Hate & Fear

As ever, there are essentially two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers. This is a truth, and one that has little to nothing to do with religion, spirituality, education or lack thereof. It's a simple boiling-down of how one ultimately chooses to approach the world: Through a prism of logic, reason and rationality... or through the other thing.

Below, a YouTube piece that's been making the rounds courtesy the charmingly-named "MIke Hunt" that intercuts the "Demand A Plan" video - in which various celebrities stumped for new gun legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre - with scenes of the various celebrities appearing participating in movie/TV scenes where they use guns. This is meant to be an "ironic" (the #2 word that both The Internet and American Conservatives tend to not know the actual definition of) exposure of "hypocrisy" (that, of course, would be the #1 word) on behalf of those appearing; because apparently Mr. Hunt occupies a dimension where the laws of physics differ such that fiction and reality are equivalent in some meaningful way...



It ends, as you may expect, on another declaration about the "Culture of Violence" - the shameless buzzword of the moment propped up by The Right and The NRA to be parroted by their willing sheep in the hopes of deflecting the issue from real guns to imaginary movies, books and video-games:

I am, as I've said before, a supporter of both sensible, reasonable gun laws (more reasonable than the ones we have, to start with) but also of the right to gun ownership by sensible, reasonable people; largely on the basis of logic and pragmatism but also because a good number of my friends and relatives are gun owners (I myself am certified but do not have a license or own a gun) and so I have what I feel is proper perspective on the matter.

That having been said... THIS bullshit (here's some folks on a "mainstream" website gleefully fantasizing about "armed resistance" against, well... guess) is getting to the point where I feel like I could see myself supporting a so-called "assault weapons ban" or somesuch just on the basis of getting to watch these bastards sob impotently into their Chik-fil-A. Is it really possible that I share a basic DNA profile with these people? And that there's nothing I can do about that?

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Dyson on "Django"

This past week, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson had been subbing for Ed Schultz on his MSNBC show - which, for one thing, meant that Ed Schultz otherwise unwatchable show was actually pretty watchable for a change - and offered up one of the more enthusiastic and incisive critiques of Quentin Tarantino's holiday hit (it's currently out-performing "Les Miserables," which NOBODY was expecting) "Django Unchained" and the controversy over Spike Lee's one-man "boycott" of the film, alongside colleague Dr. Eric Peterson.

For his trouble, Dr. Dyson has earned a scathing "open letter" accusing him of needing a "cultural pride transplant." Charming.

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Escape to The Movies: "Django Unchained"

If you haven't seen "Django Unchained" yet, fix that.

Intermission: "The 50 Most Boring Opinions in Geek Culture - Part II"

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Django Unchained

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We Almost Got a (Horrible) "Hong Kong Phooey" Movie

Hat tip: BAD

Hey, entertainment industry? Y'know what'd be just great? If something - anything! - could happen between Christmas and New Years so I'd have some content to post between shows other than celebrity deaths and offbeat scoops linked from bigger websites. Just sayin'.

Anyway, Badass Digest has posted what is apparently authentic test footage director Alex Zamm put together as a proof-of-concept for a proposed live-action/CGI comedy based on "Hong Kong Phooey" with Eddie Murphy in the lead role. You'll be unsurprised to learn that the clip is light on the kung-fu, heavy on an extended joke about dogs drinking from toilets:




Also included: Another video pitch by Zamm for a similarly hideous-looking "Marvin the Martian" feature.

What's odd about this is, I feel like there's actually some real potential being wasted here. "Hong Kong Phooey" was an oddity even for 70s Hannah-Barberra in that it was one of their less cringingly tone-deaf attempts at coopting current cultural trends, in this case the burgeoning blaxploitation genre and the import kung-fu cinema craze that were already beginning to cross over into one another at the time: Scatman Crothers voiced Phooey, and the series was set in a version of gritty(ish) Disco-infected New York:



A modernized version of that - a Hong Kong Phooey whose attitude was perhaps more hip-hop than funk, with action riffing on the Matrix/Jackie Chan/Crouching Tiger iconography rather than Bruce Lee - might well have been a unique and even interesting cartoon hero for today's kids. But, instead, here's The Voice of Donkey eating a urinal cake. Terrific.

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RIP: Charles Durning

Bummer. We lost a legend early this morning: Charles Durning, legendary character actor of stage and screen. You may not know his name, but you've seen him in movies and probably enjoyed him.

Durning was one of the great self-made men of modern acting. Born into poverty, he left home of his own accord to ease the financial burden on his mother, traveling and taking odd jobs as he found them. While working as an usher in a burlesque house, he found himself standing in for a no-show stage comic and got bitten by the acting bug. But, before he could fully commit to theater, World War II broke out and he enlisted.

