Category Archives: movies

Sadistman v. Mopeman: Yawn of Justice

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6bCplVkhowCjTHXWv49UjRPn0eKBatman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice came out in Japan today. Since I had nothing better to do (and since I apparently also make awful life decisions), I went to see it in the theater against my better judgment.

Note to self: Never doubt your instincts again.

To call this movie bad is an insult to bad movies everywhere. It’s awful on just about every conceivable level—probably even hits a few heretofore undiscovered levels of terrible.

In case you haven’t realized yet, this review is going to be filled with spoilers. So if you don’t want to know what happens, best to bookmark this review and come back after you’ve seen the film.

Everything leading up to this movie suggested that it was all going to be about Batman coming out of Metropolis and putting his foot up Superman’s ass to show him that a hero needs to be more careful, especially one as powerful as Superman.

But that’s not really what happens. Because you see, this Batman doesn’t really have a leg to stand on with the whole criticism of killing people. Remember how Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne refused to kill in Batman Begins? Ducard told him that his compassion is a trait his enemies won’t share and Bruce said that’s why it’s so important.

This Batman? No, he doesn’t give a shit about killing. He regularly steals guns off criminals and pops them himself. He fires round after round from giant-ass Gatling guns on the Batmobile. He even fucking brands criminals by searing his symbol into their goddamn flesh.

No, you’re not imagining things. And don’t bother checking the date, today’s not April 1st. This actually fucking happens in the movie. Snyder’s Batman disfigures criminals for absolutely no stated reason, except seemingly out of some perverse pleasure.

And remember how Snyder said that the whole point of Zod’s death in Man of Steel was so that he could learn his no-killing rule? For a moment, let’s put aside how fucking ridiculous that sounds, because any decent person wouldn’t need to kill someone in order to learn, “oh hey, this is probably a pretty shitty thing to do.” But yeah, Superman still doesn’t give a shit about killing people. When we first see him in this movie, he breaks into a terrorist compound in Africa where Lois is being held prisoner. The terrorist leader has a gun to Lois’ head.

Now remember—Superman has superhuman speed, super breath, and heat vision. And this is a human terrorist with a gun he’s facing off against. Superman can use his breath to blow Lois and the terrorist against the wall, disarming him and giving Supes the chance to get the drop on him. He could use his heat vision to heat up the metal so that it burns the guy’s hand and he has to drop the gun. He could use super-speed to snatch Lois away or grab the gun or grab the guy.

So what does he do instead? Using superhuman speed and strength, he slams the guy through several fucking layers of stone walls! Not only is that a bit excessive, but it’s totally unnecessary.

Lex Luthor basically drives most of the plot. He’s discovered kryptonite and has a big chunk of it he wants to get into the US. He also has access to the body of General Zod and he’s researching metahumans, saying that other people like Superman exist.

Clark Kent is now working at the Daily Planet and he’s really concerned about the Batman in Gotham, seeing as how he’s violating civil rights and brutalizing criminals.

So let’s get this ideological divide straight here. Bruce is pissed because Superman kills without mercy and causes widespread destruction even though Batman does the same fucking thing. And Clark is pissed because Batman violates civil rights and brutalizes thugs even though he fucking slams them through walls.

Why are these two at odds again?

And Lex Luthor is manipulating them both against each other. There’s a Congressional hearing into Superman and Superman goes to testify, Lex meanwhile has given Wally, a Wayne employee who lost his legs in the Metropolis battle, a shiny new wheelchair. At the hearing, the chair explodes and people suspect Superman was involved somehow.

Bruce has been getting the checks he sent Wally returned to him with notes about how he let his family die. And Bruce Wayne, master detective he’s supposed to be, still holds Superman responsible for all this. He steals the kryptonite from Lex and uses it to make some anti-Superman weapons, then goes to Gotham and lights up the bat signal.

Lex kidnaps Lois and throws her off a building, where she’s quickly rescued. Superman confronts Lex and Lex reveals that he’s captured Superman’s mother, Martha. He tells Superman either kill Batman or Martha dies. See, Lex wants to kill Superman because when he as a kid, his dad beat him. So this made Lex realize that gods are either all-powerful and evil or they’re good and powerless. And he wants Superman to fit into this dichotomy. And yes, that is the actual fucking reason Lex is doing all this shit.

Oh, did I mention that Lex was the one sending those notes to Bruce over the past eighteen months since the attack on Metropolis? Meaning he knows who both Batman AND Superman really are. How does he know this? Your guess is as good as mine because it’s never fucking revealed.

Oh and Lex has taken Zod to his old ship and the regeneration chamber. He’s mixed his blood with Zod’s to create something new. How does this work? Who the hell knows. But he does this to take care of Superman after Batman’s dealt with.

Superman goes to Batman and is about to tell him what’s really going on. But Batman just goes, “FUCK THAT LET’S FITE!” and then the “battle of the century” is on. As far as fight scenes go, it’s really fucking dull. It’s too dark to see anything and even though Superman has many chances during the fight to hold Batman still and explain things, he never takes those chances.

Batman eventually gets the upper hand thanks to the kryptonite weapons, including a spear, and he’s about to kill him. Superman says that if he does, they’ll kill Martha. Now Batman’s confused because Martha was his mother’s name and Lois turns up in the nick of time to explain that it’s also the name of Clark’s mother.

