Scott Pilgrim vs the World (may contain spoilers)

My daughters and I went to see Scott Pilgrim on Saturday. My girls are 11 and 16, and all three of us have read all six books of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series from Oni Press. All three of us have been anxiously waiting for the movie to come out since it was first announced, and rabidly waiting since the trailers started coming out. Within the first five minutes of the movie I turned to my oldest to let her know I already thought it was the greatest movie ever made. This was prior to the credits even being over. Even if that was mostly a statement for comic effect, all three of us loved it completely, and were drawn in from start to finish.

There are a lot of potential pitfalls with any movie based off of a beloved work from any medium. Scott Pilgrim was very smartly done. Things that could have been problems or weak-points were turned into strengths that made the movie distinct and different from the books, while still keeping major themes pretty faithfully, and allowing the books to not fully be spoiled and retain their unique and special separateness from the movie.

The movie has sequences that are almost panel for panel from the comics, but also has graphic enhancements, and entirely new gags and setups worked into it that make the movies into a sort of value added experience. On the other hand, they also cut the ever important to the books, Envy Adams character almost completely out. The movie sacrifice a lot of depth and meaning and real character development, and has a very compressed feel to it. It does this for the sake of remaining a pretty straightforward fast paced comedy with a reasonable run-time that never gives you any time to check your watch or get bored.

The movie feels complete, and left us pretty happy and satisfied with no complaints, but it leaves the books with some really great, powerful stuff all of its own that should be a great revelation for anyone drawn to the books from the movies. Book Six of the series absolutely floored me with its emotional significance. It remains pretty fully untouched and unsullied by any attempt to tack that sort of weight onto a movie that was designed to be fast and funny.

The movie is not superior to the books. The books are a must read for anyone that even smiled at any part of the trailers for the movie in my opinion, but the movie is one of the best movies ever that draws its inspiration from a comic property, and one of my absolute favorite movies of any type based on a single viewing.

I thought the casting was brilliant. There are a lot of people that don't like Michael Cera, and really hate the idea of him as Scott. I think what people imagine about Scott based on how he is drawn in the comics does not translate into the sort of person in real life that they think it would. I think anyone playing Scott more hyper or loud or heavy handed would become one of the jokes and weaken the over all feeling of the movie. Scott isn't really a loud snappy hyper guy, he is a fully self centered jerk that goes through life imposing on people and having little regard for others' feelings. He's not a bad guy, he just never developed out of that phase probably from middle school. The book portrays his growth one way, and the movie does it in a slightly different way.

I would like the movie to do well, but its financial success or 'failure' is of no great interest to me. What is of interest to me is that it was a brilliant movie I now adore, made out of an even more brilliant series of comics that I adore, by a director I think was pretty great, based on an artist who is pretty great, with a cast that is really great, etc. Shitty movie, financial success is not something I would wish on this. We can't make the mass audience suddenly have our taste and like things they aren't inclined too. I assume this will pick up in video, and is only just out of its first weekend. I hate when people write things off like that.

There have been a lot of really interesting and varied opinions that have been written about the movie already, and about the comic, etc. I may cover some of them at some point in depth, but until that time, I will leave you with two very insightful takes on the thing. Here is ComicsGirl's take on it, as well as Joe McCulloch's review. Both of them were helpful to me when trying to get my thoughts together and think of the big picture and different ways to think about it.

The Specials

This movie wasn't based on a comic, I don't think it was even based on a desire to make any money. Ok, I'm kidding there, but it is a strange mix of spoof, homage, super hero deconstruction, and... inaction to be a movie that anyone thought would go anywhere in 2000 in my opinion, plus I have seen more than a few reviews and comments (as I was preparing to write this) that share my experience of never having heard of the movie before seeing it on Netflix. I had seen images of Jamie Kennedy in the blue makeup he wears in this movie, but I never knew what it was from.

