child whose life is so miserable that he is "gifted" with two fairy godparents to help make his life more bearable. In this context it is understandable, at least from a narrative point of view, and therefore occasionally amusing that both of his parents (particularly his father) are depicted as complete jackasses. If he wasn't unhappy, he wouldn't have any need of his fairy godparents. The writing's fairly lazy that way but at least there's some logic to it.

As for Jimmy Neutron, well quite frankly I can't think of any good reason why his father has to be a complete and utter moron who doesn't appear to do anything useful for a living and is preoccupied most of the time with...of all things...ducks. About the only reason I can think of is that if Jimmy had parents who were even half as smart as he supposedly is (and for someone who's supposed to be smart he does a lot of profoundly stupid things almost every episode) he wouldn't be able to do all the amazing things he does because they wouldn't let him. Again, more lazy writing in my opinion, if that's the case.

But maybe there's more to it than that; maybe American parents in general and American fathers in particular have gotten so preoccupied with themselves and their own gratification that there's a whole generation of kids who have been neglected. Maybe it is this generation that has turned to cable television and video games for gratification. If this is a swipe at such parents and the overall effect of a consumerist-capitalist society, then so be it, but otherwise I cannot stand a show that would deliberately breed such contempt for parental figures.

At least Jimmy Neutron stopped airing new episodes two years ago...

Why Do Makers of Comic Book Movies Keep Recycling Actors?

2009-07-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

What do Halle Berry, Sam Eliot, Jon Favreau, Morgan Freeman, Ben Foster, Samuel Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Ron Perlman, Natalie Portman, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Romijn, and Mickey Rourke all have in common? Well, each of them has appeared in more than one movie adapting a comic-book. In the cases of Eliot, Favreau, Foster, Reynolds and Romijn they've even appeared in more than one Marvel movie franchise.

Now, when they're done right or even just well (which oddly enough isn't always the same as right), I am a big fan of comic book movies, especially the Marvel ones, but I have to say this practice a lot of their producers have of recycling the same actors over and over again is kind of silly.

I'm not sure when it all started but the earliest instance I know of was Wesley Snipes who spent a long time cultivating the Black Panther franchise as a star vehicle before eventually jumping ship to play the title character in Blade instead, while Nicolas Cage was solidly in the running to star in Tim Burton's then-planned "reimagination" of the Superman franchise before the project fell apart and he left to do Ghost Rider instead. These actors, however, did not actually play two characters in two separate movies, some of them from the same "universe." I honestly don't get why comic-book movie producers seem to think there's only a limited pool of actors from whom they can draw people to play superheroes or their supporting characters. Sure, in many cases it's the actor who comes forward, as Reynolds has been actively campaigning to play the Flash and, prior to the announcement that he would be playing Hal Jordan a.k.a. Green Lantern in Martin Campbell's upcoming film, was already slated to star in a spinoff featuring the Deadpool character he played in the recent Wolverine movie. Robert Downey Jr. chased down the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man. But with the exception of Reynolds who is set to star as the lead in two comic book films, most of the recycled actors have played supporting, if pivotal roles for which, whatever their campaigning, they were ultimately chosen. So in short, either a limited number of actors went after these roles, or the studios went after a limited number of actors.

(Incidentally, and to go a little off-topic, while I did not feel Reynolds was particularly well cast as GL, I was happy to hear the news of his casting. I'm a big fan of director Campbell's work, particularly on Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's inaugural outing as James Bond, and The Mask of Zorro, and I have high hopes for this film.)

If it is a case of the studios dipping into the same well over and over again this is rather ridiculous, especially in the case of Marvel that has imminent plans of crossing over several of its franchises into the Avengers movie, with possibly more crossovers down the line should they ever start reacquiring the film rights to franchises that have been held for years by studios like Sony and Fox. It's unlikely that these actors would ever appear as two characters, but that it could even happen is extremely silly.

It's equally annoying that Marvel in particular keep going back to the same people for their scripts, particularly the likes of Zak Penn whose work in The Incredible Hulk may have been okay but whose X:Men: The Last Stand and Elektra were rather terrible.

One would think that with over two dozen successful films since the first Superman movie launched the genre 31 years ago, it would be easy for comic book-based projects to attract top talent, or at the very least fresh talent every time a new one is announced. For all we know this talent is already banging on the filmmakers' doors. I know a pre-Hulk Ed Norton campaigned to be able to play Warren Worthington/Angel before the role was given to the insufferable Ben Foster. So is this a case of producers going with the cheapest available talent even though the top talent is readily available? I certainly hope not.

One thing's for sure, there are a lot of great or potentially great comic-book based films currently in the pipeline, and it would be best for EVERYONE concerned, fans and moviemakers alike, if the producers got the best people available for the job, not just some bunch of also-rans they can easily lowball.

Shattering Images

2009-06-30T01:55:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Edited for accuracy

Last year, when Meg Ryan went gave an interview to coincide with the release of her latest film The Women, she made certain comments with respect to her ex-husband Dennis Quaid's indiscretions during their now-defunct marriage (which were actually appropriate considering that the film dealt with the topic of marital infidelity among other things). These comments were reported in a lot of media outlets as the bitter tirade of someone who hasn't gotten over something.

Now, if these comments were simply a recollection of her own experience in relation to her film or a backhanded swipe at her ex-husband, it's impossible to say. But granting that it was a dig at Quaid I can't really say I blame her; her much publicized roll-in-the-hay with co-star Russell Crowe on the set of the 2001 thriller Proof of Life effectively killed her career, though it had no perceptible effect on Crowe's. Her stature as Hollywood's girl-next-door, or, more aptly, America's Sweetheart, meant that extra-marital affairs were a no-no for her.

Quaid, who won a fair amount of sympathy after Ryan had two-timed him, has since his breakup with Ryan seen a bit of a career resurgence with films like The Rookie, The Day After Tomorrow, Vantage Point and even the upcoming G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Maybe Ryan felt it incongruous that he should enjoy success after infidelity while she has effectively been kicked to the curb. Whether or not that was what she meant, it does seem a little unfair when one thinks about it. But then perception is not often governed by the laws of fairness.

The thing is, her fall from grace wasn't even a matter of her being a woman; Angelina Jolie has been married and divorced twice and is perceived by many, rightly or wrongly, to be the reason why Brad Pitt left his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, and yet she not only has post-"homewrecking" hits like Wanted under her belt; she garnered an Academy Award nomination for Changeling to boot. Apparently bad girls are more in fashion now than sweethearts.

Speaking of "bad people" such as the aforementioned Crowe, apparently there is a limit to what "bad boys" can get away with as Crowe learned when he gained some notoriety for reportedly injuring a hotel clerk with a telephone even though based on some accounts the clerk, who supposedly uttered "whatever" when Crowe complained about a malfunctioning phone service, may have at least partially deserved to get pummelled. Crowe's image took a beating especially considering that at the time he was trying to sell a movie where he played a downtrodden depression-era boxer. Not much chance of that happening if you're a real-life bully. Perhaps as a result, Cinderella Man tanked at the box-office.

Kobe Bryant's career was, less than two years after the fact, none the worse for wear after the woman who accused him of raping her settled out of court with him. His star was not dimmed in the least when he won Olympic gold last year or hoisted his first Shaq-free NBA title trophy over his head a few weeks ago. His multi-million dollar endorsement deals are still pretty much intact (though they admittedly were in jeopardy for awhile as was his public image). He took a hit, but ultimately bounced back.

Lest people argue that the case was settled and that Kobe should be regarded as innocent until proven guilty, one could look to the case of the late Michael Jackson for a sterling example of how allegations of sexual impropriety can be a real kiss of death for one's career. Now, I'm not even a Michael Jackson fan (as I've written elsewhere), and admittedly there's something about pedophilia that arguably makes it even more heinous than rape of an adult but the fact of the matter is that while the first case was settled, in the second instance Jackson was acquitted. That is to say, it was ruled that it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he had had sexual relations with his accuser. This was not some case of some shady out-of-court deal. And yet, the first case had already done enough to make sure his chances of selling new albums ere dead and gone, long before he was. In many people's minds, Michael died a pedophile, regardless of whether or not he was. Of course, he didn't do himself any favors by admitting he had little boys sleep in his bed, no matter how much he insisted that it wasn't sexual.

Mel Gibson, of course, with his sanctimonious, hear-mass-in-my-own-private-chapel-in-Latin, make-a-movie-in-ancient-languages-about-how-our-sins-killed-Christ pontification basically set himself up for a fall, and his DUI in 2006 was quite the fall, so much so that three years later fellow Hollywood star Brad Pitt was able to rib him about it. He really does look quite foolish in his mug shot. As to whether or not it's killed Gibson's career remains to be seen as either later this year or early next year he is slated to make his first onscreen appearance since 2002's Signs in a movie directed by Martin Campbell.

Scandal has different ways of affecting different people. For that matter, different things constitute scandal for different people. For Meg Ryan, scandal is having sex with a man other than her husband, while for other celebrities it involves DUI. But the thing about people who are well-known is that the effect of a scandal upon a person's career ultimately depends on what people have come to expect from that person.

Maybe, in that sense, a scandal can be liberating because then the person involved is free from all expectations.

The Different Shades of Celebrity Deaths

2009-06-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

I have no doubt that the internet is now chock-full of obituaries for Michael Jackson, and to a lesser extent, Farrah Fawcett who died less than 24 hours before he did. Not having been a huge fan of either of these celebrities, I really have nothing much to contribute by way of an obit. I do have a bit to say on the matter, though.

Celebrities are, by no means, any better as human beings than the average person; they are simply better known than we are. That comes with so many things; the ability to get across whatever they want to say to more people, often a higher salary than most of us, and often, the unwanted attention of several people, something that usually follows them all to their graves.

But just as not all celebrities (or people for that matter) live in the same way, neither do they die in the same way, and I'm not referring to causes of death. No, that's often secondary to the stage of a celebrity's career when he or she dies.

On the one end of the scale there are the celebrities who die so soon in their careers that all at once there is regret that they were unable to realize their full potential, that the public did not get the chance to know them better, and essentially that they died far, far too young. Probably the most recent such death would be that of Heath Ledger, although in the celebrity world there's really no shortage of them from the passing of such iconic figures as James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly and Kurt Cobain to deaths of other promising artists as those of River Phoenix, Brandon Lee, Aaliyah and even lesser-known talents such as Brad Renfro. These are people who died even before the age of 30, so young that they left so many questions behind as to what they could have achieved as actors or performers given the opportunity. There are also artists who may have died a little bit older than that but whose passing felt only a little less premature; the thought that there was so much more they could have given still weighs on people's minds. While John Candy was obviously not in the best of health, his passing to me was a real tragedy because quite honestly that guy was one of the funniest comedians around and had he lived even another ten years there was so much he could have done.

On the other extreme there are peformers who have lived long, full lives and have had the stellar careers to go along with them. These are celebrities who have achieved everything they possibly could have in their chosen careers and who pass on from this life as revered icons who rise above any controversy that may have popped up in their lifetimes. I think it's fair to say that industry legends like Frank Sinatra, Katherine Hepburn, Paul Newman, and even Charlton Heston fall into this particular category. If he were to die twenty to thirty years from now instead of tomorrow without making more Dan Brown-based movies and more of the caliber that won him his two Oscars, I think Tom Hanks is pretty much destined for this pantheon, as Will Smith, at his current trajectory, would be if he died an old man.

And then there's all the other permutations somewhere in between.

Farrah Fawcett left quite the pop-culture impression on the public in her heyday, but her time as a star basically came and went. She was able to settle into a relatively quiet life (for a celebrity anyway) and endure her battle with her esoteric cancer privately. She was most certainly an icon in her day, and she certainly died quite young, but all things considered, had it not been for her death less than two days ago she would have gone on living a relatively quiet existence.

Then there's the celebrity death which is defies ready categorization. This is the death of a celebrity who has had an impact on the cultural landscape that is so distinctive and so indelible that even if he or she dies long, long after his or her star has waxed and waned, that death leaves people talking about that particular celebrity for years after the fact.

It used to be that the only celebrity I could think of that would fit this bill was Elvis Presley, who, at the time of his death, was well past his lean, mean movie star days and had literally and figuratively gotten fat off the legend he had built. This notwithstanding, his death at the very young age of forty-two ignited worldwide mourning and volumes of conspiracy theories, many of which have managed to persist for over three decades.

Now, I'm convinced Michael Jackson will be the one other celebrity whose death will be viewed in the same way.

I am not what I'd call a Michael Jackson fan by any stretch of the imagination but I cannot deny the impact he had on popular culture in the eighties and the early nineties. He was not just some flash-in-the-pan; he didn't come and go with a particular musical era. He defined the era himself and set the stage for dozens of acts that came after him.

More importantly than that, even years after Jackson's popularity as a performer had waned with the record-buying public, he was still a hot-button topic of conversation. In short, even when were no longer listening to him as much, they were still talking about him. Even when the musical landscape had changed, he still lingered in the public consciousness, even if it was as an oddball recluse.

This is neither an attempt to canonize or condemn him; it's simply a fact. Talent...controversy...people have asked others to forget the other and focus on the one, but the truth is it's all part of the package, the totality of who he was. Thanks to a whole confluence of factors he became who and what he was and part of his public image.

And THAT's what makes his death so unique. Talented artists have died before him and will inevitably die after him, but none like him. He was arguably one of the most polarizing figures in the world of entertainment; there was never any middle ground with the guy, who was adored by his followers and profoundly despised by his detractors. To those who called him Jacko and those who called him Wacko his death represents something significant and certainly worth talking about at length.

Another thing about Jackson is that his is the ultimate cautionary tale. In a world where child stars fall from grace with alarming regularity his fall was the longest and the hardest and not even because of any dip in his popularity or his ability to sell records; that is actually irrelevant. He could have died with a billion dollar bank account and his albums selling like hotcakes but his fall, from the way he basically turned his body inside out for decades to the way he seemed unable to cope with going out in public, would still have been self-evident.

Earlier I blogged about how America and in particular Hollywood should take a closer look at how child stars are handled (or manhandled) by their parent/managers. Maybe stricter laws should be enacted or more maybe existing laws should be more strictly enforced.

His death, just like his life, is certainly unique in terms of the overall effect it's had on people so far, but if one were to categorize him it would have to be as someone whose celebrity may well have been the death of him.

Hasbro: Bringing Our Childhood Memories to Life...Or Not...