This makes him decide to listen. Nothing else but just hearing his mother’s goddamn name makes him decide to listen. And just like that, they’re on the same side again.

Zod regenerates now as Doomsday and goes off on a rampage. Superman goes to deal with him while Batman goes to rescue Martha.

Oh yeah, and Wonder Woman is involved, too. In her guise as Diana Prince, she appears twice looking for something Lex has. Bruce downloads the data from Lex’s computer and finds a picture of Diana in the Wonder Woman armor dated 1918. He also finds surveillance footage of the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. Oh yeah, and the Flash appears to him briefly in a dream that Bruce then promptly forgets about and never mentions again.

Anyway, seeing Doomsday on TV, Wonder Woman goes to join the fight with Batman and Superman. And Wonder Woman’s battle scene against Doomsday is really the best part of the movie. Seriously, just stand outside for the first two hours, go in to see this scene, and then go out right after that.

Because at this point Superman dies. And it is the dumbest fucking death sequence ever. He takes the kryptonite spear and flies it into Doomsday. And since the kryptonite makes him vulnerable, Doomstay stabs Superman in the chest with his bone protrusions. You know, even though there’s a fucking ageless Amazon right there who isn’t vulnerable to kryptonite and could have easily used the spear too! 

We then get a bunch of mopey scenes about Superman being dead and Bruce and Diana meet at Clark’s grave. Bruce says they have to gather the rest of the metahumans because he has a feeling they’ll have to fight. And then we get one final shot of Superman’s grave and see the fresh dirt flying up, signaling that he’ll come back to life.

Which we already fucking know! We know Superman’s going to be in the Justice League movie. So not only is this death poorly executed, it serves absolutely zero narrative function. It’s just there for the sake of being there. Wonder Woman’s presence in this movie is just her being there for the sake of being there. Same with the scenes of the other Justice Leaguers.

There are a few bright spots in the movie. Gal Gadot, despite being completely unnecessary to the plot, does a great job as Wonder Woman. Ben Affleck, when he isn’t murdering or disfiguring criminals, actually does a pretty good Batman. And Jeremy Irons walks away with the acting credits as Alfred.

But Henry Cavill still has the charisma of wet cardboard. He’s utterly charmless in these movies. There’s no attempt to differentiate his portrayal of Superman from his portrayal of Clark. He never fucking smiles. There’s no sense of the warmth or caring that Superman should exhibit.

And his chemistry with Amy Adams might as well not even exist. Every scene these two share together, it makes you wonder just what the hell they see in each other. You get no sense of any real connection between them. They’re only together because the script says they have to be together.

It’s the same with the Batman/Superman ideological divide. We’re told it’s there, but we’re never shown what it is. Because these are both grimdark sociopaths who resort to brutal violence to solve their problems.

And Jesse Eisenberg. Holy shit, who the fuck thought this would be a good idea for Lex Luthor? It can be a little hard to watch Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey’s over-the-top portrayals of Lex in Superman: The Movie and Superman Returns. But Eisenberg out-camps both of them combined. It’s like he prepared for this role by watching Jim Carrey’s performance as the Riddler in Batman Forever. Just so terrible.

Seriously, what the fuck happened to Zack Snyder to make him think that every hero should be a sadistic, nihilistic, cynical sociopath? This goes beyond Frank Miller’s take on Batman and Superman. As dark as The Dark Knight Returns was, there was still hope in it. Superman still cared for Batman and saw him as an equal and wanted to do the right thing. Batman still fought for justice and had a code against killing.

But this? This is just disgusting. Back in 1992, there was massive backlash from parents to Batman Returns because it was considered to be far too violent and inappropriate for children. I really, really, really hope we see a similar backlash to Batman v. Superman. Because this is not what Superman or Batman should be.

As a comparison, I want to draw your attention to this: An Open Letter To Supergirl Stars Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh, From an Adoptive Mom. Carrie Goldman, the woman who wrote this, talks about how her adoptive daughter is so inspired by Benoist’s portrayal of Supergirl to be a decent person and do the right thing. Read that letter. Not only is it supremely touching, but it also illustrates the huge philosophical problem with DC’s movie division.

Can you imagine someone writing a letter like that to Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill, or Ben Affleck? I sure as hell can’t. Not unless they’re writing in to talk about how they were inspired by Superman to slam someone’s head through a wall. Or how Batman inspired them to burn their name into someone’s flesh.

Think about this: Superman was created in 1938 by two poor Jewish creators. This was during the Great Depression and the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman as an escape. They created him so they’d have a hero they could look up to, a symbol that could give them hope. The character has been so inspirational in fact that in the 1940s, The Adventures of Superman radio serial took down the Ku Klux Klan. Remember, this was in 1946, so we’re talking pre-Civil Rights Movement when racism was considered normal. And the power and inspiration of Superman managed to marginalize the KKK to the point where their rapid expansion stopped dead in its tracks and long-time members resigned.

 

Superman is supposed to be a symbol of hope. Whenever I watch Superman: The Movie, I always have a smile on my face during the closing credits. But after watching Man of Steel and now Batman v. Superman, all I feel is exhausted and that I need a drink.

Right now, I’m going to go watch The Batman/Superman Movie: World’s Finest. Because that’s actually a movie that explored the differences between the two characters, made sense, and didn’t make me want to drink myself into a coma afterwards.