Though he seldom ever spoke about his military service, Durning was a decorated hero: He was the only survivor of a first-wave troop that charged Omaha Beach on D-Day only to be ambushed by machine gun fire, he was taken prisoner while fighting at the Battle of The Bulge and was one of only three P.O.W.'s to escape the notorious Malmedy Massacre. All told he was seriously wounded three times, recieving three Purple Hearts and the Silver Star for Valor; and after all but the final injury returned to combat. One of those injuries included being stabbed eight times with a bayonet during hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier in Belgium. He lived through the fight by ultimately bludgeoning his attacker to death with a rock; and would later cite his own horror at the realization that his enemy was only a teenager as a reason he preferred not to discuss his time as a soldier - it was only in the final decade of his life that he became comfortable speaking of it publically, as in this 2007 appearance at the National Memorial Day Concert.

Upon returning to the U.S., he spent a long period going through the veterans health system for his physical and psychological wounds (he'd later state that he still suffered from nightmares into old age) and also training as a dancer, singer and professional boxer; he returned to the stage and established himself as a hardworking and sought-after performer of classical and modern American dramas. In the late-70s and early-60s he broke into the movies as an equally sought-after character and voice actor, lending his unique cadence and feisty energy to films as diverse as "The Sting" and "The Muppet Movie." He was nominated for two Oscars, multiple Emmys and Tonys throughout his career.

Durning passed away of natural causes, in the presence of family. Below, his signature scene from "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," a role which netted him one of those Oscar nods:

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Big Picture: "Top Ten Movies of 2012"

Just because it's Christmas Day doesn't mean you don't get a new episode!

The Escapist : The Big Picture : The Best Movies of 2012

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Clarity

As ever, there are two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and believers.

I just watched the head of The National Rifle Association - one of the most powerful and influential corporate lobbying groups (though they play at being a citizen's rights outfit for gun owners, of course) in the United States - hold a press conference to say, effectively: Guns don't kill people, video-games and Hollywood kill people.



The depressing amusement of the head of The NRA calling anything else a "shadow industry" aside, I'm actually grateful for this kind of public insanity. One thing Mr. LaPierre and I have in common is that we're both fans of clarity - he likes to talk about "good guys with guns" vs "bad guys with guns;" and I like seeing him (a bad guy with guns) come out so strongly in favor of game/movie/etc censorship, because it helps unmuddy the waters: Weak-willed so-called "progressives" who might otherwise have been willing to give ground on "violent" media (instead of keeping the debate laser-focused on the gun lobby, where it belongs) will hopefully be less so when they see it means agreeing with the distraction-tactics of LaPierre and his ilk.

So, this is to be a (political) fight, then. Games, films, entertainers, artists and the people who value them... versus The Right-Wing Gun Lobby. Good. Let's have it, then.

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Escape to The Movies: "Zero Dark Thirty"

Yeah, it's that good.

Intermission: "The 50 Most Boring Opinions in Geek Culture - Part I"

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Zero Dark Thirty

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Wonderstone

Sometimes all you need is a killer premise: In "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," Steve Carrell is an oldschool Las Vegas stage magician whose status is threatened by Jim Carrey as a David Blaine-esque usurper. Yeah, that could work:



If they both ran into Morgan Freeman at one point and he seemed to know both of them, I'd laugh.

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"Blame the Playmakers!"

Today, as ever, Quentin Tarantino is - within his medium and within his ability - a hero.




As reflexively incensed as I generally get about the "violent media" crusading (particularly when it's raised as a deliberate diversion from the real of what to do about gun violence, as is becoming the case on some ends here) I'm not terribly "worried" about the prospect of anything "bad" happening legislatively in the wake of this. The way "and also video games, and Hollywood" keeps getting dropped in during speeches about gun regulation by both Obama, congressional Democrats and left-of-center pundits reads to me as rhetorical "cover;" i.e. "we're going after the REAL problems and the REAL problem-makers, but hears an empty finger-wag at the movie/video-game boogeyman so The NRA can't say we're singling them out." I'm fine with that, politics is a game of double-talk and misdirection especially when in service of the good.

Team Obama is not stupid: They know that their (read: Democrats) overwhelming support among the Youth Vote would be horribly jeopardized if they threw-in full-force behind censorship the way they did (mistakenly and to disasterous political effect) in the 1990s. They know that the full-throated support of the "immoral" entertainment industry makes up their deficit in financial support from GOP-favoring corporate America. Most importantly of all, no matter how many white-haired Boomer liberals or "Blue Dog" Democrats in the senate actually do believe in a nonexistant causal-relationship between violent media and real-life violence; The President (read: their boss) belongs to a younger generation (and is highly in-tune with the psyche of an even younger one) that knows better.

