Fan Films- Batman

I'll never see Batman again the same way since I met my best friend fifteen years ago. He is BATMAN. He's the God damned Batman! It's funny. I was always Superman. Bigger, stronger, smarter, and more alienated than my contemporaries growing up. He was smarter, more disciplined, more touched by tragedy.

This is for him. The best Batman fan film since Batman: Dead End (do a Google search, it's worth it).

And contribute to the charity the film is pimping. It's a pretty good cause. If you want to be a hero.


CITY OF SCARS
Uploaded by Batinthesun. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

MOVIES- Watchmen on Blu-Ray (Twice, like Dr. Manhattan)

WATCHMEN* is being released on Blu-Ray in a couple of weeks. It’s billed as the Director’s Cut but in a strange piece of pissing-right-there-in-your-Wheaties marketing an advertisement for the Ultimate Double-Secret Super Director’s Cut is included in the box! At least there’s a $10 coupon for the more complete edition included. Or is it a coupon for K-Y Jelly?

It’s easy to be snarky about DVD marketing. Rarely is a movie released nowadays that doesn’t have at least two variations on disk. First there were the widescreen/pan-and-scan variants (disk has two sides = problem solved). Then there were the theatrical/director’s cut flavors (DVDs have this thing called Branching technology that allows them to random access different parts of the disk so different versions of the same movie can co-exist on the disk). Then there was just the constant re-release of movies, often with little or no difference even in the special materials, just new cover art. I believe much of the problem of slow acceptance of HD disk formats such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is due to consumers having been so burned that they figured it was just another way for Hollywood to re-sell them movies they already owned again. After years of VARIANT COVER nonsense even comics fans figured out they were being played for fools (thought Marvel and DC are still in there swinging at the low hanging fruit), can movie fans be that much stupider?

I used to say that if I wasn’t buying a movie on DVD, just licensing it’s use, then whenever a new edition came out I should be given that version either gratis or at a substantial discount. After all, I already hold a license to use it.

And that’s why it’s easy to be snarky, but it isn’t exactly fair to be, when it comes to the new WATCHMEN release. True, Warner Bros. isn’t exactly advertising that they already plan for a bigger version of the same movie to be released in less than six months but you can’t really blame them for that. And they are softening the blow for anyone unaware of the later edition by including the coupon (which harkens back to my “I already own a license” idea). There are some value-added advantages to owning the earlier Blu-Ray- such as participating in the 2009 Comic Con showing via BD Live, in addition to satisfying the childish ‘I want it NOW’ feeling we all succumb to from time to time. The special features look fantastic, it does include 24 minutes of added footage (although not the Tales of the Black Freighter story-within-a-story from the graphic novel) and Amazon is even sweetening the pot by allowing you to watch the movie via internet on the day of release if you’ve pre-ordered the disk.

My first impulse was to wait for the expanded edition. I’ve vowed that I wasn’t going to repurchase any more movies that I already own except in extreme circumstances. (Do you have any idea how many copies of Terminator 2 or Blade Runner I’ve bought since owning them on LaserDisk? Neither do I.) But since buying the version with the Black Freighter included and commentary by Dave Gibbons** is a certainty and since the net cost of the first version is only $13 on Amazon when you consider the coupon, I have to say that somebody will be getting a slightly used copy of WATCHMEN- the Director’s Cut on BD for Christmas and I’ll be buying two copies of the same movie this year after all.


* Original review of WATCHMEN here. I honestly have never figured out what all the hate was for this movie (except for the possible reasons mentioned in the review). Sure, it’s not Citizen Kane, but it’s a damn fine comic book movie and had it not been an adaptation of such a revered graphic novel I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t have done better. I loved Dark Knight, but Watchmen was everything everyone said about DK- moody, serious, literary, visually fantastic, morally ambiguous, and nuanced- only more so. Sure, I could quibble too. The soundtrack was much maligned but nobody I’ve read picked out the biggest soundtrack mistake I noticed- that if you were going to play Simon and Garfunkle over the Comedian’s funeral scene you should have played The Boxer rather than Bridge Over Troubled Water. Watchmen is one of the ten best comic book movies ever made. (In no order they are: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, X-Men, Iron Man, SpiderMan II, SpiderMan, X-Men II, Superman II, and Road to Perdition.) If you can’t enjoy it then you need to examine why.


**…and all I have to say to Alan Moore about being such a party pooper about the whole thing is that I would have loved to hear you talk about the movie on the audio track and I would have been proud for you to be financially improved by a small bit of the money I’ve spent and will spend on the fruits of your imagination. But seriously, you’re taking yourself way too seriously. You wrote some entertaining comic book stories and, yeah, you may even be the best writer comics have ever seen. But get over yourself. Lighten up. The world would be a much better place if self-important assholes like you would just try to contribute to the total amount of fun that exists instead of going all teen-aged angsty and pouting for the last half of your life. William Faulkner went to Hollywood and wrote screenplays! Sure, he was a drunken reprobate, but in my experience drunken reprobates are more fun than egomaniacal goth “wizard” shitheads any day of the week. Why don’t you crawl up J. D. Salinger’s ass and then have him crawl up the ass of James Joyce’s rotting corpse so all of you can consider yourselves kings of infinite space there in your nutshells? In short- Fuck you, Alan Moore. What a crybaby!

MOVIES- Watch the Watchmen

This is what it might have been...



Thirty years of comic book evolution in one year of superhero films. Unbelievable.

In the 1960s, Stan Lee decided to take the ridiculous idea of superheroes and try to give them a little more veracity by having them live in real places, like New York, and deal with real problems, like having to pay rent or getting the flu. Last spring IRON MAN was perhaps the perfect cinema translation of that idea. It was fun and funny and had just enough veracity to keep you from being reminded every minute that it was patently impossible.

In the 1970s, Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams upped the ante on realism by making superheroes deal with the limitations of the actual world. They turned Batman from a campy joke into a criminologist, gymnast, and marshal artist. They had two second tier heroes, Green Lantern and Green Arrow, deal with problems like race relations, Native American angst, Appalachian poverty, women's issues, and overpopulation. Believable politics and social situations entered the world of superheroes for the first time. Last summer THE DARK KNIGHT showed us that a man might dress up in a costume and fight for justice and it was so layered with psychology, sociology, politics, and terrorism that it never occurred to you that this man wasn’t affected by the world around him.

In the 1980s, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons finally wrote an actual novel in comic book form that centered around superheroes. Not only did they interact realistically with a realistic world, they had all the complexity of characters in a novel- moral ambiguity, self-deception, motivations such as lust, hunger for power, greed, cynicism, obsession. These superheroes were anything but paragons of virtue. They were the kind of people who were screwed up and egomaniacal enough to think that they should change the world to suit themselves. Or they were just sadists. Or they were just crazy. And the world they populated was just as complex, with societal decay, threats of nuclear war, government interference, and popular opinion all affecting their self endowed missions. In addition to these important pieces of verisimilitude, the novel had complex structure, layered narratives, allegory and metaphor, and not a small amount of science fiction. It was widely considered the best superhero comic book ever made. It’s still widely considered the best superhero comic ever made over twenty years later.

And in the late winter of 2009 the cinematic adaptation of WATCHMEN hit theaters. Unlike IRON MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT, this movie is a straight adaptation. And considering the place the source material holds in the history of the genre it is perhaps one of the most literal adaptations of a book into a film ever made by Hollywood.

And it may be the best superhero movie ever made.

Zach Snyder has followed his last comic book movie, the literal adaptation of Frank Miller’s superficial and stylized 300, with a film noir with superheroes in it. The movie is complex, sexy, exciting, cynical, and incredibly violent at times. The movie is almost three hours long and never slows down for a minute. I can only imagine how overwhelmed any viewer must feel if they expected Superman or Iron Man, or even the Dark Knight. Many of the best scenes are lifted directly from panels of the comic. Much of the best dialog is verbatim from Alan Moore’s original work.

Of course, there are going to be detractors. Some will be like this critic for The Hollywood Reporter who seems to think the movie’s financial prospects have something to do with it’s artistic accomplishment (to be sure, it seems to be The Hollywood Reporter’s editorial policy to equate artistic success with profitability). The real irony in the review is that at one point he says, “It's all very complicated but not impenetrable” apparently unaware that his review has at least a dozen mistakes in it relating to either the movie or source material. He doesn’t even get the name of the group right. This isn’t completely unexpected. Many a comic fan has given a copy of Watchmen to someone as an example of the best of the format, only to have them be completely unable to understand the complexity of the story.