Spectre Review

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n7ypO2ATJJOKZhQTOmc8t7FNoZxDaniel Craig’s stint as James Bond has been overall pretty good. Even though I didn’t think a reboot was needed, Casino Royale was a fresh take on the mythos and really did a great job bringing Bond into the twenty-first century (much like GoldenEye did for a post-Cold War Bond).

Quantum of Solace was a hot mess and the less said about that the better. But Skyfall felt like a return to greatness in more ways than one. The third act was a little bit of a mess and I didn’t think we needed a Home Alone-esque showdown. But Silva was in the mold of a classic Bond villain, we got to see some of the old staples of the series return, and it set the stage for a neo-classic Bond film. So I was really excited when it was announced that Craig’s fourth outing would be titled Spectre.

For those of you who aren’t Bond aficionados, SPECTRE was the name of an international organization run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld in both the Bond novels and the Connery/Lazenby films. He appeared in shadow beginning with From Russia With Love but was shown in full in You Only Live Twice (played by Donald Pleasance). But due to legal issues, EON Productions wasn’t allowed to use SPECTRE or Blofeld for decades. Now that’s all been resolved and SPECTRE was brought back.

So how was the film? Well…it’s no Casino Royale and it’s not quite the neo-classic I’d been hoping for. But it’s still pretty good.

Before I get too deep into this, please note that spoilers are going to follow. If you haven’t seen Spectre and care about spoilers, then you should probably turn back now.

The movie hits a lot of familiar notes. This is a movie for people who are very familiar with the entire film series. There are tons of callbacks to earlier movies, from locations to clothing to characters. And as someone who really missed those elements in the Craig series to date, it was wonderful seeing them again.

The basic story is more or less pretty good. Spectre is basically trying to convince the world that they need more surveillance and that they need to share that intelligence with others, so Spectre will have access to all the world’s intelligence data. It’s a story that has real relevance in the modern day and also has some commonalities with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

But where things start to get shaky is with Franz Oberhauser’s relationship with Bond. Here’s the biggest mistake made with this film: the movie’s called Spectre, the head of Spectre is played by Christoph Waltz, but everyone involved tried to claim that he wasn’t actually Ernst Stavro Blofeld. That was total bullshit. Of course Waltz was playing Blofeld. Everyone knew that from the start. It was the same kind of lying that JJ Abrams tried to pull with Star Trek Into Darkness, when he swore up and down that Benedict Cumberbatch wasn’t playing Khan.

There was simply no need for this deception. It was a waste of energy. And the big reveal had me sitting in my chair going, “Yeah? What else is new?”

The second big misstep is the Bond/Blofeld relationship. One of the revelations in the movie is that Blofeld and Spectre have been working behind the scenes of all of Bond’s enemies—Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, and Raoul Silva. It makes sense with Le Chiffre and Greene at least, Quantum was essentially a poor man’s Spectre anyway. Silva’s a bit more of a stretch. But Blofeld’s reason for this? Because when Bond’s parents died, Blofeld’s father adopted him and Blofeld resented the attention his father gave Bond.

Not only is this completely unnecessary, but it also strains believability. Blofeld kills his father, changes his name, builds up a terrorist organization, and coincidentally his adopted brother who he hates also becomes a 00-agent and their paths are going to cross.

Blofeld doesn’t need to have a past with Bond in order to be a threat. Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre was the most brilliant of all the enemies Bond faced off against, the most ruthless as well, and yet they had no personal connection whatsoever. But Le Chiffre was a far more effective villain than Greene, who was partly responsible for Vesper’s death, or Silva who also had this weird twisted familial view of Bond and M.

All that being said, the movie is very entertaining and it’s definitely a step in the right direction for the series. The future is up in the air. Waltz has said he’d come back for the next two films in the series, but only if Daniel Craig does as well. Craig isn’t contracted for any further films and he’s been pretty vocal about how difficult a film like this is to make, so it’s unknown if he’ll come back for any future films.

You can pick up Spectre online at Amazon or iTunes.

If you enjoy spy fiction, consider checking out my Infernum series of books.

X-Men: Days of Future Past – The Rogue Cut

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X-Men-Days-of-Future-Past-Rogue-Cut-Cover-ArtI was pretty disappointed when I didn’t find out until after I bought X-Men: Days of Future Past that there was an extended edition that wouldn’t be released for another year. I’m not going to pay Fox twice for the same movie, so I just rented this one instead. And I’m glad I didn’t buy it again because there’s not a whole lot this extended edition brings to the table.

NOTE: Some spoilers follow, so you may not want to read on unless you’ve seen this.

There are some extended and additional scenes in the movie. We get to see a scene where the future X-Men actually have a chance to act as real people and not just special effects. There’s a great scene with Bishop—who appears to be the leader of this future group—debates the ethics of time travel with the older X-Men, arguing that if they do this, he and the rest of his team may never even be born. It’s a really good scene that should have been in the final cut. And I wish we got more moments of this where we can see the other characters get an opportunity to shine. It would have been preferable to rehashing the Magneto/Xavier bromance for the fifth time (and counting if my predictions about X-Men: Apocalypse prove true).

There’s also another scene where Mystique returns to the mansion and gets pretty affectionate with Beast. It was a pretty good scene, but it’s mostly held up by Jennifer Lawrence. Nicholas Hoult is still incredibly miscast as Hank McCoy. He’s got none of the humor or wit that characterizes the Beast.

