Butler's 2010 Favorites

Butler keeps the pop culture superlative train running smoothly with his pick for top video game, movie, and novel of the year.  Is he completely full of it? Find out after the jump!

Bibliophilia: David Sedaris - "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary"

Wait, Books? Books get discussed on this site? They do now, dear reader! Check out the latest offering from NPR's finest after the jump!

Thoughts On The "Green Lantern" Trailer

The first trailer for Green Lantern was officially released yesterday. There's a bunch of awesome stuff in it, and a couple noteworthy problems.

What Works

First, Ryan Reynolds is a great choice for Hal Jordan. There's been a lot of concern as to whether he could pull it off (I recall Bradley Cooper was the fan-favorite), but the trailer gives a pretty solid indication that Reynolds was a good choice. His delivery evokes an excellent blend of plucky troublemaker and contemplative hero. Moreover, the trailer establishes very quickly that this movie isn't the The Dark Knight, and it rightfully shouldn't be. The tone of Green Lantern stories just isn't as troubled and serious as the Batman mythos. Green Lantern should be a fun, action-packed space epic, and that's exactly what this trailer promised.

I'm very glad they didn't skip over the character's origin story. I heard early drafts of the script only glossed over the origin, but I think it would be totally foolish to assume that audiences would already know about Green Lantern as a character. We get a lot of origin stories in superhero films, but Green Lantern's can be one of the better ones if it's done right. We see a great deal of the character Abin Sur and his passing the ring to Hal, and this is a good sign.

The art design for this film looks fantastic. Lovable aliens like Kilowog come to life in full, wrinkly detail in this trailer, and Mark Strong looks totally badass as the cunning Sinestro.

The planet Oa (the home of the Green Lanterns) looks spectacular. Everything looks truly alien - even the planet's architecture. This movie needed to have the scope and grandeur of a modern day Star Wars (no, those ones don't count). This shot of Oa is a great taste of what's in store.

What Doesn't Work

The costume still doesn't look right. It was a bold move to make Green Lantern the first superhero to don a fully-CGI costume. Based on this footage, the effects need to be tightened, because it's looking too tacky and cartoony - even for Green Lantern. I'm glad that they went for a very alien look, and I like that the Green Lantern emblem is always glowing. But some of the muscles are over-emphasized (even though I'm sure Reynolds got ripped like crazy for this movie), and the costume's coloring just isn't quite right yet. I'm glad they ditched those white gloves that he wears in the comics.

I think giving his face an orange, fake suntan hue might be a mistake, which was most noticeable while he was flying. By the way, the flying didn't look great either - it reminded me a lot of the Human Torch's cheesy flying in Fantastic Four 2. There's still a lot of time to work this out, but I'm just surprised the flying doesn't look good, since we already nailed computer-animated flight in Superman Returns.

Overall? I'm psyched. Now when is this movie coming?

Why Superman Shouldn't Be Relatable

By Aaron Ting

I'm conflicted. DC Comics has published a shiny new hardcover representing a bold path that I've been waiting for DC to embark on for years. It began with Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man, a book series that set out to re-envision Spider-Man's origin story and early days (and an inspiration for the upcoming 2012 reboot movie). The series was an incredible success, taking everything great about the character and presenting it with a fresh, contemporary approach. Best of all, you didn't need to know anything about Spider-Man to read the series - the story ran completely separate from the rest of Spider-Man's forty-year history. I wanted Superman to be that approachable again.

For years, I watched DC characters like Superman slip into greater cultural irrelevance as Marvel enjoyed the fruits of a long string of highly successful film adaptations. Like Spider-Man, I felt Superman would need to be reimagined in comics before he could be successfully reintroduced to film. Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, while a very respectful movie, revealed the danger of dramatically disrespecting Superman's goodness...by making him a creepy stalker and a neglectful father.

Superman Returns had some cool imagery though.

I was thrilled when DC Comics announced the Earth One line - a line of direct-to-bookstore graphic novels that would provide contemporary reimaginings of their most popular characters. Building my anticipation was the news that DC had selected J. Michael Straczynski to write the book. Straczynski is a top-notch science fiction writer whose writing I was most familiar with through his television work and excellent run on Spider-Man. I was psyched.

But having read the book, my enthusiasm has been thoroughly washed away with conflicted apprehension. On the one hand, Superman: Earth One succeeds at retelling the origins of the character in a modern setting. Moreover, it's clear that Straczynski has devoted a great deal of thought to some of the classic ideas in the Superman mythos. Unfortunately, in trying to make Superman relatable to a new generation of readers, I feel Straczynski really failed to capture the point of the character.