2009-06-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

One summer, when I was about ten years old, I watched the animated feature length film, Transformers: The Movie on Betamax. About a year later I watched G.I. Joe: The Movie on Betamax too. I have no doubt I'd probably find them quite trashy if I were to watch them again today (especially the G.I. Joe movie, which I already found kind of silly a year or two after I first watched it) but back then they were pretty much the cat's pajamas.

I'm pretty certain that people like me, who grew up watching those cartoons and who "oohed" and "aahed" at the films of Michael Bay and Stephen Sommers in the mid-to-late nineties and the early part of this millenium, were the target audience for 2007's Transformers and the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

Now, I liked Bay's The Rock and Sommers' The Mummy. I grew up with both Transformers and G.I. Joe in terms of the toys and the animated TV shows. But for some reason the thought of these properties being adapted to the big screen didn't push the buttons for me that I might have thought they would when I was younger. Whereas my reaction to the title-sequence of Spider-Man was akin to a nerdgasm, the best reaction these movies merited was a "hmmm, that looks cool." I even understand why.

Spider-Man and the rest of the comic book characters whose adaptations I eagerly patronized were derived from mythologies that were shaped over several decades. While the main directive of the writers, artists and editors responsible for these characters was basically to sell comics, there were a considerable number of them who, out of a real love for them, were, over the years, able to tell some very compelling stories which have gone into the characters' mythologies and have made them astonishingly rich.

As for the Hasbro properties, well, the fact that they first appeared as toys kind of says everything. All of the media built around them, in the form of Saturday morning cartoons, comic books, novelizations, video games, was designed to sell toys. Not much mythology there.

Even Transformers: the Movie, which I watched a total of TWENTY-SIX times in that fateful summer, was aimed at launching the new line of robot toys, which was why Optimus Prime was offed. Guess who had a toy of Rodimus Prime, the hero of that cartoon, by Christmas that very year? The idea of all of these media was to SELL toys. That's why they've been rebooted ad nauseam for the last quarter of a century; they had to be constantly reshaped and retooled with new continuities and supporting characters and sensibilities, because apart from Optimus Prime, and very few other characters, none of the robots are charismatic or compelling enough to survive the number of different iterations that the product line has gone through.

G.I. Joe is, while also primarily about selling toys, nonetheless a different can of worms. It's older than Transformers by a few years and has a rather well-developed history courtesy of writer Larry Hama's loooooooong tenure on the Marvel Comics series (spanning easily over ten years) among others as opposed to the Transformers comics which had several different writers swapping duties. The thing is, hope of translating any of that mythology intelligently has considerably dimmed with Stephen Sommers coming on board, as anyone who has seen the second Mummy film and 2004's Van Helsing can surely attest. The latter of those two movies is probably one of the worst films I've seen this decade. The rubber muscle suits that have been showcased in the G.I. Joe's promotional stills, which presumably serve as the characters' body armor, are anything but confidence-inspiring. When one thinks about it, though, how else does one translate the look of these toys onto the big screen? Those of them that aren't dressed in generic U.S. military uniforms look downright garish, like Scarlett in her blue and tan tights. And exactly how will the fights between G.I. Joe and Cobra look in real life, with everyone parachuting out of his or her airplane in time and nobody ever dying from the hail of gunfire that is exchanged?

And that, in a nutshell, encapsulates the main problem facing these movies; they adapt properties that may or may not translate very well on the screen. It's a good thing in a way because it reduces expectations, but then, is it really a good thing when filmmakers are excused from making movies that make any sense? I found the first Transformers movie quite juvenile especially with lines that just made me cringe like "whatever happens, I'm glad I got in that car with you." And although it seems that in the entertainment world, a particular property is deemed to have hit its zenith when it has a live-action, Hollywood movie made based on it, I remain in the minority that believes that maybe some things shouldn't be translated.

I'm not narrow-minded though; as little as I enjoyed the first Transformers, I'll probably go see the second, scathingly bad reviews (so far) notwithstanding and G.I. Joe. If I don't like them, then I'll know I was right.

Say what one will about Mattel, but at least they've held off on making a live-action Barbie movie, though they came this close to making one based on the Hot Wheels line. Maybe, just maybe, they recognize that by making live-action films they will attempt a translation that just isn't really possible.

Surprise, Surprise, Captain America's Coming Back to Life.

2009-06-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

When the mainstream media broke the news over two years ago that Steve Rogers, aka Marvel Comics icon Captain America would meet his death in issue #25 of his own series, I doubt there was anyone who reads comic books or who was alive in 1992 (when Superman was "killed") that seriously believed he would stay dead. The question, at least among comic book fans and in particular Marvel Comics fans, was always how and when he would be brought back. Another question was how the stories would be told in the meantime, and with Ed Brubaker handling the writing duties the answer was: very well. Bucky, Cap's sidekick in World War II whom Brubaker had resurrected, assumed the mantle of the star-spangled hero to the surprising approval of many, many comic book fans. So great was their approval, in fact, that a lot of them are lamenting the announcement of Rogers' return after only two and a half years. That says a lot about Brubaker's craft; he made New Coke taste good.

Who better, therefore, than Brubaker to bring Rogers back? And this time he's joined not just by the very talented artist Steve Epting, with whom he made his mark on the character; no, drawing the book is a man who has drawn arguably one of the most iconic images of Captain America since Jack Kirby, Bryan Hitch of The Ultimates fame.

What strikes me as funny about this book, and why I'm even writing this post even without any of my own news to bring to the table, is how people have mentioned that it seems to coincide with the climate of change. When Steve Rogers "died" two years ago I quipped while chatting with my comic-book fan friends, that he'd be back when George W. Bush was out of the the White House, when America had recovered a sense of self-respect and hope in their leaders. For all I know, the story was given the green light the moment Barack Obama's victory was announced; maybe if John McCain had won the 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections and perpetuated Bush's policies Marvel would have shelved the story for at least another four years. President Obama has given Marvel Comics their highest selling book in many years, after all and has tickled them pink with his declaration that he was (is?) an avid collector of The Amazing Spider-Man; it isn't too far-fetched to think his victory and the wave of optimism that followed somehow shaped Marvel's decision to reinstate Rogers as Cap. They could have elected to resurrect him closer to the release of his long-planned feature film but maybe they fear that by that time President Obama may have turned out to be a disappointment. I don't know. In any event, coincidence or not, they are certainly striking while the iron is hot, i.e. while "America" is no longer a four-letter word outside of the U.S.

Questions of timing and conspiracy theories about why they've done it now aside, though, one cannot deny that Marvel is definitely bringing Cap back in style. It would have been just as nice to have another high-profile artists on the book like Steve McNiven, who's got a similar eye for detail or Jimmy Cheung, whose work hasn't been seen in so long it's worrying, but if Hitch's work is anything like his 26-issue, two-volume run on Ultimates I will be the last person to complain.

Not having purchased a book featuring Captain America since Marvel's Civil War event, I have no idea how they plan to bring him back, but the goodwill Brubaker has won over, and Hitch's pencils, will definitely be reason enough to check this out.

The Toy Story Films...Irresistibly Charming, Irrepressibly Illogical (Even for a Cartoon)

2009-06-10T03:25:00.000-07:00

I realize this is my second successive post about animated films, with a particular focus on Pixar, but there's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, specifically since my kids, thanks ot the wonders of the DVD, both got addicted to the two Toy Story movies that have come out so far.

Now, I'm one of the millions of people whose pants John Lasseter and his merry men at Pixar have, with their eight movies (that I've seen, the latest opus, Up, not having coming out here yet) charmed off with their thoroughly entertaining and often genuinely affecting stories which often have very valid, very moving things about the human condition. I'm one of the people anxiously looking forward to the next Toy Story movie which is due out in the summer of 2010.

That said, I think that Lasseter and his posse, at least as far as the Toy Story movies are concerned, is guilty of some pretty lazy-ass writing. There, I said it.

I made a pretty big stink a few posts ago about how movies should adhere to their own internal logic, no matter how skewed in the real world that logic may be. Once the writers have set the "rules of the game" they should not be permitted to rewrite them, unless the rules themselves were by design meant to be rewritten, but again this is a function of how carefully the writers have tied everything together. Boy that sounds confusing.

Anyway, as much as I love both Lasseter's Toy Story films, they, in particular the first one but also in no small measure the second one, are both guilty of some glaring holes in their own internal logic, and this has nothing to do with the films purporting to be "realistic."

At the outset, I accepted wholeheartedly the notion of anthrophomorphic, talking toys. I accepted that they could walk around and have feelings like love, happiness, anger, jealously, and insecurity. I didn't even have a problem with the fact that the toys seemed indestructible on several occasions.

But what bothered me as early as 1995 was the thought that the writers of Toy Story, including people I highly respect like WALL-E and Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton and geek God Joss Whedon, pretty much pissed all over their universe's own internal logic.

The toys have rules, this is explicitly stated by Woody at the end of the film when he says that to save Buzz, the toys have to break a few of them. First and foremost among these rules, apparently, is that humans must not know that toys are alive.

Buzz Lightyear does not believe he is a toy. This is central to his role; the scene where he discovers he is a toy is supposed to be a moment of profound heartbreak for both him and the audience and it's even punctuated by a sappy, overbearing and ultimately manipulative (but nonetheless catchy) song by the film's composer Randy Newman.

And yet...Buzz wholeheartedly and without any question or misgiving embraces the cardinal rule of the toys that he must not appear alive to humans. There is no explanation, not even a throwaway one, like some one-liner about his space-ranger survival training in hostile territory, for why he does it, for why he lets Andy, the toys' owner, treat him like a toy even though he firmly believes he is not one. I wanted (and still want) to ignore this and just let my sense of wonder take over, but for the life of me I could never get over how the writers punched a hole so big in their adopted logic that one could drive a fleet of Pizza Planet delivery trucks right through it. There's nothing wrong with the toys' set of unwritten rules, or that Buzz should follow them; the problem is that as someone who, for most of the movie, does not believe he is a toy, there is no reason for him to do so.

There is more of this tomfoolery in the second installment as another Buzz makes his appearance in the second movie as a story device for a confrontation with Emperor Zurg, but it's easy to ignofe the second time around because the story doesn't hinge on it.

In TS2, though, there is more ridiculously flexible logic afoot. The theme is mortality, which basically hits home the way that envy did in the first movie. Woody is afraid Andy will discard him. He has no idea what it's like to be cast aside by an owner, the child whom he loves with all his, um, heart and is moved to profound pity when he hears the story of Jessie, a "Woody's Roundup" doll just like him, whose former owner Emily grew up in the sixties and basically donated her to charity when she grew tired of her.

There's just one problem here; Woody is explicitly described by his mom as an "old family toy" and then later by another character as a "hand-me-down cowboy doll," ergo, Andy cannot possibly have been Woody's first owner. He would have to have gone through at least one other child who grew up, quite possibly even two, so the question arises; why doesn't Woody remember any of this? He's an antique; the Prospector character, who has never left his box when the movie starts, remembers watching "every other toy get sold" while sitting on a dime-store shelf." Why doesn't Woody, a toy of similar vintage, remember being owned by someone other than Andy?

Again, it's all about INTERNAL logic. Never mind that the entire premise is completely and unabashedly fantastical; the fact is that the writers set rules for themselves and in the next breath broke some of the biggest ones.

What is the point of this post? Well, partly it's to say that such is the sleight of hand of Pixar that even with such enormous holes in their writing, they've got audiences and critics the world over singing odes to them. The Toy Stories are among my favorite films, animated or otherwise, ever, which really goes to show how comprehensively I embrace them for all their flaws.

But really, is it too much to ask that their writers at least adopt and employ consistent logic in their otherwise sterling storytelling? I know they can do better.

Most of me is pretty sure I'll enjoy Toy Story 3 in 2010 a whole lot, especially when I watch it with my kids, but part of me is wondering what internal, self-imposed logic its writers will trample upon this time.

Pixar's John Lasseter: The Savior of Hand-Drawn, 2D Animation?

2009-06-08T18:59:00.001-07:00

In 1989, Walt Disney Studios, whose animated feature films had been box-office kings in the forties, fifties and sixties before their grosses started tapering off for most of the seventies and eighties, enjoyed a bit of a resurgence with the release of The Little Mermaid, their biggest box-office hit in several years. This was followed up two years later by one of the most beloved animated films ever to come from the studio and the only film ever receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, Beauty and the Beast. A string of critical and commercial successes followed with Aladdin, The Lion King and Pocahontas. The early nineties were pretty much a renaissance for the hand-drawn Disney feature length animated film.

Now, what the makers of these hand-drawn wonders may or may not have known that the very studio responsible for releasing their movies was about to push their product to the brink of extinction with an all-new breed of animated film: the computer generated kind.

In 1995, the year Pocahontas grossed roughly $142 million ( numbers which, while solid, definitely represented a disappointment considering The Lion King's gross of $312 million the year before) , Disney released their first ever offering from Pixar Films: Toy Story, directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, it was a film animated entirely using computer generated imagery in lieu of the old hand-drawn techniques. The film went on to gross $192 million, the highest of the whole year.

For masters of the hand-drawn animated film such as Glen Keane, James Baxter and Eric Goldberg to name but a few, this would mark the beginning of the end of the world as they knew it. In the latter half of the 1990s, hand-drawn animated films like The Hunchbank of Notre Dame, Hercules and Mulan all failed to achieve the commercial success of their counterparts that had come out pre-Toy Story. Although Tarzan, with its impressive $171 million box office haul in 1999, gave hope for one brief, shining moment that the hand-drawn animated film would endure, it was followed by more out-and-out disappointments like the David Spade vehicle The Emperor's New Groove which even featured songs by Sting and the expensive summer misfire Atlantis: The Lost Empire. That wasn't even the worst of it. In 2002, after Lilo & Stitch grossed a respectable $140 million in the U.S. box office, the last hand-drawn Disney film to earn over $100 million domestically, Treasure Planet, made for a staggering $140 million (which, for the sake of perspective, was the same amount of money Sony Pictures spent making Spider-Man, that year's biggest hit), proved to be the studio's biggest flop ever, grossing a measly $38 million domestically and effectively driving the last nail into the coffin of the hand-drawn animated film. Considering that a Disney cartoon takes between two to three years to make, the next two releases, Brother Bear and Home on the Range, were probably in the can or in prodcution well before Planet bombed, but as a result they were released to little to no fanfare, with Range being dropped into a mid-spring release rather than into the traditionally preferred summer or Thanksgiving slot, where it bombed. It was also announced, not long before that film's release, that it would be the studio's last hand-drawn film.

Hand-drawn animated would surface for portions of 2007's Enchanted and a few minutes of Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda, but it truly seemed as though the world was done with hand-drawn animation.

