Consider, if you will, the following case of orientation disorientation.
Loner Dad’s Long, Proud, Awkward Day on Campus
“Man of Steel”: a Farewell to Role Modeling
In Part One of this two-part non-epic, I covered what I liked best about Man of Steel, the new Superman treatment from director Zack Snyder, producer Christopher Nolan, and screenwriter David S. Goyer. As I mentioned there, despite the team’s successes on numerous fronts, I thought the film had room for improvement.
Those examples require a courtesy spoiler alert because a few of my complaints happen toward the film’s back end and involve major plot points. If you plan to see it pristine and unspoiled for yourself, abandon the reading trail here, and I look forward to seeing you next time.
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Onward, then, to what I liked least:
“Man of Steel”: the Greatest Zack Snyder Film of All Time
After seeing Man of Steel today, that sweeping statement occurred to me and required two minutes’ worth of thought to confirm. It helps that I’ve seen all six of director Zack Snyder’s feature films to date, even the animated ones.
Of the other five: Dawn of the Dead was not bad for what it was — arguably his second-best, but not quite essential. 300 broke visual ground and set new standards for faithfulness in graphic-novel-to-movie adaptations, but makes me snicker in a few extraordinarily hammy spots. I’m glad someone finally adapted Watchmen so we could all say it’s been done and move on with our lives, but its brazen attempt to do for super-hero movies what the original miniseries did for super-hero comics didn’t have nearly the same intellectual impact or coherence. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole admirably demonstrated the visual techniques of 300 for an all-ages audience, but was incomprehensible unless you’d read the entire book series beforehand and could spot the dozens of pages’ worth of vital backstory that was excised for the big screen. (Thankfully my son was a fan and explained the crucial omissions.) And Sucker Punch was a skeevy, disjointed orphanage for outlandish sci-fi skirmishes that had apparently wandered away from the nonexistent movies that spawned them.
In comparison to the rest of the Snyder oeuvre, Man of Steel stands tall as his boldest achievement yet.
Minimal Notes from Inside Our Spoiler-Free Bunker
Superman doesn’t like it when someone ruins his story. (Art by Dave Gibbons from 1985’s Superman Annual #11.)
I’ve shunned Twitter’s outbreak of Man of Steel discussion groups. I’ve refused to read any reviews, whether they carry a courtesy spoiler alert or not. I’m even temporarily resisting the urge to read what I understand from several sources (while held at arm’s length, mind you) is a fascinating dissection of the movie by Superman: Birthright writer Mark Waid, a generally awesome comics creator who’s also one of the universe’s most devout Superman fans. Someday I’d love to read his thoughts, but it won’t be this moment.
Mailing Stuff for Dummies
Tonight I found a glaring hole in my son’s education that all the high school diplomas in the world couldn’t cover.
At his recent graduation, a friend asked him to hold her school ID during the ceremony because neither her dress nor the graduation robe had pockets. As her friend and a lifelong pants-wearer, he obliged. When we arrived home hours later, he realized she failed to ask for it back and he forgot to return it. (Even though they’re both graduated and free, I think she still needs it to pick up her 2012-2013 yearbook when they’ve finally printed circa spring 2015.) Since their schedules haven’t quite synched up, he offered to mail it to her. She messaged her address to him.
I handed him a blank envelope. He gave me a blank look.
ABC Family Orders Spelling Bee Game Show, Leaves “Bunheads” Rotting in Limbo
Former child actor Alfonso Ribeiro knows about gamesmanship. (photo credit: RangerRick via photopin cc)
Full credit for my Bunheads fandom goes to an atypical cast, talented crew, shrewd choices in songs and routines, the constant flurry of unpredictable pop-culture riffs, and Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, who had to know that a ballet dramedy would a hard sell in today’s TV landscape. Alas, too few Nielsen commoners supported its first season to guarantee its renewal, but it beat enough late-night infomercials to merit extended reconsideration by the Powers That Be…who, four months after the season finale, have yet to decide whether it lives or dies.
