Schlock Mercenary

I kind of really liked Suicide Squad. I’ve seen many of the negative reviews, and I can see what people are complaining about, but their reasons for disliking the film weren’t reasons for me to complain. For me, the film’s weaknesses were kind of ordinary, like a grass allergy, rather than epic, like Zod’s allergy to kryptonite¹. It’s a dark film, which seems pretty appropriate given the tragic (and trigger-level disturbing) origin stories of characters like Harley Quinn and Diablo. While the audience is left with little room to question whether or not the mission is a righteous one, we’re given plenty of space to wind up as we cast aspersions at the folks making the decisions.

I watched Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition two weeks ago, and must now make a confession: I rather liked it. For those keeping score at home, this runs counter to my reaction to the theatrical release. The Blu-Ray felt like a completely different movie. Instead of being a gritty eyesore smeared brownly by disappointing portrayals of beloved characters, it was a compelling vision inviting me to distrust the shining, iconic gods of the DC Comics mythos, and then to hold out hope that these paragons of power might earn my trust again in future films. Not everyone will have the reaction I did, and the stronger people feel about their Bats and Supes, the less likely it will be for them to join me over here. I tried to explain my thoughts to Jim Zub at GenCon, but the conversation did not go well. He punished me by forcing me to riff on “Deadpool” rhymes¹ all weekend. I believe that the biggest reason the Ultimate Edition works is that key scenes are just a few seconds longer, allowing them to play all the way to their emotional payoff. Consider: the plot of a film can be communicated, start to finish, with trailer-sized snippets. The result will have zero heart because none of the characters will be on-screen long enough to earn the right to resonate with the viewer. As the snippets are lengthened enough to become scenes, and as the scenes are further fleshed out and allowed to become complete, the skeletal plot of the film becomes a story, and the story grows in power until it crosses some threshold and actually works. In the theatrical release there is a scene where Clark steps, fully-dressed, into the bathtub with Lois. In the Ultimate edition he undresses, and Lois responds to this, to him, with passion. It’s not a full-on “naked-time” scene, but it succeeds where the theatrical release failed: it convinces me not just that they are in love, but that their love is deep, abiding, and above all important. The Ultimate Edition also adds lots of completely new scenes, and I think the folks laying it out may have punched the colors up just a bit from the sepia-shifted pallor I suffered through in the theater. For all their work on the principal film, my favorite part of the Blu-Ray was the featurette on the history of Wonder Woman. I watched that and for the first time felt just how important a character she is, and how critical it is to our culture that her next big-screen portrayal be done well. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition accomplished what I did not think was possible: it got me excited about what’s coming from the DC Comics movies in the next couple of years. ¹ JIM: “He’s an assassin, and he loves his oatmeal”

Sandra and I will join Jim Zub and the Hypernode Corps of Conventioneers at GenCon Indy this week. You can find all of us at Booth #1343, an endcap installation featuring two hundred square feet of pure¹ magic. ¹Note: Due to the relative scarcity of magic, current FTC regulations state that any product or service comprised of at least 15% magic may be advertised as “pure.”Magic², you say? Absolutely! I have so much work on my plate that I’ll be spending much of my booth time penciling and inking comics. I’ll happily set that aside to do sketches in your books, so if you’re attending GenCon this year, please stop by! Here’s my schedule: Thursday

If you love Star Trek, I’m reasonably confident you’ll love Star Trek Beyond. For reasons whose explanations would require spoilers¹, I did not quite love the movie, but I certainly liked it a lot. Sandra loved it unconditionally. It’s certainly worth the price of the movie ticket and the popcorn, and if friends were intent upon dragging me out to see it with them, I wouldn’t play dead-weight and force them to work for it. I’d walk along quite happily. Star Trek Beyond enters my list just below the Threshold of Awesome, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing it again on Blu-Ray, and it’s quite possible that I’ll consider it completely awesome at that point. ¹I’ll hide the spoilers over here.

