October 2005 Archives

I will admit I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I was expecting some kind of metaphysical heaven-hell clap-trap on par with the Order. I was figuring that after fifteen minutes, I'd be hoping that some passerby would take pity on me and bludgeoned me about the head until I lost conciousness. With such low expectations, I was mildly surprised to be only absurdly disappointed in the film.

It's got a lot in it that is what I love in the comic however the corners they decided to cut were not the best choices. Besides the drastic miscasting of Keanu Reeves in the lead (which again, I was expecting to be abonomal and was instead only extremely irritated) and the relocating of the story from London to Los Angeles there are a variety of poor choices made. His origin story for one. It's bizarre, getting a lot of his power from a suicide attempt in his teens. He's basically an exorcist instead of being a freelance magician and self proclaimed arse.

Also his motives are changed to better fit the structure of film rather than the long drawn out pace of a comic. He wants to earn his way into Heaven by exorcising demons, hoping to win enough celestial brownie points that he'd never have to return to Hell. In the comic, John Constantine isn't an anti-hero, he's a fuck-wit who abuses people's faith and trust. The movie version paints him more as broody rather than self-serving.

The comic's Constantine is sort of a new wave Adam. He has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and so can never be allowed to enter God's presence. He fights demons but with the full knowledge that no matter what he does, God will never forgive him the things he's done and the way he's gone about his life. This best trade that shows this is "Dangerous Habits," the first arc written by Ennis where Constantine finds out he's dying of cancer (there are bits from that arc taken for the movie, not enough for my tastes but a little bit for flavor and to add a deadline for the story). There's a great scene when Constantine is sitting on a bench and he's talking about the irony of going to Hell when he's fought demons for so long. He mentions about trying to gain God's forgiveness and just laughs.

I enjoy Rachel Weisz in this movie but the odd moments where there is this attraction between the two of them feels forced and kind of weird. When you choose to tell a story about Hell breaking through into Earth and the Antichrist it's a little hard to work any kind of romantic tension. I'd say it would have been better if they didn't try.

I will say this for the film. The graphic work is really top notch. The effects team did a good job of making things creepy and really interact with the actors. No poor man's blue screen here, which means that the studio must have had enough faith in the project to pump some money in. Faith misplaced but faith nonetheless.

Also the camera work is actually quite good. There's lots of good framing and delicious shots. The film's director, Francis Lawrence, is also willing to hold out shots for a lot longer than I'd have thought from someone with such a strong music video background. Instead of fostering short attention spans, he gives us some thoughtful pauses, allowing us to digest some of the concepts that are being put out there.

I've also enjoyed breaking music down into movements, almost sub-genre stuff. I think it's the history dork in me. For instance, I love to look at the mid-sixties and talk about 'garage rock' bands like the Sonics or the Standells or to look at 'surf rock' bands like Dick Dale or the Beach Boys from the early sixties.

Comic book writing can be similarly broken down, I feel.

British Invasion - Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis - these group tends to take a more adult approach to comic writing, often introducing religious and spiritual themes and undercurrents to their work (from Moore remaking Swamp Thing into an Earth Elemental to Ennis' most famous work Preacher).

X-odus - Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlene, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Jim Valentino, Marc Silvestri - this is the group that defined the ninties, mostly working on X-Men books hence the X in their title. Then they all left to form Image Comics, hence the Exodus pun. For the most part, their stories tend to focus on visuals over narrative (I'd say Larsen is the best exception to this rule).

Crime Writers - Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Brian Azzarello, Greg Rucka - these guys tend to write realistic stories with a great ear for dialogue. Often this group tends to a 'gritty, urban' style but not necessarily. Their writing also tends to do better when taken into a larger picture, for example Azzarello's 100 Bullets or Rucka's Queen and Country.

Continuity Heads - Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Mark Gruenwald - These are the guys who grew up reading the books and tend to really know the characters. They can throw in something that will pay off something that's been dangling for years because you get the feeling that it was truly plaguing them (even if no one else gave a hoot). They also tend to have a great understanding of how the comic world is structured, playing off pre-concieved notions as well as tweaking things to fit together better.