The Specials focuses on a slow day in the life of the 6th or 7th best super-hero team. There is no fighting in the movie, no villains, and only really one display of powers for the most part, and it comes at the end, when the group is getting ready to go fight some giant ants (that we only hear about). None of these absences are an issue, because the film isn't about those things. It's about super-heroes and fame and expectations vs reality and about how people interact and regard each other, and about how 'families' are formed and interact, etc. I applaud it for being exactly what it is, and not trying to be more, or even less, in order to be more commercial.

Rob Lowe plays the most popular and charismatic of his group. He is the Weevil, a second generation hero, and a giant douchebag. Rob Lowe's super power is his douchebag ability, so this fits him perfectly. He plays it very well, when his character has sex with a teammate who is married to another teammate, and when he cheers up the 'new girl' only to sell her out and cruelly make fun of her on television. Jamie Kennedy plays the blue skinned Amok, who looks a lot like nightcrawler, and cusses like the reformed bad guy he is. Thomas Haden Church is The Strobe, the teams leader with a highly inflated sense of self, regardless of his good intentions.

I think the casting was done well for this, and everyone plays their roles. The team contains a good mix of types that borrow from comic book standards, and is shown with its strengths and weaknesses right out in the open. This is a comedy, so I am not trying to act like it is too deep, but it isn't the shallowest thing either. There are some neat concepts in it, like a hero called 8 who has 8 bodies but shares one interconnected mind, a being they call Doug, who's official name is Alien Orphan, and acts as a sort of remedial Martian Manhunter. There is a funny and tragic commentary on 'stretchy powers', and a good theme about the toy business being a primary measure of super hero stature.

Watchmen on DVD

I watched the Watchmen movie this weekend with my dad and my brother. Neither of them had seen it, and neither of them are active comic book readers. Both of them have read and enjoyed some comics in their lifetimes, but neither of them pick them up for themselves, nor had they ever read Watchmen.

I was at my parents house this weekend. My brother was there as well for the weekend. I went out to pick up ingredients for dinner with my dad and picked up the Watchmen DVD so that we could all watch it the next evening. Sometime between buying it and watching it I misplaced it and asked my mom if she had seen my watchmen video... She thought I was talking about some sort of handheld device. I almost laughed at her, but had to admit that it did sound like that.

I thought the movie was thankfully long. I thought the movie was very faithful to the comic, and that the change to the ending was smart and didn't really hurt anything. As a big fan of the brilliant comic, I think the movie was nearly perfect. It did a great number of things well, and made what I see as a handful of minor adjustments to make the movie a little easier for general audiences to grasp. The original plot in the comic, and the original resolution are a bit of a stretch when you look at how reasonably things were tied up in the movie. In the comic, it was a perfect plot for people who are into comics. There is a lot more too it than the movie, but I think general audiences would have had more issues accepting it.

I thought that the movie hit all the right notes, and gave us a living breathing Rorschach in a way that could only be suggested at in the comic. Jackie Earle Haley's performance was perfect, and he left the same impression on my dad and brother, that the character in the comic had. I also love that this is the guy that played Kelly in the original Bad News Bears movies. Who didn't love Kelly when he showed up all badass delinquent on his motor bike. I am really happy that he is getting a bit of a renaissance.

At the end of the movie, after commenting on not realizing just how long it was (although I do think we watched the long director's cut). Both of them wondered why the movie had been panned so much. They thought it was very good, and very much a comic book movie, albeit a dark one. I asked them about the dialog, as I know a lot of it was right from the comic, and comes off a bit wordy or slightly strange being said by real people, and they felt it really just affirmed that you were watching a comic as a movie.

I was very happy with it, and my two impartial observers were happy with it as well. It is a movie that tries at the expense of mass audience appeal to be true to its source in my opinion. I will go slightly off course now and compare this briefly to the first Harry Potter movie. That is another situation where a movie tried to stay extremely faithful to the source. The first movie came off as a long slow animated storybook that I don't think really succeeded as a movie on any other terms. The HP movies in my opinion, have gotten progressively better as they have started really tailoring the story the deliver to the screen. Yes it means that they leave out important things, but it also means you are getting a better movie experience in my opinion, and one that can carry over just fine to people who may not have ever read the book.