It’s kind of funny that this is called “The Rogue Cut” because Rogue has such a small presence in the movie. The basis for that title is for an added sequence in the future. In the theatrical cut, when Wolverine sees Stryker in the past for the first time, he has a freak-out that causes his body in the future to spasm and he accidentally injures Kitty in the process. Kitty manages to hold it together for the rest of the movie, though. But in this cut, Iceman says she can’t hold out much longer and tells them that if they can get Rogue, she can take Kitty’s powers and keep Logan in the past. Magneto and Professor X think Rogue is dead, but it turns out she’s still alive and being held captive in the mansion, experimented on by the Sentinels’ human conspirators.

The three mount a rescue attempt, with Xavier piloting the jet and Magneto and Iceman breaching the mansion. This is a great scene where we get to see Ian McKellen being a badass Magneto (probably for the last time). They free Rogue at the expense of Iceman, who’s killed, and take her back to the base where she takes Kitty’s powers and keeps Logan in the past. It also shows how the Sentinels found the X-Men because as they were trying to escape, a Sentinel latched onto them and though it was thrown off, its arm remained, signaling its brothers.

So Rogue’s presence in this movie is pretty much the same as it was in the other movies—she’s a damsel in distress who needs rescuing and ultimately does nothing of any real consequence. Which is a real disappointment for a character who is so dynamic in the comics.

A lot of the other problems with the movie are still there. Evan Peters is still basically playing Impulse instead of Quicksilver, there’s far too much reliance on the Xavier/Magneto bromance, and I really wish we would have seen more of the future. The few glimpses we got with the human conspirators and the added interactions between the future X-Men tell me that’s where the really interesting stuff was happening.

The POWER/RANGERS Debacle

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PowerRangersfanfilm_article_story_largeSo there’s this new fan film out now called Power/Rangers. It’s around fifteen minutes long and features a grim and gritty reimagining of Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and stars Katee Sackhoff as Kimberly and James Van Der Beek as Rocky. SCG Power Rangers LLC, the company that owns the rights to the property, demanded it be taken down.

 

Adi Shankar, who created the short, isn’t backing down. In a response, he wrote: “I consider this an outright infringement on freedom of expression and individualism. … Films like my Power/Rangers ‘Bootleg’ are vital expressions of creativity in our troubled world. If we suppress this creativity and become passive participants in the consumption of the culture we live in, we implicitly allow a dangerous precedent to be set for the future of the internet.”

 

Some of the Internet chatter around this has thrown accusations at Haim Saban that his reaction to Power/Rangers is nothing more than jealousy that he can’t make something as good as this, or that he’s envious of all the attention it’s getting. To which I respond with three simple words: It. Doesn’t. Matter.

 

Saban and Power Rangers LLC own the rights to these characters. These are their toys. And if they don’t want anyone else to play with them without their express permission, then guess what? That’s their right! People have claimed that Saban is “whining” about this, but I say that Shankar is the real whiner here. He’s coming out and saying that he should have the right to use characters he doesn’t own in any way he sees fit, and if the copyright holders tell him to stop, then that’s stifling creative freedom. What about the freedom to control the properties you own? Why is that freedom not important to Shankar?

 

I’ve written fanfic, so I get Shankar’s desire to create something with characters he has a passion for. But every time you commission an unauthorized work featuring characters you do not own—regardless of whether or not it’s for profit—you run the risk of pissing off the people who own those properties. And if they tell you, “we don’t like what you’re doing with our characters, take it down,” then you have an obligation to respect their rights.

 

Growing up watching the Power Rangers doesn’t grant you ownership over them that supersedes the rights of the people who actually own the intellectual property. And no, just because you’re not making money off it doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want.

 

But beyond that, there’s a larger question of appropriateness. Power Rangers is a show for children. And it’s still around today. Imagine you’re a parent and your kid is a fan of Power Rangers. He goes online and Googles Power Rangers and this video pops up. You walk in on him and see him watching a video where the Black Ranger is in bed with topless women (depending on which version you saw), where comic relief characters Bulk and Skull are portrayed as meth addicts, and where people are being murdered in bloody, gratuitous ways. How would you react? My guess is you’d be pretty pissed. I know I would be if I found out my young nephew stumbled upon this.

 

In the past, when kids would grow into adults, they would leave behind those books, movies, and TV shows that no longer appealed to them as adults. You don’t see anyone who grew up with Hanna-Barbara cartoons demanding that the cast of Scooby Doo be updated to portray Scooby and Shaggy as heroin addicts, Fred snapping the necks of their antagonists, or topless scenes of Velma and Daphne.

 

This demand a lot of modern-day fandom has for properties they enjoyed as kids to be updated as grim, gritty and violent is something I just do not understand. And hey, I love grim and gritty, I love violent movies and shows. My favorite directors include Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike and I think Breaking Bad is one of the greatest TV shows ever created.

 

But those things were created for adults and were meant to be enjoyed by adults. Power Rangers was created for kids. It’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s campy. It doesn’t need to be turned into nightmare fuel.