This same management team had no compunction announcing their latest approved acquisition this week: a weekly spelling bee! Because certified TV scientists have proven in their shiny corporate labs that America loves its game shows, erstwhile Fresh Prince sidekick Alfonso Ribeiro will be hosting the upcoming Spell-Mageddon, in which contestants must refresh themselves on their old high-school vocabulary tests and enter the low-stakes world of competitive spelling, without benefit of Auto-Correct or even Auto-text. Truly this promises to be like an aerial death match without a net.
E3 2013: Sony Unveils PlayStation 4 Console, Games, Lack of XBox One Fatal Flaws
Andrew House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, shows off his company’s amazing new baby.
Though the press conference began twenty minutes late by my watch, some of the news and notes were well worth the wait. The best announcement of the entire conference, as far as our household is concerned, was Square Enix’s assertion (with preview clip!) that the long-procrastinated Kingdom Hearts III is now in development, after years of stalling and inferior handheld offshoots. I’m hoping this is released long before I reach the age of arthritis attacks. The clock is ticking and the calendar is flipping.
Also generating intense enthusiasm here was a trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which has likewise been in limbo for years. Following it in the lengthy pipeline are the probably spectacular Final Fantasy XV, plus a retooling of FFXIV, which means less to me because the original FFXIV is one of only two main FF installments I never bothered to try.
McDonald’s Angus Line Shuffled Off to Crowded Burger Graveyard
The Navy Pier McDonald’s in Chicago is one of tens of thousands of locations expected not to mourn for the recently departed Angus line.
Full disclosure: my first job was a twelve-year stint at McDonald’s, ten of those in management. My wife likewise did time there until she found the gumption to exit long before I did. We bear the company no ill will and we still eat there more frequently than the average ex-employee. That being said: large portions of our respective tenures were spent watching new products die.
Fleeting Moments on Graduation Day
Eighteen years of life, thirteen years of schooling, and countless evenings of coaching, admonishing, encouraging, lecturing, applauding, tolerating, and loving all led up to a single day that required tremendous coordination and patience to align all the pieces just right for the series finale. Though today felt about three hundred hours long, its unique centerpiece will seem fleeting when viewed in retrospect years from now.
Today was my son’s high school Graduation Day.
A Geek Guide to Small-Talk Parameter Adjustments
Talking hobbies amongst friends is cool. Sharing them with Grandma is generous of you, but will frighten and confuse her. (Pictured: “Eltingville Club” art from Evan Dorkin’s Dork #6.)
From my own day-to-day standpoint, it’s as simple as this: if I talk about a given subject at either church, work, or family gatherings and receive nothing but blank stares or furrowed brows in return, those are the ordinary people. In those settings, I know that my version of “small talk” would wander too far past the geek boundary and I keep my mouth shut, except about the weather or whatever subjects they bring up first.
All of this sets aside the fact that I do embrace ordinary aspects about myself and my life as well, as longtime MCC readers should recognize by now, considering the number of past entries that were overtly not about geek-relevant topics, but were usually (hopefully?) informed in subtle ways by my interests and skill sets. (Tomorrow night’s entry will be one of those, in fact, 100% guaranteed.) Suffice it to say I’m not mocking anyone who’s 100% ordinary/0% geek — merely observing there are pronounced differences when those percentages fluctuate.
Someone Please Resolve the “Geek”/”Nerd” Semantic Rivalry Before We Start Stabbing Each Other Over It
This book came close to changing my mind. So, so close.
(Yes, that’s me front-loading the piece with an unwieldy headline and a nearly irrelevant disclaimer. If I were a film director, I clearly wouldn’t be the breed that insists Act 1, Scene 1 must be all about exploding cars. Between those and this bonus meta-parenthetical, I hereby declare the tone Properly Set.)
A Maudlin Moment about Moribund Marquees and Missing Metropolis
Every empty marquee tells a story:
Once upon a time, there was a community gathering place where citizens and neighbors shared adventure, laughter, heartbreak, tension, jingoism, victory, sorrow, dreams, and amazement in a cozy, rarefied atmosphere bereft of stereo sound, digital imagery, comfortable upholstery, or ads teaching you baseline smartphone manners. Many a childhood memory was born there, many a relationship begun there, many a care in the world set aside for two hours inside a temporary escape hatch offering inspiration or respite.
Something something something, and then it closed forever and now it’s an eyesore, and did you hear about the acrimonious lawsuits raging behind closed doors as we speak, but hey, at least we have a Redbox kiosk on every other corner. And they all lived in isolation ever after.