Filmmakers-cum-Writers - Kevin Smith, J. Michael Straczynski, Damon Lindelof, Bryan Singer, Allan Heinberg - these are some of the more famous writers outside of comics (I'd argue that the British Invasion group is the most famous inside comics). They tend to be given a bit of free range on their work because of their name power and they tend to take advantage of that by having their stories be fast paced pop-culture filled adventures where huge things can be at stake.

"Coolafiers" - Frank Tieri, Judd Winick - Before I get going, let me start off by saying I hate to put Winick's name in this group (his autobiography Pedro & Me breaks my heart, Barry Ween is top-notch and I also love his run on Exiles. However, once he went to DC, he joined this list). This is a group that tends to think that they can take a character and update them and make them cool. Similar to continuity heads, except where they might streamline the character and let the innate coolness radiate from within, these guys add emotional baggage to try and 'improve' the character (for example, making Black Lightening choke a man to death). This often makes the characters clunky and takes them further away from what made them great in the first place.

As a filmmaker there are a flood of questions regarding film versus digital video being at the heart of our medium's future. Comics are facing a very similar situation but the question that they are facing is "how will the internet affect comics?"

The obvious answers are that there will be online comics such as Penny Arcade and PVP. The internet will also change how people discover talent through sites such as Comics Portfolio.It's also a way that creators and publishers can keep in contact with each other using email and instant messaging. Not to mention websites analyzing comics, like this very website.

Of course there's all those things and for the most part they've all happened. But that's not the revolution that lies in wait.

You seen, whenever there's a new medium introduced it always takes a while for the media makers to figure out to take advantage of it, both artistically and finaically. When radio first came out, no one knew how to market it, product sponsership was the answer. They would have one product which would sponser an entire program. When television was created, they basically made televised versions of radio plays with stagnant visuals but good writing. It also took a long time to figure out that commericals was a more profitable way of sponsership.

The problem the comic industry now faces with the internet is very similar. There's a great deal of content (decades worth of comics sit in publishers vaults) but there's no way that that the publishers know to make money. They could charge a membership fee but then there's no way to ensure that members won't share images with non-members. There's also advertising but there's no guarentee that people will click on them (a 5 % click through rate is considered a success). So until a better method is discovered, online distribution will not succeed.Until then the internet can only be used for promotion of upcoming books and exhibition of creators' talents.

As for the creative impact, the internet has altered our perception of the page. No longer are the limits of the layout set by the dimensions of the page. The layout can be as wide or as tall as the creator wants it to be.

Truly, this is the dawn of a new age and we all stand on the precipice looking into the great unknown. I don't know exactly what the future holds or even how we'll get there but what a bountiful future it is shaping up to be and what a great time we shall have along the way.

The Incredibles is not only the title of this film but is also an apt description of the film itself. It is not only a great family-friendly superhero film, it's also a great film in its own right. It manages to hit all the right emotional chords while being funny and clever at the same time. It shifts gears seamlessly between these moods while never feeling forced or sczhiophrenic.

The graphics are outstanding. The director, Brad Bird, known for his work on the Simpsons and with the classic Iron Giant, had never worked with digital animation before. You'd never know it to see this film. He managedf to get a great performance out of his animators. The emotions and humor are dead on., although it's getting harder and harder to expect anything less out of Pixar.It's not just the characters though that are so impreesive, it's also the world they live in and the actions tehy perform. The Incredibles is an action packed film, full of explosions, superpowers and fight scenes. IThe whole film is rendered with lavish detail, making for a complete and enjoyable film.

The voicework is top notch. Pixar has the amazing ability to cast people not on name power but on actual talent and whether or not they're right for the part. As Brad Bird himself described it, "no one goes to a cartoon for the star." His example was Sinbad, voiced by Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta Jones which opened to empty theaters across America but it might as well have been his own brilliant Iron Giant which featured Harry Connick Jr and Jennifer Aniston. It did dismal despite the star power and being a great film. Personally, I don't care for Craig T. Nelson but he is perfect as Mr. Incredible. He manages to hit the false bravado, the true excitement in action and even his fears. Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson are both, of course, brilliant. To me the surprise was Sarah Vowell as Violet. She managed to capture the awkardness of teenagedom perfectly.

