Today begins the blog tour for Indie Writers Monthly, which you should be following if you're reading this blog. Anyway, today the blog is at Heather's Sizzling Hot YA Books http://sizzlinghotyabooks.com/
Look for more stops in the future
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There have been a couple of books I've read in the last year that brought me to the same conclusion: a medical condition is not a substitute for characterization.
The first book I remember that made me think this was Thrilled to Death by LJ Sellers. It was a pretty cookie cutter police procedural. I forget what exactly Detective Jackson's problem was, something to do with his heart or liver. Anyway, other than that ailment there was nothing notable about him. And the fact I can't remember the ailment shows that wasn't very memorable either.
Then recently I read this book called The Universe Versus Alex Woods. It sounded like a quirky book of self-discovery. Instead it was "Tuesdays With Morrie--UK Version." Anyway, to substitute for a personality Alex has epilepsy thanks to getting bonked by a meteor. He ends up meeting this old guy named Mr. Peterson who it ends up has some long-named neurological ailment.
I think authors (especially crappy authors) do this because they think it makes their character interesting. It's something neat to put in the blurb: Bob, suffering from rectal cancer, has to find the killer before it's too late! But the fact Bob has rectal cancer doesn't make him interesting. Just like Detective Jackson's ailment didn't make him memorable and Alex Woods's epilepsy didn't make him interesting.
You can use a disease effectively. Like Breaking Bad for instance, where Walter White has cancer. But that's because they didn't use the cancer as a crutch for the character's personality. Really the cancer was more of a catalyst, the thing that allowed Walter to begin his dark odyssey of self-destruction. I like to think that's what I do with Chance of a Lifetime where at the start Steve Fischer is a fairly cliche hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective. Then he becomes a young woman, which I like to think is the catalyst for her journey, not the sole defining point. And the same with the heroes/heroines of the Girl Power series.
So using an affliction isn't always bad. The problem is when your character is otherwise a cliche, like the typical police detective--only he has a bad heart and/or liver! Or the precocious kid--only he has epilepsy! That's the kind of stuff that makes me go, "Yeah, so?" It's a shortcut I advise authors not to take. Because as I said in my Alex Woods review, if medical conditions made someone interesting, I'd be as popular as Oprah. Since I'm not a billionaire with my own cable network, clearly that's not the case. So try harder, authors.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Movie Catchup
In case you don't remember, I watch a lot of movies. Yet like books even though I've read a lot of books compared to the average American there are still plenty I haven't read and someone on Twitter will always mention some author I've never even heard of like that person is a bigshot, which then makes me feel dumb. Anyway, I reviewed a couple of movies I watched already but here are some others:
Elysium: The message is as subtle as a two-by-four to the head and it's ironic you have a bunch of multi-millionaires saying rich people are bad. But the robot suits are pretty neat. After this and "District 9" I'd have rather had Neil Blomkamp doing the new Star Wars than JJ Abrams, but whatever. (3/5)
Ender's Game: Action-wise it's OK but drags a little. I read the book like 13 years ago so I don't remember how well it compares, though I think the character of Bean was almost all wrong. And Harrison Ford cashes another paycheck. I guess that alimony must be expensive. (2.5/5)
The Heat: This was supposed to be a buddy cop movie only with two women instead of two dudes. It dragged on soooo looooong that it became annoying. Seriously, comedies should be around 90 minutes, not over 2 freaking hours. (2/5)
White House Down: Basically "Olympus Has Fallen" with more humor and a slightly more plausible takeover of the White House. Again a little too long. (2.5/5)
Getaway: Ethan Hawke is an American in Bulgaria (WTF?) who has to drive around reenacting "Speed" in a new Mustang. They even reuse the bit from "Speed" where they loop video in the car to fool the bad guy. Oy vey. (1.5/5)
Escape Plan: Sly Stallone and Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger cash paychecks as two old criminals trying to escape from a weird prison on a boat run by the guy who played Jesus in "Passion of the Christ." Mayhem ensues. (2.5/5)
The Family: What I learned: peanut butter is hard to find in France (Buy it off Amazon, geniuses.) and Michelle Pfeiffer is still alive. Robert de Niro cashes a paycheck playing a caricature of every gangster role he's done and Tommy Lee Jones plays a caricature of his "The Fugitive" role. Much yawning ensues. (1/5)
Wreck-It Ralph: I don't usually watch animated kid's movies but when I do they reference old video games. I would have liked more references and less time spent in Candy Crush Land. But still it was a lot of fun. (5/5)
Blue is the Warmest Color: It's French and it's 3 hours long, but it's about hot lesbians and features a lot of graphic sex, so time flies. But like my book "Where You Belong" it illustrates that yes gay people have the same relationship problems as straight people. (5/5)
Cloud Atlas: I'd probably need to watch this a few times to figure it out, but at over 3 hours I'm not going to. It's creepy and kind of racist I suppose when white actors like Tom Hanks or Hugo Weaving play future Asian versions of themselves or whatever. Anyway, I'm sure the book would make more sense. (2.5/5)
Contraband: Marky Mark Wahlberg is going straight but of course there's one last job to lure him back into smuggling stuff in a container ship. Mayhem ensues. (2.5/5)
42: The Jackie Robinson story reminding you that racism was around before Donald Sterling and his girlfriend. Still it's probably the best baseball movie not involving Kevin Costner in decades. (5/5)
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: Argh this was sooooo boring. And I was perpetually distracted by the main girl's bushy black eyebrows with dark red hair. Really big time Hollywood make-up artist, you couldn't do anything about that? Other than that it's like every YA paranormal cliche strung together. (0/5)
Nebraska: A delusional old guy goes on the road with his son to cash what he thinks is a winning lottery ticket. It gets stuck a little too long in one town where the old guy grew up, but otherwise a lot of this felt very close to home. (5/5)
Justice League War: It's basically a retelling of the first volume of New 52 Justice League comics, only poor Aquaman is replaced by Captain Marvel or Shazam. Darkseid shows up and Earth's Mightiest Heroes (DC Version) get together to stop him. Mayhem ensues. (3/5)
Oldboy: Spike Lee cashes a paycheck remaking a Korean thriller about a guy (Josh Brolin) who's abducted and locked away in a prison that looks like a Motel 6 room for 20 years. Then he's mysteriously released to track down who put him there. Some creepy Game of Thrones-type shit ensues. Or if you're familiar with Oedipus it's sorta like that. Weird and too long. Maybe the Korean version is better? It'd have to be. (1/5)
The Counselor: You'd think when you team up Pulitzer-winning Cormac McCarthy with Ridley Scott and cast the likes of Michael Fassbender and Javier Bardem you'd get a really good movie. You'd be wrong. McCarthy's dialog was so pathetic, full of stupid philosophizing that never sounds real at all. The only cool thing was this machine they have that you put around someone's neck and it slowly cuts their head off. No matter how you fight against it, you can't stop it because the line is made of diamond or adamantium or vibranium or something. It would have been awesome on "Breaking Bad." In this, not so much. (0.5/5)
12 Years a Slave: A free black man in the 1840s or so makes the mistake of going with some white guys to DC. He's sold as a slave for you guessed it--12 years. I guess there was already an 80s version starring Avery "Captain Benjamin Sisko" Brooks, which might be interesting to watch to compare. For Michael Offutt, basically what happens to the guy is like what happens to Theon Greyjoy only without the gelding. Anyway, slavery is bad in case you didn't realize that. (4/5)
Prisoners: Someone kidnaps Wolverine's daughter but unfortunately Hugh Jackman doesn't have Wolverine's keen smelling abilities or this movie would mercifully have been much shorter. It's not as stupid as "The Lovely Bones" but it's close. (2/5)
Saving Mr. Banks: Andrew Leon said this originally was not a Disney project and I wish they hadn't assimilated it because then it might have had a little more edge. There's a nice moral but it's all too nice and well-mannered really. Only Colin Farrell as the lady's father gets close to doing anything PG-13 rated. I'm sure another studio wouldn't have homogenized it to the point of blandness. (3.5/5)
Closed Circuit: Two English lawyers (who aren't really English, at least Eric Bana is Australian) get involved in a case about a terrorist. Britain has some weird legal thing where the male lawyer is supposed to represent the guy in a public trial and his former lover represents the guy in a secret trial. Or that's what's supposed to happen but doesn't so the whole thing is as pointless as those stupid old-timey costumes they wear in court. (2/5)
Carrie: Did you see the original from the '70s? Good then you don't need to see this as it's almost a shot-for-shot remake. Other than a new soundtrack about the only new thing added was putting the "plug it up" incident on YouTube. And appreciate the irony of poor defenseless Carrie being played by the girl who was previously Hit Girl in the Kick-Ass movies. (0/5)
Captain Phillips: It takes a little while to get going, but the ending is really taut and fraught with tension. Even though you know Phillips gets rescued (oh, spoiler alert, he doesn't die) I still couldn't feel like anyone was safe. I thought Tom Hanks really nailed Phillips' attitude after he's rescued, the way he's all freaked out and disoriented yet still trying to be polite and somewhat normal. How awesome are Navy SEALs, though? They save Captain Phillips and kill bin Laden. Suck it Delta Force and Green Berets. (4.5/5)
Philomena: It's a little uneven, sometimes veering to comedy in how the old Irish lady (Judi Dench) is so clueless about the modern world while other times veering into drama with the plight of the "Magdalene Girls" who were essentially enslaved to nuns in Ireland. There's an older movie I think called "Magdalene Girls" if you want more of a focus on what actually went on in those concentration camps, er, abbeys. (4/5)
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher: The Punisher kills a bunch of bad guys SHIELD was going after, so he's forced into helping Black Widow find some intel on some gang making super soldiers. There were some times it wore on a little too long, like when Black Widow and this bad guy she used to date spend like 10 minutes saying how much they loved each other--we get it already, you loved each other! Iron Man, the Hulk, and Captain Marvel (Marvel version) get cameos. (2.5/5)
Out of the Furnace: A much-too-long drama in rural Pennsylvania where the former Batman (Christian Bale) and the future Batman's brother (Casey Affleck) are brothers until Affleck gets himself killed after some illegal bare-knuckle fighting in the redneck part of Jersey. (There's a redneck part of Jersey? I thought they were all like the Jersey Shore people.) And then very slowly Batman takes revenge on Woody Harrellson. (You know if they want another Joker, Woody Harrellson would probably be good at it. I'm just saying.) For some reason Forest Whittaker as the police chief talks in a growly Mr. T voice. And Zoe Saldana cashes a paycheck as the woman, because we need a woman even if she contributes absolutely nothing to the plot. (2.5)
American Hustle: I thought of seeing this in the theater but never got the chance. I wasn't disappointed. I might have given this the Best Picture Oscar as entertainment-wise it's better than 12 Years A Slave, though social message-wise not as much. The former Batman (again Christian Bale), Lois Lane (Amy Adams), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and sometimes Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) try to ensnare Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in a bribery scandal that soon spins out of their control. Robert de Niro makes an uncredited appearance as yet another gangster character. In the credits they refer to "Mr. Tellegio's dresser" and such as if we don't know who Robert de Niro is, because we haven't watched movies in 40 fucking years. Anyway it was a lot of fun as con artist capers usually are--or should be. (5/5)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The only one of these I've watched in a theater. I thought in some ways it was better than "The Avengers" because it actually has more of a story. I'm sure you've all seen it so I'll just say I really liked it and hope for more. (5/5)
X: This had everything I wanted in a late Saturday night movie: violence and gratuitous nudity. It was a surprisingly decent thriller about two Australian hookers in Sydney. One is a hot blond who's been in the business for a while and is taking one last job before she goes off to Paris. For this job she needs a brunette so when she runs into a young girl who's come to the big city to make some money selling her body, it seems like a perfect match. Except the job ends with the john being murdered by a dirty cop and then the hookers are on the run. I suppose part of the reason I liked it was I kept thinking the brunette would make a perfect Stacey Chance. I wonder what her agent's number is? (3/5)
(Incidentally it's really dumb to use only a single letter for your title. I mean let's say one of you wants to actually watch this movie; there's no way in Hell you can find it because you type "X" into a search box and you'll get thousands of results. The only way I found it was scrolling through the newly added movies on Amazon Instant Video. This is why I caution authors about using one-word titles, which seems the in thing to do thanks to Twilight and the like.
