Leading From Nowhere

Preface: This is a slight detour from my usual content that I don't usually take because I don't want to alienate readers, but after some things I've seen, heard and read the past few weeks, this needs to be said. I'll be back to just pissing off nerds next week.

So, I was having a discussion a while back in one of the comic forums I'm in. In the midst of the rumor mill behind the production and casting in Man of Steel 2: Steel Harder, the internet has casted everyone from Denzel Washington to the Rock as Green Lantern (whom we're not even completely sure is going to make an appearance in this movie, by the way). Most of these rumors are the made-up, wishful thinking of nerd blogs, but the ongoing trend is that people seemed to be really into the idea of John Stewart, a Green Lantern of color. At first, I dismissed this trend as fans wanting DC's cinematic universe to distance itself as far from Ryan Reynolds and Movie Hal Jordan as possible. Not completely unreasonable. I could not care which Green Lantern they use if they use one at all. I've learned that casting news and press releases don't drive me nearly as crazy as it drives my nerd brethren. I also thought about the long-standing, underlying call for more black superheroes to take their place in the forefront in comic book culture (even though Wesley Snipes pretty much BECAME Blade in the collective consciousness and Samuel L. Jackson IS Nick Fury to such a degree that Marvel killed White Nick Fury, who'd been around in the comics for 50 years).

Then, I found myself thinking about it a little more. I came home from the day job as the Golden Globes was taking place. Now, I don't actually watch award shows simply because, 90% of the time I'm not terribly invested in any of the shows or films nominated. However, I DO glance at my news feed on Facebook periodically. It's not just the fact that the sheer outrage at black nominees not winning a particular award borderlined on the kind of zealotry that could even throw a Texan like myself for a loop (given the fact that church and football are like cash crops here). But it's the fact that people are so disappointed at their prize fighter not winning, it brings them to hate the people that did win like Jennifer Lawrence, who, to my mind, hasn't done anything harmful to anyone aside from maybe being in X-Men: First Class. I didn't quite understand the fanaticism. After all, it's not just rhetoric when they say you should be happy just to be nominated. Granted, wanting to win is an unavoidable part of the human condition and, yeah, prestigious accolades do seem to allow actors to bag big roles. However, in this case, being "Golden Globe Award nominated Kerry Washington or Lupita Nyong'o" will probably work just as well as being "Golden Globe Award winning Kerry Washington or Lupita Nyong'o." So, why all the outrage?

Then, I turned on the television a while later to see that the news cycle was practically making an internet meme out of Seattle Seahawks cornerback, Richard Sherman, who, in the process of beating his chest during post game coverage, scared the living shit out of Erin Andrews . As a result of his (sort of understandable) outburst, a few media outlets took to using the word "thug" to describe his on-camera behavior. And the internet, the community, the universe....fucking LOST IT. On one hand, an athlete taunting another athlete after winning a very important game does NOT constitute as "thug" behavior. Does it make him a bit of a dick? Sure, but that can be excused considering he just won a very important game and no self-respecting news outlet should have characterized him the way they did. I mean, let's be honest...I freak the fuck out when I get home from the store and find out that I saved money because the cashier forgot to charge me for my beer. This guy clinched his team's spot in the Super Goddamned Bowl with an epic play that will be talked about for years to come. Also, this isn't really anything new. The Seahawks' secondary has talked so much utterly reckless shit to EVERYONE all season, they may as well be the Floyd Mayweather of professional football.

On the other hand, the countless articles and op-eds lionizing this kid? Bill Maher comparing him to Muhammad Ali? The community (by the way, I am absolutely talking about the African American community...my community) putting this kid on their backs like a dead Russell Crowe at the end of Gladiator? Why? Don't get me wrong. I'm excited for the kid getting endorsements and his team getting their chance to go on to the big show and (personal prediction) get crushed by Peyton Manning, but let's put this in the proper context. Ali stood up against the Vietnam War. Richard Sherman stood up for the greater good of Richard Sherman.

So, why the big deal? Why all the sociopolitical theater? Movie stars, jocks and comic book characters....when did these things become THIS important in black culture? I've always been a little lenient on Hollywood and comic culture giving us black heroes because, as far as I'm concerned, black people already have heroes. Why do I give a shit if Santa Claus is black when Amiri Fucking Baraka was?