The people who you have to feel bad for (other than Disney for letting Pixar go in a few years) is the cast and crew of the Fantastic Four film as that film's now been made redudant. It's not just that the main hero's name is Mr. Incredible instead of Mr. Fantastic. Nor is it is just that the Incredibles mimic the Four's powers with Mr. Incredible as the Thing, Elastigirl as Mr. Fantastic and Violet as the Invisible Woman (The writers granted the other child, Dash, with super speed, for the same reason that the old Fantastic Four cartoons had HERBIE instead of the Human Torch; lawyers are worried that kids would set themselves on fire to immulate their hero). It's not even that they have to face a character obviously based on the Mole Man.

No, the real reason that this film replaces the Fantastic Four is that it has the same loving, dysfunctional family feel to it. The cornerstone of the Four, the thing that makes them who they are, is that they are a surrogate family for each other. In the Incredibles they are a real family but it still has that playful teasing and caring that we've come to expect from Marvel's First Family.

Final review, simply put? This is a great film, possibly one of the best of the year.

I haven't been the biggest Superman fan. There's something about the character that seems stodgy to me, stifled. Unlike most people who might make such a complaint my argument isn't that the character of Superman is too altruistic or too outdated, my feeling is that the trappings around Superman are stale. After all, Captain America is another old character with strong morals but he doesn't get nearly the amount of flack as Superman does.

The problem is that when you have a character who is as powerful as Superman is, it is hard to get me concerned for his physical well-being. I know that there are few obstacles that he cannot overcome (including cheating death). We've seen him go toe-to-toe with so many supervillians that it is hard to imagine him losing a fight. The way to make me care about Superman is his supporting cast and the world around him.

Let's start with the supporting cast. What's amazing about Superman is that he's married (and unlike Spider-Man, they've kept him married). This relationship more than any other has the ability to humanize him. It provides us with a chance to see Superman having to deal with mundane things that are of no concern to a bachelor, which is just a hot bed for humorous situations. He also works in the strangest office environment known to man. Whereas most people go to work and sit in a cubicle or perhaps they work retail, this man teleports to the moon and watches news reports.

To compare Superman to Captain America once more, it's great to have morals but you need to see those morals put to the test. He has the ability to kill almost anyone, is he ever tempted? I know that Superman had vowed never to kill again but what if someone came after Lois or his parents? Also, if he has the power to overthrow a brutal dictator, would he? In a world of global terrorist cells and nations preparing for war, how does Superman deal with the fact that he is a one man army? And this is leaving out the bigger, yet simplier, question of how does Superman deal with the rise of antihero?

Now, Superman still has to have villains to fight. You don't get to be an icon like Superman without getting into tussles. Since he is so strong, though, why not position him up against people who are a better threat. For instance, as he is vulnerable to magic, why not have him fight a beast whose power is of a magical origin. Also why not have him face off against telepaths? And if he has to go one-on-one make sure it's with someone that can actually pose a threat to him physically and don't forgot that there are also ways to physically handicap him temporarily such as being sick, overworked, switching bodies, what have you. But it should always be remembered that the best Superman villain is Lex Luthor, a very intelligent human. That is what protagonist/antagonist relationships are based on, utilizing opposites.

Some might say that this is asking a lot and it is, to be quite honest. I probably wouldn't even have asked for it had I not already seen it done. In my opinion, Joe Kelly did the best run on Superman. He managed to fill the book with humor and emotional resonance. He also pitted Supes against the Elite, a great tongue-in-cheek poke at the Authortiy (who had just made a great tongue-in-cheek poke at the Avengers). It was during his tenure which they also infected Superman with a virus that made him more physically vulnerable, not to mention Lois making a backroom deal with Lex Luthor. I'm not saying that his run was the best but at least it shows that this crazy balancing act can be done.

I've always thought that USAgent has been an underutilized character. A man with the same powers as Captain America who used to have anger issues and a drinking problem should make for better reading than the character often does.

I had some hope for him when the Marvel crossover Maximum Security was announced and it was revealed that USAgent would have a new role in the Marvel universe: a super-human marshall. This I thought would finally give him the chance to be used right. I could just see it in my mind's eye. USAgent acting like Tommy Lee Jones from the Fugitive, tough as nails and intense. This is the guy that they call in when the Rhino breaks out of the Vault and goes on a rampage in Detroit.

Instead they dropped that ball. The crossover was horrendous. USAgent came off as even more arrogant, which up until that moment I hadn't though possible.