The brutalization of Filipinos by Hollywood and its personalities is actually nothing new, from our depiction as cute little savages in Return of the Jedi, to Tom Selleck's cook's Tagalog monologue in Her Alibi to Claire Danes' brutal comments about Manila while filming Brokedown Palace to just about any Rob Schneider movie you can think of. Even Tina Fey recently took a jab at President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's fashion sense in an episode of 30 Rock.
I think what makes the comments of Teri Hatcher's character in Desperate Housewives truly despicable and even more racist than any of the aforementioned jabs is how
they essentially belittle our professionals, who constitute, at the moment, our most prized export. I know people who break their backs here just to get their medical degrees and pass their board, whose achievements have just been belittled by an aging borderline has-been and the smart-alecky, creatively-challenged writer whose dialogue she regurgitated. I mean, what kind of asshole resorts to racism for laughs these days, after what happened with Michael Richards?
It seems clear to me that there was a directive among the writers to come up with a third world country for that "clever little line." I can just imagine them thinking of what third world country would be least likely to kick up a fuss with the remark. "Why not the Philippines?" I can just imagine someone saying or thinking. "The people there worship us anyway."
As far as I'm concerned, though, that we were the object of yet another dig from those pricks at Hollywood is only half of what's objectionable; my problem is that Hollywood, and America, in general, should really stop taking cracks at the intelligence quotient of other cultures, considering their own track record in the last several years.
For one thing, this is the country that elected George W. Bush their President twice in a row. If people will bellyache that he cheated, well, they were still stupid enough to let it slide because he's approaching the last year of his term in office and there hasn't even been so much as an impeachment case filed against him.
In relation to that, these complete and utter morons let Bush and his cronies trick them into believing in a war that is without any justification, and, which, unbelievably, some of them still support to this day.
Moving on from their politics, let's look at Hollywood itself. In any given year, the highest grossing movies churned out by Hollywood are sequels, remakes, sequels to remakes, or the latest member of the species, "reboots." Most of the dreck polluting movie screens these days aren't even the products of screenwriters' original ideas anymore, they're derived from everything to books, comic books, TV shows, toylines, and now video games, the single most creatively bankrupt form of storytelling imaginable, especially considering that most video games rip off their plots from movies!
And let's not forget TV, where the offensive utterance occurred. American TV is now dominated by "reality" shows which seem to get progressively worse with each new show launched.
Finally, there is the Americans' fascination with rich, stupid people like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears, all of whom they've managed to make rich in one way or another.
Come to think of it, Americans are some of the stupidest people on the face of the earth, when one weighs the sum total of everything they've done in the last ten years alone and as such I don't think they're in any position to cast aspersions on the quality of education in anyone else's country. You people are supposed to be smart, right? How is it a chimpanzee has been running your country for nearly eight years now?
I don't actually watch Desperate Housewives, and am now glad I don't, but I seriously hope the writers, producers and cast of that piece of primetime garbage have, at the very least, to endure a whole world of grief for that little indiscretion, which was completely uncalled for and unabashedly racist.
I wouldn't even mind if the show got cancelled, so Teri Hatcher can go back to being a has-been, except now she can be a racist has-been. She and Michael Richards can form a club.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Inane
This is my blog, and as such is a venue for me write about pretty much anything I want, no matter how detached from the concerns of society at large. It's my online diary, where I get to share anything from my views on politics to my thoughts on my hobbies, or, if I want to, what my toenail dirt looks like. I carry no social responsibility for the things I say here (for as long as I don't write anything libelous, I guess), and any "relevant" posts I happen to write are not saddled with any sense of obligation, but just because I want to write about them.
Catholic priests, I believe, are different.
I go to mass just about everyday (ironically enough, except for Saturday and Sunday). It's how I prefer to spend my lunch break. I hear mass at the EDSA shrine, spending every noon and early afternoon in a nice, air-conditioned chapel hearing mass while glancing at a wall painting depicting the Filipino's one truly shining moment in world history, which has long since lost any real meaning.
I've come to know the priests a little; there are about four or five of them who rotate, and of course, what makes any priest unique is the sermons he gives.
Some of them give pleasant, uplifting sermons, one of them gives barely comprehensible sermons considering he mumbles his English and cannot speak proper Tagalog (making me wonder exactly what province he's from), and one of them, the object of my ire in this post, gives some of the most condescending, cornball, and, dare I say it...inane homilies it is my displeasure to have to hear. If I could only be sure they had regular schedules I'd know to avoid this git, but unfortunately they shuffle them every week.
I wouldn't have written this but for the fact that last Tuesday, the chaos in Burma was weighing heavily on my mind (being splashed all over the news and all), when this priest gave his homily. He mentioned that Tuesday was the feast day of guardian angels, which was well and good, and started off with one of his ridiculous, forced "turn to the person next to you and..." and then talked about guardian angels in terms of how they look or don't look ("they don't all look like Marimar. Do you watch Marimar?") and how gossiping neighbors are not exactly angels.
It was at this point that I literally walked out of the church. I had wanted to pay my phone bill, and decided that was the perfect time to do it. I go to church for upliftment, not to have my stomach turned.
While I'm not the biggest fan of pontificating priests (even though they're the people for whom the word was coined), I recognize that, considering they have captive audiences, priests carry some form of responsibility to their flock. I would think that part of their service to God is calling for the prayers of their faithful for worthy causes, like the fight for democracy in Burma as a good, recent example.
When priests only dabble in "current affairs" when it's to comment on our own political circus here in the Philippines, they basically betray how parochially-minded they are and even reveal their own irrelevance in the grand scheme of things. What, do the monks in Burma not merit any mention because they're not Christians? I certainly hope this isn't the case.
The local Catholic Church looked like literal-minded fools when they were unduly agitated by the widely acknowledged work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code. The movie has come and gone, and the Church is still standing, so it would appear that all of the hullabaloo was for nothing at all. Priests like this idiot don't help things by showing how detached they are from things that matter in this world.
I'm glad I never became a priest. Aside from the more obvious reasons, (poverty, chastity, etc.), I feel I don't think I could bear the social responsibility they inevitably must carry as spiritual leaders of their communities.
But as for the men who choose to bear this mantle, they should realize that the spirits of the faithful do not exist in a vacuum. Even the Bible says it's not enough to just pray and profess one's love for God; faith is a way of life, not just a belief, and caring about other people's plight, to the extent of doing something about it, is an integral part of that way of life. Priests should encourage people to be socially conscious, if not necessarily activist in their orientation.
People say that one of the biggest problems of the Filipino of late is his apathy. That may be partly true, and I submit that one possible reason for this is that maybe not enough priests are telling people about the numerous outrages being perpetrated in this world day after day.
There is fear that the Church, as an institution is losing its relevancy. Well, if they do, I think that at the rate some of their priests are going, they will have no one but themselves to blame.
Catholic priests, I believe, are different.
I go to mass just about everyday (ironically enough, except for Saturday and Sunday). It's how I prefer to spend my lunch break. I hear mass at the EDSA shrine, spending every noon and early afternoon in a nice, air-conditioned chapel hearing mass while glancing at a wall painting depicting the Filipino's one truly shining moment in world history, which has long since lost any real meaning.
I've come to know the priests a little; there are about four or five of them who rotate, and of course, what makes any priest unique is the sermons he gives.
Some of them give pleasant, uplifting sermons, one of them gives barely comprehensible sermons considering he mumbles his English and cannot speak proper Tagalog (making me wonder exactly what province he's from), and one of them, the object of my ire in this post, gives some of the most condescending, cornball, and, dare I say it...inane homilies it is my displeasure to have to hear. If I could only be sure they had regular schedules I'd know to avoid this git, but unfortunately they shuffle them every week.
I wouldn't have written this but for the fact that last Tuesday, the chaos in Burma was weighing heavily on my mind (being splashed all over the news and all), when this priest gave his homily. He mentioned that Tuesday was the feast day of guardian angels, which was well and good, and started off with one of his ridiculous, forced "turn to the person next to you and..." and then talked about guardian angels in terms of how they look or don't look ("they don't all look like Marimar. Do you watch Marimar?") and how gossiping neighbors are not exactly angels.
It was at this point that I literally walked out of the church. I had wanted to pay my phone bill, and decided that was the perfect time to do it. I go to church for upliftment, not to have my stomach turned.
While I'm not the biggest fan of pontificating priests (even though they're the people for whom the word was coined), I recognize that, considering they have captive audiences, priests carry some form of responsibility to their flock. I would think that part of their service to God is calling for the prayers of their faithful for worthy causes, like the fight for democracy in Burma as a good, recent example.
When priests only dabble in "current affairs" when it's to comment on our own political circus here in the Philippines, they basically betray how parochially-minded they are and even reveal their own irrelevance in the grand scheme of things. What, do the monks in Burma not merit any mention because they're not Christians? I certainly hope this isn't the case.
The local Catholic Church looked like literal-minded fools when they were unduly agitated by the widely acknowledged work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code. The movie has come and gone, and the Church is still standing, so it would appear that all of the hullabaloo was for nothing at all. Priests like this idiot don't help things by showing how detached they are from things that matter in this world.
I'm glad I never became a priest. Aside from the more obvious reasons, (poverty, chastity, etc.), I feel I don't think I could bear the social responsibility they inevitably must carry as spiritual leaders of their communities.
But as for the men who choose to bear this mantle, they should realize that the spirits of the faithful do not exist in a vacuum. Even the Bible says it's not enough to just pray and profess one's love for God; faith is a way of life, not just a belief, and caring about other people's plight, to the extent of doing something about it, is an integral part of that way of life. Priests should encourage people to be socially conscious, if not necessarily activist in their orientation.
People say that one of the biggest problems of the Filipino of late is his apathy. That may be partly true, and I submit that one possible reason for this is that maybe not enough priests are telling people about the numerous outrages being perpetrated in this world day after day.
There is fear that the Church, as an institution is losing its relevancy. Well, if they do, I think that at the rate some of their priests are going, they will have no one but themselves to blame.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Peaked.
I've hit a new stage in my whole collector-of-toy-cars phase: the sudden and insatiable desire to unload a big fat chunk of my collection on eBay.
Yes, the pile of over one dozen blister-pack sealed cars sitting in the top shelf of my wardrobe seems to practically be begging me to put it online and eventually into the hands of better owners whose ardor for them won't cool into indifference as quickly as mine has.
It really was all about the hunt, when I think about it; after I'd put them away in my closet and forgotten about them, there wasn't much else to say or do, especially considering I couldn't take them out of their blister packs and play with them.
There were a number of things that have brought about this feeling, but I think the first one is that I feel lately that I hit a different level last month when I picked up a couple of considerably pricier cars; I ventured into 1/43 territory, and with it acrylic cases, stunning details, and somewhat eyebrow raising prices that come with it.
I could put these cars, one red Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren and one silver Porsche Carrera GT, beside each other on the headboard of my bed and stare at them until I'd literally pass out. They kept me company when I was home sick all of this week and everyone was out. The other two cars that I "hung out with" were two of my four 1:18 scale cars: a silver Ferrari F430 and a silver SLR McLaren.
Looking at them, I eventually got to thinking "there are so few of these, but I get so much more satisfaction out of them than out of the dozens and dozens of little cars I've accumulated like lint in the last ten months or so. They cost a little more, but I enjoy them so much more, from the details, to the acrylic cases, to the way they just capture the essence of the cars after which they were modeled."
The perfect analogy, I believe, is a gastronomical one. A rib eye steak with potatoes and vegetables on the side definitely costs more than a small bag of nachos, but on the other hand it is so...much...more... filling, so much more satisfying.
Those little cars in their huge plastic casings have been my small bags of chips, which I'd buy on a whim, not really thinking much about them once they were stowed away. Now they're stacked in a pile, and all I can see of them is their packaging unless I make the effort to extract them from their hiding place. It was thus that I also came to realize that my new 1/43 cars, with their no-nonsense, rectangular, sturdy acrylic display cases, were much easier to store than those cumbersome Jada 1/64 Shelby Cobras and Ford GTs, with their preposterous blister packaging which, in true American tradition, occupies five times the space the actual car does. I realized that eighty percent of the ridiculous things is packaging.
My first impulse was to think: I'll hawk these 1/64s on eBay or at my forum and then use the money to buy a couple more 1/43s!
But then sobriety prevailed, and I wasn't about to just go out and spend the equivalent of thirty to sixty dollars on one or two cars, not when there are other immediate uses for the money.
The idea of selling the 1/64s has still stuck, though, and as soon as I reinstall the software that enables me to upload pictures from my camera, the toy pushing begins.
The nice thing about those 1/43s is that, near as I can tell anyway, the folks at the stores that carry them maintain a fairly generous stock, and because they're kind of pricey they aren't sold out in a hurry. So for the first time in a while, since I started collecting, I feel I can take my time, something I haven't felt since I first missed out on buying that silver Shelby Cobra so many months ago.
In short, I've made a resolution to swap quantity...for quality.
(I'm still hanging onto my garden-variety Matchboxes and Hot Wheels, though; they're pretty easy to stack and stow).
Yes, the pile of over one dozen blister-pack sealed cars sitting in the top shelf of my wardrobe seems to practically be begging me to put it online and eventually into the hands of better owners whose ardor for them won't cool into indifference as quickly as mine has.
It really was all about the hunt, when I think about it; after I'd put them away in my closet and forgotten about them, there wasn't much else to say or do, especially considering I couldn't take them out of their blister packs and play with them.
There were a number of things that have brought about this feeling, but I think the first one is that I feel lately that I hit a different level last month when I picked up a couple of considerably pricier cars; I ventured into 1/43 territory, and with it acrylic cases, stunning details, and somewhat eyebrow raising prices that come with it.
I could put these cars, one red Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren and one silver Porsche Carrera GT, beside each other on the headboard of my bed and stare at them until I'd literally pass out. They kept me company when I was home sick all of this week and everyone was out. The other two cars that I "hung out with" were two of my four 1:18 scale cars: a silver Ferrari F430 and a silver SLR McLaren.
Looking at them, I eventually got to thinking "there are so few of these, but I get so much more satisfaction out of them than out of the dozens and dozens of little cars I've accumulated like lint in the last ten months or so. They cost a little more, but I enjoy them so much more, from the details, to the acrylic cases, to the way they just capture the essence of the cars after which they were modeled."
The perfect analogy, I believe, is a gastronomical one. A rib eye steak with potatoes and vegetables on the side definitely costs more than a small bag of nachos, but on the other hand it is so...much...more... filling, so much more satisfying.
Those little cars in their huge plastic casings have been my small bags of chips, which I'd buy on a whim, not really thinking much about them once they were stowed away. Now they're stacked in a pile, and all I can see of them is their packaging unless I make the effort to extract them from their hiding place. It was thus that I also came to realize that my new 1/43 cars, with their no-nonsense, rectangular, sturdy acrylic display cases, were much easier to store than those cumbersome Jada 1/64 Shelby Cobras and Ford GTs, with their preposterous blister packaging which, in true American tradition, occupies five times the space the actual car does. I realized that eighty percent of the ridiculous things is packaging.
My first impulse was to think: I'll hawk these 1/64s on eBay or at my forum and then use the money to buy a couple more 1/43s!
But then sobriety prevailed, and I wasn't about to just go out and spend the equivalent of thirty to sixty dollars on one or two cars, not when there are other immediate uses for the money.
The idea of selling the 1/64s has still stuck, though, and as soon as I reinstall the software that enables me to upload pictures from my camera, the toy pushing begins.