 

If Shankar wanted to create his own violent property that draws influences from Power Rangers, I’d have no problem with that. Because that’s his own original property and influences come from anywhere and everywhere. When Guillermo Del Toro wanted to do something that was inspired by Godzilla or Voltron, he didn’t just make a movie with those characters—he drew influences from those things to come up with Pacific Rim. But to just outright steal a kids’ property and twist it into something completely unrecognizable isn’t only a slap in the face to the rights of the owners of Power Rangers, it’s just flat-out crass.

 

If you enjoyed Power Rangers as a kid and now find it cheesy or campy or uninteresting, then guess what? That property is no longer for you. Leave Power Rangers for the next generation of kids and move on to find something that appeals to your adult sensibilities. There’s certainly plenty of adult-oriented sci-fi material out there to choose from. But don’t demand that Power Rangers grows up with you—that’s just selfish.

In Defense of Remakes

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l_141320_0407362_7abfc2e6Recently, I began watching the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. I had watched a few episodes several years ago, but didn’t quite get into it. Now I’ve tried it again and have gotten sucked in. I’ve been watching a few episodes every day and now I’m in the middle of the fourth and final season.

 

And as I watch this show, I can’t help but think about some other properties that have been in the news lately. There are two remakes/reboots in the works that involve properties very close to my heart, and which have drawn a lot of negative reactions from fans.

 

The first is Ghostbusters and the second is The Crow. Ghostbusters is one of the first movies I remember watching. Ghostbusters II was actually the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater. Paul Feig is working on the next Ghostbusters film with an al-female cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon. Don’t think I’ve seen Jones or McKinnon in anything, but I thought Bridesmaids was one of the funniest movies to come out in the past few years, so if Feig, McCarthy, and Wiig are involved, I’m definitely onboard.

 

The second is The Crow. This is a franchise that has not had a single iota of luck since the first film. Even with how great that movie was, it cost us the life of Brandon Lee, who probably would have gone on to bigger and better things had he survived. The sequel, The Crow: City of Angels, was butchered by Miramax in the editing room, resulting in a film that was cut to mirror the progression of the original. And the less said about Salvation and Wicked Prayer, the better. So when this upcoming Crow film is going to be a remake, it’s understandable why some people would be irritated. Except here’s the thing—it’s not really a remake. James O’Barr confirmed that this film is going back to his original graphic novel and doing a closer adaptation of that. As great as The Crow was, it was more an adaptation of tone than of content. As O’Barr himself said, “Brandon Lee will always be Eric Draven,” but this isn’t going to be a movie about Eric Draven (the surname was added to the movie, he was just Eric in the graphic novel).

 

And this brings me back to Battlestar Galactica. The conventional wisdom of fans is that “remakes are horrible and should never, ever be attempted.” I think that’s short-sighted as hell. Are there crappy remakes out there? Oh hell yes. But there are also a lot of wonderful remakes in the world. If the fan mentality that “we should never had remakes” was followed, here is a list of movies we never would have gotten:

 

The Fly
The Thing
The Magnificent Seven
A Fistful of Dollars
Scarface
The Departed
Dawn of the Dead
3:10 To Yuma
True Grit
Ocean’s Eleven
Cape Fear
13 Assassins
The Birdcage
Solaris
Black Caesar
Fatal Attraction
The Fog
Godzilla (2014)
The Mummy
True Lies

 

Technically, we could probably add Casino Royale to that list as well. After all, if fans are counting a new adaptation of The Crow as a remake, then technically Casino Royale qualifies as well—there were two adaptations of that book prior to Daniel Craig’s first Bond outing. One was a made-for-TV movie that reimagined MI6’s James Bond as the CIA’s Jimmy Bond, and there was a comedy spoof of it in the 60s featuring David Niven. We could also count Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy as a remake as well. And also Captain America: The First Avenger, given that there was a Captain America movie released in the early 90s.

 

Remakes are just like any other type of movie—there are good ones and there are bad ones. But making a blanket statement that all remakes are terrible is like making a blanket statement that all sci-fi movies are terrible. There are remakes that can be just as good as the original. And sometimes, they can even surpass the original. Again, look at Battlestar Galactica. The original show was awful—a cheesy Star Wars knock-off mixed with Mormon propaganda (and FYI, the story of Star Wars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, so technically there’s another one). But the remake is really smart TV. Well-crafted stories, fully developed characters, and content that really makes you think about the issues being addressed in the show. And if we had listened to the people who damn all remakes on principle, we never would have gotten it.

 

Something to think about. Now I’m off to watch more BSG.

WordPress Plugins and Some New WhatCulture Articles

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wordpress_logoOne of the things I like a lot about WordPress are all the plugins it has. It can really help to enhance a site. Besides having my own webspace that I paid for (as opposed to using the limited free services on WordPress.com), I took it a step further and also bought the Magazine Premium theme, which has been wonderful.

One plugin I’ve been struggling to find is something that will easily display all my different books. If you use the navigation bar to find my titles, you’ll see I’ve got them split into different series. For the most part, I do this with the use of categories and make the pages as simple WordPress entries.

It’s far from being the ideal set-up. Quite far, actually. There are a few different plugins that allow me to display my books, information about them, and buy links to them, and I thought I’d talk about some of these today.

First up is Buy This Book. It provides buy links for Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Lulu, iBooks, and one custom option. Books are displayed with just the cover and if you click on the cover, a slide-out menu with the buy buttons will appear. It’s got support for the major sites, plus a custom one. The downside, however, is that it’s just a widget for sidebars. Not as helpful if you want to provide more information about your books.