The other side of the coin is the fatuous fanboys who will pick the movie apart because it isn’t their biblical interpretation of the source material. There is a legitimate complaint that the ending of the story has been changed, but even the author has said that the original ending was weak and, while I won’t give anything away, the new conclusion is logical and flows from the story. In fact, for fans of the original story it may be the only point of suspense in the whole film. Needless to say, while I loved the original graphic novel, my opinion is that anyone who thinks this isn’t a reverent and excellent adaptation is missing a real opportunity to love something that has turned a fan favorite that almost everyone agreed was unfilmable into an enjoyable and exciting cinema experience.

In addition to Snyder’s obvious reverence for the original story and art, there are several other aspects of the movie that rise to the level of excellence that even rabid fans should be able to find no fault with. Casting comes immediately to mind. There simply isn’t a discordant piece of casting or a bad performance in the bunch. In fact, the performances are amazingly spot on. I was going to wax poetic about each actor and how much they were dead ringers for their comic counterparts, but every single one is so outstanding that it would just be a laundry list. If you could cast Rock Hudson as Superman or Clint Eastwood as Batman from the Dark Knight Returns then you might approach the bulls-eye that this movie hits with every single role. The special effects are just as seamless. I can’t remember a single scene where my (admittedly obsessive-compulsively cynical) willing suspension of disbelief was challenged.

Even the music is impressive. Dylan, Hendrix, and the inspired use of an abridged version of Phillip Glass’ score for Koyaanisqatsi during the section that covers my favorite of the original twelve comic series (a look into Dr. Manhattan’s Einsteinian POV) makes the movie one of the best to use popular music since American Graffiti.

Yes, even at close to three hours there is a whole lot left out. But to call that a fault of the movie is almost on the same level of criticism as saying the movie is flawed because the characters don't have heavy black ink lines around them and that you can't see the color dots from the original printing if you look closely.

There’s nothing left to say. Comic book fans have been gifted with a remarkable adaptation of the most exceptional and complex work ever done in the genre. We should all go to our graves knowing that nothing we’ve ever done in our lives is worthy of the last year in comic cinema.

Go see this movie. Take everyone you can drag to the theater. Give it a standing ovation when the credits roll. Thank God that you were lucky enough to live to see it. Nobody thought it could be done.

UPDATE: The line from the Hollywood Reporter review that originally read " The opening murder happens to a character called the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who was once a member of a now-banished team of superheroes called the Masks." now had been corrected to " The opening murder happens to a character called the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who was once a member of a now-banished team of superheroes called the Watchmen." And the chocolate ration has been increased too!

MOVIES- Confessions of a Superhero

Let’s say that you’re a young person who wants to be a star. You get out of high school, buy a bus or plane ticket, and head to Hollywood. But you don’t know anybody and you’re surrounded by literally thousands of other young people who have the same dreams and have done the same thing. Perhaps you are attractive, talented, and lucky enough that lightning strikes and you start getting roles. Perhaps you aren’t. Either way, you’ve got to find a way to make a living while things happen. What do you do?

You might find a job as a waiter, or in a McDonalds, or any one of the million other jobs young people do when they are starting out. But that isn’t going to help you. You need to be seen. You want to find some way to act. You want some way to get in front of the public.

Maybe you dress up like Superman, or Batman, or Wonder Woman, or the Hulk and go stand out on the Hollywood walk of fame and have your picture taken with tourists.

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO is a relatively unknown (OK, I’d never heard of it) documentary about people who dress up like comic book character and hang out on Hollywood Blvd so tourists can take pictures with them for tips. Nobody hires them to do it. They aren’t licensed by the owners of the properties and legally they can’t even ask for money for what they do. They just make a costume and take off. CONFESSIONS shows you a snapshot of the lives of four of these people.

There’s Chris, a Superman who has been doing this for years and may have become a little too obsessed with the role. He does look sort of like Christopher Reeve, if somebody had left him in the oven too long. The film follows him to Metropolis, Illinois for the annual Superman Celebration that’s the little town’s only claim to fame. I don’t want to give too much away, but we get to know a lot about Chris during the movie and some things about him are strangely ambiguous.

Max is a self-professed “George Clooney lookalike” who dresses in a Batman Costume and has anger management issues. Max also has a colorful past, though, like Chris, there are questions about what that past might really be.

Max and Chris are pushing middle age, but Jennifer, who dresses up like Wonder Woman is in her mid-twenties. She came to California from a little town nobody has ever heard of in Tennessee and still has most of her dreams intact. But life is what happens while you make other plans and during the course of the movie she has some life happen.

And Joseph, the most un-Hulklike Hulk you could imagine. His transformation from a slightly built black man to a giant green monster is accomplished with the help of a full head mask and a head-to-toe green muscle suit. Joseph sold his Nintendo to buy the bus ticket that got him to California from the small Southern town he grew up in and landed in town the second day of the Rodney King riots. He’s probably had the hardest time of the four since he hit the coast, but things are looking up.

Sure, these people might be a little odder than most, but if you aren’t you don’t go to the coast and try to be an actor. But, then again, they might not be that different at all. During our 90 minute stay with these folks, director Matthew Ogens shows us one getting married, one divorced, one arrested and one landing a role. My immediate feelings about the strangeness of these people was replaced by understanding and sympathy. The movie is more affecting that I ever thought it would be. I found myself rooting for these strangers who spend their days standing in the California heat dressed up in silly costumes in the hope someone will give them a few dollars to have their picture made with them. And hope to become rich and famous actors someday. Like most superheroes, it’s the people behind the masks that make the story interesting.

The question of whether or not what they do is panhandling comes up a couple of times in the movie, but I don’t see how it could be. They render a service for the money they are given and it’s a far more honest way to make a living than attacking someone’s car at a redlight with a squeegee and a bottle of windex.

Ogen has made a half-dozen documentaries before this one, a couple of them for television, none of them which you’ve probably ever seen either. But perhaps that’s why he seems to have such compassion for these people. Like them, he obviously takes pride in his work and is looking for his big break. The movie is professionally shot and edited and doesn’t suffer from the bad lighting, poor sound, or shaky-cam problems that plague a lot of low budget documentaries. He never lets his direction and camera work get in the way of telling the story of these four people.

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO is available from Netflix on DVD or through their instant download service and is well worth seeing if you are a fan of superheroes, struggling actors, documentaries, or just getting a glimpse into the lives of four people trying to make a way in the world. It has several surprises and is well worth the time.

MOVIES- Watchmen Featurette From Last Year

Just before the end of the year a new Watchmen featurette was released on the web. No doubt to quell some of the fires burning up so many blogs about Fox’s win in court. This one shows a few more tantalizing seconds from the movie with the added goodness of having Zack Snyder do a roll call and brag some more about what a epic the movie is. The question is, will it be an epic FAIL?

Watchmen Exclusive


Yes, the film looks right and yes, Zach would never have been able to land a job as director if he wasn’t able to say the right worlds with a straight face. But there are substantial reasons the movie may be doomed to be a disappointment.

(1) Batman, or rather The Dark Knight which may have shot the public’s load for taking superheroes seriously. There has to come a point where the public is satiated with costumed silliness no mater how well it’s done. The Dark Knight may have been Peak Oil.

(2) Batman and Iron Man may have used all the comic book fan luck that exists. I cannot help but believe that three comic book movies done seriously and correctly that all get critical and public acclaim coming out in the same year is too improbable to happen in any universe I’m familiar with.

(3) Batman, which may have set the bar too high. There already seems to be a strong countercurrent of resentment which could be geekdom trying to protect itself from the inevitable disappointment. I knew a lot of people who didn’t go see Batman Begins even though they would have loved it, because they had horrible flashbacks to what Joel Shumacher had done to the character. Watchmen doesn’t have that baggage but the reverence of the source material is much higher. This is the comic that comic geeks give to smart people who don’t read comics. I’ve already read one set of blog comments about this video where two posters complain about the spots moving on Rorshack’s mask. One says, “Why does Rorschach's mask transform like that? Because it looks cool I guess, and that's exactly why this movie will suck.” having obviously never read the comic. The movie is primed for heavy criticism.

(4) The story itself (finally one that isn’t Batman). It looks good but it could look great and wind up just being the trailer for the 12 hour Watchmen miniseries it would have taken to do the book justice. Snyder refers to the book as “supposedly unfilmable”. That’s not the right word. Un-translatable is what it might be. And even if he somehow manages it and it’s a work of genius, you just can’t put a gallon in a pint jar without losing 7/8 of it. Think David Lynch’s Dune.

I’ve been guardedly optimistic before each of the last two Batman movies but Christopher Nolan has taught me that I can love again. I’m waiting to see if Watchmen is going to break my heart.