There was no crossing of the streams, but there has been a crossing of my Threshold of Awesome. I had a blast at Ghostbusters. There was a little bit of a pacing drag at around the midpoint, and a few of the jokes didn’t fire for me, but in most places the film was kind of perfect. My biggest concern going into the film was that Leslie Jones’ character was going to be the stereotypically “street smart” character. My worry was based on a snippet of her dialog in the trailer, and I’m pleased to spoil a teency bit of the film by telling you that those lines read quite a bit differently in context. Of secondary concern was the sound. Specifically, the sound of that lawsuit-worthy walking bass riff, the one that became the audio signature of Ghostbusters back in 1984. Good news! We get plenty of that riff in the film. We also get lots of new stuff, and I find it all much more pleasing to the ear now that I know there’s coexistence rather than replacement. I had exactly no concern that Paul Feig would give us a fun movie. He and Melissa McCarthy opened a solid line of credit with me last year with Spy, and I’m delighted to announce that the balance has been paid. Whatever their next joint is, I’m in. If I’m to quibble about anything, it would have to be the scenes with misplaced focus. Kate McKinnon’s character, Holtzmann, usually was not the focal point of shots where the four Ghostbusters are interacting, but she was by far the most interesting person to watch. It’s as if there’s an entirely different story being told from her point of view. This isn’t much of a quibble, really. I figured out pretty early on that I didn’t want to miss what Holtzmann was doing in each scene, and I was rewarded for paying attention. And on the subject of not missing things, the entire credits sequence is entertaining. Don’t leave. Stay in the theater until the lights come up. I’d love to write a much longer post offering a critical analysis of differences and similarities between the 1984’s Ghostbusters and the 2016 remake/reboot, but regrettably I am made of meat, not time. All I can say at this point is that the craft of cinema has come a long way. The new film is very tightly written¹, and provides lots of wonderful SFX in strong service of the story. ¹For me the 1984 Ghostbusters film plays like a concatenation of good Saturday Night Live sketches. The seams are pretty well polished down, but the sketch-comedy aspect is visible. The 2016 Ghostbusters film feels “through-composed.” When I say that it is “tightly written,” I mean that the story feels like it was structured first to work like a story, and carefully refined in that regard, and then the comedic bits were punched up as appropriate.

My 15-year-old daughter joined me in the theater for The Secret Life of Pets. She loved it, and while I enjoyed it quite a bit, I’m sure I liked it more for having her with me. I’m not sure why it doesn’t quite clear my Threshold of Awesome. It comes close, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint, but it didn’t shine as brilliantly for me as did the stuff above that line. A critical¹ analysis of the film might prove interesting. The main character, Max, is our protagonist, but he doesn’t appear to be the hero. He’s proactive, and is “protagging²” enough to hold down the protagonist job, but the character taking heroic action, the one for whom we’re actually cheering, is the dog who goes looking for him. This is an exercise that students of film, and of storytelling in general, may get quite a bit out of³. Here’s my take on your weekend movie money: If the adults in the room are on the fence about which animated film to see this week, Finding Dory has more to offer. Kids (and especially kids with pets) are going to have more fun with The Secret Life of Pets. ¹For “scholarly” values of “critical.” ²I’m not sure if I made up this verb, or if somebody else did, but Brandon Sanderson keeps giving me credit for it. We use it from time to time on the Writing Excuses podcast. Protagging is what protagonists are doing when their decisions move the story forward. Often when we’re bored with a story it’s because the story is waiting for something to happen to the protagonist that will shove them plotward. ³The main character, the hero, and the protagonist do not all need to be the same person. They often are, but in stories with lots of interesting characters they just as often are not.