Next is MyBooks for Authors. This takes it a step up from Buy This Book. The sites it supports are Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, 800 CEO READ (a site for business books), IndieBound, Books-A-Million, and also iTunes and Audible if your book’s available in audio format. The buttons are displayed nicely beneath the cover and everything is aligned well. There’s also a sidebar widget that can be set up to slide through different books. Not bad so far. But there’s no support for some of the other things I’d like, such as being able to connect books in a series.

Third is Totally Booked. This one actually shows the most promise of all four (we’ll get to the fourth one in a moment). They provide links for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, and…ChristianBook. Support for a niche market like ChristianBook without support for iTunes and Kobo, two of the big four online booksellers, is definitely a bit strange, but whatever. There’s one buy button and when you click it, a pop-up window appears with all the various sites you can buy the book from. That definitely cuts down on clutter. And there’s support for genres and series with links at the bottom where you find links for other books in the series, other books by the same author, and other books in the same genre. The problem here is that there’s no differentiation. For example, Tales of the Rook isn’t a book I wrote by myself, I just wrote one story. So if I clicked the more by this author, which author would it list? Me? Barry Reese? Bobby Nash? Tommy Hancock? And what about multiple genres? Chasing The Dragon is partly a horror book, but it’s also a crime novel. And a thriller. If I clicked the “find more books in this genre,” which genre would it list? Also, there’s a major problem with theme integration, in that it doesn’t work with my theme. Fortunately, the developers have said they plan to address the theme support in the next release and are also going to look at the other suggestions. If those things are addressed, this may be the one to go with.

And finally is MyBookTable. This is a relatively new one and seemed to show the most promise at first. For one, their layout is the best of all of them. They’ve also got support for series, multiple authors, and multiple genres, all of which are individually-clickable links. So far, so good. But the only link you get with them is Amazon. If you want more, you have to pay for the pro version, which is $49. The pro version is also required if you want to use Amazon’s affiliate system (if you want to sell your books directly with a PayPal button, that requires a developer version ($99). So they want you to pay $49 before you get the links that are provided by other plugins, that’s a definite turn-off. But the final nail in the coffin is theme integration. They only support the free WordPress themes and select other themes (all of which are paid). Support for the plugin also requires a paid version.

At the moment, it looks like Totally Booked is going to come out as the winner. They seem the most dedicated to providing a product that can work for as many authors as possible, regardless of how much money you give them.

Anyway, on the WhatCulture front, I’ve got four new articles for you to check out, if you haven’t yet:

5 Reasons Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk Should Get His Own Movie

10 Irresistible Quentin Tarantino Spin-Offs That Definitely Deserve To Be Made

8 Changes That Would Have Completely Fixed Batman Forever

6 Worst Ever Comic Book TV Shows

UPDATE: Since I posted this piece, MyBookTable came out with an update to their app. it can now integrate with my theme without problems and they’ve also added Barnes & Noble links to the free version. For now it’s the one I’m going with, but Totally Booked could still impress me.

Iron Man 4…?

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ironman4There’s a huge question mark on the future of the Iron Man franchise. Robert Downey Jr was only contracted with Marvel Studios up through Iron Man 3, and now that the film is making mountains of cash all over the world, it’s obvious that Marvel will want to keep the Armored Avenger around.

Currently, Downey and Marvel are in the midst of contract negotiations, but these negotiations only go as far as The Avengers 2. And given how one of Downey’s terms is that his co-stars in The Avengers 2 get more money, with the infamously-frugal Marvel opposed to such a move, that means there’s going to be more than a small amount of head-butting.

But absent from these discussions is Iron Man 4—it’s all about The Avengers 2. Going beyond the money issue, Downey himself has acknowledged that his age is a factor—he’s pushing fifty. And we all know he can’t play this role forever. But Marvel’s Kevin Feige has said he wants Iron Man to have as long-lived a film franchise as James Bond, which means that eventually, recasting will be necessary.

The question is where would the Iron Man films go from here? I thought on that, and came up with five storylines from the comic books that I think would make great fodder for the next phase of Iron Man movies. You can go read the full article at WhatCulture!

Want to Write Batman? Here’s Your Chance

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batmanAmazon is preparing to launch Kindle Worlds. This is a new platform that will allow anyone to submit novels, novellas, and short stories inspired by the properties they’ve licensed.

If you’re thinking, “hey, that kind of sounds like fanfiction, doesn’t it?” then you’d be right. Amazon has now found a way to monetize fanfiction.

Of course, not all properties will be licensed. To date, Amazon’s Kindle Worlds page mentioned that they’ve secured the rights to Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment shows Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries. It remains to be seen whether or not you’ll actually get the chance to dust off that Batman story you have posted up at fanfiction.net and be able to publish it.

Now, some people will understandably be skeptical about this. After all, just what exactly are we looking at here? Well, according to the Kindle Worlds’ site, Amazon will set the prices of all works from $0.99-3.99. The standard royalty for these works is 35% for 10,000 words or more and 20% for works between 5,000-10,000 words. Amazon gets the global publication rights to your story, but you retain the copyright to original, copyrightable elements, such as characters and scenes, that you create (but you also grant Amazon a license to them, so other creators can build upon your work).