The nice thing about those 1/43s is that, near as I can tell anyway, the folks at the stores that carry them maintain a fairly generous stock, and because they're kind of pricey they aren't sold out in a hurry. So for the first time in a while, since I started collecting, I feel I can take my time, something I haven't felt since I first missed out on buying that silver Shelby Cobra so many months ago.
In short, I've made a resolution to swap quantity...for quality.
(I'm still hanging onto my garden-variety Matchboxes and Hot Wheels, though; they're pretty easy to stack and stow).
Monday, September 10, 2007
Children of War
While Marvel's Civil War was based in part on Mark Millar's idea of a superhero team in every one of America's fifty states, this did not actually play out in the miniseries itself. Instead it was used as the groundwork for a new series to be entitled Avengers: The Initiative, the story of young super-powered individuals who have to sign up with the government and train in order to be properly licensed as superheroes.
I am of the opinion that this title is the most compelling argument for staging the civil war within the Marvel universe, as it has provided both the perfect venue for launching fresh characters.
I skipped the first couple of issues with their "boot camp" theme, which seemed a re-tread of too many war movies, but when the ball started rolling with the third issue, I came on board.
The members of the core team (so far) are, in no particular order other than those I can name: Cloud 9, Hardball, Komodo, Trauma, Ultra Girl and Thor Girl. The veteran Avengers who appear in these pages include Yellowjacket, Justice and War Machine.
The fairly eclectic mix makes for very interesting reading, even though none of the new heroes has a particularly original power, but superpowers, as with most Marvel books, are not this book's main draw. No, what's special here is the layers that slowly unfold as the series goes on. There are shadow teams and dirty secrets galore from the lowest members on the totem pole to the guys on the very top; in short, the stuff of pretty compelling drama for at least several months to come.
Issue #3 was, at least in part, about an attempt to hunt down superheroes on the run, specifically Spider-Man, while issues #4 and #5 dealt squarely with the events of World War Hulk.
The situations are so well conceived that neither they nor the characters' reactions thereto feel particularly contrived.
Writer Dan Slott shows he has the chops to handle such an important assignment as fleshing out Millar's idea. He and artist Stefano Caselli take the baton from Millar and absolutely sprint with it. Caselli's work is cartoony but wonderfully expressive.
I don't doubt that The Initiative as a concept has limited story mileage, but for now, there is just so much that can be done with these characters and the creative team seems perfectly poised to do it.
I am of the opinion that this title is the most compelling argument for staging the civil war within the Marvel universe, as it has provided both the perfect venue for launching fresh characters.
I skipped the first couple of issues with their "boot camp" theme, which seemed a re-tread of too many war movies, but when the ball started rolling with the third issue, I came on board.
The members of the core team (so far) are, in no particular order other than those I can name: Cloud 9, Hardball, Komodo, Trauma, Ultra Girl and Thor Girl. The veteran Avengers who appear in these pages include Yellowjacket, Justice and War Machine.
The fairly eclectic mix makes for very interesting reading, even though none of the new heroes has a particularly original power, but superpowers, as with most Marvel books, are not this book's main draw. No, what's special here is the layers that slowly unfold as the series goes on. There are shadow teams and dirty secrets galore from the lowest members on the totem pole to the guys on the very top; in short, the stuff of pretty compelling drama for at least several months to come.
Issue #3 was, at least in part, about an attempt to hunt down superheroes on the run, specifically Spider-Man, while issues #4 and #5 dealt squarely with the events of World War Hulk.
The situations are so well conceived that neither they nor the characters' reactions thereto feel particularly contrived.
Writer Dan Slott shows he has the chops to handle such an important assignment as fleshing out Millar's idea. He and artist Stefano Caselli take the baton from Millar and absolutely sprint with it. Caselli's work is cartoony but wonderfully expressive.
I don't doubt that The Initiative as a concept has limited story mileage, but for now, there is just so much that can be done with these characters and the creative team seems perfectly poised to do it.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
A Spidey Swansong by Joe and Joe
When J. Michael Straczynski started writing The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2001, I welcomed him with open arms, considering I had stopped buying the title for some months before of the hopelessly unreadable stories. I welcomed the high profile JMS seemed to bring to the book, which got star treatment that previously only the x-books had enjoyed, in the form of a star-caliber cover artist J. Scott Campbell and a significant upgrade in the palette of colors used.
As time dragged on, though, JMS's run became kind of hit-and-miss for me. I almost uniformly liked the first two years' worth of issues, but after that the quality in both the storytelling and the art seemed to dip, to the extent that when John Romta Jr. left to pursue other projects, I found myself dropping the book altogether, only to pick it up again when Spider-Man donned the "Iron Spider" armor.
Considering, however, that the story with which JMS is ending his run (at least for now) on Spider-Man, entitled One More Day, is hyped as one of the most drastic status quo alterations of recent memory, and considering it boasts art by Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, I decided to give JMS a proper "send-off."
OMD, which springs out of the events of Civil War, marks something of a return by JMS to the form with which he drew me in as a fan over half a decade ago, before he got caught up in the ramifications of all his story ideas and subplots and before he decided to retcon a character who had been dead for three decades.
In a nutshell, this is about Peter trying to get help for Aunt May, who is dying from a sniper's bullet. He goes to Tony Stark, whom he betrayed during the Civil War by switching sides mid-war, and the predictable fight ensues. The story doesn't progress all that well, the only real events going on being the fight between Peter and Tony, but JMS' writing here feels a lot more like writing I enjoyed so much at the beginning of his run than the muddled mess it had become by the time I decided to take time off from the title.
The star of this book, however, would have to be Joe Quesada. From the expressiveness of his characters to the explosive nature of Peter's fight with Iron Man, Quesada perfectly justifies his presence on these pages, and they are wondrous to behold. Since he became EIC of Marvel it's always been a treat to see JQ's art, whether on various covers or on interior pages, such as the underrated Daredevil: Father series, which for all its late shipping back in the day, was magnificently illustrated. Seeing JQ on a Spider-Man book is something I have wanted to see for a loooong time, ever since Spidey made a guest appearance in issue #8 of Kevin Smith's Daredevil relaunch. The final page-and-a-half splash which has Spidey swinging off to visit Dr. Strange feels particularly rewarding. That Marvel are following this up by putting Steve McNiven on the book for a spell makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
It doesn't really matter to me which way Spider-Man's status quo is headed; what I really want is a good story with good art, and I'm happy to say that Amazing Spider-Man #544, the first chapter of OMD, delivers on both fronts.
Here's hoping the rest of the storyline plays out well.
As time dragged on, though, JMS's run became kind of hit-and-miss for me. I almost uniformly liked the first two years' worth of issues, but after that the quality in both the storytelling and the art seemed to dip, to the extent that when John Romta Jr. left to pursue other projects, I found myself dropping the book altogether, only to pick it up again when Spider-Man donned the "Iron Spider" armor.
Considering, however, that the story with which JMS is ending his run (at least for now) on Spider-Man, entitled One More Day, is hyped as one of the most drastic status quo alterations of recent memory, and considering it boasts art by Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, I decided to give JMS a proper "send-off."
OMD, which springs out of the events of Civil War, marks something of a return by JMS to the form with which he drew me in as a fan over half a decade ago, before he got caught up in the ramifications of all his story ideas and subplots and before he decided to retcon a character who had been dead for three decades.
In a nutshell, this is about Peter trying to get help for Aunt May, who is dying from a sniper's bullet. He goes to Tony Stark, whom he betrayed during the Civil War by switching sides mid-war, and the predictable fight ensues. The story doesn't progress all that well, the only real events going on being the fight between Peter and Tony, but JMS' writing here feels a lot more like writing I enjoyed so much at the beginning of his run than the muddled mess it had become by the time I decided to take time off from the title.
The star of this book, however, would have to be Joe Quesada. From the expressiveness of his characters to the explosive nature of Peter's fight with Iron Man, Quesada perfectly justifies his presence on these pages, and they are wondrous to behold. Since he became EIC of Marvel it's always been a treat to see JQ's art, whether on various covers or on interior pages, such as the underrated Daredevil: Father series, which for all its late shipping back in the day, was magnificently illustrated. Seeing JQ on a Spider-Man book is something I have wanted to see for a loooong time, ever since Spidey made a guest appearance in issue #8 of Kevin Smith's Daredevil relaunch. The final page-and-a-half splash which has Spidey swinging off to visit Dr. Strange feels particularly rewarding. That Marvel are following this up by putting Steve McNiven on the book for a spell makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
It doesn't really matter to me which way Spider-Man's status quo is headed; what I really want is a good story with good art, and I'm happy to say that Amazing Spider-Man #544, the first chapter of OMD, delivers on both fronts.
Here's hoping the rest of the storyline plays out well.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Stan Ain't My Man
My dad once told me that if you were to cut out an entire storyline of the newspaper comic strip "The Amazing Spider-Man," the only Spider-Man serial still written by co-creator Stan Lee, and read all of the strips in succession, they would be absolutely unreadable.
Nonsense, I thought to myself; this is Stan Lee we're talking about! The man whose imagination gave birth to an entire universe of colorful characters! .
Yesterday, I bought a copy of The Last Fantastic Four story, the latest thing Lee's written for Marvel Comics, and holy crap, my dad was right.
In a nutshell, it's about a virtually omnipotent race of beings that decides the human race's time is up because of all of humanity's evil, and how the Fantastic Four figures out how to stop them. That's pretty much it. It doesn't merit much of a review, because in truth, with the exception of John Romita Jr.'s sterling art, it's one of the worst comic books I've had the misfortune of ever reading. From the plot to the dialogue to the ultimate resolution of the story, the whole thing is a disaster.
The painful part is that Lee's old writing still holds up pretty well, dated dialogue aside. Having re-read the tattered 1966 issue of Fantastic Four I inherited from my uncle, I can say for sure that back then, Lee knew how to tell a story with some flair. The dialogue isn't even that distracting.
The problem between then and now is that Lee has become something of an icon; he used to write because he wanted to tell a story. In this particular comic book he seems to be playing to the crowd, writing hamfisted heroics and Shatner-esque dialogue ("Bolts of fire! Melting our weapons!") because he figures that's what people have come to expect from him. There no longer seems to be any inspiration in his writing.
Between this and the painfully terrible "Who Wants to Be a Superhero," I'm now convinced that Stan should just limit himself to cameos in the movies based on his characters, and stick to non-speaking roles.
Nonsense, I thought to myself; this is Stan Lee we're talking about! The man whose imagination gave birth to an entire universe of colorful characters! .
Yesterday, I bought a copy of The Last Fantastic Four story, the latest thing Lee's written for Marvel Comics, and holy crap, my dad was right.
In a nutshell, it's about a virtually omnipotent race of beings that decides the human race's time is up because of all of humanity's evil, and how the Fantastic Four figures out how to stop them. That's pretty much it. It doesn't merit much of a review, because in truth, with the exception of John Romita Jr.'s sterling art, it's one of the worst comic books I've had the misfortune of ever reading. From the plot to the dialogue to the ultimate resolution of the story, the whole thing is a disaster.
The painful part is that Lee's old writing still holds up pretty well, dated dialogue aside. Having re-read the tattered 1966 issue of Fantastic Four I inherited from my uncle, I can say for sure that back then, Lee knew how to tell a story with some flair. The dialogue isn't even that distracting.
The problem between then and now is that Lee has become something of an icon; he used to write because he wanted to tell a story. In this particular comic book he seems to be playing to the crowd, writing hamfisted heroics and Shatner-esque dialogue ("Bolts of fire! Melting our weapons!") because he figures that's what people have come to expect from him. There no longer seems to be any inspiration in his writing.
Between this and the painfully terrible "Who Wants to Be a Superhero," I'm now convinced that Stan should just limit himself to cameos in the movies based on his characters, and stick to non-speaking roles.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A Conspiracy Theory Made in China
The conspiracy theory is uncharted territory for me, but with the whole Mattel recall thing just stinking to the high heavens of, at the very least, a corporate cover-up, I thought I'd throw my two-cents in.
Recalls of and advisories on products made in China are all the rage these days: from the announcement in local media that White Rabbit candies (a favorite of mine from childhood) contain formaldehyde to globe-spanning news of massive recalls made by one of the world's biggest toy companies, Mattel, of millions of its products, China and its manufacturing industry are currently among the media's favorite whipping boys. Their shoddy manufacturing processes made the cover of Time magazine, no less.
Now, the more seasoned conspiracy theorists (and I've done a wee bit of surfing to check them out) are quick to nail Mattel to the wall for their whole recall snafu, citing corporate incompetency and corruption, among other things. They ask perfectly legitimate questions like: whose idea was it to subcontract anyway? What happened to all of their quality control?
These are all legitimate questions, to which I would like to add a couple of my own:
To start off, why does the slant in most of the news reports I've read lay the blame on the doorstep of the Chinese subcontractors?
Why, after soooooo many years of having several of their product lines manufactured in China (somewhere between the last two decades, at least) has not only Mattel, but at least one other prominent American toy manufactuer (Hasbro), found enough defects in their products to justify the recall of millions upon millions of items?
Product recall is hardly a new phenomenon, but in a day and age where quality control should be absolutely cutting edge, one wonders how such fundamental aspects of manufacturing as what kind of paint gets put on their toys can slip right under the noses of the quality control inspectors of some of the biggest toy companies in the world.
If anything, this debacle should serve as an indictment of the American way of doing business: always trying to get more for less, cutting corners, and putting out a cheap, profitable product at the expense of public safety.
So, why, oh why has this turned into a discussion of China's unsafe manufacturing processes, to the extent that Mattel and Hasbro and made to look more like the victims than like the villains that they really are here?
I suspect I know why, and I'm certainly not the first person to adopt this theory: these are all the products of a systematic effort to undermine China's attempts to establish itself as a world power.
I am no fan of China or the way they do things: the 1989 Tianmen Square Massacre, by itself, has forever turned me off to them, especially considering they don't seem to be doing things any differently since then. I won't discount that there are shady practices going on in terms of how they manufacture their foodstuffs, their plastics, and whatnot. It is entirely possible and even likely.
But I submit that the media campaign that has been going on for the last several months to "expose" these practices, which has come to a head with the whole Mattel scandal, seems, on its face, extremely heavy-handed, and not very even-handed. It just does not seem credible that an industry giant like Mattel would be so oblivious to the processes employed by its sub-contractors that it would release finished products bearing its own badging before the lapse would be discovered.
And so my theory of a concerted media effort to put a big black smear on the burgeoning economic giant that is China is born. Personally, it seems to me a VERY convenient coincidence that the biggest 'victims' of China's shoddy manufacturing processes are extremely prominent American companies. And of course, the banner headline of many an American periodical seem intent to emphasize that it was products made in China that were hazardous, not products of Mattel or Hasbro.
Hey, if the world is to blame a country full of shitty, sub-standard manufacturing practices, we should equally blame the people who contract people from this country and who make use of these sub-standard manufacturing processes without imposing their own quality-control which, one would think after over THIRTY years in the manufacturing business, they would have perfected by now. You want to crucify China? Well, include the "two thieves" (and possibly more) as well: the idiots who had their products made there and left the Chinese to their own devices without a hint of quality control.
I don't pretend to know all the facts here, and that's precisely why I ask these questions and encourage people to ask their own. The knee-jerk reaction to all is to conclude that products made in China are bad. Period. I think a problem as serious as millions of defective consumer products deserves a more intelligent response than that, and certainly a more intelligent response than what we have been getting in the media so far.