While all this was going on, Pixar churned out hit after hit for their distributor, Disney. Not a single one of their films has grossed less than $150 million in the United States alone, with only two of their films grossing less than $200 million. In 2003, the $339 million gross of Finding Nemo, Pixar's highest-grossing film to date, was second only to the $377 million of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, a film everyone knew would be huge.

It came to a point where the guys at Pixar got tired to paying the lion's share of the profits to Disney, and a protracted negotiations ensued. Pixar wanted to pack up and set up shop somewhere else. Disney's knee-jerk reaction was to close down their hand-drawn department and set up their own CGI studio, which churned out such dreck as Chicken Little and the stunningly mediocre Meet the Robinsons. However, they recognized that there was no way they would ever be able to approximate the quality of what Pixar had to offer (and probably that they'd get eaten alive by not only Pixar movies but by the stuff from Dreamworks Animation, which had positioned itself as the Other Major Player in the CG animation game with films like the Shrek trilogy, Madagascar, and Shark Tale. So eventually, a deal was reached giving Pixar not only greater control over their own destiny, but putting Lasseter in charge of Disney's entire animated division.

One of Lasseter's first edicts as the new czar of Disney animation? Bring back hand-drawn animation. You gotta love the guy.

Of course, he's pretty much bringing it into the 21st century, with a lot of updated computer-aided techniques supplementing the hand-drawn work, replacing the now-antiquated Computer Animation Production System Disney had been using from the early 80s up until the demise of its hand-drawn department.

The first new hand-drawn film under the Lasseter era will be The Princess and the Frog, a musical adventure which features a first for any Disney film, a leading character of African-American descent, a pleasant change of pace from a studio once described by activist/director Spike Lee as "the plantation," and which cast a wimpy-voiced and very white Matthew Broderick as the voice of the Lion King, an unmistakably African character.

Heck, I like the new Disney hand-drawn department already!

Another of My Childhood Heroes Finally Gets His Big-Screen Break...

2009-06-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

I grew up with Belgian hero Tintin's adventures. At one point or another I've had every one of the books except for the controversial Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in Russia. Likewise, I don't have the last, unfinished work of Herge, Tintin and Alph-art. But more than any American superhero, including Spider-Man, the Hulk or Batman, Tintin is a comic book character to whom I had the most exposure right up until puberty, so the impression left was pretty much indelible.

I am, as a result, thoroughly excited about the upcoming trilogy of motion-capture films featuring Tintin and his entire supporting cast, including his dog Snowy, my favorite character from the series Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and the bumbling English detectives Thompson and Thomson.

These are movies that have been a long, long time in the making as producer/director Steven Spielberg has long held the option on the movies, which is just as well because now the motion capture technology which is being used to film it has matured to the point that realizing Tintin on the big screen in a manner faithful to Herge's striking visuals is now entirely possible. Neither a straight live-action nor a hand-drawn adaptation, in my opinion, would have captured Herge's extraordinary eye for detail, not for the kind of budgets Hollywood is used to working with, and motion capture and CGI is simply the way to go. Who better to pull this off than Spielberg himself, one of original the masters of visual effects-laden films (ignoring the shoddiness of the CGI in the last Indiana Jones movie, of course)? Well, as if that was not enough he has chosen to collaborate with Peter Jackson, whose work in motion capture for the LOTR trilogy and King Kong were groundbreaking, and apparently dazzling enough to get Spielberg to forgo his usual collaboration with his usual F/X vendor Industrial Light and Magic for this series.

I love the casting as well from Jamie Bell (of Billy Elliot and King Kong fame) as Tintin himself to Andy Serkis (who achieved worldwide fame as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies) as Captain Haddock to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) as Thomson and Thompson.

The films are a long way off (the first to be released in December 2011) which is good because it will give its distributors Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures plenty of time to market the film, which may well prove a hard sell in the United States despite having the names of Spielberg and Jackson attached. Tintin is kind of like Formula 1, loved in the rest of the world but ignored in America, so their ability to put butts in the seats will be almost purely down to the two directors' drawing power rather than any goodwill the character may have in America.

The distributors recognize the risks involved in this production; rather than the usual U.S./rest of the world split, Paramount and Sony appear to be splitting the distribution territories around the world equally, with Paramount perhaps recognizing that the film may, in spite of everything, flounder in the U.S. market and therefore wanting to hedge its bets with a couple of other territories. Well, the studios can play poker all they want, as long as they give Spielberg and Jackson free rein to make my most anticipated comic-book movie since the first Spider-Man. I know I'll be lining up for this one.

On Messing Up Child Stars

2009-06-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I read a little blurb on Yahoo News about Candace Cameron, one of the stars of the now defunct sitcom Full House. Unlike her more infamous former child co-stars Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen she seems to be somewhat more well-adjusted and managed to grab attention for looking great in a black dress, something positive for a change.

The rule, however, seems to be that child actors who enjoy even moderate success in film, television or music end up basket cases with extensive records of substance abuse, wild partying or even going around town without underwear. Whether it's Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, the aforementioned Olsen twins, Macauley Culkin, Edward Furlong or the more tragic examples like Brad Renfro, who died of a drug overdose last year there seems to be a direct correlation between ascension into celebrity at a very young age and an eventual downward spiral into an essentially troubled existence. I'd say this correlation is so clear that it's not even up for debate anymore. The question is, can anything be done about it?

It's a relevant question because a lot of these performers, like the kids of High School Musical or Hannah Montana, may often reach global audiences thanks to brands like Disney, Nickelodeon or Warner Brothers, (with Lohan in particular owing the career she once had to Disney) and like it or not many of them may be viewed as role models.

Celebrity children are just like any other children, after all; they need guidance, parental figures and values formation, something the aforementioned child stars/former child stars clearly didn't get. They need to keep their feet planted firmly on the ground, which, too often, isn't what happens. Now, not all child stars are messed up in the head; kudos to the likes of Billy Ray Cyrus and the handlers of a lot of Disney's and Nickelodeon's child stars, all of whom seem to be turning out okay...so far. Clearly, they've done something right. And there's always the example of Jodie Foster to show that a career as a child actor does not have to go bad.

My guess is that in many of the cases where it goes wrong it's the parents who are to blame, and in particular the parents' overwhelming greed that comes with the thought that their children can make them rich.

Well, considering how zealous the anti-child abuse legislation is in the United States one would think there would be some kind of legal infrastructure protecting children from such rapacious parents. Surely by now there's enough empirical evidence to justify concrete action to guard against this kind of occurrence? It doesn't exactly seem like it.

Till the day that the Americans in general figure out how to keep their child stars from going batty I am glad I've been able to keep my kids from going ga-ga over any child star.

Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

2009-06-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, Marvel Comics launched a new ongoing series featuring the popular X-Men entitled X-Men: Forever, written by renowned X-Men writer Chris Claremont. The idea behind the series was to give Claremont the opportunity to tell the X-Men stories he had wanted to write waaaaaaay back on his all-too-brief tenure on the then-newly-launched adjectiveless X-Men book back in 1991, but had been unable to write after leaving the book due to creative differences with then white-hot artist/co-plotter Jim Lee. In short, the series was set 18-year-old X-Men continuity. Even after such masters as Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon conclusively proved to the comic-book reading world that there was, indeed, life after Chris Claremont, Marvel, for some reason, still saw the need to go back to that well, filled with water that, arguably, had already stagnated.

This seems to be a microcosm of the entertainment industry in general. I know I already lamented this several posts ago on this very blog but considering that, whether in the movies, television or comics, the sheer amount of sequels, prequels, remakes, "reimaginations" and now "reboots" has gone up rather than down, the complaint stands, even though I did enjoy the new Star Trek.

I mean, for every Star Trek, Casino Royale or Batman Begins there is Knight Rider, Bewitched, Beverly Hills 90210, Planet of the Apes, Pink Panther, Psycho, The Wicker Man, and so on and so forth. Probably in the time it takes me to write this blog post three or four more sequels, prequels, remakes or reboots will be greenlit.

Now, in the case of comic books, which are serialized, the retreading of old storylines (e.g. Crisis and now, this exhumation of an X-Men continuity which are nearly two decades old) is the equivalent of the remake, etc. Sometimes it works, as it did with Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man, but regurgitating old material (or using old writers to write "old style" material) is just as likely to turn off fans as it is to push their nostalgia buttons. It's worth noting that the current incarnation of Marvel's entire Ultimate line which was meant as a "modernization" of forty-year old storylines and characters has been discontinued due to flagging sales, with a "relaunch" planned for this year. Ugh.

Hollywood probably won't learn its lesson anytime soon with Batman, James Bond, and now the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise making a killing at the box-office long after they were left for dead, but one can always hope audiences and subsequently filmmakers get sick of "reimagining" the same thing over and over again. One need only to look at the Pixar films, only one of which was a sequel and most of which were completely original material, to know that it's still possible, in this day and age, to produce work that is both original and successful.

Good News for Spider-Man 4

2009-05-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

While I'm one of the people who vehemently believes that Venom did not belong in Spider-Man 3, I also think that the buck should stop with the film's director, Sam Raimi. After all I think it was Raimi's idea to have Peter Parker do some ridiculous dance to a James Brown song, to retool Sandman as a sympathetic character and to retcon him (yes, even in the film) into the murder of Uncle Ben, and to cast some completely untalented children in bit parts towards the climax of the film (i.e. the boys who say "awesome" and "wicked cool" and the little girl who sells J. Jonah Jameson a camera). So while I joined the chorus of people who decried Venom's appearance in the story as dictated by Avi Arad, I'm not unmindful of Raimi's rightful share of the blame.

That said, I am really, really glad he seems to have gotten his mojo back, something apparent from the pre-release buzz surrounding his return to horror Drag Me To Hell. Now, I'm not a horror movie fan and will most likely not see it when it comes out here, but considering that the Spider-Man franchise remains very much in Raimi's hands I'm glad he's still got his touch. Also, it's encouraging to note that the scripting duties for SM4 have been handed over to someone else, which works for me because I think giving Raimi and his brother a hand in the writing was a huge mistake; SM1 and 2 were scripted by David Koepp and Alvin Sargent, respectively, and while Sargent pulled scrivening duties on the third film it was based on treatment by Sam and Ivan Raimi.

Now that Raimi's managed to win back some of the goodwill he may have squandered with SM3, I'm really hoping he manages to get the bit back between his teeth when SM4 starts shooting sometime next year. There are things he could work on; I'm hoping he improves the CG quality (which seemed to peak with SM2 before going disastrously awry in SM3) and, if possible, hires someone better than Christopher Young to do the scoring. As far as casting goes, I honestly wouldn't mind if he replaced Kirsten Dunst with Alison Lohman as well; I've always found Lohman more attractive.

Come May 2011, Sam, people will be back in your corner once more so you'd better deliver, especially considering you'll be up against Captain America and the Avengers...

The Real Slaughter...

2009-05-28T01:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not terribly keen on seeing the film Kinatay, even though its director Brilliante Mendoza, has only just won the the award for Best Director at the recently-concluded Cannes Film Festival. I am genuinely annoyed, though, that apparently, I couldn't see it even if I wanted to, at least not in Philippine movie theaters. It looks like I have the government to thank for that.

For a change, it's not that the government banned the film or subjected it to heavy censorship; it's that Mendoza, its director, in anticipation of the hack-job treatment by the government has shied away from having it commercially screened choosing instead to show it at universities around the country, which is probably the best place for it.

I think it speaks volumes of how prudish and culturally stunted several of our institutions are that an award-winning filmmaker shies away from showing his own people what appears to be his greatest work so far. Our institutions are kind of like parents who won't let their kids play pop music, or do something radically different from what they're used to. After so many years, the children become shy to let their parents know about anything they do because they're afraid of getting chastised or worse. After awhile, the parent doesn't even have to do anything for the child to not want to tell or show him something. Notably, though, this doesn't stop the child from doing what he wants to do; he just doesn't tell the parent about it.

Now, while as a parent I certainly see the need to discipline my children and to make sure they don't behave in a way likely to get either of them in big trouble, the parent analogy fails insofar as it fails to take into account the fact that the censors and film review board often forget that with respect to certain things, movie viewers should be allowed to make up their own minds about something, whether it's excessively violent, or prurient, or unfit for their viewing. All the review board's job is to give a film a rating, and yet with that dreaded "X" they've managed to strike fear in the hearts of so many directors wanting to reach a wider audience and it is thus that the butchered movie is born; directors wanting to please the review board hack and slice until their film gets the favorable rating for which they yearn.

Ironically, the word "katay" from which the title is derived means, to butcher or slaughter rather than the "massacre" into which it has been incorrectly translated in some news outlets. Had Mendoza attempted to screen the film for commercial audiences here, perhaps its title would have been more a description of the film itself than of the story it had attempted to narrate. We shall never know.

Why Reduce Expectations?

2009-05-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

I accept that not all films are created equal, that some films are inevitably better than others, that there are several different kinds/genres of film, and that sometimes it's pointless to compare films or evaluate some films by the standards that are applied to others.

What I do not and will never accept, though, is the notion that a film, by virtue of being a comedy/action/insert-genre-here film, is exempted from having any semblance of quality, e.g. "what do you expect, it's an action film!" or "of course, it's mindless, it's a family movie!" Now, I realize that quality is a highly subjective term so I've come up with some very basic parameters that, in my opinion, should apply to almost any movie, no matter the genre:

1) I think that a movie should, first and foremost, have a plot, not a string of excuses for certain events to happen. There should be something, whether it's a physical MacGuffin or something more substantial, that pushes the characters forward from the start of the movie to its end.

2) I think it's fair to say that any movie or even any work of fiction, for that matter, should proceed according to its own internal logic, even if that logic is presented as inherently illogical. In short, once the filmmakers/storytellers lay down the parameters of the story, they should stick to them instead of shifting back and forth within this logic at their convenience just to advance the story.

3) I think that, with the possible exception of Dumb and Dumber, no film should be allowed to rely on the stupidity of its main characters to propel the story forward. The worst ever example of this faux pas I witnessed on film was when, in Back to the Future II, Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly, for no apparent reason, walked away from the time-traveling DeLorean and left the door WIDE OPEN for a considerable period of time, allowing old Biff (Thomas Wilson) to go back in time and mess up the entire continuum with his self-aggrandizing actions. None of this would have been possible if Marty McFly hadn't left the door open, and therefore his inexplicable stupidity was the only possible catalyst of some very important plot points. I know with absolute certainty that there are other examples of such awful plot devices but this is the one that truly left an impression on me, even though it occurred 20 years ago.