Apparently they realized this as looking it up on IMDB via one of the actresses' names they tacked on the subtitle "Night of Vengeance" which made it a little easier to find on Amazon.)
Student Bodies: Another late Saturday night selection that disappointingly did not feature gratuitous nudity but feature some violence. It's a 1981 horror movie spoof where a would-be Michael Myers known as "The Breather" stalks high school kids having sex and murders them. Then he calls the school, talking through a rubber chicken. Um, yeah. It's amusing, though not really as good as a Mel Brooks movie. (2.5/5) Though it's funny that apparently in 1981 a single f-bomb got you an R-rating. Nowadays that's only true for dramas; action and horror movies would only get a PG-13 rating.
Rush: This was better than I thought it might be. Though I'm not sure who they thought would actually be interested in this movie. If it hadn't been Ron Howard and Brian Glazer at the helm it probably never would have been made. I mean if a nobody like me were pitching this movie it'd be like:
Me: So it's this movie about 2 race car drivers...
Exec: NASCAR? Because that's big.
Me: No, Formula One (aka the European version of Indy Car)
Exec: Um, OK and these two drivers, is one a woman or something? Cuz I got Katherine Heigl's agent on speed dial here...
Me: No, it's two guys. One's British and one's Austrian...
Exec: Austrian? Like Schwarzenegger? So it's an action movie?
Me: Well, sort of. But really it's about the complex relationship between these two rivals...
Exec: I don't see any money in this. What else you got?
I think I'm only exaggerating that a little bit. It's another example of prior success giving you carte blanche to make movies about early 60s folksingers or mid-70s Formula 1 drivers or other stuff no one really gives a shit about. (3/5)
The Fifth Estate: It's funny that this movie co-stars Daniel Bruhl, who was the Austrian driver in Rush and I inadvertently got them at the same time. Anyway, this movie was slow and there's really not much drama to drive it. They gamely try by focusing on a rift that grows between Assange and his right-hand-man Daniel Berg as well as later Dr. Bashir as a Libyan scientist who faces death when Wikilinks outs him. But the end hardly bothers to deal with Assange's tryst in Sweden that led to a warrant for his arrest and flight from the authorities, relegating it to a word card and reenacted interview footage. Um, maybe that was sort of important? A movie about journalism really shouldn't bury a lead. (2/5) (BTW for David Walston the new Doctor has a minor role as a UK newspaper editor! So there's that.)
The Guest House: An Avril Lavigne-type kid (spoiled suburban girl who tries to act all Goth to piss off Daddy but then sings shitty Disney Channel pop) is home alone one weekend until an older girl shows up to stay in the guest house for the summer. They start hanging out and blah blah blah finally kiss and then fuck. To get all pervy on this, the cliche ridden script and wooden acting would have been tolerable if there had been some decent nudity but when they fuck the camera gets all shy and they keep their bras on. It's like come on, I can see more watching Game of Thrones, consarnit. What, you think you're making an "art" film here? Anyway there's some message about following your dreams and stuff but if my dream ends up with me playing crappy Disney Channel pop in a shithole nightclub in San Francisco then maybe it's time for a new dream. (1/5)
Riddick: Whenever Vin Diesel's popularity ticks back up we get another Riddick movie. I haven't actually watched the first two, though I watched parts of the second one--enough to realize it sucked. Through some overly complicated means Riddick ends up stranded on a harsh planet where he has to fight a bunch of weird creatures and ends up domesticating a jackal-type thing. Then he finds a mercenary rest stop and sends out a distress call, which brings a bunch of people who want to kill him. But when the planet starts trying to kill everyone, they have to work together. I'm never sure if Riddick is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. It is the kind of movie where you have no idea who to root for. Really this wants to be one of the Alien movies but fails miserably. The overly complicated flashback to get Riddick to the planet could have been shortened Alien 3-style to where he crashes on the planet and of course is the lone survivor. But at least we get some gratuitous nudity out of the flashback. (More than the movie above.) Anyway, this might be one of the most pointless "trilogies" ever, along with "The Hangover" movies. But if you watched the Battlestar Galactica reboot and wanted to see Starbucks's boobs, there's that. (I didn't so I didn't but whatever.) (1/5)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: According to Andrew Leon this varies wildly from the short story by James Thurber. Anyway, this is probably Ben Stiller's most serious movie (as a director at least) since Reality Bites like 20 years ago. He plays the titular character who works for Life magazine and has to find an old school photographer to get a photo for the last issue. To do this he goes to Iceland, Greeland, and Afghanistan. As much as it seems to say you should go see the world, the movie seems to delight in making the rest of the world look as provincial as possible. Apparently we could win the war in Afghanistan if we mailed them over some clementine cake instead of bullets. While Stiller is trying to think some big thoughts here it really does just fall back on that hackneyed "follow your dreams" stuff. Not to say it's not entertaining, just not a great film. (2.5/5)
Dallas Buyer's Club: From the title I thought this was about prostitution or something. Actually it's about a guy (Oscar winner Matthew McConaghuey) with AIDS who starts a "club" for fellow AIDS patients to buy vitamins and drugs they need to deal with their symptoms. This brings trouble with the FDA, who are in the pockets of Big Pharma, who are pushing AZT, designed in the 60s as a cancer drug. The problem with AZT is by itself in large doses it fries a person's innards. I think since the 80s they've learned better how to use AZT in treatments, in part thanks to people who took on the FDA. I was relieved this didn't turn into a courtroom drama and overall it was entertaining. And the way he's diagnosed with AIDS was similar to how Frost's roommate Pete finds out in Where You Belong. (4/5)
Homefront: It's pretty much what you'd expect from a movie starring Jason Statham and written by Sly Stallone. Statham is inexplicably a British guy who was in the DEA but then moves with his young daughter to the backcountry of Louisiana, where he runs afoul of an unrecognizable Kate Bosworth, whose brother James Franco is a local meth kingpin. A lot of improbable white guy kung-fu fights and gun battles ensue. (2.5/5)
47 Ronin: This story was a lot simpler when an old French guy told it to Robert de Niro in "Ronin." Basically the master of 47 samurai is killed so they become masterless warriors known as Ronin and then go take vengeance. In this movie it's like they mixed that original story with "The Princess Bride" as the seemingly dead heroes have to go rescue the princess before she marries an evil jerk. Briane Pagel would not like this movie because of the scene featuring a creepy purple spider. Though if having one brown eye and one blue gives you magic powers that might explain how Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer won the Cy Young last year. (2/5)
A Dominatrix Story: This is one of those titles like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Sharknado" that scrolling through movies late at night it's hard to pass up. But I wish I had because it was really, really BORING. Most of it is some frumpy middle-aged chick hooking up with some lame mediocre painter. There's very little dominatrixing involved except she uses it on a couple of dudes who maybe helped kill her father or adopted father or something. There's a tacked-on car chase and gun battle but by then it's much too late for me to care. It makes sense why the original title was apparently "Justify." I suppose some marketing genius changed it after the fact, but if you're going to use a provocative title like that the movie behind it has to deliver the goods. (0/5)
Galaxy of Dinosaurs: In the early 90s "Lance Randas" and a group of terrible "actors" in the wilds of Ohio spent $1500 making a movie that makes Ed Wood look like a genius. They literally splice together footage of the people in Ohio with 50s-vintage claymation dinosaur footage. It results in possibly unintentional hilarity like when one guy backs into what's clearly a branch that becomes a triceratops horn. Later someone else throws what's clearly a stick that becomes a spear. The Ohio terrain and the mountainous background of the dinosaurs clearly don't match. And the "story" makes very little sense. Really I think this is so bad not even MST3K would touch it. (5/5 on the cheesiness scale)
I, Frankenstein: On a list of known actors, Aaron Eckhart would be pretty far down there on my choice to play the Frankenstein monster. Really I think you need someone big and musclebound like the Rock or Vin Diesel or some WWE wrestler. Maybe they were busy. Anyway the Frankenstein monster is still around in the 21st Century and is recruited by gargoyles to kill demons, who want to use Frankenstein's technique to reanimate corpses for a demon army. Mayhem ensues. (2/5)
The Book Thief: Sometimes I wonder if the world needs yet another movie about Nazi atrocities, but then you hear how growing numbers of people don't believe the Holocaust happened or have no idea what World War II was. So I guess we need to keep pounding the message home. This doesn't actually focus on the Holocaust, but rather an orphaned girl in Germany who at first is pretty much illiterate but with some help from her foster father (Geoffrey Rusch) she learns to read and then starts to "borrow" books from the burgermeister's wife. At one point the family hides a Jewish guy in their basement. I suppose there haven't been all that many movies focusing on the German homefront, which between the brutal Nazi policies, rationing, and Allied bombing was anything but a picnic. I thought from the title she'd steal more books from the book burnings, but she only takes one after a bunch of books have been burned. Overall it's kind of slow and the idea of DEATH narrating was pretty lame, especially since I kept thinking he sounded like Kevin Spacey in "House of Cards" though it was someone else's voice. But I guess if you're one of those who can't be bothered to watch older movies like "Schindler's List" then you might find this fresh. (3/5)
Bonus: TV shows I've watched:
Parks & Recreation: I really enjoyed this show, though the first season of six episodes isn't as great. It seems after that season they decided to dial down Leslie Knope's stupidity and make her more naive instead of dumb, which really works better. Though my favorite character is Ron Swanson; I would seriously have a Claymore mine at my desk if I could find one. It's not the best show ever, but it's usually pretty funny. (4/5)
Star Wars The Clone Wars: They added this to Netflix (along with an exclusive 6th season) so since I didn't have anything else to watch I started watching it. Some of the first episodes aren't great but eventually it starts to get better. I like how even though the clones are all based on the same person they find ways to make them different and give them different names and personalities so they aren't just cannon fodder. Actually some of the best episodes revolve around the clones becoming more human, like the one where scouts Waxer and Boil find a little girl on the Twi'lek planet Ryloth and she helps them save the planet. Or the one where Captain Rex runs into a deserter who's started a whole family with a Twi'lek chick on an Outer Rim world. Unfortunately there's still Jar-Jar (who manages to be more annoying) but like the last two movies he's sparingly used, and there's still occasionally the Viceroy, and the droids who seem like they were programmed by the Marx brothers. But Anakin is less of a whiny bitch and Obi-Wan is still the best Jedi character. Though it's animated and aired on the Cartoon Network, it's not really for kids what with all the violence, clone troopers dying left and right and such. Really though I think this show manages to be better than its source material at times--probably because it's not written or directed by George Lucas. (3/5)
I also watched the Clone Wars movie that led into the show. They just kind of throw you into it, expecting you to already know who Ventress is and stuff like that. It felt a little on the long side, but it was Jar-Jar free so it's got that going for it. (2.5/5)
Elysium: The message is as subtle as a two-by-four to the head and it's ironic you have a bunch of multi-millionaires saying rich people are bad. But the robot suits are pretty neat. After this and "District 9" I'd have rather had Neil Blomkamp doing the new Star Wars than JJ Abrams, but whatever. (3/5)
Ender's Game: Action-wise it's OK but drags a little. I read the book like 13 years ago so I don't remember how well it compares, though I think the character of Bean was almost all wrong. And Harrison Ford cashes another paycheck. I guess that alimony must be expensive. (2.5/5)
