"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

I saw "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" on Friday night, and though it wasn't the worst summer movie I've seen, it was the worst comic-book movie I've seen. I've been a big Wolverine fan since I started reading comics, but this movie made me forget what I liked so much about his character.

He's a guy with claws that can cut through anything, he's older than dirt but still looks like a ripped 40-year old, and he can never die. Somehow this movie managed to make all of that seem really boring. Part of that might have been because in the first part of the movie, when he's teamed up with his brother, Victor (aka Sabretooth, played by a genuinely menacing Liev Schrieber) and a bunch of other mutants, Wolverine is easily the most useless member of the team. He's got frickin' BONE claws. What's a guy going to do with those? Stab a guy? Isn't a guy with two big knives instantly as qualified as Logan to be a death-dealer?

Wolverine never gets too much cooler than a fairly ineffectual guy with 6 jagged compound fractures. Hugh Jackman does what he can to keep the character he originated interesting (and by the way Wolverine was 10 times cooler in his first scene in "X-Men" then he is in this whole movie), but isn't helped by a muddled, goofy script by David Benioff and Skip Woods. But if you're a motivated director, you can make a shite script look really cool if you know how to shoot action scenes and understand how special effects work. Unfortunately, Director Gavin Woods is so-so to not-very-good on action, but absolutely clueless with special effects. I think there's a whole reel in this movie that could serve as a clinic in how NOT to do green screen work.

"Wolverine" suffers from the same guiding philosophy as last year's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull": CG makes everything better. The result was lots of fakey effects and glaringly bad green screen work. But bad as "Crystal Skull" was on this score, "Wolverine" makes "Crystal Skull" seem like "Aguierre: The Wrath of God." People want to see real people doing real things in real places, but there's precious little of that in "Wolverine." Even Logan's CLAWS are digital -- worse, they look like digital claws. And because the special effects are so bad, a $140 million dollar movie looks like it cost half that much.

I think Gavin Hood, like a lot of non-comic-reading folks, doesn't "get" Wolverine, and, I suspect, never cared about doing a "Wolverine" movie right. The results, sadly, speak for themselves.

But since it made $87 million over the weekend, Fox will wrongly view Hood's film as a success, (just as they will wrongly view Snyder's "Watchmen" a failure), Hood will get to direct/ruin another big-budget studio film, and Fox will likely foist more sub-par "X-Men Origins" movies on filmgoers. If many more of these disappointing comic-book films are released, I suspect the current trend of comic-book-to-film adaptations will fizzle out before some of the great properties have been translated to the silver screen.

New Saturn Images; Also: Shapes and Their Crushing Recurrence

Some new images of Saturn and its surrounding moons taken by Cassini were released recently and they're pretty stunning. The Boston Globe's got a crisp, nicely captioned set of photos that kind of make astronomy cool again. Well, for a few seconds and then it gets nerdy again.

The image to the right is from Saturn's "high north" and it was taken from a distance of 336,000 miles. Each pixel represents 18 miles (let that blow your mind for a second).

A lot of the images are powerful but this one really struck me. Looking closely at it, all the roiling storms on the surface of the planet, I thought it looked a bit like this photo:


I'm just continually struck by how the same patterns and shapes show up again and again and again on a sliding scale, all the way from the tiniest speck of atomic matter, to a nautilus shell, to the most macro view of the entire universe. And here the same spiral shapes showing up here on the surface of gas giant Saturn. Something about that brutal consistency absolutely everywhere is both reassuring and kind of deflating.















In our deepest explorations of space, will we ever find the legendary schlazz'shlorg shape? Or just more of these spirals?

Yeah. More spirals.

Don't Let Ben Linus Read to Your Children

Michael Emerson plays Ben Linus on "Lost". Ben's the 2nd coolest character on the show, right behind John Locke, and he's been getting more and more airtime since he was introduced in season 2 because the producers know genius when they see it.

The reason he's cool, even though the show he's on is getting, sadly, less cool, is because he seems to know what's going on on the island even though no one who's been watching the show for the last 76 years does. We all envy him because he probably doesn't have to watch any more episodes to find out what the eff is going on.

More than that though, I like Michael Emerson because JJ Abrams and the "Lost" crew wrote a great, mysterious, continually-surprising character, and Emerson nails the role every week. Part of what makes him an actor you can't help but watch is his brilliant use of voice. It raises creepy to new levels.

And he uses that voice to great effect for this awesome bit on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", reading a children's rhyme in his patented creepy-genius voice. If they were casting "Silence of the Lambs" right now, I guarantee this guy would be in the lead for Lecter. Anyway, good stuff. Made me laugh.

"Watchmen" [2009]

[Spoilers below.]

It’s been more than a month since the film adaptation of “Watchmen” came out (Mar. 6^th), and I’m still thinking about it. The film, adapted from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel of the same name, is compelling and thought-provoking in the same ways the comic was, but the movie’s still banging around inside my head for other reasons. One reason in particular, and I wasn't expecting this, is the question is raised for me: When adapting a story into film, how faithful is too faithful?

Starting out with that question might make it seem I was disappointed with the movie, but I loved this thing. I think director Zach Snyder did an incredible job adapting what a lot of people thought was not actually filmable. When he wasn’t filming the comic, panel by panel, he was expanding the scenes, letting them breathe. The first scene, where a shadowy assassin murders the Comedian, was not depicted in the comic as it happened, but visited only in glimpses of a past event. Snyder lets us see it, and he’s smart to do it. The murder of the Comedian is a grabber.

Now I loved every frame of “The Dark Knight”, but I think after “Watchmen,” we have to give credit to Snyder – he directs fight scenes exceptionally well. As a contrast, take Christopher Nolan's approach to superhero fight scenes. Where Nolan seems reticent about showing a guy in a superhero outfit fighting, Snyder films the two combatants in the first scene (and a few others) full frame, no quick mid-punch edits, with the actors placed far enough from the camera so we can see one fighter strike, and the other dodge. Snyder allows the actors to communicate something about their characters through the fight choreography. First, we see that these guys are definitely superheroes, or as much like superheroes as the "Watchmen" world allows two non-irradiated/disintegrated men to be. Their fists land like hammer strikes and move in blurs. The shadowy assassin’s moves are precise, forceful, and relentless, a bit like a gymnast’s. The Comedian fights like a guy used to winning bar brawls, but strong as he is, he’s no match. For the assassin, it seems personal somehow. Why else does he take his time so? Draw out his victim’s pain? It’s a brilliant scene and pulled me right in.

The opening credit sequence is probably the most creative thing Snyder’s done in any of his three studio movies. Period. Showing us glimpses of historic moments in superheroing past, the hyper-detailed credit sequence is not just poignant and visually arresting, it’s a marvel of efficiency. The credit sequence sets up the complicated alternate reality of real-life superheroes in two and a half minutes. A director with less talent might have taken considerably more time to lay the same foundation. And Snyder’s use of Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” works perfectly here, underscoring the feeling of sadness and loss that permeates the story.

Because Snyder’s song choices are usually so pitch perfect and unexpected, (and the use of the Dylan song here is no exception) I was surprised in a few instances at some obvious, ham-fisted music queues that pop up here and there during the rest of the film. Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” for the Comedian’s funeral? It was so on the nose emotionally, its effect was almost comic. Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” for Dr. Manhattan’s appearance in Vietnam seemed similarly lazy. Surely, there must have been a subtler way to evoke “Apocalypse Now” then to use that same damn song Coppolla used. One critic who saw the film asked for a moratorium on the use of “Hallelujah” in films indefinitely, and I second that. It was cool when I first heard it in “Shrek," but listening to Leonard Cohen's weird cover of it while Nite Owl and Silk Spectre have superhero sex made me wince.

