Posted by Allen on June 30, 2006 under Movie Reviews, Movies, Pop Culture, Superman | 
There’s a scene early on in Superman Returns which beautifully establishes director Bryan Singer’s priorities for his latest superhero epic: the Kryptonian rocket which Superman has apparently been using during his mysterious time off Earth crashes in a cornfield near his mother’s farm in Kansas. We don’t see the ship land, however, not directly; we see Martha Kent’s face and reaction as she watches the crash and explosion through the window in her kitchen. We see what she sees only as a reflection in a windowpane. From the outset of the movie, Singer tells us he’s more interested in the characters and the emotions of his story than he is in the special effects; he’s ultimately more concerned with the man than with the super.
Speaking of that man: as difficult as it was, I tried very hard not to hold the fact that he’s not Christopher Reeve against new Superman Brandon Routh. [1] I thought Routh was just fine, but clearly Routh was no Reeve, a man I’m firmly convinced was genetically engineered to play Superman. Routh mostly aped Reeve’s performances, especially his bumbling Clark Kent, and he made a decent go of it. And I certainly don’t blame Routh for mimicking Reeve here; I’m sure he was instructed to do so by Singer. Since this movie was lifting the aesthetic of the first two Superman movies whole-cloth, Routh’s performance actually would have been out of place had he not tried to copy Reeve. And while Routh might not have the screen presence that Reeve did, his Superman still captures the easy grace and charm of the character.
Even if I didn’t like Routh’s Superman as much as I did Reeve’s (and to be truthful, that’s not even a fair fight), I far preferred Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane to Margot Kidder’s. I never liked Kidder’s Lois as I didn’t find her at all attractive, appealing or charming — I couldn’t understand why Superman would fall so heavily in love with this woman who was more annoying than anything else. Bosworth, on the other hand, has plenty of the appeal and charm Kidder lacked. Her Lois, while still being younger than I might have liked, also had enough of the flinty edge underneath I expect from Lois Lane. Bosworth did a wonderful job of conveying the heartache and confusion Lois felt when Superman disappeared and the internal fight when he returns. (As much as I liked Bosworth, though, I will have to admit to a few quibbles with some of Lois’ parenting choices: the intrepid journalist endangering herself is one thing; putting her five-year-old son in harm’s way certainly wasn’t her brightest move.)
Kevin Spacey brought much more menace to the role of Lex Luthor than Gene Hackman did, and I appreciated this more evil Lex: to me, Lex Luthor’s not supposed to be the buffoon Hackman portrayed him to be. I was afraid from the previews that Spacey was going to camp up the part, but luckily all of the campiest bits were used in the trailers; past that, Luthor was the hyper-intellectual follicularly-challenged menace he’s supposed to be. Roger Ebert said he didn’t think Spacey was having any fun with his role, and I can see thinking that if one is using Hackman’s Luthor as the measuring stick — Hackman clearly looked like he was having a better time with his Luthor, but that doesn’t make his a better performance. I don’t believe Luthor is supposed to be a fun character. This is a man willing to kill billions of people; what should be fun about that?
You might be asking yourself at this point: “Hey, all of this stuff about the characters is cool and all, but what about the action, man?” Yes, the action sequences were every bit what I expected them to be. Every penny of that rumored $200 million budget was on that screen. Singer’s Superman does the sorts of things you expect Superman to be doing, and the special effects have advanced to the point where not only can he do the impossible, but he can look damn good doing it. The plane/shuttle rescue in particular was breathtaking to behold, exactly the kind of thing done regularly in the comic books but formerly impossible to pull off in the movies, and the Superman Saves Metropolis sequence made me wish Metropolis would be in such peril more often. My only problem with the action sequences was that there weren’t enough of them, but as noted above, Singer was emphasizing the man over the super, so the action took something of a backseat to the characters.