The Heat: This was supposed to be a buddy cop movie only with two women instead of two dudes. It dragged on soooo looooong that it became annoying. Seriously, comedies should be around 90 minutes, not over 2 freaking hours. (2/5)
White House Down: Basically "Olympus Has Fallen" with more humor and a slightly more plausible takeover of the White House. Again a little too long. (2.5/5)
Getaway: Ethan Hawke is an American in Bulgaria (WTF?) who has to drive around reenacting "Speed" in a new Mustang. They even reuse the bit from "Speed" where they loop video in the car to fool the bad guy. Oy vey. (1.5/5)
Escape Plan: Sly Stallone and Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger cash paychecks as two old criminals trying to escape from a weird prison on a boat run by the guy who played Jesus in "Passion of the Christ." Mayhem ensues. (2.5/5)
The Family: What I learned: peanut butter is hard to find in France (Buy it off Amazon, geniuses.) and Michelle Pfeiffer is still alive. Robert de Niro cashes a paycheck playing a caricature of every gangster role he's done and Tommy Lee Jones plays a caricature of his "The Fugitive" role. Much yawning ensues. (1/5)
Wreck-It Ralph: I don't usually watch animated kid's movies but when I do they reference old video games. I would have liked more references and less time spent in Candy Crush Land. But still it was a lot of fun. (5/5)
Blue is the Warmest Color: It's French and it's 3 hours long, but it's about hot lesbians and features a lot of graphic sex, so time flies. But like my book "Where You Belong" it illustrates that yes gay people have the same relationship problems as straight people. (5/5)
Cloud Atlas: I'd probably need to watch this a few times to figure it out, but at over 3 hours I'm not going to. It's creepy and kind of racist I suppose when white actors like Tom Hanks or Hugo Weaving play future Asian versions of themselves or whatever. Anyway, I'm sure the book would make more sense. (2.5/5)
Contraband: Marky Mark Wahlberg is going straight but of course there's one last job to lure him back into smuggling stuff in a container ship. Mayhem ensues. (2.5/5)
42: The Jackie Robinson story reminding you that racism was around before Donald Sterling and his girlfriend. Still it's probably the best baseball movie not involving Kevin Costner in decades. (5/5)
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: Argh this was sooooo boring. And I was perpetually distracted by the main girl's bushy black eyebrows with dark red hair. Really big time Hollywood make-up artist, you couldn't do anything about that? Other than that it's like every YA paranormal cliche strung together. (0/5)
Nebraska: A delusional old guy goes on the road with his son to cash what he thinks is a winning lottery ticket. It gets stuck a little too long in one town where the old guy grew up, but otherwise a lot of this felt very close to home. (5/5)
Justice League War: It's basically a retelling of the first volume of New 52 Justice League comics, only poor Aquaman is replaced by Captain Marvel or Shazam. Darkseid shows up and Earth's Mightiest Heroes (DC Version) get together to stop him. Mayhem ensues. (3/5)
Oldboy: Spike Lee cashes a paycheck remaking a Korean thriller about a guy (Josh Brolin) who's abducted and locked away in a prison that looks like a Motel 6 room for 20 years. Then he's mysteriously released to track down who put him there. Some creepy Game of Thrones-type shit ensues. Or if you're familiar with Oedipus it's sorta like that. Weird and too long. Maybe the Korean version is better? It'd have to be. (1/5)
The Counselor: You'd think when you team up Pulitzer-winning Cormac McCarthy with Ridley Scott and cast the likes of Michael Fassbender and Javier Bardem you'd get a really good movie. You'd be wrong. McCarthy's dialog was so pathetic, full of stupid philosophizing that never sounds real at all. The only cool thing was this machine they have that you put around someone's neck and it slowly cuts their head off. No matter how you fight against it, you can't stop it because the line is made of diamond or adamantium or vibranium or something. It would have been awesome on "Breaking Bad." In this, not so much. (0.5/5)
12 Years a Slave: A free black man in the 1840s or so makes the mistake of going with some white guys to DC. He's sold as a slave for you guessed it--12 years. I guess there was already an 80s version starring Avery "Captain Benjamin Sisko" Brooks, which might be interesting to watch to compare. For Michael Offutt, basically what happens to the guy is like what happens to Theon Greyjoy only without the gelding. Anyway, slavery is bad in case you didn't realize that. (4/5)
Prisoners: Someone kidnaps Wolverine's daughter but unfortunately Hugh Jackman doesn't have Wolverine's keen smelling abilities or this movie would mercifully have been much shorter. It's not as stupid as "The Lovely Bones" but it's close. (2/5)
Saving Mr. Banks: Andrew Leon said this originally was not a Disney project and I wish they hadn't assimilated it because then it might have had a little more edge. There's a nice moral but it's all too nice and well-mannered really. Only Colin Farrell as the lady's father gets close to doing anything PG-13 rated. I'm sure another studio wouldn't have homogenized it to the point of blandness. (3.5/5)
Closed Circuit: Two English lawyers (who aren't really English, at least Eric Bana is Australian) get involved in a case about a terrorist. Britain has some weird legal thing where the male lawyer is supposed to represent the guy in a public trial and his former lover represents the guy in a secret trial. Or that's what's supposed to happen but doesn't so the whole thing is as pointless as those stupid old-timey costumes they wear in court. (2/5)
Carrie: Did you see the original from the '70s? Good then you don't need to see this as it's almost a shot-for-shot remake. Other than a new soundtrack about the only new thing added was putting the "plug it up" incident on YouTube. And appreciate the irony of poor defenseless Carrie being played by the girl who was previously Hit Girl in the Kick-Ass movies. (0/5)
Captain Phillips: It takes a little while to get going, but the ending is really taut and fraught with tension. Even though you know Phillips gets rescued (oh, spoiler alert, he doesn't die) I still couldn't feel like anyone was safe. I thought Tom Hanks really nailed Phillips' attitude after he's rescued, the way he's all freaked out and disoriented yet still trying to be polite and somewhat normal. How awesome are Navy SEALs, though? They save Captain Phillips and kill bin Laden. Suck it Delta Force and Green Berets. (4.5/5)
Philomena: It's a little uneven, sometimes veering to comedy in how the old Irish lady (Judi Dench) is so clueless about the modern world while other times veering into drama with the plight of the "Magdalene Girls" who were essentially enslaved to nuns in Ireland. There's an older movie I think called "Magdalene Girls" if you want more of a focus on what actually went on in those concentration camps, er, abbeys. (4/5)
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher: The Punisher kills a bunch of bad guys SHIELD was going after, so he's forced into helping Black Widow find some intel on some gang making super soldiers. There were some times it wore on a little too long, like when Black Widow and this bad guy she used to date spend like 10 minutes saying how much they loved each other--we get it already, you loved each other! Iron Man, the Hulk, and Captain Marvel (Marvel version) get cameos. (2.5/5)
Out of the Furnace: A much-too-long drama in rural Pennsylvania where the former Batman (Christian Bale) and the future Batman's brother (Casey Affleck) are brothers until Affleck gets himself killed after some illegal bare-knuckle fighting in the redneck part of Jersey. (There's a redneck part of Jersey? I thought they were all like the Jersey Shore people.) And then very slowly Batman takes revenge on Woody Harrellson. (You know if they want another Joker, Woody Harrellson would probably be good at it. I'm just saying.) For some reason Forest Whittaker as the police chief talks in a growly Mr. T voice. And Zoe Saldana cashes a paycheck as the woman, because we need a woman even if she contributes absolutely nothing to the plot. (2.5)
American Hustle: I thought of seeing this in the theater but never got the chance. I wasn't disappointed. I might have given this the Best Picture Oscar as entertainment-wise it's better than 12 Years A Slave, though social message-wise not as much. The former Batman (again Christian Bale), Lois Lane (Amy Adams), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and sometimes Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) try to ensnare Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in a bribery scandal that soon spins out of their control. Robert de Niro makes an uncredited appearance as yet another gangster character. In the credits they refer to "Mr. Tellegio's dresser" and such as if we don't know who Robert de Niro is, because we haven't watched movies in 40 fucking years. Anyway it was a lot of fun as con artist capers usually are--or should be. (5/5)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The only one of these I've watched in a theater. I thought in some ways it was better than "The Avengers" because it actually has more of a story. I'm sure you've all seen it so I'll just say I really liked it and hope for more. (5/5)
X: This had everything I wanted in a late Saturday night movie: violence and gratuitous nudity. It was a surprisingly decent thriller about two Australian hookers in Sydney. One is a hot blond who's been in the business for a while and is taking one last job before she goes off to Paris. For this job she needs a brunette so when she runs into a young girl who's come to the big city to make some money selling her body, it seems like a perfect match. Except the job ends with the john being murdered by a dirty cop and then the hookers are on the run. I suppose part of the reason I liked it was I kept thinking the brunette would make a perfect Stacey Chance. I wonder what her agent's number is? (3/5)
(Incidentally it's really dumb to use only a single letter for your title. I mean let's say one of you wants to actually watch this movie; there's no way in Hell you can find it because you type "X" into a search box and you'll get thousands of results. The only way I found it was scrolling through the newly added movies on Amazon Instant Video. This is why I caution authors about using one-word titles, which seems the in thing to do thanks to Twilight and the like.
Apparently they realized this as looking it up on IMDB via one of the actresses' names they tacked on the subtitle "Night of Vengeance" which made it a little easier to find on Amazon.)
Student Bodies: Another late Saturday night selection that disappointingly did not feature gratuitous nudity but feature some violence. It's a 1981 horror movie spoof where a would-be Michael Myers known as "The Breather" stalks high school kids having sex and murders them. Then he calls the school, talking through a rubber chicken. Um, yeah. It's amusing, though not really as good as a Mel Brooks movie. (2.5/5) Though it's funny that apparently in 1981 a single f-bomb got you an R-rating. Nowadays that's only true for dramas; action and horror movies would only get a PG-13 rating.
Rush: This was better than I thought it might be. Though I'm not sure who they thought would actually be interested in this movie. If it hadn't been Ron Howard and Brian Glazer at the helm it probably never would have been made. I mean if a nobody like me were pitching this movie it'd be like:
Me: So it's this movie about 2 race car drivers...
Exec: NASCAR? Because that's big.
Me: No, Formula One (aka the European version of Indy Car)
Exec: Um, OK and these two drivers, is one a woman or something? Cuz I got Katherine Heigl's agent on speed dial here...
Me: No, it's two guys. One's British and one's Austrian...
Exec: Austrian? Like Schwarzenegger? So it's an action movie?
Me: Well, sort of. But really it's about the complex relationship between these two rivals...
Exec: I don't see any money in this. What else you got?
I think I'm only exaggerating that a little bit. It's another example of prior success giving you carte blanche to make movies about early 60s folksingers or mid-70s Formula 1 drivers or other stuff no one really gives a shit about. (3/5)
The Fifth Estate: It's funny that this movie co-stars Daniel Bruhl, who was the Austrian driver in Rush and I inadvertently got them at the same time. Anyway, this movie was slow and there's really not much drama to drive it. They gamely try by focusing on a rift that grows between Assange and his right-hand-man Daniel Berg as well as later Dr. Bashir as a Libyan scientist who faces death when Wikilinks outs him. But the end hardly bothers to deal with Assange's tryst in Sweden that led to a warrant for his arrest and flight from the authorities, relegating it to a word card and reenacted interview footage. Um, maybe that was sort of important? A movie about journalism really shouldn't bury a lead. (2/5) (BTW for David Walston the new Doctor has a minor role as a UK newspaper editor! So there's that.)