The real danger to the arts is, as ever, the craven cowardice of the people running them. It's unlikely we'll see anything legislatively come of things like Sen. Rockefeller's useless proposal, but that Hollywood studios and game publishers might scuttle the release or promotion of this or that otherwise worthy work as a "sacrifice" to public anger? Very possible, and already somewhat in effect. That sort of gesture is not only empty and unhelpful - all it does is distract attention from where it ought be otherwise focused.

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Hey, Guys! The Good Version of Michael Bay is Back!!!

For those of you just joining us: It's become a fairly open secret that Michael Bay re-upped with the "Transformers" franchise for at least one more go-around despite openly despising it in order to get Paramount to throw it's weight behind a low-budget ($22 million - that's pennies in Bay and the studios' world) passion project called "Pain & Gain;" a fact-based, likely R-rated action/comedy with Mark Whalberg, Anthony Mackie and The Rock as a trio of dipshit roid-raging Miami bodybuilders who get in over their heads trying to double-cross a drug kingpin.

Now there's a trailer, and if you've been missing this Michael Bay (love it or loathe it, this specific genre/setting/tone is what he's better at than any other living filmmaker) as much as I have you'll want to have a look:


Pain & Gain Trailer from Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

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Media Sandwich Finale w/Me

Chris and Kyle honored me by having me as the guest for the final installment of the Media Sandwich podcast. Good times:

The Escapist : Media Sandwich : Media Sandwich Episode 28

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Big Picture: "Frame Job"

About that "Hobbit" 48FPS thing...

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Frame Rate

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MovieBob/Game OverThinker at MAGFest

Head's up! "The Game OverThinker" will have it's first independent panel at this year's MAGFest on January 5th at 10:00am. This is my first one of these, so it's going to be straight Q&A format. I'll be out and about at the con itself otherwise from about Friday to Sunday afternoon, in addition. Look forward to seeing any fans there!

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Right-Wing Bloggers Exploit CT Massacre to Attack... a Movie Studio.

Egh. So much for otherwise sitting this one out...

"Conservative" astroturfing outfit Breitbart.com doesn't like Jaime Foxx, and definitely don't like that he's the star of Quentin Tarantino's about-to-be-huge slavery-revenge epic "Django Unchained" - a movie they've been trying to "take down" ever since it was announced (for obvious reasons.) They're current tactic? Exploiting the tragedy and Sandy Hooks to attack the film and it's producers over movie violence.


Typically, this sort of thing would be ignorable - craven opportunists doing what they do. Unfortunately, for a variety of the "violent games and movies are part of the problem" refrain seems to resonate lots of otherwise-intelligent, progressive people as well... which is, of course, music to the ears of the gun lobby - who would much prefer the easy targets of the entertainment industry take the fall instead of them.

These are the times when intellectual clarity is needed, but also intellectual fortitude. Rational, thinking people can agree, disagree or compromise over what to do about guns; but no person can be called rational or thinking who buys into the absurd falsehood of "violent" media as a direct contributor to real-life violence - no matter how simple and comforting the myth may be.

We know what the real problems are. We know what the real problems are not. From there, we can arrive at what's to be done. Everything else is white noise.

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On Scarborough, Guns and The Rest...

I really, really, really didn't want to end up having anything to say about the school massacre in Connecticutt beyond "this is terrible and I feel terrible;" but I happened to have the news on this morning and wound up "angry tweeting" about what I was seeing, so now I probably ought to flesh that out a bit.

What I was reacting to was this now-ubiquitious monologue by former Republican congressman turned MSNBC host Joe Scarborough saying that he now feels his earlier positions against any and all gun regulations (he was highly-rated by the NRA, and you don't get that by taking nuanced positions.) I don't doubt the sincerity and emotion behind what he said, and I admire a public person effectively saying "I've been wrong" on a national broadcast in principle. My "issue" was that he subsequently "moves on" from talking about guns (and mental-health access) to talking about "violent" movies, video games, etc... and yeah, I've gotta be that guy who goes "hold up a minute" on that.

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The thing is, I respect that people have emotional "just do something to make me feel less powerless!" reactions to horrible tragedies. I have them myself, and frankly I'm not of the opinion that such reactions are always bad for us - emotion can overwhelm logic, yes, but it can also overwhelm timidity. To cut right to the chase (because I really, really don't want to dwell on this) I'd say that "Fuck this. Enough is enough, we need to finally do something about this country's bullshit approach to gun laws!" is a POSITIVE emotion-driven reaction to this event... whereas "Culture of Violence! Delay the violent movies! Ban the violent video-games!" is decidedly NOT.