Then, it hit me. We superimpose ourselves onto these people, celebrities and larger than life fictional archetypes to build Black Nation up because, now that I think about it, Black Nation is running short on leaders, aren't we? Let's take a good, honest look at the state of things.

We just lost Nelson Mandela and Amiri Baraka. With all due affection for Barack Obama, he has said several times that being President of an entire country doesn't allow him the time nor privilege nor leeway from conservatives to single out civil rights as a cause and he's not entirely wrong. As long as we're ALL in bad shape socially and financially, that has to be the leader of the country's primary focus. And those from the early days of the Civil Rights movement....well, I'm not going to say they're a bit off base, but I WILL say that Al Sharpton is a talk show host.

It's safe to say that I myself have gotten old enough to consider myself a member of a generation that is immensely hard on the generation behind me as far as their resolve in combating racism, but I'm also here to admit that the absence of leadership and isn't entirely their fault. (Because I must clearly hate myself) I was flipping channels, came across The Real Housewives of SomethingOrAnother and decided to keep it there a few minutes. In the duration, a woman, who I was later informed is the granddaughter of Hosea Williams, sincerely thought the Underground Railroad was--I shit you not--an ACTUAL TRAIN. I'm not particularly looking down on Porsha Williams. I am, however, sorely disappointed in those around her in the course of her upbringing. It really does take a village to raise any one child. And her village failed her.

I want it to be clear that I'm not shooting slugs at pop culture or current trends. I enjoy Scandal and football just as much as the next person. I say that to tell you....in fact, this whole post has been to tell you that any movement, any democracy and any group that feels unrepresented ONLY benefits from being well informed. If the youth behind you don't know (what we so affectionately refer to as) "our story"....it's because YOU didn't tell it properly and enforce that it be remembered. Improving any people's way of life doesn't come from going on CNN, telling the to pull their pants up and throw their trash away (I'm looking at you, Don Lemon). It doesn't come from condescending from telling women that what they do with their vaginas knocks their race two steps back (I am absolutely looking at you, "Dr" Boyce Watkins). It comes from knowing who came before them and what they sacrificed for the freedoms you have now. It comes from knowledge. With that knowledge comes pride in their lineage and with that pride comes a lust to preserve it unencumbered by journalist drama queens and bloggers and (becoming) old men like myself telling them what's what. Maybe then, we won't have to wonder why Storm from the X-Men doesn't have her own show or why Mister Terrific's book didn't last a year (probably because it was shitty) or why Kerry Washington didn't win a Golden Globe. Then again, I could be wrong.

My Favorite Things of 2013: Television

Avatar: The Legend of Korra- Was Book Two as good as Book One across the board? No. But it was still pretty fucking awesome. Switching animation studios was the best thing that could have happened to this show. Episodes 7 and 8 may very well be the best looking episodes ever seen in the Avatar franchise thus far. The writers clearly pulled a couple of "uncharacteristic" stunts with the characters in the first half to shake things up, but the second half more than makes up for it.

The Walking Dead- For a show that never seems to get the comic to tv translation quite right, this show still manages to be the best ongoing survival horror series (maybe) ever.

The Newsroom- The second season of Aaron Sorkin's news media melodrama managed to highlight the fact that a). even fictional liberal media can't ever catch a break and b). no matter how much viewers like him, critics will never be happy with any non-West Wing thing Sorkin ever does "because fuck him, that's why." Granted, I don't agree with changing his format in season 2 just to pacify critics who whine about its preachy tone (funny how those same critics never seemed to have a problem with 24's overall theme of "America is awesome because America"), but the Operation Genoa story arc was a very intriguing experiment in the potential of Sorkin drama (at this point, Sorkin drama is a genre unto itself) to highlight that journalism, in reality, is less draconian and conspiratorial and more incompetent and rushed. Yes, Jeff Daniels, more or less carries this show and sure, there are a couple of plot points that can go ahead and die, but this is still one of the best shows on HBO that isn't Game of Thrones....or Girls....or Boardwalk Empire. You get what I'm saying.