Recalls of and advisories on products made in China are all the rage these days: from the announcement in local media that White Rabbit candies (a favorite of mine from childhood) contain formaldehyde to globe-spanning news of massive recalls made by one of the world's biggest toy companies, Mattel, of millions of its products, China and its manufacturing industry are currently among the media's favorite whipping boys. Their shoddy manufacturing processes made the cover of Time magazine, no less.
Now, the more seasoned conspiracy theorists (and I've done a wee bit of surfing to check them out) are quick to nail Mattel to the wall for their whole recall snafu, citing corporate incompetency and corruption, among other things. They ask perfectly legitimate questions like: whose idea was it to subcontract anyway? What happened to all of their quality control?
These are all legitimate questions, to which I would like to add a couple of my own:
To start off, why does the slant in most of the news reports I've read lay the blame on the doorstep of the Chinese subcontractors?
Why, after soooooo many years of having several of their product lines manufactured in China (somewhere between the last two decades, at least) has not only Mattel, but at least one other prominent American toy manufactuer (Hasbro), found enough defects in their products to justify the recall of millions upon millions of items?
Product recall is hardly a new phenomenon, but in a day and age where quality control should be absolutely cutting edge, one wonders how such fundamental aspects of manufacturing as what kind of paint gets put on their toys can slip right under the noses of the quality control inspectors of some of the biggest toy companies in the world.
If anything, this debacle should serve as an indictment of the American way of doing business: always trying to get more for less, cutting corners, and putting out a cheap, profitable product at the expense of public safety.
So, why, oh why has this turned into a discussion of China's unsafe manufacturing processes, to the extent that Mattel and Hasbro and made to look more like the victims than like the villains that they really are here?
I suspect I know why, and I'm certainly not the first person to adopt this theory: these are all the products of a systematic effort to undermine China's attempts to establish itself as a world power.
I am no fan of China or the way they do things: the 1989 Tianmen Square Massacre, by itself, has forever turned me off to them, especially considering they don't seem to be doing things any differently since then. I won't discount that there are shady practices going on in terms of how they manufacture their foodstuffs, their plastics, and whatnot. It is entirely possible and even likely.
But I submit that the media campaign that has been going on for the last several months to "expose" these practices, which has come to a head with the whole Mattel scandal, seems, on its face, extremely heavy-handed, and not very even-handed. It just does not seem credible that an industry giant like Mattel would be so oblivious to the processes employed by its sub-contractors that it would release finished products bearing its own badging before the lapse would be discovered.
And so my theory of a concerted media effort to put a big black smear on the burgeoning economic giant that is China is born. Personally, it seems to me a VERY convenient coincidence that the biggest 'victims' of China's shoddy manufacturing processes are extremely prominent American companies. And of course, the banner headline of many an American periodical seem intent to emphasize that it was products made in China that were hazardous, not products of Mattel or Hasbro.
Hey, if the world is to blame a country full of shitty, sub-standard manufacturing practices, we should equally blame the people who contract people from this country and who make use of these sub-standard manufacturing processes without imposing their own quality-control which, one would think after over THIRTY years in the manufacturing business, they would have perfected by now. You want to crucify China? Well, include the "two thieves" (and possibly more) as well: the idiots who had their products made there and left the Chinese to their own devices without a hint of quality control.
I don't pretend to know all the facts here, and that's precisely why I ask these questions and encourage people to ask their own. The knee-jerk reaction to all is to conclude that products made in China are bad. Period. I think a problem as serious as millions of defective consumer products deserves a more intelligent response than that, and certainly a more intelligent response than what we have been getting in the media so far.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
On Untimely Death
I doubt a whole lot of people who happen upon this blog and read it even know who Mike Wieringo was; like I said in a previous post, I didn't know him personally. From the information that was available, though, I gathered a few things: he was a health buff, a well-liked person and apparently a very gentle person. Learnings these things about this person really got me thinking about the nature of death and how it can really catch people off guard at the worst possible time, and how it never seems to take the people that deserve it the most at the time it is most needed.
Yes, I know that last part was a bit brutal, but it cuts to the theme of this particular post, which is how completely mystified I am by the whole concept of "who gets chosen" to die. We all die, eventually, and I for one believe that when we find ourselves on the verge of the afterlife we are measured by how we lived our lives before. But clearly, some of us have to die before others.
In most cases the order of death is a fairly logical affair; the people who are old and/or infirm die first, and the people who are young and healthy die later, after they have become old and infirm. There are things that upset this balance, like wars, accidents and murders, and they are tragic, but to an extent they are understandable. The human hand behind these occurrences often rears its head, and even when it doesn't, depending on the circumstances, somehow people can bring themselves to accept these unfortunate facts of life.
I submit, though, that what truly boggles the mind is the occurrence of deaths like that of Mr. Wieringo, an avid vegetarian and regular exercise buff, dead of a heart attack, of all things, at the very young age of 44. Killed in an accident? Sad, but sure. Murdered in his apartment by a mugger? Terrible, but at the very least attributable to the evil of man. But dead of a heart attack? Considering the way he lived his life and considering how young he was? On its face it just doesn't add up.
I mean, this was essentially an act of God that took this guy's life, and I for one, can't help but ask why? The guy was a comic book artist, and a pretty good one in not only my opinion but those of his fans. He made people happy. He provided something valuable in its own way. And from all indications, he was a nice guy, not the egomaniac that so many comic-book professionals inevitably become.
There are millions of other candidates for what happened to him. Off the top of my head and enumerating the Filipino demographic alone I can think of more than a few, politicians, appointed government officials living on the take, Abu Sayyaf brigands, drug pushers...and the list simply goes on, ranging from the cliche to the more, um, personal choices. I mean, a lot of people on this list often live life to excess, abusing their bodies with food, alcohol, exposure to sexually-transmitted disease, and yet show up time and again on our TV screens and front page headlines in all their corrupt, often corpulent glory. They give nothing of any sort of worth to society; they only live to take, and taking is all they ever do up until the time they die, which in most cases can simply not come soon enough.
I may not have lost a direct relative in so untimely a fashion, but I've had enough of my friends die before ever hitting the age of 30 to feel truly embittered at the seeming arbitrariness of it all.
Marvel editor Tom Brevoort made a good point about living life to the fullest because there simply are no guarantees, and I won't refute that, but my gripe is that so many of the people who form a blight on humanity are living life to the fullest; how come they're still here?
Yes, I know that last part was a bit brutal, but it cuts to the theme of this particular post, which is how completely mystified I am by the whole concept of "who gets chosen" to die. We all die, eventually, and I for one believe that when we find ourselves on the verge of the afterlife we are measured by how we lived our lives before. But clearly, some of us have to die before others.
In most cases the order of death is a fairly logical affair; the people who are old and/or infirm die first, and the people who are young and healthy die later, after they have become old and infirm. There are things that upset this balance, like wars, accidents and murders, and they are tragic, but to an extent they are understandable. The human hand behind these occurrences often rears its head, and even when it doesn't, depending on the circumstances, somehow people can bring themselves to accept these unfortunate facts of life.
I submit, though, that what truly boggles the mind is the occurrence of deaths like that of Mr. Wieringo, an avid vegetarian and regular exercise buff, dead of a heart attack, of all things, at the very young age of 44. Killed in an accident? Sad, but sure. Murdered in his apartment by a mugger? Terrible, but at the very least attributable to the evil of man. But dead of a heart attack? Considering the way he lived his life and considering how young he was? On its face it just doesn't add up.
I mean, this was essentially an act of God that took this guy's life, and I for one, can't help but ask why? The guy was a comic book artist, and a pretty good one in not only my opinion but those of his fans. He made people happy. He provided something valuable in its own way. And from all indications, he was a nice guy, not the egomaniac that so many comic-book professionals inevitably become.
There are millions of other candidates for what happened to him. Off the top of my head and enumerating the Filipino demographic alone I can think of more than a few, politicians, appointed government officials living on the take, Abu Sayyaf brigands, drug pushers...and the list simply goes on, ranging from the cliche to the more, um, personal choices. I mean, a lot of people on this list often live life to excess, abusing their bodies with food, alcohol, exposure to sexually-transmitted disease, and yet show up time and again on our TV screens and front page headlines in all their corrupt, often corpulent glory. They give nothing of any sort of worth to society; they only live to take, and taking is all they ever do up until the time they die, which in most cases can simply not come soon enough.
I may not have lost a direct relative in so untimely a fashion, but I've had enough of my friends die before ever hitting the age of 30 to feel truly embittered at the seeming arbitrariness of it all.
Marvel editor Tom Brevoort made a good point about living life to the fullest because there simply are no guarantees, and I won't refute that, but my gripe is that so many of the people who form a blight on humanity are living life to the fullest; how come they're still here?
Monday, August 13, 2007
Taking a Moment of Pause
I'd like to dedicate this post to comic book artist Mike Wieringo, who passed away yesterday at 44. Here's the link: http://www.newsarama.com/Chicago_07/Ringo.html
I don't have much of his stuff in my collection, but Wieringo is an artist who work I have always liked; I always found it to be crisp and clean. I have a few issues of his seminal Fantastic Four run with Mark Waid, including the very last issue of that run, as well as almost all of his issues of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man with Peter David. Really enjoyable stuff. I was also a huge fan of his blog at www.mikewieringo.com, where every new post came with a lovely sketch.
I didn't know the man personally, nor was I his biggest fan, so I haven't that much to say, but I would like to offer my condolences to all his friends and loved ones.
The comics community, creator and fan alike, has just suffered a terrible loss.
I don't have much of his stuff in my collection, but Wieringo is an artist who work I have always liked; I always found it to be crisp and clean. I have a few issues of his seminal Fantastic Four run with Mark Waid, including the very last issue of that run, as well as almost all of his issues of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man with Peter David. Really enjoyable stuff. I was also a huge fan of his blog at www.mikewieringo.com, where every new post came with a lovely sketch.
I didn't know the man personally, nor was I his biggest fan, so I haven't that much to say, but I would like to offer my condolences to all his friends and loved ones.
The comics community, creator and fan alike, has just suffered a terrible loss.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Finally, a Threequel that Gets It Right
I've made no secret of how disappointed I was with Spider-Man 3, or how much I loathed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The former I saw out of love for the franchise, and the latter out of a sense of completism considering that the second movie was left dangling; having no such reasons to see the other 'threequels,' namely Shrek the Third and Ocean's Thirteen, I happily saved myself the trouble and the money of going to see them.
I am a huge fan of both 2002's The Bourne Identity and its 2004 sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, and have both of them on DVD. The impetus to see The Bourne Ultimatum, therefore, was quite strong. Then, in a rare move by the a local distributor these days, Solar Films elected to release the movie a full two weeks after its American start date, and as a result I was able to catch a lot of spoiler-free, absolutely glowing reviews, which filled me with hope for what was hyped as the concluding chapter of the Bourne trilogy. By the time I actually saw the movie last night, my expectations were soaring.
Not only did the film, starring Damon and directed by his Supremacy collaborator Paul Greengrass, meet my expectations; it blew them away.
The movie basically picks up about five minutes before the second movie ends (in a brilliant piece of writing and editing I will expound on later) with the Russian police chasing Jason Bourne through Moscow scant moments after he has given a heartfelt apology to the daughter of his first targets.
What follows is a little bit of exposition, as few new characters are introduced, such as the British investigative reporter named Simon Ross (played by Paddy Considine) whose insatiable curiosity about Bourne and the covert government agency that spawned him serves as the catalyst for the entire story. Bourne reads one of Ross's articles about him and decides to track him down. Around the same time, Ross himself makes a cell-phone call to his editor and mentions 'Blackbriar' the name of the program created to replace the Treadstone program under which, many years before, Bourne had been created. Upon his very mention of the word 'Blackbriar,' the virtually omnipotent CIA, headed up this time by slimy Assistant Director Noah Vosen (a truly malevolent portayal by Oscar nominee David Stathairn), pinpoints Ross through the magic of surveillance technology and targets him for termination.
What ensues is a relentless chase across the world, with Bourne tracking down important clues to understanding his past. His relentless search takes him from London to Madrid to Tangier, where he must survive bombs, bone-crunching fistfights and neck-breaking car chases. At the end of it all, his dogged efforts culminate in an ominous confrontation in New York with the man who was effectively his maker, a chilling Dr. Mengele-like behavior modification specialist played by Albert Finney who answers every single question that has been festering in Bourne's (and every interested viewer's) mind since the first movie.
The casual action movie fan will come away satisfied with the various action set pieces, easily the best of any movie of the last several years. The climactic hand-to-hand fight between Bourne and a younger, equally formidable CIA asset (Joey Ansah) is the easily the most gripping of the entire franchise, and comes at the tail-end of a similarly thrilling rooftop chase sequence which has Bourne jumping from rooftops into windows. The end result leaves the audience gasping for breath. Of course, no Bourne movie would be complete without a mind-blowing car chase sequence, and this one doesn't disappoint. James Bond may have his Aston Martin, but in terms of sheer driving prowess he has absolutely nothing on Jason Bourne. In the same vein, the James Bond films, even the latest installment Casino Royale, have nothing on the Bourne movies in terms of balls-to-the-wall action. Yes, action movie fans from all walks of life should be comprehensively satisfied.
On top of all of this, however, an even nicer reward awaits the people who have patiently pieced together Bourne's history from the first two movies. Not only was I absolutely thrilled to have every imaginable loose end tied up with this installment, but I loved all of the little visual and narrative nods to the first and second movies that Greengrass sneaked in to let us know that finally, Bourne's about to come full circle. It was also a nice storytelling touch to give Bourne allies from within the CIA for the first time in the franchise's history; Bourne veterans Joan Allen and Julia Stiles reprise their roles as Assistant Director Pamela Landy and Logistics Operative Nicky Parsons, both of whom are now playing for Bourne's team. It gives the series a real sense of progression from the way things were in the beginning.
When Nicky, about to go on the run after helping Bourne and nearly paying for it with her life, washes the blond highlights out of her hair just before cutting it short, followers of the series instantly detect an homage to the first movie, in which Bourne washes and then cuts the hair of his then-love interest Marie, to change her appearance. Marie, by now, has been killed, and Nicky, it is revealed, once shared a past with Bourne. In this instance, however, rather than end up making love to Nicky as he did to Marie, Bourne sees her off to the bus station rather stoically. There's a touch of tragedy to the moment as we see in his eyes just how indifferent Bourne is to Nicky even after it's been revealed that they once shared something. The question is: is he genuinely indifferent to her, or has he trained himself to be completely cold again after having lost Marie to an assassin's bullet? It's an interesting little tidbit for fans of the series to chew on for a moment just before the final act rolls around.
(Spoiler alert)
The single most blatant visual homage, of course, is the shot of Bourne floating in the East River just moments before swimming off to his freedom and the end credits start to roll. A shot of Bourne floating unconscious in the Mediterranean is, of course, how the entire series began.
But what also gave me an honest-to-God nerdgasm was how brilliantly the last two sequences from the second movie were written and cut into the story of the third installment.
The second movie actually ended with Bourne placing a call to Landy while she's in New York. There had, in the film, been a bit of a time lapse between his time in Russia and the phone call to Landyk, and as a result when the third film opens with Bourne still in Moscow, one wonders what happened to his phone call to Landy. The answer? It's woven seamlessly into the narrative. The phone call actually begins the third act of Ultimatum, in what feels like a scriptwriting masterstroke. Whether this was deliberately done by the filmmakers when writing the second film or a clever idea on the part of screenwriters Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi, it was executed to absolute perfection.