I therefore don't accept that Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is supposed to be mindless. If I find it every bit as bad as reviewers have claimed it to be, I won't accept that Terminator: Salvation is excused from making any kind of sense just because it's an action movie. Whether their purpose is to make us cry, laugh, cringe or cheer, movies are supposed to be well-done love letters to the audience, not dumbed-down, pandering tripe that basically treats all moviegoers like small children. Heck, some of the most intelligent movies ever made (like most of the Pixar films) are branded as family movies, but they don't use that as an excuse to condemn their films to mediocrity.

Suddenly I am Glad I Never Bought "The Passion of the Christ" on DVD

2009-05-27T06:01:00.001-07:00

I was not a fan of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, when it came out, though I did admire his singularity of vision and his striking (no pun intended) use of lighting, set design, acting, music, sound mixing and editing, all of which seemed to exude the sheer force of his conviction in making this movie. Not being Jewish or having grown up around Jews I was not aware of any anti-Semitic slant in the film (even though his drunken 2006 rant sort of retroactively confirmed what a lot of people were arguing just before and during the film's release). As a Catholic I also respected his devotion, even though I didn't exactly agree with his expression of it. But I never cared enough for his film enough to see it again, let alone bring it home on DVD.

When I learned about the failure of Mel Gibson's marriage on Yahoo News, and the fact that his new, younger girlfriend was pregnant with his child, I was surprised at how upset I felt, but subsequently glad that I felt that way.

Mel Gibson's 27-year-marriage, out of which he fathered seven kids was not, as far as I know, the typical Hollywood coupling. It's different from the unions that have so often been shoved in my face that I have, God forgive me, actually wished for their eventual failure, like the name-amalgam pairs, Bennifer (Mark I), TomKat and Brangelina to name a few and the really disturbing pairings like Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood. No, Gibson met and married his non-movie star wife before even he was a star; he didn't parade her around or jump on couches professing his love for her. He wasn't very good tabloid fodder that way, but he did seem like a nice, low-key husband determined to keep his private life mostly out of the public eye.

And it was thus that I realized that I didn't even feel that bad for him but for his marriage, because after all the controversy that hounded him over The Passion and his infamous DUI in 2006, it seemed that his being a decent family man was one of the few redeeming things about him. It was nice to know about a megamillion dollar movie star being able to stay married to his mundane, non-movie star wife for a long period of time and to raise a nice, big family with all of his millions. I was similarly disappointed when Eddie Murphy's longtime marriage to his wife, which also produced five or six children, if I recall correctly, ended.

But I think what riles me more about Mel's transgression against his marriage is basically the fact that he made a movie about Jesus. Jesus. He made a movie with the syrupy, extremely heavy-handed message that Jesus loved us and endured things that no person should have to endure just to redeem us of our sins. He blistered my eyes with the sight of the infamous "cat's claw" whip ripping flesh from Jim Caviezel's body as he played Jesus Christ.

And I thought, how could a person who makes a movie about Jesus and goes around in junkets saying that this was his most profound and heartfelt expression of his love for Jesus do something like that? As far as Gibson was concerned, after all The Passion wasn't just some film or even a vanity project; it was, as far as I know, the very embodiment of his faith. He even said that he made a cameo in it; his was the hand that hammered the nails into Jesus' hands, saying that he crucified Jesus through his sins. Remembering that quote made me think: so are you lancing his side now too?

Nowadays I can no longer dissociate The Passion, which should probably still be appreciated on its own merits, as the sanctimonious ravings of some ultra-conservative blowhard who clearly has no moral authority or any other form of business preaching to anyone about how much God or Jesus loves us. I also felt irritated at how people like him, as cliche as this may sound, really give us Catholics a bad name.

Thanks a lot for making us look like pontificating hypocrites, as if those idiots on the pulpits weren't already doing a good enough job. Why don't you go become a Fundamentalist Protestant and erode their credibility a few notches?

At the end of the day, the one thing I'm glad about is that I realize that I still value marriage even my own, at least enough to feel bad to see one that's lasted for so long end so badly. All that's left for me to do is somehow learn from Gibson's mistakes and hope I don't make them. It really is such a shame...

More Marvel Movie Mania: Branagh's Bets

2009-05-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

Marvel comics fan though I am, the mighty Thor is not among my favorite characters in their pantheon. That said, I like him as a character of the Avengers and in good hands he's a nice character to read...pretty much the same deal as with Superman. Though I did like the Don Blake alter-ego; typical Stan Lee irony was at work there (unless Blake was Jack Kirby's idea). And while I'm not nearly as excited at the prospect of a movie about him as I was about, say Spider-Man or Iron Man, I am looking forward to the impending adaptation for a number of reasons.

The first and foremost is the upcoming Avengers movie; it's long been said that the principal Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor) will be introduced in their own movies before the team movie itself comes out, and with Iron Man already having opened to much success last year Thor is now the next crucial piece of the puzzle. A successful film about him will bring us that much closer to the Avengers film and that, by itself, is a highly tantalizing prospect.

The second reason I'm excited for this and it's almost as big as the first is the choice of actor-director Kenneth Branagh to direct the film. Now the only two Kenneth Branagh films I've seen in their entirety are Much Ado About Nothing (1993), which I found very good, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), which I found very bad. So if it's based on my own experience of his work, there's a 50/50 chance the Thor movie will stink.

The thing is, and my own experience has nothing to do with this, there is no denying the pedigree that Branagh brings to this film. This is a filmmaker who has built his career almost entirely on adapting the works of William Shakespeare with films he starred in like Much Ado..., Henry V, Hamlet and ones he did not, like the recent As You Like It. That Marvel went after him shows how seriously they are taking this project.

Thirdly, and this is actually a corollary of the second reason, Branagh's showing a clear desire to defy convention. Conventional wisdom has for quite some practically dictated that with a franchise movie, the usual strategy is to cast a relative unknown in the lead and surround him with well-known (or at the very least, better-known) actors, preferably as the villains, but also as supporting characters. It's been that way for years, with the Hackman and Reeve playing off each other in Superman, Nicholson and Keaton squaring off in Batman, and Dafoe and Maguire duking it out in Spider-Man.

Apparently Branagh would have none of that. While he went with the relatively unknown lead (Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, who made quite an impression on me with his very brief performance as George Kirk Sr., the father of James T. Kirk of the Star Trek series) which was almost to be expected (with people like Robert Downey, Jr. being more the exception than the rule), he cast an actor who was perhaps even LESS known outside of his native country than Hemsworth, a British theater actor named Tom Hiddleston, who had worked with Branagh before. That kind of moxie can lead to one of two things: astonishing success or utter disaster. There is no middle ground, as far as I know.

Considering what's riding on this film, I do hope Branagh's gambit pays off. Thor is not quite the household name that Spider-Man was before his film, but neither was Iron Man, or Daredevil or Ghost Rider, and every one of those characters' movies, whether deservedly or not, spent two straight weekends as America's number one movie.

In short, Thor may be another feather in Marvel's cap or their first misstep as a studio, but either way, I'm quite interested to find out how it does.

My Attempt to Untwist Trekkies' Panties

2009-05-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

SPOILER WARNING: This is not a review; it is a discussion of certain key story elements of the new Star Trek film. Anyone not wanting to have plot points revealed before hand should steer clear of this post.

I am no Trek newbie. I was seven years old when Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan came out and was old enough to feel sad when Spock, then played by Leonard Nimoy, sacrificed himself to save the crew of the Enterprise, and glad to see him return in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Of the ten movies that came before the 2009 film, described by some as a reboot, by others as a prequel and still others as a sequel, I've seen five in the theaters, and only eight overall (having missed the much reviled Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and the franchise-killing Star Trek: Nemesis). My favorites prior to the new film were the 1996 film First Contact, which actually featured the Next Generation cast of Patrick Stewart et al., and, of course The Wrath of Khan. I'm not a big fan of the original TV series and I may not have written dissertations on Trek (though I've heard that at least one has been written) but I think I'm fit to at least offer an opinion on why the new Star Trek film does NOT erase all of the previous ones from continuity.

As I understand it, time travel is not possible in the fanciful way it's been depicted in fiction, i.e. apparently, due to the laws of physics, it's not possible to go back, though it is theoretically possible to go far forward. Apparently H.G. Wells was correct to assert, as he did in The Time Machine, that one cannot travel back in time. Hence, the notion of traveling back in time will forever remain a fantastical one, the rules of which can pretty much depend on the writer.

In Star Trek, therefore, when the villainous Nero and Spock find themselves flung backwards in time after being sucked through a black hole it is revealed that they have altered the space-time continuum by their mere presence, and even more so by the acts of mayhem Nero perpetrates on the universe of the past, destroying space vessels and even an entire planet.

It is the course of the film that the young/new Spock (Zachary Quinto this time around) declares that because of Nero, the time-stream has been altered and that all of the characters' destinies have changed and are now completely unpredictable.

This has caused a bit of an uproar among some fans (who appear to be in the minority, considering that the new Trek film is reportedly on its way to becoming the most successful in the history of the franchise, even allowing for inflation).

Still, if for no other reason than I want to stand up for a movie I really enjoyed, more than I've ever enjoyed ANY Trek movie, I would like to try my hand at justifying my belief that what has been created is an alternate universe that runs parallel to the original continuity but does not replace it.

The key here is Spock, who appears both as a young man portrayed by Quinto and an old one portrayed by Nimoy.

First of all, Spock remembers the past that he knew; he remembered his friendship with Kirk, Scotty's transport theories and even what drove Nero to do what he did. Had his timeline been erased, he would not have remembered things the way he did and the writers could have just as easily come up with another story device for Kirk to learn of what happened, like Nero's monologue for example, or something else. Just as Nimoy is the link between the past and the present Star Trek in the real world, so is Spock the nexus between the original reality and the one that now runs parallel to it. Time travel to the past will never be real; there are no rules, let alone hard and fast ones, so the writers have a lot of room to play around, and they've played pretty well in my opinion.

Second, clearly director J.J. Abrams and his writers wanted to pay homage to what had come before; rather than have Spock recount the past in some cheesy Titanic-style flashback, they infused him into the story and kept him around when everything was finished rather than have him fade away to his own time or something like that. This movie is a sequel because even though it's set in the past, the old Spock is right smack in the middle of it; for him, this takes place AFTER all of the old adventures in the first six movies (the seventh being the first of four Next Generation films), so the past is his future. It could have been a straight-up prequel, but the filmmakers were determined that it should not be so, hence the fascinating prequel-reboot hybrid feel to the whole affair.

Finally, it makes no sense that Abrams and company would go through all this trouble to woo new audiences but be completely and utterly oblivious to the built-in fandom that this franchise has accumulated over well over forty years. Trekkies are the last people on Earth they would want to alienate because theirs would be the first fannies in the seats. It's probably the main reason Nimoy was brought on board.

In short...of all the possible conclusions, given both the narrative devices and the imperatives behind them, the idea of a parallel universe is the most...logical.

Toy Tie-Ins: Often A Boon and Sometimes a Bane to A Film's Marketing...

2009-05-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Toy tie-ins are cool. Ever since the concept was first massively popularized by Kenner when it made and sold licensed toy versions of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader and the other characters of Star Wars, toy tie-ins have been an integral part of the marketing push of any big movie franchise or aspiring movie franchise. I think there have been books written on the subject, which has, by now, formed a sort of sub-culture all its own which was arguably lampooned in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

So important are toy campaigns, in fact, that they can help a movie studio make money even if the film itself underperforms, as was the case with the "Hulk hands" which proved to be rather popular toys despite the underwhelming grosses of the 2003 Marvel Comics-based film Hulk. Notably, with last year's sequel, The Incredible Hulk, also came the return of the very same toy, albeit from a different manufacturer in Hasbro as opposed to Marvel's "in-house" toymaker Toy Biz. Toy tie-ins, of course, can help the profile of TV shows as well, although in some instances the show is merely the vehicle to sell the toys, as was the case with such popular toy lines as Transformers and G.I. Joe, to name a few. That's a different animal altogether.

Sometimes, the tie-ins are brilliant; this is determined mainly by the quality of the toys. I despised the plastic and overly expensive Speed Racer Hot Wheels cars that came out to coincide with the movie, but liked (and even bought) the relatively cheaper, die cast Jada Toys versions of Speed Racer cars based on those featured in the original 1960s cartoon. Jada toys does good tie-in, movie-based stuff like the Scarface Cadillac (with matching Al Pacino figurine!) or the Initial "D" cars based on the popular anime. Sometimes they're awful, and I won't even go into some of the worse ones I've seen on a shelf.

For better or worse, though, I won't deny that all of these toys help increase awareness of a film, even months before its actual release.

The thing is, sometimes they can make a potential audience a little too much aware of a film by revealing plot points. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say I think a certain summer movie this year has had one of its surprises revealed by the toys currently on the shelves.

Now this could all be deliberate; let people think they know a certain plot twist ahead of time and give them a sense of gratification upon being able to "get the jump" on everyone else, but for those of us who want our surprises to remain surprises, it can be rather irritating to have a good chunk of the plot telegraphed to us beforehand. It feels a case of some really bad marketing strategy. Can anyone imagine how much The Sixth Sense would have been diminished if people knew the whole story, or even just the twist at the end, beforehand? That's the kind of spoilage I think I experienced by glancing at these toys (and, incidentally, some stupid person also spoiled the ending of The Sixth Sense for me as well, though I was still able to enjoy it despite my profound annoyance).

I mean, what's the point of dodging wikipedia, and other spoiler heavy sites on the internet if a spoiler can appear in glorious 3-D on a toy shelf?

I guess the one sure way to make sure one has a spoiler-free action/franchise movie experience is to steer absolutely clear of toy stores (assuming one is the kind who frequents them to begin with) for at least three or four months before the movie's release in theaters, and, if one is a toy collector, buy them the day after watching it.

Easter Eggs

2009-05-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

Since I introduced the concept of the "Easter Egg" on DVDs to my son, he's been pretty much obsessed with them, quite to my amusement.

I realize that an Easter Egg is loosely defined as something that is hidden, but what's really fun about movies based on pop-culture icons like the Hulk or Spider-man is that these characters have such rich histories that it's child's play to pack in tons of references, some obvious, some obscure, to these histories in the movies. Depending on the fan's knowledge of the character, the little factoids may be easy or tough to spot, i.e. they may or may not be "Easter Eggs," but I'll just call them that for convenience's sake.

Here, in no particular order, are some Marvel Easter Eggs/references, some obvious, some a touch more subtle, that I particularly enjoyed:

The appearances of Jim Wilson and Bill Bixby in The Incredible Hulk. "Hey! That's a great punch!"