I'm aware that this opens me up to accusations of "hypocrisy," i.e. "Oh, so the stuff YOU don't care about can get banned, but leave the stuff you LIKE alone?;" but quite frankly the equivalency just isn't there as far as I'm concerned.

As I've said before, my politics are 99% pragmatic - I don't have some all-or-nothing "ideal" when it comes to things like regulation, I simply hold that things should be regulated to the degree that they require it. While I'm in favor of so-called "gun-rights" - and really, truly HATE seeing good, responsible firearm-owners among my friends (of which there are many) being demonized along with the genuine "gun nuts" in these instances - the fact is guns are incredibly dangerous and their sole purpose is to be lethal; so, YES - they should be subject to regulations and much greater regulations than they currently are. "Banned?" No. But controlled, monitored, tracked, limited, restricted, etc? Absolutely.

However, when it comes to "violent" media, the "requires regulation" part is simply nowhere close to comparable. "Violent" movies and video games are NOT designed to be lethal or to inflict harm, they are NOT in and of themselves dangerous. Furthermore, there has never been a provable, direct, cause-and-effect link between watching violent movies or playing violent video games and actual acts of violence. With guns there IS because what guns ARE is a tool for lethal force.

Yes, it can't just be about gun laws. There is a broader conversation that needs to be had, both about access to mental health care and the "culture of violence;" but art, music, movies, games etc. do not have a prominent or even noteworthy place IN that conversation - rather, they serve as a distraction (and, as is often the case, a diversion) from the real issues. The "culture of violence" in America is a real, serious problem, but the "culture of violence" is NOT Call of Duty, "Django Unchained," etc. America's Culture of Violence is the culture of a vague yet potent sense of existential, media-driven panic: "SOMETHING is coming to get me and I require a military-grade arsenal with no background check, waiting period or meaningful limitation of any kind to protect myself from... well, I don't know what from but FoxNews, talk-radio and Infowars SWEAR they're on the way and if you say otherwise you're one of them and that's why you want to take my guns away!" 

Are you kidding me?


Put another way? America's Culture of Violence is that the AR-15 Bushmaster rifle that the CT shooter used to kill 20 kindergarteners is marketed with the catchphrase: "CONSIDER YOUR MAN CARD REISSUED."

So yes, let's finally have a real discussion about the place of guns and the relevance of Second Ammendment absolutism in the 21st Century. Let's have more discussion of how we treat (in every sense of the word) mental illness. But let's NOT be distracted or diverted by the notion that movies, art, music, games or any other creative works belong "on the table" or even in the discussion. Because they do not.

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Christmas On Infinite Earths

Cute.

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Intermission 12/14

Obviously, just about everyone's attention is focused elsewhere today, but in any case this week's column was called "Let's 'Watch The Man of Steel' Trailer."

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Final (?) "Zero Dark Thirty" Trailer

Mostly posting because I'd never heard the children's choir version of "Nothing Else Matters" they're using here before - is this new for this movie?

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Escape to The Movies: "The Hobbit"

One day early, because "Hobbit."

NOTE: This does not, unfortunately, mean that there will be a different episode on Friday. However, "Intermission" will still debut new on that day.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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WB would like you to know that the guy writing "Justice League" has read at least THREE "Justice League" comics

Latino Review - who've picked up the "rogue nerd-gossip" slack in a major way now that AICN etc have gone a little more legit - have been the go-to guys for scoops on Warner Bros. haphazard scramble to get "Justice League" onscreen, most recently outing Darkseid as the film's apparent (and really kind-of anticlimactic) heavy. Now they've got a new piece of (possible) news: Will Beale's screenplay for the film might be based on a three-issue JLA story-arc from 1980, "Crisis on New Genesis," which involved the League and the Earth-2 Justice Society meeting up with Jack Kirby's "New Gods" characters, of which Darkseid was the main antagonist.


Prior to "Crisis on Infinite Earths" uniting the DC Multiverse, the Justice League books would do annual crossovers with JSA which would typically involve the discovery of more new worlds and characters, which would always be called "Crisis on ______." JLA 183 - 185's story was one of those, essentially serving as a "welcome to officially hanging around on our margins!" to the New Gods (while published by DC and technically taking place in the DCU, Kirby's New Gods books were kept mostly at arm's length from the rest of things prior to this.)