Watchmen as a movie delivers a bit of both of those ideas. It is long and very faithful to the source. It made some changes in the translation to the screen, and it could be appreciated by people that hadn't read the original. However, I think that given the source, and the need to have at least something of a comic book super-hero background to really appreciate what you are seeing, I don't think Watchmen could be pared down and still mean anything in the same way that the HP movies have. Watchmen isn't an ongoing story in the Way the Harry Potter Volumes are. If you are making a movie of it, you need to really include all of it, or none of it.

I recommend it. If you like comics, watch it. If you love Watchmen, it shouldn't hurt you at all to watch it. If you really haven't ever read the comic, now is the time to do it.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Verdict - Loved it. My daughters loved it as well.

• Was it a bad movie? On many levels, yes it was.
• Were the effects kind of cheesy? Yes, in many ways in many places.
• Were there a lot of done to death 'stock superhero movie' scenes? - Yes
• Were there things that made no real sense? - Sure
• Were there scenes that someone thought would look cool, but really just looked kind of dumb? - Yes
• Were there things that broke canon just to break it, since they could have been done in some other way? - Yes
• Did it make me laugh at things that were not intended to be funny? - Yes
• Will it inspire rabid fanboy rants about everything that was WRONG or every little detail that isn't directly from the books? - Probably, but if it does, I assume those people don't really want to enjoy any comic book movie that will ever be released. I figure their enjoyment comes from psychotic ranting, so on that level, they loved this movie too.

• Was it filled with characters we never thought would show up on screen? - Yes
• Did it have some cool effects? - Yes
• Did it have a sense of humor? - Yes
• Did my daughters giggle at shirtless(naked even) Wolverine and at sexy Gambit? - You stay away from my daughters Hugh Jackman and Taylor Kitsch!!

I enjoyed it, my 9 and 15 year old comics loving daughters enjoyed it(I am very proud that both of them were able to site some ways it broke canon). I feel some opportunities were missed, and some things could have been done differently, but this is the movie that was made, and I enjoyed it on a bunch of levels. Some special effects weren't great, but some of the ones that weren't great still worked for me. Aspects of the film were more comic book than movie to me. I am not diminishing comics by saying that. This was not the best comic book movie ever made, but I am pretty sure that as we were sitting there watching it we enjoyed it every bit as much.

Daredevil Director's Cut

I was on business travel in Chicago when Daredevil was released. I went with a co-worker and we both enjoyed the movie just fine, but I had a lot of issues with a lot of things about the movie, because I am a geek, and that's what we do. I asked for, and received the director's cut dvd a long time ago, for some gift getting occasion. I never watched it until last night.

My daughters mentioned wanting to see the movie. I can't recall what triggered them to ask, but they did, and we watched it together last night. They didn't have any issues with it, and enjoyed it plenty. I still have some issues, but there are a lot of things I don't have issues about.

Ben Affleck is a good Matt Murdoch, and a perfectly fine Daredevil. That stuff you don't like in there... that's called sub-par writing and misguided direction.

Colin Farrell is not someone I generally care for. I think he was good in the role of Bullseye, but I think the role of Bullseye in this movie was fairly crappy from a fan of Bullseye and Daredevil from way back. He should have had a costume, he should have been less over the top goofy, while still being over the top badass.

Jennifer Garner was a fine Elektra. I think she was way better than the role (see above). They really did take a lot of what Elektra should be, and what makes her cool and interesting, and tossed it out the window in order to make her something else.

Michael Clark Duncan was a fantastic chouce for the Kingpin. The red rose thing was dumb. What he should have done is said something catchy at each kill... something about dancing and devils and the paleness of moonlight maybe...

The only better choice for Kingpin would have been King Kong Bundy in his prime!! He was born for the role!! if not him, then Duncan certainly has presence as well as size. His character was written pretty well.