My one major complaint with Superman Returns — and it’s a complaint serious enough to knock my overall grade for the movie down a half a notch — was with the Beatdown of Superman sequence. (I don’t feel it’s a spoiler to mention that this scene occurs since it’s featured prominently in the most recent trailers, but you might want to skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know what happens.) A depowered Superman gets thoroughly whipped by Luthor’s goons. That much I can deal with, even if I don’t like it — the problem I had was with the fact that Superman doesn’t fight back at all, save for a feeble grab at Luthor’s legs. He didn’t as much as take a swing at his attackers, and that’s not true to the spirit of the character. Superman does not crawl away from a fight on his hands and knees, even if he’s in pain and has lost his powers — it’s not his powers that make him Superman, but rather his willingness to fight for, as Daily Planet editor Perry White says in this movie, “truth, justice, all that stuff.” Superman’s mission is traditionally called the “never-ending battle,” not the “as long as I have super-strength and invulnerability battle.” Seeing a battered Superman crawl through the mud in pain and humiliaton struck a very wrong chord with me; I don’t see why the scene would have lost any power or resonance had he fought back against his attackers yet still been overwhelmed by their greater numbers.
Still, Superman Returns was a glorious “welcome home” to a character who hasn’t graced the big screen in far too long. Superman is the iconic superhero, and it’s good to see him finally get the super treatment he deserves.
Grade: A-
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[1] I normally don’t advocate writing reviews by comparing different movies or different intrepreations of a character, but Singer invited us to do exactly that by so closely following the vision Richard Donner put forth in 1978. Not comparing the two would both feel dishonest and like the review was incomplete. Singer took the exact opposite tack with Superman Returns from the one Christopher Nolan took with his masterful reimagination Batman Begins: while Begins completely repudiated the four previous films in the series, Returns is slavishly faithful to Superman and Superman II. Nearly every memorable moment from the first movie was either recycled, updated or knowingly echoed with a wink in the new movie. I certainly appreciate wanting to ground the audience who grew up with the originals to feel like this newest entry in the franchise was still part of the same universe, but it almost felt like too much on occasion.
Posted by Allen on June 27, 2006 under Comic Books, Links, Movies, Pop Culture |
I might not have the love for Spider-Man that I do for Superman, but I’d be seriously remiss in my geeky duties if I didn’t let you people know that the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3 was released today. And while I’ve never been a fan of Venom, what they show of the alien symbiote does actually look pretty sweet… as does the black costume. And the Sandman.
It’s certainly not enough to distract much of my attention from the fact that I’ll be watching Superman Returns in <checks watch> 28 hours and seven minutes, but it’s nice to know that I’ve got what looks to be a kickin’ superhero epic to look forward to next summer.
Unlike, say, 2008’s Iron Man, which I have a feeling is going to suck hard enough to pull my stomach lining out through my mouth.
Posted by Allen on June 23, 2006 under Links, Web, Web Design |
Against my better judgment, I now have my MySpace profile relatively complete. (Yes, thank you, I’ve noticed that I’m not a 15-year-old girl.)
My reasons for setting up the profile are couplefold:
- Most of my friends from Florida are on MySpace, and that seems to be one of the main ways they keep in touch. For example, my insanely talented (and now Cali-ized rather than Florided) friend Steve (he of the Deadly Fists of Kung Fu video I posted here a few weeks back) has an acccount there, and I might actually keep in contact with him a little bit better if I know where I can consistently find him.
- There seems to be some small opportunity to network effectively using the stupid site — there are several comic book writers I like who have accounts there and allow anyone to friend them. I seriously doubt anything will actually come from having, say, Warren Ellis on my MySpace friends list, but hey — it can’t be any less than the absolutely nothing that will likely happen otherwise.
MySpace is, of course, an Internet entreprenuer’s wet dream: the guys who built it launched the site in the summer of ‘03 and sold it two years later to News Corp for $580 frickin’ million. The people who programmed the site originally couldn’t possibly have known that their little community application was going to become one of the biggest phenomena on the web and one of the centerpieces of modern teenager culture, but that’s exactly what it is. At the time I’m writing this, MySpace is the fourth-most-visited English-language site in the world according to Alexa.
As a professional web applications developer, however, using MySpace feels like digging tiny barb-covered Mountain Dew-dipped daggers underneath the fingernails of my soul. It really and truly is a wretchedly put-together site. The usability and navigation are abysmal, and we can’t even get started on the entire “ugly design” ethos that MySpace empitomizes lest my frontal lobe catch fire. I can’t look at the site without thinking of all the things I’d have done differently if I’d built it. [1] But as part of my plan to Get My Name Out There And Network, I decided that I needed to swallow the bile rising in the back of my throat and start using MySpace, at least a little.
So any of you reading this who are willing to admit you have a MySpace page, let me know or just add me as a friend on your profile. I’ll tell Warren Ellis you said hi.