Tony Stark referring to a "Ben" during the press conference in Iron Man where he had everyone sit on the floor, who may or may not have been Ben Urich ( a character that Scott Glenn---not Joe Pantoliano--was born to play).

Captain America's shield in Iron Man.

The "Eddie's been trying to get a picture of him for weeks" line in the first Spider-Man movie, seen as an oblique reference to Eddie Brock which was later invalidated by the fact that in Spider-Man 3 he was "the new guy." It was quite a tease, and even though SM3 eventually disappointed, that particular reference was still fun.

The list of mutants that appeared on a computer screen in X2: X-Men United. Yet another tease that eventually let me down, but it sure got the fanboy in me drooling.

The Fastball Special from the much-reviled X-Men 3. The difficulty with casting a man as large as Hugh Jackman as the diminutive Wolverine is that you have to cast someone even bigger than him as Colossus to make the FS seem anything other than ridiculous. Well, they found their man with Daniel Cudmore, who must be seven feet tall and four hundred pounds or something (he looks huge, anyway), and even though the actual move looked a touch awkward (in the comics Colossus doesn't have to spin around; he just chucks Wolverine like he would a baseball, hence the name) I applauded the effort.

"Whiplash 1" and "Whiplash 2" in Iron Man. Coincidentally or not, Whiplash (whom I "met" in the comic book world as Blacklash), played by Mickey Rourke, is slated to be the next villain for Shellhead to square off against.

Samuel Sterns' swelling head in The Incredible Hulk, a sneak preview of his guise as the Leader. If only for that, that movie deserves a sequel.

The references to the writers and artists of the character Daredevil was one of the few things that was truly good about the movie based on him. From the names of the boxers Matt Murdock's father fought (Bendis, Mack, Miller) to the billboards (Romita was on one) to the names of the characters (Fr. Everett being a reference to co-creator Bill Everett, lowlife Jose Quesada being a reference to Marvel E-I-C and Daredevil writer/artist Joe Quesada) to appearances by the creators themselves (Stan Lee in his obligatory Marvel movie cameo, Kevin Smith as a morgue attendant, Frank Miller as a bodyguard with a Bullseye-flung pencil in his forehead), this movie is second to none in references to the character's many, many creators. It'd be even cooler if there were references I didn't catch, like Gene Colan or something like that; though I'm not about to get that movie on DVD just for that, it would be cool to catch it while I was watching the movie on TV or during a bus ride or something like that.

Yeah, comic book geeks, except for the perenially-complaining, impossible to please ones, are really in a better position to enjoy comic-book derived films than anyone else. ;D

For the Love of Simon Cowell, Jeremy Clarkson and...Armond White???

2009-05-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

Just about anyone who watches TV knows who Simon Cowell is. The sultan of snark has achieved heights of notoriety that neither of his co-judges, each of whom is well-enough-known in his or her own right, can quite aspire to achieve, at least as judges of the show (considering that Paula Abdul was already quite popular on her own independently of the show), and it isn't just because he was responsible for (or at least instrumental to) bringing the show over to the U.S. from across the pond. It's because of all the four (formerly three) judges, he is apparently the hardest to please, and of four judges, all of whom are perfectly capable of giving an aspiring idol a thumbs-down, his negative remarks are easily the most biting, the most caustic, the most likely to break hearts and crush spirits. Pleasing Cowell has therefore become something of a Holy Grail, with many aspirants, including the really, really awful ones that kick off any given season, often proclaiming that they WILL win him over. Never mind, Paula, Randy and the other new judge whose name I have yet to remember. Simon, in many people's eyes, is the big cheese, even though, during auditions, there are three people who could (and often do) outvote him, and even though during the actual contest, the voting is entirely in the hands of the audience.

It's the same thing with Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, who, to those who follow the show, is rather famous/infamous for his virtually all abiding intolerance of two things: 1) American cars; and 2) almost all variants of the Porsche 911. Over the years, the BBC program has by and large been more about entertainment than journalism, with Clarkson and his co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May having gotten their facts wrong about the cars they were reviewing on more than one occasion, and rather than give straightforward reviews of the vehicles they drive the reviewers, particularly Clarkson, invariably resort to hyperbole, quite often in lambasting the subjects of their review. In fact, in one episode last year, Clarkson, rather than actually review the Porsche 911 GT2, had a series of shots of him smoking the wheels with him wailing behind the wheel to signify how unruly a car he found it to be. Between his hatred of the 911, which can sometimes border on the irrational, and his repeated fudging up of the facts of the cars he drives, Clarkson is hardly the world's most professional automotive journalist, but I defy anyone to name someone in the same line of work who is anywhere near as well-known (at least in the English-speaking world).

While he is nowhere near as well-known as either of the foregoing gentlemen, Armond White, a film critic for the New York Press whose reviews appear online at the popular website rottentomatoes.com, appears to be gaining a bit of notoriety for his apparent determination to give otherwise critically acclaimed movies failing grades and to do the exact opposite for a lot of movies that get critically panned. As absurd as this sounds, allow me to give examples: last year he panned films like The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler and Milk, all of which scored at least 93% or higher on the "Tomatometer" or the site's collective score based on all of the compiled reviews. This year, his was one of the eight negative reviews of the new Star Trek film, which so far has rated an astonishing 96% on rottentomatoes.com out of more than two hundred reviews so far (though to be fair, he was in good company this time, with renowned film critic Roger Ebert posting a rather negative review himself). With this guy the rule of thumb seems to be that if everyone else seems to like it, it's almost a given that he will hate it.

But that's not the astonishing thing.

What really killed me was how, of the more than two hundred reviews currently tracked on rottentomatoes.com, White's review, far and away, has the most traffic in the form of user comments, with RT users having posted well over TWO HUNDRED COMMENTS on his review alone at last count. Sure, the comments were basically buckets of venom, some of them racist, some of them calling for his job, threatening his life, or that of his family, while some of them posited conspiracy theories about why he likes to give bad reviews to otherwise well-reviewed movies, but the point is, the comments were THERE. NO OTHER review generated anywhere NEAR as many responses. I never even bothered to read the review, and my previous experience with White's reviews had gotten my blood boiling; the comments were more than enough reading for me.

And it hit me: a GREAT many people in this world, whether they are followers of Simon Cowell, or of Jeremy Clarkson or the people who just want to pull down their pants and crap on Armond White, are profoundly addicted to negativity.

I'm sure someone with a better understanding of the human psyche could articulate this point a lot better than I am trying to do here, but since a dear friend of mine pointed out (on this very space) that I seem to seek out things that annoy me I've been trying to understand why. I haven't yet succeeded, but I've at the very least determined that I'm not alone.

And that isn't a good thing.

Maybe it's part of our nature because we aim to please, therefore we seek out the people hardest to please. Or maybe it's because when we see a red stain on a white dress we have to keep rubbing and rubbing it until the entire dress is stained.

Or maybe it's because we love bad boys/girls. I mean, when talking about Star Wars, one has to ask: who's more iconic, Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader? And is it coincidence that Hannibal Lecter has been featured in five movies as opposed to Clarice Starling's two?

I don't pretend to understand why it is that so many people gravitate towards things that upset them, irritate them or make them varying degrees of unhappy, but it seems like an inescapable truth that people do just that, even when they know better.

We really are a bunch of total basket cases that way...

So the next time Simon buys another mansion or shacks up with some other impossibly gorgeous ingenue, or the next time Jezza smokes the tires of some unconscionably expensive, million-horsepower monster with Alcantara leather and gets paid for it, or the next time Armond White basks in the thousands of negative comments from his anti-fans, each of these men should take pause and give thanks for many people's inordinate fondness for dwelling on the negative.

The Difference Between Fox Marvel Movies and Every Other Kind...

2009-05-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

Last year, 2008, was my favorite year for Marvel Comics movies. Last year, we Marvel Comics fans were treated to one hit-it-out-of-the-park fantastic film with Iron Man, and one solidly-entertaining, if sometimes flawed popcorn flick with The Incredible Hulk. Not since 2002, when the one-two punch of Blade II and Spider-Man rocked my world, had I enjoyed a year full of comic-book movies that much.

For me 2008 was particularly gratifying as a Marvel fan because it was a year that some luster was restored to the brand; after a run of both critical and box-office successes with the first two Spider-man movies and X-Men 2, Marvel's film properties suffered a visible drop in quality, with the Fantastic Four movies being average at best, the Ghost Rider film turning out to be unspeakably awful, and the third installments of both the Spider-man and X-men franchises proving to be huge disappointments to many fans.

The summer of 2008 changed that when Iron Man surprised everyone by coming in second only to The Dark Knight in terms of United States grosses and garnering stellar reviews almost across the board, at least if rottentomatoes.com and metacritic are to be believed. The Incredible Hulk may not have scaled similar heights, but considering that it was working against a lot of factors, chief of which was the very poor reception of its predecessor, Ang Lee's 2003 debacle Hulk (which I actually liked), it was actually quite an achievement; it opened well, showed visibly better legs than the Lee film, and left a lot of fanboys cheering. And best of all, both movies, the latter even more than the former, offered somewhat tantalizing teases of the unified Marvel Universe to come, something no other comic book film, Marvel, DC or otherwise, could claim.

Of course, the best part about both these movies was that they were not made by a studio, whether Sony, Fox or Universal; they were made by Marvel itself, with studios such as Paramount and Universal only handling the distribution duties. Marvel showed that with the right amount of money, talent and love for the material, there was so much they could do. Sony Pictures, the studio responsible for Spider-Man, perked up and took notice; they pushed the release date on the inevitable fourth installment back a full year to allow for more development time.

Unfortunately, however, the quality of those two films appears to have had no impact on how Twentieth Century Fox handles its Marvel movies, at least if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is any indication.

To be fair, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, was probably well into production at the time both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk came out, so its quality, or lack thereof, may well have been set in stone in some respects, but the chasm in quality between the Fox film and that made by Marvel themselves is so wide one wonders if Fox will ever catch up, though they're reputedly fixing to retool the Fantastic Four franchise along the lines of Iron Man. If they hire ILM to do the effects instead of some two-penny, half-penny outfit I'll be inclined to believe them.

The way Fox makes Marvel movies is a lot like the way Mattel/Hot Wheels makes 1/18 Ferrari model cars. Both companies are fond of cutting corners and are often so intent on getting more for less than their products are visibly slipshod, especially when compared to the slicker products of their rivals. Just as Mattel has a stranglehold on the Ferrari license, unfortunately so does Fox seem to have an interminable contract with Marvel over properties like Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and, of course the X-Men. So for years to come we can look forward to cheap excuses for Ferrari models and crappy Marvel/Fox movies. The thing is, like a toy modeled after a Ferrari, a movie made based on a Marvel Comics property has the potential to be so much more.

Iron Man II and Terrence Howard's Tribulations

2009-04-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

The idealist in me wants to sympathize with actor Terrence Howard, who was dropped from the cast of the upcoming sequel Iron Man II. From the outside looking in it seems to be yet another case of the big guy (Marvel Studios in this case) trampling on the little guy (Howard).

The problem is, I didn't care that much for Howard's performance in the first Iron Man movie. I pretty much liked every performance in the film, but as far as I was concerned, Howard's was the weak link and I know other people felt the same.

Secondly, I actually prefer Don Cheadle, the actor tapped to replace Howard as Col. James Rhodes, Tony Stark/Iron Man's best friend and confidant, who like Howard, and even Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., also has an Academy Award nomination under his belt. I came to like Cheadle as early as his regular appearance on David E. Kelley's TV Series Picket Fences in the early 1990s and found his performance as Paul Rusesabagina in 2004's Hotel Rwanda to be particlarly moving. So all things considered, I believe Marvel traded up.

But it's hard to write off Howard's ranting as that of an actor spurned; he got the shaft after having signed contracts, and though the odds are good that I'll enjoy Iron Man II with or without him, Marvel still appears to be the heavy in this instance and it doesn't feel particularly good.

Ultimately I guess one can chalk it up to Marvel having made a mistake in its early dealings with actors...they are, after all, a fledgling studio...but I sure hope this isn't a sign of what's to come from them, especially with so many important movies in the pipeline.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease on the Web!

2009-04-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

Most of my favorite sites these days are the ones on which I get to post my thoughts, such as this blog, my multiply and facebook page, and my diecast forum. I no longer care much for any of the other sites I used to visit, whether it's the movie sites or the comics sites, and rarely even click on them anymore.

The lone exception, however, would have to be aintitcoolnews.com, a site I follow as much now as I did when my regular haunts were entertainment news sites and comic book sites.

I haunt their site on a semi-regular basis because I like their stories, a lot of their reviews, and even their message boards (dubbed 'talkbacks') because unlike the other stuff I used to read the comments there are actually laugh-out-loud funny, whether deliberately or otherwise.

But I think my affinity for this site stems from the fact that it kind of represents a bunch of fanboys made good. I mean, these are guys who get passes to movies and all kinds of sneak preview goodness based simply on the fact that they are fans who were industrious enough to put up their own website and proclaim their love for pop culture. These were not some basement-dwelling trolls content to infest other people's websites with their snarky, infantile comments; these guys made devotion to pop culture their life. I don't even know what Harry Knowles, the site's founder, even does for a living apart from this site, assuming he even has to.

I was, as a result, somewhat disappointed to recently learn that Knowles, who has practically attained the status of pop-sub-culture icon, is not nearly as well-versed in the pop-culture he professes to adore as he himself thought he was, and made this ignorance embarrassingly public on AICN itself a few days ago.

He created a post on AICN saying, to paraphrase him, that the marketing materials of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine had put him into a "berserker rage" a phrase often used to describe Wolverine's fits of murderous rage during which he vivisects his enemies with his adamantium claws. A click on the article showed that Knowles was having conniptions about the fact that one of the featured mutants in the movie, Emma Frost, who is in fact based on a character appearing in the X-Men comic books, was depicted as having the mutant ability to turn into, as Knowles put it, a "Disco Ball." What followed then was a string of profanity directed by and large at the studio which produced the film, Twentieth Century Fox, and an admonition to at least consult wikipedia on the characters they were bringing to the screen, because Emma Frost (a.k.a. The White Queen) isn't some "Disco Ball" girl, she's a (censored) TELEPATH!

And it was in this moment that Harry Knowles, supposed pop-culture demi-god, turned putting his foot into his mouth into a goddamned art form.