MOVIES- Green Lantern Movie

Riding on the coat tails of THE DARK KNIGHT it looks like GREEN LANTERN might go into production as early as next spring. Empire Online says the movie is greenlit but careful reading of the article shows that nothing is actually confirmed.

Green Lantern has been one of my favorites since the 1960s SUPERMAN/AQUAMAN HOUR Saturday morning cartoon series, which featured the Justice League both collectively and in individual stories. When I finally bought my first GL comic I was a little confused (the cartoon had changed Pieface to an alien) but that was nothing compared to the confusion I felt when I picked up another issue a few months later.

That issue was GL 76. The title was different (suddenly it was called Green Lantern/Green Arrow), the situation was different (no intergalactic storyline- GL gets a tour of the ghetto), and the artwork was different. Boy, was the artwork different. GL’s previous artist was Gil Kane, and the art on the book was top of the heap for DC at the time. But with issue 76 the art chores were taken over by Neal Adams. I was somewhat aware of Adams already. At the time he did the majority of DCs covers and I had a couple of issues of his Brave and Bold. I had been drawing since I was able to pick up a pencil and was already pretty good at it. A big part of my love of comic books was drawing my favorite heroes. So I was an 8 year old art snob and Adams was already my favorite artist. His work on GL was simply the best I had ever seen in a comic book.

I was hooked. But back then there were no comic book stores. Comics were sold off what they called “spinner racks”, revolving wire racks that stood about 5 feet high and held a half dozen comics face out in each pocket. They were found in most grocery and drug stores and had the famous slogan “Hey kids! COMICS!” across the top. I imagine most comic book fans nowadays have never seen one. I spent the next year riding my bicycle all over town (my parents would have killed me if they had known) looking for issues. Distribution was uneven and I only found about half the issues released before the title was discontinued.

But what I did find was heady stuff. Seems a little funny to hear Christopher Nolan praised so much for making Batman real when I was watching GL and GA cross the country in a pickup truck, fighting such evils as discrimination, overpopulation, and drug abuse almost 40 years ago. This was an unprecedented stuff for comics at the time and even at eight years old I was enthralled. Even after GL returned to his spacefaring ways a few months later the tone of the stories didn’t really pull back from the "relevant" storylines. In one story a planet was in the midst of a population crisis. In another, a dimensional rift opened to a world run by amazons. Green Arrow would find out that his ward and sidekick, Speedy, was addicted to heroin. And the final issue would climax with the crucifixion of an environmentalist Christ figure, the choosing of John Stewart as GL’s replacement, and GA deciding to run for office. After GL/GA was finished, writer Denny O’Neal would join Adams to complete the revamp of Batman started in Brave and Bold, returning him to his darker roots after the lighter tone the character had taken during the Adam West Batman TV series. (The names are an odd coincidence. Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Adam West and of course the names of the Lantern and the Arrow. Once Adams was asked why Green Lantern and Green Arrow and replied, “Beats the hell out of me, ‘cause they were both green, I guess”. ) O’Neil would write some of the most memorable Batman comics of the time and create, with Adams, the character Ra’s al Ghul. Eventually he would become editor of the Batman comics for several years.

But for me the real treat was the artwork. These more realistic, socially aware stories probably wouldn’t have had the effect they did if the artwork hadn’t matched or even exceeded the realism of the writing. Personally I think Adams’ work on GL was the best work of his career and some of the best ever in comics. I guess I’m not alone in this. One famous three panel spread (pictured below) is said to be the most reproduced in comics history. Every page contained something special- odd angles, natural poses, expressive faces, minorities that looked like actual minorities rather than the white faces colored brown that was the standard at the time. Adams’ work would be so influential that the phrase “Adams clones” would become a term of derision in the industry. In spite of this many of these artists would become the best working in the medium over the next decade.

So there’s the story of my affection for the character. I feel like I’ve already seen the perfect Green Lantern movie since Adams’ artwork was like seeing stills from that movie and I greet this translation with the same fear that every comic fan feels when a cherished childhood memory is about to make the trip through the Hollywood Veg-a-matic. Years ago I fantasized about a movie of the O’Neil/Adams storyline. In my mind Bruce Campbell would play Hal Jordan while Dennis Leary was my choice for Green Arrow. That movie will never be made anywhere but in my head but this one seems to have a pretty good chance of making it to the screen. I sure hope they don’t screw it up.

MOVIES- Dark Knight

So, the question was going to be is DARK KNIGHT the best comic book movie ever made?

But it seems that the real question is whether or not it is the best MOVIE ever made. As I’m writing this, IMDB says it is with an average score of 9.5 vs. THE GODFATHER’s 9.1!

Well, it’s certainly the most ambitious comic book movie ever made. The movie runs two and a half hours and yet there are edits that seem jarring and transitions that are inelegant. Clearly Nolan was having a hard time putting all the movie he wanted into the film. The film never slows down. Many buildings blow up, there are a couple of car chases, numerous fights, daring rescues, and even a couple of shots of Batman standing on some architecturally improbable perch while brooding down at the city. But it’s not all action. No, far from it. In addition to the large supporting cast from the first movie, two major characters and a few minor ones are introduced, Gordon gets an enhanced role, there are several subplots all going at once and everyone gets a character arc. It’s been said that this isn’t just a good comic book movie, it’s a good movie PERIOD. That much is true. As a movie, it’s the best comic book movie ever made.

But that doesn’t really answer the question of whether it’s the best comic book movie.

Thematically, it’s certainly a very ambitious movie of any genre. Just as HEROES has introduced the mainstream television audience to some of the structural aspects of comic storytelling, here Nolan has introduced modern comic thematic sensibility to the mainstream movie audience. Thematically the film deals with chaos vs. order, the law of unintended consequences, the politics of affecting change even when it’s change for the better, and perhaps more than anything the idea that how you deal with adversity is the essence of your character. Ironically, heavy themes fit comic book movies. Since the characters are iconic and representational, they easily become avatars for larger ideas. Each character has had a disastrous event in his life, every character is deeply scarred, all have dealt with this in different ways.

The movie is about testing each the resolve of each way of dealing with tragedy. Each character is understood through his or her personal concept of morality and what rules they subscribe to. In this view, the Joker becomes both control group and experimenter, testing the rules of the other characters while apparently subscribing to no rules himself. Batman is his direct counterpart. There is no other character less likely to change or break his rules. Like the Joker, Batman’s rulebook has no respect for society’s mores but are instead completely internally derived. He cannot disobey them because they ARE him. Lucius Fox is almost as imperturbable, being willing to lose his job without regret for doing what he thinks is right. Gordon is a cop willing to break cop rules in order to avoid changing his ideas about right and wrong as well, but he has other concerns. Rachael thinks the legal system gets to make the rules for people. And Dent is the most labile both in that he is a believer in chance as a prime motivator and by being bi-polar himself, thus having two sets of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.

Where each of these people draw the line, and whether they will cross that line, is what this movie is all about. Nolan knows that this is the essence of drama; the human heart in conflict with itself. The movie is shot as a stylized police procedural. The motivations and conflicts take center stage. There just happens to be a guy in a flying rodent suit, and the ultimate scary clown running around in it.

The movie is long. And I mean LONG. I don’t think a comic book movie has ever gone over two hours before and this one’s a long-for-any-damn-movie two and a half hours. But even at that, it feels rushed in a couple areas. It also has an obvious second-act feel. (To paraphrase William Goldman, the second act is when you get your characters into as much trouble as you can.) You walk out of this movie with a feeling of melancholy the way you left THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. The movie was great but the ending was kind of a downer. There are more conflicts at the end of this movie than there are at the beginning and while both of the major antagonists are in custody they very much alive. This implies a third movie that would actually continue the story of the Joker and Harvey Dent. Unfortunately, the death of Heath Ledger precludes our ever seeing what he would have done with another go at the role. I wonder if this will derail the storyline or if they will recast? It’s going to be a hard act to follow, but they recast Rachael so it’s not unprecedented.

What is there left to say about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker? There’s been talk about a posthumous Oscar nomination, which is very possible, but I don’t think he’ll win. Johnny Depp should have one for the first PIRATES movie and didn’t for the same reason. Hollywood just isn’t ready to hand out best actor to such an unconventional part. But just like Depp in PIRATES, Ledger is mesmerizing. When he’s on the screen you can’t look at anyone else. In latter day comic style, he takes a character and re-imagines him as something recognizable but unique. Here the Joker is the ultimate mad scientist, if you consider psychology a science. To him, everyone is just a lab rat. So he devises little tests- blow up one or the other, save one or the other, unmask or be responsible for countless deaths. At one point he makes a deal with organized crime in Gotham for half their assets, then burns the money in front of them just to see their reaction. But Ledger doesn’t play it clinically at all, Instead his Joker is true lunacy. You never know exactly what he is going to be. One instant menacing and the next almost pitiable. Ledger’s performance alone would make the movie worth seeing- astonishingly nuanced and frightening. And like no other Heath Ledger performance I’ve ever seen before.