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[1] Of course, who knows — the things I’d've done differently might’ve made for a better application but a less-popular site. It seems that MySpace’s rough-around-the-edges-ness is one of the reasons it’s so popular. My designer mind can’t quite wrap itself around that one, though.
Posted by Allen on June 22, 2006 under Comic Books, Neil Gaiman |
So in this space today, you were supposed to get a review of the first issue of Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr.’s new Eternals miniseries. I wanted to help persuade all of my Gaiman-loving but not necessarily comics-reading friends to find their way to a comics shop to pick the book up. (Assuming that the book’s good enough to recommend… oh, who am I fooling? It’s Gaiman.)
You might notice that this ain’t that.
And you know why? Because the guy who runs my local comics shop apparently has a brain the size of an M & M underneath his dyed-blonde mullet.
Read more of this article »
Posted by Allen on under Geekery, Links |
As much as I love my USB thumb drive — truly one of those gadgets I didn’t realize how much I needed until I got one — I’d love it that much more if it looked like this custom job some sicko put together. I could carry all of my important files and horrify my children at the same time! Score!
And yes, I’m aware it’s this sort of thing which will lead to A] no end of emotional/psychological trauma and/or B] no end of paternal embarrassment in my children by the time they’re teenagers.
(Thanks to -b for the link.)
Posted by Allen on June 20, 2006 under Art, Comic Books, Introspection |
For too many years, I wanted to be Jim Lee.
I fell passionately in love with Lee’s amazingly detailed and dynamic artwork and design sense while he was the artist on Uncanny X-Men in the late 80’s and early 90’s, right before he and five other über-popular artists left Marvel to found Image Comics. I’d been drawing comics-style artwork for most of my life, but Lee quickly became my number-one influence [1]: I used Lee’s artwork as reference material, as inspiration — and ultimately as the yardstick I measured my own work against.
And I’m wondering just how much damage I might have done to my artistic sensibilities over the last fifteen years by doing so.
Somewhere over the years I lost much of my desire to draw, and I think that a lot of that was because I was unfairly judging the quality of my work against unrealistic standards. My expectations for myself were so high that I couldn’t possibly achieve them — if I couldn’t draw something that was somewhere at least approaching the the ballpark of Jim Lee quality, then the drawing was shit.
Thing is, there’s only a handful of artists out there that I think are in that ballpark, so expecting myself to be able to pull that off and berating my skills when I couldn’t… well, that wasn’t being very generous to myself. I think I judged myself so harshly that I found myself not wanting to draw at all. It’s not fair, of course — I’m not Jim Lee, and I never will be.
But when I say “I’m not Jim Lee,” I mean more than just that he’s a better artist than I am, though I think that fact goes without saying (not knocking myself there, just being honest). I also mean that my natural art style, the style that tends to come through when I’m not forcing a particular look on it, doesn’t resemeble his work at all — my “voice” differs from his considerably. I tend toward more open shapes, toward thicker and more angular lines, toward less rendering and cross-hatching. For years, though, I defined “professional” in my head as “Jim Lee-like” and tried to make my stuff look more like his. It’s like I was trying on a series of suits, each of which might have looked fantastic on someone else but none of which were flattering on me — but if I just kept trying them, dammit, I’d find one that fit perfectly.
Problem is, I never found that perfect suit and quit looking altogether.
Now, though, I want to get back into drawing again. I miss it. Not drawing has never felt right, but every time I’ve tried getting back into it, I’ve run face-first into that same wall of anxiety over and over again — I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t know how to draw in any style other than this one that doesn’t feel natural to me, and I hate it.
But no more. I’m reclaiming my “visual voice,” I’m no longer looking to Jim Lee as an influence, or at least not as a major one. I’m rejecting that overly-rendered style as Just Not Me; there are plenty of artists I can learn from and gain inspiration from whose work more closely mirrors my natural style. I want to try to separate myself from the frustration and self-flagellation of the last ten years and try something all-new, all-different. I want to enjoy drawing again, both the process and the results.
I don’t need to be Jim Lee. What I need to be is the best me I can be.
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[1] Funny thing: Even as I took him on as my primary influence, it seemed obvious to me that we were both influenced by the same artists when we were starting out (mainly George Perez, John Byrne and Arthur Adams). He just has way, way, way more talent than I do and was able to synthesize those influences into something new and exciting while I… didn’t.