Arrow- This one is on my good side mainly because I consider it like the "most improved student" in the classroom of comic-based media. When it debuted in 2012, I was highly unimpressed with the lackluster pilot and dismissed it. However, I eventually came back to it out of curiosity, shocked to see that, despite a couple of episodes clearly being written by Geoff Johns (I like the guy but Explainer's Disease), the show grew on me quickly. This show is a good example of what I was talking about in an earlier opinion piece when I mentioned that movie/television ideas can enhance a character and make them digestible for the collective consciousness. Although he's a personal favorite of mine, Green Arrow is definitely a character who I've always believed would benefit from some retooling. I think it was a smart move to basically turn him into a primetime Batman surrogate (since it's been plainly obvious for years that DC has wanted Batman on primetime tv soooooo badly). I also like this show because it seems to be every bit as polarizing among fans as Man of Steel was. Arrow is either either fanboys love about comic book television or it's the bane of their existence. My hypothesis is that the nerds who hate it subconsciously hate that it has the stigma of CW tween-vision, land of shirtless men and feelings, hanging over it. But let's be honest; how are the things fans complain about ANY different from Thor or Spartacus which seem to be immensely popular?

-"Oh, it's so melodramatic. It's obviously pandering to women."

Something based on a comic book that's been around since the 40's has "Damsel in Distress Disease" and pretty people in it? The hell you say. How awful. Gee whiz, why can't Arrow be more like Thor, where homely men like Chris Hemsworth stand next to homely women like Natalie Portman who don't ever get themselves into danger, bludgeon their relentless enemies to their vomit inducing deaths and would NEVER spend half of a movie making pouty doe eyes at each other?

You know where I first saw the trailer for Thor: the Dark World? During the previews before Baggage Claim, a myopic piece of syrupy romantic comedy Kool-Aid that my girlfriend at the time dragged me to. You know what other trailers were featured? Black Nativity, a musical bastardization of Langston Hughes' play followed by About Last Night, a rom-com with Kevin Hart in it. I was one of maybe 7 other men in a packed theater. Thor: The Dark World currently holds at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Thor movie before that one is at 77%. I hate to break it to you, fellas, but comic book movies beat you to the pandering punch. Try again.

-"He's always got his shirt off for no reason. And the women always look like models."

Oh, please. Because we all know hit action shows like Spartacus are such winners because the heroes and heroines are all such fully clothed bastions of modesty and virtue. And remind me again how Thor is known for his long sleeved, baggy shirted adventures.

I said all that to say....suck it up and learn to let go. Arrow is awesome.

My Favorite Things of 2013: Comics and Movies

Movies:

Man of Steel- Oh, goddamn, I love this movie. Superman's return to the big screen is one of my favorite things to happen to nerd media in a while, but not because it was the best comic book movie DC has to offer. It wasn't. It was orange and strangely paced. Zak Snyder's incarnation piqued my interest mainly because it was one of the most divisive film among nerds I've seen in years. They either LOVED this movie or completely LOATHED this movie. The fact of the matter is the love or hate for Man of Steel is completely dependent upon what kind of Superman you think Superman should be. If you think Superman should be a wise, alien demi god who gets everything right when nobody else can or should, then you may cringe a little watching it (although, let's be honest...Zak Snyder Superman is set up to be, more or less, the DC version of Chris Evans Captain America and that's worked out so far). If you're okay with a story about a guy who falls right off the "new guy on the superhero block" tree and hits every branch, car, building and orbital satellite on the way down, you'll fit right in with this one.



Gravity- This one gets special mention because I was so skeptical going into it. On one hand, I've never hated anything I've seen from Alfonso Cuaron, so it wasn't like watching a M. Night Shyamalan movie where I have ALMOST EVERYTHING HE'S EVER DONE to hold against him. On the other hand, I wasn't exactly sold on the idea of Open Water...In Space. With that said, this one pulled me in almost immediately. I'm not even going to waste a lot of time harping on how gorgeous this movie is or the fact that this is ONLY movie I have EVER liked in 3D because these are obvious things for anyone who watches this movie with eyes and a brain. First of all, I didn't know there were so many Sandra Bullock haters and I'm not sure I understand why, but let me be the first to invite them all over for a family sized helping of "Stop That Shit." There's pretty much nobody else in Hollywood that does "Everyday woman in a supremely fucked up situation" quite like Sandra Bullock (except maybe Anne Hathaway...maybe). I'm unashamed in saying that this is easily one of the best "...in space" movies in years. You know you have a good movie in your hands when Neil Degrasse Tyson can write a days long Twitter dissertation about all of its scientific inconsistencies....and he STILL loves it.