Some sites find this a lot more exciting than I can manage to. With all congrats to LR for landing another scoop, that the screenwriter of a comic adaptation might be starting out with a story featuring the goodies and baddies he's been given to work with isn't exactly Watergate. The idea that, since this was a Multiverse story, it might indicate that Warners might be looking to play that card to get out of continuity hiccups (re: the JLA movie's Superman, Batman, etc. all coming from different universes instead of just not having run into eachother before) is interesting... but I can't really see them going there.

A brief glimpse of Christian Bale, Brandon Routh etc flashing by on a monitor while someone monologues about a Multiverse as a wink/nudge throwaway gag? Sure, that I can picture (be pretty cool, too.) Or maybe this would be the way to get Joseph Gordon Levitt's Detective Officer John Robin Mary-Sue Blake Esquire into the movie for a bit ("On my world, Batman died!") thus establishing some obligatory link with the "Nolanverse" while still having a Bruce Wayne Batman in this one. That I could get behind, absolutely - great way to move on from that series without having to "overwrite" it.

But, really... Occam's Razor pretty-much says that they're gonna fight Darkseid because he's the most recognizable League-level threat from the animated series and WB has told everyone to start name-checking "Crisis on New Genesis" because they figure "don't worry, we're reading the material!" will mollify worrisome fans. We'll see.

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BOFCA Post-Movie Podcast (UPDATED!)

I unfortunately had to miss this big group sit-down of the Boston Online Film Critics Association with the Post-Movie Podcast, but fortunately for you there's a lot of funny people on here that you probably don't  hear from all the time. ENJOY!

UPDATE: I will happily report that I was one of the reasons (probably the primary reason, I'd wager, or one of them) that the film that came in at #11 got so close to coming in at #10 - the prospect of which some of the membership found so terrifying. Much as I would've liked to see it land there, I can't say that Sean isn't right: If that had made the list of a "big debut" for a critics association with "online" in it's name people would be jumping all over that (because in their minds it conforms to this or that stereotype) instead Jeff Wells innexplicably dubbing us "Beefalos."

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"Pacific Rim." WOW.

Holy mother of God...

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Remember Me?

"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" was supposed to have already come and gone from theaters, but was very publically delayed at the last minute - officially to be re-fitted into 3D, unofficially to exempt Channing Tatum from the "kill everyone from the first one except Snake Eyes so The Rock can be the star" mandate after he surprisingly jumped from beefcake B-lister to bro-comedy icon ("21 Jump Street") and cougar-crowd sex symbol ("Magic Mike") mid-production.

Now, with the film getting (slightly) closer to a release, there's a new trailer (yes, in shitty Yahoo format - sorry) more-or-less dedicated to "Yes, Duke is back."



I'll say this much: If this is really the plot - the good guys have to protect the rest of the world from a gone-rogue U.S. government - that's pretty ballsy for a jokey, merch-driven nostalgia property.

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Big Picture: "The Girl of Tomorrow (Supergirl - Part III)"

And we're done here.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : The Girl of Tomorrow

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"Man of Steel" seriously wants you to know it's serious about being serious. Seriously.

Things are crazy busy here (and I plan to have more to say on this one soon enough in another context) so you'll forgive me if I don't have much in depth to say on the new Superman trailer beyond... yeah, here's the new Superman trailer:

Oh! And here's my final SuperGirl "Big Picture" episode, as well!



I'll say this much: I'm not precisely "elated" by any of this, but that's possibly because it's the first trailer for a property like this in awhile that doesn't feel like it's aimed DIRECTLY at "me" demographically and I appreciate that. The whole campaign up to this point has been designed to evoke a sense of "This looks interesting... what is thi.. oh! This is Superman?" in an audience, so it's been light on "holy shit!" moments and comic iconography. Me, I don't need to be "sold" on the idea that a new Superman movie is a good idea or that the character is "relevant" but apparently a lot of the public does and that's who this is aimed at.

One of my more widely-read contemporaries on Twitter (Devin Faraci, I want to say) negatively described the "Star Trek Into Darkness" trailer as "chasing 'The Dark Knight' in a post-'Avengers' world," and I get some sense of that same undercurrent here (the presence of odious cinematic boogeyman Hand-Held and his partner Lens Flare doesn't help) but there's enough present in the margins for me to still hope we'll get something good out of this. "Dark Knight"-good? Probably not. "Avengers"-good? Impossible. But there's potential. Maybe.

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New "Man of Steel" Trailer Incoming?

I'm about to head to bed (long day of Holiday work-planning) but it probably means something that this Warner Bros.Viral-Site - which is supposedly a "countdown" timer using Kryptonian alphanumerics - has gone up online as part of a "Man of Steel" ARG promotion. Will we get lucky and get to see the full trailer before it debuts in front of "The Hobbit?"