That’s…actually not a bad deal at all. 35% royalties sounds like a pretty decent cut. While you don’t retain the publication rights to the story, that’s also pretty much standard for work-for-hire contracts. So even if you got accepted to write something for Warner Bros., there’s no guarantee you’d get a better deal.

The platform will launch next month and Amazon is in the process of trying to secure other licenses. If this takes off, it could mean a chance for independent authors to get wider exposure by giving them a chance to work on some big-name properties.

When I started writing, it was fanfiction. I found it to be a great way to hone my skills and develop my writing style. Hopefully, Warner Bros. will allow their DC Comics’ properties to be used. Because I’ve got a Superman story I’ve had sitting around for a long time that I’d love to polish off and send their way.

Django Unchained

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django unchainedI know this is coming a bit late. After all, Django Unchained came out in December, it was an Oscar nominee, and it’s generated no shortage of discussion about its themes and language. But I live in Japan, and it was only released in theaters the beginning of March. And given that a theater ticket costs pretty close to $20, not to mention the cost of commuting from my small town to the city, you’re looking at $30 to see the movie. So when a movie is delayed for a Japanese theatrical release until just before it’s available on iTunes to buy for $15, I’ll wait an extra month and get it on iTunes.

Anyway, for those who aren’t aware of the story, bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys the freedom of a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx), who is the only lead he has on a bounty. Schultz is German and despises slavery, so he makes Django an offer: if Django identifies Schultz’s bounty, Schultz will give Django his freedom and a portion of the reward.

After it all goes down, it turns out Django and Schultz make a good team and instead of just sending Django on his way to try and reclaim his wife on his own, Schultz makes another offer: work together through the winter, and then together they’ll rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Django agrees and the two become an incredible bounty hunting duo, until they can track down Broomhilda’s new owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Candie, in addition to owning one of the largest cotton plantations in the south (called Candieland), also deals in Mandingo fighting (think a human version of cockfighting or dogfighting). They pose as Mandingo slavers and are able to convince Candie of their legitimacy, but his house slave Steven (Samuel L. Jackson) is not as convinced.

Now, let’s get a few things out of the way right from the start: Django Unchained is not historically accurate. But neither were pretty much any of the spaghetti westerns. Or Mandingo, a film about slaves being forced to fight each other, a film that Tarantino was clearly referencing (I’ve never even seen that movie and I still knew it was a reference). Plus, Tarantino has never claimed to be a historical filmmaker—hell, Inglourious Basterds ended with Jewish-American commandos gunning down Hitler in a movie theater in Paris as opposed to him killing himself in a bunker in Berlin. So as far as historical accuracy, let’s lighten up a bit—no one is going to watch a Tarantino film in order to study for a history test.

Second, there’s the issue of racial language. Yes, the N-word is used quite frequently in this movie. And yes, it is a terrible word. But it seems like its usage is actually handled more gracefully than in other Tarantino movies. Now I know some people will raise eyebrows at that, but bear with me for a moment. Most of the usage of the word comes from white racists, who are either depicted as stupidly buffoonish or completely evil. Django uses it a lot, but Schultz rarely uses it unless he has to in character. Plus, it should be noted that we’re talking about the pre-Civil War era here, so it’s not like the word didn’t exist in this period.

Another concern has been the violence. And again, I say people are making mountains out of molehills. Some reviews have pointed out that some violence is laughed at by white people. What they aren’t realizing is that those scenes are almost always scenes of violence against white racists. Tarantino was actually far more careful with his depiction of violence than in any other movie. In this movie, it’s only the violence against pro-slavery people that’s depicted as funny. Violence against anti-slavery types is depicted as far more gruesome and difficult to watch. Broomhilda’s torture scenes, D’Artagnan’s death, Django hanging upside-down (people who have seen the movie know the scene I’m referring to, I’m being obtuse to not spoil it), these scenes are all depicted not as funny or comical, but as extremely disturbing.

And that was the point. Tarantino attempted to emulate what Takashi Miike did years ago in Ichi the Killer—contrast scenes of playful violence that make the audience laugh with scenes of painful violence that make the audience cringe. The point of these scenes is to make the viewers question the difference between them. If you’re laughing at a scene of horrific violence and are disturbed by another scene of horrific violence, then the question isn’t what’s wrong with the filmmaker, but rather what’s wrong with you.

Making The Punisher Work

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punisher-bradstreetI want you to think for a moment about how many successful movies and TV shows have featured a veritable one-man army taking the law into his own hands and dealing out harsh justice to some well-deserving bad guys.

Can you think of one? My guess is you probably have difficulty thinking of just one. That’s because Hollywood has a very, very, very long history of telling these types of stories, and why not? They’re straightforward, they don’t have to be expensive, and people seem to really like them.

So why is it then that we’ve now had not one, not two, but three separate movies featuring Frank Castle, the Punisher, and none of them have managed to really get it right? The Punisher should be the easiest comic book character to make a successful movie out of. Yet no one seems to have really been able to do it. And more than that, what can Marvel do to make the Punisher work now that they have the rights back.

First, let’s look at the film that started it all.

punisher-lundgrenThe Punisher (1989)

This film was the first attempt to bring Frank Castle to the big screen. It featured Dolph Lundgren with his hair dyed black. In this movie, Frank Castle is a former police officer whose family is killed in a mob hit. Legally declared dead, Castle now lives in the sewers and wages a one-man war on crime. His former partner (Louis Gossett Jr.) is trying to bring him in. Meanwhile, the mafia is under threat from the Yakuza, who have kidnapped their children and the only one they can turn to is the man who has declared war on them.