For a good while, the film settles into the deliberate-pace set by the comic. We meet the members of the now-defunct “Watchmen” years after they’ve disbanded (by government order), and we lay out the essence of the plot: someone may or may not be killing off the old Watchmen one by one.

First, fantastic casting all around, but the best bit of casting has to be Jackie Earle Haley’s turn as the psychotic crime-fighting detective Rorschach. His despairing, defiant final moment in the Antarctic snow is one of my favorite bits of film acting I’ve seen in a long while. Patrick Wilson does great work as Nite Owl, nailing the broken schlub with some fight still left in him, and Malin Ackerman’s work as Silk Spectre was a pleasant surprise – I hadn’t expected anyone to pull off what I thought was a fairly thin character, but she does excellent work here.

The only actor I had an issue with was Carla Gugino, whose work I usually like. When she’s playing the young version of her character, Sally Jupiter, AKA the original Silk Spectre, she’s great. But when she has to play the elderly Jupiter, she comes off like a poor man’s Lea Thompson in “Back to the Future 2” – the not-quite-right make-up also does her no favors. I found her performance in these scenes distracting and was the movie’s only acting/casting misfire.

In his brief appearance as pre-Dr. Manhattan physicist Jon Ostermann, Billy Crudup does some interesting work and makes me want to see him do more movies, but his performance really takes a backseat to the groundbreaking CG work they did to create Dr. Manhattan. In my mind, he is the most convincingly human CG character created to date. Crudup's physical performance was recorded using motion capture and what you see on-screen is entirely CG. When he is blue, he is an animated character. The first time I saw it, I had no idea. I thought it was crudup in blue makeup. For me, “Watchmen” represents the first time a film has broken the CG actor/real actor barrier. We’re not traveling towards an actor-free movie future at any great rate of speed, but we’re making some incredible leaps in that direction, and Dr. Manhattan is one of the biggest yet. Seeing the film a second time, I was able to see some slightly-off, not-quite-human movements here and there, but only because I was really looking. I'm surprised I haven't seen more written about this achievement.

But getting back to my original question, "How faithful is too faithful?" I've been feeling schizophrenic thinking of an answer, at least as it applies to "Watchmen.". On one hand, I feel grateful to Zach Snyder and the crew for having such respect for the comic that they wanted to bring Moore and Gibbon’s brilliant story to life in film as faithfully as they could. Costumes, set design, make-up, lighting, FX, it was clear in every scene that everyone involved in the production of this film was working their asses off to recreate the graphic novel. The original comic is brilliant, so seeing film artists strive to re-create a work I love was exciting to watch. And, really, what did I have to complain about? In an air-conditioned IMAX theater with ice-cold Diet Coke in hand, I got to watch Dr. Manhattan fly across the surface of Mars in his crystal palace-ship. I got to see Ozymandius beat the hell out of the Comedian and then throw him out of his apartment window. I got to see a heartbroken Rorschach commit suicide-by-demigod.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but wonder if Snyder’s overriding reverence for the original text was a form of laziness, or worse, a kind of artistic apathy. Comics are a visual, almost filmic medium, and they lend themselves to filmed adaptation pretty well. But, realistically speaking, what were the odds that every component necessary to make “Watchmen” a successful comic book was also present to create a successful film? At times as I watched the film, and saw that they’d brilliantly recreated this or that panel, the entire film began to seem less like an attempt to transfer the power and philosophical depth of the original into a new medium, than it was a show of technicianship; an act of cinematic stenography. By simply filming the comic, only interpreting it into a different medium with a minimum of adjustment, it was as though he were saying, "I don't get really get it, and I don't see what you nerds are all on about with "Watchmen", but here it is just how you want it. Now do me a solid and see it four times so I can make something I'm into."

But then the other voice interrupts this line of thought to remind me that a panel-by-panel recreation of the comic was pretty much what I wanted, and I likes whats I gots. So these two opposing ideas warred in my head and continue to do. I will concede that this film challenges my former way of thinking about adaptations which is, in short, that the harder a filmmaker works to make the film as much like the source material as he can, the better the film will be. But now I’m starting to think that what I used to think was so cut and dried, might not actually be so.

Which brings me to the one moment in the film that Snyder deviated most sharply from the original comic; a moment that also happens to be the most important in the story: the mass murder that ends the threat of nuclear Armageddon and ushers in a new era of peace. Let me briefly lay out the two endings:

In the comic, the plot Rorschach and Nite Owl uncover (famously, just 35 minutes too late), is fellow Watchman Ozymandius's plan to bring world peace by convincing the citizens of Earth they are under attack from giant, Lovecraftian, squid-like aliens. He would do this by teleporting a giant, living, man-made monster with a giant brain cloned from a powerful human psychic directly into New York City. The teleportation would kill the monster, and the resulting psychic wave would kill millions of people in the city.

In the film version, Zack Snyder and his creative collaborators changed the ending so that the plot Rorschach and Nite Owl uncover is Ozymandius' scheme to bring world peace by convincing the citizens of the world that they are under attack by Dr. Manhattan, thus bringing the nations of the world together to fight a common enemy. Ozymandius would achieve this unity by setting off a series of bombs whose blast signature would exactly match that of Dr. Manhattan. The explosions would kill many millions.

I understand why Snyder thought he had to change the ending. To a certain extent, I even agree with the choice. It would have been a major risk to take with a) one's career, and b) a $65 million dollar film already targeted fairly narrowly at comic nerds like myself, which was a risk in and of itself. It's one thing to pull off a cinematic treatment of a naked glowing blue man with white eyes, but quite another to make the above-described squid ending seem anything less than the most expensive acid-trip ever filmed. I'm not sure if I were in Snyder's shoes I'd take that bet either.

And though the film's climax is less batshit crazy than Alan Moore's squid ending, it is, to me, a less effective ending.

The reason, in my view, that the squid ending in Watchmen is so powerful, is because it was so perfectly disorienting. We've only just had Ozymandius, AKA Adrian Veigt, lay out his hyper-expositional plot for his former compatriots before we're faced with the result of that plan's execution. Nite Owl even laughs at the ridiculousness of Veigt's masterplan, telling Adrian he needs psychiatric help.

But then it happens. The ridiculous plan occurs. No matter how weird and goofy his plan may have been, the instant millions died it stops being funny. Six splash-pages of people dead everywhere. Secondary characters we've followed throughout lay in the street, felled by a giant special-effect. Reading the rest of the book went so much faster than what had come before because the squid-caused slaughter is so weird, so impossible, the carnage it wreaks so incredible, that you take in the rest of the story in a daze, working to take in the reality of what happened the same way the people of the world "Watchmen" is set in are struggling to take it in.

It's a brutally effective moment in the story, expertly arrived at and expertly executed, and I think Synder missed out on an opportunity to attempt something similarly bold. I think the mistake was that Snyder opted for a rational and comprehensible ending where something irrational and incomprehensible was called for. What Hunter S. Thompson said about life, I'd apply to the ending: "it never got weird enough." A manmade psychic squid's as good as anything else to get this effect, but if Snyder wanted a safer way out of this cinematic pool of quicksand Moore set up for the poor soul brave enough to attempt to film “Watchmen,” I wished he'd taken a different tack than the ending we got. All told, aside from some of the film's aforementioned missteps, this was a great movie and worthy of the comic it was based on. After having seen it twice in theaters, I'm excited now to see the 3-hour plus cut on Blu-Ray.