To make Superman relatable, Straczynski had to turn him into the type of protagonist that is completely dominating our storytelling right now: a sensitive hipster with a soft personality, great hidden strength, and a relative fear of taking action (see 500 Days, Kick-Ass, and literally every Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg movie ever made). The problem is that while this archetype is generally endearing and relatable, it just isn't Superman.

The reason why so many Superman projects fail is because the creators fail to understand the character and the role he serves in human mythology. His personality isn't supposed to be relatable. He's a science fiction messiah sent down from another planet, raised by kind simpletons to be a virtuous, unbending symbol of hope. That isn't relatable.


It's like going through the Bible and trying to relate to Jesus - there are certain ideas and archetypes that you're not supposed to be able to relate to - and that's why they exist. As a character, Superman is meant to inspire because both his moral and physical qualities are so completely extraordinary that we could only hope to be like him in our wildest imaginations - which is why children grasp the idea of the character much more easily than adults.

You can relate with Clark Kent, the bumbling oaf who just can't get the pretty girl's attention. You can relate with Lois Lane, the skeptical reporter who is completely awe-struck by the arrival of someone so powerful and pure of heart that she sets out to learn everything about him. You can relate with Jimmy Olsen, the nerdy photographer whose biggest thrill is that the world's greatest hero knows his name.

But you can't relate with Superman. And more importantly, you can't set out to make Superman relatable, because Superman: Earth One is exactly what will happen. At best, you'll have an expertly-told story about a character who at no point ever feels like the hero he could and should be. A hero who is so incredibly powerful, but so unnecessarily insecure about himself that he can't just step up and do the right thing when people need him...and instead, spends several comic panels brooding across Metropolis, complaining about how difficult his life has become.

Again, I truly wanted to love Superman: Earth One. I still have a profound respect for the writer and I'm terribly impressed with the risk that DC was willing to take to put this hardcover on the shelves. It's a well-told story, but it isn't the Superman story. Superman is a touchstone of American mythology, and while myths will be retold and reimagined over and over again, successful retellings only work if they are able to capture the idea of the character - in this case, the messiah-like symbol of hope. Earth One just doesn't do that.

If you want to know the difference - if you want to know how an out-of-date ideal like Superman can be successfully reborn in a modern world, read Geoff Johns' Superman: Secret Origin when it hits bookstores in hardcover this December. It tells the story of an uncertain man moving to a hostile city and trying to realize his mission in life. It beautifully captures the heroic value of Superman and shows why his cornball goodness is more important than ever (it also gives a respectful nod to Christopher Reeve's portrayal). As I fearfully await Zach Snyder's rebooted Superman films, I desperately hope he looks at Secret Origin and leaves Earth One on the shelf.

Bottom line, Superman writers need to stop worrying about making Superman relatable and just focus on telling a good, fun Superman story. It's not about leaving your mark on the character - it's about respectfully servicing a legend for a new generation.

In Defense of the New Nook

By Aaron Ting

Barnes & Noble announced a new Nook reading device this week, featuring a full-color 7" LCD display and a slick touch-optimized interface built on top of Google's Android OS. Tech journalists and bloggers from all corners of the interwebs pounced on it immediately, all-but-declaring the device dead on arrival.

Sorry, but most of them are forming irrational, idiotic arguments. Their reasoning goes like this:

1) Ditching the first Nook's E-Ink display was a mistake because true reading enthusiasts prefer E-Ink displays. Amazon's Kindle is proof of this.

2) Adopting a color LCD display was a mistake because it places the Nook in competition with Apple's iPad and all the other touchscreen tablet computers on the market.

The problem with a lot of these journalists is that they're so immersed in the fringe of bleeding-edge technology news that they most often evaluate the merit of products based on technical offerings like their RAM or pixel density. It's utterly amazing to me how often they fail to consider consumer mentality and the product's actual position relative to its competitors. 

It's the reason most tech bloggers in 2003 failed to predict just how decisively the Nintendo DS would defeat the Sony PSP. On paper, the PSP should have been a clear winner. The PSP was a much more powerful device with a larger high-res display, sophisticated multimedia functionality, and a more trustworthy brand on the box. The popular opinion was that Nintendo had lost its mind; it was crazy to be putting out such a simple, underpowered handheld to compete against a multimedia powerhouse like the PSP. Fast forward, and the DS has outsold the PSP by nearly 3-to-1. How is that possible? Because unlike these incompetent enthusiasts (myself included), Nintendo wasn't counting RAM or clocking processor speed - they were paying attention to what consumers would actually buy. 

