Catching Up!

As many of you know, my secret identity is that of a mild-mannered community college instructor. A full semester load for me is 5 classes in each of the fall and spring semesters, plus two in the abbreviated summer session. That's a lot of teaching, reading, and grading and things get odd around midterm week and finals week. All of that is to explain my recent state of radio silence. I should be more active now that spring is over and summer is ready to launch, but be kind - the Babylon 5 book project has a summer deadline for the complete manuscript to get to our intrepid editor, so the summer is not exactly a time of restful ease.

Not complaining, mind you - just trying to explain How Things Are at the moment.

So let me first catch you up on the Babylon 5 progress. We got a slight extension of Season 4 due to my extreme exam insanity, and that should be in within the next ten days. And wow - do I LOVE Season 4! So much comes full circle. And Susan Ivanova is my spirit animal for this - I think she's been waiting a very long time to say this . . .

On a much quieter note, I recently watched two Academy Award-nominated films that I had missed. (Living in a small town, many don't quite make it here.) Both Carol and Brooklyn are set in the 1950s, but in very different worlds. Carol is taken from The Price of Salt, which is a Patricia Highsmith novel (she of the "Mr. Ripley" series). It deals with a relationship that is wildly out of balance, yet we cheer for things to somehow work out. Amazing performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, with strong support from Sarah Paulson, taking a break from wowing audiences on Tim Minear's American Horror Story. It's a slow-building movie so you must permit it to take its time, but it's certainly worth the ride.

Brooklyn is, quite simply, lovely. Saoirse Ronan is a young Irish girl who leaves home behind to come to America in the 1950s. At that time, Brooklyn was predominantly Irish but it's still an intimidating city for a young country lass. Eilis is all alone, although she has a decent rooming house (all girls, dinner on the table at six, and certainly no shenanigans!) and a job in a fancy department store. As she becomes more comfortable in this world, her wardrobe changes to brighter, more confident colors. She falls in love with a Nice Boy (with a hysterical little brother!), but is torn between her old life and her new one. Truly a wonderful movie and one I'll watch again.

And, of course, there's Captain America: Civil War. So much has been written about this already, and I'm so late to the party that I'll just say this - great popcorn fun. There are some mighty big plot holes in this and I'm still convinced that Tony Stark's genius is not excuse for him behaving like a jackass so much of the time, but the Russo Bros. did a fine job here. It's basically the Avengers movie I wish Age of Ultron had been. So yes, it's more Avengers than Cap, but hey - Hawkeye gets some good lines. Go. Enjoy.

Something Old, Something New . . .

I haven't done one of these in quite a while - here, I'm going to take a brief look at four movies that fit into the "Bridal Package" - something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

The "something old" really goes with the Bridal Package - it is James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein, which I just used with the introduction to film class last week. I just love this movie for all sorts of reasons! One of those reasons is practical - Bride is short (75 mins.), so it can easily be shown in class without interruption. My class, who has already digested Metropolis and Dark City, seemed to really enjoy Whale's mix of dread, humor, and science-as-black-magic. There's so much to love in this movie that you really ought to treat yourself if you haven't seen it.

The "something new" is a realization that hit me while grading the latest stack of film responses from my class. For years, scholars have been howling in the wilderness that media images matter, so it matters that girls see female characters being active participants in stories rather than passive "women in refrigerators." By the same token (snicker!), it matters that people of color see themselves on screen, that disabled people see themselves on screen, etc., etc. Media images are tremendously powerful and the greatly shape how we view the world. Reading this most recent batch of papers, it occurred to me -

• it's working. 

Really, it's working. My students (okay, too small a sampling to be statistically significant, but let me have this one, okay?) see passive female characters as the exception, as a remnant of the "old school." They expect women to be active, smart, and involved. Oh, there's still work to be done, no doubt about that, but all God's children said "amen."

The "something borrowed" is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (Borrowed from the rental stack.) I re-watched this just last night over a supper of delicious, juicy homemade burgers and I had this driving desire to go get an apple pie for dessert. Cap2 is astonishingly good, not just as a superhero movie, but as a movie. Period. Full stop. Done in the style of a 70s spy thriller, Cap2 asks us some uncomfortable questions about security v. freedom, personal responsibility, and trust. Oddly enough, sitting quietly for a few minutes after the credits rolled was a great way to ponder the ways the world has changed since the events of 9/11, which continue to reverberate in our lives, whether or not we admit it.

. . . .and the "something blue" is the new release Dolphin Tale 2. (Blue for the water - see how this works?) You know, this actually is exactly as advertised - a heartwarming, sincere story. The power Winter the amputee dolphin has to connect with damaged humans and show them (and us) what is possible is well worth seeing. No darkness, no gritty "Sophie's Choices" to be made, heck - not even a villain. (The government agent who wants to remove Winter from the aquarium wants to do it because dolphins are social animals and need to be paired up with another dolphin; they do very poorly in captivity alone.)

So there you have it! Four films worth exploring all in a single column!

Spider-Meh

As is true of all art - both high and popular (a distinction I loathe, by the way), people are going to have different opinions and I'm not interested in proving to anyone that I'm "right" or that someone else is "wrong" about this movie. But I didn't like Amazing Spider-Man 2 and I needed some time to really figure out why. What made Amazing 2 so bad for me - and make no mistake, I think this movie is bad - is that the writers and director (Marc Webb, who helmed the first movie in the reboot) could never decide in what direction that wanted to travel - is it a broad, really "comicy" comic-book movie? Is it a tender exploration of love and commitment? Is it some sort of industrial spy thriller? - so it wound up not going anywhere and taking two-plus hours to not do so.