Purists may fault the lack of an origin story for the Joker but that’s actually the way the Joker was introduced in the comics. The origin story came later. In fact it’s a nice inside running joke that the Joker tells everybody a different story about how he got his scars. And you have to admit that when Nolan recons something he puts some thought into it. Likewise, it seems far more likely that the Joker’s cheeks were cut to simulate a permanent smile than that being dropped in acid would freeze your face that way. The only other real retcons are small, Gordon’s promotion and bringing Dent closer into the supporting cast.

And that supporting cast is as excellent as we would expect. In addition to Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, this movie adds Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and Maggie Gyllenhall as the absent Kate Holmes as Rachael Dawes. Nothing to detract from the overall excellence here.

So is it the best movie or comic book movie or is it the reinvention of cinema? I don’t know if it’s any of those. But it is the most ambitious movie, comic or otherwise, of the year so far. And as soon as I post this I’m going to go see it again.

MOVIES COMICS- The Incredible Hulk

The HULK isn’t as bad a movie as I thought it would be. In fact, for a Hulk movie, it’s pretty good. The film seems to take it’s inspiration more from the 70s TV show than from the maligned Ang Lee movie from a few years ago. Personally, I didn’t hate the Ang Lee attempt. His big mistake IMHO was the comic book panel visual motif he attempted (distracting), that the script went in a thousand different directions (uneven), and the whole daddy subplot (with Nick Nolte looking like his DUI mugshot). But Ang’s Hulk looked more the Hulk from the comics and he did the things the comic book Hulk does (pitch tanks over the horizon, take mile long jumps across the desert) and that’s what I had come to the theater to see. The new movie tries to bring things down a notch and explore Bruce Banner’s dilemma that whenever he gets excited he passes out and when he wakes up he’s surrounded by a bunch of broken shit and people are bleeding all over everything.

I’ve never particularly liked the Hulk as a character. It’s a blatant rip-off of Dr. Jeckell and Mr. Hyde and other than hulking out and smashing stuff the character doesn’t have anywhere much to go. Over the years the writers of the comics have tried to deal with this in various ways and pretty much failed. We’ve seen green Hulks and grey Hulks (who cares), dumb Hulks and smart Hulks (defeats the purpose), tortured Banners and maudlin Banners and outright batshit crazy Banners (all dull as hell). All trying to hide the fact that the character is a one trick pony with a one line vocabulary. I don’t even think you can even make the tired old case that the character is a metaphor for youthful identity crisis since most teenagers saddled with this problem would acquire a wardrobe of tee-shirts that said “Don’t Make Me Angry” across the front and “You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry” across the back. Needless to say, school bullies would give them a wide berth. (The tag line does wind up being the source of a pretty good joke in the new movie though.)

These problems were exemplified by the doggedly repetitive formulaic episodes of the TV series. Tell me if you’ve heard this one- David Banner hitches into town, runs afoul of some local problem, winds up getting the shit kicked out of him by somebody, turns into a giant green bodybuilder with a bad haircut, returns the shit kicking to sender with interest, and catches a ride out of town. Tune in next week. Same Hulk time. Same Hulk channel. Same fucking plot.

The new movie follows the current idiom of trying to take the situation seriously (as opposed to camping it up). Edward Norton is talented enough to give some real chops to Banner’s internal struggle and is shown doing the stuff anyone else would do in the situation, such as learning meditation so he quits being such a hothead. (No one in the Marvel universe has heard of Lithium, I guess.) As a result, his Banner is a pretty cool customer even when being chased through the streets by military commandos. Nothing wrong with Eric Bana but I don’t think he’s in Norton’s league as an actor. Liv Tyler pouts and her lips look appropriately bee stung, but I’m never going to buy the idea that she has a PhD. But she’s here to look good and she does (in this case Jennifer Connelly WAS better). The sex scene is good, especially the part where Banner comes to afterward and has to shower what’s left of her off the front of him. William Hurt makes a fine Thunderbolt Ross but so did Sam Elliot and like all the supporting cast the character is about as deep as a soap dish. Tim Roth also does a pretty good job but his character is also only a molecule deep and it’s never explained why he’s in the military but doesn’t shave.

Aside from the cast the big thing the new Hulk movie has going for it is pacing. Things never seem to drag and even the obligatory King Kong interlude is kept mercifully short. There are a smattering of jokes that are don’t draw attention to themselves, and a number of call backs to previous incarnations such as the TV series (a practice started by Raimi with Spider-Man and becoming de rigeur in Marvel movies). Stan’s cameo is impossible to miss in this one and Lou Ferrigno has a cameo too (Bill Bixby is unfortunately no longer with us).

So I’m left where I started. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. If you don’t have a decent home theater movies like this are best seen at the multiplex. And, in spite of the character being a grab bag of cliches in the first place, the acting, script, and direction make this one worth seeing. Hell, he even gets to say “Hulk SMASH!” at one point.

COMICS and MOVIES- Superman vs. Hollywood

While I was a little disappointed in BenBella’s THE MAN FROM KRYPTON, Amazon recommended a couple of other books on the man of steel that were even better. The best of their selections was a book every fan of Superman should read. Jake Rossen has written the definitive book about Superman’s history, not in the comics but in mass media. SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD starts with the 1941 radio serials (which started just a couple of years after the character’s creation) and goes all the way through to Superman Returns. In the introduction Mark Millar says that he thought he knew the story of Superman on film but he learned several things that were new to him while reading the book. Likewise, before starting the book I was familiar with several decades of Superman film mythology. I had watched George Reeves in black and white on my television when I was just a child. I had sat in a crowded theater (three friends and I were ushered into seats far apart because the theater was so crowded) watching Christopher Reeve give life to the character. I own the “making of” for the 1979 movie. I had rented the Max Fleisher short cartoons in the early days of VHS. I watched the Chris Reeve sequels and followed the first couple of seasons of LOIS AND CLARK, saw some episodes of the Bruce Timm Superman, and followed the development of Brian Singer’s reboot of the franchise. I thought I knew a lot about the history of the character on film. Boy was I surprised! Millar is absolutely right. There is seldom a page that doesn’t include a revelation!

Did you know that, for instance, One of the first Lois Lanes on radio (there were three) was Rolly Bester, wife of Alfred Bester who was writing Green Lantern at the time? That Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Kryptonite were invented by the radio writers, not in the comics? That Kevin Smith did not just have numerous meetings with the Warner Brothers brass as recounted in his AN EVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH but actually wrote two complete scripts? That the Tim Burton-Nick Cage reboot SUPERMAN LIVES was going to feature a superman with a new costume, a heavy reliance on gadgets (to please the toy makers), and would fly with the aid of a jet pack? (!) That the first season Superboy of the 1988 series was fired because he was arrested for DUI, violating his “morals clause” (at the same time that he was asking for a 20% raise)? (It isn’t mentioned in the book but one local rumor circulating at the time in Orlando, where the series was being made, was that he was also a little too conspicuous at The Parliament House, the largest gay club in town.)

Superman even destroyed the KuKluxKlan! Really! Seems that in 1946 writers for the radio show were fed information by Stetson Kennedy, who had infiltrated the Klan but had little effect since so many southern politicians and policemen were Klan members. The writers used this information to broadcast Klan secrets in a two part episode where Superman fought the racist organization. Seems that after this, Klan membership, especially among younger people, started to dwindle.

I could go on and on with fascinating stories from the book but instead you should just link over to Amazon and buy it. It is extensively researched, well written, and just plain hard to put down. Most highly recommended to any comics fan.

COMICS- The Man From Krypton

More on the SmartPop books published by BenBella press.

While Batman is one of the most popular characters in comic books, the other crown jewel for National Periodicals is Superman. It’s hard to understand the affect Superman had on comics and popular culture. The character is a true icon. And his iconic status has been reaffirmed by every generation that has passed or remains since the first time Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster were first able to see their creation in print in 1938.

I have a special affinity for the character, I must admit. My best friend has the same sort of affinity for Batman. We often have discussions like the ones in the book about the various strengths and weaknesses of the two characters. I was always bigger and stronger than the other children while he had to bare the scars of the loss of a parent while he was still a child. I identify with Clark Kent and his struggle to fit in among people he has to be careful not to hurt. I identify with his feeling of being alone in a crowd because he is so different.