This is the problem with how many journalists are approaching the new Nook. They're forming irrational conclusions that completely disregard actual consumer demand.

E-Ink is a great technology, and the Kindle is an awesome device. But there is a general consensus forming among all the major technology players that black-and-white E-Ink reading devices are not interesting to consumers. Apple and HP have mentioned in the past that they looked at E-Ink and determined that consumers would want a more versatile, full-color device. This year, several companies have announced that they're already pulling out of the E-Ink reader market because they haven't been able to generate a viable business. Yes, Amazon is doing great in the dedicated e-reader market. No one's denying that. So what is B&N doing? They're withdrawing from a dying E-Ink market in which there is already a dominant competitor. That's stupid? No...that's actually good business sense.

They also weren't stupid to give the Nook a full-color LCD. So what if it's basically a tablet computer in a different form factor? We're getting to the point where every slate-shaped object is a tablet PC in a different form factor - regardless of whether it's a Kindle or an iPad. The question should be whether people want it, and whether it has better competitors.

This new Nook doesn't really have a good competitor right now. What is the new Nook doing? It's a $250 reading-optimized, full-color tablet with a web browser, apps, and a large digital book store. It's half the size and half the price of an iPad. It's like comparing a Moleskine-size notebook to large spiral notebook - both of these form factors are going to co-exist because they exist for different purposes and don't compete with each other.

And where are all these other competitors? It's not competing with the black-and-white E-Ink Kindle - Kindle fanboys are constantly happy to point this out. Its closest rival is the upcoming $400 Samsung Galaxy Tab, a 7" Android tablet that [so far] will only be sold with a two-year data contract from a cell phone carrier. Even if you want to call them rivals, I'm betting on whatever product doesn't force you to sign another contract with AT&T. 

Bottom line, the Nook is aimed at people who are looking at all these touchscreen devices and want to be able read books, listen to music, and occasionally browse the web - but don't want to cough up $500 or would rather carry something the size of a Moleskine than a spiral notebook. It's naive to think those people don't exist. I know it because after using an iPad for five months, I'm one of them. 

Sure, the NOOKcolor might still fail. But if it does, it won't fail because it isn't powerful enough or doesn't offer enough features to compete against its rivals - there are no other rivals yet. And unlike a certain writer at CrunchGear, I'll play with one for a while before I decide whether it has a place in the market.

Deciphering Chris Nolan's 'Batman 3'

Batman 3 is coming and a draft of the script is apparently done. The plot and villains remain concealed under a cloak of secrecy. But not to fear! I'm on the case, and I'm pretty sure that examining the Batman stories Nolan adapted to make the first two films might shed some light on where we're going.

Batman Begins drew heavily from Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One", a gritty re-imagining of Batman's origin story that continues to define the way writers approach the dark knight. Begins also incorporated aspects of "The Man Who Falls", a 1989 storyline showing Bruce Wayne's early adulthood spent traveling and training around the world, and "Daughter of the Demon," the classic story that introduced Ra's al Ghul to the Batman rogues gallery.

The Dark Knight adapted a lot of ideas from Jeph Loeb's "The Long Halloween" and Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke". Loeb showed us the 'agent of chaos' arrival of Joker, the Batman-Gordon-Dent pact to take down the mob, the tragic fall of Harvey Dent, and the intriguing suggestion that Batman's presence in Gotham caused the arrival of psychotic weirdos like the Joker. "Killing Joke" provided an important take on Joker's psychology - the brutal terrorist who becomes obsessed with showing Batman that within every individual is the capacity for insanity.

So where could Nolan and company go from here? These are some stories that are most likely to offer clues on Batman 3 and its villains.

"The Dark Knight Returns"

From a literary perspective, Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" is probably the second-most celebrated comic book story ever written. Batman appears in Gotham after a decade of hiding to face a rejuvenated criminal element, while simultaneously being hunted by the city police and the United States government. The Dark Knight ended with Batman being hunted by the police, and Nolan could pull elements from "Returns" to develop this idea of Batman as a fugitive outcast. I also wouldn't mind if Nolan lifted the film's title from this story.