The Bourne Ultimatum wraps up what has been a truly splendid cinematic trilogy, and while the door is still open for more, I left the theater feeling thoroughly satisfied with how everything had been resolved.
I would, however, be lying if I said I didn't want to see more of Jason Bourne's adventures.
I am a huge fan of both 2002's The Bourne Identity and its 2004 sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, and have both of them on DVD. The impetus to see The Bourne Ultimatum, therefore, was quite strong. Then, in a rare move by the a local distributor these days, Solar Films elected to release the movie a full two weeks after its American start date, and as a result I was able to catch a lot of spoiler-free, absolutely glowing reviews, which filled me with hope for what was hyped as the concluding chapter of the Bourne trilogy. By the time I actually saw the movie last night, my expectations were soaring.
Not only did the film, starring Damon and directed by his Supremacy collaborator Paul Greengrass, meet my expectations; it blew them away.
The movie basically picks up about five minutes before the second movie ends (in a brilliant piece of writing and editing I will expound on later) with the Russian police chasing Jason Bourne through Moscow scant moments after he has given a heartfelt apology to the daughter of his first targets.
What follows is a little bit of exposition, as few new characters are introduced, such as the British investigative reporter named Simon Ross (played by Paddy Considine) whose insatiable curiosity about Bourne and the covert government agency that spawned him serves as the catalyst for the entire story. Bourne reads one of Ross's articles about him and decides to track him down. Around the same time, Ross himself makes a cell-phone call to his editor and mentions 'Blackbriar' the name of the program created to replace the Treadstone program under which, many years before, Bourne had been created. Upon his very mention of the word 'Blackbriar,' the virtually omnipotent CIA, headed up this time by slimy Assistant Director Noah Vosen (a truly malevolent portayal by Oscar nominee David Stathairn), pinpoints Ross through the magic of surveillance technology and targets him for termination.
What ensues is a relentless chase across the world, with Bourne tracking down important clues to understanding his past. His relentless search takes him from London to Madrid to Tangier, where he must survive bombs, bone-crunching fistfights and neck-breaking car chases. At the end of it all, his dogged efforts culminate in an ominous confrontation in New York with the man who was effectively his maker, a chilling Dr. Mengele-like behavior modification specialist played by Albert Finney who answers every single question that has been festering in Bourne's (and every interested viewer's) mind since the first movie.
The casual action movie fan will come away satisfied with the various action set pieces, easily the best of any movie of the last several years. The climactic hand-to-hand fight between Bourne and a younger, equally formidable CIA asset (Joey Ansah) is the easily the most gripping of the entire franchise, and comes at the tail-end of a similarly thrilling rooftop chase sequence which has Bourne jumping from rooftops into windows. The end result leaves the audience gasping for breath. Of course, no Bourne movie would be complete without a mind-blowing car chase sequence, and this one doesn't disappoint. James Bond may have his Aston Martin, but in terms of sheer driving prowess he has absolutely nothing on Jason Bourne. In the same vein, the James Bond films, even the latest installment Casino Royale, have nothing on the Bourne movies in terms of balls-to-the-wall action. Yes, action movie fans from all walks of life should be comprehensively satisfied.
On top of all of this, however, an even nicer reward awaits the people who have patiently pieced together Bourne's history from the first two movies. Not only was I absolutely thrilled to have every imaginable loose end tied up with this installment, but I loved all of the little visual and narrative nods to the first and second movies that Greengrass sneaked in to let us know that finally, Bourne's about to come full circle. It was also a nice storytelling touch to give Bourne allies from within the CIA for the first time in the franchise's history; Bourne veterans Joan Allen and Julia Stiles reprise their roles as Assistant Director Pamela Landy and Logistics Operative Nicky Parsons, both of whom are now playing for Bourne's team. It gives the series a real sense of progression from the way things were in the beginning.
When Nicky, about to go on the run after helping Bourne and nearly paying for it with her life, washes the blond highlights out of her hair just before cutting it short, followers of the series instantly detect an homage to the first movie, in which Bourne washes and then cuts the hair of his then-love interest Marie, to change her appearance. Marie, by now, has been killed, and Nicky, it is revealed, once shared a past with Bourne. In this instance, however, rather than end up making love to Nicky as he did to Marie, Bourne sees her off to the bus station rather stoically. There's a touch of tragedy to the moment as we see in his eyes just how indifferent Bourne is to Nicky even after it's been revealed that they once shared something. The question is: is he genuinely indifferent to her, or has he trained himself to be completely cold again after having lost Marie to an assassin's bullet? It's an interesting little tidbit for fans of the series to chew on for a moment just before the final act rolls around.
(Spoiler alert)
The single most blatant visual homage, of course, is the shot of Bourne floating in the East River just moments before swimming off to his freedom and the end credits start to roll. A shot of Bourne floating unconscious in the Mediterranean is, of course, how the entire series began.
But what also gave me an honest-to-God nerdgasm was how brilliantly the last two sequences from the second movie were written and cut into the story of the third installment.
The second movie actually ended with Bourne placing a call to Landy while she's in New York. There had, in the film, been a bit of a time lapse between his time in Russia and the phone call to Landyk, and as a result when the third film opens with Bourne still in Moscow, one wonders what happened to his phone call to Landy. The answer? It's woven seamlessly into the narrative. The phone call actually begins the third act of Ultimatum, in what feels like a scriptwriting masterstroke. Whether this was deliberately done by the filmmakers when writing the second film or a clever idea on the part of screenwriters Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi, it was executed to absolute perfection.
The Bourne Ultimatum wraps up what has been a truly splendid cinematic trilogy, and while the door is still open for more, I left the theater feeling thoroughly satisfied with how everything had been resolved.
I would, however, be lying if I said I didn't want to see more of Jason Bourne's adventures.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Another Civil War Ending in the Making
I just picked up World War Hulk #3 (and two weeks after the release of #2, at that!), and although I enjoyed the artwork, I find myself having a problem with the progression of the story, so rather than go into the specifics of the issue (other than the art), I thought I'd discuss my misgivings about the direction of the story.
It's no secret that many were disappointed by the way Civil War turned out, with Captain America surrendering to the U.S. government even after he had Iron Man on the ropes, both physically and ideologically. All things considered, however, it must be said that the ending did give rise to a new and potentially very interesting status quo for the Marvel Universe, a development that was categorically promised by everyone at Marvel from the day the project was announced (as they do with every event).
What makes WWH different, and to my mind, worrisome, is that Joe Quesada has practically gone out of his way to say that this series is nothing more than a straight-up slugfest, a "light green sorbet." In short, it seems quite clear that this is not meant to be a status-quo shattering event; nobody's going to die, and nothing that occurs here is meant to have any serious ramifications for the rest of the Marvel line. Quesada and company have already said that WWH does not result in the post-Civil War status quo being reset in any way. Registration of superheroes will still be the norm.
So, when Hulk and his Warbound kick the collective ass of the Marvel Universe, round up all of the Marvel heroes and fit them with "obedience disks" and set them all up to do gladiatorial battle in Madison Square Garden, we the readers know that every single Marvel hero featured in these pages is walking out of there just fine.
So where does that leave the Hulk and the vengeance he has intended to wreak on Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange and Iron Man?
I only hope Pak's imagination offers this story a resolution that doesn't feel like a cop-out or as anticlimactic as Captain America's surrender, because I don't see this ending well for the Hulk at all, and after everything the Hulk has been through, that just wouldn't feel right.
I am actually enjoying this series, but frankly I see Pak writing himself into a bit of a corner here, a trajectory that started as early as last year's Planet Hulk.
Well, as much as I hope the journey has a better end than that which I foresee, at least this series can boast some of the best art of any of the recent events. I submit that, all things being equal, meaning if there were no such thing as exclusive contracts or artists who couldn't meet deadlines, John Romita Jr. would still be the best artist for this project, so at the end of the day, Marvel can still put that feather in their cap.
It's no secret that many were disappointed by the way Civil War turned out, with Captain America surrendering to the U.S. government even after he had Iron Man on the ropes, both physically and ideologically. All things considered, however, it must be said that the ending did give rise to a new and potentially very interesting status quo for the Marvel Universe, a development that was categorically promised by everyone at Marvel from the day the project was announced (as they do with every event).
What makes WWH different, and to my mind, worrisome, is that Joe Quesada has practically gone out of his way to say that this series is nothing more than a straight-up slugfest, a "light green sorbet." In short, it seems quite clear that this is not meant to be a status-quo shattering event; nobody's going to die, and nothing that occurs here is meant to have any serious ramifications for the rest of the Marvel line. Quesada and company have already said that WWH does not result in the post-Civil War status quo being reset in any way. Registration of superheroes will still be the norm.
So, when Hulk and his Warbound kick the collective ass of the Marvel Universe, round up all of the Marvel heroes and fit them with "obedience disks" and set them all up to do gladiatorial battle in Madison Square Garden, we the readers know that every single Marvel hero featured in these pages is walking out of there just fine.
So where does that leave the Hulk and the vengeance he has intended to wreak on Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange and Iron Man?
I only hope Pak's imagination offers this story a resolution that doesn't feel like a cop-out or as anticlimactic as Captain America's surrender, because I don't see this ending well for the Hulk at all, and after everything the Hulk has been through, that just wouldn't feel right.
I am actually enjoying this series, but frankly I see Pak writing himself into a bit of a corner here, a trajectory that started as early as last year's Planet Hulk.
Well, as much as I hope the journey has a better end than that which I foresee, at least this series can boast some of the best art of any of the recent events. I submit that, all things being equal, meaning if there were no such thing as exclusive contracts or artists who couldn't meet deadlines, John Romita Jr. would still be the best artist for this project, so at the end of the day, Marvel can still put that feather in their cap.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Chasing Your Dream: A Review of Ratatouille
In 1999, as the traditional, hand-drawn animation feature film began its slow descent to oblivion, there was one particular film that really stood out; even amidst such thoroughly entertaining fare as Tarzan and Toy Story 2: Brad Bird's The Iron Giant. A critical darling, it nonetheless disappointed at the box office.
Five years later, Brad Bird would finally have his day, as his follow-up work, The Incredibles, made in collaboration with Pixar this time, proved to be not only a critical and box-office smash; it won him a well-deserved Oscar for best animated feature.
Two and a half years later, he's at it again for Pixar with Ratatouille, a strikingly original story about a rat who dreams of becoming, of all things, a gourmet chef!
This is the story of Remy, a rat with a highly evolved sense of smell and taste who lives in a rural hut in France with his family. Early on he discovers his great love: cooking. It is, in fact, his insatiable desire to concoct new and better preparations of food that, in a hilariously madcap sequence, leads to his clan's exile from their countryside home into the sewers of Paris. During this chaotic escape, which involves the rats fleeing into the sewers on makeshift boats, Remy who carts off a cookbook written by his idol, the late lamented chef August Gusteau is separated from his family.
When he finds himself in Paris, however, through a creatively bizarre turn of events, he is able to live his dream of becoming a chef, thanks to a human co-conspirator named Linguini, who works in no less than Gusteau's once-renowned restaurant! Of course, the requisite villain of the piece, an evil chef named Skinner, has his eye on Linguini for fear of usurpation, for reasons made clear in the film. In short, we have, pardon the pun, the perfect recipe for disaster.
It all adds up to a madcap comedy, with a skillful blending of laugh out loud slapstick moments and rapier wit.
All of this is carried brilliantly by the voice cast, led by comedian Patton Oswalt as Remy, and featuring a healthy selection of very credible actors such as Peter o' Toole as food critic Anton Ego, Ian Holm as the evil chef Skinner, Janeane Garofalo as tough-as-nails lady chef Colette and Brian Dennehy as Remy's dad. Pixar animator Lou Romano does a wonderful job as the bumbling Linguini.
What makes Bird such a master auteur is his mastery of both substance and style. He writes brilliant screenplays and is no less prodigious in bringing them to life, wringing every last trick out of Pixar's book to firmly plant the audience in Paris, France, and to make them believe that a rat could prepare such masterful culinary pieces. The other Pixar creators are geniuses in their own right, but as someone who's seen them all at least twice I can say with certainty that Bird really and truly stands out as the most compleat. The fact that the only Pixar film between Ratatouille and his last one, the Oscar-winning The Incredibles, was the surprisingly mediocre Cars helmed by Pixar vet John Lasseter, only highlights Bird's talent.
I have to admit that conceptually, I still have a problem with the thought of sewer rats preparing my food ("don't they have to get de-wormed?" I gasped to myself, even after a legion of Remy's rat clan had gone through a steam wash in order to cook a feast), but it's no fault of the filmmakers that I was unable to get over my squeamishness. If anything, it's a testimony to how convincing they were able to make this rats appear onscreen.
It's funny how, in a way, Remy is reminiscent of Bird in his hubris; he is actually rather overbearing when he is in his element. At one point, Linguini reprimands him by saying "your opinion isn't the only one that matters" but as the movie unfolds, both the audience and Linguini learn that, au contraire, in the preparation of great food, it is. This may be a bit of projection on Bird's part, considering there were several hints dropped in the featurettes in the The Incredibles DVD just how difficult Bird could be on the "set" sometimes.
Enough of this armchair psychology; with this movie, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Five years later, Brad Bird would finally have his day, as his follow-up work, The Incredibles, made in collaboration with Pixar this time, proved to be not only a critical and box-office smash; it won him a well-deserved Oscar for best animated feature.
Two and a half years later, he's at it again for Pixar with Ratatouille, a strikingly original story about a rat who dreams of becoming, of all things, a gourmet chef!
This is the story of Remy, a rat with a highly evolved sense of smell and taste who lives in a rural hut in France with his family. Early on he discovers his great love: cooking. It is, in fact, his insatiable desire to concoct new and better preparations of food that, in a hilariously madcap sequence, leads to his clan's exile from their countryside home into the sewers of Paris. During this chaotic escape, which involves the rats fleeing into the sewers on makeshift boats, Remy who carts off a cookbook written by his idol, the late lamented chef August Gusteau is separated from his family.
When he finds himself in Paris, however, through a creatively bizarre turn of events, he is able to live his dream of becoming a chef, thanks to a human co-conspirator named Linguini, who works in no less than Gusteau's once-renowned restaurant! Of course, the requisite villain of the piece, an evil chef named Skinner, has his eye on Linguini for fear of usurpation, for reasons made clear in the film. In short, we have, pardon the pun, the perfect recipe for disaster.
It all adds up to a madcap comedy, with a skillful blending of laugh out loud slapstick moments and rapier wit.
All of this is carried brilliantly by the voice cast, led by comedian Patton Oswalt as Remy, and featuring a healthy selection of very credible actors such as Peter o' Toole as food critic Anton Ego, Ian Holm as the evil chef Skinner, Janeane Garofalo as tough-as-nails lady chef Colette and Brian Dennehy as Remy's dad. Pixar animator Lou Romano does a wonderful job as the bumbling Linguini.
What makes Bird such a master auteur is his mastery of both substance and style. He writes brilliant screenplays and is no less prodigious in bringing them to life, wringing every last trick out of Pixar's book to firmly plant the audience in Paris, France, and to make them believe that a rat could prepare such masterful culinary pieces. The other Pixar creators are geniuses in their own right, but as someone who's seen them all at least twice I can say with certainty that Bird really and truly stands out as the most compleat. The fact that the only Pixar film between Ratatouille and his last one, the Oscar-winning The Incredibles, was the surprisingly mediocre Cars helmed by Pixar vet John Lasseter, only highlights Bird's talent.
