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Dear Christopher Nolan,
I saw Captain America today, and I finally discovered what I don’t like about your movies. They are not fun. Captain America was fun. I felt good watching it, even in the “dark moments.” It’s not that I expect comics, or comic book movies, to be cheerful romps through and through, but there’s also this little thing called depth. Complexity. Emotional layers. Not just sad and dark all the time. Am I getting my point across, or would you like me to pull out my thesaurus?
Yes, throwing a few jokes into the mix can lead to a certain amount of cheesiness in your film. I can’t count how many times in Captain America when Chris Evans flew or drove or punched his way through a room without getting hit by a single bullet. I swear, I could almost see the POWS and THWOKS superimposed every time he punched a Nazi super soldier in the jaw. Sure, Captain America was unrealistic and dopey at times, but do you know what it was NOT, Christopher Nolan?
1. Boring.
2. Broody.
3. Confusing.
4. Too long
5. Full of Katie Holmes.
So you can keep your dark, emo, tortured Batman, and I will keep my campy, brightly colored FUN Marvel comic movies.
Now, let me play the devil’s advocate to myself. Batman is about a guy who lost his parents to thugs. He’s a rich guy, who goes a little crazy being a vigilante. I can see where that storyline might make you want to play up these themes of “dark knights” who must sacrifice their own image for the sake of the stupid, innocent sheep of Gotham.
Now, let me play devil’s advocate to that devil’s advocate! The original Batman comics were as campy and cheesy and ridiculous as the rest!!! Do you remember the show with Adam West, Christopher Nolan? Do you?!?!? I believe I recall a joke about a ball point banana or something? I’m not saying they were good, I’m just saying, BATMAN DOES NOT HAVE TO BE EMO! In fact, comic book heroes can be both serious AND funny! You can use humor to lighten the mood, AND lull audiences into a sense of false security. Then, when something bad happens, it actually has an impact, and audiences actually give a crap about your characters! Shocking, I know.
And since I just saw it, let‘s use Captain America as proof of my argument. Starts off as a skinny, awkward nerdlington, then gets pumped full of magic juice by a zany German scientist! I’m laughing already. Captain America saves a bunch of people, looks really good doing it, says some cool lines, and he’s a hero! Weee! Next, Captain America gets his little wacky multi-ethnic team together, lots of laughs at their expense, ha ha ha etc. They win some battles, and the Captain delights us in some cheesy dialogue about not understanding women after his girlfriend tries to shoot him in the face. Then, after all that, something tragic finally happens, and we actually feel bad about it! Why? Because we haven’t been bombarded with sorrow and internal torment from the first second.
Maybe I should have just waited until you were asleep, Christopher Nolan, and Inceptioned this idea into your head. Or maybe I should just shut my trap since you’re the one sitting on a giant pile of money and acclaim and not me, but haters gotta hate. I left Captain America feeling excited and gleeful. Christopher Nolan, your Batman just brings me down.
Ironically, Heath Ledger, who was the only thing I did like about The Dark Knight, seemed to be trying to tell you the same thing. Why so serious?
Love,
Steinho
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Harry Potter and the Franchise of Plenty
It’s been over ten years since I first climbed down off of the pretentious trolley and read the first book in the Harry Potter series. Like with many things, (Mac products, Christopher Nolan movies) I resisted it for a long time simply because it was popular and I like to be contrary. Then one day, I think it was my junior or senior year in high school, I was at my friends house baking a cake. I don’t know what you did for fun in your teenage years, but apparently we liked to bake. We must’ve forgotten some key ingredient because my friend had to run to the store. Why she left and I stayed when it was her house, I can’t tell you. All I know is that in the time she was gone, I read a third of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” which she had left on her dining room table. It was magical and fun, and appealed to the fantasy nerd in me.
Any fantasy scholar knows Harry Potter is not the first child wizard learning magic to come on the young adult literature scene, but it seems the first to resonate with such a massive audience. What could be more appealing to children, or any reader for that matter, than a story of a boy who had nothing, but grew to possess powers and great strength. A young lad faced time and time again with obstacles, but through his own abilities and good friends, always comes out on top, no matter how dark it may look at times. It’s probably the same reason why Star Wars is so popular. It’s the most basic hero’s journey of all time.
After that serendipitous baking mishap, I couldn’t resist any more. This was just after the fourth book had come out, and I went on to read all four within a week. Then the waiting began. Over the years I have eagerly anticipated the release of the remaining three books, and all eight Harry Potter films. I’ve dressed up for Harry Potter parties, lied to friends about social obligations to attend midnight screenings, and almost broke up with a boyfriend once after he questioned why it was so important I pick up “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” the night it was released. Like for many people, Harry Potter had become more to me than just light reading. It was a ticket to someplace special and joyous, both intensely captivating and surprisingly meaningful.
Yet I felt curiously empty of emotion when I finally sat down in a theatre to watch the final film adaptation of book seven, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Maybe it was because I already knew how it was going to end. I remember reading book seven a few years back. I stayed up all night to finish it, finally collapsing on my friend’s bed, well after dawn. I’d been emotional then. Tired, and sad, wanting more and feeling dissatisfied. J.K. Rowling had given us such an elaborate world, so dense and detailed, and then it was just gone.