Posted by Allen on June 19, 2006 under Personal |
As far as my little girls were concerned, Friday night was Father’s Day; I’d imagine it’s completely pointless to ask a four-year-old and a two-year-old to keep a secret for thirty-six hours. Especially when the secret involves a present they helped pick out.
“Daddy, daddy! We got you a present! It’s a secret, SSSSSSHHH!!! It’s a bear!!”
My girls (with more than a little assistance from their amazing mommy) got me the most rockin’ Father’s Day present I’ve gotten yet:
Kelsey picked out the bear (with approval from Laurel) — Kelsey chose this particular bear because it looks like Sleepy Bear, her friend who’s spent every night with her since she was 18 months old. Terry picked out the costume (again with approval from the girls), but I think that one was pretty much a no-brainer, don’t you?
Thank you, Laurel, Kelsey (who told me “Happy Father’s Day” no less than 300 times yesterday) and Terry, for the totally fantastic Father’s Day (which included breakfast in bed, a two-toddlers-on-one-Daddy wrestling match, and trips to an art supply store, a comic book store and a swing by our amazing local ice cream place). I certainly don’t need special days like this one to know how much you care, but I truly wasn’t going to complain about being showered with all of that love and affection.
Posted by Allen on June 15, 2006 under Movies, Pop Culture, Superman |
The next (and likely last) big trailer for Superman Returns is now up on the official movie site (click on the Video section, than select Trailer #2). And hooooo boy… every time I think I’m as geeked as I can possibly get for this movie, Warner Bros. releases another trailer and my anticipation and expectations go up another couple of notches. [1]
This trailer is the first to show much of the movie’s plot (outside of the high-concept tag “Superman comes back to Earth after five years off-planet”). Unsurprsingly, the movie’s about much, much more than just that bit of setup. I don’t want to tell you here what’s in the trailer; I’d prefer you go watch it yourself. But it looks like it’s gonna be goooood.
Yeah, OK, I’m not yet totally sold on Brandon Routh as Supes, and both he and Kate Bosworth seem much, much younger than the Clark and Lois who live in my head. [2] But in the end it just doesn’t matter to me — I’m more concerned with the quality of the movie overall. Bryan Singer didn’t make the same casting choices I would have made, true, but I’m not the one being entrusted with $200 million to make a movie. And because I trust Singer I’m willing to give Routh and Bosworth a chance. (No such free pass is necessary for Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor; while it looks like he might be playing up the goofy a bit much for my tastes, I have no doubt that he’ll also play the hell out of the menacing aspect of Lex.)
See, this is the thing: Superman Returns looks to be A Superman Movie Done Right for the first time since Superman II twenty-six years ago. And obviously, the kinds of things that can be done now are light years ahead of what was possible in 1980 — this is going to be a Superman doing the kinds of things Superman should be able to do. [3] Singer’s a hell of a director and he takes his subject matter seriously (ref. X-Men and X2: X-Men United). I have no doubt in my mind that he’s given this movie everything he’s got, that he’s using every bit of directorial prowess he’s learned since The Usual Suspects to make the best Superman movie he can.
So I don’t care if Routh looks too slender to me to be playing Superman, if he and Bosworth both look 22, if the costume doesn’t seem quite right — none of that really matters. Those are cosmetic details. What I want to see is the story, I want to see how the characters are presented, I want to see the sense of epic scope and monumental action that previous Superman movies just weren’t able to muster. I want to see a movie which lives up to the name “Superman” and does the character justice… and I think I just might get it this time.
I’ll be sitting in a theater on the night of Wednesday, June 28, Terry sitting by my side clasping my hand while I bounce in my seat like a little kid after his sixth bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. I’ve said it elsewhere and I’m going to say it again here: this might be the movie I’ve been waiting all of my thirty-five years to see.
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[1] The last movie to come anywhere near this level of pre-release internal buzz for me was The Incredibles, and that movie lived up to and actually exceeded my monster expectations.
[2] This trailer alleviates my concerns a bit about the leads’ fit for their roles, but I’m still reserving judgment until I see the whole movie. And hell, Routh looks a helluva lot more like the Superman in my head than Dean Cain ever did.
[3] Have you seen the bits with Superman saving the crashing jet in the trailers? I have absolutely no knowledge of the screenplay or what’s going to happen, but my gut says that’s a scene early-on in the flick, possibly the event that announces his return to Earth, and man does that look like it’s going to be a thrilling scene to watch — I bet we’ve scene only the tiniest hints of what that sequence will be like.