I have to admit that conceptually, I still have a problem with the thought of sewer rats preparing my food ("don't they have to get de-wormed?" I gasped to myself, even after a legion of Remy's rat clan had gone through a steam wash in order to cook a feast), but it's no fault of the filmmakers that I was unable to get over my squeamishness. If anything, it's a testimony to how convincing they were able to make this rats appear onscreen.
It's funny how, in a way, Remy is reminiscent of Bird in his hubris; he is actually rather overbearing when he is in his element. At one point, Linguini reprimands him by saying "your opinion isn't the only one that matters" but as the movie unfolds, both the audience and Linguini learn that, au contraire, in the preparation of great food, it is. This may be a bit of projection on Bird's part, considering there were several hints dropped in the featurettes in the The Incredibles DVD just how difficult Bird could be on the "set" sometimes.
Enough of this armchair psychology; with this movie, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
On Atienza Becoming DENR Chief
Sometimes, no matter how I cram this blog with crap about movies and comics and other inanities, I can't help but let something relevant sneak in time and again.
I am not, nor have I ever been a resident of Manila (though I did work there for nearly two years, and may yet again someday), but I am one with many of them in their outrage over the appointment of their former Mayor Lito Atienza as the head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Five years ago, while I was still a law student, I held down a part-time job as an internet journalist. My 'beat' was Manila and three of its historic landmarks: Mehan Garden, the Metropolitan Theater, and the Arrocerros (sp?) Garden, all of which fell prey to Atienza's ambitions.
Mehan Garden, of significant historical value, especially in view of the recent excavation of pre-colonial implements and tools, was the first to suffer as a school campus was erected right smack on it (notably next to a shopping mall, an act which would have violated quite a few local ordinances). Ironically, the people working on the campus buildings resisted attempts by the DENR to get them to cease and desist the construction.
The Metropolitan Theater was next; Atienza's ambition was to erect a 'Park 'n' Ride' right next to one of the city's few remaining art-deco buildings. Conservationists opposed it because it would obscure the building, but at the end of the day, almighty Atienza prevailed again.
But his biggest sin, that which makes his appointment as DENR Secretary an absolute travesty, is how he handed over Arroceros park over to several public school teachers and allowed them to erect a 'teachers' camp.' By the time incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim upon rescuing Manila from a potential dynasty spearheaded by Atienza's son Ali, turned Arrocerros back over to the conservationists, the damage had been done; 70% of its trees had been chopped down, and a lot more would have fallen had it not been returned to the people determined to save them.
It's not unlike making Jack the Ripper the chief of police, really. What's truly scary about that sentiment is that if he kissed GMA's ass as much as Atienza did while in office, quite frankly, she probably would make him chief of police and then some.
I don't know what there is to say other than that this really shouldn't be happening, but I understand the people of Manila aren't taking this sitting down. While I wouldn't really give much for their chances of success in getting the appointment revoked, I wish them all well.
I am not, nor have I ever been a resident of Manila (though I did work there for nearly two years, and may yet again someday), but I am one with many of them in their outrage over the appointment of their former Mayor Lito Atienza as the head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Five years ago, while I was still a law student, I held down a part-time job as an internet journalist. My 'beat' was Manila and three of its historic landmarks: Mehan Garden, the Metropolitan Theater, and the Arrocerros (sp?) Garden, all of which fell prey to Atienza's ambitions.
Mehan Garden, of significant historical value, especially in view of the recent excavation of pre-colonial implements and tools, was the first to suffer as a school campus was erected right smack on it (notably next to a shopping mall, an act which would have violated quite a few local ordinances). Ironically, the people working on the campus buildings resisted attempts by the DENR to get them to cease and desist the construction.
The Metropolitan Theater was next; Atienza's ambition was to erect a 'Park 'n' Ride' right next to one of the city's few remaining art-deco buildings. Conservationists opposed it because it would obscure the building, but at the end of the day, almighty Atienza prevailed again.
But his biggest sin, that which makes his appointment as DENR Secretary an absolute travesty, is how he handed over Arroceros park over to several public school teachers and allowed them to erect a 'teachers' camp.' By the time incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim upon rescuing Manila from a potential dynasty spearheaded by Atienza's son Ali, turned Arrocerros back over to the conservationists, the damage had been done; 70% of its trees had been chopped down, and a lot more would have fallen had it not been returned to the people determined to save them.
It's not unlike making Jack the Ripper the chief of police, really. What's truly scary about that sentiment is that if he kissed GMA's ass as much as Atienza did while in office, quite frankly, she probably would make him chief of police and then some.
I don't know what there is to say other than that this really shouldn't be happening, but I understand the people of Manila aren't taking this sitting down. While I wouldn't really give much for their chances of success in getting the appointment revoked, I wish them all well.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Comeback Kids: A Review of World War Hulk #2
World War Hulk #2
By Greg Pak (W), John Romita Jr. (P) Klaus Janson (I) Christina Strain (C)
Talk about having your faith rewarded. Two posts ago I said I would be sticking around for the duration of World War Hulk because I was confident in the creative team's ability to make up for what I felt was a rather underwhelming first issue, and lo and behold, they have delivered, on all levels, it has to be said.
Pak's script has some nice character moments (like Rick Jones' appearance) woven between some truly riveting action sequences, and Romita Jr.'s art...well, let me just say that suddenly his work on Eternals no longer feels like his best ever, in my opinion. Even Janson and Strain have upped their game. I know the second issue of this series was in the can long before I reviewed the first issue in this blog, but it almost feels as if art team in particular read what I had to say (and whoever else took issue with their work) and responded in kind. Christina Strain, if you're reading this, I feel you have done an astonishing job with this issue, and completely take back whatever I might have said about you not being appropriate for this book!
The stars of this show, however, are Pak and Romita, Jr.
It burned me up to see Reed making yet another, last-ditch attempt into hoodwinking the Hulk and enthralled me to see the green goliath give Mr. Fantastic the pounding he has long deserved. It's a given that some fans will quibble about Richards' elasticity enabling him to take a whole world of punishment, but that's their problem. At least Marvel made it a point to emphasize at the end of Planet Hulk (and even during this issue) how much stronger he became as a result of the warp core explosion that killed his queen, Caera the Oldstrong and their unborn child.
Another thing that made me enjoy this issue exponentially more than I did the first was something fairly simple: they showed Mr. Fantastic getting beaten up, as well as the result of the beating, with his face looking like hamburger. This was a huge contrast to the off-panel thrashing of Black Bolt (with that admittedly killer splash page serving as the prelude) and the pulping of Iron Man in his new Hulkbuster armor (after his irritating, self-righteous speech) which didn't show a battered, bloodied and defeated Tony Stark.
Stark, in particular, really deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life, and while I'm sure his punishment from Hulk will go beyond a mere slugfest (as strongly suggested by future solicitations showing the Illuminati going up against each other as gladiators), I would really have liked to see him drawn as only Romita, Jr. can draw folks who've been beaten up. One of my favorite things about JR, Jr., not only does he draw the best fights in the business, but the best aftermaths of fights as well.
I'm a little disappointed in the appearance of General Ross (who I was sure was dead up until this issue) because I can't help but wonder what he hopes to achieve that Marvel's heroes, who have time and again made short work of military technology could not. And it's not like the Hulk hasn't made mincemeat out of them before.
Still, Pak promises excitement in the next issue and, considering what he pulled out of the bag with this one, I completely believe him.
By Greg Pak (W), John Romita Jr. (P) Klaus Janson (I) Christina Strain (C)
Talk about having your faith rewarded. Two posts ago I said I would be sticking around for the duration of World War Hulk because I was confident in the creative team's ability to make up for what I felt was a rather underwhelming first issue, and lo and behold, they have delivered, on all levels, it has to be said.
The story kicks off with Dr. Strange literally trying to conjure up someone who will "defeat and redeem" Hulk at the same time. In the meantime, the Hulk and his friends from Sakaar, known as his "Warbound" lay the smackdown on several members of the New and Mighty Avengers, then on the Fantastic Four as well (including new/interim members Storm and the Black Panther) but not after Reed makes a rather underhanded and, gratifyingly ill-fated attempt to deceive the Hulk. Rick Jones approaches the Hulk, calming him to the extent that Dr. Strange sees an opportunity to touch Hulk's psyche, which he is unable to consummate. At the end of the day, Hulk and his Warbound have just trashed three of Marvel's premier teams and General "Thunderbolt" Ross decides to have a go where they have failed.
Pak's script has some nice character moments (like Rick Jones' appearance) woven between some truly riveting action sequences, and Romita Jr.'s art...well, let me just say that suddenly his work on Eternals no longer feels like his best ever, in my opinion. Even Janson and Strain have upped their game. I know the second issue of this series was in the can long before I reviewed the first issue in this blog, but it almost feels as if art team in particular read what I had to say (and whoever else took issue with their work) and responded in kind. Christina Strain, if you're reading this, I feel you have done an astonishing job with this issue, and completely take back whatever I might have said about you not being appropriate for this book!
The stars of this show, however, are Pak and Romita, Jr.
For me, Pak's breakthrough here is how he manages to make me utterly despise Reed Richards.
I never hated Richards, no matter how badly Civil War went, because I felt he was being rather badly written. His callousness towards his family just seemed too much like a plot device to justify Sue and Johnny Storm defecting to the side of Captain America.
His decision to shoot Hulk into space, though he made it together with Iron Man and the rest of the Illuminati, however, feels like something that Reed, with his control-freak, I-know-better-than-everyone-else personality is entirely capable of, as is reflected not only in the currently ongoing miniseries starring the Illuminati but in key issues of Fantastic Four going as far back as Mark Waid's "Authoritative Action" run. Richards has a history of showing incredible hubris stemming from his intellect, and Pak taps into that with his particular take on the character. He's not evil; just arrogant to the point where it doesn't occur to him that he might be wrong. This makes him no less detestable in my eyes.
It burned me up to see Reed making yet another, last-ditch attempt into hoodwinking the Hulk and enthralled me to see the green goliath give Mr. Fantastic the pounding he has long deserved. It's a given that some fans will quibble about Richards' elasticity enabling him to take a whole world of punishment, but that's their problem. At least Marvel made it a point to emphasize at the end of Planet Hulk (and even during this issue) how much stronger he became as a result of the warp core explosion that killed his queen, Caera the Oldstrong and their unborn child.
What made the FF fight that even more engaging was the Hulk/Thing showdown, easily one of the best action sequences I have ever seen committed to paper.
Another thing that made me enjoy this issue exponentially more than I did the first was something fairly simple: they showed Mr. Fantastic getting beaten up, as well as the result of the beating, with his face looking like hamburger. This was a huge contrast to the off-panel thrashing of Black Bolt (with that admittedly killer splash page serving as the prelude) and the pulping of Iron Man in his new Hulkbuster armor (after his irritating, self-righteous speech) which didn't show a battered, bloodied and defeated Tony Stark.
Stark, in particular, really deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life, and while I'm sure his punishment from Hulk will go beyond a mere slugfest (as strongly suggested by future solicitations showing the Illuminati going up against each other as gladiators), I would really have liked to see him drawn as only Romita, Jr. can draw folks who've been beaten up. One of my favorite things about JR, Jr., not only does he draw the best fights in the business, but the best aftermaths of fights as well.
I'm a little disappointed in the appearance of General Ross (who I was sure was dead up until this issue) because I can't help but wonder what he hopes to achieve that Marvel's heroes, who have time and again made short work of military technology could not. And it's not like the Hulk hasn't made mincemeat out of them before.
Still, Pak promises excitement in the next issue and, considering what he pulled out of the bag with this one, I completely believe him.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Big, Loud, Colorful and Stupid
I grew up on The Transformers back in the '80s. I had several of the toys and watched the animated "movie" on home video over twenty times. I was well and truly hooked on those toys. When I outgrew them, it was rather abrupt, and I ended up giving away the toys to my younger cousin, something, in retrospect, I regret doing considering that most of them would have been worth a fortune now had I saved them then.
Even as a one-time fan, however, I had little to no expectations of the Transformers live-action feature film when it was announced that Steven Spielberg would be producing it, and less so when Spielberg tapped Michael Bay to direct it.
It wasn't even the fact that I had very little respect for Bay as a filmmaker. My problem with the film, conceptually, was that I wasn't entirely sure it would translate, not just visually, but from a storytelling point of view.
When I saw the trailers, I had a couple of problems with how ungainly the digital robots assembled by Industrial Light and Magic looked. Of course, Bay's lightning-quick cutting style ensured that I didn't get that good a look at them.
Still, I will admit I felt a bit optimistic about some early good reviews I picked up here and there, with even Roger Ebert, a critic with whom I often agree giving the film a thumbs up.
When I finally got to see it in theaters last night, I found, a bit to my dismay, that the concept did not translate very well at all.
First of all, I would like to give ILM their due for an absolutely heroic effort in bringing Hasbro's famous toy line to life. I don't know who signed off on the final designs for the robots, but they do look fantastic onscreen, especially the colorful autobots, both standing still and in the action sequences. Bay's films, for better or worse, work best when they're zooming along at two hundred miles per hour. The man crafts very effective chase sequences, even if that's just about all that he does well.
Another high point of the film for me was Peter Cullen's distinctly gravelly rumble, which brought back wonderful childhood memories, even if his dialogue still sounded somewhat cartoony (more the fault of the scriptwriters than Cullen himself).
Speaking of cartoony, that's the best way I can describe the plot, the script, and most the characterizations involved, not including the CGI robots. I won't even bother with a synopsis here, other than to say that the heroic Autobots came to earth to save humanity from the evil Decepticons. In true Bay fashion, there are a couple of gaping holes in the story that just had me shaking my head throughout the entire third act. The robots look cool, but Bay does nothing to convince me that they could possibly live in the real world, because to this viewer his movie doesn't play with even a semblance of verisimilitude.
This movie's script simply does not stand up to scrutiny, just as it will not stand up, down the line, to accusations of being one big General Motors/toy commercial.
Oh, and I cannot, cannot conclude this review without lamenting how Hugo Weaving was utterly wasted in the role of Megatron, considering (1) his fleeting screen time and (2) the heavy filtration his voice was subjected to, which rendered him completely unrecognizable but for a couple of inflections in his delivery. There are dozens of throwaway voice actors they could have hired for this tiny role, even if cartoon series original Frank Welker sounds too old by now. A throwaway role deserves a throwaway actor.
Overall, this movie looks cool, and that's pretty much the only good thing I can say about it.
Even as a one-time fan, however, I had little to no expectations of the Transformers live-action feature film when it was announced that Steven Spielberg would be producing it, and less so when Spielberg tapped Michael Bay to direct it.
It wasn't even the fact that I had very little respect for Bay as a filmmaker. My problem with the film, conceptually, was that I wasn't entirely sure it would translate, not just visually, but from a storytelling point of view.
When I saw the trailers, I had a couple of problems with how ungainly the digital robots assembled by Industrial Light and Magic looked. Of course, Bay's lightning-quick cutting style ensured that I didn't get that good a look at them.
Still, I will admit I felt a bit optimistic about some early good reviews I picked up here and there, with even Roger Ebert, a critic with whom I often agree giving the film a thumbs up.
When I finally got to see it in theaters last night, I found, a bit to my dismay, that the concept did not translate very well at all.