"Dark Victory"

"Long Halloween" was probably Nolan's biggest comic book influence for figuring out where to go with The Dark Knight. Jeph Loeb wrote a sequel to "Long Halloween" called "Dark Victory", a story that deals with the repercussions of "Long Halloween". A territory war begins between Two Face's crime syndicate and the remnants of the Falcone family, a mysterious 'Hangman' killer strikes Gotham with Riddler being the only one who knows the killer's identity, and Bruce Wayne shelters an orphaned boy whose parents were killed by mob sabotage. There are ton of ideas that Nolan could lift from "Dark Victory". Although most fans of Nolan's Batman films would probably agree that Robin shouldn't be part of this franchise, "Dark Victory" makes an incredibly strong case for why a mature, gritty interpretation of Batman would actually need a Robin. The death of Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight terminates Bruce Wayne's best (and possibly only) shot at happiness. He becomes truly alone, even going so far as to end his ties with Commissioner Gordon and the police. "Dark Victory" gives a profound answer for why our hero needs to mentor a boy orphaned by crime; Dick Grayson (who later becomes Robin) is depicted as Bruce Wayne's only anchor left to humanity. The task of ensuring that this child grows up to be a good person is what keeps Bruce Wayne from becoming corrupted by the infectious insanity of Batman's enemies.

"Son of the Demon"

Thematically, there are a lot of reasons why Nolan could use to adapt this story. "Son of the Demon" features Batman forming a truce with Ra's al Ghul to solve a murder. During that time, Batman falls for and weds Ra's daughter, Talia. We see Batman's behavior change dramatically; Talia represents Bruce's chance to have a wife and family while continuing to be Batman. Incorporating pieces of "Son of the Demon" would bring Nolan's trilogy full circle, providing the return of Ra's al Ghul and Talia's temptation of a recently broken-hearted Bruce.


"Hush"

If the Riddler is the villain of Batman 3, then Hush is the story that will probably be looked at to show why Riddler is an A-list Batman villain. Although he doesn't appear much in the story, Riddler is revealed to be the ultimate orchestrator of a massive plot against Batman that features coordinated attacks from all of Batman's greatest enemies. Riddler was smart enough to figure out that Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Hush is Riddler's play to prove to Gotham that he belongs in the same league as Joker and Two-Face.


I highly recommend giving these stories a read. They're all regarded among the best Batman stories of all time.


-Aaron-

FlashForward: Why It Just Wasn't Meant To Be

Last week we saw the conclusions of several incredibly popular shows.  What you probably didn't see was the abrupt conclusion of ABC's FlashForward.  But did this show deserve such a fate?  More after the jump!

How to fix 'X-Men'

Fox announced yesterday that Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn is officially locked to helm X-Men: First Class, a film set for release in just 13 months: June 3, 2011.

What's it about, and what should it be about? More after the jump!

X-Men: First Class (2007)

Waiting for the Man of Tomorrow

By Aaron Ting.

I met a writer recently who told me there are only two types of people: Batman people and Superman people. I was a Batman person. It was just cooler to like Batman – or at least, as cool as it can be to idolize any imaginary person who wears tights and a cape. Batman was noir: dark, edgy, and mature. Superman was none of those. Superman was boring, corny, and utterly un-relatable. He was a Power Rangers episode. But for really old people. 


But maybe getting older allows us to recognize the beauty of something timeless. After all, it wasn’t until I grew up that I, too, found myself waiting for the Man of Tomorrow. The idealistic hero story.

I'm not waiting for Superman. I’m usually aware that he isn’t real. No, I’m waiting for the idea of a 'superman' to find its way back into our stories.


I'm getting tired of 'artistic' stories that tell me 'the world is cruel', and present that idea as the only mature, sophisticated conclusion of life - especially since these stories keep winning Best Picture. Sometimes those stories actually are sophisticated, but it's getting tired because less and less of them are challenging us to believe the world in that movie could be improved. It’s gotten to the point that the protagonist who doesn't just accept the cruelty of people as the concrete status quo is considered impractical or naïve. By application, stories of idealistic heroes must also be impractical and naïve. Which is probably why the Dark Knight couldn't even be nominated for Best Picture.

Our past is littered with stories about archetypical heroes - extraordinary characters who conformed to unbending ideals. Today, however, the hero is you or me. A flawed, ordinary person who indulges in the extraordinary and absurd. And when he or she indulges, it’s supposed to be heroic. That was the premise of Kick-Ass – and that was my only criticism of it. It maximized that self-indulgence, but none of it felt heroic. 

Viewed strictly as a movie, it can be entertaining and funny. Viewed as a representative for a genre of our imaginations, it’s very troubling. I know it’s supposed to be a satire. But it fails as satire. Satire attacks a human shortcoming by highlighting its ridiculousness. The problem with Kick-Ass and its inevitable copycats is that it attacks the noble conception of the ideal hero by ridiculing it with a much more shameful human shortcoming – our own vanity. We've fallen in love with the idea that we, with all our flaws and weaknesses, can still be the ideal hero of the story. This idea works if your hero is like Peter Parker, and he’s striving to be a good person. But it’s really messed up if your heroes are Kick-Ass, Punisher, or the idiots in Inglorious Basterds. 