Yet the thing is, if I’m right… that’s going to be nothing compared to some of the stuff we see later. They’re holding back a whooole lot of info about the movie, and if they’re putting that sequence out there early to help build excitement for the flick, I can guarantee you that there’s way better stuff to come. **shivers**
Posted by Allen on June 14, 2006 under Games, Geekery |
At this very moment, danger waits for me. It waits for me in the tantalizing form of a blue and gold 48-pixel square on my desktop. And it’s taking everything I’ve got not to throw myself gleefully into that maw of death.
That’s right… I have the 10-day free trial of World of Warcraft installed and ready to go.
First, let me just say that I’ve honestly never been all that much into most MMORPGs, which strikes me as a little bit funny since I work for a company what makes ‘em. [1] But what I am a big fan of is Blizzard. I first got turned onto their games in college when some buddies of mine I worked with at the universtity newspaper hooked me on Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness. I’d never played any sort of networked video game before that (this was ‘96 [2], so online games had been around for some time, but I was coming late to this particular party), so Warcraft 2 certainly had that novelty aspect going for it. But even past that, the game was just fun — the gameplay was addictive as hell and the game had a fantastic sense of humor to it. I even spent a long time playing through the single-player misssions — far more time than I’d spent playing any one video game before that. [3] And since then, every Blizzard game I’ve played has been top-notch.
All of that means I’ve been aching to give WOW a spin since well before the game launched, but because of the one-two punch of No Money - Gots Little Kids, I’ve just never had a chance to try it out. Even now, I just don’t have the friggn’ time to play any games, especially not one that I know will be as addictive as I have a feeling WOW is. When I do have some free time (and “free time” here is defined as “time solely to myself” and is considered separate from Quality Time With Beloved Family), I want to work on my writing and building my web empire. Playing video games doesn’t help me get any closer to achieving my goals.
But still… for ten days, it’s free, so I’ve gotta try it out.
I’m sure that WOW isn’t the best MMO ever, though it’s by far the most popular. But I think it will be quite good enough to suck me in and make me want to waste untold hours of my life immersed in its world. (By the way… is it considered “wasting time” if I’m enjoying what I’m doing? It’s not really wasted time if I’ve spent it making myself happy, right? I think that reaction must just be an ingrained guilt thing for me — it’s time I could’ve spent being productive rather than just playing a silly game. Feh.)
Anyway, I’m putting off starting the trial as long as I can because I’m only going to have those ten days — I don’t want to start it up if I’m going to be short on time for the next week-and-a-half. I know that no matter how much I might wind up enjoying the game, I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely that I’ll be getting a monthly subscription, again because of that No Money - Gots Little Kids combo.
But still… for ten days, it’s free, so I’ve gotta try it out.
Y’know, if I’m lucky, the generic video card that’s in my computer won’t even be able to render the game very well and I’ll be saved (though WOW was supposedly designed specifically so that it would run just fine on lower-end computers). ‘Cause heaven forbid I leave myself to my own willpower to keep me from playing.
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[1] I played quite a bit of City of Heroes during its first few months — hell, c’mon, it’s superheroes, of course I played the hell out of it. But I set myself an all-too-simple goal (I just wanted to fly) which I was able to accomplish at level 14. After that, I quickly lost interest in the game. And my wallet started wanting that fifteen bucks a month back.
[2] OMG OMG OMG ten years ago!! Gah!
[3] That record for most hours spent in a single game stood until 2000 - 2003, when I would amass an ungodly amount number of hours immersed in the original Unreal Tournament; I’m pretty confident that personal record of mine will never be broken again. For the sake of my marriage, I sure hope it won’t.
Posted by Allen on June 12, 2006 under Links, Technology |
We’re going to need a whole lot more of these in the future if we’re ever going to break our dependence on oil, whether foreign or domestic: CNN has a report on a gas station in California which sells alternative fuels in addition to regular gasoline. The best part? They sell BioWillie, the soybean-based biodiesel that Willie Nelson sponsors. (I have no idea if BioWillie is better or worse than any other form of biodiesel — I just like the name.)
Side note: according to the picture that accompanies the article, the price per gallon of regular unleaded in San Diego is around $3.49. Friggin’ OW.