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New "Lone Ranger" Trailer Looks Even Worse Than FIRST "Lone Ranger" Trailer

I'm not a tremendous fan of "The Lone Ranger," but having so recently suffered through "Green Lantern" and "The Amazing Spider-Man," my heart breaks with empathy for what Johnny Depp, Gore Verbinski and Disney have in store for them. Holy SHIT, does this look terrible. Cheap self-parody is one thing, but inconsistent and bad cheap self-parody is another:

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Shyamalan Paroled, Again

Improbably, M. Night Shyamalan is out of Movie Jail again. Here's the trailer for his latest project, "After Earth," a Will & Jaden Smith team-up project in which the two play a spacefaring father and son who wind up stranded on a post-apocalyptic Earth that has reverted to a neo-prehistoric state (he wouldn't have it turn out to actually be the past with Jaden as The Intelligent Designer... would he?)

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BOFCA Awards

The Boston Online Film Critics Association, of which I am a member, has voted on it's innaugural year-end awards.

The big winner is "Zero Dark Thirty," taking Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. Daniel Day Lewis gets Best Actor for "Lincoln." Go here for the full roster of winners and the "Top Ten" list that "ZDT" topped to win.

Since someone is going to ask, I can tell you that three out of the four acting categories match my personal picks (everybody got three ranked picks per category save for Best Picture which was a 1-10 ranked list, I believe individual ballots will be posted sometime next week) which is pretty cool; and that not only do I have no serious "disagreement" with any of the winners I think it's an exceptionally good roster.

P.S. For the record: Every elligible film has been screened for critics as of today. While reviews and/or public opinions are embargoed on some of them (i.e. YES I've seen Django, ZDT, The Hobbit and Les Miserables but NO I can't tell you if they're good yet) awards are not. I'm aware that that doesn't make much sense, but we don't make the rules.

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Escape to The Movies: "Killing Them Softly"

Nothing came out this week, okay?

"Intermission" has canceled screenplay fun.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : Killing Them Softly

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"Star Trek Into Darkness" Unveiled

I was not an enthusiastic fan of JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot. It was good... just not especially good. Passable. Decent. Not-unwatchable. Might've been better if Chris Pine were capable of displaying a recognizable human emotion beyond vague self-satisfaction.

Anyway, here's the trailer for the sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness" (no, I didn't forget the colon, they did) which doesn't really reveal what everyone wanted it to reveal, i.e. the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's villain. Everyone has been assuming he's Khan, which would be an overly obvious and safe choice (which is why it probably IS Khan) but the case could also be made for him playing Gary Mitchell. The only "special" thing we see him do is display some sort of superhuman strength, so really it could be either of them (in modern movies, telekinesis gives you all the other super-powers too, generally.)



In any case, he's blowing shit up in front of big crowds while ranting about Starfleet/Federation/etc not being as secure and safe as everyone thinks, so... yeah, whoever he is looks like another riff on The Joker. I let that slide with Silva in "Skyfall" because theres was a bit more to him eventually... I'm not inclined to be as kind here.

Whatever. Low-priority release on my end. Could be good, could be bad, not going to make or break my year one way or the other. We'll see. Would like to know if the new blonde gal is playing Nurse Chapel or Yeoman Rand, though.

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"Tron 3" Back On?

"Tron: Legacy," like "John Carter," was a project that (barely) made it to screens before Disney decided to cut off their plans to take over the "boy market" (their words) with their own genre properties and instead just buy Marvel and Star Wars' catalogue. Both films got a mixed reception from critics and audiences, but "Tron" at least made money... though for awhile it seemed like not enough to justify a planned new set of sequels.

Apparently, that's changed. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the project is back on with director Joseph Kosinski returning to direct. No word on a storyline, though extra scenes and clues from "Legacy" point to Cilian Murphy (as the son of David Warner's human heavy from the first movie) having been set up for a larger role. Whatever, it's more Tron. I'm there.

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Depp Charge

I really want to still like Johnny Depp. Good actor (most of the time) and seems like a decent guy. I don't even mind that he's evidently decided to just keep riding the "offbeat actor being weird in bloated franchise epics"gravy train, really... just that he keeps doing such a terrible job of it. "Dark Shadows" didn't work, "Pirates 4" was godawful, "Lone Ranger" looks like a disaster, etc.

That said... if ever there was a symbol to summarize just how much Depp's career/image/persona has "turned around" in my eyes, singing up for another big, comfy Disney project that's basically a version of a vastly more interesting Terry Gilliam project he almost made back before "Pirates" made him the new It-Boy would do it. Yeesh! If you had to make a movie about Terry Gilliam's career, him standing in front of a theater advertising the premiere of THIS movie would be the final shot.