All the more reason that I was a little disappointed in this particular BenBella book, THE MAN FROM KRYPTON. It’s not the fault of the folks writing the essays contained in this book. They dissect Superman with the same kind of aplomb that the writers in the first book I discussed, BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED, apply to Batman. There are chapters devoted to Superman’s creation, his early years, the Mort Weisenger era (where we get most of our ancillary back story for the character- variously colored kryptonite, Jor-El with a sunburst crest on his chest, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto, etc.), his mythical progenitors (everything from Samson and Gilgamesh to King Arthur), the effect Max Fleisher had on the character in his early years, the John Byrne reboot, even the inherent problems with writing a character so powerful. All of this is fodder for the SmartPop gristmill, but somehow misses the point. To me, at least. I don’t think the fault is with the writers of the book. The fault, I think, lies with the current paradigm of the last son of Krypton.

The only Superman series to really deal with the problems of being Superman (and, let’s face it, drama is all about problems and therein lies the rub) is SMALLVILLE. And while it is touched upon here, it is from the point of view of messianic views of the hero and his relationship to his future enemy, Lex Luthor. You can’t blame the authors for dealing with the way the character has actually been portrayed rather than the way that the character SHOULD have been dealt with. Kurt Busiak did a better job showing us the heart of the character in his first issue of ASTRO CITY than over 60 years of Superman scribes have been able to. (Except for a single story by Alan Moore. WHAT DO YOU GET FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING is such an extraordinary Superman story that even the creators of the Justice League cartoon had to adapt it.) Even the first Superman movie showed the character through his limitations better than the comics have (or rather than it would have if Lois had died rather than allowing him to turn back time by spinning the earth backwards or whatever he did- a plot contrivance even Weisenger wouldn’t have allowed).

I’m not saying that THE MAN FROM KRYPTON isn’t worth reading. It is still a wonderful book for anyone interested in the character. The purchase price alone is justified by the inclusion of Larry Niven’s 1967 short story MAN OF STEEL, WOMAN OF KLEENEX. I’m just saying that for anyone who is looking for the true heart of the character, it hasn’t been written yet.

But there is a book that gives the reader great insight into the character of the last son of Krypton. It just isn’t a BenBella book. But let’s save that for tomorrow.

COMICS- Batman Unauthorized

Before my internet access debacle I had premised a number of reviews of the BenBella SmartPop series. Here is the first.

…

BenBella books puts out a series of trade paperbacks (those are the ones the size of hardcover books but with laminated card covers rather than covered cardboard) on pop culture topics. Called the SmartPop series, each of these books features a series of essays on a subject by a bullpen of writers from areas as diverse as psychology to physics. (With a liberal dose of writers, mostly from the science fiction genre.) The books cover such topics as comic book heroes (Superman, Batman, the X-Men), popular television (NYPD Blue, Alias, House), genre television (Farscape, Star Trek, Buffy and Angel), genre movies (Star Wars), and other various related subjects (such as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books).

There are few things I love more than spirited discussions by very smart people on completely irrelevant topics. So when I found the BenBella books I bought a half dozen and tore through them. They are highly recommended but vary according to the depth of the subject material. I don’t want to give away too much but thought I’d bring up a few of the topics discussed and add my own thoughts.

BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED was the first I read and remains one of the better ones. The book is edited by Denny O’Neal, writer and editor of various Batman titles since the 1970s. There isn’t much about the character that isn’t covered. Topics include psychological speculation about Bruce Wayne, an excellent exploration of Bill Finger’s involvement in Batman’s creation (often credited to Bob Kane solely for reasons discussed in the essay), why Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns is a rather grotesque fascist take on the character (Duh- see my Picasa mock up of a poster for Dark Knight returns staring Clint Eastwood), and would Superman and Batman really be friends. Arkham Asylum is targeted as being the real reason there are so many cuckoo supervillans in Gotham. Robin’s place in the mythos is considered in depth (far more so than Robin- The Boy Target as Miller once postulated or even the current Miller rationalization in All Star Batman). Seemingly nothing is left unexamined, even how much it costs to be Batman to be Batman, or even how the orphan Bruce Wayne learned the facts of life.

Let’s back up there for a minute. Alex Bledsoe writes a short essay imagining how just such a thing might happen using the characters of Batman and Alfred from each of the main movie franchises. The idea is that since Bruce is entering puberty and the only male figure around is his faithful family retainer, well, who’s going to explain the facts of life to him. I was afraid that his essay, TO THE BATPOLE, was going to be tasteless but it turned out to be one of my favorite chapters. Episode one uses the Batman mythos from the 1960s television series (with Alfred played by the Shakespearean actor Alan Napier) and episode three details Bruce having “the talk” by imagining the characters as defined by Michael Caine and Christian Bale. All three are inspired but the gem of the bunch is his parody of the Bruce and Alfred from the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Personally I think the Batman\Bruce Wayne split personality has never been done better than Michael Keaton did it and Bledsoe gets the vocal cadences of the characters perfect. Let me share a bit with you.

“Michael Gough, in serving the needs of Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) (we will completely ignore his stints with Val Kilmer and George Clooney under the aegis of Joel “Man-Goat” Schumacher), gave us an Alfred whose main task seems to be compensat-ing for his employer’s frequent absentmindedness. In fact, he is so in tune with Bruce that he can anticipate even where his master might set down a champagne glass during a crowded party This Bruce Wayne is so preoccupied with thoughts of his alter ego that when left entirely to his own devices, he simply sits around in the dark waiting to be summoned by the bat-signal. Only in costume does he become focused, certain, and relent-less; in his civvies (or skivvies), his mind is always a million miles away
It seems unlikely that this Bruce Wayne would consciously seek out Alfred at the onset of puberty Instead, the loyal manservant might enter the main sitting room, where young master Bruce would be sprawled on the couch, legs askew, watching TV, and absently exploring his new pri-orities. After all, this Wayne Manor was a dark, grim edifice filled with shadows into which a vengeful young man would later vanish, only to emerge, Mr. Hyde-like, as a walking shadow himself. Why wouldn’t the adolescent Bruce forget which room he was in, and presume privacy?
Suitably appalled, yet ever the loyal servant, Alfred would most cer-tainly avert his eyes and say, “Master Bruce.” Pause. “Master... Bruce.”

“Huh? Oh... hey, Alfred. What. . . .h....” Young Bruce might be a bit surprised himself to be so flagrantly improper.

“Hey, wow… where did that... wow.

“Master Bruce, I believe it’s time we had a talk.”

“A talk. You mean about . . . oh! Yeah, I guess . . . sure.” Bruce would sit up, hands clasped, elbows on his knees, ready to listen.

Another pause. “Your trousers, sir?”

“What? Oh. Sorry” Zipping sound.

Alfred would stand beside the couch, hands properly folded behind him. His eyes would focus on some point in the middle distance. “Wayne Manor is your home, sir. You may conduct yourself as you like. But I fear your pen-chant for distraction may one day do you a disservice.”

“My ... oh! Yes, you . . . yes. I see.”

Alfred would choose his next words carefully “Master Bruce, do you understand the concept of puberty?”

“Puberty, ah ... yeah, I mean . . in class we ... so . . . sure.

Alfred would at last meet Bruce’s gaze. “And do you realize you are experiencing it right now?”

Bruce might look down at his lap. “Huh. That explains it.”

“Indeed. Do you wish to discuss it?”

“Talk about it? I don’t ... could . . . talk about it?”

“Yes. It can be a confusing time, and with your father gone, I thought you might need a sympathetic ear.”

“An ear? Oh ... you mean to listen with. Well, I guess . . . sure, if... sure.

Along pause might fill the room.

“You have to begin, Master Bruce,” Alfred might point out.

“Oh! Okay, uhm... how long does it get? I mean last. How long does it last?”

“It is a permanent change, I’m afraid. Eventually you should be able to control it, but for awhile it may be quite a distraction.” Pause. “Master Bruce?”

“What? Oh—distraction. Yeah.”

“I’m certain we can find some medical texts to explain the exact bio-logical mechanisms involved. It brings with it a set of responsibilities of which you should be aware.

“That might be good.”

“And if you would like to discuss it further. . .

“No, that’s all right, Alfred, I ... thanks.”

“At any time, sir.”

This Bruce Wayne would compensate for his physical slightness by designing body armor and an array of gadgets that made him appear larger and more intimidating. Was this also a compensation for some-thing else? Only Vicki Vale and Selina Kyle know for sure. ...”

What is there left to say? This is a must-own for any Batman afficianado and an interesting read for anyone who loves comics. Buy this book!

Tomorrow we tackle the SmartPop book on Batman’s counterpart, Superman.

PERSONAL- A Return to the Blog

Sorry for the long absence. My internet connection has been (hopefully not “still is”) out of commission and anyway, I’ve been reading, working extra, and enjoying the summer.