Why is it so naïve to believe in a hero with moral integrity? Is it so important to us to feel that WE are the ideal hero to the extent that we even reject heroes who live up to better ideals? We cheer any time little hero Mindy murders people in Kick-Ass, but does laughing at jokes that completely devalue human life really make our tastes more mature? Roger Ebert wrote something similar after he watched Kick-Ass:   

Big Daddy and Mindy never have a chat about, you know, stuff like how when you kill people, they are really dead. This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score...When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.

I love video games. Like most gamers, I think child-initiated violence is caused more by parental negligence than Grand Theft Auto. But I am also not disillusioned into believing that games which make entertaining sport of ending human life are sophisticated or artistic.

But I have a confession. I don't get Inglorious Basterds. I thought it had moments of creative brilliance, and I don’t question Tarantino as a credible filmmaker. But no one has been able answer for me the one question I had when I finished watching that movie: What was the point? I'm not asking for philosophy - I can be perfectly satisfied that even Starship Troopers had a point. Instead, I keep hearing in different ways, “Basterds was AWESOME. THAT is the point.” I suppose that answer is as well-reasoned to me as Basterds was as a film. Are my movie tastes less advanced because that rationale just doesn't do it for me?

We wouldn’t want to live in a world where people indulge in their most violent thoughts – so why do we so highly regard those stories that ‘realize’ those sick fantasies? On occasion, it can be funny for being so unabashedly shocking. But is taking pleasure in watching senseless violence a sophisticated reaction, or just primitive instinct?

These stories are stealing our time, money, and critical attention - and they're giving very specific and depressing answers to what people should find entertaining. In college, I started craving a palate cleanser. Something that felt more provocative than the ordinary blandness of ethical ambiguity and apathy. We get enough of that in life. I wanted stories of adventure, wonder, and fantasy (which is not the same thing as brutal wish-fulfillment). I started reading Superman.

The big secret is: Superman is mature storytelling. It’s simple and easy to say 'people suck' and 'the world is screwed.' It’s much harder to see all of that and still think that people can be good and the world can be better. Superman was conceived by Jerry Siegel, a person whose father was shot and killed by a robber. Reacting to the unspeakable evil of that tragedy, Siegel imagined a bulletproof man with uncompromising goodness. It takes courage to believe in what you can’t see. It takes imagination to think of what the unseen would look like...and how the writers of Lost might actually have a plan.

It takes hope.

That’s what Superman is; he’s hope. He’s the purest embodiment of an archetype that reflects our most innocent fantasies – of the qualities we can't see in ourselves, but like to believe might be there.

His story is our fantasy. An ordinary person capable of accomplishing the incredible. An outsider who values our lives more than we do. An immigrant who travelled far and reached beyond the zenith of human potential. This isn’t just science fiction; it’s very human ambition.

Timothy Dalton once said about James Bond, “You can't relate to a superhero, to a superman, but you can identify with a real man who in times of crisis draws forth some extraordinary quality from within himself and triumphs after a struggle.” This is what makes Superman so ‘super.’ It’s not about the powers or the cape; the point of Superman is that the world doesn't need a Superman – just a brave one who does the right thing. That itself is extraordinary. That's super.

So it doesn’t have to be stylish or edgy or Batman. It’s timeless. It’s universal. Today, a mirror might tell you that you’re an ordinary, bumbling Clark Kent who will never get noticed by Lois Lane. The superhero archetype - at its finest - challenges you to imagine the person you hope to see in the mirror tomorrow. Your potential.

That’s why Superman rocks. Because he makes it fun to imagine. Because his wholesomeness brings shame to our pessimism and brutality. That’s what I’m waiting for – for our stories to stop romanticizing the awful things we can see today. For us to be more certain of tomorrow's uncertainty.

Please. Let's stop indulging in the unrestrained and dishearteningly obvious. Dare to bet your optimism on tomorrow.

And look up in the sky.

Early Review: Kick-Ass

Dylan and I had the opportunity to watch an advance screening of Kick-Ass last week. Take Spider-Man, toss in some of Adam West's Batman, and give the whole thing some Tarantino sensibilities - this is Kick-Ass. Is that a good thing? Should you watch it?

More after the jump!

Official Launch Date: April 5th

Still putting together the final list of contributing writers. On April 5th, we'll be giving you an idea of what Words Finest is really about.

Thanks!