The film, less than two hours, was exactly what I’d expected of it. It had all the important parts, the glowing hero moments and the quiet tragedies. I enjoyed it, to be sure, especially when gangly, awkward Neville finally gets to kick some ass in Harry Potter‘s army of wizard teens. But still, it was a far cry from the frenzied joy I’d felt for previous Potter releases, and I don‘t believe it was due to any fault of the film. In the last ten years of Harry Potter films, I have been constantly asked how the books compared to the movie, and every time I had a rather difficult time answering. In reality, it’s never truly the book we’re comparing it too, is it? It’s our own imaginations. How did we imagine Hogwarts to look? Or any of the characters? To be honest, it’s been so long since that initial reading, the film actors have nearly drowned out my initial impressions. In the book, I loved that Rowling described Hermione as having bushy hair and buck teeth, and therefore resented poor Emma Watson’s prettiness from day one. This is the nature of the adaptation. No matter how good the film is, it can never be good enough.
So I implore you all, if you haven’t read the books already, and you’re interested in seeing the movies, read the books first. They’re terribly easy to get through, and at times make much more sense with all the little bits and pieces filled in. And I promise you, while it may not be the moment of literary nirvana I experienced in my youth, at least it’ll make you hate Hermione a lot less.
Any fantasy scholar knows Harry Potter is not the first child wizard learning magic to come on the young adult literature scene, but it seems the first to resonate with such a massive audience. What could be more appealing to children, or any reader for that matter, than a story of a boy who had nothing, but grew to possess powers and great strength. A young lad faced time and time again with obstacles, but through his own abilities and good friends, always comes out on top, no matter how dark it may look at times. It’s probably the same reason why Star Wars is so popular. It’s the most basic hero’s journey of all time.
After that serendipitous baking mishap, I couldn’t resist any more. This was just after the fourth book had come out, and I went on to read all four within a week. Then the waiting began. Over the years I have eagerly anticipated the release of the remaining three books, and all eight Harry Potter films. I’ve dressed up for Harry Potter parties, lied to friends about social obligations to attend midnight screenings, and almost broke up with a boyfriend once after he questioned why it was so important I pick up “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” the night it was released. Like for many people, Harry Potter had become more to me than just light reading. It was a ticket to someplace special and joyous, both intensely captivating and surprisingly meaningful.
Yet I felt curiously empty of emotion when I finally sat down in a theatre to watch the final film adaptation of book seven, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Maybe it was because I already knew how it was going to end. I remember reading book seven a few years back. I stayed up all night to finish it, finally collapsing on my friend’s bed, well after dawn. I’d been emotional then. Tired, and sad, wanting more and feeling dissatisfied. J.K. Rowling had given us such an elaborate world, so dense and detailed, and then it was just gone.
The film, less than two hours, was exactly what I’d expected of it. It had all the important parts, the glowing hero moments and the quiet tragedies. I enjoyed it, to be sure, especially when gangly, awkward Neville finally gets to kick some ass in Harry Potter‘s army of wizard teens. But still, it was a far cry from the frenzied joy I’d felt for previous Potter releases, and I don‘t believe it was due to any fault of the film. In the last ten years of Harry Potter films, I have been constantly asked how the books compared to the movie, and every time I had a rather difficult time answering. In reality, it’s never truly the book we’re comparing it too, is it? It’s our own imaginations. How did we imagine Hogwarts to look? Or any of the characters? To be honest, it’s been so long since that initial reading, the film actors have nearly drowned out my initial impressions. In the book, I loved that Rowling described Hermione as having bushy hair and buck teeth, and therefore resented poor Emma Watson’s prettiness from day one. This is the nature of the adaptation. No matter how good the film is, it can never be good enough.
So I implore you all, if you haven’t read the books already, and you’re interested in seeing the movies, read the books first. They’re terribly easy to get through, and at times make much more sense with all the little bits and pieces filled in. And I promise you, while it may not be the moment of literary nirvana I experienced in my youth, at least it’ll make you hate Hermione a lot less.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Good Cop, Extrasensory Perception Cop
At times it seems that the comic world has exhausted its store of superhero powers. Telekinesis, super strength, lightning speed, laser eyes, even some of the weirder stuff like mutant wings or feet or the lamest of all, talking to fish.
Well, someone finally found a super power that hadn’t been used yet. CHEWING! Yay originality!!!
How could masticating comestibles save helpless citizens from super villains? A little thing called cibopathy. And what the hell is that? It’s something I assume was made up by John Layman and Rob Guillory, the creators of the graphic novel “Chew.” Cibopathy is a extra sensory ability where a single bite of food can tell that person where an apple was grown, or how horribly a cow felt during slaughtering. It also helps the hero of “Chew” solve crimes…by tasting blood and eating pieces of bodies.