The Guest House: An Avril Lavigne-type kid (spoiled suburban girl who tries to act all Goth to piss off Daddy but then sings shitty Disney Channel pop) is home alone one weekend until an older girl shows up to stay in the guest house for the summer. They start hanging out and blah blah blah finally kiss and then fuck. To get all pervy on this, the cliche ridden script and wooden acting would have been tolerable if there had been some decent nudity but when they fuck the camera gets all shy and they keep their bras on. It's like come on, I can see more watching Game of Thrones, consarnit. What, you think you're making an "art" film here? Anyway there's some message about following your dreams and stuff but if my dream ends up with me playing crappy Disney Channel pop in a shithole nightclub in San Francisco then maybe it's time for a new dream. (1/5)
Riddick: Whenever Vin Diesel's popularity ticks back up we get another Riddick movie. I haven't actually watched the first two, though I watched parts of the second one--enough to realize it sucked. Through some overly complicated means Riddick ends up stranded on a harsh planet where he has to fight a bunch of weird creatures and ends up domesticating a jackal-type thing. Then he finds a mercenary rest stop and sends out a distress call, which brings a bunch of people who want to kill him. But when the planet starts trying to kill everyone, they have to work together. I'm never sure if Riddick is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. It is the kind of movie where you have no idea who to root for. Really this wants to be one of the Alien movies but fails miserably. The overly complicated flashback to get Riddick to the planet could have been shortened Alien 3-style to where he crashes on the planet and of course is the lone survivor. But at least we get some gratuitous nudity out of the flashback. (More than the movie above.) Anyway, this might be one of the most pointless "trilogies" ever, along with "The Hangover" movies. But if you watched the Battlestar Galactica reboot and wanted to see Starbucks's boobs, there's that. (I didn't so I didn't but whatever.) (1/5)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: According to Andrew Leon this varies wildly from the short story by James Thurber. Anyway, this is probably Ben Stiller's most serious movie (as a director at least) since Reality Bites like 20 years ago. He plays the titular character who works for Life magazine and has to find an old school photographer to get a photo for the last issue. To do this he goes to Iceland, Greeland, and Afghanistan. As much as it seems to say you should go see the world, the movie seems to delight in making the rest of the world look as provincial as possible. Apparently we could win the war in Afghanistan if we mailed them over some clementine cake instead of bullets. While Stiller is trying to think some big thoughts here it really does just fall back on that hackneyed "follow your dreams" stuff. Not to say it's not entertaining, just not a great film. (2.5/5)
Dallas Buyer's Club: From the title I thought this was about prostitution or something. Actually it's about a guy (Oscar winner Matthew McConaghuey) with AIDS who starts a "club" for fellow AIDS patients to buy vitamins and drugs they need to deal with their symptoms. This brings trouble with the FDA, who are in the pockets of Big Pharma, who are pushing AZT, designed in the 60s as a cancer drug. The problem with AZT is by itself in large doses it fries a person's innards. I think since the 80s they've learned better how to use AZT in treatments, in part thanks to people who took on the FDA. I was relieved this didn't turn into a courtroom drama and overall it was entertaining. And the way he's diagnosed with AIDS was similar to how Frost's roommate Pete finds out in Where You Belong. (4/5)
Homefront: It's pretty much what you'd expect from a movie starring Jason Statham and written by Sly Stallone. Statham is inexplicably a British guy who was in the DEA but then moves with his young daughter to the backcountry of Louisiana, where he runs afoul of an unrecognizable Kate Bosworth, whose brother James Franco is a local meth kingpin. A lot of improbable white guy kung-fu fights and gun battles ensue. (2.5/5)
47 Ronin: This story was a lot simpler when an old French guy told it to Robert de Niro in "Ronin." Basically the master of 47 samurai is killed so they become masterless warriors known as Ronin and then go take vengeance. In this movie it's like they mixed that original story with "The Princess Bride" as the seemingly dead heroes have to go rescue the princess before she marries an evil jerk. Briane Pagel would not like this movie because of the scene featuring a creepy purple spider. Though if having one brown eye and one blue gives you magic powers that might explain how Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer won the Cy Young last year. (2/5)
A Dominatrix Story: This is one of those titles like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Sharknado" that scrolling through movies late at night it's hard to pass up. But I wish I had because it was really, really BORING. Most of it is some frumpy middle-aged chick hooking up with some lame mediocre painter. There's very little dominatrixing involved except she uses it on a couple of dudes who maybe helped kill her father or adopted father or something. There's a tacked-on car chase and gun battle but by then it's much too late for me to care. It makes sense why the original title was apparently "Justify." I suppose some marketing genius changed it after the fact, but if you're going to use a provocative title like that the movie behind it has to deliver the goods. (0/5)
Galaxy of Dinosaurs: In the early 90s "Lance Randas" and a group of terrible "actors" in the wilds of Ohio spent $1500 making a movie that makes Ed Wood look like a genius. They literally splice together footage of the people in Ohio with 50s-vintage claymation dinosaur footage. It results in possibly unintentional hilarity like when one guy backs into what's clearly a branch that becomes a triceratops horn. Later someone else throws what's clearly a stick that becomes a spear. The Ohio terrain and the mountainous background of the dinosaurs clearly don't match. And the "story" makes very little sense. Really I think this is so bad not even MST3K would touch it. (5/5 on the cheesiness scale)
I, Frankenstein: On a list of known actors, Aaron Eckhart would be pretty far down there on my choice to play the Frankenstein monster. Really I think you need someone big and musclebound like the Rock or Vin Diesel or some WWE wrestler. Maybe they were busy. Anyway the Frankenstein monster is still around in the 21st Century and is recruited by gargoyles to kill demons, who want to use Frankenstein's technique to reanimate corpses for a demon army. Mayhem ensues. (2/5)
The Book Thief: Sometimes I wonder if the world needs yet another movie about Nazi atrocities, but then you hear how growing numbers of people don't believe the Holocaust happened or have no idea what World War II was. So I guess we need to keep pounding the message home. This doesn't actually focus on the Holocaust, but rather an orphaned girl in Germany who at first is pretty much illiterate but with some help from her foster father (Geoffrey Rusch) she learns to read and then starts to "borrow" books from the burgermeister's wife. At one point the family hides a Jewish guy in their basement. I suppose there haven't been all that many movies focusing on the German homefront, which between the brutal Nazi policies, rationing, and Allied bombing was anything but a picnic. I thought from the title she'd steal more books from the book burnings, but she only takes one after a bunch of books have been burned. Overall it's kind of slow and the idea of DEATH narrating was pretty lame, especially since I kept thinking he sounded like Kevin Spacey in "House of Cards" though it was someone else's voice. But I guess if you're one of those who can't be bothered to watch older movies like "Schindler's List" then you might find this fresh. (3/5)
Bonus: TV shows I've watched:
Parks & Recreation: I really enjoyed this show, though the first season of six episodes isn't as great. It seems after that season they decided to dial down Leslie Knope's stupidity and make her more naive instead of dumb, which really works better. Though my favorite character is Ron Swanson; I would seriously have a Claymore mine at my desk if I could find one. It's not the best show ever, but it's usually pretty funny. (4/5)
Star Wars The Clone Wars: They added this to Netflix (along with an exclusive 6th season) so since I didn't have anything else to watch I started watching it. Some of the first episodes aren't great but eventually it starts to get better. I like how even though the clones are all based on the same person they find ways to make them different and give them different names and personalities so they aren't just cannon fodder. Actually some of the best episodes revolve around the clones becoming more human, like the one where scouts Waxer and Boil find a little girl on the Twi'lek planet Ryloth and she helps them save the planet. Or the one where Captain Rex runs into a deserter who's started a whole family with a Twi'lek chick on an Outer Rim world. Unfortunately there's still Jar-Jar (who manages to be more annoying) but like the last two movies he's sparingly used, and there's still occasionally the Viceroy, and the droids who seem like they were programmed by the Marx brothers. But Anakin is less of a whiny bitch and Obi-Wan is still the best Jedi character. Though it's animated and aired on the Cartoon Network, it's not really for kids what with all the violence, clone troopers dying left and right and such. Really though I think this show manages to be better than its source material at times--probably because it's not written or directed by George Lucas. (3/5)
I also watched the Clone Wars movie that led into the show. They just kind of throw you into it, expecting you to already know who Ventress is and stuff like that. It felt a little on the long side, but it was Jar-Jar free so it's got that going for it. (2.5/5)
Monday, May 26, 2014
Pandora's Box...Now Available at Hobby Lobby
It was over a month ago when lawyers for Hobby Lobby went to the Supreme Court to argue that their company shouldn't be forced to provide insurance for birth control to its employees. Given how slowly the Court works we probably won't hear anything until the fall, but my prediction is they side with Hobby Lobby, probably 5-4 split on political lines.
My reasoning is (beyond pro-business politics) is the Court already declared corporations are people, which makes absolutely no sense. If you follow that logic then Hobby Lobby (the company, not the owners) is a person and "people" have freedom of religion. Thus to respect its religious beliefs it shouldn't have to insure birth control.
I think such a ruling, when it happens, invites disaster. It's one of those things where if you're feeling alarmist--and I am--you can envision how a policy like that could be grossly misused. I mean what happens if you an say the company is Christian, so it doesn't have to hire any Jews or Muslims or atheists or can purge itself of non-Christian workers for not supporting the company's religion? Or what if the company is Christian Scientist and decides it no longer has to offer any health care at all--except prayer?
It's worse than the idea that the pharmacist doesn't have to sell you birth control pills because it's against his religion because this would be on a company-wide scale. Given how so many companies are already trying to weasel out of Obamacare by for instance making employees part-time, this just gives them another avenue and the last thing we need are more corporate loopholes to screw people over.
But maybe I am being too alarmist. Maybe the Court will surprise me, like when they upheld Obamacare to start with. Stranger things have happened.
#
On another note Saturday I was at Biggby Coffee to type and unfortunately they had Fox "News" on, which is the only time I'd ever watch any of it. On this show called "the Five" they got a chuckle out of a store with a "No Weapons Allowed" policy being robbed at gunpoint. This is one of the dumber arguments the NRA and its conservative lapdogs make. If robbers didn't rob places because there were guns possibly on the premises then so many banks wouldn't be robbed. When people are desperate and/or not in their right minds they don't give a shit that some wanna-be John Wayne might have a gun. And really NRA if everyone owning guns prevented crime then shouldn't Detroit (which probably has the highest number of guns per capita) be a paradise of order?
Then after that was an update on a mass shooting in Santa Barbara and one in Brussels. I guess those places had a No Weapons Allowed policy advertised, right?
Anyway, today is the day to honor people who (mostly) used guns responsibly. They are Everyday Heroes!
My reasoning is (beyond pro-business politics) is the Court already declared corporations are people, which makes absolutely no sense. If you follow that logic then Hobby Lobby (the company, not the owners) is a person and "people" have freedom of religion. Thus to respect its religious beliefs it shouldn't have to insure birth control.
I think such a ruling, when it happens, invites disaster. It's one of those things where if you're feeling alarmist--and I am--you can envision how a policy like that could be grossly misused. I mean what happens if you an say the company is Christian, so it doesn't have to hire any Jews or Muslims or atheists or can purge itself of non-Christian workers for not supporting the company's religion? Or what if the company is Christian Scientist and decides it no longer has to offer any health care at all--except prayer?
It's worse than the idea that the pharmacist doesn't have to sell you birth control pills because it's against his religion because this would be on a company-wide scale. Given how so many companies are already trying to weasel out of Obamacare by for instance making employees part-time, this just gives them another avenue and the last thing we need are more corporate loopholes to screw people over.
But maybe I am being too alarmist. Maybe the Court will surprise me, like when they upheld Obamacare to start with. Stranger things have happened.
#
On another note Saturday I was at Biggby Coffee to type and unfortunately they had Fox "News" on, which is the only time I'd ever watch any of it. On this show called "the Five" they got a chuckle out of a store with a "No Weapons Allowed" policy being robbed at gunpoint. This is one of the dumber arguments the NRA and its conservative lapdogs make. If robbers didn't rob places because there were guns possibly on the premises then so many banks wouldn't be robbed. When people are desperate and/or not in their right minds they don't give a shit that some wanna-be John Wayne might have a gun. And really NRA if everyone owning guns prevented crime then shouldn't Detroit (which probably has the highest number of guns per capita) be a paradise of order?
Then after that was an update on a mass shooting in Santa Barbara and one in Brussels. I guess those places had a No Weapons Allowed policy advertised, right?
Anyway, today is the day to honor people who (mostly) used guns responsibly. They are Everyday Heroes!
Friday, May 23, 2014
Artificial Storytelling and The Amazing Spider-Man 2
A week ago I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the theater. For the second time in less than a year I was actually the only person there, which is kind of cool. Unfortunately this was an older theater and I couldn't lift the armrests to sprawl out like on a couch or anything. But I did put my feet up and grumble comments when I felt like it.
Probably anyone who'd read this has already seen the movies but just in case there are spoilers. So there.
Anyway, maybe because I'd heard about Sony's plans for the franchise in advance the whole story felt pretty artificial to me. It felt like the movie as it went along was just checking off bullet points the writers had written down. It made the whole thing lack much impact for me, which is pretty much like the first one.
The most artificial thing was Gwen Stacey's death. You knew it had to happen as soon as they announced Emma Stone would be playing Gwen not Mary Jane. Even someone who had only read like one Spider-Man comic until recently knew that the Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacey. So of course at some point she had to die. Maybe they figured since Batman's girl died in the "The Dark Knight" they should kill Spidey's girl in the second movie too. Except it was so dumb. Why in the middle of this fancy new power grid is there an old-timey clock tower? Is it so they could send DeLoreans back into the past? I mean really what the hell? I guess it was there to recreate the comic book; they needed something she could fall off of, so why not a clock tower that has no business being there!