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Let's Help a Great Theater In Need

Cinema Salem is a great little outfit in Salem, MA that brings not only major releases to it's screens but indie, arthouse and foriegn features to a local, downtown movie scene. These are the good guys, and like many others they are in danger of being left behind in the push to convert to digital.

They've started a Kickstarter to help get themselves secure for the Digital Future, I've already backed them, and in the spirit of The Holidays I'm asking any of my fans (local or otherwise) who're in the giving/seasonal mood to think about kicking in what they can if they so wish. You can do so HERE. Thank you.

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Friendly Fire in The War on Christmas

I tend to be high-strung and on-edge during the holidays for a number of reasons, but I'm actually quite fond of American Christmas - aka the modern holiday of commercial consumption (presided over by neo-pagan deity figures like Santa, Rudolph and Frosty) that has about as much in common with the Christian holiday it grew out of as that holiday itself had in common with the pagan seasonal celebrations it originally co-opted. Hence, stuff like this tickles me.

Loathe as I am to link to batshit-insane, racist, homophobic birther "news" site WorldNetDaily, this video (and th unfuriated comments it inspired) is kind of delightful: Richard Rives - a controversial "Christian Archeaologist" (he runs Wyatt Archaeological Research, which promotes dubious expeditions seeking out scientific evidence for Biblical lore) who has also dedicated a series of books and scholarly articles to "exposing" the (otherwise well-documented) pagan origins of modern Christian traditions with an eye towards getting back to some "pure" original form - here argues matter-of-factly that present day Christians oughtn't celebrate Christmas because the holiday itself has almost zero Biblical basis, instead being a Pagan festival "adapted" to Christianity later.



What's fun for me in this is that, while Rives is almost certainly a nut, he's not "wrong" in his data. This is why - much as I loathe the Rich White People Faux-Victimhood Pageant that is "The War on Christmas" - I'm also increasingly annoyed with the snarky "holiday takedown" campaigns waged by activist-Atheism this time of year. I mean, guys (meaning Atheism) ...I'm on YOUR SIDE vis-a-vi "fuck the fundies;" but going all Anti-Xmas is a meaningless and kind of mean-spirited "cause" to take up - whether they admit it to themselves or not, MOST Americans are celebrating a secular holiday whose "gods" are acknowledged fictions created by pop-culture folklore of the 20th Century. Chill out.

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Big Picture: "The Girl of Steel"

Supergirl, Part The Second.

And hey, did you notice this "Game OverThinker" Special?

The Escapist : The Big Picture : The Girl of Steel

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Superman in Trouble

I really like the idea behind the newest "Man of Steel" poster, which depicts Superman being led away in handcuffs by soldiers - a scene already glimpsed in the Comic-Con footage shown earlier this year - in as much as it feels like a modern version of Silver Age DC cover, which typically presented an out-of-context "WTF?" scenario (aka the stuff 'Superdickery' has been archiving, basically) that begged you to read it just to find out what was going on. Obviously, everyone knows Superman can't be handcuffed and shouldn't be the "enemy" of the army, so what's going on?

Less encouraging is the presentation, which looks like someone ran a screencap through Instagram and added the appropriate ad copy. I've seen (blurry, secondhand) snaps of the SDCC footage, and this scene (and the film in general) looked a lot more high-contrast and bold than this does. This looks calculated to "rhyme" with the Dark Knight movies, which is fine for an ad campaign but I'm still hoping does not effect the movie itself...

As for the context; one imagines Superman is voluntarily surrendering to engender trust from humans. Supposedly, the big "new" angle the Goyer/Nolan developed script for this brings to the backstory is that Clark Kent is reticent about revealing his powers - and thus his alien-ness - at first  (the official trailer shows him working on a crab boat in Alaska, perfect job for an invulnerable man living off the grid) and that even after he reveals himself (as Superman) the human world's citizenry and authorities don't take as merrily to the idea of a god walking among them as they traditionally do in Superman stories; so this would seem to go along with that idea. It would especially make sense if the world encounters the evil Kryptonians first (it's pretty-much widely known by now that versions of General Zod and Faora are the heavies, and this would be as good an imperative for Superman to start being Superman as any) and are thus suspicious of him.

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"Justice League" Playing It Safe Already?

Uh-oh.

Warner Bros. cannot catch a break in their awkward dash to get "Justice League" onto the big screen for 2015. They already faced having to open the pic in the same relative space as "Avengers 2," and then found out that they'll also be contending with "Star Wars: Episode VII." All of this, of course, comes on top of the fact that the whole project is hinging on "The Man of Steel" doing the kind of business (and audience word-of-mouth) that no DC superhero not named Batman has done in the 30+ years between "Superman II" and right now.