On the reading front: I had been on a non-fiction kick most of the winter and spring. Brushing up on chemistry, physics, history, and some biology. This was a pendulum swing from a early winter graphic novel binge. Having indulged my strange affectation for science I was ready for something lighter and at just about that time I happened upon the SMART POP books published by BenBella press. This is a series that dedicates a book to a particular pop icon and collects a dozen or two essays exploring various aspects of that pop icon. Topics include Superman, Batman, Farscape, Star Trek, Star Wars, Alias (the TV show), House (ditto), etc. This is a kind of geek heaven. Smart people writing seriously about not very serious subjects. It's why I read the COMICS JOURNAL during the '70s and '80s. I have a soft spot for serious literary criticism devoted to not-so-serious literature. So far I’ve read a half dozen in the last couple weeks and branched out into similar books such as Danny Fingeroth’s SUPERMAN ON THE COUCH and the excellent SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD by Jake Rossen (neither published by BenBella). I have some things to say about the books and whether you should read them.

On the working front: I haven’t got much to say about that. The interesting thing about my job is that it forces me to keep up with what’s happening in medical science. OTOH, the day to day performance of my job is full of human drama and occasional insights into the human condition but that’s not what this blog is about.

Well, perhaps some stories later.

On the enjoying the summer front: I took a trip out of town last weekend and it was as good a holiday trip as I have ever taken. I plan to break the rule of blogging about personal stuff so I’m going to leave that for a later entry. It will include science, sex, cars, and good food. What more is there than that?

I’ve also seen a few more movies, watched some GREAT television (yes, that’s right, great television. Not an oxymoron just something as rare as a blue moon), listened to some new music, bought a new car, built a new garage, and done some other stuff that defies description. Sorry to have been gone but one of the ironies (God is far to fond of irony) of life is that the more time you spend living it, the less time you have to write about it.

(Have you seen Valerie Bertinelli on the new Jenny Craig commercials? For a woman on the leeward side of forty she looks GREAT!)

But now on to smart people writing about silly subjects.

COMICS- The Rocketeer is Dead

Dave Stevens has died.

It was over a month ago, but since my connection with comic books is tenuous at best these days I only found out about it today. I was finishing BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED edited by Denny O’Neil (yes- THAT Denny O’Neil!) and part of the SMART POP series which I have just discovered, when a suggestion for a link caused me to do a Google search on Stevens’ name. Imagine how shocked I was to find that what Google was most interested in was his recent death.

Dave Stevens? If you don’t know, how can I tell you? Disney made a movie from his greatest and, perhaps only, creation in 1991. He was a gifted artist and comic book creator who transformed the comic zeitgeist in the early 1980s, riding the wake of the (relative) financial success of the first wave of independent comic creators into a chance to devote himself to a love of 1950s pop culture. He single handedly brought Bettie Page back from obscurity (truthfully, he introduced Bettie Page to the biggest audience she would ever have) and was no doubt the reason a movie was made about her a few years ago. (With an uncanny performance by Gretchen Mol.) He influenced a generation of comic book artists and remained a shining light in graphic illustration long after he gave up sequential narrative to do spot illustrations and covers.

Stevens’ artistic style hearkened back to a different era. In a time when comic books had been transformed by the independently published work of artists such as Wendy Pini and Dave Sim and when the work of Frank Miller and John Byrne was beginning to make the established publishers look for new talent, Rocketeer burst on the scene almost fully realized. Here were none of the inventive panel layouts of Miller’s Daredevil or the Kirby inked by Adams influence of John Byrne’s X-Men. Stevens drew his inspiration, not from the silver age but from the best of the classic golden age artists- Alex Raymond, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta. His drawings were somehow both more cartoony and more realistic than mainstream comics yet without resorting to the illustrative shortcuts that were so common among the independent artists of the time. His panel layouts were simple yet dramatic. His inking showed a mastery of line weight that was all but forgotten in mainstream comics. His art style completely eschewed the overwrought cross-hatching and moody shadows that had blighted the industry in the wake of Adams and Miller. Instead of the strum and drang of the last twenty years of the medium trying for mainstream acceptance, his draftsmanship and story sense was more like a breath of cool air from a vintage Frigidaire.

So great was his influence that it broke though one college students current obsession with DaVinci and Rembrant to once again imprint upon him the comic book aesthetic that has interested him in art long before his first day at school. Evidenced by a very Stevens influenced portrait of a fellow classmate in an elective art class.

Stevens died of leukemia last month at the age of 52. Like Dave Cockrum and Wally Wood, he was taken so much earlier than we expect for people live in our society. Perhaps there is some universal law of conservation of talent that causes gifted artists and creators to meet their end too soon (Mozart and Poe would also give one pause to think). More likely it is just the law of averages. But there was nothing average about Dave Stevens. His work in the medium was brief but influential.

He will be missed.

MOVIES COMICS- Spider-Man by James Cameron

Not a lot of heavy commentary on this one because I wanted to share it with you ASAP. It is truly one of the coolest things I’ve ever bumped into on the web.

About a year ago Escape Pod featured one of my most favorite stories they’ve done. Episode 105 Impossible Dreams is a rather simple and uninspired alternate universe story where a fellow periodically finds himself in a video rental store from a parallel universe. The thing that makes the story so delightful is that in this video store there is almost every movie you wish you could see but that doesn’t exist. Mention is made of Tim Burton’s Death of Superman with Nick Cage in the title roll, I, Robot with screenplay by Harlan Ellison, an entire Welles filmography including a director’s cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, and many others, all of which are available in this otherworldly rental store.

I kind of feel like I just stepped through the door of that shop myself.

In 1992, fresh from the success of the second Terminator, James Cameron was all set to start production on a Spider-Man movie. Due to a lot of Hollywood and Comicworld bickering over rights and other stuff, the project was shelved and Cameron instead did TRUE LIES. But he did get as far on the Spider-Man project as writing a script treatment that had a few deviations from comic book cannon. The treatment has been available on the web for years (along with other great scripts that were never made- such as William Gibson’s treatment of Alien 3- of which the only thing that survived into the actual movie was the idea of a character with a bar code tattoo) but lacked for images. Artist Daniele Tomasi has fixed that. His web site features a copy of Cameron’s work which he has illustrated in a very realistic style (which makes one wonder if he’s a Neal Adams/Continuity alumni). It isn’t the same as seeing the movie, but it’s pretty damn good. And the artwork is nothing short of fantastic. Why is this guy not working in comics?

I don’t remember if IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS references this particular movie that never was. But here it is as close as you’re ever going to see. I think the Spider-Man movie that we finally got is one of the top three comic book movies ever made. I was initially worried about Sam Rami (visions of the more outlandish scenes in Darkman or Spidy with a chainsaw instead of a hand) but, just as with worries about Michael Keaton as Batman, he made perhaps the best film of his career. And since we won't see Avitar for another year and a half here is what might have been. In an alternate universe, perhaps?

PERSONAL- My Best Friend

I have a best friend. He’s not a usual type of person but I guess that’s only understandable since I’m not either. His father was a professional man who was killed in a robbery attempt when he was 10 years old. The event changed his life in ways that even he is probably unable to understand. His childhood world was visited with perhaps the most feared event at that stage in someone’s life. The death of a parent. There is a period from about 6 years old to about 11, that the death of a parent is a particularly traumatic event in the life of a person. Walt Disney made a movie about it. It was called BAMBI and, when it was first released, parents took their children to see if their children would cry when Bambi’s mother is killed. My friend had this tragedy visited on him. But as Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.

(I use the old comcs icon since it was based on him)

He is perhaps the most moral person I’ve ever known. I have never known him to lie. The idea of him stealing is unthinkable to me. I’ve never known him to be malicious to anyone. That isn’t the same as saying that I’ve never known him to kick some ass. He kicks a lot of ass, a lot, actually.

He lives in this great house but rarely has visitors. And even those rare guests seldom know about the downstairs area. It’s the real heart of his living space- far more representative of his true psyche than the above ground areas. Those few invited into the above ground space- the public area as little as the word public means- admire his taste, avariciously desire his wealth, but come away thinking they have discovered something about him when they only have seen what he wants them to see.

He has had a few close relationships with women, and dates quite a bit, but he disdains any close attachments. He’s too much of a loner. He’s too much of an iconoclast. Women are drawn to him but find him incomprehensible. The more they actually get to know him the more he unnerves them.

His parents are dead but he does have a sister though. Like most people, I don’t think she really understands him. He’s a little too smart, too disciplined, too aloof, and too sure of himself for most people to really “get” him. Not to say that he isn’t gregarious, he’s hard not to like but almost impossible to really get to know. His public face is very charming but he keeps a tight hold on who he really is.