Then they have to set up their Sinister Six franchise, which includes a largely pointless cameo by Paul Giamatti as the Rhino. When he was lobbying for the part I wonder if he thought he'd get to be some big dude in a rhino costume like the comics? Maybe they could have done that like the Hulk with CGI motion capture and such. Instead he gets a mechanical contraption that looks like a rhino. Why would anyone design that? The Dr. Octopus arms and Vulture wings I can see, though really I think it dilutes the whole concept if Harry Osborn just gives these to Doc Ock and Vulture and tells them to go be bad guys. Harry's transformation into the Goblin felt just as artificial and forced. It took his father 60-some years to die of whatever weird disease and yet it starts killing Harry at 20? The good thing about the previous incarnation of the franchise is that they took pretty much two entire movies to set Harry up as a bad guy. (Oh, and way to squander someone as awesome as Chris Cooper in essentially a cameo. Spidey franchise wise he would have been better cast as J Jonah Jameson; I think he could have nailed that.)
Another problem for me was most every main character seemed to have a creepy stalker vibe. Max/Electro obsesses about being buddies with Spider-Man. Harry obsesses about getting Spidey's blood. Peter obsesses about Gwen to the point he stalks her in costume. (Because what good are spider powers if you can't use them to stalk your ex-girlfriend?) Even Aunt May sounds creepy when she starts talking crap about Peter's dad and says, "You're my boy!"
To be honest I didn't like much about the movie. The points above, the cheesy Joel Schumacher-inspired way Electro is created, the cliche German mad scientist, how Electro can turn into electrical waves but somehow reappear in full costume like he's Dr. Manhattan. (It really sounds like I hated Electro, but the idea of a guy flying around shooting lightning from his hands like Emperor Palpatine is pretty awesome. Like most of the movie I don't think they really thought it through all the way.) Even the music sucked. I'd give it 2/5, which is probably too generous.
Anyway, to get back to my main point, there are a lot of times when a story can feel artificial or formulaic, when you know things are going to happen. That really dulls the surprise, which in turn mutes the emotional response. Instead of being moved by what happens it becomes more like, "Well FINALLY." To use another movie for an example I was watching "Homefront" and you just know that at some point the bad guy (James Franco) is going to kidnap the good guy (Jason Statham)'s daughter. And you know that then Statham is going to kick his ass. So there's really no emotional resonance when it happens because that's been obvious the whole freaking time.
Or really in the 2002 version of Spider-Man I hated when the Goblin captures MJ and then offers Spidey the choice to save her or a bunch of people in an elevated car. I mean you know he's going to save both because that's what always happens. If the movie had ended there it would have sucked, but then was an epic throwdown between Spidey and the Goblin which was a lot better.
Prequel stories especially have this problem. Like when I watched "The Clone Wars" on Netflix you know there are certain characters who can't die: Anakin, Obi-Wan, and even Commander Cody because they're all in the third movie. That's one reason prequels usually aren't very good because we already know what's going to happen. That and they artificially add weight and symbolism to things that don't need it, like the secret origin of Wolverine's leather jacket.
Of course in any series it's hard to avoid some obvious things. Like when you're in book 3 of an 8-book series, it's pretty clear the main character will survive. But you still have to try to make things difficult for her and hopefully include some obstacles people won't see coming. Like the main character losing her job or getting knocked up or having her baby kidnapped by Russian gangsters. In the case of most authors it helps that your story hasn't been told and retold over about 50 years like Spider-Man with Gwen Stacey.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Comics Catchup
Previously when I talked about comics on this blog no one really cared. Even when I briefly contributed to Laplume's blog not many people really cared. But that's not going to stop me! So here's a good chunk of comics I've read after my exile from Comics Reader. Most of them are Spider-Man related because with the new movie and such there have been a couple big sales, which is when I buy most of my comics.
Black Widow: Name of the Rose: It's a Black Widow solo story that was probably the lead-in to a series that probably folded up soon after. Anyway it was interesting as she goes on the hunt for an assassin who seems to know a lot about her. It was also confusing in that it seemed to suggest Black Widow has been around since before WWII and not aged at all. Um...OK then. (4/5)
Justice League Dark Vol 1: I read a couple of Justice League Dark comics previously so for the hell of it I bought the first volume when it was on sale. It really wasn't very good. Like the new Justice League of America it basically takes the whole series for the team to get together and even then they aren't much of a team. (3/5)
Shazam! Vol 1: This title is misleading as to date there is no actual Shazam (aka Captain Marvel, the DC version) series. This was actually part of the Justice League line and is a rebooted origin story for Captain Marvel, who's a kid named Billy Batson who is chosen to become a big strapping Superman-like hero when he says the magic word. It was pretty fun and with all the crap they have in the "New 52" I have to wonder why they don't have a standalone Shazam series. Maybe it's that whole name thing, which has plagued him for like 50 years now. (4/5)
Green Arrow Vol 1: Since the New 52 started in 2011, this really has no similarity to "Arrow" except it involves Oliver Queen as Green Arrow, who goes around shooting arrows at people. Other than Oliver there really aren't any other characters who appear in the TV show, but maybe they will in the future. He has two henchpersons, one to design weapons and one who does computer hacking and stuff, which I suppose was the basis for the Felicity character. Anyway, it was OK but largely not as good as the TV show. (3.5/5)
Green Arrow Vol 4: I missed a couple volumes--because they weren't on sale. This involves mostly a bad guy named Komodo who is an old friend of Oliver's dead father. He is conveniently another archer, who also takes over Queen Consolidated. It seems they're trying to dovetail this more with the TV series, introducing Shado, Diggle, and Count Vertigo. I'd have liked it better but the abstract art style employed by Andrea Sorrentino (who is apparently a dude) is annoying. I prefer the more traditional styles and can tolerate even the more Manga-like styles, but I couldn't get behind this. (2.5/5)
Flash Vol 1: This is another New 52 volume but like the Batman ones it's not a reboot, so I was pretty damned confused, having never really read any Flash comics. I really had no idea what was going on most of the time. The first story involved clones of this soldier guy and pigs for some reason. I don't know. Whatever. (2/5)
Aquaman Vol 1: What's great about this kickoff of the New 52 Aquaman series is it immediately confronts our misconceptions about Aquaman from Superfriends, SNL, Family Guy, or Robot Chicken. (Series writer Geoff Johns actually has contributed to the latter.) He doesn't "talk" to fish (he telepathically "pushes" them), he doesn't wear an orange "shirt" (it's scale armor that is bulletproof), and he has a trident that can lift a whole truck. The first three issues involve some piranha people from "the Trench" who start wreaking havoc and only Aquaman can stop them. Another involves Aquaman ending up in the desert after recovering an artifact. And another involves his wife (or girlfriend or whatever) Mera going to buy dog food, which naturally takes a circuitous route. The biggest accomplishment is by confronting our misconceptions about Aquaman, Johns actually makes the character a little deeper. (5/5)
Green Lantern Vol 1: Another New 52 non-reboot. So somehow Hal Jordan pissed off the Guardians and lost his ring to his archenemy Sinestro. And then Sinestro begins using his ring to take down his own evil Sinestro Corps with Hal Jordan's help. There's also a lot of setup for the "First Lantern/Third Army" stories that apparently followed this. (3.5/5)
Future's End #0: After "Forever Evil" that just wrapped up, the next big event at DC Comics is Future's End. For Free Comic Book Day they were giving away this preview issue. But they also gave it away online so I didn't have to go to no icky comic book store. Anyway, it's pretty much a ripoff of Marvel's Age of Ultron story that is being made into Avengers 2. That involved an artificial intelligence called Ultron that takes over the world until Wolverine and Sue Storm go back in time to stop it. DC's version has Brother Eye taking over the world in the future and assimilating all the superheroes like the Borg. So Batman Beyond goes back in time to stop it. Besides Age of Ultron, this also brings to mind the Terminator franchise and even DC's own Final Crisis and Flashpoint events. Look, I know comics are not very original, but they could try a little harder. (2/5)
Captain America Reborn: This came after Captain America was killed following the "Civil War" series. It's a lot like what Grant Morrison did with Bruce Wayne in "The Return of Bruce Wayne" but this is far less confusing. Like Billy Pilgrim, Cap has become unstuck in time. It's all part of a needlessly complicated scheme by the Red Skull that I highly doubt will ever become a movie. (3/5)
Carnage: I got this because it's written by Zeb Wells, who's also a writer of Robot Chicken. I had no idea who Carnage is but apparently he's the spawn of Venom, only this symbiote is red and takes over a serial killer. In this story Spider-Man and Iron Man have to stop Carnage after a stupid industrialist retrieves the villain from space. Mayhem ensues. (3.5/5)
Carnage USA: Carnage is back and this time he takes over a small Colorado town, assimilating its population. When the Avengers (Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, and Thing) go to stop him, all but Spidey are assimilated. So then it's up to Spider-Man, some of the town's residents, a sort of anti-Carnage A-Team, and the new Venom (Peter Parker's old nemesis Flash Thompson) to stop him. More mayhem ensues. (4/5)
Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, Vol 1: These are reprints of the first 11 Spider-Man stories written by Stan Lee. Despite that they're from the 60s they have that Golden Age cheesiness to them. It features the familiar story of Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider to become Spider-Man and then Uncle Ben dies and yadda yadda. In this volume he tangles with Vulture (twice), Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro. No Green Goblin yet. No Norman or Harry Osborn. No Gwen Stacy or Mary-Jane Watson either; the closest he has to a girlfriend is J Jonah Jameson's secretary Betty. But there are a few appearances by the Fantastic Four. The annoying thing is they put the original Spider-Man origin story (Amazing Fantasy #15) at the end so to read them in order you have to go the end and then back to the beginning. Why? (3.5/5)
Spider-Man House of M: The House of M storyline was where the Scarlet Witch used her powers to recreate the world so mutants are in charge. Spider-Man becomes a huge celebrity because people think he's a mutant. But when he's outed, it spells trouble for him and his family. The cause of his outing is where it gets kind of weird. (3.5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time: This story arc is only like three issues but it launches a new phase of Peter Parker's life where he isn't a total loser. He gets a job at a lab where he has creative freedom to do pretty much whatever he wants. The first thing he does is create a "stealth" suit to take on a new Hobgoblin who has a sonic scream like DC's Black Canary. Of course while things seem to be going good we know in hindsight this was meant to set up another FAIL for Peter when his body is taken over by Dr. Octopus, the Superior Spider-Man. Still it was nice to see things going better for him and for him to use his brains for once. (5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island: This was a big event story where bedbugs carrying a virus give all of New York Spidey powers--except for superhumans and mutants. There's some awkwardness for Peter Parker when everyone else can start swinging around on webs, especially when it's his current girlfriend Carlie and his ex-girlfriend MJ. But only one Spider-Man can save the day! OK, actually two...and Anti-Venom. The end is reminiscent of what I did in the 8th (and final) Scarlet Knight book. I swear Dan Slott must have read my books. Anyway, I didn't read all the issues involved with this but what I did read was fun even if I didn't really know who some of the characters were. (3.5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth: Conveniently they had lots of Spidey comics on sale at the time of the series relaunch with Peter Parker at the helm and the sequel to the movie of the same name. Anyway this continues Dan Slott's run on the series (which is still going) as a dying Dr. Octopus seemingly has a way to stop global warming and save the Earth. But of course it's a trick! So Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Silver Sable have to stop him and the Sinister Six. It's a fun globetrotting adventure that illustrates why it's too bad Sony's ownership keeps Spidey out of the Marvel universe. (5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Dying Wish: The Superior Spider-Man thing begins with this, where Dr. Octopus is dying in prison. The moment he switches brains with Peter Parker is anticlimactic. It's like oh, this just happened? I thought there'd be like a big flash of light or something. Whatever. So then Peter spends pretty much 2 issues trying to save Dr. Octopus's body by calling on supervillains to break him out of prison. But in the end he does a "The Crow" on Doc Ock so that at least he'll continue being a good guy--sort of. It was nice how they worked in some flashbacks and callbacks to events and people from Spidey's past, though really the whole "afterlife" thing was something I already did in the Scarlet Knight books (3 and 8 mostly) so once again I am ahead of the curve. Because I am superior! (5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 2: I reviewed the first volume on Laplume's comics blog. The short version: I really liked the