First of all, I would like to give ILM their due for an absolutely heroic effort in bringing Hasbro's famous toy line to life. I don't know who signed off on the final designs for the robots, but they do look fantastic onscreen, especially the colorful autobots, both standing still and in the action sequences. Bay's films, for better or worse, work best when they're zooming along at two hundred miles per hour. The man crafts very effective chase sequences, even if that's just about all that he does well.
Another high point of the film for me was Peter Cullen's distinctly gravelly rumble, which brought back wonderful childhood memories, even if his dialogue still sounded somewhat cartoony (more the fault of the scriptwriters than Cullen himself).
Speaking of cartoony, that's the best way I can describe the plot, the script, and most the characterizations involved, not including the CGI robots. I won't even bother with a synopsis here, other than to say that the heroic Autobots came to earth to save humanity from the evil Decepticons. In true Bay fashion, there are a couple of gaping holes in the story that just had me shaking my head throughout the entire third act. The robots look cool, but Bay does nothing to convince me that they could possibly live in the real world, because to this viewer his movie doesn't play with even a semblance of verisimilitude.
This movie's script simply does not stand up to scrutiny, just as it will not stand up, down the line, to accusations of being one big General Motors/toy commercial.
Oh, and I cannot, cannot conclude this review without lamenting how Hugo Weaving was utterly wasted in the role of Megatron, considering (1) his fleeting screen time and (2) the heavy filtration his voice was subjected to, which rendered him completely unrecognizable but for a couple of inflections in his delivery. There are dozens of throwaway voice actors they could have hired for this tiny role, even if cartoon series original Frank Welker sounds too old by now. A throwaway role deserves a throwaway actor.
Overall, this movie looks cool, and that's pretty much the only good thing I can say about it.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Double-Feature: World War Hulk #1 and Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America: Spider-Man
My sabbatical from regular collecting is partially over as I have started buying comics again with relative frequency. I bought the first issue of World War Hulk last week and plan to buy it to its conclusion. Today, I bought a one-shot spin-off of Captain America's death. As I am still a floating employee (sigh) with a DSL connection and lots of idle time, I thought I'd share my thoughts on them.
Review 1: World War Hulk #1
Story: Greg Pak
Art: John Romita, Jr. (pencils)
Klaus Janson (inks)
Christina Strain (colors)
Last year, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt, known to Marvel Universe fans as the Illuminati, hatched a scheme to exile Hulk to another planet where, they believed, he could find the peace that always eluded him. He was tricked into embarking on a space mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., and in space was sent off to a far-off planet. Unfortunately this planet, called Sakaar, turned out to be inhabited, and he spent the rest of the year fighting for his life in the 'Planet Hulk' storyline.
A year later, post 'Civil War,' Hulk returns to Earth, royally pissed. He shows up in New York riding a spaceship and accompanied by a motley crew of aliens whom he befriended on Sakaar, tells the people to evacuate the city and to bring forth Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange. For impact, he shows the people of New York the mangled body of Black Bolt and tells them he'll do the same thing to the whole planet if he doesn't get what he wants.
And so World War Hulk begins.
The issue has an impressive page count (42, to be exact), and to an action fan it isn't disappointing. There are two major punchups in this issue, and that's pretty much all there is to it. Of course, in this post-Civil War climate, what happens to Iron Man is a source of much satisfaction for many Marvel fans.
It's funny; I am and will remain a Marvel fan. I enjoyed 'Civil War' and what I read of 'Planet Hulk.' For some reason, however, this series doesn't do for me what either 'Civil War' or 'Planet Hulk' did.
'Civil War,' for all its flaws, tried something different. It took risks. And it was lavishly illustrated from start to finish.
'Planet Hulk' had wall-to-wall action, but also incredible build-up and intricate development not only of the characters Hulk met but of the world they inhabited. I realize that it's foolish to compare them here considering that Pak had to build Sakaar up from scratch, but still it feels like his writing as been considerably dumbed down for 'World War Hulk.'
In 42 pages, all that happens is that Hulk lands on the moon where the Inhumans live, then on Earth, and punches out two of the Illuminati. That's literally all that happens.
Another thing that disappoints me about this book is the art, especially considering Romita, Jr. is one of my favorite artists of all time. Whereas with his last work, 'The Eternals' I felt that he had achieved new levels of excellence, this one leaves me cold. There are still a few shining moments, a couple of cool splash pages, but overall his visuals feel just like the writing: simplistic and devoid of any nuance.
For this I fault his inker Klaus Janson, and colorist Christina Strain. Janson may be a frequent collaborator with Romita, Jr. but he's far from the best. Strain, for her part, seems best suited to coloring the simpler, anime-styled 'Runaways' than something meant to be so epic. They should have brought out 'Civil War' colorist Morry Hollowell or Matt Hollingsworth onto this book.
Online fanboys are ecstatic over this book the way they were livid over 'Civil War', so the relative sales of the two miniseries will show just how 'important' they are. I for one wasn't that crazy about this book, but I won't presume to speak for anyone else.
Still, I hope the storytelling crew go a little more into development from this point beyond having Hulk punch out the Marvel Universe. Having created a whole world for Hulk barely a year ago, I think Pak has what it takes to keep this story engaging till the end.
Review 2: Fallen Son, the Death of Captain America: Spider-Man
Story: Jeph Loeb
Art: David Finch (pencils)
Danny Miki (inks)
Frank D'Armata (colors)
Having read this issue, I've reaffirmed something I felt since I spent an unconscionable amount of money on the paperback of 'Daredevil: Yellow,' I hate Jeph Loeb's writing. I hate it because, in essence, just about nothing happens in any of the stuff he writes. His 'Batman: Hush' arc with Jim Lee was nothing more than an excuse to have Lee draw Batman's rogues gallery, his scripts are little more than excuses for splash pages, and his dialogue is the stuff of bad TV shows.
That's exactly the case here.
In this issue, Spider-Man mopes over the death of Captain America, knocks out the Rhino and talks to Wolverine. And THAT's it. Considering this issue's average-panel-per-page count is about two, I can't say I'm surprised.
That said, I understand why Loeb is so popular with comic-book artists: he basically panders to them. When they're splash page types, he apparently crams his scripts with big, bonecrunching action splash pages and double-page spreads. The artist never really has to adjust to Loeb's style.
As a result, David Finch, Danny Miki (who should have inked WWH instead of Klaus Janson) and Frank D'Armata knock this issue out of the park with their gratuitous splash pages and astonishing rendering. His run on 'New Avengers' didn't look this good. Heck, not even Jim Lee's 'Batman' issues looked this good.
Still, one really gets the sense from this particular issue (and this string of one-shots as a whole) that Marvel is simply milking Captain America's death for every penny it's worth. I still don't understand why they had to kill him considering 'Civil War' had put him so squarely in the spotlight, but I just hope they know what they're doing. The world doesn't really need a 'Reign of the Captain Americas' or a mullet-haired Steve Rogers to come back from the dead in a year's time.
At least we got to see Finch at his very best...
Review 1: World War Hulk #1
Story: Greg Pak
Art: John Romita, Jr. (pencils)
Klaus Janson (inks)
Christina Strain (colors)
Last year, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange and Black Bolt, known to Marvel Universe fans as the Illuminati, hatched a scheme to exile Hulk to another planet where, they believed, he could find the peace that always eluded him. He was tricked into embarking on a space mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., and in space was sent off to a far-off planet. Unfortunately this planet, called Sakaar, turned out to be inhabited, and he spent the rest of the year fighting for his life in the 'Planet Hulk' storyline.
A year later, post 'Civil War,' Hulk returns to Earth, royally pissed. He shows up in New York riding a spaceship and accompanied by a motley crew of aliens whom he befriended on Sakaar, tells the people to evacuate the city and to bring forth Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange. For impact, he shows the people of New York the mangled body of Black Bolt and tells them he'll do the same thing to the whole planet if he doesn't get what he wants.
And so World War Hulk begins.
The issue has an impressive page count (42, to be exact), and to an action fan it isn't disappointing. There are two major punchups in this issue, and that's pretty much all there is to it. Of course, in this post-Civil War climate, what happens to Iron Man is a source of much satisfaction for many Marvel fans.
It's funny; I am and will remain a Marvel fan. I enjoyed 'Civil War' and what I read of 'Planet Hulk.' For some reason, however, this series doesn't do for me what either 'Civil War' or 'Planet Hulk' did.
'Civil War,' for all its flaws, tried something different. It took risks. And it was lavishly illustrated from start to finish.
'Planet Hulk' had wall-to-wall action, but also incredible build-up and intricate development not only of the characters Hulk met but of the world they inhabited. I realize that it's foolish to compare them here considering that Pak had to build Sakaar up from scratch, but still it feels like his writing as been considerably dumbed down for 'World War Hulk.'
In 42 pages, all that happens is that Hulk lands on the moon where the Inhumans live, then on Earth, and punches out two of the Illuminati. That's literally all that happens.
Another thing that disappoints me about this book is the art, especially considering Romita, Jr. is one of my favorite artists of all time. Whereas with his last work, 'The Eternals' I felt that he had achieved new levels of excellence, this one leaves me cold. There are still a few shining moments, a couple of cool splash pages, but overall his visuals feel just like the writing: simplistic and devoid of any nuance.
For this I fault his inker Klaus Janson, and colorist Christina Strain. Janson may be a frequent collaborator with Romita, Jr. but he's far from the best. Strain, for her part, seems best suited to coloring the simpler, anime-styled 'Runaways' than something meant to be so epic. They should have brought out 'Civil War' colorist Morry Hollowell or Matt Hollingsworth onto this book.
Online fanboys are ecstatic over this book the way they were livid over 'Civil War', so the relative sales of the two miniseries will show just how 'important' they are. I for one wasn't that crazy about this book, but I won't presume to speak for anyone else.
Still, I hope the storytelling crew go a little more into development from this point beyond having Hulk punch out the Marvel Universe. Having created a whole world for Hulk barely a year ago, I think Pak has what it takes to keep this story engaging till the end.
Review 2: Fallen Son, the Death of Captain America: Spider-Man
Story: Jeph Loeb
Art: David Finch (pencils)
Danny Miki (inks)
Frank D'Armata (colors)
Having read this issue, I've reaffirmed something I felt since I spent an unconscionable amount of money on the paperback of 'Daredevil: Yellow,' I hate Jeph Loeb's writing. I hate it because, in essence, just about nothing happens in any of the stuff he writes. His 'Batman: Hush' arc with Jim Lee was nothing more than an excuse to have Lee draw Batman's rogues gallery, his scripts are little more than excuses for splash pages, and his dialogue is the stuff of bad TV shows.
That's exactly the case here.
In this issue, Spider-Man mopes over the death of Captain America, knocks out the Rhino and talks to Wolverine. And THAT's it. Considering this issue's average-panel-per-page count is about two, I can't say I'm surprised.
That said, I understand why Loeb is so popular with comic-book artists: he basically panders to them. When they're splash page types, he apparently crams his scripts with big, bonecrunching action splash pages and double-page spreads. The artist never really has to adjust to Loeb's style.
As a result, David Finch, Danny Miki (who should have inked WWH instead of Klaus Janson) and Frank D'Armata knock this issue out of the park with their gratuitous splash pages and astonishing rendering. His run on 'New Avengers' didn't look this good. Heck, not even Jim Lee's 'Batman' issues looked this good.
Still, one really gets the sense from this particular issue (and this string of one-shots as a whole) that Marvel is simply milking Captain America's death for every penny it's worth. I still don't understand why they had to kill him considering 'Civil War' had put him so squarely in the spotlight, but I just hope they know what they're doing. The world doesn't really need a 'Reign of the Captain Americas' or a mullet-haired Steve Rogers to come back from the dead in a year's time.
At least we got to see Finch at his very best...
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Toycon '07 (or, the fun side of fanboys)
Up until last weekend I was a toycon virgin, not having been to any of the five cons that have been held since the event was started in 2001.
It was a pleasant experience; though I spent most of my time manning the booth and hawking the product I'm distributing, I did manage to get a good look around (and to add to my car collection somewhat). I also had a good time watching the "cosplay" section where a bunch of geeks got up on stage dressed as their favorite pop-culture characters.
This is fanboy (and girl) hood in one of its better moments. A good time was had by all, and at the eleventh hour I even got to buy some cars cheap (always a good strategy to remember when buying stuff at affairs like this).
All in all, it was a lot of fun. I hope the upcoming Komikon in October is even half as enjoyable.
It was a pleasant experience; though I spent most of my time manning the booth and hawking the product I'm distributing, I did manage to get a good look around (and to add to my car collection somewhat). I also had a good time watching the "cosplay" section where a bunch of geeks got up on stage dressed as their favorite pop-culture characters.
This is fanboy (and girl) hood in one of its better moments. A good time was had by all, and at the eleventh hour I even got to buy some cars cheap (always a good strategy to remember when buying stuff at affairs like this).
All in all, it was a lot of fun. I hope the upcoming Komikon in October is even half as enjoyable.
On Fanboys Part II (or, how to cause your brain to atrophy)
I found myself with a lot, I mean a lot of extra time on my hands earlier today. I am still regularly employed, but am now what is popularly known as a "floating" employee, a creature peculiar only to government service. It's a long, sordid story I'll save for another day and venue.
What this post is about is how I killed that extra time. When I find myself with time on my hands I try to get some reading done; I read up on the rules and regulations governing the agency I work for, I check my e-mail and similar things as well.
Today I read a "talkback" section on the popular geek site aintitcoolnews.com, and I'll be amazed if I'm not slightly dumber for having done so.
Read a paraphrased exchange between a couple of fanboys writing on this "talkback" which concerned the look of Batman's new motorcycle (prosaically called "The Batpod"):
Talkbacker #1: Eli Roth sucks! Hostel 2 sucks! Thank God it tanked at the box-office! Fuck Eli Roth, the ego-maniac is blaming the fans for not supporting his movie! He's blaming everyone but himself for such a shitty movie! Fuck Hostel! Fuck Roth! Fuck fuck fuck!
(Goes on for several posts bashing Eli Roth, clashing with another talkbacker, who, incredibly, feels the need to defend Hostel 2 and Roth on a thread completely unrelated to either, then, finally...)
Talkbacker #2: Hey could we stop talking about Eli Roth? This thread is about Batman!
Talkbacker #1: You seem to like Hostel 2 a lot! You must be Eli Roth.
(Mercifully, whether it was because he was kicked off the thread or because he just got tired of inflicting himself on other people, Talkbacker #1 stopped posting).
I'll come out and say it: one of my ultimate fantasies is to write a novel with a strong, underlying fantasy theme, and to have that novel adapted into a major motion picture.
THIS IS THE KIND OF DEMOGRAPHIC THE PRODUCERS ADAPTING MY WORK WILL BE TRYING TO PANDER TO?!?!?
GOD help anyone trying to launch any kind of creative endeavor anymore...
FUCK you ignorant, narrow-minded, grammar-syntax-and-spelling-impaired neanderthals! Go back into your parents' basements and stay there until evolution kicks in!
Ugh...I think I'll just write for myself from now on...
What this post is about is how I killed that extra time. When I find myself with time on my hands I try to get some reading done; I read up on the rules and regulations governing the agency I work for, I check my e-mail and similar things as well.
Today I read a "talkback" section on the popular geek site aintitcoolnews.com, and I'll be amazed if I'm not slightly dumber for having done so.