Lots of action and some humor, etc filled out the movie. It has... even in the director's cut... the ridiculous ending where Ben Urich hits the delete key (located directly next to the print key on his keyboard) and it deletes from the end of the document, removing a character at a time going back through his document... Did he really do it that way? What computer or program has EVER deleted documents that way?

Otherwise... Honestly this isn't even close to the worst comic related movie. I'd like to see them do another one where they take better care with the writing.

Watching Batman again

When Tim Burton's Batman came out, I dragged my wife to the theater to see it. I would later figure out that it might be best to not make her see the movies that I am frothing at the mouth for when I know she has no interest in them. I didn't love the movie. There were a lot of things I liked about it, a bunch of things that could have been done better, and a few things that were just stupid in my opinion. That didn't stop me from seeing each Batman movie as they were released. I love Batman, and however progressively more awful each movie was, there was still some joy to be had if you are a fan (although some of them might be better if you don't know the source material).

Unlike a lot of people, I thought the movie was pretty much ruined by it's Joker. I thought the movie focused WAY too much on Nicholson. I thought his performance was OK, but I didn't like most of the things about the way the character was written and portrayed. I thought it suffered a bit from Burton's excesses, but I liked the look and feel of things just fine. Michael Keaton made a fine batman, but didn't hit the Bruce Wayne notes. I thought Keaton was great as a rich playboy with a secret double life as Gotham's Dark Knight Detective... but he didn't seem very Bruce Wayney to me. He was perhaps too squirrely to seem like Bruce Wayne for me. I also didn't like the inclusion of the man who would be Joker in Batman's origin story.

All of that said... My daughters have never seen any of the old Batman movies as far as I know. We have watched the new ones in the theaters, and they have loved them, just as I have. I decided recently that They should probably have a sense of what went on before, so I added Batman to my Netflix Queue and we watched it together last night.

They loved it. They had no issues with it, and enjoyed it without the burden of having grown up reading tons of batman. They have both watched cartoons with the character their entire lives, but I think that may allow a greater tolerance for other takes on the character, than when you have old comics canon ingrained in you. Talking to my 14 year old, she says there is no question that Ledger's Joker is way better than Nicholson's, and that the new movies are better than the old one, but none of that kept her from enjoying the film.

I have to say that I enjoyed the movie way more this time than I did previously. There are aspects still that i think are stupid, but they don't ruin the movie for me, and there is a lot that is done just right. I like dark and deco Gotham. I like Joker in the style of Cesar Romero, I think it can work. I like Heath Ledger's Joker for what it is, and his performance was better without seeming as omnipresent as Nicholson's. My new opinion on this movie is that it isn't nearly as bad as I recall. I had no problem enjoying it this time. I will probably go through all of the old movies with my girls. I have no doubt that they will enjoy them on at least some level.

TV Comics, the current trend

I just finished reading True Blood, The Great Revelation on the HBO site. A week or so ago I borrowed the Heroes hardback that has the collected comics from that show in it.  A few weeks ago I bought the first issue of Fringe, which is related to the TV series on Fox.

I have stopped watching Fringe, so I will just let that one go. I actively watch Heroes and True Blood, so I figured I should have a look at their comic offerings. 

The heroes book just didn't draw me in. It was like a comic version of deleted scenes in a lot of ways. Little snippets that relate to things that were on the air, but that don't really give you a lot more of anything you are probably hoping for in a comic related to a series. It's like with the show Lost. All I want is some hints and spoilers and answered questions, but all I can ever find is just supplementary stuff that doesn't answer any of the hard questions.

Reading the latest Heroes installment online, and reading the True Blood Great Revelation online made me see that if there is a unifying theme in online comics relating to currently running TV shows, it is that they all have really awful reader interfaces. Both sites seemed slow and hard to navigate in a readable manner to me. The art is decent on both, but the stories strike me as irrelevant. I guess something could come up in True Blood that makes the scene we were shown mean something. In the latest installment for Heroes, we get some background on two characters I believe we have been seeing on the show. It's ok, but it doesn't enhance my enjoyment of the show, nor does it come across as being something that stands on it's own. I appreciate the use of comics, but I am not sure they are being used to best effect.