Yeah, okay, so that’s pretty gross, but it’s also wicked cool. Such is the power of Tony Chu (haha, it’s funny because his name is Chu and the book is called CHEW! I love word play!) Tony Chu starts off as just a cop in the Philadelphia PD, until he uncovers a serial killer after eating a bowl of soup tainted with the murderer‘s blood.
Tony then gets a job working for the FDA, which in this world has expanded its reign of power due to a nationwide bird flu epidemic. Now, instead of busting drug rings or weapon smugglers, the regular policeman go after poultry dealers and chicken speakeasies, and the FDA trumps all other law enforcement officers.
Everyone thinks Tony is a freak, which I think is part of the appeal of his character. He’s a good cop, who would rather just play by the rules instead of eating decomposing human toes. His timid, awkward behavior irritates most of his coworkers, but makes him the perfect type of hero readers will root for. He’s truly a good guy, just socially inept, somewhere along the lines of a shyer, quirkier, Asian Peter Parker.
“Chew” is strange, dark and has been known to make me shriek with laughter in the middle of a crowded laundromat. For example, John Colby, Tony’s former partner in the Philadelphia PD, is an obnoxious renegade cop. Think every 1980s action film hero that played by his own rules. At the beginning of the first volume, Colby takes a butcher knife to the face. Normally, people die in that situation, but not Colby. No, he is too cool to die, and so he becomes a cyborg. I think Colby is probably the funniest character in my opinion, or at least has the best one liners. Like this little gem: After the now bionic Colby takes Chu to a bar, he warns him saying “Don’t go using your crazy hoodoo to tell me my drink has trace amounts of rhino snot or pterodactyl jizz -- or anything else that’s gonna ruin my good time.” If a man said that to me in a bar, I think I’d take notice. If that man was also a hot graphic novel character who was part cyborg, then I’d probably propose marriage. But I guess I’m just that kind of girl.
I don’t want to give away the entire story, so I’ll conclude by saying that you really ought to read “Chew” now, before Showtime turns it into a TV series and either does such an amazing job it ruins the reading experience for you, or does such a horrendously nauseating job that it ruins the reading experience for you. It’s allegedly being made by Stephen Hopkins, the director of “Predator 2” and “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” so make of that what you will. I’ll keep my snarky judgments until it airs. Until then, I have one more volume to read, “Chew: Just Desserts.” Sounds delicious.
Well, someone finally found a super power that hadn’t been used yet. CHEWING! Yay originality!!!
How could masticating comestibles save helpless citizens from super villains? A little thing called cibopathy. And what the hell is that? It’s something I assume was made up by John Layman and Rob Guillory, the creators of the graphic novel “Chew.” Cibopathy is a extra sensory ability where a single bite of food can tell that person where an apple was grown, or how horribly a cow felt during slaughtering. It also helps the hero of “Chew” solve crimes…by tasting blood and eating pieces of bodies.
Yeah, okay, so that’s pretty gross, but it’s also wicked cool. Such is the power of Tony Chu (haha, it’s funny because his name is Chu and the book is called CHEW! I love word play!) Tony Chu starts off as just a cop in the Philadelphia PD, until he uncovers a serial killer after eating a bowl of soup tainted with the murderer‘s blood.
Tony then gets a job working for the FDA, which in this world has expanded its reign of power due to a nationwide bird flu epidemic. Now, instead of busting drug rings or weapon smugglers, the regular policeman go after poultry dealers and chicken speakeasies, and the FDA trumps all other law enforcement officers.
Everyone thinks Tony is a freak, which I think is part of the appeal of his character. He’s a good cop, who would rather just play by the rules instead of eating decomposing human toes. His timid, awkward behavior irritates most of his coworkers, but makes him the perfect type of hero readers will root for. He’s truly a good guy, just socially inept, somewhere along the lines of a shyer, quirkier, Asian Peter Parker.
“Chew” is strange, dark and has been known to make me shriek with laughter in the middle of a crowded laundromat. For example, John Colby, Tony’s former partner in the Philadelphia PD, is an obnoxious renegade cop. Think every 1980s action film hero that played by his own rules. At the beginning of the first volume, Colby takes a butcher knife to the face. Normally, people die in that situation, but not Colby. No, he is too cool to die, and so he becomes a cyborg. I think Colby is probably the funniest character in my opinion, or at least has the best one liners. Like this little gem: After the now bionic Colby takes Chu to a bar, he warns him saying “Don’t go using your crazy hoodoo to tell me my drink has trace amounts of rhino snot or pterodactyl jizz -- or anything else that’s gonna ruin my good time.” If a man said that to me in a bar, I think I’d take notice. If that man was also a hot graphic novel character who was part cyborg, then I’d probably propose marriage. But I guess I’m just that kind of girl.
I don’t want to give away the entire story, so I’ll conclude by saying that you really ought to read “Chew” now, before Showtime turns it into a TV series and either does such an amazing job it ruins the reading experience for you, or does such a horrendously nauseating job that it ruins the reading experience for you. It’s allegedly being made by Stephen Hopkins, the director of “Predator 2” and “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” so make of that what you will. I’ll keep my snarky judgments until it airs. Until then, I have one more volume to read, “Chew: Just Desserts.” Sounds delicious.
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