He’s the best best friend a person could ever want. I have no doubt that if I were in trouble he would be right there for me. In fact, he’s proved it time and again. There was a time just a few short months ago when I thought I was going to die and asked him to take over for me. It went against his own personal dictates but he was willing to do it anyway. I’m sure we would see more of each other but we live in different cities and the busyness of our lives prevents us from socializing very often. Still, there is seldom a week in which we don’t talk at length. He is truly the one person on the planet that I go to for council when I am faced with a dilemma. I cannot express how much I trust him.

Part of this trust is because, just as I may know him better than any other person, he knows me better than anyone else. I have no secrets from him. He knows both the best and worst of me. My history is similar to his but different. I too have known the loss of a parent. But while he had someone to take care of him, I was a mystery to both the parents I grew up with. I was also different, though I was different from the start. Not through any real effort on my part. I was born different. I grew up being bigger, stronger, smarter than any of the other children around me, or even than most of the adults. At an early age I became enamored of space and spaceflight, which led me to a lifelong affair with science. But because so many things came so easy to me I never developed the discipline that my friend has. OTOH, I’m not nearly as guarded as he is. I too have a hyperactive moral compass but I think mine is more a product of my genetic heritage. As long as I’ve been self aware I had strong convictions about right and wrong. Part of why I admire his honesty so much is that I have no choice but to be honest to a fault. It isn’t that I’m morally superior, it’s just that I don’t lie worth a damn. I can’t lie well, so I don’t. He could, but doesn’t. I have a strong streak of the messianic in me. He is more rooted in the mundane day-to-day activities of the people around him. I sometimes put people off because I am alien to them. He puts people at ease so as to attain his goals. I find that often I don’t understand what other people do. He seems to have a far better understanding of what motivates others.

I too have a secret place where I go when I want to be left alone. But most of the time I’m on public display. My regular job causes me to interact with people on a more regular and intimate level. In some ways this allows me to have a different knowledge of what people really are. But it is the clinical viewpoint of someone who is always an outsider. I help them. I save their lives frequently (that doesn’t seem to be something that motivates my friend). They see me as everything from a servant to a savior. Him they see differently. It’s a strange dichotomy. A friendship borne on similarities as well as differences. In spite of his pragmatism, I find that he shies away from ultimate sanctions. I am more practical in this way. There are some things that I find so reprehensible that they should be countered with ultimate force. I try to use this force sparingly, but knowing that it’s there, ready whenever I need it, I am not averse to leveling the ultimate sanction. I consider it a necessary evil and to be used only for ultimate evil but there are individuals who are so dangerous that they require it. My friend thinks that use of ultimate force is unthinkable. I once talked to him just prior to leveling it. He talked me out of it in that instance and, as I have come to expect, he was proved right that time.

I wish everyone had a best friend like the one I have. A couple of times I’ve thought that my romantic interest could be a best friend. They were, but there is a gap of understanding that is doubled by being of a different gender. There are, of course, far greater advantages to having a member of the opposite sex as a “best friend”. I put the term in quotes because have come to learn that there is a definite difference in the term when applied to relationships involving sex that those which don’t. Not that I’m not equipped to have profitable sexual relations with either sex. It’s more that I’m only sexually attracted to one particular sexual situation. I’ve been devoted to my romances. But none of them, even that one that is more special than any other could ever be, is like the bond I have with him.

Diana might understand. Maybe. But I could never ask her. She always thought he was a rival and not something different. Anyway…

I’m just not good at this. I’m trying to explain something profound in simple terms. My business is explaining things. I write for a living. But I am a writer that can’t put their most innermost feelings down on paper. Every other writer either bares his soul of the souls of others. I am an objective observer of the souls of everyone around me, but I can’t tell them what I see because I know they can’t understand my perspective. A purely alien perspective. Alien but not unique. Your species has known the truth, many humans have told you before I landed on this world. But you don’t listen. You didn’t listen to them and I have no reason to think you will listen to me.

That’s why I need him. He lets me know the truth about the best and worst of your species. Because he is both and all. The most in control and the most I’ve ever met completely without control. The master of the minute while being the slave of the life. He has to be the way he is. It was a decision he made a long time ago, so long ago that the point where he was still able to affect it, was still able to be different, is long past him. Still, it’s hard to fault a man for deciding to be the best and all when he was a child and then doing it. In spite of everything that he’s dealt with since then. All the sorrow. All the pain.

Pain he would, of course, never admit.

Just like I don’t admit my pain. A lot of being bulletproof is not to let them know that even if they don’t kill you, they may be hurting you. One thing life teaches everyone is that you either stick out your chest out and take it, or you cover your head and run away because it hurts. At least I learned that lesson. He learned it too. One of his call signs on the net (of which he has many, do you think someone so alone would not gravitate to an anonymous medium?) it that it’s better to let go of your pains as quickly as possible because dwelling on them isn’t helpful. He’s right. Lamenting over lost parents is a dead end as much as lamenting over a lost world.

Shame that everyone is a product of their losses as much as their victories. Maybe that’s the gift I give him. He can’t afford to admit his failures and I’ve learned that you have to do that. You have to admit that people die and there's nothing you can do about it. But you have to greet the dawn every day, not the fall of night. I have known the night, far more than his brief experience with it.

He thinks he is alone. But, except for him, I am the one that is truly alone.

COMICS and VIDEOGAMES- news that gives you the blues

(Video games artwork coming!)

A couple of miscellaneous news items that were interesting:

Microsoft has denied rumors that they are planning for a Blu-ray drive upgrade to the XBOX 360. While I normally consider anything that MS says to be of probable equal veracity to anything the current presidential administration says, this time I believe them. Not only would it be a useless upgrade for gaming (any new game dependant on the extra storage would be unplayable in the old systems and there is no reason to use BR if you don’t need the extra space because it’s more expensive). It would be a useless upgrade for watching movies (The whole idea behind the HD-DVD add on was to push the format and hurt Sony. They never sold enough to make it worth their while even with the sweetheart deal they got from the OEM. A deal they would definitely not get from Sony.) And it would be a tacit admission from MS that they lost and Sony’s tech was better. And if the other two weren’t deal killers, that one right there is. I hope I don’t live to see the day that MS has to admit that even 800 pound gorillas don’t always get their way. (I’ve already seen GM and IBM have to do it and it isn’t pretty.)

Time-Warner\Warner Bros.\DC Comics (Does Time-Warner have a parent company?) has reminded us why corporate citizenship is an idea that could only be supported by a braying jackass or a prostitute. Seems they are shutting down an original art auction on ebay because it included some images or their property. The fact that the auction was intended to benefit children with cancer didn’t seem to matter. But why would it? Corporations are soulless constructs that have no compassion and no loyalty except to their stockholders. The only way they resemble citizens is that they have an instinct for self preservation which is often overridden by greed and stupidity. They are usually right wing, but I don’t think it’s for the reasons you would suppose. You might think it’s because they want small government and minimum interference. After all, that makes sense. But I think the real reason they are right wing is because all right wingers have a single defining characteristic that sets them apart. They are blind to irony! The irony in this case is that DC doesn’t actually own the copyright to Superman. The legal hocus-pocus is too long to go into here, but read the article. Seems when Disney decided to change the term of copyright to the-life-of-Mickey-Mouse-plus-one-year they were a butterfly (an 800 pound butterfly, if you will) that flapped its wings and created a tornado for other intellectual property holders. (Frankly, I prefer the analogy Phillip Jose Farmer used for this chaos theory meme in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE WAGE- If a bear farts at the north pole does it cause a big wind in Chicago?) I’m not in favor of dynasties, and truthfully I have to say that Paul Levitz at DC has been a mench about kicking some chickenfeed back toward creators (after Neal Adams led the fight to get the creators of Superman a paltry pension in the last years of their lives) but it’s good to see a little power revert to some folks that actually knew (and share genes with) one of the two guys that invented a character that has given me so much joy throughout my life. How much better is that than having some 29 year old douchbag buy his Maserati with profits from Superman when he’s never come closer to creating something than making excrement.

MOVIES- Ferro Americans

Well, Iron Man has gone to a fast lead in the Summer Superhero Sweepstakes. Due largely to inspired casting and a snappy script. (And it being the only one out of the gate so far helps too.) Robert Downey Jr. pretty much plays his standard character, but it works. His Tony Stark is cynical, funny, and obviously has something going on upstairs. Downey adds layers to what was a rather two-dimensional character even for comic books. Gweneth Paltrow is spunky and competent as Pepper Pots (they even kept the trademark Stan Lee alliterative name). The only sour note is Jeff Bridges rather lackluster performance. Not that he was bad, he just didn’t bring anything new to a rather cliched role.