The name of the town changes like a Mad Libs answer. Sometimes the part about the lawsuits is redacted because no one cares enough to sue anyone else over its demise. But the rest of the story is frequently the same.
“Revolution” 6/3/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Deadly Depths of Level 12
After an opening montage of moments from the first nineteen episodes set to the tune of “Can’t Find My Way Home”, at long last begins the Revolution season-one finale, “The Dark Tower” (not the first time they’ve referenced Stephen King). When last we left, Monroe Republic President Sebastian “Bass” Monroe and former best friend Miles Matheson were facing off inside the tower with coilguns at twenty paces. Will this be the duel to end all duels? Here in the first minute of the episode?
Behold the Future of Chicago Sun-Times Photojournalism
Hardly an award-winning pic, is it?
When I attended the “Marvel: From NOW! to Infinity” panel at C2E2 last April, I arrived late from another panel and found myself in the back row. I thought covering the panel from an amateur perspective might be a fun lark for one segment of the MCC readership. Unfortunately I back-burnered that part of my C2E2 experience because (a) pro comics-news sites had the panel’s announcements posted online days before I would’ve gotten around to them; and (b) my photos were rubbish.
I’d rather not imagine a world in which I might’ve had a chance of selling this reject for real American money. I enjoy seeing the work of skillful eyes and hands that justly shame me in this area. I doubt few dream of a world in which our news sites and newspapers drop several degrees in visual competence and settle for publishing any available photos to accompany their articles regardless of quality, offering whatever they can scrounge up from overworked reporters or untrained bystanders.
The Powers That Be at the Chicago Sun-Times believe so deeply in this alternate future that they’ve decided to push our timeline forward in that direction. Last week numerous sources reported the venerable institution dismissed all 28 of its staff photographers (including one Pulitzer winner) as a cost-cutting measure and announced plans to offer smartphone photography lessons to its staff reporters, who clearly had too much time on their hands and needed extra busywork to keep them from turning into total goof-offs.
“Now You See Me”: When Magic Loses Its Magic
The trailers for Now You See Me telegraph up front that you should expect a twist along the way. You’re teased and beguiled by the possibility of having the wool pulled over your eyes, and taunted for daring to look too closely. Sooner or later, this movie swears it will fool you.
It’s no spoiler, then, to reveal that yes, the movie does eventually have a twist. Despite the fancy stage-magician trappings, its base template is the heist-film genre, in which the viewer’s homework assignment is trying to guess which character will be revealed as a mole or a double-crosser by the end. In that sense, the genre expectations are fulfilled here, including the part where that big revelation turns several previous scenes into utter nonsense if you retrace your steps and rethink them too deeply.
Indianapolis Comic Con 2014: Hoax, Dream, or Imaginary Story?
Comics! Anime! Video Games! T-shirt vendors! Whovians! Uglydoll! This never-before-shared file photo from C2E2 2011 has it all! (Unlike Indianapolis. For now.)
Several theoretical names have floated fancily through my head over the decades, ever since the erstwhile Comics Buyer’s Guide taught me about the magical world of comic book conventions when I subscribed to them in 1986. I’ve always wondered if Indianapolis would ever be respectable enough to merit a large-scale comic-con of its own. We had little comic book shows on the east side a few time a year that occasionally drew one or two special guests. Circa 1989 or 1990 someone threw a shindig in Indy called HoosierCon 1, but I had to work the entire weekend and missed it. I never heard a peep about it after the fact, sequels never manifested, and Google tells me no one in world history has ever rhapsodized about it online. I presume plans went awry.
This week the Indianapolis Star reported that someone out there wants to make my pipe dream a reality. A young Florida-based company called Action3 Events and Promotions has scheduled a comics convention for March 14-16, 2014, in our very own Indiana Convention Center. It’s as yet unnamed and not yet listed on their official site, but official enough that they’re proclaiming its proposed existence in public interviews. That much alone is a positive sign.