Read a paraphrased exchange between a couple of fanboys writing on this "talkback" which concerned the look of Batman's new motorcycle (prosaically called "The Batpod"):
Talkbacker #1: Eli Roth sucks! Hostel 2 sucks! Thank God it tanked at the box-office! Fuck Eli Roth, the ego-maniac is blaming the fans for not supporting his movie! He's blaming everyone but himself for such a shitty movie! Fuck Hostel! Fuck Roth! Fuck fuck fuck!
(Goes on for several posts bashing Eli Roth, clashing with another talkbacker, who, incredibly, feels the need to defend Hostel 2 and Roth on a thread completely unrelated to either, then, finally...)
Talkbacker #2: Hey could we stop talking about Eli Roth? This thread is about Batman!
Talkbacker #1: You seem to like Hostel 2 a lot! You must be Eli Roth.
(Mercifully, whether it was because he was kicked off the thread or because he just got tired of inflicting himself on other people, Talkbacker #1 stopped posting).
I'll come out and say it: one of my ultimate fantasies is to write a novel with a strong, underlying fantasy theme, and to have that novel adapted into a major motion picture.
THIS IS THE KIND OF DEMOGRAPHIC THE PRODUCERS ADAPTING MY WORK WILL BE TRYING TO PANDER TO?!?!?
GOD help anyone trying to launch any kind of creative endeavor anymore...
FUCK you ignorant, narrow-minded, grammar-syntax-and-spelling-impaired neanderthals! Go back into your parents' basements and stay there until evolution kicks in!
Ugh...I think I'll just write for myself from now on...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
He he. My last post was about fanboys, and this one is about a movie that many of them are dead certain to wail on, considering they have been doing so since before the movie was even released: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, sequel to 2005's Fantastic Four.
I will be first to admit that I actually found the first movie entertaining, albeit flawed on many levels, including the fundamental ones.On this blog and sometimes to others I eventually ended up making excuses for this movie rather than openly extolling it, and so I perfectly understood the tidal wave of fanboy venom that swept over it.
The first Fantastic Four movie, incidentally, is another example of the meaninglessness of fanboy outrage considering the movie made $154 million in the U.S. and Canada and over $330 million worldwide. Not bad for a movie "everybody hated." Still, I won't debate how much they bashed it because to no small extent the film deserved as much.
The question, now, is whether or not the sequel deserves more of the same. To this, I say quite categorically: NO.
Is this a great film, in the vein of the first two Spider-Man movies, Batman Begins or X-men 2? Well, no, for reasons I will explain, but unlike in the first film, director Tim Story and his writers hit a lot of marks they previously missed.
The first and most important thing they got right was that the scripting was incredibly tight (to a fault, actually) in that they dove right into the story. The movie is about the threat of Galactus, the world devourer, and his herald, the Silver Surfer. Both are characters well known to fans of the comic book and are explained well enough. The surfer, Norrin Radd (voiced by Laurence Fishburne, played in motion capture by Doug Jones and given glowing silver flesh by WETA Digital, the folks responsible for Gollum and King Kong), serves Galactus because it is the only way to save his own world from being destroyed. Of course, the Fantastic Four have to try to stop him.
This puts a little kink in the plans of team members Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm, a.k.a. the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), who are planning to get married. We have a few character moments here as Sue frets about how their lives as costumed adventurers are likely to get in the way of their ever having normal lives. There's also a little subplot about how Johnny Storm, sue's brother a.k.a. the Human Torch (Chris Evans) is a self-centered little brat who needs to grow up. The final member Ben Grimm a.k.a. the Thing (Michael Chiklis) is kind of left to the sidelines in terms of character arcs in this movie.
Things get interesting when U.S. Army General Hager (Andre Braugher) taps the Four's support to stop the Surfer, whose presence has been causing temporal anomalies all over the world and, after one botched attempt to catch him, they end up recruiting as well the team's nemesis from the first movie, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), who has been rejuvenated courtesy of an encounter with the Surfer fairly early in the movie.
To go into the details at this point would involve spoiling some plot points, but suffice it to say it all plays out pretty well from here.
Like I said, the script is very tightly-woven, a stark contrast to all the endless exposition that characterized Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and the narrative clutter of Spider-Man 3. Whatever anyone might say about this movie, no one can accuse it of having too much going on.
At 90 minutes, though, the film is a little too compact, and there are character moments which could have been expanded somewhat. This is a film about family, first and foremost, and while Story and his writers Don Payne and Mark Frost don't quite forget this aspect, sometimes it's the little things that matter. It is possible to do a kid friendly movie with expanded characterisations after all. In addition to reading the comic books, Tim Story should keep a DVD of The Incredibles handy every time he wants a lesson in the way superhero family dynamics should play out onscreen. It's as if, every time the characters are about to have more than a minute's worth of meaningful conversation, the filmmakers shy away, as though they're repulsed by the thought of developing the characters a bit more. While I understand that the Spider-man movies, for all my love for them, kind of laid it thick on the weepy character moments, I honestly believe that the makers of the Fantastic Four movies could really learn something from Marvel Films' flagship franchise. The sad thing is, a few of the character moments that were allowed actually played out pretty well, making it all the more disappointing that Story didn't really allow them to breathe a little more.
One area in which I cannot complain is the action. In this respect Tim Story really comes into his own. From Johnny's first encounter with the Surfer, to the showdown between the Surfer and the U.S. military to the team's re-match with Dr. Doom (which, incidentally, features the debut of the Fantasticar!), the action in this movie is excellently staged, and the crew from WETA Digital and the other supporting VFX studios really pull through brilliantly. There are still some spotty moments with the effects animation of the Fantastic Four themselves early on in the film (Reed's stretchy dancing in a nightclub is particularly wince-inducing), but when the action kicks in the effects go from splotchy to spectacular in no time at all. And the Fantasticar deserves a particular shout-out because it was great to have the filmmakers nail such a memorable part of the Fantastic Four's lore. They got it absolutely right (except for a little bit I'll mention later). Johnny Storm's flying effects, which were pretty okay the first time around, look even cooler now even against the VFX wonder that is the Silver Surfer, and there's even an added treat, featuring Johnny, towards the climax of the movie.
There are a couple of noted improvements in the actors' performances as well. Gruffudd, who looked really, really uncomfortable in the first movie, seems to have settled more comfortably in his role and now ably projects Richards as the team leader. I particularly loved how he delivered a speech about nerds and football jocks which the scriptwriters lifted almost verbatim from Warren Ellis' recent Ultimate Extinction miniseries. In that moment, Gruffudd truly embodied Reed Richards. Evans and Chiklis continue to play well off each other, with Johnny Storm's goofy, visibly uncomfortable attempts to talk about Ben's relationship with Alicia Masters (Kerry Washington) being good for more than a couple of laughs. While Alba is eternally miscast, I'll be charitable enough give her some points for trying. McMahon delivers an adequate, if somewhat unremarkable performance as Dr. Doom, though I do feel they ramped up the sense of menace a touch. I did like Braugher as General Hager, and of course the inevitable Stan Lee cameo, this time done in a meta-fictional, tongue-in-cheek fashion, consistent with the general tone of the movie.
The movie definitely could have been done better in some key respects. The ending was something of an anti-climax, though to avoid spoiling it I won't go further into it. I'll give a hint; don't expect a blue -and-purple-clad giant (Galactus' comic-book incarnation) to show up onscreen. I also really, really, really didn't like the fact that the Fantasticar was a Dodge (see it to believe it). It's as offensive as the thought of the Transformer Bumblebee being a Camaro rather than a Volkwagen Beetle just because General Motors paid Dreamworks a fortune. Corporate America rears its ugly head again, though at least the involvement of DaimlerChrysler meant I got to see one of my favorite supercars, the Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren, onscreen for a few glorious moments.
Overall, one thing I found genuinely annoying about this movie is how clear it is that, to this day and age, Twentieth Century Fox still treats their comic-book properties like second-class citizens.
With the exception of the intercalation of Venom, Sony, from the get-go, always let Spider-Man director Sam Raimi make the movies he wanted to make. He got to pack in all the character development and pacing quirks he wanted.
It has not been the case with Fox, either in this franchise or in the X-Men franchise. In the two X-Men movies Bryan Singer directed you could almost hear him shouting out his frustration at how little Fox would let him do and how parsimonious they were with their budget. X2 was a great movie, but one wonders what Singer could have done had Fox not clipped his wings.
Here, Tim Story seemed hell-bent on telling a better story than he did last time, but the film felt genuinely restrained in certain key aspects, like the character moments I mentioned before. It's my honest hope that, now that Marvel Films are now independent of any one studio, their talents, such as Jon Favreau who is currently filming Iron Man, are able to truly flex their creative muscles and not have to kowtow to studio executives.
Flaws notwithstanding, for the reasons stated above, this movie was genuinely entertaining, a popcorn movie, as it were, and deserves to make at least as much money as its predecessor did, whatever fanboys may have to say about it.
'Nuff said.
I will be first to admit that I actually found the first movie entertaining, albeit flawed on many levels, including the fundamental ones.On this blog and sometimes to others I eventually ended up making excuses for this movie rather than openly extolling it, and so I perfectly understood the tidal wave of fanboy venom that swept over it.
The first Fantastic Four movie, incidentally, is another example of the meaninglessness of fanboy outrage considering the movie made $154 million in the U.S. and Canada and over $330 million worldwide. Not bad for a movie "everybody hated." Still, I won't debate how much they bashed it because to no small extent the film deserved as much.
The question, now, is whether or not the sequel deserves more of the same. To this, I say quite categorically: NO.
Is this a great film, in the vein of the first two Spider-Man movies, Batman Begins or X-men 2? Well, no, for reasons I will explain, but unlike in the first film, director Tim Story and his writers hit a lot of marks they previously missed.
The first and most important thing they got right was that the scripting was incredibly tight (to a fault, actually) in that they dove right into the story. The movie is about the threat of Galactus, the world devourer, and his herald, the Silver Surfer. Both are characters well known to fans of the comic book and are explained well enough. The surfer, Norrin Radd (voiced by Laurence Fishburne, played in motion capture by Doug Jones and given glowing silver flesh by WETA Digital, the folks responsible for Gollum and King Kong), serves Galactus because it is the only way to save his own world from being destroyed. Of course, the Fantastic Four have to try to stop him.
This puts a little kink in the plans of team members Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm, a.k.a. the Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba), who are planning to get married. We have a few character moments here as Sue frets about how their lives as costumed adventurers are likely to get in the way of their ever having normal lives. There's also a little subplot about how Johnny Storm, sue's brother a.k.a. the Human Torch (Chris Evans) is a self-centered little brat who needs to grow up. The final member Ben Grimm a.k.a. the Thing (Michael Chiklis) is kind of left to the sidelines in terms of character arcs in this movie.
Things get interesting when U.S. Army General Hager (Andre Braugher) taps the Four's support to stop the Surfer, whose presence has been causing temporal anomalies all over the world and, after one botched attempt to catch him, they end up recruiting as well the team's nemesis from the first movie, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), who has been rejuvenated courtesy of an encounter with the Surfer fairly early in the movie.
To go into the details at this point would involve spoiling some plot points, but suffice it to say it all plays out pretty well from here.
Like I said, the script is very tightly-woven, a stark contrast to all the endless exposition that characterized Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and the narrative clutter of Spider-Man 3. Whatever anyone might say about this movie, no one can accuse it of having too much going on.
At 90 minutes, though, the film is a little too compact, and there are character moments which could have been expanded somewhat. This is a film about family, first and foremost, and while Story and his writers Don Payne and Mark Frost don't quite forget this aspect, sometimes it's the little things that matter. It is possible to do a kid friendly movie with expanded characterisations after all. In addition to reading the comic books, Tim Story should keep a DVD of The Incredibles handy every time he wants a lesson in the way superhero family dynamics should play out onscreen. It's as if, every time the characters are about to have more than a minute's worth of meaningful conversation, the filmmakers shy away, as though they're repulsed by the thought of developing the characters a bit more. While I understand that the Spider-man movies, for all my love for them, kind of laid it thick on the weepy character moments, I honestly believe that the makers of the Fantastic Four movies could really learn something from Marvel Films' flagship franchise. The sad thing is, a few of the character moments that were allowed actually played out pretty well, making it all the more disappointing that Story didn't really allow them to breathe a little more.
One area in which I cannot complain is the action. In this respect Tim Story really comes into his own. From Johnny's first encounter with the Surfer, to the showdown between the Surfer and the U.S. military to the team's re-match with Dr. Doom (which, incidentally, features the debut of the Fantasticar!), the action in this movie is excellently staged, and the crew from WETA Digital and the other supporting VFX studios really pull through brilliantly. There are still some spotty moments with the effects animation of the Fantastic Four themselves early on in the film (Reed's stretchy dancing in a nightclub is particularly wince-inducing), but when the action kicks in the effects go from splotchy to spectacular in no time at all. And the Fantasticar deserves a particular shout-out because it was great to have the filmmakers nail such a memorable part of the Fantastic Four's lore. They got it absolutely right (except for a little bit I'll mention later). Johnny Storm's flying effects, which were pretty okay the first time around, look even cooler now even against the VFX wonder that is the Silver Surfer, and there's even an added treat, featuring Johnny, towards the climax of the movie.
There are a couple of noted improvements in the actors' performances as well. Gruffudd, who looked really, really uncomfortable in the first movie, seems to have settled more comfortably in his role and now ably projects Richards as the team leader. I particularly loved how he delivered a speech about nerds and football jocks which the scriptwriters lifted almost verbatim from Warren Ellis' recent Ultimate Extinction miniseries. In that moment, Gruffudd truly embodied Reed Richards. Evans and Chiklis continue to play well off each other, with Johnny Storm's goofy, visibly uncomfortable attempts to talk about Ben's relationship with Alicia Masters (Kerry Washington) being good for more than a couple of laughs. While Alba is eternally miscast, I'll be charitable enough give her some points for trying. McMahon delivers an adequate, if somewhat unremarkable performance as Dr. Doom, though I do feel they ramped up the sense of menace a touch. I did like Braugher as General Hager, and of course the inevitable Stan Lee cameo, this time done in a meta-fictional, tongue-in-cheek fashion, consistent with the general tone of the movie.
The movie definitely could have been done better in some key respects. The ending was something of an anti-climax, though to avoid spoiling it I won't go further into it. I'll give a hint; don't expect a blue -and-purple-clad giant (Galactus' comic-book incarnation) to show up onscreen. I also really, really, really didn't like the fact that the Fantasticar was a Dodge (see it to believe it). It's as offensive as the thought of the Transformer Bumblebee being a Camaro rather than a Volkwagen Beetle just because General Motors paid Dreamworks a fortune. Corporate America rears its ugly head again, though at least the involvement of DaimlerChrysler meant I got to see one of my favorite supercars, the Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren, onscreen for a few glorious moments.
Overall, one thing I found genuinely annoying about this movie is how clear it is that, to this day and age, Twentieth Century Fox still treats their comic-book properties like second-class citizens.
With the exception of the intercalation of Venom, Sony, from the get-go, always let Spider-Man director Sam Raimi make the movies he wanted to make. He got to pack in all the character development and pacing quirks he wanted.
It has not been the case with Fox, either in this franchise or in the X-Men franchise. In the two X-Men movies Bryan Singer directed you could almost hear him shouting out his frustration at how little Fox would let him do and how parsimonious they were with their budget. X2 was a great movie, but one wonders what Singer could have done had Fox not clipped his wings.
Here, Tim Story seemed hell-bent on telling a better story than he did last time, but the film felt genuinely restrained in certain key aspects, like the character moments I mentioned before. It's my honest hope that, now that Marvel Films are now independent of any one studio, their talents, such as Jon Favreau who is currently filming Iron Man, are able to truly flex their creative muscles and not have to kowtow to studio executives.