Comics: 

"Yes, I'm breast feeding. Yes, I'm okay with that."

Saga- After all the praise I've given this book via reviews, I really shouldn't have to praise this book ever again. But I will anyway. In a year's time, I've told probably every person I know who would actually listen to me talk about comics (or anything, really) to read this. Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples' space epic dwarfs pretty much anything else happening in comics right now. Vaughn does something here that not every writer can do: He succeeds in making an intergalactic story accessible and relatable while still maintaining a sense of bizarre sci-fi without it ever falling flat (Take notes...I'm looking at you, Thanos Rising). When it's exciting, the action practically turns each page itself. When it's weird, the artwork is practically weird enough to leap right out of the panels and slap you with a rubber dildo while still not chasing you away. The engaging character development is the closest I've seen a comic book come to being on par with television shows like Breaking Bad and Walking Dead (on its good days). If it keeps going at the quality it's at now, Saga will go on to be talked about in the same conversations as titles like Transmetropolitan, DMZ and Y The Last Man (another Vaughn book).


Hawkeye- Quiet as kept, since Daredevil: End of Days (by David Mack, who praised my blog, by the way...I'll probably NEVER stop talking about that) wrapped up, Matt Fraction's Eisner Award winning story about what Clint Barton does when he's not being an Avenger is probably the BEST thing Marvel has in its arsenal. If you've seen the Avengers movie (and honestly, even if you haven't), you don't need to know much about this character going into it. Clint Barton is an Avenger, he has a bow and arrow...and his personal life is kind of a mess. Except for the Avenger part, everyone knows a guy who's kind of a sad case like Hawkeye and that's the vibe that powers this book through each page. Also, Fraction's characterization of Kate Bishop, Hawkeye's apprentice/bff/little sister figure/handler, makes me think that a). she should have a solo title (which she kinda does at times in this book) and b). should absolutely be played by Ellen Page if the opportunity ever arises.

R.I.P. James Avery 1948-2014

Why Fans Should Suck It Up About Comic Book Movies

Recently, I came across an article from a conservative blogger about how he'd elected to never spend another dime on superhero films because Hollywood, at every turn, has completely raped his childhood and made the superheroes he grew up completely unbearable and he's not going to take it anymore.  Now, I'm acknowledging ahead of time that his blog post is mostly poorly argued and unresearched (which is the most I should probably expect from what is basically the Fox News version of my own blog), but his complaints are not uncommon among the fickle and sometimes downright hateful mob that is comic fandom. Granted, I understand why people would complain that studios are better off sticking closer to the source material. After all, NOBODY wants another Jonah Hex or X-Men: The Last Stand. Still, here a few things this guy....as well as a lot of fans....should consider.

1). Faithfulness to the source material does NOT always equate to a good movie. I mean, for a commendable project that packed tons of material into a two hour movie, Watchmen was such an imitation (despite some people having perfect bodies when they shouldn't, but....Hollywood) that it was practically hermetically sealed in its original comic packaging. And even still, it was met with mixed reviews among critics and fans. Tim Story's Fantastic Four was moderately close the comic (MODERATELY...except for Doctor Doom being a superpowered Donald Trump analog) and even that was considered mainly a failed attempt.

Green Lantern pretty much hit all the bullet points required of the Geoff Johns-ified version of Hal Jordan's (except for Movie Hal Jordan being a complete pussy) origin story and yet it still managed to be chastised as one of the worst comic movies of the past five years. Also, it eventually leads to fans complaining that they're not seeing anything they've never seen before. For years, Superman loyalists have whined and whined that we haven't seen anything out of those movies (until Man of Steel) that we've never seen before ("Really, Lex Luthor again???"). Now, I think that they're asking a LOT from Superman's list of villains, but they also have a point in the fact that remaining too close to what comic fans know doesn't do anything to add to the mythology of the hero in question. Taking an entire comic book and pasting onto the silver screen doesn't always lead to success. This leads to my next point......