ADDENDUM:

Back when "Watchmen" has just come out and a blog post about the movie was actually relevant, Craig Moorhead posted up some questions he had about the movie after seeing it. You can go to that post here (and see some other readers answer those questions) here: Craig's "Watchmen Questions" Now that I'm finally writing my month-and-a-half-late "Watchmen" post, I'll add my answers here:

1. Which was better, the book or the movie or the animated book/movie?

The book.

2. Do you think it would’ve been better if Snyder smoked as much opium as Alan Moore?

Good question. Maybe a bit of opium would have made him decide the squid was worth fighting to keep in the movie.

3. Did Patrick Wilson make the character of Daniel even better than it was in the book?

Yes.

4. If you had cut the movie, how long would it be?

1 hour longer.

5. The ending didn’t really add up, did it?

Sadly, no.

6. Which movie had better characters: Slumdog Millionaire or Watchmen?

Watchmen. But I wasn't that big a fan of "Slumdog", so I'm biased.

7. How great / weird is it to see Kelly “Moocher” Leak making such a strong comeback? Really, there was nothing between ‘Maniac Cop 3′ and ‘Little Children’.

His is a fantastic story. Just proves that if you've got talent, you're never really out of contention to play in the big leagues. I hear he's going to be the new Freddy Krueger, which is great news.

8. How did you feel about the JFK bit in the credit sequence?

Oh yeah. It made me sad and uncomfortable. But a great addition to that credit sequence.

9. Did you find the letters from the filmmakers to be lame or spot on?

Lame only in that they were a bit on the whiny side, but I pretty much agree with everything they're saying.

10. Lee Iacocca seriously took a bullet between the eyes, didn’t he?

He sure as hell did. All two people who in the audience who knew who he was didn't know if that was even worth a titter.

I plan to beat the dead horse that is "Watchmen" a bit more in future posts. So, you know, watch for those.

A Blogger Emerges from His Drawing Cave

And I'm done!

Well, with this section anyway. More may come. It only took 3 and half months of nights and weekends (and quite a bit of focused procrastination) to create 7 whole pages of a comic book from one Mr S.H.'s script, but I think they turned out all right.

The story so far, in brief, is this: a a boy's house is demolished by a tornado. In the wreckage he finds a glass eye. He and his father go to their church to sit out the storm, which continues to threaten, and the boy discovers that when he holds the glass eye he can see things, frightening things, happening elsewhere. In the page below, the boy has spotted an old woman who may be the owner of that glass eye.






















So with this project finished, the blogging should increase.

Next up, "Watchmen" review/thoughts/bloviation.

"Where the Wild Things Are" Trailer is Up

And page 8 is finished. So close to the end.

Anyway, The trailer is up finally for Spike Jonze' upcoming adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are." Here's another instance of a trailer's song perfectly suited to the visuals, Arcade Fire's brilliant "Wake Up" playing over some striking imagery. (The trailer houses right cranking some of these trailers out right now are, I think, creating consistently brilliant film art. I know in reality these guys are just re-using what other artists have created, but the trick of distilling a 2-hour film down into a minute and a half and, on occasion, evoking an emotional response sometimes more powerful than the film itself is able to, is a real feat.)

The way through the creative thicket has been torturous for Jonze and this film. Early test screenings haven't gone very well, audiences complaining the child isn't sympathetic for instance. I'll be interested to see if Jonze has managed to craft a winning film out of what some had written off as an unsalvageable mess.

The trailer shows clearly that they've managed to do a lot with what is, at heart, a short children's picture book long on imagery and short on plot or incident. And as trailer's go, it's very well done. But I'm not racing out the door to buy tickets for this one based on this. It seems like it might be one of those muddled movies that doesn't know if it's for kids or adults and ends up aiming for some muddy middle ground that alienates both audiences. And with rare exceptions, movies that have this difficult a time getting from the first day of shooting to theaters rarely turn out to be successful films. But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

New Comments on Old Posts

Good news: I'm nearly done with my drawing project. I'll be finishing page 8 of 9 tonight and tomorrow. With luck I'll be finished with page 9 by the end of the weekend and into the corrections and and touch-ups and polishing early next week.

Bad news: I'll probably be blogging a lot more very soon.

I wanted to post up a quick blog for two reasons.

1.) Heath posted "Dead blog" in the comments. His occasionally writing this doesn't prompt me to write a new entry every time I see it, but it does work some of the time. So here you go.

2.) I got two comments on random old posts within one 24-hour period. I'm going to throw them up here right now because it's a super easy blog post, and because these comments are very nearly interesting.

a.) First, the shorter one, posted up at 6:27 this morning on my "Chronicles of Riddick" review from way back in the day:

"The Chronicles of Riddick is a story that made a lasting impression on me.
Went to video rental shop and saw the title and decided to give it a try...and good lord was i surprised??
After seeing the movie went back to the shop to rent the Pitch Black. The both movies were shockingly good that I had to buy both DVD's in DVD store. I put it in a same category of epic proportions movies such as The Lord of the Rings. Can't wait to see the third sequence of Riddick in theater and then buy the DVD again to finish my collection.
Vin Diesel is just too damn good actor. Tony"

b.) And here's the other, posted up at 4:25 this morning on my "Dark Knight" blog where I try and get at who might be the villain for the third Batman movie:

Ok, I have thought about this long and hard and the villain I think the main villain in the next Nolan Batman movie should be…(drum roll please)…the Penguin. Yeah, I know a lot of people out there are against the Penguin, and I know Chris Nolan has stated that he believes the Penguin would be one of the harder villains to pull off, but I humbly disagree. Bare with me as I list the reasons why I think he would work and why I think he is one of the best, most unappreciated Batman foes, as well as counter some familiar criticism about him:

1) He is realistic: The thing about the Penguin, like almost all of Batman's Golden Age foes, is that technically he his not a super-villain - he is an arch criminal. And there is a big differenced between the two. A super-villain is just the evil version of a super-hero, someone who possesses powers and abilities beyond us, while an arch-criminal is a specific type of criminal in the real world but shown in a larger than life manner. Catwoman is the femme fatale/cat-burglar writ large; Joker is the psychotic anarchist criminal; Two-Face is the idea of victim turned criminal; hell, Batman isn’t even a superhero in the original comics or Nolan’s series, he is a classic pulp masked vigilante, more akin to the Shadow, the Spider, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro than Superman or Spider-Man. The Penguin fits right in there with that same vibe, since he represents the professional, organized criminal (with an added touch of being flamboyant and stylish). Having said that, it makes it easier for me to believe that a flamboyant gangster with an gun hidden in an umbrella fits Nolan’s universe more than a man with a freeze gun or a woman who can control plants does.

As an arch-version of a gangster, have the Penguin be the new crime boss in Gotham. With all the chaos that the Joker caused, it wouldn’t be that hard to believe that the underworld would be turning to someone to bring order and help them reorganize, and I could even see the normal citizens and politicians of Gotham support him. After the fall of Saddam in Iraq, chaos reigned in Iraq and one of the big fears amongst our politicians and military experts was that the people of Gotham would turn to a strongman and dictator preferring tyranny to anarchy. Same thing happened in Germany after WWI when Hitler rose to power. Well, after Batman smashed the mobs to only have the Joker fill their void; I can easily see the people of Gotham saying they wouldn’t mind a strong organized crime boss keeping the crooks in line – they might still have crime but at least the wouldn’t have anarchy. And from such roots tyrannies are built.