The script was full of holes but saved itself with a number of pleasing one liners. Most of the origin remained intact and the changes were better for the story than the “Tony builds an artificial heart that looks like an iron lung and decides to go ahead and turn it into a robot suit”. And it’s just as well, Iron Man has been upgraded more than any other Marvel superhero already. He started out as a guy in a flexible metal suit with repulsor rays and has grown into full exoskeletal glory. A good start to a possible franchise for Marvel. And I say keep Farveau at the helm. He isn’t a strong action director but that actually worked in the movie’s favor. And every time Iron Man is on screen somebody at ILM is doing the directing anyway.

(Also, the Stan Lee cameo is even better than his turn as Willie Lumpkin, and pay attention to the music being played at the awards benefit- its a recurring theme and hauntingly familiar.)

The trailers before the movie reminded me that summertime means superheroes nowadays. The biggest reaction was for The Dark Knight trailer, but Hellboy and Speed Racer (apparently a new two hour screening test for epilepsy) also got love from the crowd. My money’s on the Bat because Nolan got so much right the last time. But I’m looking forward to several hours at the local Cineplex this summer in spite of the fact that the picture, seats, and concessions are better in my home theater; and that I can buy any of these movies on Blu-Ray by Christmas for less than the cost of a couple of tickets and some popcorn.

(And for grown-ups that still think summertime is for frivolous entertainment but get chaffing from rubber suits, David Mamet's REDBELT looks promising. So I think I'll also find out if Mamet can turn Tim Allen into Bruce Willis some day before I go to lunch, go to lunch, just go...to...lunch.)

MOVIES- Alien vs. Predator Requiem

What did the Alien movies do to David Giler and Walter Hill to cause them to crap on them this way? Besides making them rich? Predator was always just a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger to fight something as big and ugly as he is. Your typical low-brow high-concept monster movie. But the Alien movies were something more. There were enough ideas to make the initial outing more than a simple horror movie in space- spaceship refineries, labor disputes, hypersleep, the Space Jockey, androids, the Company. You got the feeling that there was a whole society behind the incidents on the Nostromo. Excellent acting and superb direction added to the film, making it an instant classic. And what can you say about H.R. Giger’s alien designs?

Aliens, the sequel, expanded the premise to include a jump 50 years further into the future, terraforming, Colonial Marines, hundreds of aliens rather than just one, and another excellent cast and young director with real talent and something to prove. Gone were most of the contrivances of the horror genre, replaced by something more akin to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. The movie was called a roller coaster ride by many critics, and for good reason.

Alien 3 (Alien cubed in the actual title, an unintended pun) was when the wheels started coming off the wagon. Insider stories say that Sigourney Weaver was sold on the premise with the idea of “Ripley- bald!” and one wonders if that was the most thought that went into it. Another first time director and fine cast, but this time without the stellar results. “Aliens in prison” might have been another attempt to fuse the series with an older movie staple (women in prison films?) or was perhaps a return to the franchise’s roots by trying for a haunted house with aliens motif. Whatever the initial idea, the movie made several serious mistakes. It summarily disposed of Newt and Hicks, characters that the audience had bonded with, without even giving them a noble death. It tried to go for a less-is-more philosophy when it came to the alien, which didn’t work after the battle scenes of the second film. It tried to build suspense but only accomplished being painfully slow. And, worst of all, it wasn’t scary. The most frightening scenes in the movie involved close-ups of needles being sunk into flesh. For that kind of fright you can just hang out at the local clinic to watch the preschoolers getting their inoculations. (In fact, the heart-rending screams that accompany such an activity might actually make it better for the horror connoisseur.) There were good ideas. That the alien bonded on a genetic level with whatever host the face hugger found was one. Another one was the death of Ripley. But for the most part the inspiration was too scant.

Alien 4 was an odd duck that tried to meld both the Space Truckers idea of the first movie and the Colonial Marines of the second. It jumps 200 more years into the future and adds a few ideas of its own- cloning, more intelligent aliens, and the further evolution of the alien creature itself. Again the cast is not the problem, and in this case neither is the script or direction. But it seems like it was just too much of a good thing. Alien fatigue had set in. And what fans really wanted was for the Aliens to reach earth. It had been hinted at in an early teaser trailer for Alien 3, but the idea had been abandoned during pre-production. The readers of the Aliens comic book had seen both the aliens on earth and a real expansion of the ideas in the first and second film- a grown up Newt, Hicks dealing with PTSD and the toll of severe acid burns, who the space jockey was and why he was hauling a shipload of aliens across the universe before he crashed. None of these themes were dealt with. Instead the audience was given what amounted to just another Alien episode.

Then came Alien vs. Predator. Having missed the boat on doing what comics had done with the franchise this time the producers decided to outright steal an idea from the comics. Unfortunately, once again this was where the ideas stopped. The aliens finally reach earth but we learn that they did it thousands of years ago. So did the predators, who built a giant pyramid under the ice at the south pole. We see the founder of Weyland-Yutani, who happens to look just like the android of the second film. We take a group of disparate adventurers into the pyramid and mass carnage ensues. But again there is no real science fiction to be found. The series has degenerated to being an old fashioned monster movie. As a result Alien vs. Predator more closely resembles Frankenstein Meets Dracula than the first two movies.

So now we finally come to AVP Requiem. Now all pretense of science fiction has been abandoned. It is set in the present, the Predator ship crashes into the Rocky Mountains, it has aliens on board. That’s a complete plot synopsis, by the way. Characters are established. Some of them live, others don’t. Nobody is given anything even remotely interesting to do. Nothing is added to the cannon. The most interesting shot in the move it right at the beginning and is stolen from a McFarline toys action figure. And at the end you realize that among the casualties were two hours from your own life. Funny thing is, that isn’t the most annoying thing about the movie. The most annoying thing is that you can’t see what the hell is happening anyway. The movie is DARK. And not in a metaphorical sense. It’s just plain not lit! The whole thing seems to have been shot with only the headlights of a car for lighting. Did the cinematographer stare at the sun too long when he was a child? Are the film makers so ashamed at the lack of an interesting script that they didn’t want to show you what was (or wasn’t) happening? You can’t see the alien, the predator, anything. There’s one scene in a diner and it even it looks like it’s lit by candles. And then halfway through the movie the predator blows up the local power station and it gets even darker. At this point you’re making fun of the thing anyway so it doesn’t matter. I saw the movie on Blu-ray and even that didn’t help. I imagine on regular DVD its close to indecipherable for much of the time.

But watch the special features on the disk. The “making of” featurettes are a great piece of unintentional comedy. It’s like watching a modern Ed Wood talk about his latest masterpiece. Early on John Ortiz says “Holy shit! I’m in an alien movie” and several folks in the room shouted “A SHITTY ONE” in unison. Less than a minute later another actor says that the movie is “kind of a metaphor for… what if something awful happened in your home town?” “Like they made you watch this movie!” Honestly, this stuff writes itself. The production vignettes go on like that for almost an hour. Everybody talks like they have made a cinematic masterpiece and everybody is apparently unaware that the movie stinks. There are also TWO commentary tracks! One has the sibling directorial team, Cliff Claven Strause and his brother Henchman 23 Strause, and the other has some other accomplices to the murder of the Alien series. I didn’t listen to the commentaries since I had enough pompous self-congratulation to last me for awhile. Perhaps that was a mistake. Maybe they describe what’s happening on screen that you can’t see BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS TOO FUCKING DARK!

So, goodbye Alien franchise. Lets hope they don’t resurrect you again until Ridley Scott or James Cameron decide to come back. Hell, even Fincher has redeemed himself since his time at the helm (though he’s a little too uneven to be classed with the other two alumni). Or maybe they could get Chris Cunningham to direct. Give the guy a shot, he couldn’t do any worse.

MOVIES- The Dark Nut

This is making the rounds online from the folks at College Humor. It is a bit uncanny. So much so that you have to wonder whether its an homage to the original Tim Burton trailer.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Gonna be a good summer for comic book movies at least. Iron Man releases tomorrow and will stand or fall on Robert Downey Jr's performance. But if there was an inspired piece of casting, then Downey as Tony Stark is it. In further casting of actors with real chops to play comic book characters, Edward Norton is in the Hulk. I have higher hopes for Iron Man, partly because we've seen it done so many times before. (Starting in the 70's on TV!)

But the really anticipated comic movie and real actor casting has got to be Christian Bale's reprise of Batman. Despite a few misteps, Batman Begins has to be in the top three comic movies of all time. I'm anxious to see what Christopher Nolan has in store.