new Dr. Octopus Spider-Man because he finds solutions to problems instead of whining about them. At the end of Volume 1 Superior Spidey had killed the evil Massacre with a gun. This and beating a couple of super pranksters to a pulp on live TV/Internet brings down some heat from the Avengers, which in the comics universe Spidey is part of. Though strangely there's not a whole lot of fighting involved with that. After the Avengers let him go with a warning, Superior Spidey has to fight the battle within against the last vestiges of Peter Parker. Since there are about 20 more issues, guess who wins? Anyway, this continues the fun of the first volume and the growth of Otto Octavius as Spider-Man. (5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 3: This is sort of like Arkham Asylum, where Superior Spidey is locked in a prison with a lot of the villains he's beaten to a pulp. Doc Ock's arrogance makes things a little difficult in combating the Spider-Slayer, but in the end he's able to prevail. Now that he's free of Parker's influence, Doc Ock is giving in to some of his evil urges, like when he blackmails the mayor to give him the prison to use as his private base. In this volume we begin to see the Green Goblin forming an army from the rejects of crime families Superior Spidey has broken up. Overall it's not quite as good; I kind of miss the interplay between Doc Ock and Parker's ghost. (3.5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 4: Most of this volume focuses on a time rift that sends the Spider-Man from 2099 back to 2013, where he meets the Superior Spider-Man. Like the Terminator, 2099 Spidey has to save an ancestor from being destroyed, even though he knows this ancestor is evil. An annoying thing is one issue promises the return of Black Cat, Spidey's version of Catwoman. Except her return is all of about a page. Superior Spidey finds her stealing jewels, beats her up, webs her up, and leaves. What a gyp. But I suppose part of this was to show how Doc Ock has let go of Parker's old love interests: Black Cat, MJ, and Carlie Cooper and even his old girlfriend as Doctor Octopus in favor of a super-smart dwarf in his physics class. After the time rift thing Doc Ock is left unemployed, but as he always does, he comes up with a solution--in this case to start his own company. Meanwhile after Superior Spidey leveled the Kingpin's headquarters, the Kingpin's former employees (including the Hobgoblin) have joined forces with the Goblin. But probably nothing big happens with that until the final "Goblin Nation" arc to close the series. And Parker's old girlfriend Carlie along with a hero known as "the Wraith" are closing in to find out how Spider-Man has been funding his toys. Anyway this felt like more of a grab-bag volume that is building stuff for the future but isn't so interesting at the present. (3/5)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1: This is the 2000 reboot of the franchise, not the 2011 re-reboot with Miles Morales. Except this being Marvel it's not a reboot, it's another universe. Whatever. So basically we again get the familiar origin story of Peter Parker. Since it predates the movies you can see where maybe some of the seeds for the 2002 movie were planted. I don't think it's really that much of an improvement to the original. Like the 2012 movie reboot it doesn't add that much of value. (I don't consider giving Uncle Ben a ponytail added value.) (3/5)
Ultimate Extinction: I didn't like "The Ultimates" comic this was a sequel to so I probably shouldn't have bought it but it was on sale and I was reading the Galactus-themed third Girl Power book so I thought this might be educational. Anyway while in the original comics Galactus is a big dude who strips planets clean, in this it's referred to as "Gah Lak Tus" and is a swarm of killer robots, which actually fits into what I did with my book. Anyway, Mr. Fantastic works on a way to kill the thing while Professor X and Jean-Grey try to contact it psychically, which only pisses it off. And Captain America, Nick Fury, and the Falcon kill a bunch of clones who worship a Silver Surfer, because I guess there's more than one, which is good since Iron Man rips the head off one. It occurred to me what these "Ultimates" books are missing compared to the Marvel movies is the fun. There's not really the banter or humor that makes the movies so watchable. Basically it's a bunch of squabbling and then punching and/or blowing shit up. Author Warren Ellis said in an interview included with one issue that British writers like him didn't really read all those old Silver Age comics (like the ones originating Galactus) so maybe that's part of the problem. (2.5/5)
Green Arrow Year One: Unlike the first New 52 comics, this actually has some relevance to the TV show. Although in this Oliver Queen goes with his British bodyguard on a yacht, but the bodyguard betrays him. Oliver ends up on an island, where he constructs a crude bow to survive. The plot is far less labyrinthine than the TV show. Basically China White is using the island as a base for growing heroin and Ollie has to save the day. There's no mention of his family or anything like that. Though I suppose there might be an Easter egg in the TV show in that this comic is written by Andy Diggle. (4/5)
Black Widow: Name of the Rose: It's a Black Widow solo story that was probably the lead-in to a series that probably folded up soon after. Anyway it was interesting as she goes on the hunt for an assassin who seems to know a lot about her. It was also confusing in that it seemed to suggest Black Widow has been around since before WWII and not aged at all. Um...OK then. (4/5)
Justice League Dark Vol 1: I read a couple of Justice League Dark comics previously so for the hell of it I bought the first volume when it was on sale. It really wasn't very good. Like the new Justice League of America it basically takes the whole series for the team to get together and even then they aren't much of a team. (3/5)
Shazam! Vol 1: This title is misleading as to date there is no actual Shazam (aka Captain Marvel, the DC version) series. This was actually part of the Justice League line and is a rebooted origin story for Captain Marvel, who's a kid named Billy Batson who is chosen to become a big strapping Superman-like hero when he says the magic word. It was pretty fun and with all the crap they have in the "New 52" I have to wonder why they don't have a standalone Shazam series. Maybe it's that whole name thing, which has plagued him for like 50 years now. (4/5)
Green Arrow Vol 1: Since the New 52 started in 2011, this really has no similarity to "Arrow" except it involves Oliver Queen as Green Arrow, who goes around shooting arrows at people. Other than Oliver there really aren't any other characters who appear in the TV show, but maybe they will in the future. He has two henchpersons, one to design weapons and one who does computer hacking and stuff, which I suppose was the basis for the Felicity character. Anyway, it was OK but largely not as good as the TV show. (3.5/5)
Green Arrow Vol 4: I missed a couple volumes--because they weren't on sale. This involves mostly a bad guy named Komodo who is an old friend of Oliver's dead father. He is conveniently another archer, who also takes over Queen Consolidated. It seems they're trying to dovetail this more with the TV series, introducing Shado, Diggle, and Count Vertigo. I'd have liked it better but the abstract art style employed by Andrea Sorrentino (who is apparently a dude) is annoying. I prefer the more traditional styles and can tolerate even the more Manga-like styles, but I couldn't get behind this. (2.5/5)
Flash Vol 1: This is another New 52 volume but like the Batman ones it's not a reboot, so I was pretty damned confused, having never really read any Flash comics. I really had no idea what was going on most of the time. The first story involved clones of this soldier guy and pigs for some reason. I don't know. Whatever. (2/5)
Aquaman Vol 1: What's great about this kickoff of the New 52 Aquaman series is it immediately confronts our misconceptions about Aquaman from Superfriends, SNL, Family Guy, or Robot Chicken. (Series writer Geoff Johns actually has contributed to the latter.) He doesn't "talk" to fish (he telepathically "pushes" them), he doesn't wear an orange "shirt" (it's scale armor that is bulletproof), and he has a trident that can lift a whole truck. The first three issues involve some piranha people from "the Trench" who start wreaking havoc and only Aquaman can stop them. Another involves Aquaman ending up in the desert after recovering an artifact. And another involves his wife (or girlfriend or whatever) Mera going to buy dog food, which naturally takes a circuitous route. The biggest accomplishment is by confronting our misconceptions about Aquaman, Johns actually makes the character a little deeper. (5/5)
Green Lantern Vol 1: Another New 52 non-reboot. So somehow Hal Jordan pissed off the Guardians and lost his ring to his archenemy Sinestro. And then Sinestro begins using his ring to take down his own evil Sinestro Corps with Hal Jordan's help. There's also a lot of setup for the "First Lantern/Third Army" stories that apparently followed this. (3.5/5)
Future's End #0: After "Forever Evil" that just wrapped up, the next big event at DC Comics is Future's End. For Free Comic Book Day they were giving away this preview issue. But they also gave it away online so I didn't have to go to no icky comic book store. Anyway, it's pretty much a ripoff of Marvel's Age of Ultron story that is being made into Avengers 2. That involved an artificial intelligence called Ultron that takes over the world until Wolverine and Sue Storm go back in time to stop it. DC's version has Brother Eye taking over the world in the future and assimilating all the superheroes like the Borg. So Batman Beyond goes back in time to stop it. Besides Age of Ultron, this also brings to mind the Terminator franchise and even DC's own Final Crisis and Flashpoint events. Look, I know comics are not very original, but they could try a little harder. (2/5)
Captain America Reborn: This came after Captain America was killed following the "Civil War" series. It's a lot like what Grant Morrison did with Bruce Wayne in "The Return of Bruce Wayne" but this is far less confusing. Like Billy Pilgrim, Cap has become unstuck in time. It's all part of a needlessly complicated scheme by the Red Skull that I highly doubt will ever become a movie. (3/5)
Carnage: I got this because it's written by Zeb Wells, who's also a writer of Robot Chicken. I had no idea who Carnage is but apparently he's the spawn of Venom, only this symbiote is red and takes over a serial killer. In this story Spider-Man and Iron Man have to stop Carnage after a stupid industrialist retrieves the villain from space. Mayhem ensues. (3.5/5)
Carnage USA: Carnage is back and this time he takes over a small Colorado town, assimilating its population. When the Avengers (Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, and Thing) go to stop him, all but Spidey are assimilated. So then it's up to Spider-Man, some of the town's residents, a sort of anti-Carnage A-Team, and the new Venom (Peter Parker's old nemesis Flash Thompson) to stop him. More mayhem ensues. (4/5)
Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, Vol 1: These are reprints of the first 11 Spider-Man stories written by Stan Lee. Despite that they're from the 60s they have that Golden Age cheesiness to them. It features the familiar story of Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider to become Spider-Man and then Uncle Ben dies and yadda yadda. In this volume he tangles with Vulture (twice), Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro. No Green Goblin yet. No Norman or Harry Osborn. No Gwen Stacy or Mary-Jane Watson either; the closest he has to a girlfriend is J Jonah Jameson's secretary Betty. But there are a few appearances by the Fantastic Four. The annoying thing is they put the original Spider-Man origin story (Amazing Fantasy #15) at the end so to read them in order you have to go the end and then back to the beginning. Why? (3.5/5)
Spider-Man House of M: The House of M storyline was where the Scarlet Witch used her powers to recreate the world so mutants are in charge. Spider-Man becomes a huge celebrity because people think he's a mutant. But when he's outed, it spells trouble for him and his family. The cause of his outing is where it gets kind of weird. (3.5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time: This story arc is only like three issues but it launches a new phase of Peter Parker's life where he isn't a total loser. He gets a job at a lab where he has creative freedom to do pretty much whatever he wants. The first thing he does is create a "stealth" suit to take on a new Hobgoblin who has a sonic scream like DC's Black Canary. Of course while things seem to be going good we know in hindsight this was meant to set up another FAIL for Peter when his body is taken over by Dr. Octopus, the Superior Spider-Man. Still it was nice to see things going better for him and for him to use his brains for once. (5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island: This was a big event story where bedbugs carrying a virus give all of New York Spidey powers--except for superhumans and mutants. There's some awkwardness for Peter Parker when everyone else can start swinging around on webs, especially when it's his current girlfriend Carlie and his ex-girlfriend MJ. But only one Spider-Man can save the day! OK, actually two...and Anti-Venom. The end is reminiscent of what I did in the 8th (and final) Scarlet Knight book. I swear Dan Slott must have read my books. Anyway, I didn't read all the issues involved with this but what I did read was fun even if I didn't really know who some of the characters were. (3.5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth: Conveniently they had lots of Spidey comics on sale at the time of the series relaunch with Peter Parker at the helm and the sequel to the movie of the same name. Anyway this continues Dan Slott's run on the series (which is still going) as a dying Dr. Octopus seemingly has a way to stop global warming and save the Earth. But of course it's a trick! So Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Silver Sable have to stop him and the Sinister Six. It's a fun globetrotting adventure that illustrates why it's too bad Sony's ownership keeps Spidey out of the Marvel universe. (5/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Dying Wish: The Superior Spider-Man thing begins with this, where Dr. Octopus is dying in prison. The moment he switches brains with Peter Parker is anticlimactic. It's like oh, this just happened? I thought there'd be like a big flash of light or something. Whatever. So then Peter spends pretty much 2 issues trying to save Dr. Octopus's body by calling on supervillains to break him out of prison. But in the end he does a "The Crow" on Doc Ock so that at least he'll continue being a good guy--sort of. It was nice how they worked in some flashbacks and callbacks to events and people from Spidey's past, though really the whole "afterlife" thing was something I already did in the Scarlet Knight books (3 and 8 mostly) so once again I am ahead of the curve. Because I am superior! (5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 2: I reviewed the first volume on Laplume's comics blog. The short version: I really liked the new Dr. Octopus Spider-Man because he finds solutions to problems instead of whining about them. At the end of Volume 1 Superior Spidey had killed the evil Massacre with a gun. This and beating a couple of super pranksters to a pulp on live TV/Internet brings down some heat from the Avengers, which in the comics universe Spidey is part of. Though strangely there's not a whole lot of fighting involved with that. After the Avengers let him go with a warning, Superior Spidey has to fight the battle within against the last vestiges of Peter Parker. Since there are about 20 more issues, guess who wins? Anyway, this continues the fun of the first volume and the growth of Otto Octavius as Spider-Man. (5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 3: This is sort of like Arkham Asylum, where Superior Spidey is locked in a prison with a lot of the villains he's beaten to a pulp. Doc Ock's arrogance makes things a little difficult in combating the Spider-Slayer, but in the end he's able to prevail. Now that he's free of Parker's influence, Doc Ock is giving in to some of his evil urges, like when he blackmails the mayor to give him the prison to use as his private base. In this volume we begin to see the Green Goblin forming an army from the rejects of crime families Superior Spidey has broken up. Overall it's not quite as good; I kind of miss the interplay between Doc Ock and Parker's ghost. (3.5/5)