In fact, there are several scenes that come soclose to working - and I can't say more for fear of spoiling, although why you'd pay $10 or so to go see this is beyond me - that it's depressing when the scenes lurch into completely unworkable territory and then linger like the last party guest who can't take a hint even though you're running the dishwasher. There are plot holes that are just unforgivable and they're made worse by the fact that a line - a single line of dialogue could've explained them. (Example - if Harry was sent to boarding school at age 11 with no mention made of keeping up with Peter, they sure are bestest friends. And if they did keep up, why is it Harry doesn't know anything about Gwen?) Also, there's just some sloppy storytelling - Peter hangs out at that cemetery long enough for the leaves on the trees to go through all four New York seasons, yet the newscaster tells us only five months have passed. And that's nothing compared to how, by the end of the movie, Oscorp - a publicly-traded (there's a mention or two of concerns about how the stock price will be affected), multi-billion dollar enterprise is being run by someone who is clearly clinically insane, yet no one seems to mind.

My other main objection to Amazing has to do with apologists. Look, I'm a big believer that a good movie is a good movie. Period. Full stop. It's not a genre thing, although those categories are useful shorthand, but a good Western/scifi/romance/thriller/whatever needs to be a good movie first and foremost. Maybe the film has an added burden of working within the restrictions of that chosen genre (a musical needs songs, you know), but at its heart the question is always - is this a good movie? For my money - and going to the movies these days is a financial commitment - both Captain America movies are solid movies. Not solid "superhero movies," mind you; solid movies that work within their genre, but also work outside of it. On the other hand, Amazing winds up being the sort of film that even has fans of the superhero genre scratching their heads a little and then saying things like, "Well, it's a comic movie, so they're going for that sort of feel and you have to understand that." Fine by me, but then go for it. Shove your chips into the middle of the table and really go all in. Webb didn't and the movie suffers as a result.

I could go on, but really - there's no point. I like Spidey. I like the cheesy animated series of my childhood and I think one of the most gut-wrenching tributes to the horrors of 9/11 is contained in J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man #36. "Frost," the story told more recently in Amazing 700.1, is a thoughtful piece of storytelling. And some neat things are happening in the Ultimate universe with Miles Morales wearing the suit.

Go read any of those. Skip this.

Captain's Orders

Quick lesson - superhero movies are a particular sub-genre of the "action/adventure" movie category.  They are also notoriously easy to screw up, although you'd think that would not be the case.  However, it is not uncommon for filmmakers to lose sight of what makes a good movie when the modifier "superhero" is added in front of the noun "movie."  Good movies involve characters and plot - not just action sequences and VERY LOUD explosions.  All too often, filmmakers look at comic books, think "Aha! Built-in audience," and get lazy.

I am almost ridiculously pleased to announce that is not the case with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Not only do I recommend you go see this movie on the big screen as a great example of a superhero movie, I think Cap 2 (as I shall call it from here on) is just a great movie, period. As in "full stop."

Why?  Why did this one work and other big-budget attempts (Elektra, Catwoman, and Green Lantern spring to mind, but oh - there are others) thud so terribly?  Easy.  Story.  Character.  Relationships.  Dialogue.  Mind you, Cap's a tough character to sell in our cynical world, because he's just so good.  (In that regard, he's a little like Superman, another superhero that studios have had a hard time handling.)  Cap is us at our very best, only he's at that "the best" level all the time.  He's tough, yet kind and he can make the hard call, but isn't a bully.  He is the living embodiment of our highest ideals - including freedom, justice, and equality for all under the law.  How do you not make that a cardboard cutout do-gooder?

Well, you do it by casting Chris Evans, a decision that deserves to go down in history as a time when a casting director just flat-out got it right.  (You can read about how reluctant Evans was originally to sign a multi-picture deal here.  Makes sense, especially given his experience being Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four - a less than stellar two-picture outing. Also, he's got to stay in absolute top physical shape throughout this contract due to the grueling filming schedule.)  This movie demands that Evans be rock-solid in his principles, yet able to blithely quip with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, who really needs her own franchise) about his lack of a dating life.  Cap is a man out of time and there's a heartbreaking scene with his "best girl" in which is brought to dazzling life.  To Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell, who is scheduled to have her own TV series as Peggy), the war was about 70 years ago.  To Cap, who could still model for a recruiting poster, the war was about three weeks ago.  His lovely Peggy is wrinkled, fragile, and her memory isn't what once it was - but she's still his "best girl."  Evans plays this scene with tenderness, heartbreak, and resolve.

Comic movies also can be (and this one is) quite subversive.  So many people don't expect anything aside from an entertaining shoot-em-up that you can slip some deeper ideas in.  In Cap 2, while Cap is literally the poster boy for the American way, he's got questions about things, and when he asks them, it's the audience who needs to answer them.  Do you know who your friends are?  How far will you go to save a friend from darkness?  What balance are you willing to strike between messy freedom and sterile order?  Is being safe better than being independent?  And just whose hand is on the switch? Do you trust that hand? This is not a simple "good guys win" movie.

There's much more to say, but I don't want to spoil the movie; this is one I want you to see. (Stay through the credits, even without Phil Coulson.) Cap 2 takes its inspiration from the "Winter Soldier" storyline scripted by Ed Brubaker (he has a tiny part in the film as "Scientist #2).  In this film, we meet Zola (Toby Jones) and learn that patience can be fertile soil for nefarious plots.  We see that threats can be candy-coated as well as armor-coated.  Robert Redford shows he still has chops and Samuel L. Jackson reminds us that he's never lost his.  Casting Anthony Mackie as the Falcon - brilliant!  (That reminds me - I've got to buy Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man . . .)  And we learn that, hopefully, we've all got the guts to be Launch Tech #1.  Captain's orders . . .

"Trouble Man," from the album of the same name, by Marvin Gaye