See, the thing about Emma Frost is that in 2001, when Grant Morrison, a writer some people revere as the next Alan Moore, was writing one of the X-Men's monthly comic books, he introduced the concept of a "secondary mutation" or, in layman's terms, either a second unusual feature or a second superpower for some of the title's characters. Emma Frost received one such "secondary mutation," and her added power was that she could turn her skin into diamond. So counting from '01, Emma Frost has basically had this power, in addition to her telepathy, for almost nine years.

And Harry Knowles didn't have the first clue that she did, and even accused people who DID know that fact of being ignoramuses. Of course, a lot of fanboys who HAVE read the X-Men in the last ten years or so had a field day with Knowles.

Now, I was actually sad to see this happen to Knowles, because of all the people whose reviews I read on AICN, it is him with whom I have the most in common in terms of taste in movies. About 85% of the time we've seen eye-to-eye on several blockbusters and even some of the smaller films he reviews. With the notable exception of his unhealthy preoccupation with the Russian girl in the last two Spider-Man movies, we like and dislike mostly the same things about the movies he reviews. An endorsement from Harry Knowles can sometimes (though not always) get my fanny into the seat to watch a movie. There are a number of other writers on the site whom I would have loved to see make fools of themselves in so blatant a fashion, but apparently they all do their homework better than Knowles.

I'm not even disappointed that Knowles didn't know about Emma Frost's additional power. I'm disappointed that he didn't take his own advice and learn more about the character via Wikipedia or a good old-fashioned trade paperback before shooting his keyboard off about what sodomizers Twentieth Century Fox are. I'm the last person in the world I'd consider a Fox defender; what they've done to at least three Marvel properties, including the X-Men, is virtually unforgivable, but it just so happened in this instance that they were right on the money. It also makes sense from a cinematic perspective to use Emma's "diamond skin" power because frankly it's a lot more unique that telepathy, which has already been thoroughly done in three prior X-Men films.

That's really the thing about fanboys at the end of the day, even the prominent ones like Knowles, is that they can be so intoxicated with their own self-importance in terms of pop-culture that they consider themselves above even doing a simple fact check before shooting off their mouths, which also explains the ENDLESS stream of message board posts proclaiming "this movie is going to suck" based not even on movie trailers or teasers anymore but on mere ANNOUNCEMENTS as to cast or crew. I had thought Harry Knowles above that sort of garbage, and felt extremely disappointed, even though he's never exactly been a role model of mine. I also don't think he helped himself one bit when, in editing the piece, he acknowledged his mistake and then added with visible bitterness that Frost's diamond power was stupid anyway and that "technically" Fox was not responsible for her having that power. Well, Harry, I'm sorry to tell you this but as far as the comic book character goes, Fox had NOTHING to do with Emma gaining diamond-skin powers. "Technically" doesn't even enter the picture anymore because Fox's non-involvement in Grant Morrison's creative decision is ABSOLUTE.

Knowles should consider himself lucky he never tried to become a lawyer, as that kind of unfounded, shoot-from-the-hip proclamation is the sort of thing that could cost him a case. Maybe I could be a fanboy demi-god someday...

Hollywood Whitewashing

2009-04-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, a movie version of the popular Japanese manga Dragonball Z opened across the globe, to tepid box-office results. It starred a Caucasian actor, the bug-eyed Justin Chatwin, whose last truly notable role was as Tom Cruise's teenage son in War of the Worlds. Next year will see the release of at least two intended "tentpole" summer pictures with lead characters that aren't Caucasian: M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender (simply titled The Last Airbender, due to disputes with James Cameron over the use of the word "Avatar"), and Jerry Bruckheimer's big screen version of the popular game The Prince of Persia. The former is admittedly set in a fantastical world, albeit one heavily influenced by Asian culture as is clear from its themes, visuals, music, the names of the characters, and ultimately the admissions of the creators themselves.The latter, however, is set in the historical kingdom of ancient Persia and India though the story also has some fantastical twists.

In both cases, though, Caucasian actors have been pretty much shoehorned into roles that, to put it mildly, seem somewhat inappropriate for them. In the case of Persia, the role of the Prince is essayed by semi-popular actor Jake Gyllenhaal, apparently angling for his big breakout action movie (considering that in the last one he starred in The Day After Tomorrow, the real star was the digital rendering of the multiple catastrophes that rocked the world), while role of the princess is played by recent Bond girl Gemma Arterton. Neither actor, conspicuously, is Middle Eastern, though one could argue that Gyllenhaal's Jewish heritage brings him a couple of steps closer to the Prince, certainly more than Arterton is to an INDIAN princess.

The cast of The Last Airbender, as I have noted in another post, is even more ridiculous; M. Night Shyalaman has gone with, for the most part, a bunch of Caucasian UNKNOWNS for the lead characters; ALL of whom are clearly designed to be Asian-inspired. I was even profoundly insulted by an alleged comment I read on Wikipedia where one of the teeny-boppers cast as Sokka, who would best have been essayed by an Inuit/Native American, crassly said something like "I'll just have to get a tan and shave the sides of my head; a little suspension of disbelief is required." The belated casting of Slumdog Millionaire's breakout star Dev Patel as Prince Zuko is hardly a balm to the sting of Shyamalan's ridiculous casting decisions; the damage has been done.

Ironically enough, the voice actors of almost all of these characters, from Yuri Lowenthal who voiced the Prince to Zach Tyler Eisen who voiced Aang the Avatar, are white, but there's a world of difference between animation and live action in this respect; an animated character is an amalgam of his voice and his visual representation, but in the end it's what people, whether the gamers or the viewers, see on the screen that really leaves the impression; just about anyone could be a voice actor and in fact in other territories, the voices are quite easily replaced. With live action, though, no amount of dubbing can change what appears on the big screen, and the awkwardness of bad casting.

The way I see it, the imperative here is to create an affinity between the audience and the characters they are seeing on the screen, and to an extent I get that, especially in the case of Persia, which has been cast with a semi-well-known actor.

But if there's any lesson that films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, more recently, Slumdog Millionaire have to teach, its that you don't have to put white asses on the screen to get white asses in the seats. Furthermore, the audience for these movies goes well beyond the borders of the United States now; many movies make the real money overseas. As impressive, for example, as Titanic's 600 million dollar gross is, it is dwarfed by the $1.2 billion gross it made in the rest of the world, which is, loath that I am to state the obvious, 2/3 of the film's total gross.

In short, there is no need to just pander to white Americans, many of whom, incidentally, recently voted a black man into their highest public office.

It was gratifying to see Dragonball: Evolution crash and burn, even though in that case, casting a white actor was arguably not as strange considering Gokou is supposed to be an alien. With any luck, though, maybe the whitewashing will stop someday soon, and we'll see more East Asian or West Asian people actually PLAYED by East Asian or West Asian actors.

The Passion of Star Trek: and the Fanboys Are At It Again...

2009-04-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

The Star Trek reboot, which is due out in a little less than a month, like any piece of pop-culture in this day and age of the internet and Apple downloads, has its share of fans and, ridiculously enough, its detractors.

It no longer comes as any surprise to me that fanboys are lightning quick to make the conclusions as to the quality of this film based on a few trailers and casting decisions. Since The Dark Knight pleased audiences and critics the world over long after fanboys declared it would be the greatest movie of all time I've simply resigned myself to the fact that they will milk their newfound sense of infallibility for a long, long time to come and have thus far been able to avoid my old vice of reading messageboards and thereby spared myself some undue aggravation. Accusations like"Star Trek 90210" are utterly puerile, they no longer annoy me the way they would once have done.

What strikes me as amusing and appalling at the same time is the thought that considering the profile of several fanboys, a lot of the twelve to fifteen year olds who post on message boards weren't even zygotes at the time the last Kirk Star Trek movie came out, and I'm hard-pressed to imagine a forty or fifty something, the generation of people who would have actually grown up with the original Star Trek series, coining a name like "Star Trek 90210." Of course, it's never wise to underestimate the devotion of Trekkies of any age, and the original Trekkies were, after all the forefathers of the modern fanboy. Still, I can't help but feel that a late-thirty, forty or fifty something person posting "this will suck" about a movie he hasn't seen is downright pathetic, as is a teenager or tweener spending all of his time going over old Star Trek replays or DVDs instead of playing outside.

For my part, I think the movie looks great based on the trailers, but am not about to draw any conclusions one way or the other about it. That's pretty much how one should assess a movie one hasn't seen. If one doesn't like what he sees in the marketing materials, he is free to not watch it, no matter what devotees of Speed Racer might whine on messageboards.

The thing about "this is going to suck" pronouncements is that I think they're here to stay. It's like I've been saying for ages: thanks to the internet any idiot with an opinion can make it known (feel free to insert snark about this writer here).

To be fair to the naysayers, they HAVE been pretty much on the money about Mark Steven Johnson's Marvel films...

Adapting Anime

2009-04-06T06:58:00.001-07:00

This week, the live-action adaptation of Dragonball Z is coming to theaters in the Philippines. I'm the last person on earth I'd call a fan of that long running Japanese animated show, but the merest glance at the promotional material such as the posters and theatrical trailers told me that a great many liberties had been taken with the original story.

And I wondered to myself just then if it even made sense to adapt that series, as well as several other works of anime. I guess another way to ask the question would be: does anime lend itself well to live-action adaptation? For me, the answer is a big, fat, emphatic "I'm not sure."

The adaptation of many TV series, I think, makes sense. While I wasn't a fan of Speed Racer, either the adaptation or the cartoon it was adapted from, there was, to me, definitely a logic in bringing the 1960s series to the big screen. I can also say that I am looking forward to the CGI adaptation of Astro Boy, a TV series I followed quite extensively when I was younger, as well as the alleged Robotech adaptation that was greenlit following the success of Transformers. Most of the old anime TV shows, after all, due to their mass-market, serialized nature, sported so-so animation and generated their followings based mostly on their stories and characters rather than stunning visuals, although the odd episode would be remembered for great animation too. So bringing those to the big screen makes sense, for the most part.

But what about the sprawling, ambitious, eye-popping feature films like Akira, Ghost in the Shell or any of the works by Hayao Miyazaki, which ooze consummate artistry from their every cel? Like Disney movies, they represent hand-drawn animation at its highest form, the cartoon done to perfection. And yet, in the case of Akira, at the very least, I understand that a live-action adaptation is bubbling on the minds of some studio execs, which to me would be heresy. After all, does any Disney exec fancy adapting Beauty and the Beast, or Cinderella, in live action? Of course not. Some works of Japanese anime should be similarly sacrosanct.

Another problem adapting anime presents is the very distinctive look of its characters, who, apart from having highly exaggerated facial features, often achieved highly exaggerated facial expressions which cannot really be reflected in real life and yet which often imbue the storytelling with its distinctive flavor. Part of me understands (though I still refuse to condone) M. Night Shyamalan's decision to cast his adapatation of the anime-inspired Avatar: The Last Airbender with white actors; no Asian/Japanese/Chinese actor could have the round eyes of an anime character; it simply isn't physiologically possible. Of course, he could have gone for Indian actors, whose eyes are arguably often bigger than those of Caucasians, but that's a whole other can of worms.

The point is that several visual quirks of the characters, an integral part of the anime aesthetic and mythology cannot be effectively adapted in live action. Of course, by that logic the upcoming Astro Boy is exempt as it is done in CGI rather than live action.

There are some anime that may lend themselves well to adaptation, but if Hollywood knows what's good for them, they should leave classics like Akira alone.

The World Doesn't Get Alan Moore

2009-04-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

While I am well-aware of Alan Moore's significance as a modern cultural touchstone, I can't honestly say I've read any of his truly significant works. In fact, apart from an issue of Spawn and a couple of issues of WildC.A.Ts I can say I haven't read anything by him at all. As a longtime comic book fan I am embarrassed to say I haven't read Watchmen (at least I can claim having flipped through The Dark Knight Returns when it was on display at Power Books., though that was by Frank Miller, back when he was still credible).

Arguably, then, I don't have any business writing a blog post about Alan Moore's work, but the thing of it is, I have enjoyed at least two adaptations of his seminal comic books, V for Vendetta and Watchmen, the former a bit more than the latter and am sincerely disappointed that people don't seem to appreciate these works as much as I have. Rather than offer some snarky, elitist explanation as to why people don't "get" Alan Moore, though, I thought I'd try to posit a little theory I've been brewing since I found out that Watchmen conspicuously underperformed at the box office.

I know they're pretty much the world's easiest target, but first of all I blame Hollywood, and V for Vendetta, while it remains my favorite adaptation of a work by Moore, is a good example. There the filmmakers (Andy and Larry Wachowski of The Matrix fame) were able to preserve a lot of the key elements and aspects of the story but still managed to dull its edges by removing some of the more risque aspects of Moore's storytelling. There's a whole wikipedia entry on the changes, but I was struck by the removal of Finch's resorting to drug use to try to learn to think like V, and ultimately by the fact that unlike his cinematic counterpart, the comic-book version of V cared not a whit for democracy but was in fact an anarchist. There is such a thing as taking creative liberties, but there's also such a thing as hijacking somebody's body of work to make it a platform for one's own agenda, and though I had no problem with the film being the anti-Bush propaganda that critics accused it of being, I really wasn't fond of the fact that the story went from a bold vision of a world where all vestige of despotic order is destroyed and replaced with its antithesis to a feel-good, twisted version of an "I'd like to teach the world to sing" Coca-Cola chorus. It became about "freedom" and "democracy," which, while virtues in and of themselves, were NOT part of the original story. So for the most part, Hollywood doesn't have the balls to envision Alan Moore's work as it should be done. One only need watch The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to see that.

How, then does one explain the underwhelming box-office performance of Watchmen, which a lot of fans have hailed as painstakingly faithful to the source material?

That brings me to the second culprit behind the lukewarm reception to adaptations of Alan Moore's works; Joe Public's perception of comic book movies.

Now, though it wasn't my favorite comic book movie of last year or of all time, I really have to concede that makers of The Dark Knight have probably made the boldest narrative effort by (spoiler alert, if one is needed) pitting Batman against a villain he cannot conclusively defeat without great personal cost. Thing is, there was a structure to it; a hero, a villain, and acts of good pitted against acts of evil.

Neither V for Vendetta nor Watchmen follows that paradigm, with the characters there often acting with as much villainy as heroism. And it is because of this, the absence of larger-than-life archetypes, that the general audience, who, I think, have pre-conceived notions of the kind of stories their comic-book based movies should tell based on over three decades of such movies starting with 1978's Superman, simply doesn't connect to Moore's characters, which is really a shame because they are wonderfully nuanced, even when watered down.