2). New ideas from directors have been known to enhance comic book lore. When directors are allowed to toy with certain aspects of the source material, THAT is when innovation happens. People bitch and moan about X-Men all the time. Some people don't like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine because historically, Wolverine is a short, hairy guy who likes beer. This is entertaining enough for a comic book until you realize that if you translate that same description to a movie storyboard where you have cast a REAL actor, the person you're describing is Danny Devito.

I wasn't kidding. Giant smoke kraken.

Honestly, Green Lantern could have stood some outside innovation from Martin Campbell (except maybe not making Parallax out to be a former Green Lantern turned giant smoke kraken). General Zod was essentially a throwaway villain from an obscure issue of Adventure Comics until Richard Donner brought him to the forefront in Superman II. Furthermore, even though it was always canon that he was a small town kid, it wasn't really established that Clark Kent was raised on a farm in Kansas until Donner's movie placed Smallville in Kansas. Gotham City wasn't a perpetually gray, crime infested wasteland of art nouveau and towering gothic cathedrals until Tim Burton and Anton Furst designed it that way. More often than not, it takes a movie, something absorbed by the collective consciousness (comic nerds and casual moviegoers alike) to establish baseline characteristics for a superhero or their surroundings which simultaneously why Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man for the forseeable future and why DC could only benefit from making a Wonder Woman movie.

3). Once a comic becomes a movie, it's not exclusively yours anymore. You know who understands concepts like this? Children. When my friends and I played make believe Power Rangers, it was easy. There were commonly six of us and there were five Power Rangers (the Mighty Morphin days....Sweet Jesus, I'm old) so, except for the inevitable argument over who would be the Green Ranger, it was simple. Then, someone else would come along and want to play with us. Now, the likelihood of them wanting to be Zordon, the giant, omniscient floating head that told the Rangers to do shit was slim to none (although, in retrospect, when I put it that way, why the FUCK didn't I ever want to be Zordon), so they wanted to be a Ranger, too. Despite there only being six Rangers, there were, of course, more than six colors in the spectrum of colors, so fuck it. Little Amy can be the Violet Ranger and she can have a giant Velociraptor robot. Peace was maintained and playtime could continue.

The moral of that little story was that when other people want to be a part of what you're into, you have to share. In this day and age, movie adaptations are ideally the sign that a larger audience (Hollywood, non comic nerds, kids, whatever) wants to be in on what was once a very niche fiction of, at it's best, a million readers. Nerds (I'm guilty of this, too) have to understand that it's inevitable that when something becomes popular enough, corporate America will create a medium where it can be consumed by anyone. This happens with rap, spoken word, art house film-making, etc. Comic books aren't immune. The sad truth is that if Hollywood can fail us by keeping Channing Tatum in movies and allowing James Cameron to make Avatar sequels, it's not too farfetched that they would fuck up Ghost Rider and Elektra.

In summary....SUCK IT UP.

The Goddamn Batman Problem.....

So, I was catching up on New 52 Batman recently. As hard as I am on the reboot material coming out of DC for the past couple of years, I actually really enjoy Scott Snyder's work on Batman. He really has a penchant for Snyder-ising a lot of well-known aspects of the Bat-mythos and making them feel undiscovered. His "Court of Owls" story arc was particularly engaging while still exciting and fast paced. But there was one particular plot point that bothered me, though.

In his fight to defeat the Court of Owls conspiracy threatening to envelop Gotham from the inside, Batman had to exploit the weakness of their nigh-indestructable "talon" assassin agents (imagine ninjas who dress like owls) which has to do with extreme cold. Obviously, this led to the Bat-family having a brief run in with Mr. Freeze. While his driving motivation is still his beloved icicle of a wife, Nora, this retconned version of Victor Fries has actually never met Nora and is just a lonely man who became obsessed with her during his early days of researching cryogenics. Batman recounts this story to exploit as a weakness and, of course, beat Freeze. It was a decent, well-written story, but it also sheds light on my biggest problem with contemporary Batman.

The thing about Batman villains is a lot of the really good ones tend to have a sort of driving force that gives the reader a way to connect and, sometimes, sympathize with them. Granted, this isn't exclusively Batman territory, but Mister Freeze was definitely a character who, over the years, has been particularly popular because of his understandable motivations. Despite being released as a straight to video animated feature (probably because the "Batman and Robin" movie still had a stink on it so strong, it may have been mistaken for actual chemical warfare), SubZero was a very well received movie essentially about Supervillain John Q, a guy trying to save someone he loved and was willing to be an asshole to do it.