Now, their working choice of nemesis for the "Justice League" screenplay (currently being hammered out by Will Beale) may have been discovered by Latino Review - who are very rarely wrong on these things. If they're right... honestly, I'm a lot less enthusiastic for this project already.

READ ON if you want the details...

 
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According to Latino Review, The Justice League will face off against DARKSEID, alien dictator from Planet Apokolips.

Meh.

He's not a BAD choice, certainly. He makes sense from a plot standpoint, he has lots of foot soldiers and flunkies to make trouble, he's passably-familiar to non-devotees because he's been in a bunch of the cartoons and he's "powerful" in the sense that he can get into fistfights with Superman. I get the sense that that last one is the main reason he'll be onhand: WB's approach to their DC properties is easily shallow/disengaged enough for me to believe they take the "Superman is too unstopable to be compelling!" thing seriously.

Problem is... even though Darkseid came first by many years, he's really similar to prospective "Avengers 2" antagonist Thanos; and even if "League" were to open first Thanos is likely going to be hovering around in the various Marvel movies over the next two years - no matter how you slice it, this is the exact wrong way to go if your trying to not look like your playing catch-up to another movie. Honestly, even Lex Luthor (who I still wouldn't count out in some fashion) again would be automatically more interesting because of the kind of scheme a mere human would have to be working to challenge a team of near-demigods.

Also problematic: Unless their hiding a massive (and, frankly, rather unwelcome) "It's actually ALL about Darkseid!" angle from "Man of Steel;" he doesn't really have much of a connection to the other characters or their worlds - he's not anbody's father, brother, mortal enemy, etc; and there won't be any movies in-between the retcon him into being involved in some new way.

That's actually the most potentially interesting thing about Darkseid being in a movie: that he's part of a much larger pantheon of cosmic figures in Jack Kirby's cult-classic "Fourth World" books. The prospect of all that business turning up would be spectacular... but probably not going to happen. Kirby's "New Gods" have a silly-name problem (a sample: "Granny Goodness & Her Female Furies"), and like Darkseid they were designed to live mostly seperate from the rest of the DCU until the line faded (Kirby was a great artist, prolific-but-batshit-insane "idea man, yes... not-so-hot as a writer) to mostly being background noise for "Darkseid: Catch-All Big-Bad For Any Scenario."

So... yeah, it'll come as no surprise if you read my column over the weekend that this doesn't exactly fill me with hope. Definitely doesn't mean the movie will be "bad," and it's totally possible that they've got an interesting story to tell with him or a bigger picture yet to be revealed ("Darkseid... aaaaand also a ginormous army of enemies from across the entire DCU!!!"); but this just isn't as immediately 'cool' to find out as Loki was ("a magic user whose more about fucking with The Avengers' mind-game style than brute force? Interesting!") and it just feels like an incredibly safe, calculated, risk-averse move in a movie (and genre) that needs to be anything but.

I could, of course, be completely off-base on this one.

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Normality

This is of interest to me, it may be of interest to you.

In what are easily two of the most socially and historically significant changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (aka "DSM" - the leading though not exclusive manual by which professional psychiatry diagnoses and classifies patients) since the publication removed Homosexuality from the list of mental-disorders two decades ago; a major change has been made to the guidelines for diagnosing the Autism Spectrum that effectively removes Asperger's Syndrome as a seperate diagnosis... and Gender Identity Disorder has been rendered a "disorder" no longer.

While Autism itself will continue to be classified as a disorder (though one with a broader spectrum than previous,) Aspergers and other High-Functioning forms of such will now be incorporated into the broader Autism Spectrum diagnosis. The change, the subject of debate for awhile now, has been praised by some advocacy groups but disdained by others. One imagines that "Aspergers" will still be used as a colloquial shorthand for a long time, given how visible and mainstream the term has become.

While likely effecting fewer individual patients/persons overall, the Gender Identity change is perhaps more long-term significant: The condition previously classified as "Gender Identity Disorder," i.e. persons who feel that they have been born the wrong gender, will now no longer be classified as a "disorder" - instead, it's official medical/psychiatric title will be "Gender Dysphoria."

The second change that has been hard fought for by many in the Transgendered community, but will now likely raise a new set of legal issues to be fought over since the "disorder" diagnosis has allowed for some trans people to file anti-discrimination lawsuits in certain cases (wrongful termination, for example); and the legal wrangling over insurance companies' obligations in regards to gender-reassignment surgery - already certain to be a heated issue in the age of Obamacare - will likely intensify.

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