Another aspect I think comes into play is something Moore himself declared; his works are unfilmable, because they depict events and characters in a way that can only be done on the printed page. I don't know that I agree entirely with that and certainly the technological advances made since Watchmen's initial publication in 1986 have made that statement debatable, but it is still entirely possible that things may have gotten lost in translation. Some of the most damning indictments of the film have come from internet fans who watched the film, were underwhelmed, re-read the comic books to restore their faith in Moore, and came to the conclusion that the story "wasn't really that great to begin with," which is more the fault of the filmmaker than anyone else; I mean, I don't remember it ever happening that an adaptation has literally dragged down the source material along with it. Maybe Moore was right and the series should never have been filmed.

I think the problem in a nut shell is that the world is not ready for Alan Moore yet. Whether it's Hollywood producers with no balls, or audiences with too many preconceived notions, I don't think people are in the proper position to appreciate the subtext of Moore's works.

Film Piracy Rears Its Head Again

2009-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

I have to confess that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was not particularly high on my list of "must-see movies" for this year and indeed the only big ticket movie I'm really intent on seeing, James Cameron's Avatar, isn't due out till December. I'd also like to point out that I'm not a fan of the way 20th Century Fox, as a studio, have handled their Marvel properties, basically butt-fucking everything from the X-Men franchise to Fantastic Four to Daredevil.

Still, the thought that something like 90% of the movie has been released on torrents really pisses me off.

I appreciate that video piracy is quite the equalizer considering the way DVDs used to be priced and considering the way Blu Ray discs still are priced now, but the thing about downloading movies before their release doesn't just hurt the home video market; it hurts the moviemaking industry itself. I've already gone on about this at length in an older post, but I think it is worth adding that in this day and age of internet, where millions of people can download from a single site, some real damage can be done. This isn't the age of the bootleg betamax or VHS tape; it's a lot more serious.

Good for you if you're out to destroy Hollywood, which is admittedly a pretty ugly place these days capable of producing some really trashy product, but not if you actually love movies. I never could reconcile my late best friend's proclamation that he loved movies with the fact that just about every video in his collection was pirated, even the small, independent movies.

I'll agree that, quite often, studios need to be cut down a peg or two and piracy can be a good way to do it, and maybe, just maybe, that's a little slap in the face Fox needs to start taking their Marvel Properties seriously, lest Marvel buy them back and start making the X-Men, FF and Daredevil actually watchable again. So fine.

But let's not delude ourselves that these torrent bastards are champions of the people. Please.

One of Life's Great Mysteries: Why the Punisher Has Had THREE Movies

2009-03-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

As comprehensively reviled as their third installments were, the Spider-Man and X-Men film franchises clearly earned enough money to justify a third chapter for each one. After the release of the first movie of each series it became clear that these properties had not only a comic-book reading fanbase but a movie-going one as well which made ponying up resources for a third go a bit of a no-brainer for the studios handling them. For these two Marvel properties, three makes sense.

The same thing, however, cannot be said for the only other Marvel property, to the exclusion even of such illustrious names as the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, to have had three feature-length, big screen movies made adapting it: The Punisher.

The Punisher, a.k.a. Frank Castle, has been the subject of three films, one in 1989 starring Dolph Lundgren which may or may not have made it to theaters, one in 2004 starring Thomas Jane as the title character and John Travolta as the bad guy, and finally (I hope) one that came out last year in the U.S. and is coming to theaters next week starring some Irishman named Ray Stevenson.

All films have been critical and commercial failures, save for the film starring Lundgren, which may or may not have even made it into theaters at all (though for the record it came out here in Philippine movie theaters), which really prompts the question: WHY has this character gotten so many second chances? Note, each of the latter two movies "rebooted" what came before it, so in other words Frank Castle has been introduced to movie audiences a total of THREE times.

Now, there is admittedly a certain logic in wanting to go to the Punisher well as often as possible. He doesn't have superpowers or gadgets and therefore movies starring him are relatively cheap to produce (with this last one being made for a frugal $22 million). Also, the Punisher does have a bit of a cult following since his rise to prominence in the Marvel Universe during the "grim and gritty" era of the 1980s. Thing is, all of the films bombed and money down the toilet is still money down the toilet, so I hope the idiots over at Lionsgate Films as well as the occasionally self-delusional Avi Arad (who claimed Elektra failed because it was poorly marketed) have finally been awakened by the sound of their product crashing and burning.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least one Marvel hero who deserves the reboot treatment a hell of a lot more: Daredevil. To be fair, the lamentable 2003 film Daredevil was the first Marvel film to ever spawn a spin-off in the failed Elektra, but despite two weeks as America's #1 movie and a domestic gross north of $100 million, a perfectly respectable feat for a then somewhat obscure Marvel character, neither Marvel nor the studio that has the rights to the character, 20th Century Fox, seems to have any plans on what to do next. This is a profound shame because if the property were rebooted with a good cast and crew and filmed based on a storyline as electrifying as Frank Miller's Born Again, Marvel (and whoever studio they go with) could have a real winner on their hands. I would even venture to say that if Born Again were adapted properly, with its haunting, gut-wrenching look at how a superhero unravels, it would give The Dark Knight a run for its money as the greatest comic-book movie of all time. Hell, even the director of the 2003 turkey, Mark Steven Johnson, got a second bite of the Marvel apple with the truly disastrous Ghost Rider, so it's beyond me why Tom Rothman is still sitting on a property that, done right, could banish Fox's reputation for creatively sodomizing its comic-book properties.

Even in terms of mythology, Matt Murdock, Daredevil's alter ego wins hands down over the Punisher, who really isn't much more than a quintessential Charles Bronson-esque urban vigilante type. The very concept of a lawyer running around at night beating people up as a superhero makes for some truly rich irony; Murdock is actually a bit of a hypocrite for doing what he does, and that makes him all the more interesting. Throw in the bit about him being blind and him having lost his father, an aging boxer who refused to throw a fight, and his truly dysfunctional upbringing and there's the potential for so much nuanced storytelling that plumbs the depths of the human psyche. It speaks volumes of the character that his fans were so disappointed with his movie, in the same way that some reviews speak volumes about the Punisher in saying that the latest movie, Punisher War Zone, has been the most faithful to the comic book so far with its senseless violence. The Punisher is basically an ultra-right-wing gun lover's fantasy: a guy who solves his problems by blowing people away. Daredevil is much, much more than that.

I understand one of Avi Arad's wet dreams right now is to get the film rights to the Daredevil character back from Fox so that Marvel Studios can make the movie with a studio like Paramount or Universal simply handling distribution and marketing. Well, though he's dropped the ball on in the past (Helloooo Spider-Man 3!) I truly wish him luck with this endeavor, so long as Mark Steven Johnson isn't allowed within a kilometer of the script or actual production. I would also have mentioned Fantastic Four as a franchise that needs to be done over (even though I enjoyed the second one), but apparently Fox and/or Marvel already have that in mind. Personally I'd like to see Marvel buy that one back, too.

With Iron Man winning back a great deal of credibility for Marvel Properties after it was squandered by the likes of X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 3, maybe Marvel should look at the direction a lot of its franchises, particularly the ones handled by other studios rather than their outfit, have taken, and do some serious re-tooling.

Earlier I read about their single most intelligent decision since signing Jon Favreau and Robert Downey for Iron Man: they've pushed back their movie slate, consisting of Avengers, Thor, and Captain America back a year. Sony Pictures, whether on their urging or otherwise, has likewise pushed back Spider-Man 4. They finally recognize what everyone's been screaming: that, as shown by films like Iron Man, you can't rush good movies.

It is my hope against hope that with the utter and comprehensive failure of Punisher: War Zone, we fans have seen the last of Marvel's cookie-cutter movies, whoever the studio.

A World Run by Bad Guys

2009-03-05T16:15:00.000-08:00

2008 marked the year I said "enough" to Marvel Comics and their events. My attention was squarely focused on other things, whether it was my family, new job, or diecast car collecting. Sure, I bought a few issues here and there and am currently finishing Kurt Busiek's sequel to Marvels, with art by Jay Anacleto, but otherwise I can pretty much categorically say that my large scale collecting of single issues is over. If I ever go back now it's to trade paperbacks; I'm all but done with the whole "comics as collectibles" concept (especially since I now have to pay to post stuff on eBay) and now choose to view them as stories to read and enjoy, even though there are almost no stories out there right now that I enjoy that much.

That said, I like the idea of the Marvel Universe's status quo.

The idea of villains being in charge is not quite original; indeed DC, through writer Jeph Loeb had Lex Luthor elected President of the United States in its universe a few years back, a status quo that persisted for quite a few years until being undone in 2003.

What I like, though is how this idea was gestated, and how it doesn't just involve one bad guy but some of the most notorious villains in the Marvel Universe, none of whom has really changed his or her stripes but all of whom nonetheless now have the public on their side for the time being.

The story feels organic because it wasn't as though everyone woke up one morning to find Norman Osborn in charge; the seeds for this were planted as early as Civil War and were germinated in Thunderbolts (and even issues of Amazing Spider-Man) before the turning point came at the end of Secret Invasion, where Osborn put a gun to the head of Skrull Queen Veranke and basically blew her away. By this time the credibility of superheroes is so tattered after a full-on superhero-vs-superhero war, an invasion by the Hulk, and an alien infiltration, that people feel they have no one else to turn to but the bad guys. I haven't followed the execution, but as a concept it sounds pretty darned cool.

Of course, the conceit of bad guys being in charge can't last forever (even the Republicans lost the last election, after all ;D) so this gimmick will soon be over, but one's got to give Marvel credit. And apparently they can sustain a gimmick for awhile; Steve Rogers, after all, has officially been dead for two years and yet the comic book Captain America has enjoyed pretty brisk sales notwithstanding.

So though I havent' been conned into buying comics regularly again, I will say I am interested to see where Quesada and crew will go with this particular direction.

Rewarded At Last

2009-02-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

It's true enough that the independent film as we know it owes much of the recognition it receives today to the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, and the studio they founded, Miramax, but this is far from the only studio that has produced some truly quality independent movies in the last fifteen years or so.

My personal favorite purveyor of indie films happens to be Fox Searchlight Pictures. Sure, like many fans aggrieved by his decisions with respect to Marvel Comics movies I may think Tom Rothman is the devil's spawn, but Fox Searchlight is a different animal from 20th Century Fox and they've come up with some really memorable films. For those unfamiliar with their films, it will be my pleasure to list my favorites:

The Full Monty (1997) is, as far as I know, the film that put the then-fledgling indie film distributor on the map. Directed by Peter Cattaneo and written by Simon Beaufoy, the film tells the (apparently true) story of several blue collar workers in England who, upon being retrenched, decide upon a rather unorthodox way of making money for their families, i.e. by doing a male striptease act a la Chippendales. It's British humor at its very finest, and even the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences was captivated; the film received four Academy Award nominations including nods for Best Picture and Best Director.

Waking Ned Devine (1999) set in a tiny Irish village, is another absolute gem of a film about a man who dies of a heart attack upon learning that he has won the lottery, and, more imporantly about the village's collective effort to cover up his death so that they can collect the prize and split it amongst themselves. I think I may have burst blood vessels laughing at how funny that movie was.

Sideways (2004) is set on the other side of the pond for a change; specifically, California, where depressed middle-school teacher Miles (a wonderful Paul Giamatti) accompanies his friend, over-the-hill actor Jack (the hilariously authentic Thomas Haden Church) on one last weekend of fun in California wine country before Jack gets married to his longtime girlfriend. The film alternates between haunting poignancy and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and was my favorite release of 2004, even over the acclaimed blockbuster Spider-Man 2. It also got multiple Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and it ended up taking home the golden statuette for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) a film about a children's beauty pageant, which has her entire family composed of her self-help guru dad (Greg Kinnear), exasperated-to-have-invested-all-her-money mom (Toni Colette), emo/ultra-quiet/aspiring pilot half-brother (Paul Dano), her insane, profane, drug-addict grandfather (Alan Arkin), and her suicidal gay college professor uncle (Steve Carell) make a cross country trip in a beat-up Volkswagen bus that turns out to be a character unto itself as the movie unfolds. Like Sideways, it's a movie about a road trip, and what a road trip it turns out to be! I loved this film and apparently the MPAAS did too; it won two Oscars, one for Best Original Screenplay and the other for Alan Arkin's supporting role as the foul-mouthed granddad.

Juno (2007) is a movie about a smart (and smart-mouthed) teenage girl (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant by her best friend (Michael Cera) puts her baby, unborn for most of the movie, up for adoption. The couple that responds to her ad, a pair of yuupies played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner seems to be the perfect couple and therefore the perfect parents but like the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. Again, Fox Searchlight flirted with Oscar as the film garnered nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actress for Page's spunky teen, and Original Screenplay. Writer Diablo Cody took home the award for her bitingly original script.

If I seem unduly preoccupied with the attention the films released by Fox Searchlight have been getting from the MPAAS it's because I am truly and deeply glad that on February 22, 2009 at the Kodak Theater, one of their releases, the extremely popular Slumdog Millionaire, finally took home the top prize for the studio, besting offerings from Paramount, Focus Films (Universal Pictures' independent arm), Universal itself, and Oscar veterans the Weinstein brothers courtesy of their new studio, Weinstein Films. It was also the film through which Monty screenwriter Beaufoy managed to snag a long-overdue Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

What I like about Fox Searchlight movies is that while they show a broad spectrum of human experience with dark or heavy films like Boys Don't Cry or Kinsey also having come from their stable, most of their truly outstanding movies, and the ones that garner the most recognition, are all life-affirming, lighthearted affairs that, even if they don't necessarily have storybook happy endings, are nonetheless very positive in their overall outlook. I hear that Slumdog continues this trend and am quite excited to see it, apart from the fact that it has won an award for the studio which it has deserved for a long, long time.

Why Comic Book Makers Should Stop Pandering to Hollywood

2009-02-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

These days, thanks to films like The Dark Knight, the first couple of Spider-Man films and Iron Man, comic books are seen as entirely legitimate source material for motion pictures. This is good in that comic books seem to finally be coming out of the ghetto to which they've been confined for the longest time, but bad in that now, a lot of comic book storylines feel extremely self-conscious, as if their writers were making pitches for Hollywood screenplays. Worse still, a lot of writers working on comics these days are screenwriters or TV writers, and their work is of mixed quality; while I loved the work of J. Michael Straczynski, for example, I can't say the same for that of Jeph Loeb. Quite frankly the problem with comics these days is that a lot of them feel like wannabe movies.

And this is a terrible thing. Comics are comics and movies are movies, and both are distinct art forms, each with its own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, and each with characteristics unique to its own form that the other cannot and should not aspire to mimic.