This was interesting, but not only because it adds depth to the bad guy. Ideally, it adds some layers to the good guy. Batman actually had to understand someone's motives outside of "because I'm an asshole, that's why." More often than not, during the time of "The Animated Series," Batman went out of his way to still try to save his foes when outside variables seemed to fall apart. By the time he met Animated Series Superman, this gave them something to have in common despite varying methods of getting the job done.

The whole point of the World's Greatest Detective is that he's smart and physically capable, but he's still just a man and, in his own way, serves as not only Gotham's protector, but its conscience as well. The Batman Problem comes when you do things like reduce Mister Freeze, a villain with depth, to a delusional dickhead who never had hugs as a kid just so Batman can look tougher and "above it all" when he beats his ass. In fact, if you look closely, he spends a lot more time outsmarting and looking tough in front of his own Justice League teammates than he does the bad guys You can even see it in the Dark Knight trilogy (although I loved those movies) where Batman's code about not killing holds up....until he kills someone (Ra's Al Ghul, Two Face, Talia). Even though it's awesome at times, the Problem is that Batman has gone from a badass Sherlock Holmes analog with a roguish attitude to the New Chuck Norris.


I would also like to point out that the same nerds who think Batman is awesome because he's seemingly all powerful, unbeatable and omniscient are the same nerds who chastise Superman for being seemingly all powerful, unbeatable and omniscient (in other words, Superman haters, your argument is invalid).

I could throw a digital rock out into the internet and hit millions of memes that all pretty much reduce Batman to Punch'emInTheFuckingFace Man. I was watching a commercial promoting the Arkham Origins video game and it was comprised primarily of Bruce Wayne growing up 1). scowling and 2). beating the unholy shit out of people until he became Batman scowling and beating the unholy shit out of people.

Don't get me wrong....it makes for some really fun action more often than not, but it also cheapens a character capable of so much more which is evident, by the way, in Long Halloween and Year One. Honestly, this is why I'm actually very excited about Superman's upcoming team-up with the Caped Crusader in Man of Steel 2: Superhero Boogaloo. This is a chance for one of Batman's peers (who is pretty much the epitome of superhero morality) to show him something about moral discernment, something we didn't see much of in the Dark Knight movies because Batman had to be portrayed as knowing better than everyone else even though he really didn't (seriously....WHY THE FUCK DID HE TAKE THE BLAME FOR COLD BLOODED MURDER????....They could have easily blamed all that shit on the Joker....I mean, they're lying either way, so.....).

Oh, and by the way.....I'm completely fine with Ben Affleck Batman. Fight among yourselves, internet.

In Defense of Darkman or....Superhero Movies Hollywood Could Learn Something From

With this year in superhero films wrapped up, Marvel ready to shove out their new batch and DC getting everyone's mouths watering with Arrow being a breakout success (despite mixed reviews from fanboys) their Flash television pilot, and of course the several rumors and announcements behind the casting of Man of Steel 2: The Steel Strikes Back, I thought I'd pull a few movies with cult success (despite questionable box office numbers) out of the vault and take a brief look at some of the lessons modern comic book cinema could take from them

Darkman: It sort of saddens me that we're quickly approaching (if we're not already in the midst of) a generation that will never know the glory that is Darkman. When you watch Sam Raimi's first jump into the superhero genre, it's actually a big insight into why he got tapped for the Spider-Man series in the first place. Even though, at first glance, it comes across as a teenager's ultraviolent fantasy, it's actually very indicative of what many comics were at the fringes of early comic culture: melodramatic pulp adventure. A psychotic, disfigured scientist returns from "death" to take revenge on the mobsters and crooked officials responsible? If Darkman had originated as a comic book hero, the story itself would have been more of a horror story than anything and Raimi has a far better understanding of the comic book genre than anyone gives him credit for. The movie made absolutely NO apologies for the fact that Peyton Westlake was more or less just a really demented guy who a). wanted his face back and b). wanted to kill a lot of people (basically what would happen if someone set Kanye West on fire).