2) He is both dangerous and intelligent: The Penguin in his early history wasn’t nearly as ridiculous or as incompetent as he is now. In his first couple of appearances he killed people, maybe not as often as the Joker but he definitely had a ruthless streak. He also was the first villain to actually escape from Batman and outsmart him. The Joker got busted by Batman in all of his first appearance (or at least appeared to mysteriously die), but not the Penguin; an actual running theme in all of Penguin’s early stories was that he somehow managed to escape. This only stopped after the editorial staff demanded that the Joker stop killing people and the Penguin stopped getting away because they felt it showed that crime did pay.


The other thing about being intelligent means he plots. He has his own goals and ambitions which do not always involve Batman. What realistic plots could Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane or Deadshot have? I mean, Bane and Deadshot would have only one goal/plot – kill Batman. Doesn’t really give the screenwriter’s much to work with. The Penguin, on the other hand, would want to pull of crimes, become the boss of Gotham AND kill Batman (or at least neutralize him). Plenty of more material for the screenwriters to work with.


3) “But isn’t he ridiculous and corny?”: He was not nearly as cheesy as Joker was in the late 40’s through the 60’s. Sure he used trick umbrellas, but Joker was doing just as corny things, like having his own utility belt or trying to have a contest with Clay-Face. And while Joker was allowed to be updated and modernized, for some reason the Penguin has been forced to stay in same old character-mold when Burgess Meredith did him. That would be like letting the Caesar Romero interpretation of the Joker be the definitive one.


However, if I can offer a suggestion to help make the Penguin relevant again, it would for him to lose the top hat and tuxedo (or at least not wear it all the time). When he originally appeared that was the clothes of choice for a sophisticated gentleman going out on the town, but not anymore. He should be dressed in sartorial splendor by today’s standards, wearing Armani and Brioni suits, with Seville Row shirts and an expensive Burberry coats, and replacing his cigarette holder for expensive cigars. I mean if Lex Luthor can get a makeover and not have to wear the lab coat or the grey smock he wore when he first appeared, why does the Penguin have to so fashionably out of date?


And yes he has a funny name and appearance, but who says criminal masterminds have to be scary looking? I mean, look at the history of the mob in the U.S and you’ll see that most crime bosses had funny nicknames and were not that intimidating looking: Tony The Ant, Joey the Clown, Murray “the Camel” Humphreys, Vinnie the Chin, etc. Crossed them, however, and you’d be wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of Gotham Bay. Make the Penguin a short, sartorially aware crime boss who earned his nickname because of his walk (imagine Vito from the Sopranos) and uses an umbrella as a cane just like how some people use a putter as a cane.


And the thing about the Penguin is that he supposed to be underestimated. It is the reason the umbrella was chosen as his weapon – it serves as a metaphor for the Penguin’s character and nature. Like his umbrellas, the Penguin appears as something completely harmless and even mundane, but also like his umbrellas it actually conceals something very deadly that people completely underestimate. The umbrella doesn’t have to be outfitted with a hundred different weapons, just the ones he had when he first appeared – a concealed blade and gun (plus it is weighted to be used as a bludgeon).


Besides, who says ridiculous looking people can’t be powerful or scary? I mean, the world was terrorized by a short little Corsican in the early 19th century, and in the 20th century an Austrian painter with a Charlie Chaplin moustache and a tendency to yell comically during rallies became the greatest villain in history.


4) Go back to the basics: Just like how Nolan only used those elements from the Joker that would fit his version of Batman, so could Nolan cherry pick through the Penguin and only use those elements that mesh with his vision. I mean, Nolan pretty much discarded anything about the Joker post 1940’s, getting rid of the entire Red Hood origin and focusing only on his first couple of appearances. Well, the same could be done with the Penguin: hell, his real name of Oswald Cobblepot wasn’t revealed until 1981 in DC Comics Blue Ribbon Digest, along with his origin of being a rich kid raised by an over protective mother. For 40 some years he wasn’t hampered by that ridiculous back-story and tacky name, but instead was just a sophisticated criminal who had an interesting nickname and gimmick (umbrellas and birds). That leaves you plenty of room to reinterpret him.


Like the Joker, they should avoid an origin story and have the Penguin entire as a complete character. And also like the Joker, it should be a story about the rise of the Penguin (similar to his very first appearances in the 40s). The Penguin appears, is underestimated by even the other criminals, and before anyone knows it he is the head of crime in Gotham City.


5) “But the Penguin isn’t a physical threat for Batman”: Many people will say that the Penguin would not be as intimidating or as dangerous as the Joker, and wouldn’t scare the audience as much as the Joker did, or have them view him as a big enough threat. I have to say yes and no to that idea. Yes, on a personal one-on-one basis the Penguin is not going to give Batman as good as fight as the Joker, but than again the Joker wasn’t that much of a physical threat to Batman either. The Joker in the Dark Knight mostly challenged Batman’s belief system, not his physical safety. Also, who says that a great villain has to be a physical threat? I mean, Goldfinger and Blofield are probably Bond’s greatest challenges, and they are no matches for him physically. Same with Moriarity, Sherlock Holmes arch enemy, and Superman’s foe Lex Luthor.


Plus, why should the Penguin be required to fight Batman one-on-one? If the Penguin truly is a criminal mastermind he would avoid confronting the Dark Knight any way he could. Why fight a master of martial arts? Instead, a smart crime boss would instead have henchmen and minions fight Batman, and some of those guys could be pretty tough. Think of Bond movies where the main villain always had one or two really tough henchmen who served him.


Or look at gangster movies like the Godfather or the Untouchables, where the big boss isn’t always the toughest guy out there. Vito and Michael Corleone are not fighters like Sonny, but ruthless crime bosses who command killers like Luca Brassi and Al Neri. Sure they are capable of killing people, but usually by being cunning and taking people by surprise. They are not soldier’s however (excluding Michael’s stint in the marines, of course) but manipulators. The same with Al Capone in the Untouchables: he might bash someone’s head in at a meeting, but that doesn’t display his toughness as much as his willingness to kill and be ruthless. He isn’t dumb enough to take on Elliot Ness himself, but instead sends his own killers such as Frank Nitti against him and his Untouchables.


Instead of having the Penguin physically confront Batman, have some of his henchmen confront the Caped Crusader. Amongst his servants could be a who’s who of tough-guy character actors: Chuck Zito, Danny Trejo, Kimbo Slice, Tyler Mane, Brock Lesnar, etc. Plus, who is to say the Penguin has to be the only villain in the movie? I mean, I could easily see him harboring hatred for both Batman and a female cat burglar who won’t bow to his rule, or him having a couple of tough enforcers that work for him (maybe one who is a “deadshot with pistols and the other has a rare skin disorder that makes him look like an alligator or crocodile).


6) The Penguin could represent a new type of villain and be more relevant: The Joker (and Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul) are basically metaphors for terrorism and the anarchistic, nihilistic forces out there. And since 9-11 that has been the public’s biggest worry. But since the collapse of the economy I believe people will have find someone new that they hate more, and that is CEOs, the heads of Wall Streets and politicians. Basically, all of the powerful people who they feel control their lives and they are powerless to stop because they are too rich and connected. And the Penguin can represents those forces much better than any other Batman foe could. Just like in the 50’s and 60s in such movies as Underworld USA and Point Blank, where the underworld used as a metaphor for the corporate world, so could the Penguin be used to represents the heads of businesses and the hedge fund managers who manipulate the government for their own profit.