The Legend of Tarzan is a much more thoughtful film than I expected it to be. Also, it’s a much less predictable film than I thought we’d get. I was expecting Yet Another Superhero Origin Story, and that’s not what this was. Sure, we AGAIN see gorillas kill Bruce Wayne’s I mean John Greystoke’s parents, but it’s in flashback¹. Our first glimpse of the film’s namesake is in England, where he sits sipping tea and rejecting a dubiously-extended invitation to go back to the Congo as a representative of the Crown. He and Jane have been Lord and Lady Greystoke for eight years now, and as he says in that scene “My name is not Tarzan. My name is John.” At that point I realized that beyond the standard action-movie arc and the spoilery-bits from the trailers, I didn’t really know anything about the story I was about to get. This was cool. One of the best things about this film was Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of George Washington Williams, a real figure from history², who I would argue is the actual hero of the film. Tarzan does impressive stuff, but Williams does the stuff that will matter in the end. Also, he gets some of the best lines. When someone says “you cannot keep up with Tarzan,” Williams responds with “No, but I can keep up with John Greystoke.” The Legend of Tarzan doesn’t clear my Threshold of Awesome, but it does a good job of defying expectations, and telling a story that has more heart to it than just swinging through trees and screaming. ¹A gunshot, and then we go to extreme slow-mo. A strand of pearls snaps, and the individual pearls glisten and fly, while massive ape-fists, flecked with blood okay that’s not how it goes. ²The real George Washington Williams fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, fought under Espinosa in Mexico to overthrow Emperor Maximilian, and was the first African-American to be elected to the Ohio State Legislature. In 1889 he went to the Belgian Congo to observe the treatment of the Congolese people, and in 1890 he filed formal protests. He never got to do most of what he does in this movie, but even just a cursory examination of his life convinces me he would have loved to. Samuel L. Jackson plays him that way.

NASA did it again. This time around they threw a space-robot at Jupiter, and after five years they stuck it into orbit. The Jupiter Orbit Insertion methodology was pretty simple, really: Go fast, wear armor, then stand on a rocket and spin. Simple in principle, but meticulously calculated, engineered, and finally (and spectacularly) executed. Good job, NASA. We’ll wait here while you get your science on.

Monday, July 4th, 2016 is the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, when a band of plucky colonists told England “you are not the boss of us.” The event is typically celebrated by launching things into the air and watching them explode. Monday is also J.O.I., Jupiter Orbit Insertion, in which the Juno probe, which was launched into the air (and out the top side of it, and beyond) almost five years ago, will hopefully not explode as it fires its main engine on approach to the largest planet in our solar system. This NASA teaser is fun to watch. Click it to play it at YouTube.comIt’s not as crazy-go-nuts as Seven Minutes of Terror¹, but it’s pretty awesome. If you’re like me, you can’t get enough of stuff like this. I surf news sites looking for more story, more pictures, more explanations. This time around I went straight to the source, and discovered that NASA had very helpfully linked a 90-page press kit.

I put off watching this movie because I remember how deeply affected I was by Finding Nemo. I needed to pick a good mental-health day in which I could come home with time and head-space to process. You know, just in case. Without saying much more, let me say this: it’s a good thing I planned ahead, and I’m really glad I saw the movie. It spoke to me on multiple levels, and it said things that I believe really need to be said to a wider group than just me. Early in the film Dory, who knows she suffers from short-term memory loss, is desperately trying to recapture an important thought. She says to herself, while pounding fin against her head, “Dory, stop being so Dory.” It was poignant, and beautiful, and ugly, and true. Her name is the epithet she uses to describe what she hates about herself, and in that awful moment she’s not actually wrong. Broken, but not wrong. It’s that thing many of us say to ourselves all the time. For me, the film was operating on a much deeper level than I think it will for the kids. Like the best art, it has lots of levels, and rather than “having something for everybody,” like a grab-bag of directorial indecision, the many somethings operate simultaneously, in parallel. If you miss a layer because you’re wrapped up in a different layer, you’ll still enjoy the film. Also, you get to watch it again, and maybe get to see a completely different movie. Finding Dory enters my list at #3, clearing the Threshold of Awesome. By the way, the short that aired before it, “Piper,” is delightful, and is one of my favorite Pixar short films. No dialog, but plenty of story.