Moral of the Story: The lesson that Current Hollywood can (and should but won't) take from this movie is that every superhero film doesn't have to be one of virtue because not every superhero is a virtuous one nor should they be. This is where the Punisher and Ghost Rider movies went wrong (well, they went wrong a LOT of places...Nic Cage being a notable one....but virtue was prime among their sins).


The Phantom: Now, here's a movie that holds a very special place in my heart while many others have forgotten about for understandable reasons. The 1989 Batman was something of a game changer for superhero movies. When Jack Nicholson's Joker uttered the line "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"....his reaction was one that turned out to mirror the audience's. I mean, for the time in which it was conceived, watching a hero swing onto rooftops, lob smoke bombs and evade the law in a tricked out car was pretty goddamned exciting. Then, you find yourself watching a period piece about hero you mainly only know from the comics section of your newspaper. So, needless to say, Lee Falk's jungle hero had the odds against him right out of the gate. He was an Indiana Jones-type hero at a time when moviegoers had decided they were pretty much over Indiana Jones.



Having said that, there's a lot to learn from The Phantom. First of all, there's Billy Zane's performance. With a period piece like this, it's importance not to take yourself too seriously. Zane went a different way than what would be expected from a story about a mythical hero who lives in a secret jungle surrounded by tree people who revere him as a living ghost protector. Let's face it...if you go dark and play the Phantom like a guy He dashed to and fro, punching and shooting with a wink, a smile and a "pardon me, ma'am" at every turn. We call this kind of shit "cheesy" and "hamfisted" nowadays, but it's also the sort of thing that makes us smile and induces a feeling of escape which is what we commonly go to the movies for in the first place.

One of the best "quiet as kept" scenes is when Phantom is chasing thugs who've kidnapped Kristy Swanson (By the way, Diana Palmer's awesomeness dwarfs pretty much EVERY incarnation of Lois Lane except maybe Amy Adams in Man of Steel), bumps into a woman by mistake, stops to pick up her purse like a gentleman and goes on to leap from car to car in traffic, steal a cop's horse, riding off in hot pursuit....LIKE A FUCKING BOSS.

Moral of the Story: The thing that should really translate well here for Current Hollywood is that every hero doesn't have to be edgy and dark. Granted, Ghost Rider really should be which is why that failed, but there's no reason modern day swashbucklers can't be fun.

The Rocketeer: For a movie that doesn't really get the credit it's due, maintaining a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes isn't exactly anything to sneeze at. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same societal epidemics as The Phantom where a). if a movie didn't open and sellout in every theater worldwide like Dark Knight or The Avengers recently, it's automatically dismissed as a failure (keep in mind that several failures have done very well in the box office in the same way as when you go home with the guy at the bar who seems to mean well only to wake up once you're sober and say "What the fuck was I thinking?"....I'm looking at you, Transformers 2 & 3) and b). was portraying a sort of bare bones "everyman" hero in the era of Batman.

In many ways, this was a movie that Hollywood, in fact, may just have learned something from for better or worse. I mean, honestly, Rocketeer was the epitome of a period-piece hero epic. A douchebag test pilot finds Howard Hughes experimental jet pack, battles "G-men", the mob, and Nazis all for the love of Jennifer Connelly's boobs? That pretty much sums up American propaganda heroes of the 1930's. For all intents and purposes, this was something of a blueprint that would later make the way for asshole superheroes like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. One of the big highlights from this movie that deserves consideration (aside from a delightfully fun Timothy Dalton villain) is the dialed back usage of special effects. Don't get me wrong; it's not like they tied Bill Campbell to a big rope the whole time and told him to holler in front of a house fan the whole time, but Peter Travers had it right when he referred to it's movie magic as "the kind that charms us, rather than bullying us, into suspending disbelief."

Moral of the Story: On one hand, when you have movies about gods with magic hammers, giant green beasts, asshole space cops with magic wishing rings and....well, Superman...it's hard for visuals NOT to be a contributing factor to their success. On the other hand, special effects don't have to subtract from the story's personality. Joss Whedon understands this pretty well. So does Rocketeer director Joe Johnston which is probably why Marvel ended up tapping him to direct Captain America, which, in addition to being a pretty damn good origin story, ended up being a terrific send up of old Republic serials.