In the plus column, Lundgren does a pretty good job as Castle. But the script isn’t too terribly good and there’s some cheeseball parts in here that are real cringe-worthy. Its biggest failing, though, is that if you stumbled on this movie late at night and missed the opening credits, chances are you could go a good long while before realizing it’s a Punisher movie. It’s such a generic action movie and one of the biggest mistakes is they didn’t include the Punisher’s trademark skull shirt. Just including that little detail would have gone a long way to differentiating this from all the other B-flicks flying around at the time.

Because of the studio’s financial difficulties at the time, this didn’t even get a theatrical release in the States and was instead released straight-to-video. It was so poorly received that no one would try again until fifteen years later. That’s when we got…

tomjane-punisherThe Punisher (2004)

When I first saw the movie Thursday, I came away with one thought: the actor who played Casey, a former drug dealer who has gone straight and whose life is thrown upside-down when his old partner comes calling, would make for the perfect Frank Castle. As long as he dyed his hair black.

That actor? Thomas Jane. So you can imagine my excitement when my dream pick ended up being cast in Jonathan Hensleigh’s Punisher reboot. This time around, they stuck a bit closer to the comics, including giving Frank his signature death’s head symbol.

This time around, Castle was ex-military who was working with the FBI. On his last job, the son of money launderer Howard Saint is killed. Saint (John Travolta) is not happy about this and he and his wife order a hit on Castle’s family while he’s at a reunion in Puerto Rico.

The beginning is slow and the family reunion scene is just pointless. This movie really suffers from OSS—Origin Story Syndrome. Once we get past the origin and Castle becomes the Punisher, then it picks up a notch (despite some cheesy moments from Castle’s neighbors).

Jane is absolutely perfect as Castle, but the biggest problem once more is the script. He dropped out of the sequel because he didn’t like the direction it was taking, and so that led to the sequel becoming a reboot, and that brings us to…

MP_PunisherWarZone_DVDFSWS_OCARD.inddPunisher: War Zone (2008)

This time around, Ray Stevenson plays the part of Frank Castle. And it’s also the closest we’ve gotten to a good script and the one that stays closest to the comics.

The Punisher’s origin is told very simply in a quick flashback. Castle is a military guy and he’s back in New York (the previous film being set in Tampa). They even managed to work in a little-known tidbit from the comics—before the military, Frank was studying to become a priest. We’ve also got a better supporting cast in the form of Microchip, played—surprisingly well—by Wayne Knight. And we’ve also got the Punisher’s nemesis from the comics, Billy Russo, Jigsaw (Dominic West).

Stevenson does a good job, but the costume design was really bad. I get they tried to make him look like he’s wearing body armor, but that vest makes it look like he’s wearing a neck brace. And in a lot of scenes, the skull is so faint that it can barely be seen. Costume design aside, though, he’s good. Not as good as Jane, but he gets the job done.

Dominic West, however, is just terrible. Same goes for Jigsaw’s brother, Looney Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison). Right in the middle of this serious movie, director Lexi Alexander dropped in two characters who act like they should be in an R-rated version of the old Batman TV show—yes, they really are that campy. There’s a total disconnect between Stevenson’s serious performance and West’s cartoonish over-the-top debacle.

The tragedy of the latter two Punisher films is that if you took Jane, Travolta, and Will Patton (who played Howard Saint’s right-hand man in 2004’s Punisher) and cast them as the Punisher, Jigsaw, and Looney Bin Jim, then you’d have a really awesome film that I think both the average movie-goer and Punisher fans alike would have been happy with.

So now the question…

Where Do We Go From Here?

That’s actually pretty simple. If you haven’t yet, go watch Dirty Laundry on YouTube. It’s an unauthorized short Punisher film starring Jane as well as Ron Perlman and directed by Phil Joanou. And it is incredible. This is what a Punisher movie should be like—dark, uncompromising, and violent.

But I say, forget the movie route. Three times we’ve tried, now let’s try something different. Marvel is looking to expand into live-action television, starting with ABC’s upcoming SHIELD series. And one of the easiest characters to bring to television is the Punisher…depending on how you bring it to TV. There was, briefly, a Punisher series in development recently, but it looked like bad news from the start.

Now here’s my idea. If you haven’t yet, check out Netflix’s remake of House of Cards, directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. It’s a Netflix exclusive series and it is remarkable. Disney recently signed a licensing deal with Netflix. And while the Punisher isn’t a good fit for network TV with all its constraints, there wouldn’t be any such constraints if the show were a Netflix series.

It’s pretty simple, actually—hire Phil Joanou to develop a Punisher series for Netflix and get Tom Jane to star in the title role (I also wouldn’t mind seeing Wayne Knight back as Microchip). Everything’s already set up for it. Jane is very interested in coming back to the role and is very fond of the character, Joanou obviously has an interest as well, or else he wouldn’t have directed Dirty Laundry. Disney now owns Marvel and Marvel Studios recently got back the rights for the Punisher, and now Disney and Netflix have a licensing deal in place.

It’s a great solution all around. You’ll get a live-action Punisher that will enjoy more success and a broader reach than another movie, and it will also help both Marvel and Disney utilize new media.