There are so many things about comics that simply have not been translated to movies: Spider-Man has forgotten the ability to wisecrack. V (in V for Vendetta) suddenly became an agent of democracy rather than anarchy. Superman has not faced any of his cosmos-shattering adversaries like Darkseid or Braniac and has had to content himself with flying really fast and lifting really heavy objects. The Hulk, well, for two movies running now, the Hulk has not quite felt real. This may not speak very well of the movies that adapted them, but it speaks well of the source material in that there remain certain intangibles which they have over their adaptations; there remains reason for viewers to say "I liked the comic better" the same way Lord of the Rings purists will always say "I liked the book better."

Bill Watterson, creator of the now defunct Calvin and Hobbes, hit the nail on the head when he refused to allow his creation to be adapted as a cartoon. Basically, even though he had a deep respect for the art of animation, he had a problem with voice actors giving life to Calvin. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Watterson feeling that no six or seven-year-old boy could properly deliver Calvin's ridiculously precocious dialogue properly, or that some middle-aged woman (e.g. The Simpsons' Nancy Cartwright) would always be just that: a middle-aged woman and not a child. Thanks to this little bit of artistic integrity on Watterson's part, the strip is now immortalized in its current form and Calvin will never be reduced to the identity of his voice actor or Korean animation studio, which is more than I can say for Spider-man, who is indelibly linked to Tobey Maguire by millions of people who've never picked up a comic book.

Lest I be misconstrued, I'd like to clarify that I'm not against adapting comic books at all; I love many of the comic book adaptations that have come out over the years, with the first two Spider-Man film and last year's Iron Man being my favorites with my (personal) runnerup honors going, in no particular order, to the Bryan Singer X-Men films, the Hellboy films, Guillermo Del Toro's lone Blade film, Blade II, and the Christopher Nolan Batman films.

My point is that the attempts of some comic book creators or publishers to "make life easier" for the filmmakers that may or may not adapt their work by writing stories that pander to them or redesigning costumes or origins or various other tweaks is doing the comic book industry as a whole a severe disservice. Of course, in some cases "realistic" costume tweaks can help; without Adi Granov's designs, I'm pretty sure Iron Man would not have been half as watchable as it eventually was.

I say, let the film industry play catch-up. One can only imagine how frightfully dreadful comic books and their subsequent adaptations would have been had Stan Lee been content to limit his stories to the kind of images that the technology of the time was capable of realizing.

Hollywood has caught up with a lot of comic books, having made some pretty sterling adaptations in the last few years. If comic book writers absolutely have to think about Hollywood when writing their plots and scripts, I think their driving concern should be "so what CAN'T Hollywood do yet?" Assuming visual effects studios can ever crack those nuts, that would make for some pretty engaging viewing.

Shamelessly Riding the Obama Phenomenon

2009-02-19T03:30:00.000-08:00

Last January, Marvel Comics sold over 350,000 copies of a Spider-Man comic book that featured U.S. President Barack Obama on the cover and in a five-page back-up story. I saw a copy in Filbar's and despite having an overwhelming urge to join the wave of speculators that no doubt helped propel sales skyward I balked, being utterly turned off by the art and script of the story featuring Obama, all of which pretty much gave comic books a really bad name.

Not too long before, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief had said that in keeping with Marvel portraying the "real world," the U.S. President of the Marvel Universe would be Barack Obama. This was buttressed by an appearance the Commander-in-Chief apparently made, in continuity, in an issue of the comic-book Thunderbolts, which also came out in January. The writer of the series, Andy Diggle, went on record saying the President was Obama and even spiced up the script with a reference to his star-studded inauguration.

And it was then that marketing reared its hideous head.

Probably at the instance of some clowns with MBAs, Marvel's marketing arm claims that the only Obama appearing in the Marvel Universe is the one who shows up in Amazing Spider Man 583, the one whose dialogue is downright embarrassing (along with the dialogue of the rest of the story), the one who doesn't look a blessed thing like him, and who appears in a horribly stereotypical, borderline racist depiction of what a "black president" should be like (i.e. a basketball expert). Not, Marvel's marketing is quick to point out, the decisive, authoritative figure that attempts to rein in the now power-mad Norman Osborn. That man, according to Marvel marketing, is merely "the representation of who the President in the Marvel Universe is" even though he's quite obviously black, slim and young(ish). Of course, the appearance of Obama elsewhere would probably detract from the sales of the book Marvel are most keen to push. Maybe they can retract their announcement later, when the sales department is satisfied with the figures.

Please, Marvel, ditch the suits. They're really just embarrassing the lot of you.

Barack Obama: A Cultural Phenomenon I'm Glad I Lived to See

2009-02-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

My daughter is three years old, going on four, and knows nothing of racial differences between people, much less stereotypes. A few days ago we were watching Iron Man on DVD, and upon the appearance of James Rhodes, a character played by African-American actor Terrence Howard, she cried out "it's Barack Obama!"

I believe that speaks volumes about Barack Obama's cultural impact the world over. Like Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, Obama is now the global avatar for the black man. It is true that he is a man of several different ethnic backgrounds, considering that his mother was white and that his stepfather was Indonesian, and people who really care to read up on the man will know this as there is pretty much a wealth of information steadily becoming available about him.

For the rest of the world, however, what they see is what they get, and as a result white and brown melt away and suddenly Obama is the quintessential black man, which, for black activists everywhere, can only be a good thing. This has been written elsewhere, and far more eloquently, but I thought it worth taking note of considering my kids are even in on it.

It's really worth taking note that a three-year-old immediately identifies a random black man as "Barack Obama" considering that less than two years ago people who weren't following the American political scene were saying "what's a Barack Obama?"

I like the fact that my children are growing up in an era where Barack Obama's success is even possible, considering how it's barely been a year since people were saying it was not. Heck, I love having witnessed this era myself, even if I wasn't in Washington or Chicago for all the festivities.

WHY ASIANS SHOULD BOYCOTT THE FILM VERSION OF AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

2009-02-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

When it was announced that M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American director of The Sixth Sense, would be directing the live-action adaptation of the popular cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, I had mixed feelings on the matter. I was, without question, glad that a director of such high profile had been given the project, and glad further than he had a distinctive Asian heritage which could translate into a keen awareness of the story's Asian orientation and a desire to bring that intact to the big screen. I was worried that this movie was not exactly up his alley, as it will be his first adaptation of someone else's material and it will be an action movie, which is quite a contrast from the slow-burn thrillers he's done throughout his career.

Still, as a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender I was excited for the project, even when I heard they had to drop the word "Avatar" from the title due to legal conflicts with James Cameron, whose highly anticipated return to filmmaking, Avatar is due out this December. I followed updates on location shooting and casting, though for a while I fell out of the loop.

Still, I wondered who'd they'd cast as the characters. I knew they'd probably go for unknowns, so I figured, things being the way they are, they'd get Amerasian kids (American citizens of Asian descent) for the roles.

Recently, though, I was able to catch some snippets online, and what I read appalled me. Apparently they've hired WHITE kids to play Aang, Sokka and Katara! Aang, to anyone familiar with the show, is clearly derived from a Buddhist monk, while Sokka and Katara look and dress distinctly like Inuits (the people who, if I'm not mistaken, are more popularly known as Eskimos) so it would have been a no-brainer to cast an Asian unknown as Aang and two Native American unknowns as Sokka and Katara. Right? Right? Wrong, apparently.

It's Mickey-fucking-Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's all over again.

It makes me wonder if Shyamalan and Paramount even understand the whole concept of the show being a love letter to Asian culture and the values it espouses. The series creators have even openly professed their love for the works of Hayao Miyazaki whose styling they often tried to ape in the course of the series.

I smell marketing all over the casting of three white kids, and wonder if the dipshits over at Paramount need to look over the grosses of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon again, a movie that made a bundle of money without a white person in sight, and without a word of English even being spoken. It's kind of mind-blowing how, in an age where a man with American, African AND Asian heritage can be elected President of the United States of America, and where the biggest movie star in the world is an African American, a bunch of myopic movie producers and an even MORE myopic movie director still believe that the only way to sell an ASIAN themed movie is to fill it with white kids.

I took little consolation from the knowledge that the story's primary villain-turned-hero, Prince Zuko, was recast from a white teeny-bopper to rising star Dev Patel, the British Indian actor currently making waves in Danny Boyle's Oscar frontrunner Slumdog Millionaire. Zuko is, next to Aang, probably the most important character of the story, and one Shyamalan himself has identified as his favorite, so it's nice that a person of Asian descent (though he is British) should get this role. But, with a white kid still in the lead role, a role written for an ASIAN kid, it's all still all wrong. Sure, all of the lead voice actors for the characters (again, with the exception of Prince Zuko, who was dubbed by Filipino-American Dante Basco) were white, but the intention for them to be Asian is ALL OVER THE PLACE, from the houses they live in to the clothes they wear to the values they profess to cherish.

People are raising a hue and a cry over the suggestion that Will Smith, the biggest box-office star on planet earth, play Captain America because Steve Rogers, as a character, is blond and blue-eyed. Well, while Aang is certainly nowhere near as iconic as Steve Rogers he is meant to be Asian in his looks AND his personal philosophy, so the decision to go with a white kid, who hearkens from a culture that represents a COMPLETELY different value system (and comes from a state which gave birth to a President more reprehensible than the series' main villain, Firelord Ozai), is every bit as objectionable if not more so.

What kills me about Paramount's and Shyamalan's decision is that Asians outnumber Caucasians by something like five to one on Planet Earth, and in America alone they could have practically thrown a stone and hit a kid of Asian descent and looks, especially if they'd gone to California or Hawaii. Instead, they get a WHITE kid from TEXAS. Just TYPING that makes my skin crawl.

This early, I've pretty much decided not to see this in the theaters; if it turns out to be any good I'll just go to a street corner and pick up a bootleg DVD. Unless and until Paramount get their shit together and show those white kids the door they are not getting a blessed centavo of my money and, if there's ANY justice in the world, not any money from any Asian person anywhere.

It's my hope now that the upcoming Dragonball movie, which also features a white guy in a role arguably created for an Asian, tanks horribly, thus forcing Paramount and Shyamalan to seriously and I mean SERIOUSLY rethink their casting decisions.

The Snub of WALL-E: The REAL Oscar Disappointment

2009-01-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

That Pixar's WALL-E got snubbed by the Academy has apparently not come as a surprise to many people, certainly not in the way that The Dark Knight snub did. To my mind, though, it's certainly a bigger crime, because in addition to being a narrative masterpiece, the movie has something a lot more to say than, at the very least, a movie about a man aging backwards, yet another look at a disgraced President, a gay politician, and yet ANOTHER Holocaust/WWII themed movie.

WALL-E may have a love story beating at its heart, but first and foremost it's a film about saving our planet, something which can only begin with a sincere change of attitude. THIS is the kind of blend of craftsmanship AND relevance that the Academy has awarded in the past and should continue to recognize. Movies like Schindler's List and Crash were unapologetically message movies that were bestowed the Best Picture honor, so why not give similar recognition to a movie that is arguably at least as well-made as the former and, from what I've heard almost CERTAINLY better made than the latter? I may well have answered my own question on this very blog by talking about the Weinstein Brother's omnipresent influence with the Academy, but considering that Pixar has scored THREE best animated feature wins and has had every single one of its films released after the category was introduced score a nomination one wonders why they haven't crossed over yet. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon managed to score a Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film nod years ago, so really, I have to say, what's keeping the Academy from recognizing one of the best made movies of the year, which is arguably the most socially relevant?

There can be good arguments made in favor of passing up WALL-E just as there can be those for its snubbing The Dark Knight as well, though to my mind, in the case of the former, I'll be harder pressed to believe them. After all, the film WAS nominated for Best Original Screenplay, an arguably major award that not even TDK scored for all its eight nominations, and that's usually a very important indicator of how the Academy views the craftsmanship of the film. And to think that WALL-E and TDK were overlooked in favor of The Reader, a film which is now the whipping boy of just about everyone who believes these two films deserved better.

The way I see it, when the era of the Weinsteins is over, Oscar season will become a lot more interesting, because then films will have a better chance of getting in on merit.

Visionary History

2009-01-26T05:03:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite movies of 2004 was Pixar Films' The Incredibles, directed by Brad Bird. I loved everything about it: the idea of a superhero undergoing a midlife crisis and getting fat and balding just like regular people, the snappy dialogue, crisp animation and geek references.

One thing in particular I feel deserves celebrating about this movie is how it achieves a timelessness in its storytelling. Sure, it does this primarily by tapping universally understood themes and concerns, but one thing that really helps it along is the ultra-slick, retro-futuristic motif that permeates the film, from the production and costume design to Michael Giacchino's fantastically lively, predominantly jazz music score. It's evocative of a period that's caught somewhere between the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, and yet so much of the technology flaunted there doesn't even exist yet, even though much of it is theoretically possible.

I love movies that play with history this way; sometimes the filmmaker picks a certain point in human history and says "what if this was done differently somehow" and ends up giving us a world we can now only dream of seeing in real life. These are certainly not visions of our actual past, nor are they necessarily of our future, but often somewhere in between, somewhere we can never quite be because they are at the same time somewhere we've already been and somewhere we aren't quite at just yet. I believe one of the terms used to describe such non-histories is "steampunk."

Apart from Brad Bird's The Incredibles, one of my favorite examples of this is the little-seen Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a pet project of Jude Law's which presented an alternate version of the 1930s which was brought to life almost exclusively in Computer Generated Imagery, a full year before Robert Rodriguez did it in Sin City and three before Zack Snyder did it with 300. Unlike The Incredibles, Sky Captain does not envision a world that is neither here nor there but rather presents us with a definite past, albeit not the one we knew, one with Zeppelins as a usual mode of travel and robots that roam New York City in the 1930s. I suppose another good example would be The Golden Compass, though I did not see that film.

Speed Racer, for all its flaws, went the retro-futuristic route that The Incredibles did, and to my mind it is quite relevant that these two films share, in Michael Giacchino, a composer. While as a racing fan I simply didn't buy the film and its impossibilities, I loved the alternate history it presented with a world where cars ran on fantastical sounding components like transponders and convergenators, using fuel cells and yet sounding very much like throaty V8s were propelling them. The stylized anime-inspired visualization didn't float my boat when it came to many of the racing scenes, but it made everything else quite pleasing to the eye.

I'm sure there are dozens of examples of films that employ this storytelling technique just floating out there and I'd love to get my hands on them. I don't know how many people would agree with me on this but I'd love to see Superman re-fashioned this way.