And like the Joker who had a philosophy why he did all of this (he was a nihilist who wanted to throw Gotham in anarchy), the Penguin would be a man who believes everyone has a price – even Batman. Sure, sometimes the price isn’t money, but if you find the right leverage anyone can be bought. Think Don Corleone, “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” The Penguin is the ultimate businessman.


7) And finally, look at the fake 1940’s Orson Welles’ Batman trailer on youtube. How can you say he doesn’t work as a Batman foe after looking at Edward G. Robinson’s “version” of the Penguin:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu5tJGfZsgc


Sorry to ramble on, but I am a big fan of the Penguin and think he has been getting a short end of the stick by Nolan and others out there.

Posted by Thomas to Crane's Inanities at 4:25 AM"

Obviously, I didn't read all of that, but just from what I skimmed through, the dude makes some good points. Even though the idea of Penguin as the main villain in a Christopher Nolan Batman movie seems laughable on its face, it doesn't seem so implausible if you look at it.

Anyway, the hiatus ends soon.

A Producer of "Watchmen" Tells His Side of the Fox/Warner Bros. Story; And the Reasons for an Impending Lull

The other day, I posted Daniel O'Brien's nutritional advice to Fox studio executives, as well as my own reaction to the legal decision handed down on Christmas Eve regarding the inter-studio fight over the rights to "Watchmen."

Today, Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of "Watchmen", weighed in with an open letter. You can read it here. There's not a lot of vitriol in this letter (and certainly none of the hilarious variety as in Daniel O'Brien's), but there's a lot of new information, and some real, heartfelt disappointment. It's a persuasive letter. I'd be interested to hear some pro-Fox positions from knowledgeable fans or studio people in the know, but my hunch is we won't ever read anything like that because Fox only had one reason to sue: money. And no one gets passionate about defending greed.

Also, the frequency of my posts in the next few months may be even more anemic than they have been, as I'm devoting my free time to an art project. Here's a sample:

A friend of friend and blog reader Shawn H. is compiling a book project that would collect an assortment of short stories illustrated in comic form. I'm illustrating Shawn's short story, entitled "Finders Keepers," a "weird tale" about a young man's discovery of a glass eye imbued with strange powers. We hope it will eventually be part of the collection. I've got my fingers crossed.

Right now I've got two pages finished, and for the next few months, I'll be working on the other 7 that will comprise the first half of the story. Because my drawing style for this is so detail-intensive, I think this will grab up a lot of time I might otherwise spend posting up my inane blog entries. But on the plus side, it's a lot of fun to draw, Shawn's fantastic story is eerie and perfectly suited to comic book treatment, and when we're finished, we'll both have some interesting work in a different medium we can point to with pride.

Provided I don't f**k up that is.

So bear with me during this new lull in fresh inanities.

"Valkyrie"

I saw "Valkyrie" last night at my local AMC multiplex in a relatively crowded theater (very crowded for a Tuesday night). My sister and I saw it. My wife wouldn't go because she hates Tom Cruise with a purple passion; once she found out his character isn't pulled apart "like warm bread" (as one character threatens) at the end of the film, and in excruciating "Braveheart"-style real-time treatment, all interest, however meager, vanished entirely for her.

(Note: Some mild spoilers below.)

This was a good movie with great pedigree (Bryan Singer directing, Christopher McQuarrie writing) but some not-so-great backstory. It never augers well when a a film's been pushed back from a summer release to a Christmas release, as this film was, but this time it appears the reason for the delay was not quality-related.

"Valkyrie" follows a group of German army officers, led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise), as they plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944. As with "Titanic", the conclusion of the film is foregone -- they fail. Hitler kills himself in his bunker 9 months after the Valkyrie plot fails. But unlike "Titanic," which used the sinking of the cruise liner as a backdrop for a love story, "Valkyrie"'s destined-to-fail assassination plot is the focus. So while I got wrapped up in the 'how' of the plotters' plotting, the suspense Singer and McQuarrie are able to wring out of the subject matter (and it does manage to be extraordinarily suspenseful at times) is in spite of, not because of the subject matter.

So, in its way, "Valkyrie" is a big-budget studio spectacular about failure. In this case, epic failure. Considering what Stauffenberg's failure meant for the world, 9 more months of calamitous war at the very least, this film may depict the greatest failure in human history.

That it is a movie about failure, and more specifically, about a failure, makes it flawed in cinematic terms right off the bat. The build of a successful screenplay demands the hero meet the goal the screenwriter has set for him, even if that goal isn't exactly what the hero intends. The hero's victory has to be hard-fought, certainly, but he has to do it. If our hero's difficult goal is not met, if the assassination plot does not end in an assassination, the emotional release the audience expects the story to deliver is not delivered. When the hero ultimately fails, in some ways, the story fails as well.

But in this instance, the movie's primary defect is also a big part of why I liked it. Yes, Stauffenberg fails. But his defeat is rendered in such exacting, excruciating detail, it's kind of a sick thrill to watch. When it all starts to go bad, when the formerly pro-coup bureaucrats in the War Ministry begin to slink off, knowing everything will certainly come to a bad end, it is a rare pleasure to watch fine actors like Bill Nighy, Terrence Stamp, and even Tom Cruise, as the full impact of their failure registers on their faces. I also liked that the film never shied away from the hard details of the plot. Getting Adolf Hitler to sign a document, an important detail that might get less attention in a different film, is raised to the level of white knuckle suspense in "Valkyrie," and Singer makes it work.

There's plenty of quality filmmaking here to enjoy, moments and performances of real quality, but the tinge of failure emenating from the doomed plot casts a pall over the entire movie it's never quite able to overcome.

Daniel O'Brien Has a Message for the Executives at 20th Century Fox

This is kind of an odd way to come back and put up an actual post after the long drought, but, as it has to do with one of my pop culture obsessions, and is also pretty damn funny, I thought it needed to be shared.

As some of you may already know, 20th Century Fox is suing Warner Bros. over "Watchmen." Fox says they own the rights, Warner says eff off, and that's where we stand. Or stood. On Christmas Eve, a judge decided in favor of 20th Century Fox.

A follower of the suit and a fellow "Watchmen" fan named Daniel O'Brien wrote a letter to the executives at Fox in response to the decision that eloquently condensed my own on the matter. That letter is here and it made me laugh.

(WARNING: to all readers of the Inanities who find themselves getting offended on a regular basis, this letter might not be for you.)

The Aintitcool link to the letter where I originally found link this can be found here.

Merry Christmas!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Next President

Election Eve

The election is tomorrow.

This long campaign is finally at an end.

I'm helpless not to think Obama doesn't already have it sewn up. McCain's position has moved not a whit in the polls, and Obama hasn't made a mistake in months. I believe Barack Obama will be our nation's 44th President, and I believe we'll know it before working stiffs on the East Coast trudge to bed tomorrow night. I believe he will win big, and he will enter his first term with a mandate.

So I'll get a jump on the pundits who will plow this fertile ground into dust on Wednesday, and say what I think an Obama presidency might look like.