Superior Spider-Man Vol 4: Most of this volume focuses on a time rift that sends the Spider-Man from 2099 back to 2013, where he meets the Superior Spider-Man. Like the Terminator, 2099 Spidey has to save an ancestor from being destroyed, even though he knows this ancestor is evil. An annoying thing is one issue promises the return of Black Cat, Spidey's version of Catwoman. Except her return is all of about a page. Superior Spidey finds her stealing jewels, beats her up, webs her up, and leaves. What a gyp. But I suppose part of this was to show how Doc Ock has let go of Parker's old love interests: Black Cat, MJ, and Carlie Cooper and even his old girlfriend as Doctor Octopus in favor of a super-smart dwarf in his physics class. After the time rift thing Doc Ock is left unemployed, but as he always does, he comes up with a solution--in this case to start his own company. Meanwhile after Superior Spidey leveled the Kingpin's headquarters, the Kingpin's former employees (including the Hobgoblin) have joined forces with the Goblin. But probably nothing big happens with that until the final "Goblin Nation" arc to close the series. And Parker's old girlfriend Carlie along with a hero known as "the Wraith" are closing in to find out how Spider-Man has been funding his toys. Anyway this felt like more of a grab-bag volume that is building stuff for the future but isn't so interesting at the present. (3/5)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1: This is the 2000 reboot of the franchise, not the 2011 re-reboot with Miles Morales. Except this being Marvel it's not a reboot, it's another universe. Whatever. So basically we again get the familiar origin story of Peter Parker. Since it predates the movies you can see where maybe some of the seeds for the 2002 movie were planted. I don't think it's really that much of an improvement to the original. Like the 2012 movie reboot it doesn't add that much of value. (I don't consider giving Uncle Ben a ponytail added value.) (3/5)
Ultimate Extinction: I didn't like "The Ultimates" comic this was a sequel to so I probably shouldn't have bought it but it was on sale and I was reading the Galactus-themed third Girl Power book so I thought this might be educational. Anyway while in the original comics Galactus is a big dude who strips planets clean, in this it's referred to as "Gah Lak Tus" and is a swarm of killer robots, which actually fits into what I did with my book. Anyway, Mr. Fantastic works on a way to kill the thing while Professor X and Jean-Grey try to contact it psychically, which only pisses it off. And Captain America, Nick Fury, and the Falcon kill a bunch of clones who worship a Silver Surfer, because I guess there's more than one, which is good since Iron Man rips the head off one. It occurred to me what these "Ultimates" books are missing compared to the Marvel movies is the fun. There's not really the banter or humor that makes the movies so watchable. Basically it's a bunch of squabbling and then punching and/or blowing shit up. Author Warren Ellis said in an interview included with one issue that British writers like him didn't really read all those old Silver Age comics (like the ones originating Galactus) so maybe that's part of the problem. (2.5/5)
Green Arrow Year One: Unlike the first New 52 comics, this actually has some relevance to the TV show. Although in this Oliver Queen goes with his British bodyguard on a yacht, but the bodyguard betrays him. Oliver ends up on an island, where he constructs a crude bow to survive. The plot is far less labyrinthine than the TV show. Basically China White is using the island as a base for growing heroin and Ollie has to save the day. There's no mention of his family or anything like that. Though I suppose there might be an Easter egg in the TV show in that this comic is written by Andy Diggle. (4/5)
Monday, May 19, 2014
Selling Out
Speaking of selling out, if you ever wanted to read my Tales of the Scarlet Knight series, now is the time. The first collection (not omnibus since that word pissed off Michael Offutt and as he's my VP of Common Sense on these things I decided to not use that term, but it is an omnibus by definition) is FREE on Amazon this week. Volume 1: The Call That's the first 3 books in the series, plus two prequels, for FREE. That is literally 1,200 pages of superhero action for nothing. So go download it, freeloaders! And then maybe leave me a review that doesn't suck.
It can't be free again for like 3 months, so act now! Operators are not standing by! (Because this is the 21st Century and we have this newfangled Internet thingy)
And if you like it, June 16-22 the second "collection" Volume 2: The Wrath of Isis will be on sale for 99 cents as my first ever use of the new "Kindle Countdown Deals" thing. That's 2,000 pages of superhero action for only 99 cents! Of course right now it's only $2.99, which really isn't that much more expensive, but I know how much people hate paying for books.
And now the rest of the entry...
This is in part another review of a movie I watched about a month ago. "The Wolf of Wall Street" was pretty much what I thought it was: Martin Scorcese's version of "Wall Street." It never really rises above the cliche Every Wall Street Movie Ever plot of young guy with big dreams goes to Wall Street, makes a lot of money, does a lot of blow/hookers, and then his empire crumbles. Except in this case Jordan Belmont (Leo DiCaprio) only made his fortune on his second tour on Wall Street. His first ended on Black Monday in 1987.
Then he went to Long Island to a little hole-in-the-wall company selling penny stocks. I'm sure Michael Offutt could define those better but they essentially are stocks too worthless to be listed on any exchange because they are worth literally pennies per share. Idiots buy into these thinking they'll get rich. It's like going to a racetrack and betting on the 100-to-1 shot.
Jordan seals his interview by grabbing the phone, calling some random schmuck, and then getting him to buy $4000 worth of a crappy stock called Aerotyne, which was literally operating out of a garage. Then he recruits some buddies and they buy an old garage and start their own penny stock operation, which becomes a huge Wall Street firm.
Early on Jordan gives all his guys a script. First they call the schmuck and start out blatantly lying about some great company that is of course worthless. This is something I remember Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN talking about a lot, how people love to think they're getting privileged information, that someone has a "secret" that will make them a fortune. It's why so many people signed up with Bernie Madoff and the like. Then to cinch the deal Jordan has his guys buddy up to the schmuck saying how they're going to make sure the stock does well because it's their neck on the line too. In the large part the idea is to act like they care what happens because they're an ordinary schmuck too. (Meanwhile their buddies are laughing their asses off in the background.)
The other prong of Jordan's attack is to rebrand his company. He renames it Stratford something or other and uses a symbol of a lion and moves the company into Manhattan. This is supposed to make people feel the company is legit, because no firm with a lion for a symbol would be some fly-by-night operation, right?
At the end, after Jordan has spent a paltry 3 years in a country club prison, he goes to New Zealand to give a seminar to would-be salespeople. His intro is to challenge them to sell him his pen. Earlier he plays this game with his buddies. One takes the pen and asks someone to write his name on a napkin, to which the guy is like, "I don't have a pen." Well there you go. Supply and demand, right?
For many people writing a book is easy; selling it is hard. Like the other salespeople in Long Island or those at Jordan's seminars most of us are pretty clueless about how to sell our books. We could all learn something from his tactics, no matter how sleazy they might seem:
A good trick you can use that I learned from my "publisher": if your book was on an Amazon best seller list in the UK or another country for a couple of hours, you can declare yourself an "International Best Selling Author" on your book covers. It's not really a lie, is it? I was on a best seller list in the UK for a few hours! Just last night a book under one of my pen names was beating those by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, and Edgar Allen Poe on the short stories bestseller list in the UK. So there. You might feel squeamish about it, but that's why most authors are so terrible at selling; you have to be willing to exaggerate and to go out there and toot your own horn if you want to really become a best selling author.
To get back to the movie, I can't really recommend it as at nearly 3 hours it's well over an hour too long. Did Scorsese even have an editor on staff? Yeesh. And as I said it doesn't really rise above the cliche. Andrew Leon said he didn't know what the movie was about; I think in the big picture it's supposed to evoke the Occupy Wall Street frustration. Jordan lies, cheats, and swindles a lot of people and yet he only does 3 years of time. This point is made by the FBI agent who worked for years and years to bust Jordan and then has to ride home on a grungy subway while Jordan gets out after his 3 years and starts making money again from his seminars. But that point certainly didn't need 3 hours to make.
It can't be free again for like 3 months, so act now! Operators are not standing by! (Because this is the 21st Century and we have this newfangled Internet thingy)
And if you like it, June 16-22 the second "collection" Volume 2: The Wrath of Isis will be on sale for 99 cents as my first ever use of the new "Kindle Countdown Deals" thing. That's 2,000 pages of superhero action for only 99 cents! Of course right now it's only $2.99, which really isn't that much more expensive, but I know how much people hate paying for books.
And now the rest of the entry...
This is in part another review of a movie I watched about a month ago. "The Wolf of Wall Street" was pretty much what I thought it was: Martin Scorcese's version of "Wall Street." It never really rises above the cliche Every Wall Street Movie Ever plot of young guy with big dreams goes to Wall Street, makes a lot of money, does a lot of blow/hookers, and then his empire crumbles. Except in this case Jordan Belmont (Leo DiCaprio) only made his fortune on his second tour on Wall Street. His first ended on Black Monday in 1987.
Then he went to Long Island to a little hole-in-the-wall company selling penny stocks. I'm sure Michael Offutt could define those better but they essentially are stocks too worthless to be listed on any exchange because they are worth literally pennies per share. Idiots buy into these thinking they'll get rich. It's like going to a racetrack and betting on the 100-to-1 shot.
Jordan seals his interview by grabbing the phone, calling some random schmuck, and then getting him to buy $4000 worth of a crappy stock called Aerotyne, which was literally operating out of a garage. Then he recruits some buddies and they buy an old garage and start their own penny stock operation, which becomes a huge Wall Street firm.
Early on Jordan gives all his guys a script. First they call the schmuck and start out blatantly lying about some great company that is of course worthless. This is something I remember Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN talking about a lot, how people love to think they're getting privileged information, that someone has a "secret" that will make them a fortune. It's why so many people signed up with Bernie Madoff and the like. Then to cinch the deal Jordan has his guys buddy up to the schmuck saying how they're going to make sure the stock does well because it's their neck on the line too. In the large part the idea is to act like they care what happens because they're an ordinary schmuck too. (Meanwhile their buddies are laughing their asses off in the background.)
The other prong of Jordan's attack is to rebrand his company. He renames it Stratford something or other and uses a symbol of a lion and moves the company into Manhattan. This is supposed to make people feel the company is legit, because no firm with a lion for a symbol would be some fly-by-night operation, right?
At the end, after Jordan has spent a paltry 3 years in a country club prison, he goes to New Zealand to give a seminar to would-be salespeople. His intro is to challenge them to sell him his pen. Earlier he plays this game with his buddies. One takes the pen and asks someone to write his name on a napkin, to which the guy is like, "I don't have a pen." Well there you go. Supply and demand, right?