Tips for Running a Movie Theater for Fun and Profit
The last time my family went to the theater, the ads that ran from the film’s scheduled showtime until the moment the feature presentation began spanned over twenty minutes. Many of the ads were movie trailers, but not all of them. Ads for new cars, smartphones, TV shows, and soft drinks are routine pre-show entertainment while you’re settling into your seat, mentally preparing yourself for temporary phone deprivation, swapping notes with your companions, and consuming your snack too early. Even when it’s ostensibly showtime, the commercial parade isn’t over yet, because a lot of manufacturers want a moment of your time, in exchange for keeping your theater in business.
According to a Hollywood Reporter article this week, the National Assocation of Theater Owners have decided that movie studios are taking advantage of your presence, and it’s all their fault that your time is being wasted. Obviously the owners can’t simply run fewer spots, because then here comes the poorhouse. To that end, NATO members are demanding an amended guideline limiting trailers to a maximum of two minutes, slashed from the current 2½-minute boundary.
We can infer from various statements in that THR article that owners believe this will reduce the length of the pre-show, instead of giving them latitude to run even more ads that eat up the same allotted minutes. They believe that it would be harder for shorter trailers to give away the entire movie, apparently forgetting that most romantic comedies can be boiled down to their primal essence in twelve seconds flat. They seem to think the current limit is a recent abuse of creative power, somehow unaware that trailers in the ’40s and other nostalgic decades could occasionally run well past the three-minute mark, sometimes spooling entire scenes instead of mere quick-cut snippets.
Smartphone Test Post Requires Light Backpedaling for Longtime Smartphone Hater
If you search the MCC archives for “no smartphones” you’ll find an old entry in which this author grouses about his issues with our world’s favorite communication tool and/or babysitter. Since humans retain the enviable privilege to change their minds as circumstances warrant, I’m invoking that privilege to give WordPress’ QuickPress app a whirl on the new phone I bought last weekend.
For the record: with my son leaving for college in the fall, setting up a means of keeping in touch and/or sending emergency notifications seemed prudent. This tiny, cracker-sized gizmo won’t be usurping our PC anytime soon, but eschewing it merely because of other users’ disagreeable behaviors is no longer an option on the table. I’m proud to report that so far I’ve yet to succumb to any temptation to use this while driving, working, or having dinner with my family. Knock on wood.
I don’t expect to use QuickPress too often, but it’s nice to have an option in case inspiration strikes at the oddest times.
Gonna need lots more practice typing on this dollhouse keyboard, though. Seems to be a device better suited for shorter thoughts and much, much shorter words. With the way I talk and think, AutoText is only getting me so far. Argh.
[UPDATED, next morning via PC: added link to last year’s entry in question.]
Free Comic Book Day 2013 Results, Part 3 of 3: Worlds Beyond Marvel and DC
Atomic Robo: an essential part of every Free Comic Book Day.
As previously recounted, my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2013 two weeks ago. Readers flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and many of the indies.
How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?
And now the conclusion, focusing on smaller publishers that demand and/or deserve equal attention:
Marble Season (Drawn & Quarterly) — Celebrated Love and Rockets co-creator Gilbert Hernandez, sallies forth into all-ages territory with slice-of-life vignettes of a ’60s childhood in which marbles were a game option before “gaming” was a common verb, kids routinely spoke in benign non sequitur, secret clubs didn’t involve violent hazing, and super-hero role-playing required neither rulebooks nor electricity. Each scene free-flows into the next without need for an overall “story arc” driving the narrative — it’s just the life of kids bouncing each off each other and drifting from one activity to the next. If Peanuts had been less punchline-driven and maybe a tad edgier (we sure never saw Linus and Lucy trying to understand a celebrity suicide) but with the same skewed innocence and underlying heart, the result would’ve looked a lot like this. One of the year’s best FCBD offerings.
“Revolution” 5/27/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Emissaries of Explodo
There’s this place. It’s called…The TOWER.
Thus does tonight’s new episode of Revolution, “Children of Men”, begin with a promise of explosions. We ended last week’s episode with Rachel Matheson triggering the grenade she carried with her into President Monroe’s field tent in hopes of avenging the death of her son Danny. Instead of opening this week with Rachel and Monroe both dead — which, let’s face it, would be a true game-changer — the grenade gets kicked out of the tent, exploding outside and destroying some tanks full of movie combustion fluid or whatever. Everyone in the tent is safe, and Rachel is easily captured and embarrassed.