I think some of us liberals will be disappointed in some of his decisions. He's never teetered too far over to the left in the general election, and he was cautious about doing so in the primaries. He's a pragmatist above all else. When gas prices were at historic highs and the public was clamoring for off-shore oil drilling, Obama put aside his long-held opposition to it and supported a bill that contained a provision lifting the federal ban on some off-shore oil drilling in exchange for some forward-looking legislation that went some way towards easing our dependence on foreign oil. Republicans killed it, of course, but Obama's realpolitik shifting is, for me, a clear sign that there are few liberal sacred cows that will truly be sacred in an Obama White House. To me, this just means there's no issue under the sun that Obama doesn't consider worthy of reconsideration, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Will he get us out of Iraq? I believe he will begin to draw down combat forces very soon, but I don't think Obama will have all US military personnel out of Iraq before the end of his first term, and probably not after the end of two. I think we're consigned to have a long-term, empire-expanding military base in Iraq, and that would have been so had Hillary won the nomination. But we will draw down. Under McCain, we would not. Clear delineation. I think Obama will have "won" the Iraq occupation if he can manage our drawdown without an explosion of internecine fighting, and get us to a point where Iraq is just another place where we happen to have soldiers stationed. Like Kosovo is now. I question the wisdom of having a far-reaching network of military bases all over the world, but that doesn't seem to be a conversation the people want to have right now, and Obama isn't the kind to force a discussion on any but the most pressing issues. Another reason I like him. But the only reason I think he has true credibility on Iraq, no matter what he decides to do there, is that he was against going in in the first place. We know he has no secret desire to re-shape the Middle East because he's one of the sane people who, back in 2002-03, thought it was an unbelievably stupid idea to go into Iraq, but, like the rest of us, finds himself trying to make the best of a bad situation.

I think Obama will have a steady hand in steering our way through the developing financial crisis. My main worry is that this crisis, which is likely immune to most Executive tinkering, will endure, and the stink of deep recession will attach itself to this new president, and consign him unfairly to a single term. My hope is that he can FDR his way out of this by attempting smart and inventive solutions that will impress voters. Even if none of the solutions are particularly successful, people will be grateful he tried as best he could.

One thing I believe may define this presidency more than any other single component, is its caution. When Clinton got in, he was like a gifted poly sci professor suddenly given the keys to the kingdom. He was idealistic and, to my mind, never more admirable than in those first few months in the White House. But on the flipside, he and his administration were messy, sacrificing political expediency for lofty ideals. If the 2-year Obama campaign has been any guide, there will be no messiness in an Obama administration. I imagine Axelrod and Plouffe and the other Obama gurus are keen to guide their candidate, soon President, through a first 100 days as flawless as the last 100 days of the campaign. But I think they might do well to remember, the last candidate to run a near-perfect campaign was George W. Bush. But then again, I think they know that too, and are eager to steer their guy around the shoals the Bush administration crashed into and broke apart on.

I'm excited about tomorrow. I think the results will show that the country has repudiated Rove-style politics, Bush-style foreign policy, and is ready to embrace the possibility that we deserve a politics that isn't defined by fear. But, more historically, it will show the world we've come a long way since the end of the Jim Crow South. I'm not so naive I think an Obama presidency will in any way end racism, or even seriously diminish it in this country, but I think it will change the discussion in a positive way and give people a new way of thinking about race. That's a big step.

The last eight years, a true dark night of the soul for this country, will finally, irrevocably be finished tomorrow. We're going to get something very new, and to some extent, I owe the White House's current occupant a debt of gratitude. Only by doing the job he was selected to do so badly, could an Obama presidency even be possible. Had he just been ordinarily bad at his job, we might have gotten more of the same, slightly improved, just with a different letter in front of his name. But because the current president was so extraordinarily bad at his job, Americans were willing to be a bit more imaginative when thinking about who might be the best successor. If we had spectacularly bad, we thought, maybe we should try for spectacularly good?

That may be overstating things a bit, but tonight, it doesn't feel like overstatement. Right now the future years of President Barack Obama are limitless potentiality. Though he might turn out to be a Carter, he might also turn out to be an FDR, or a Kennedy. I'm fine to let the hyperbole stand for now and enjoy the moment; it comes around seldom enough, I think I'm entitled.

I'm excited and hopeful, and looking forward to watching the returns tomorrow night. I think we're going to have a good night.

More Live Blogging

Just to break this thing into a couple posts.

9:59 -- McCain is not winning any hearts and minds with that his obsession with Obama's fines.

10:02 -- Obama's said exactly this stuff about McCain's judgement to go into Iraq in the previous debate. I'm not saying he isn't right, or that entertaining Brian should be the candidates' job #1, but can we get some new things to say?

10:06 -- Obama hedges a lot. He was going to say we should have gone into Rwanda, but thought it might come back on him, so he hedged a few times. He's already won this thing (meaning the election), now he's working hard not to lose it. I think that's why we're not seeing anything particularly interesting or compelling from Obama in this thing so far. I guess smarts and competence aren't too spectacular.

10:08 -- Ugh!! More questions about the Pakistani border. Does Obama support going in to get Osama even if Pakistan says no? Yes. Does McCain? Yes. What's the difference? McCain wouldn't tell anybody. This is some goofy shit.

10:11 -- Now McCain is going after him about the "announce his intention." Obama's smiling at McCain like the doddering idiot he is because he knows this line of attack isn't changing any minds. The question as to whether Obama's a serious guy when it comes to foreign policy, or Commander-in-Chief worthy has essentially been answered according to polling. Running back over the same tired territory isn't getting him new voters.

10:13 -- This Pakistan is going to go down as the most tired and completely unenlightening meme of the campaign. Ah good. Obama's going after McCain again. It's funny to watch McCain's face when Obama throws the "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran" in his face.

10:16 -- Obama, you said you'd be brief, you'd better be brief.

10:17 -- Okay, good. He was brief.

10:18 -- I totally agree with McCain that Putin's an asshole, but McCain's bombastic approach to US-Russian relations is probably not the way to go. A cool head seems to get us through crises better than a hot one. Obama beats McCain, aGAIN.

10:23 -- Petro-dollars sounds illicit.

10:25 -- Call me a simp, but I like how McCain shook that Navy Chief's hand and thanked him for his service.

10:26 -- "Without preconditions." The 2nd most tired meme of this campaign. It's like they've gone through the same back and forth on this so many times, they could do it just as well while asleep in their respective beds, each of them dreaming about debating.

10:27 -- What's sort of weird, is that not a one of these audience-member questions have been even slightly original, or intended to get the candidates to speak from a different frame than they've been accustomed to. Each one has allowed both candidates to fall pretty easily into their old stump speeches and debate spiels. NBC didn't do a great job on this one, and another wasted opportunity. We only get three -- I think, to be honest, this poor debate is a direct result of Tim Russert not being alive to moderate it. He would have mixed it up with his goofy gotcha questions. I miss that guy.

10:33 -- "Comrades"?! McCain is an old-style Communist, clearly.

10:34 -- Bob Schieffer's hosting the 3rd debate? It's going to look like a senior center that night. Schieffer's a real sweet guy, but he's so old he needs a younger 2nd host to help him moderate CBS's Sunday Morning show. I guess they were giving him one last moment in the sun before he's too old to ambulate.

10:36 -- Obama won, clearly, but did anyone think McCain made it a close call?

Well, thanks y'all. That was fun. I think McCain gets points for trying to entertain Brian, but in terms of who looks readiest to be Prez, Obama won big time. I'm hoping the 3rd and final one is less of a snoozer, but color me pessimistic.

Live Blogging the Debate

I'll try "live blogging" tonight's debate between Obama and McCain. What the hell. Why not?

9:02 -- I hate how long it takes for the moderators to realize they're live.

9:03 -- What is McCain writing already? "Obama hand shaking went well."

9:03 -- Obama's up right away. Not even waiting for the question. Nice.