For many people writing a book is easy; selling it is hard. Like the other salespeople in Long Island or those at Jordan's seminars most of us are pretty clueless about how to sell our books. We could all learn something from his tactics, no matter how sleazy they might seem:
- Confidence! If you don't believe, why should anyone else?
- Don't be afraid to lie. You're a writer; you should be good at making stuff up.
- Know who you're selling to. Hopefully that's more than your friends and family.
- Dress for Success: Make sure your books and website look as professional as you can make them. Which I try to do with my website here
A good trick you can use that I learned from my "publisher": if your book was on an Amazon best seller list in the UK or another country for a couple of hours, you can declare yourself an "International Best Selling Author" on your book covers. It's not really a lie, is it? I was on a best seller list in the UK for a few hours! Just last night a book under one of my pen names was beating those by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, and Edgar Allen Poe on the short stories bestseller list in the UK. So there. You might feel squeamish about it, but that's why most authors are so terrible at selling; you have to be willing to exaggerate and to go out there and toot your own horn if you want to really become a best selling author.
To get back to the movie, I can't really recommend it as at nearly 3 hours it's well over an hour too long. Did Scorsese even have an editor on staff? Yeesh. And as I said it doesn't really rise above the cliche. Andrew Leon said he didn't know what the movie was about; I think in the big picture it's supposed to evoke the Occupy Wall Street frustration. Jordan lies, cheats, and swindles a lot of people and yet he only does 3 years of time. This point is made by the FBI agent who worked for years and years to bust Jordan and then has to ride home on a grungy subway while Jordan gets out after his 3 years and starts making money again from his seminars. But that point certainly didn't need 3 hours to make.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Finales: Arrow vs. Agents of SHIELD
This post contains spoilers if you haven't watched these episodes already. You've been warned!
This week saw both big comic book-related TV shows, "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" and "Arrow" wrap up with their season finales. As has been the case most of the year (since I started watching it at any rate) "Arrow" was the winner in terms of superhero action. But Agents of SHIELD wasn't terrible either.
I had stopped watching Agents of SHIELD in February or so when they took a break for the Olympics or whatever, but I started watching again after "Captain America 2" came out because I heard there was a seismic shift in the show. Which there was as SHIELD crumbles in the wake of discovering Hydra has infiltrated it to its highest levels, including uptight supposedly straight-arrow Agent Grant Ward. This made the show slightly better as the team was fighting for their lives instead of the bogus X-Files ripoff crap from earlier in the season.
In the last episode Coulson and company are tracking down the evil Garrett, who's trying to make an army of supersoldiers like the cyborg assassin Deathlok. For the last couple of episodes they've been tracking him down but now they finally reach his base of operations. And then mayhem ensues. I already knew about the Nick Fury cameo in advance, though I was surprised it came so early in the show. I thought it'd be another one of those where he shows up at the end. Not that he necessarily DOES a whole lot except talk and give Coulson the BFG (Big Freakin' Gun in Doom) to shoot at supersoldiers.
There was one part of the episode I found absolutely ridiculous. In the prior episode Ward has ejected dorky scientists Fitz and Simmons (do not ask me which is which) in an escape pod that sinks to "the bottom of the ocean." Well apparently the bottom of the ocean is as deep as a motel swimming pool because they blow the window in the pod (why does it even have a window?) and manage to swim out to the surface. From the bottom of the ocean. Without any scuba gear, just a single oxygen mask. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm not Jacques Cousteau here (which is good because he's dead) but I know you can't go to the bottom of the ocean without a vehicle. The pressure down there can crush you like a freaking grape. Even subs have a maximum depth they can go before the pressure gets too much. It's like saying they could jump out of a space shuttle and go through the atmosphere without burning up. I ain't buying it. But maybe I need to consult with Neil deGraase Tyson on this.
Besides that it was a good episode as far as this series is concerned. And now that Coulson is the head of SHIELD they have a chance to reinvent the show and maybe make it not suck as much as it did most of the year. There are still questions left unanswered like what the deal with Skye is. Has she ever shown any potential to do anything special? Was her daddy bathing in blood? Nasty. And what was that thing Coulson (and Garrett earlier) were going all A Beautiful Mind drawing? Since Avengers 2 is coming out in May, around the time when season 2 of this show should be wrapping up, do you suppose they'll use the next season to help set that up?
Probably the second most ridiculous thing is that apparently the Patton Oswalt character had an identical twin. Who are both SHIELD agents. Who both maintain out-of-the-way hiding places. Maybe they're robots? Or clones? It was kind of lame. (3/5)
By contrast the "Arrow" finale was a lot more epic in terms of action. It channels "The Dark Knight Rises" a bit as it basically involves the bad guy (Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke) and the good guy (Oliver Queen aka the [Green] Arrow) throwing down in a street fight. Oliver's army is made primarily of assassins from the League of Assassins (aka the League of Shadows from the Nolanverse) who have made a deal with Sarah (aka [Black] Canary) that means she'll have to rejoin them in exchange for their help.
The real focus of the action is between Oliver and Slade. Employing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man playbook, Slade kidnaps first Laurel and then Felicity to kill the woman Oliver loves. His confusion is understandable since Oliver has pretty much screwed every woman on the show--except his half-sister. Except Oliver cruelly used Felicity as bait to get her close enough to use the cure for the Mirakuru super-steroid on Slade. Total dick move there, brah. I liked how they intermingled flashbacks of Slade and Oliver fighting on the sinking freighter to them fighting in the present to give you an idea of how they've come full circle.
I was disappointed they didn't kill anyone, but at least they did write out a couple of characters for a little while. You know Sarah, Thea, and Slade will all reappear at some point in the future. The way they potentially killed Laurel/Sarah's dad was probably the weakest point of the episode. I mean he's saying goodbye to Sarah and then all the sudden he's like, "Ooh my tummy hurts...I'm dying!" Hurm, probably should have gotten an X-ray after being punched in the gut by a dude hopped up on super-steroids. And the second weakest moment was when they reveal that unfortunately there's more to Oliver's time away from home. Now he's in Hong Kong in Amanda Waller's clutches? WTF? Seriously, could we just end these flashbacks already? It's getting a bit ridiculous.
It'll be interesting to see where they go in season 3 after the fallout from Starling City being ravaged--again. Oliver kind of sucks at being a superhero. (4/5)
During the "Arrow" finale they had a teaser for "The Flash" which is debuting next year. Apparently "Arrow" and "Agents of SHIELD" have done well enough that 5 more comics-related series are premiering next year: The Flash and iZombie on CW, Gotham (a Batman prequel) on Fox, Agent Carter (a SHIELD prequel I think) on ABC, and Constantine (vaguely related to that lame Keanu Reeves movie that was vaguely related to the Hellblazer comic) on NBC. On top of that in 2015 Netflix begins showing new Marvel series focusing on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and some others. So now comics are taking over the small screen AND the big screen. And one even stars a woman, so that's progress. But guess which one will probably be cancelled first?
Now to try to get some page views as Briane Pagel and I were discussing on Indie Writers Monthly yesterday, here's a picture of Sean Connery in a swimsuit:
This week saw both big comic book-related TV shows, "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" and "Arrow" wrap up with their season finales. As has been the case most of the year (since I started watching it at any rate) "Arrow" was the winner in terms of superhero action. But Agents of SHIELD wasn't terrible either.
I had stopped watching Agents of SHIELD in February or so when they took a break for the Olympics or whatever, but I started watching again after "Captain America 2" came out because I heard there was a seismic shift in the show. Which there was as SHIELD crumbles in the wake of discovering Hydra has infiltrated it to its highest levels, including uptight supposedly straight-arrow Agent Grant Ward. This made the show slightly better as the team was fighting for their lives instead of the bogus X-Files ripoff crap from earlier in the season.
In the last episode Coulson and company are tracking down the evil Garrett, who's trying to make an army of supersoldiers like the cyborg assassin Deathlok. For the last couple of episodes they've been tracking him down but now they finally reach his base of operations. And then mayhem ensues. I already knew about the Nick Fury cameo in advance, though I was surprised it came so early in the show. I thought it'd be another one of those where he shows up at the end. Not that he necessarily DOES a whole lot except talk and give Coulson the BFG (Big Freakin' Gun in Doom) to shoot at supersoldiers.
There was one part of the episode I found absolutely ridiculous. In the prior episode Ward has ejected dorky scientists Fitz and Simmons (do not ask me which is which) in an escape pod that sinks to "the bottom of the ocean." Well apparently the bottom of the ocean is as deep as a motel swimming pool because they blow the window in the pod (why does it even have a window?) and manage to swim out to the surface. From the bottom of the ocean. Without any scuba gear, just a single oxygen mask. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm not Jacques Cousteau here (which is good because he's dead) but I know you can't go to the bottom of the ocean without a vehicle. The pressure down there can crush you like a freaking grape. Even subs have a maximum depth they can go before the pressure gets too much. It's like saying they could jump out of a space shuttle and go through the atmosphere without burning up. I ain't buying it. But maybe I need to consult with Neil deGraase Tyson on this.
Besides that it was a good episode as far as this series is concerned. And now that Coulson is the head of SHIELD they have a chance to reinvent the show and maybe make it not suck as much as it did most of the year. There are still questions left unanswered like what the deal with Skye is. Has she ever shown any potential to do anything special? Was her daddy bathing in blood? Nasty. And what was that thing Coulson (and Garrett earlier) were going all A Beautiful Mind drawing? Since Avengers 2 is coming out in May, around the time when season 2 of this show should be wrapping up, do you suppose they'll use the next season to help set that up?
Probably the second most ridiculous thing is that apparently the Patton Oswalt character had an identical twin. Who are both SHIELD agents. Who both maintain out-of-the-way hiding places. Maybe they're robots? Or clones? It was kind of lame. (3/5)
By contrast the "Arrow" finale was a lot more epic in terms of action. It channels "The Dark Knight Rises" a bit as it basically involves the bad guy (Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke) and the good guy (Oliver Queen aka the [Green] Arrow) throwing down in a street fight. Oliver's army is made primarily of assassins from the League of Assassins (aka the League of Shadows from the Nolanverse) who have made a deal with Sarah (aka [Black] Canary) that means she'll have to rejoin them in exchange for their help.
The real focus of the action is between Oliver and Slade. Employing the Sam Raimi Spider-Man playbook, Slade kidnaps first Laurel and then Felicity to kill the woman Oliver loves. His confusion is understandable since Oliver has pretty much screwed every woman on the show--except his half-sister. Except Oliver cruelly used Felicity as bait to get her close enough to use the cure for the Mirakuru super-steroid on Slade. Total dick move there, brah. I liked how they intermingled flashbacks of Slade and Oliver fighting on the sinking freighter to them fighting in the present to give you an idea of how they've come full circle.
I was disappointed they didn't kill anyone, but at least they did write out a couple of characters for a little while. You know Sarah, Thea, and Slade will all reappear at some point in the future. The way they potentially killed Laurel/Sarah's dad was probably the weakest point of the episode. I mean he's saying goodbye to Sarah and then all the sudden he's like, "Ooh my tummy hurts...I'm dying!" Hurm, probably should have gotten an X-ray after being punched in the gut by a dude hopped up on super-steroids. And the second weakest moment was when they reveal that unfortunately there's more to Oliver's time away from home. Now he's in Hong Kong in Amanda Waller's clutches? WTF? Seriously, could we just end these flashbacks already? It's getting a bit ridiculous.
It'll be interesting to see where they go in season 3 after the fallout from Starling City being ravaged--again. Oliver kind of sucks at being a superhero. (4/5)
During the "Arrow" finale they had a teaser for "The Flash" which is debuting next year. Apparently "Arrow" and "Agents of SHIELD" have done well enough that 5 more comics-related series are premiering next year: The Flash and iZombie on CW, Gotham (a Batman prequel) on Fox, Agent Carter (a SHIELD prequel I think) on ABC, and Constantine (vaguely related to that lame Keanu Reeves movie that was vaguely related to the Hellblazer comic) on NBC. On top of that in 2015 Netflix begins showing new Marvel series focusing on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and some others. So now comics are taking over the small screen AND the big screen. And one even stars a woman, so that's progress. But guess which one will probably be cancelled first?
Now to try to get some page views as Briane Pagel and I were discussing on Indie Writers Monthly yesterday, here's a picture of Sean Connery in a swimsuit:
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