True Blood is a show that is set in a Louisiana backwater town during a time after the creation of a synthetic blood substitute that can be used by vampires for nourishment. Vampires have come out and revealed themselves, and in the US there is a Vampire Rights act that will be coming up for a vote soon. Not everyone is embracing this concept. The show is based on a series of modern vampire romance novels and isn't bad. I have said recently that I don't think it is particularly well acted, but I can't stop watching it. It's like the Sopranos, or the L Word, but with Vampires. It is a show with a lot of compelling characters with a lot of plot opportunities and multiple story lines. It makes for a show you want to keep watching to see how things come out.

The comic takes place earlier that the show, around the time of the Great Revelation when the Vamps officially came out.  It is an account of the Vampire 'King' of California and his trip to japan to meet with the Japanese interest responsible for Tru Blood, the commercial brand for the synthetic blood. It could be interesting if anything happened, but as it was, it read like a story about a guy going to a business meeting, with a bit of interesting background about that character himself, but not much more.

I'm not sure how I really feel about these sorts of things. They come across as more of a straight commercial than a comic I would want to read. I also think they are a sort of pandering. It's like... Geeks like comics, and our s is a geek demographic... lets give them comics, then they will love us.  Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

Comics in the moving pictures

Within the past several months I have wached several things based on comic books. I want to briefly cover them here, and if anyone has any thoughts on them, please chime in as always.

Wanted - I read Mark Millar's 'Wanted' and liked it, but didn't love just how ugly it was. I commented on this before, and will only partially cover here. I thought the negativity was overdone and I thought it was heavy handed in unnecessary ways. Yes, I think it IS possible to have lots of gun play and even lots of killing without having everything just feel ugly and overwrought.

I thought the movie was pretty brilliant. It took some core themes, twisted them around perhaps a lot, and made a movie that was many times more enjoyable than the comic book. They kept some of the 'big twist' mechanics in place and created whole levels that didn't exist at all in the original. I would say the movie is more than a few steps removed from being 'based on the title of a Mark Millar comic' but it isn't an adaptation of that book either. It is a different thing, and I thought it worked really well (I went in thinking I would love the book and hate the movie).

Amazing Screw-On Head - This is a perfect comic made into a perfect pilot for a tv series based on a comic which I assume will never be made. The voice acting is great, the script is hilarious. The whole thing builds upon the basic idea of the comic and changes just enough stuff to make it go from being a one-shot to being something that shows even more potential for as a show. There were ideas and effects that were fleshed out on screen in ways that couldn't have been done as effectively in print, such as a portrait of lincoln that uses the old style digital mechanism to make his mouth appear to move when he is communicating with Mr. Head. The extra bits about his butlers adds depth, and the lost love interest works, It is just awesome. The art is the same as the comic, the tone is the same, but a greater potential is shown. I nearly cried when I realized that all I would be able to see was one 22 minute episode. It has been shown on Sci-Fi network, and I know it is available through netflix as well. You really should see it.

Death Note (Live Action) - I probably won't review a lot of manga related stuff here, but that is not because I have anything inherently against comic books that are called manga or anything. Death Note happens to be a series that I have read the bulk of the manga(but not all of it) and really liked. It's good twisted stuff with a lot of out-thinking and out-foxing going on in it. My favorite character is Ryuk the Shinigami, and he is my favorite in the manga as well as the film. The premise is that there is a notebook out there that belongs to a death god(shinigami) if a person touches it they can see the shinigami whose book it is. If they write a persons name in the book while having their image in their mind, that person will die. The notebook is found by a genius kid who is a bit bored with life and finds a way to really put excitement back into the world while exploring his inner megalomaniac. The live action movie is basically a 'part one' , part two is supposed to be making it's way here to the states sometime after October of this year. It picks a good place to end, and although unresolved, could be enjoyed without seeing the second part.