9:06 -- Good first answer. AIG execs need to be fired and give money back. People like executives getting fired. Bear with me folks, this is happening live!!

9:07 -- McCain looks like he's trying to invade the questioner's personal space.

9:08 -- Tom Brokaw's a sport for laughing at that stupid joke. His question is meant to get McCain to say someone who's not Phil Gramm. McCain avoided it. Meg Whitman of eBay? eBay just laid off a truckload of employees today, maybe not Meg Whitman so much.

9:10 -- Obama hit McCain again with his "fundamentals of the economy are strong." I know McCain wishes he has a time machine so he could go back to that morning and slap himself before he uttered those words.

9:11 -- No, McCain!! Don't remind them about your campaign "suspension!" Better they forget it dude, seriously.

9:12 -- Uh oh. McCain's angling to pin the crisis on people who couldn't afford the loans the banks were giving them because the mean ole government was making 'em do it. Not the way to go.

9:14 -- How cool would it be to be one of the people in that town hall? And have Obama and McCain explain their positions to you directly. Good times. This town hall's kinda sparsely populated. More like an Apartment Complex Hall.

9:17 -- Sorry folks, I know I'm biased as hell, but Obama's a natural at this. McCain's not bad, but his whole thing with posing on the chair comes off a bit awkward.

9:18 -- It wasn't both parties, lady. It was one, and the Dems turned a blind eye, but this is a Republican-built crisis.

9:19 -- Jesus, look how McCain looks away when Obama looks at him! It's frickin weird. I read something from a guy who studies ape hierarchies and says it's totally basic ape-like behavior -- the submissive ape can't look the dominant ape in the eye. McCain's a guy's guy, so I wonder if it's some basic inferiority complex, if looking at someone who's talking to you is too intense for McCain, or if he just can't bear the site of Obama. Strange stuff.

9:22 -- Planetariums are awesome dude! Three million dollars is a deal!

9:23 -- The common wisdom in Washington seems to be that the people who are serious about energy policy think nuclear energy is a viable option. And it is. But why then is no one talking about the number one problem with nuclear energy is what to do with the waste. I need to know more about what they're going to do with that nasty stuff that, in real terms, never goes away.

9:25 -- Did he just say some of the 700 billion is going to terrorists?

9:26 -- An Apollo program for alternative fuels. Hillary had a similar idea, and it's a good one.

9:27 -- Obama wants to go through it "line by line"? It's called the Line Item Veto, and the president doesn't have it. With the majorities he's going to have in Congress, though, he might just be able to get it.

9:29 -- I'm not sure Obama's "overhead projector" McCain keeps mentioning is igniting the nationwide rage McCain is hoping for.

9:31 -- Obama's getting into Giuliani territory -- dangerous --- no it worked out all right. Turns out to be a shot at Bush. "Go out and shop," Bush said. Obama's right: what a wasted opportunity that was. Hell, politically, that would have been really good for Bush to get people out to make sacrifices with him as the revered leader. The administration was always myopic and completely without imagination.

9:33 -- Obama's looking more and more like the next President of the United States. I'm sorry to have to say that and risk jinxing it, but there's not much of a comparison between these guys. But if it is Obama and he goes in with the Dem majorities they're projecting, he's going to have a really bad situation to steer the country through.

9:36 -- McCain is trying to hang the Herbert Hoover label on Obama? Up is down folks. It's like Cindy McCain saying that Obama's running "the dirtiest campaign in American history." Up is down.

9:38 -- Brokaw's wrong to conflate Medicare and Social Security. Medicare's not in good shape going forward, but Social Security's is solvent for the next 50 years. Maybe the financial crisis has changed that up somewhat, not sure, but Medicare and Social Security are two very different things.

9:40 -- McCain seems to be relaxing a little bit. Good for him.

9:40 -- McCain's laughter is a bit creepy.

9:41 -- We have Congress vote up or down on a massive Social Security plan sounds pretty dangerous. If we'd had more Republicans in Congress in the '04 election, we might have shifted people's social security funds into the stock market. I wonder where all of that money would be now had they gotten the chance to make that change.

9:44 -- Nuclear power -- okay McCain is saying we can reprocess the waste as Japan does. I wonder if this is viable. I hope Obama says something to this.

9:47 -- Obama said we need to give China energy? Is he talking about giving them coal?

9:48 -- Brokaw's coming off kinda schoolmarmish about the lights.

9:49 -- I'd say that if McCain were capable of laying a glove on Obama, I'd say he got the better of Obama on the nuclear question, but I don't think it's what people are really concerned about right now.

9:52 -- His spiel on health care seems very effective to me. (and by "his" I, of course, mean Obama. This must be a laughably one-sided live blog to anyone who's not a Democrat.)

9:53 -- A $5,000 tax credit. It's just like money you save at tax time. Tax credits don't really seem to work the way McCain is thinking, which is as something that augments a family budget.

9:55 -- McCain does not think health care is a right. I don't think that's going to resonate with people-- on the plus side he doesn't seem like he's desperately pandering, but on the other hand, I think he's wrong on this issue.

Bill O'Reilly: Still Effing Crazy After All These Years

For any of you folks who've seen "Outfoxed", or for those of you poor devils who've actually sat through an entire show, you already know Bill O'Reilly's a guy who believes his emotions tell him more about the world than his intellect. Stephen Colbert, his professional doppelganger/satirizer (who has happily long since outgrown his impression of "Papa Bear"), cuts to the core of O'Reilly when he tells America how his "gut" makes pretty much all of his judgment calls.

I'd kind of forgotten about Bill O'Reilly in recent years. When compared to Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and Donald Rumsfeld, Bill O'Reilly is really more of a 3rd-tier villain. I think guys like Keith Olbermann and Al Franken have done a good job defanging O'Reilly in recent years, repeatedly exposing his lies (as well as the more unappealing aspects of the personality disorder). I think his impact on the zeitgeist is softer than it once was. Most of his audience, which skews elderly and conservative, are already inclined towards the right-wing point of view. I like to think that, these days, the blustery vacuity of Bill O'Reilly is traveling in a closed circuit, and not having much interaction with the larger national discussion.

But just because we all know O'Reilly's a punchline doesn't mean he does. He still believes he's "fighting the good fight," "talking truth to power" and "keeping 'em honest" and all sorts of megalomaniacal delusions like that. In his defense, I assume it's difficult to see yourself how everyone else sees you when everyone from President Bush to Barack Obama is willing to appear on your comedy show unironically and keep a straight face.

But, as I recently saw from a YouTube clip, O'Reilly's still dishing out the crazy self-righteousness that made him enemy #1 to people who've entertained thoughts.

This video from an "O'Reilly Factor" show last week, shocked me. Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank went on the "Factor" last week to talk about the financial meltdown. To some extent, it's Frank's own fault for encouraging O'Reilly and going on his show. But I have never seen television like this. I have never seen a pundit scream at and so casually disrespect a government representative like this. Not ever. Click here to see the bizarrity.

Clearly I believe our media needs to hold our elected officials more accountable for the things they do in our name. But when I think of "hold them accountable," I'm thinking more along the lines of asking politicians and policy makers tough questions and then actually making them answer those tough questions. Not this kind of childish, chest-thumping tantrum that lowers the level of discourse and makes everyone look diminished for participating. Hasn't Bill O'Reilly just become Morton Downey Jr, at this point? Albeit with better-quality guests? What a complete embarrasment.

To me, this is more like what "holding them accountable" looks like.