Flaws notwithstanding, for the reasons stated above, this movie was genuinely entertaining, a popcorn movie, as it were, and deserves to make at least as much money as its predecessor did, whatever fanboys may have to say about it.
'Nuff said.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
On the Fanboy
I am a fanboy. I have a stash of 500 comic books. I've seen each Spider-man movie at least three times in the theater and I intend to buy Spider-Man 3 on original DVD when it comes out. When I have spare time I like to look over message boards (to which I do not contribute anything) and am alternately amused and infuriated by how stupid my fellow fanboys can be.
All this said, I found myself scratching my head at an article in a recent issue of Time magazine about how Hollywood is now striving to pander to fanboys in order to ensure the profitability of their products, be they movies or TV series. There was also a little sidebar addressing the opinion that mainstream movie reviews are useless and obsolete.
I much preferred the article about movie reviewers, which was written by Richard Corliss (a man I have taken the time to bludgeon in this very blog) because in no uncertain terms Corliss comes clean and says that reviewers have never pretended to matter as far as a movie's box-office popularity is concerned and that if anything, their real purpose is to champion movies that would otherwise get swept away in the tide of summer and winter blockbusters. He gave really good examples like Little Miss Sunshine and Pan's Labyrinth, both great movies which might have been neglected were it not for critics calling attention to how good they were. I acquired a new respect for Corliss then, though I still hope he doesn't ever go back to making box-office predictions.
I found myself floored, however, but how influential the article seemed to suggest fanboys, especially the noisy, opinionated variety that infests message boards, have become to the extent that a movie can rise or fall on their support or lack of it, because to my mind this is complete and utter bullshit.
I will rattle off my long list of media products (not just limited to movies) the success of which angry fanboys could not stop, as well as the products their ardor could not save. I'll actually limit my discussion to online fanboys, who tend to opine most viciously and are apparently the most closed-minded to any form of disagreement.
Marvel's recent event miniseries Civil War sold about 2.2 million copies in the United States and Canada (not even counting all the tie-ins or the international orders) and is still racking up the reorders. It is, hands down, the most successful American comic book of the new millenium in terms of sales and yet if the online fanboy community is to be believed, it is the worst comic book ever published. I'm not here to debate the artistic merits of this particular piece of work, but the sales figures, juxtaposed against the vitriol spewed online by people who profess to be its core audience can be intepreted two ways: online fanboys are idiots who complain about something and then buy it anyway or online fanboys are a lot less influential than they think they are.
This year's summer movie showdown is another good example: Spider-Man 3 received a widespread thrashing from online fanboys, with all but one of aintitcoolnews.com's reviewers bashing it (that one being uberfanboy and AICN co-founder Harry Knowles), while Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, received glowing praise from all of them (the AICN reviewers), as well as snarky predictions (from AICN's "talkbackers") of its box-office supremacy over the web-slinger. Well, while both films are seeing their daily grosses eroding faster than the topsoil in Ormoc, it seems there's a very real chance POTC:AWE won't even hurdle the $300 million mark in the U.S. and Canada, a figure once taken as a given. SM3, in contrast, appears to be a lock for at least $335 million in the same location. Again, I won't go into the artistic merit of either of these movies, but it just seems painfully obvious to me that fanboys don't matter nearly as much as they think they do.
Probably my favorite example of how meaningless fanboy bitching truly is, however, would have to be the recent James Bond sequel. There was an online campaign to get Daniel Craig sacked from the job of playing Ian Flemings' spy, the ultimate male fantasy role model (on a site called craignotbond.com or something like that) as well as a couple of really nasty gossip tidbits about how he couldn't even drive his Aston Martin. None of this prevented Casino Royale from becoming the highest grossing Bond movie ever (not counting inflation) and one of the best-reviewed releases of 2006. In short, the fanboys were wrong on both counts. Craig, as if to rub salt on the collective fanboy wound, won a British Academy of Film and Television Award for his portrayal.
We can also go into the many fanboy-geared products their love couldn't save. For example, the 1997 film Starship Troopers generated a following of Heinlein disciples, video-game nuts, fans of extreme post-modernism and sadists in general that justified a TV spin-off and a direct-to-video sequel, but for all of that the movie couldn't even gross more than $55 million in the U.S. and Canada and barely even hurdled $120 million internationally.
Another movie made solely on the clamour of fanboy demand was Joss Whedon's Serenity, a film based on the extremely short-lived Firefly series. The film's final box-office gross? $25.5 million in the U.S. and Canada. Fanboys seemed happy with it, but apparently it just wasn't enough.
And let's not forget all of the Kevin Smith movies that fanboys couldn't even elevate past domestic U.S. grosses of $31 million (his biggest, I think, being Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). One has to wonder if that's the sum total of the fanboy community's contribution to any movie's box office.
Fortunately, the Time article featured a quote from someone who said that if fanboys were as powerful as some studios think they are, then the recent Tarantino/Rodriguez double-feature Grindhouse would have been a big hit, which it wasn't.
Still, the message is clear that Hollywood seems to think fanboys, highlighted by their obnoxious online self-proclaimed spokespersons are a lot more important than they actually are. Of course, at the end of the day, it's all about money, and in their never-ending quest to find the foolproof formula, studio heads are turning to the latest fad in money-making: appeasing the 15-35 year old demographic.
I'd like to give my own personal news flash to the studios: Spider-Man 1 and 2 raked in huge amounts of money and garnerned stellar reviews because Sam Raimi, a very talented filmmaker (and admittedly also a fanboy) was allowed to bring his own, uncompromised vision of Spidey to the screen. He didn't buckle under to fanboy outrage about the organic webs or any of the other crap they loved to sling at the two movies. These two movies, in my opinion, will stand the test of time, for all their flaws, as work with artistic integrity. And you know what? As much as I loathe a great many of them, I have to hand one thing to fanboys: they respect vision. Fanboys came to respect Sam Raimi because, as much as they reviled him when he first got the unenviable task of bringing the web slinger to the big screen, he stood his ground and let his vision prevail.
Spider-Man 3, while entertaining in its own right, will, by contrast, be remembered as the movie where Raimi was forced to give in to fanboys who were screaming for the appearance of one of the objects of their affection: the shallow, two-dimensional villain known as Venom. It's not really the diminished grosses or the harsher reviews that's the problem; these were just the consequences of a bigger transgression, which was that the studio tried too hard to appease the fanboys and deviated too much from the extremely tight, character-centered approach that had made the first two films both box-office smashes and critical darlings. Fanboys, especially the ones Raimi won over, will allege that this was one the studio fucked up, but to my mind a lot of them have no one to blame but themselves for forcing, through their messageboards and online noise, upon Raimi a character with whom he had no affinity whatsoever.
Batman Begins was also successful because director Chris Nolan, a talented individual, was likewise allowed free rein in how to bring Bruce Wayne and his caped alter-ego to life. Fanboys respected that, too.
At the end of the day, there is no fool-proof formula for making a hit. None. The best bet of any studio is to put the most talented people possible on a film, get the most skilled marketers plugging it, and hope for the best. Fanboy buzz will only get a movie so far.
Please, Hollywood, stop deifying these self-important, contempt-filled, syntax-and-spelling-impaired morons whose opinions will only get more vociferous and obnoxious once they realize how much power is being artificially bestowed upon them. Just try to make good movies by using talented directors, scriptwriters and actors.
Think about people like Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and Chris Nolan who, unfettered in their vision, can come up with hits whose artistic merit no one can really question. These are people who, when given material to adapt, understand that material and what makes it work in its original incarnation. Raimi understands Peter Parker's guilt and sense of responsibility. Nolan understands that underneath Batman's cowl is a tortured soul. Jackson understands...well, that the LOTR trilogy is all about people and their frailty before anything else. It's not about fanboys barking at these guys what they want.
Sure, fanboys matter on some level, but if we're the only audience whom the Hollywood execs try to please when making their comic-book/action/sci-fi/fantasy movies, they'll have a lot more Grindhouse sized flops than Spider-Man sized hits. And you can take that to the bank.
All this said, I found myself scratching my head at an article in a recent issue of Time magazine about how Hollywood is now striving to pander to fanboys in order to ensure the profitability of their products, be they movies or TV series. There was also a little sidebar addressing the opinion that mainstream movie reviews are useless and obsolete.
I much preferred the article about movie reviewers, which was written by Richard Corliss (a man I have taken the time to bludgeon in this very blog) because in no uncertain terms Corliss comes clean and says that reviewers have never pretended to matter as far as a movie's box-office popularity is concerned and that if anything, their real purpose is to champion movies that would otherwise get swept away in the tide of summer and winter blockbusters. He gave really good examples like Little Miss Sunshine and Pan's Labyrinth, both great movies which might have been neglected were it not for critics calling attention to how good they were. I acquired a new respect for Corliss then, though I still hope he doesn't ever go back to making box-office predictions.
I found myself floored, however, but how influential the article seemed to suggest fanboys, especially the noisy, opinionated variety that infests message boards, have become to the extent that a movie can rise or fall on their support or lack of it, because to my mind this is complete and utter bullshit.
I will rattle off my long list of media products (not just limited to movies) the success of which angry fanboys could not stop, as well as the products their ardor could not save. I'll actually limit my discussion to online fanboys, who tend to opine most viciously and are apparently the most closed-minded to any form of disagreement.
Marvel's recent event miniseries Civil War sold about 2.2 million copies in the United States and Canada (not even counting all the tie-ins or the international orders) and is still racking up the reorders. It is, hands down, the most successful American comic book of the new millenium in terms of sales and yet if the online fanboy community is to be believed, it is the worst comic book ever published. I'm not here to debate the artistic merits of this particular piece of work, but the sales figures, juxtaposed against the vitriol spewed online by people who profess to be its core audience can be intepreted two ways: online fanboys are idiots who complain about something and then buy it anyway or online fanboys are a lot less influential than they think they are.
This year's summer movie showdown is another good example: Spider-Man 3 received a widespread thrashing from online fanboys, with all but one of aintitcoolnews.com's reviewers bashing it (that one being uberfanboy and AICN co-founder Harry Knowles), while Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, received glowing praise from all of them (the AICN reviewers), as well as snarky predictions (from AICN's "talkbackers") of its box-office supremacy over the web-slinger. Well, while both films are seeing their daily grosses eroding faster than the topsoil in Ormoc, it seems there's a very real chance POTC:AWE won't even hurdle the $300 million mark in the U.S. and Canada, a figure once taken as a given. SM3, in contrast, appears to be a lock for at least $335 million in the same location. Again, I won't go into the artistic merit of either of these movies, but it just seems painfully obvious to me that fanboys don't matter nearly as much as they think they do.
Probably my favorite example of how meaningless fanboy bitching truly is, however, would have to be the recent James Bond sequel. There was an online campaign to get Daniel Craig sacked from the job of playing Ian Flemings' spy, the ultimate male fantasy role model (on a site called craignotbond.com or something like that) as well as a couple of really nasty gossip tidbits about how he couldn't even drive his Aston Martin. None of this prevented Casino Royale from becoming the highest grossing Bond movie ever (not counting inflation) and one of the best-reviewed releases of 2006. In short, the fanboys were wrong on both counts. Craig, as if to rub salt on the collective fanboy wound, won a British Academy of Film and Television Award for his portrayal.
We can also go into the many fanboy-geared products their love couldn't save. For example, the 1997 film Starship Troopers generated a following of Heinlein disciples, video-game nuts, fans of extreme post-modernism and sadists in general that justified a TV spin-off and a direct-to-video sequel, but for all of that the movie couldn't even gross more than $55 million in the U.S. and Canada and barely even hurdled $120 million internationally.
Another movie made solely on the clamour of fanboy demand was Joss Whedon's Serenity, a film based on the extremely short-lived Firefly series. The film's final box-office gross? $25.5 million in the U.S. and Canada. Fanboys seemed happy with it, but apparently it just wasn't enough.
And let's not forget all of the Kevin Smith movies that fanboys couldn't even elevate past domestic U.S. grosses of $31 million (his biggest, I think, being Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). One has to wonder if that's the sum total of the fanboy community's contribution to any movie's box office.
Fortunately, the Time article featured a quote from someone who said that if fanboys were as powerful as some studios think they are, then the recent Tarantino/Rodriguez double-feature Grindhouse would have been a big hit, which it wasn't.
Still, the message is clear that Hollywood seems to think fanboys, highlighted by their obnoxious online self-proclaimed spokespersons are a lot more important than they actually are. Of course, at the end of the day, it's all about money, and in their never-ending quest to find the foolproof formula, studio heads are turning to the latest fad in money-making: appeasing the 15-35 year old demographic.
I'd like to give my own personal news flash to the studios: Spider-Man 1 and 2 raked in huge amounts of money and garnerned stellar reviews because Sam Raimi, a very talented filmmaker (and admittedly also a fanboy) was allowed to bring his own, uncompromised vision of Spidey to the screen. He didn't buckle under to fanboy outrage about the organic webs or any of the other crap they loved to sling at the two movies. These two movies, in my opinion, will stand the test of time, for all their flaws, as work with artistic integrity. And you know what? As much as I loathe a great many of them, I have to hand one thing to fanboys: they respect vision. Fanboys came to respect Sam Raimi because, as much as they reviled him when he first got the unenviable task of bringing the web slinger to the big screen, he stood his ground and let his vision prevail.
Spider-Man 3, while entertaining in its own right, will, by contrast, be remembered as the movie where Raimi was forced to give in to fanboys who were screaming for the appearance of one of the objects of their affection: the shallow, two-dimensional villain known as Venom. It's not really the diminished grosses or the harsher reviews that's the problem; these were just the consequences of a bigger transgression, which was that the studio tried too hard to appease the fanboys and deviated too much from the extremely tight, character-centered approach that had made the first two films both box-office smashes and critical darlings. Fanboys, especially the ones Raimi won over, will allege that this was one the studio fucked up, but to my mind a lot of them have no one to blame but themselves for forcing, through their messageboards and online noise, upon Raimi a character with whom he had no affinity whatsoever.
Batman Begins was also successful because director Chris Nolan, a talented individual, was likewise allowed free rein in how to bring Bruce Wayne and his caped alter-ego to life. Fanboys respected that, too.
At the end of the day, there is no fool-proof formula for making a hit. None. The best bet of any studio is to put the most talented people possible on a film, get the most skilled marketers plugging it, and hope for the best. Fanboy buzz will only get a movie so far.
Please, Hollywood, stop deifying these self-important, contempt-filled, syntax-and-spelling-impaired morons whose opinions will only get more vociferous and obnoxious once they realize how much power is being artificially bestowed upon them. Just try to make good movies by using talented directors, scriptwriters and actors.
Think about people like Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and Chris Nolan who, unfettered in their vision, can come up with hits whose artistic merit no one can really question. These are people who, when given material to adapt, understand that material and what makes it work in its original incarnation. Raimi understands Peter Parker's guilt and sense of responsibility. Nolan understands that underneath Batman's cowl is a tortured soul. Jackson understands...well, that the LOTR trilogy is all about people and their frailty before anything else. It's not about fanboys barking at these guys what they want.
Sure, fanboys matter on some level, but if we're the only audience whom the Hollywood execs try to please when making their comic-book/action/sci-fi/fantasy movies, they'll have a lot more Grindhouse sized flops than Spider-Man sized hits. And you can take that to the bank.
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