Brits with Ukuleles do the "Shaft" Theme; Moriarty Sees some "Watchmen" And Likes What he Sees

This made me grin foolishly for a few minutes. The lyrics don't start till a little ways through, so stay tuned for those.

Oh there's more space to fill. Hmm.

Click here to read what Aintitcool stalwart Moriarty thought of the three scenes from "Watchmen" Zach Snyder and Warner Bros. showed to selected press last week. If you haven't read the graphic novel or have read it but want to go into the movie relatively fresh, avoid the paragraphs of dense description. Everything else is pretty interesting. But his take on how confident and excited the Warner Bros execs are about this film is more than encouraging.

The buzz is building and it is all very good.

"Benjamin Button" Trailer

Instead of talking about important things, like the complete reorganization of our entire financial system, or the still viable possibility of having a dangerous rube one heartbeat away from the presidency, I thought I'd post a link to the latest trailer for likely Oscar contender, David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Take a look, here.

Looks promising. I'd go on about it, but I've got a cold and I'm sleepy. I'll make two points though: 1.) Brad Pitt looks to be doing some amazing work here; I predict a Best Actor nomination for this based on what I'm seeing. And 2.) As beautifully shot and interesting as this looks, it seems to have the potential to be a long, ponderous "Meet Joe Black" kind of disappointment, but that's just uninformed supposition based on a minute and a half of footage. What it has going for it though is Fincher. Guy hasn't made a bad movie yet.

Another award-winning blog post.

Economy in Meltdown

This morning on TV, this guy looked really nervous.

Since he's the Secretary of the Treasury, that's not a good thing.

I know a lot about like two things. And since I don't know what either of those things are, imagine my distress at trying to figure out what the hell's going on with the economic meltdown my country currently finds itself in.

Big brokerage houses are getting bailed out (Bear Stearns), others are dying outright (Lehmann Brothers), quasi-private/quasi-public mortgage-lending institutions (Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac) and insurance giants (AIG) are being taken over by the federal government. If that weren't frightening enough, most of this happened in one week.

On Thursday/Friday, a massive, federally-backed bailout package was introduced by Treasury Secretary Paulson that, if enacted, will make the US taxpayer responsible for all of that bad mortgage debt that's in the process of sinking the world economy. It will also, as we're learning, require $700 billion to implement. That's $700 billion in addition to the billions we already sunk into taking over AIG and the two Macs. And now they're talking about buying the bad mortgage debt from foreign banks. I guess the Treasury's going to hold off on printing any more singles for a while. Got to crank them hundreds out.

Leaving aside for a moment where all of this money is coming from, particularly as we're laying out $10 billion a month for the Iraq occupation, will this new plan (which sent the markets way up on Friday) actually work? Among others, prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is dubious:

The Treasury plan ... looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal.

So not everyone's sold on the new plan. But if it doesn't work, then what? Before the plan was announced, one government official in a position to know told a reporter the US financial system was days away from collapse. What if the rest of the plan's details, when announced, make the markets anxious again? In other words, what if they don't buy it? In this climate, anxious markets mean more massive bank failures. Would the world markets respond as positively to a 2nd massive bailout plan after the first failed? Doesn't it seem like this plan, hastily conceived as it is, is our only shot to stave off a decade(s)-long economic disaster?

There are some early and troubling signs this may be the case.

Senator Chris Dodd and Minority Leader John Boehner appeared together this morning on George Stephanoplous's "This Week", (along with the nervous-seeming Paulson) and appeared in total agreement on Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan. Stephanopolous pressed them on their uncharacteristic unanimity, asking what they'd each been told that could possible inspire two people so inclined to disagree to agree so completely. They wouldn't say, but they both strongly implied their motivation to make common cause was terror of the alternative.

So worst-case scenario is this plan doesn't work. It's probably too early to get too deeply invested in that scenario. If you want a reminder of what that looks like, read "Grapes of Wrath" or watch "Cinderella Man."

But what does it mean if this plan does work? Will it be a fair plan? A Wall Street type wrote this to the blog "Talking Points Memo" :

"As a Wall Street guy I am sort of glad that this bailout is being organized. However, what seems unfair to me is that there are absolutely no provisions for homeowners. Moreover, this morning on Stephanopulous I saw Hank Paulson talking about homeowners taking out mortgages that were higher than they could afford and about them needing to live up to their obligations.

I find it incredible that he would use language like that while asking taxpayers to send a trillion dollars to Wall Street because investment banks made irresponsible investments and aren't able to live up to their obligations."

No provisions for homeowners? That seems a bit myopic, doesn't it? After all, isn't the purchasing power of the American consumer (ie "homeowners") the fuel that runs the US economy? If our financial institutions come out okay, but homeowners are left high and dry, how's the engine going to run without that US consumer fuel? The ups and downs of the stock market usually don't break through the white noise of the typical news cycle for me, but the sense of panic in the air these days is hard to miss.

It seems like you need at least a B.A. in Economics to truly understand the forces at play here, so for uneducated laymen like myself, I'm forced to rely exclusively on the commentary and opinion of those who do understand what's happening to draw my own conclusions. The fact that all of those people seem kind of terrified, does not lessen my growing feeling of dread.

What's Going On?

My friend in Taiwan IMed me this morning and asked, "What the hell is going on in the United States right now?"

The truth is, I have no idea. I'm pretty mystified at what's been happening in the '08 general election, particularly since John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

What seemed at first like an obviously campaign-ending decision by John McCain has in recent days become almost universally touted as a political masterstroke. My first hint that the US had slipped into Bizarro World was when I tuned into "This Week with George Stephanopolous" the Sunday morning following her selection. Of the 4 gathered panelists in George's round table, only the ineffectual Sam Donaldson seemed to think choosing a politician with next to no foreign policy experience after hitting Obama for the exact same resume gap was too reckless and nakedly hypocritical for his campaign to recover from. Everyone else? Loved her. Thought it was a great move politically. I thought they'd all had strokes. Turns out, joke's on me.

Naked hypocrisy, apparently, means nothing when you're dealing with the people who have, to date, been sitting this election out because John McCain isn't conservative enough to arouse their interest. They're waiting to hear their politicians say a few things. Like "opposed to abortion even in the case of rape, incest and life of the mother." Like "believes in the literal truth of the Bible." Like "believes Creationism should be taught in public schools." They've heard it from the McCain camp, and now they can get excited. From all appearances, Sarah Palin is as hostile to education, intellect and science as a lot of Evangelical voters are, and so McCain has quite cynically bought himself a lot of votes by choosing her to be his Vice President.

I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of another goddamn 4 years of Republican dominance of two branches of the federal government. A loss this year would be a shock to the system I can hardly contemplate.

Before I go too far down that path of fear and loathing, I will briefly relate some of what maddening-but-independent-seeming Camille Paglia wrote on Salon.com today. She said that a.) she doesn't believe as the gospel truth everything they're writing about Sarah Palin's alleged far-right religious views, which seems like a sensible viewpoint. Paglia likens all the stuff they're writing about her crazy Christian views to the stuff they were saying about Obama's Muslim-ness and unpatriotic-ness, and Lawd knows that stuff was bullshit. So whenever McCain thinks Palin's got a good evasive line down for each of the scandals percolating back in her home state (and learns the names of all the important world leaders), and lets her have a serious sit-down interview, maybe she'll let us know where she stands on all those wedge issues (abstinence, abortion, evolution, guns) that have gotten Evangelicals excited, and have us progressives terrified/angry. If she's as bad as I'm hearing she is (and suspect she is), on these issues, then a McCain win in November might be the only thing worse than a 3rd Bush term.